ᴛᴏᴏ ʏᴏᴜɴɢ » ᴢᴀᴄʜ ʜᴇʀʀᴏɴ

Chapter Eight

March 23, 2018

The way Maeve was curled up in her chair had begun to make her neck ache.
   
She shifted around to a different position as she held her phone against her ear. She was sitting in one of the backstage rooms of the Van Buren, the venue for the nineteenth show of the Invitation Tour in Phoenix, Arizona. The boys had left not long before to get lunch, but she had insisted on staying behind.
   
"Hey, stranger," Jess said when she answered the call. Maeve smiled at the sound of her voice.
   
Their conversation melted into a blur. Jess wanted to know all about Maeve's week in California for the shows there—she reported it was hot and beautiful and a wonderful first experience.
   
They talked about the rest of her travels and how terrible school was, both public and online, and how much they missed seeing each other every day, spending the weekends eating packages of cookie dough and binging entire shows on Netflix.
   
The call had already lasted an hour and a half, but Maeve should've known it wasn't finished yet.
   
"Alright. It's time for boy talk."
   
"Jess," she said in a flat tone.
   
"Come on, Mae. You're telling me that you've been hanging out with five boys for a month and a half, excluding your hot friend—"
   
"J, you've got to stop saying that, he has a girlfriend—"
   
"Just because I can't order from the menu doesn't mean I can't look at it," she fired back. Maeve let out a snort of a laugh. "You mean to tell me that you've been hanging out with four single guys—"
   
"Jack isn't single—"
   
"Three single guys—"
   
"And then we're all sitting here wondering about Jonah and Tate—"
   
"Two single guys, and you're not attracted to either of them?"
   
Maeve sighed, messing with the sleeve of her sweater. She knew there would be no easy way to go about this.
   
"It's not like that," she decided on.
   
Jess scoffed rather unattractively.
   
"That's a lie. When it comes to your love life, I don't forget anything, especially details. And I distinctly remember you telling me about Zach and how it awkward at first, but now everything's fine and you're really close. That's the start of something."
   
"Yeah," Maeve agreed, "the start of a friendship."
   
"Or, you know, you're already falling in love with each other."
   
Maeve's features relaxed to a bored expression, even though Jess couldn't see her.
   
"It's not like that, Jess," she repeated lightly.
   
"Come on, Mae. If I were there with you, I'd be able to see you two together and ignore your lies, but I'm not. So I need to know."
   
Maeve smiled a little despite herself; she would've ended up telling her anyway.
   
"Okay, I.... I just love being around him. He's hilarious, reminds me of you. After a day full of stress and sound checks and the show at the end of the night, it's just a relief to be with him. He's carefree and... I don't know."
   
Jess was silent, but beaming inwardly. The only person her best friend had ever really been interested in had ended up hurting her and she wanted nothing more than for her to find a guy she deserved.
   
"And he's attractive," Maeve added. Jess laughed. "Like, really attractive. Really good lookin', my word, where did you come from—"
   
"Yeah, I get it," Jess interrupted. "You're obsessed."
   
"Not obsessed," Maeve corrected, but she didn't say anything else.
   
"Details please."
   
Maeve thought for a moment, remembering something from a few days before that made her smile.
   
"So," she began, "Jonah and I found out we both love Harry Potter the other day and we spent a traveling night in the back room of the tour bus hogging one of the t.v.'s to watch the first two movies."
   
"That's, like, five hours worth."
   
"Yeah, I know; we didn't sleep much. So, at one point Zach comes in with a huge black blanket draped over his shoulders and his fake glasses on, holding a stick of beef jerky as a wand like freaking Harry Potter."
   
She grinned at the sound of Jess's loud laughter.
   
"It was single-handedly one of the strangest and most adorable sights I've ever seen."
   
"Awe, Mae. You're gushing."
   
She hummed in dismissal of Jess's comment.
   
"Then he wanted me to draw the scar on his forehead, but he could only find a purple sharpie. So he knelt down in front of me and I was trying to do a decent job replicating it, but he was speaking in this awful British accent and I was laughing really hard, and long story short, he ended up with a squiggly purple line on his head."
  
"That was the cutest story I've ever heard."
   
Maeve crossed her legs in the chair.
   
"Don't get any ideas, Jess. Just because I enjoy being around him, doesn't mean anything is going to happen. Nothing's going to happen. We're just friends."
   
"Mhh hmm," Jess hummed.
   
It seemed she knew her best friend better than her best friend knew herself.