Pictures And Some Memories

Two: They Say It's Your Birthday.

'I may be dumb, but I'm not a dweeb.

I'm just a sucker with no self esteem!'

"Alex," I mumbled from where I lay in bed. "I hardly ever get to sleep past six a.m. these days, please don't ruin it for me today."

"Why in the fuck are you waking up at six a.m. every day?" he asks as he brushes his teeth. I groan and pull my pillow over my head, annoyed. I could never get any sleep around any of these people, no matter how hard I tried.

"Oh, I dunno, you enjoy when I do catering runs and knowing which stage you're playing, right?"

He rinses and sits on the foot of the bed and says, "Well, yeah, but do you really wake up at six a.m. for all of that shit?"

"Don't tell him I'm saying this, but it's Flyzik's stupid fucking alarm going off that started it," I sigh, "and I contemplate killing him every time I hear it."

Alex laughs. "You're still not much of a morning person on your birthday, are you?"

I groan again. "Can we not mention the fact that I'm old?"

"24 isn't old, Andi!"

"Alex, you're barely going to be 23 in December. I'm old."

"Is she going on about that again?" Carly says from the bathroom. "I swear to God, she's mental."

"Right here, Carly," I say in annoyance, although I'm smiling. "Where's Jack?" I then ask, noticing that he wasn't sleeping on the other bed or in the room at all, for that matter.

"He went to Taco Bell," the couple respond at the same time.

"Taco Bell is closed at this time of day."

"Oh, you poor thing," Carly says as she sits on the other side, her hair still in a towel. "You spent too much time complaining about Flyzik to notice that it's nearly noon."

My eyes widen. "What? Violet's picking me up at 12:30! Why did you let me sleep this long?"

Carly and Alex shared a look again. God, I hated and envied their unspoken communication all at the same time. They could have an entire conversation with only a couple of facial expressions. That came with being together for nearly eight years, I guess, but it was still annoying. "Because we knew you'd be a crotchety little redhead if we woke you up before ten."

"Really? That's the word choice you've decided was perfect to describe me? Fuck you, Alex."

This only makes him laugh. He could never decipher when I was truly angry or if I was being sarcastic until it was too late. Luckily for him, I was kidding. For now, anyways. "Love you too, Andi."

I push the duvet off of my body and get out of bed, my feet hitting the cool hardwood floor with an audible thump. This hotel was luxurious compared to the cramped bus I'd spent the last few months in. I mean, the bus was great, and much better than the van we used in the early days. But sometimes, it felt really nice to sprawl out in an actual bed.

I quickly grab my clothes out of my backpack, my toiletries, and get into the shower. This, too, was so luxurious. The bus had a shower, thankfully, but you couldn't leave it running or else the water would run out too fast. The tank had enough for four people to shower, but only if you did a quick military style shower. Needless to say, I've sacrificed washing my long hair until I found a venue with a normal shower, a water hose, or one of our rare times in a hotel. Still, since I was running extremely late, I had to rush this shower, although I did get to properly clean my hair for once.

And it showed, too. No longer dull and lifeless, it looked shiny and healthy again, much to my relief. I took the time to use the hairdryer on it since I was so thankful that I didn't have to tie it up for the first time in a week.