Better Intentions[Frank Iero]

Around eleven that night, Brian had got the boys a hotel for the week they'd be in town. Now it was just the two of us, hanging out and catching up on things. Around then was when the questions about the tour starting popping up in my head.
"So, who are you...uh, I mean we…going to tour with?" I had asked him.
"Well, the tour is going to have The Used, Taking Back Sunday, Hopes Fall, and My Chemical Romance. I'll be managing The Used tour, but as of tonight, I'm the My Chem band manager," he said and then continued, "Touring starts next week and after this tour, we'll be jumping straight into another tour. That should end sometime around the end of this year." Brian looked like he was going to say more, but instead he looked at me. He had this brotherly look on his face. "Are you really sure that you're up for this?"
He really did care too much.
"Yes, Brian, I'm completely and utterly sure I want to do this. If I had any doubts about it, you know I wouldn't do it," I said, getting rather annoyed with that question. It was probably the hundredth time he had asked me.
"All right, but this isn't like a game, Kelsey. You can't just quit when you get bored of it."
"I know, I know, I know, Brian. I get it okay?" I said, raising my voice a little before proceeding to let out a sigh. "Look Brian, I can do this. You just need to believe in me, eh?"
"I do believe in you, it's just being on tour for so long can change people. I don't wanna lose my little sister," Brian said. All of a sudden he looked defeated and tired. I'd never seen a side of him like this before.
"You're not gonna lose your little sister, I promise you. I won’t change and I won’t do anything stupid. You should know better, Brian," I joked with him and gave him a hug. He smiled and stood up, getting ready to go into the guest room.
"Yeah well, anyway, you should get some sleep. If you're going on tour with those guys, you're gonna need to get used to them. I figure you can tag along with us tomorrow when I show them around town."
"I take it you want to get an early start then?" I said smiling. That was Brian, forever the early bird. Well, maybe not a bird. He was an early something, though.
Brian nodded and left to go to the guest room, leaving me to turn all the lights off in the main room and head to bed myself.
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My alarm went off at six in the morning, and I really didn't want to get out of bed. However, despite my longing for at least another hour of sleep, I rolled out of bed and went into the kitchen. I made a pot of coffee and sat myself on the couch, then turned on the TV. There wasn't anything on, but it was distracting. It was now seven and Brian still wasn't up. So much for getting an early start.
I'll bet he wont get up until noon, then he'll freak out.
I left the main room to go shower and get changed, which took almost exactly an hour. My thoughts had wondered to whether or not I should go wake Brian up by the time I reached the main room again. Then, it was abruptly brought to my attention that he was awake. For there stood my older brother, standing in the hallway entrance in nothing but his boxers. He looked around sleepily and headed for the coffee pot.
"Oh my GOD, Brian, put on some clothes!" I squealed. This got his attention as he turned around, taking a sip of his coffee, then talking.
"Why?" he yawned. "It's not like we have company."
"We? This is my apartment, Brian. Now, go put on some clothes."
"You gonna make me?" Brian teased, he had always thought he had some sort of advantage since he was older. He was older by about four years, but still.
"Why, yes I am," I laughed, throwing a pillow from the couch at him.
Brian sat down his coffee and dodged the pillow. Then, after several minutes of playful quarreling, he had finally been persuaded to get dressed. It was almost like clothes made him professional, because as soon as he walked out it was all about calling the boys and showing them around town. Brian thought we'd cover more ground if we split into groups, so when we got there, we'd leave in two different groups.
Brian had Gerard, Ray, and Bob in his group and you guessed it -- Frank and Mikey were in mine. Frank had insisted that he be in my group, claiming he wanted to stick with Mikey. I think we all know the real reason, though.
Frank, Mikey, and I called a taxi, but I didn't tell them where we were going. To tell the truth, I didn't even know where we were going, maybe the Memorial park? No, that would be way too boring. My thoughts defeated me and I turned to the guys.
"So, anywhere in particular you wanna go?" I asked. Both of them just shrugged. Typical guys, they could never make up their minds. I was guessing they didn't really care about the town too much, either.
"You got a mall around here?" Frank asked as tilted his head to the side so he could look at me.
Frank, my dear, it's L.A., what do you think?
"Yeah, so, is that where you guys wanna go?" They both nodded, the taxi driver took note of where we wanted to go, and took us there.
Mikey's jaw dropped when we reached mall. It was funny, had he never seen a mall like this before?
"Wow, this mall is, uh, big."
There was my answer.
I laughed and walked up to a map. "Where do you wanna go?"
Mikey and Frank studied the map for a minute, exchanged agreeing looks and spoke simultaneously. "Guitar shop?"
"You got it," I said as I walked off in the direction of the guitar shop with them following close behind.
We reached the guitar shop and much to my surprise, Frank squealed. I know what you're thinking, 'No, Frank doesn't squeal.' But he did, and yeah, it surprised me, too. He ran off to look at a red guitar on the far side of the shop, picked it up, and immediately got lost in the music he made with it. Mikey had gone off to look at the small collection of bass guitars in the back. I couldn't play guitar, so I really didn't have much interest in being there. That was until I saw a shimmery blue guitar next to the one Frank had picked up. It looked different than the other ones in the shop, so naturally, it interested me. I picked it up off of it’s stand and settled myself on the floor with it. I knew I couldn't play, but I just couldn't help but mess with it. I made a small strumming noise and, to say the least, it sounded terrible. The terribly out-of-tune noise I made with the guitar had caught Frank’s attention. He sat down the guitar he was holding, walked over, and sat by me on the floor.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but you suck at guitar," he said with a laugh.
"You're telling me. It sounded like I beat something to death with this guitar," I said. This made Frank flash a nice kid-ish smile -- it made him look so innocent.
"Nah, it didn't sound that bad, but I'm guessing you don't know how to play?"
"How'd you guess?" I laughed.
"Well, I'm psychic," he chuckled and studied the guitar a moment. "That...and you're holding the guitar upside down."
I blushed a bit and flipped it so I was holding it right. "There you go... So, uh, you wanna learn to play something?" He cocked his head to the side, his hair falling in front of his face and hiding his eyes.
"Well, I don't think I'd be too great with a guitar, I'm not exactly talented like that," I stated and started to put the guitar back on its stand.
Before I knew it, though, Frank had stopped me and seated himself behind me, wrapping his arms around me to reach the guitar. "C'mon, I'll teach you something easy, okay?"
The breath I held in my lungs seemed to be stuck. What was I doing? I was figuratively melting in Frank's arms, and all he was doing was trying to teach me a song. I managed to nod and smile at him.
"Okay, so watch what I do very carefully," he said. He placed a skilled finger on the last string on the seventh fret. Once positioned, he strummed four times and moved to the fifth, strumming once, then twice on the third.
It didn't take long for me to realize that he was playing "Romance," the first track on their album, "Bullets." It didn't have any words, but the song was absolutely beautiful. He had started playing the second part to it when Mikey walked up to us.
"Hey, you little love birds, I hate to burst your bubble, but the shop's manager wants us out," Mikey said, joking about the first part.
"Oh Mikey, why don't you shut up and go find your beloved Alicia, will you?" Frank said, laughing and releasing his hands from the guitar and consequently removing his strong arms from around my waist.
It almost disappointed me that he had moved, but I stopped that from happening. Like I said before, if you've heard of Frank Iero, you'd know he's nothing but a big flirt. Though, as much as my mind wanted to believe that, part of my wanted to believe that maybe he had better intentions. I had gotten so lost in my thoughts that I didn't even notice Mikey flailing his arms like a madman in front of my face to snap me out of it.
I really needed to stop doing that.
"Hello, Captain Space-Out-Much, Earth is calling for you to return from your mission on Planet Crazy," Mikey said while Frank grabbed the guitar from me and set it in it's spot on the stand.
"I'm baackkkk, geez," I said, laughing as Mikey held out a hand to help me up. I accepted it, stood up, and dusted myself off.
"Yay! Welcome back, Kelsey!" Mikey exclaimed.
We laughed for a minute before the manager came to remind us we had to leave. As we left, we contemplated where to go next. Frank had insisted that we go shopping for touring clothes. Really, he had begged like a five year old. Mikey and I gave in and headed for the Hot Topic. That's when they both went crazy. For grown men, they really didn't handle money well. Especially Frank, he was 24 and there he was, acting like a kid in a candy store.
These boys are really something.
I didn't plan on getting anything in there until Mikey and Frank started throwing different outfits and various other clothing at me, demanding I try them on. Some of them were the most ridiculous things I'd ever set eyes on. Frank was trying to convince me that half them were going to be "totally in style" after a few wears.
"Okay, you guys, this is just...no. I'm not coming out of the dressing room in this," I called from my little dressing cubicle.
"C'mon, Kels, why wont you come out?" Frank whined.
"Oh, I don't know… Maybe because you and Mikey have terrible fashion sense and are trying to make me wear Tripp pants with suspenders and a gothic Barbie shirt?" I growled.
"Fine, fine, I guess you have enough stuff for the tour anyway," Mikey said, realizing I was getting tired of trying on stupid outfits.
"YAY, I LOVE YOU MIKEY!" I called happily to him and started to get dressed in the clothes I was wearing when we entered the store.
"WHAT, YOU DON'T LOVE ME, TOO?" Frank called, a hint of faked hurt in his voice.
"Nope, not in the least," I said, giggling as I stepped out of the dressing room with a pile of clothes I was going to buy in my hand.
"Oh, burnnn," Mikey laughed.
"Well, if that's how you feel..." Frank said as he gave me his puppy dog eyes.
Geez, maybe he really was five.
"You know I'm kidding, so pack up those fake tears and help me get this to the check out line, yeah?" I said as I peaked over to them from the pile of clothes I had.
The boys laughed and grabbed some of the clothes, then helped me take them to the checkout line. Amongst all the things I bought, Frank and Mikey had tossed in some things, too. Mikey picked a hat and some jeans, and Frank bought three ties and some red eyeliner. Not more than ten minutes later, we had gotten out of the mall and into a taxi, heading back to the hotel the boys were staying at. I decided I'd wait for Brian there and hang out with Mikey and Frank until he got back.
Too bad they didn't get back until way after dark.
Frank and Mikey were in the middle of an argument over what they thought Gerard had done to Bob, Ray, and Brian. Frank swore that Gerard was a vampire and he had sucked their blood, while Mikey said Gerard was holding them hostage at a Starbucks somewhere. At that moment, they all walked in the door, like they were just waiting for their names to be mentioned. Each of them was holding about a million bags of well...who knows what. Brian looked tiredly around the room, then to me.
"So, what did Gerard do to you?" Frank asked.
"He…he…took me shopping."