I knocked on the tour bus door that belonged to my best friend, Mason Musso and his band Metro Station.
A tall skinny guy opened the door. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yeah, um, is Mason there?”
“Um….”
“Let her in, Trace!” I heard Mason’s voice call from the back of the bus.
Trace moved his body out of the door way to let me pass. “So I guess you’re the girl that Mason convinced us to let visit.”
“You guessed right,” I told him. The door slammed behind me.”So where’s Mason?”
“He’s um…” Trace looked around the bus and ran his fingers through his hair.
“He’s right here! Hey baby girl!” Mason swept me up in a hug. “How’s my favorite person?”
“I thought I was your favorite person?” a man that I couldn’t see asked.
“Yeah, well, I lied. Let me take your bags and give you the grand tour,” he said excitedly, taking my bags into his hands.
Trace looked ill-at-ease. “Oh, uh… I can help you,” he offered me awkwardly.
“Great,” Mason said indifferently and shoved the bags into Trace’s chest. Trace fumbled with them a moment, then just stood there even more awkwardly, apparently realizing he didn’t know where he was going to put them. When he looked at me I shot him a smile, then he blushed and just shoved the bags on the upper bunk bed next to him. He held onto the tip of the bed post and posed coolly, which actually made me want to laugh instead of be impressed, as it was obvious he was aiming for.
“Dude, you look like you belong in that weird wax museum,” Mason commented with a tilt of his eyebrow. I coughed out a laugh that I couldn’t hold in anymore, then, glanced at him from the side. I couldn’t tell if Mason’s joke had loosened Trace up or made him even more uncomfortable, but he was smiling a bit himself.
“Right this way, mi-lady,” Mason said in a funny accent, gesturing me to follow him into the tiny, crowded space that was their tour bus.
“Thank you, kind sir,” I mimicked that accent and walked ahead of him.
“If you go right through that door, you’ll see the kitchen.”
I followed his directions and went in, noticing he wasn’t following me. He was saying something to Trace in a whisper; I quietly pretended to be admiring the cramped kitchen area as I listened.
“I hope you know you’re acting like an idiot,” Mason whispered.
“I hope you know your best friend is gorgeous,” Trace whispered back.
I couldn’t hold the charade any longer without them getting suspicious of what I was so interested in (the appliances weren’t exactly first rate anyway), so I turned to face them again. “Mmm…cute place.”
“Cute? You don’t call a tour bus ‘cute’,” Mason said sarcastically.
“Oh right… it’s very manly.”
The kitchen became even more cramped when another person walked in. He looked at me then smiled. “Awesome…now that we have a chick on the bus, we’ll finally be able to eat some good food.”
How many people live here, I wondered when another person walked into the kitchen.
“Hey! I’m a damn good cook.”
“And I’m not cooking for no one but myself,” I said.
Mason, Trace, and the one guy suppressed a laugh. “Becca, this is our drummer Anthony,” he said as he pointed to the one who made the comment about being a good cook, “and this is our pianist, Blake,” he said as he pointed to the one who said about the good food. “Guys, this is my best friend Becca. Her and her band will be joining us on tour in a few weeks.”
“WHAT?” everybody asked Mason.
“What do you mean ‘her and her band will be joining us on tour in a few weeks?” I asked him.
“Yeah…what she said,” Trace added.
“How come we didn’t hear anything about this?” Anthony asked.
“Well if you let me talk…” Mason started, “I meant what I said; the Princess of Nerds will be opening up for us in a few weeks and will stay on with us. You guys didn’t hear anything about it because the deal just closed today. Becca doesn’t know anything about it because I asked her band members to keep it quiet.”
“We’re going to have to share our bus with a bunch of girls?” Anthony asked.
I shot him a look. “Excuse me.”
“No. Everybody calm down. We won’t be sharing our bus with them, they will have their own.”
“So…tour?” I asked Mason.
“Tour,” he said, nodding his head.
I backed up against the refrigerator door and slid down. Pulling my knees to my chest, I let out a groan. I looked up at Trace who was looking down at me. This was going to be an interesting tour.
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Later that night after dinner (I ended up cooking for the whole bus…against my wishes) I was laying in my bed (Mason, Anthony, and Blake were immobile). Since we were on the move again, there was really nothing to do (besides…Mason and I did a lot of catching up) but think which was good for me because I had a lot of things to think about.
Tour. I can’t believe I was going on tour…with Metro Station. This was unbelievably huge. I was surprised that my band members were able to keep this from me.
Trace. Ever since I heard him call me gorgeous, I couldn’t keep him off my mind. Did he really mean what he said? Somehow with my multi-colored eyes, my auburn hair, and my sleeves (mostly skulls), I thought gorgeous would be the last word on his mind…it’s not every day when you see a chick with auburn hair and arms full of skull tattoos. I’ve heard the word gorgeous many times before but when I heard it come out of Trace’s mouth…I knew he meant it, and that realization makes me feel like I’m on a high that no drug could accomplish.
I heard movement on the other side of the closed curtain. Seconds later there were two quick knocks on the wood frame. I pulled the curtain back to see Trace standing there. My stomach did back flips that they didn’t do the first time I saw him.
“Hey,” I said rolling over onto my stomach.
“Hey yourself, what are you up to?”
“Thinking…”
“About?”
“Things.”
He looked at me. “So you’re one of those mysterious types.”
“Or I just don’t want to tell you what I’m thinking. Your pick.”
He laughed. “Funny.”
“So what are you up to?” I asked him.
“Nothing really…the guys are knocked out and I’m bored.”
“Yeah…is it usually like this?”
“Like what? That it’s so bored that you want to shoot yourself in the eye?”
“You read my mind.”
“You’re not that hard to figure out.”
“Then how come you couldn’t tell what I was thinking before?”
He opened his mouth like he was about to say something, then decided against it. “You’re also smart.”
“Thank you,” I said closing the curtain in his face.
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2 MONTHS LATER:
“We are the Princess of Nerds! Thank you and good night!” My band and I ran off the stage.
Walking back to a dressing room, I felt a hand grip my wrist and pull me into a corner. I wasn’t scared. I knew it was Trace taking me away from the world for our private make out session. You see, in the past two months, Trace and I finally declared our love for each other, but nobody else knew. Mason went mad when Trace said that he wanted to ask me out. Ever since that day things haven’t been quite right between Trace, Mason, and I. So yes we were together, but no…nobody knew.
Trace pressed his body against mine, wrapping his arms around my waist, causing me to back up against the wall. “You were great tonight,” he said. “Not that you aren’t great every night.”
“Thanks.” I couldn’t say any more, Trace pressed his lips to mine. After a few minutes of us kissing, I broke away.
Trace looked at me. “What’s wrong?”
“This isn’t right.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“This… what we’re doing… sneaking behind Mason and everyone else’s back. It’s not right.”
“Well then what do you propose we do?”
“Tell them.”
“You do want me alive, don’t you? Mason would kill me if he found out that I didn’t listen to him.”
“Trace… Mason is my best friend. I can’t lie to him anymore.”
He was quite for a minute. “You tell him. He’ll take it better, I think if it was coming from you.”
I nodded my head. “Okay.”
“Just do it after our set… Metro Station has four members, not three.”
“Okay.”
He looked at me. “I love you, Becca.”
“I love you too, Trace.” We kissed one more time, probably the last of the night, and then I left the corner. I knew what I was supposed to would not turn out good, for me or Trace… but I had to do it.
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After the guy’s set, I told Mason I needed to talk to him in private.
“What’s up?” he asked when we were both sitting in the small room.
“There’s something I need to tell you but you need to promise me that you won’t over react or get mad.”
He face became tense. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you? Where’s Trace? I’ll kill him.” He stood up and started walking to the door but I stopped him before he could open it.
“Mason…listen to me. I’m not pregnant. But what I do have to tell you does involve Trace.”
His eyes were searching for a way to get around me, but as soon as I said Trace’s name, he brought his eyes to mine. “You guys are going out, aren’t you?”
I nodded my head as he headed back to the couch.
“I should have known.”
“I’m sorry Mason.”
“How long?”
I didn’t say anything.
“How long?” he asked again.
“One and a half months.”
He was quiet.
“Please, don’t do anything to Trace.”
He brought his eyes up to meet mine. “Why would I do anything to Trace?”
Was he serious? “…Because he asked me out after you made it clear that you didn’t want him to.”
“You think I’m mad about that?”
“Yeah…”
He let out a little chuckle. “Well I’m not. I’m mad that you didn’t tell me, that you felt like you couldn’t tell me. I’m your best friend, Bec.”
“I know. I know… you have no idea how sorry I am. Please, don’t be mad at me, though I completely understand if you are.”
“I’m not. I’m not. Come here,” he said, and gave me a hug.
While I rested in his friendly arms a thought hit me. “Why did you guess that I was pregnant with Trace BEFORE you guessed I was going out with him?” I said riotously.
He laughed. “A month and a half and you haven’t caught on to Trace’s rock star side yet?”
I huffed a small laugh, taking it as a rhetorical question, and a silence ensued.
“That was the only reason I didn’t want you to go out with him. I didn’t want you to get sucked into Trace’s, er, rock star side and to get hurt.”
“Thanks Mason… But you don’t have to worry about me. I have a rock star side too, you know,” I glanced up at him seriously. He looked back confused, and I broke into laughter, backing out of his hug.
He sighed and smiled at the same time, as if realizing the joke was on him. “Maybe you two are perfect for each other.”
