"So how did you guys meet, exactly?"
We're sitting in a quiet place we, miraculously, found at the venue in Miami. No one has found us, yet, which is something that's almost a miracle with and in itself.
Raleigh had left this afternoon. Popstar and her had gone out to lunch together (so much for her saying me and her should go out to lunch and go shopping together last night), and then he'd helped her pack (which was basically the equivalent of him half asleep on her bed, and her packing her stuff), before driving with her to the airport, and saying goodbye at the gate.
How he and his security team had managed to do all of this without him getting mauled was a wonder to me.
Then he'd come back to the venue, immediately finding me to console him, and we'd escaped to find a place to talk. To listen. To just be, for once, in this madness that had been our day.
He had already completed both sound check and VIP Meet & Greets earlier today, having moved around some important stuff so he would have enough time to say goodbye to her. Because it was all about her.
He shrugged, rubbing at his eyes, clearly tired. I was tired myself, and I wasn't the one who was running around to this radio station and that business, promoting, and meeting fans outside the hotel early in the morning and late into the night, and doing sound check and Meet & Greets and dance rehearsals, and everything else that came with it. I couldn't imagine how he did it. I couldn't imagine how tired he was.
He laid his head against my shoulder, and I offered him my cardigan, something I had immediately shrugged off upon getting out of the SUV which had driven us here earlier this morning. It was ridiculously hot in Miami, and I knew I wasn't going to need it.
He wrapped it up, laying it underneath his head. "We've been dating for a long time. Our four year anniversary is right around the corner. I feel like we're practically married by now. I mean, four years is a fucking long time for anyone in a relationship, but especially for two people who are only eighteen - who were just over, just only, fourteen when we started dating."
I nodded, agreeing.
"And we met at an event of mine. We were both only fourteen at the time, so I was just getting started. We were doing all this press at a hotel - in one of the biggest conference rooms they had available. You basically go around and promote yourself on all these different little radio stations that are there, so you can get the word out about yourself. It was in California. She was there with her parents for a vacation, and was just being generally nosy, something I'm sure you saw about her when she was here. So she's snooping through all these different hotel conference rooms, and the hotel in general, and I'm walking out to find a bathroom."
"I hit her in the face with the door. And I swear to god, it was horrible. She just starts gushing blood, and she's talking about how she's really sensitive, and she just got into a minor car accident with her parents a couple of weeks ago, and she broke her nose, and this can't be happening again."
"So I'm basically freaking out, because I hit this absolutely gorgeous girl in the face, and I keep telling her I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, and I give her my jacket to try and stop the blood with while we go find like, her parents, or my Mom, or my management, or something or someone to take us to the ER."
"So by the time we finally find someone, and we're getting into the car to take her to the ER, we're holding hands. And she asks me to come with her. And I can't say no. it's not like I can say no. I was the one who caused her in the injury in the first place."
"So I don't say no. I go with her, and I sit with her in the ER for two hours before they're finally ready for her. And I sit next to her and hold her hand; through the entire process of them cleaning her up, and stitching it up because her nose was still super sensitive, and I'd broke the previous stitches when I'd slammed the door into her face."
