Chapter 45: Surprendre
Malia's POV
We got to the stage AE I think that's what it's called, but anyway. We got to the stage at around 4:30 and Shawn had to leave immediately because he had to go through sound check with everyone else. We were escorted backstage by the security guards and I couldn't help but gawk at how many people I could see. None of the NAFs could see us because apparently the glass was only one way, I don't know how to explain it. But we could see all of them lining up outside as we walked throughout the building.
"Just think, someday this will be you," I heard Matt whisper in my ear and I blushed a bit, but I couldn't help but think that maybe he was right. I turned to look at him and smiled.
"I couldn't ask for more than I have already been given but one can dream," I say thoughtfully. I really did want to be on stage and sing for a living but I was happy with what I was doing right now. Who knows, perhaps I would be happier if I were an artist making huge records etc. but as of right now I am content with my life. I want to take things one step at a time. As the professor said take the tea in the cup provided you don't always have to be served in the nicest way.
We finally made it backstage and it was kind of like a parking garage. The buses were all in the back.
"You can stay in Shawn's bus if you would like," The security guard offered to us. I smiled at him and Lily did as well.
"Thank you," I say gracefully and I quickly let go of Matt's hand that I had been holding and rush over to the entrance of the tour bus. I peer in almost as if something would jump out and eat me but when I see the inside my eyes nearly pop out of my head. It was huge! And it was furnished! I quickly climbed up the steps of the bus and walked through. "Shawn gets all of this to himself?" I say quietly to myself as I gawk at everything.
"Yup he does. Life of the tour bus," Cam says with a small smirk. The way all of the boys looked at the tour bus almost suggested as if they were reminiscing in a past time.
"Why are you guys looking at this tour bus like it was your old home?" Lily asked before I could. They all turned to us and I just raised my eyebrows as a gesture for them to explain.
"It's nothing really but before you joined Magcon we would tour on a bus instead of catching flights to different cities. The reason we switched was because it was less time consuming, but the tour bus was a huge part of our family. We got to know each other really well on those 6-12 hour trips and it was nice. We can't do that on airplanes," Aaron said with a slight frown.
"Oh," Lily and I said at the same time.
"It sounds like it would have been a lot of fun," I tell them. "Do you think we would be able to convince Bart to let us use a tour bus for the next few Magcon events?" I ask optimistically.
"We've tried in the past but he just said that it was better to fly," Cam shrugged. My shoulders sunk a little bit.
"You guys may have asked but I haven't yet," I say with a smile on my face. I didn't know what I was thinking up yet, but I knew that I had a plan in mind. The next time I see Bart I guess I will just have to have a little heart to heart.
"Have at it," Matt offered and I just chuckled to myself.
"Okay let's move on from this tour bus subject because this feels really depressing, it's like we're crying over a bus. Oh wait we are," I say with sarcasm oozing from my tone. The guys laughed.
"You never fail to brighten the mood," Nash mutters as he shakes his head with a smile. My only response was my signature smirk.
We piled out of the tour bus and back into the now fairly dark parking lot. The sun hadn't fully set but it was on the verge of setting, and the picture it created was actually quite pretty. Who knew Pittsburgh had a view? I grabbed Matt's hand and I noticed that he smiled at the contact and he held my hand tightly.
"Do you think I'll get to meet Camilla?" I whispered to him and I knew he could hear the excitement within my voice. He was aware of my 'obsession' with her.
"Maybe babe, I can't promise that you will but I think your chances are quite high considering she is headed this way right now," He whispered into my ear. I instantly looked up and around for the 5'2 singer with long hair and I saw her walking towards us with a smile on her face.
I almost lost it right there, fan girling over her so badly. I wasn't this nervous when I met Ari, but then again Ari was dressed up like a hobo in disguise. I hadn't noticed I was squeezing Matt's hand so hard until he tried to get his hand out of my grip. I turned to him apologetically and said,
"Sorry."
"Its fine," He says with a small laugh. My attention went back to Camilla who was now approximately 20 feet away from me. Okay Malia, you can do this. Just act calm and cool. I turned back to see Camilla and she was smiling. I couldn't help but smile back at her. After what seemed like an eternity she was finally standing right in front of me. Well us, but I kind of forgot that there were other's around.
"Hi, you must be Shawn's friends," She says with a smile and I was smiling from ear to ear.
"Yeah, I'm Cameron," Cam says as he offers his hand out to Camilla for a handshake. The boys all went around their name and she shook each of their hands or hugged them. Then she got to me.
"Hi I'm—,"
"I know who you are," She says with a smile. I stood there star struck.
"You do?" I ask incredulously.
"Of course. I know who all of you are because Shawn talks about you all so often, but when he mentioned that you sung I had to check you out. And I must say that you are amazing," She says enthusiastically.
"Oh my god," I said to myself.
"Somebody catch her!" Cameron shouts. I turned around and glared at him.
"I wasn't going to faint," I say back at him.
"I just wanted them to be prepared," He says with a smirk and I just roll my eyes.
"Sorry about that," I say to Camilla who is just observing the scene that just played out with a smile.
"Its fine," She says with a small giggle. I was a bit confused as to what was so amusing about the scene but I didn't say anything. "Did you guys want to come back with me? Shawn was very thorough when he told me that he wanted you guys backstage," She says with a smile. She is just always smiling and I can't help but smile with her. She has one of those smiles that just makes you happy. Or I'm just being a fangirl.
"Sure," I say a bit too quickly causing a few chuckles to arise from the boys. I just roll my eyes and Camilla giggles as well.
We walked through the parking lot and Camilla lead us to the backstage entrance and I was practically peeing myself with excitement. When I saw everything all set up I was amazed at how large everything was and how it all seemed so real. Shawn was finally getting his dream, I am so proud of him and I am so happy for him. This is what he has always wanted and I couldn't be happier for him.
As we walked further in we saw Shawn on stage doing his sound check and a smile grew on my face. He saw us with Camilla and he smiled and waved but he quickly became refocused on the sound check. Camilla led us back stage to where we could see Shawn on stage performing. I pulled out my phone and snapped a quick picture of Shawn doing his sound check before going on twitter and posting it with the caption
@MaliaIDallas: look who it is
"Hey can we take a few pictures?" I asked Camilla and she smiled and said of course. I opened the camera app and turned it towards us and we took probably 4029 selfies then we did the same on her phone. Lily came up behind me and she got in about half of the photos we got in. There were like a billion of us making kissy faces and hugging each other tightly.
"Hey, I don't think this is technically allowed but I can talk to the manager of Austin's tour to see if maybe you can sing with Shawn or if you can come on with us," Camilla says to me and I almost did faint there.
"Someone catch me," I said and everyone came up behind me ready to catch me if I fell. I didn't fall of course but I was pretty close. Camilla laughed at my reaction but I don't think she knew how close I was to fainting.
"Here let me go talk to him," She says and she turns around to go find him.
"Oh my god Malia! You could be going on a real tour and singing in front of millions of people!" Lily exclaimed.
"Yeah, uh-huh," I said a bit uneasily. Don't get me wrong I love singing and I love my Nafians but I was nervous at the thought. My stomach was churning inside. I had never sung in front of this many people.
"Come on don't be nervous sis, you'll do great you always do," Cameron said as he rubbed my back. I smiled at him.
"Thanks Cammy," I said.
"Hey what's going on," A new voice said and I turned to see Shawn standing there with a confused expression on his face.
"Camilla is going to find Austin's manager to see if she can get Mals in the show just for tonight," Tay says. Well thanks Taylor.
"Really? That's awesome!" Shawn says as he picks me up and swings me around.
"Haha yeah, can you um put me down now?"
"Yeah sure," He says and sets me on the ground.
"So how was Camilla?" He asks with a knowing smile.
"She was amazing. She is even cooler in person, and she's so nice," I ramble out quickly and he laughs.
"I knew you would like her. I mean you only talk about her 50% of the time I am with you," He says sarcastically.
"Not true," I say in defense.
"Oh yeah, 75% of the time," He corrects himself and I couldn't help but laugh. "Hey I can show you guys around and you can meet everyone else," He offers and we all agreed with that suggestion.
We walked through all the equipment and first we met the rest of Fifth Harmony. We introduced ourselves to them and they seemed more excited to meet us than we were to meet them.
"Shawn talks about you guys all the time," Lauren gushes and you could see Shawn blushing a bit and scratching the back of his neck.
"It's actually kind of cute," Ali says with a laugh. I looked over at Shawn and he looked really red.
"Okay now that you have met everyone. Do you guys know where Austin is?" Shawn asked the girls.
"Um I think he is in his dressing room," They said smirking at me. I gave them a confused look but they only smiled at me. That was weird.
"Hey guys follow me, I think you all will really like Austin he is super cool," Shawn says. Lily was next to me and she seemed to be having a heart attack so I let go of Matt's hand, much to his dismay, and I grabbed Lily's hand and squeezed it. She smiled at me.
"You'll be fine, I mean it's only Austin Mahone," I say like it's no big deal even though I was a bit nervous myself. She laughed at my comment and she seemed to calm down a bit. We reached a door and Austin's name was on the door in that stereotypical star that you see in the movies.
"Hey Shawn do you have a dressing room with your name on a special star too?" I ask him excitedly and he chuckles.
"Yeah I do, I'll show you guys it after you meet Austin," He says before knocking on the door. We heard some movement before the door opened and the one and only Austin Mahone was standing right in front of me.
"What's up?" He said flashing a smile. I had to admit he was cute but the thing is he's not Matt so there's the end of that.
"Austin I want you to meet my friends," Shawn says as he gestures to all of us.
"Hey," We all said in unison.
"Hey I've heard a lot about you guys and I know who you guys are relatively well," He says as he leads us into his dressing room. It was huge. "Take a seat," He says as he sits in a chair. "I'm going to try and guess who is who," He says as he scans us all carefully.
"Cameron," He says hesitantly pointing at Cam and Cameron nods and a smile appears on Austin's face.
"Carter," Carter nods his head.
"Aaron?" He says unsurely but Aaron just smirks and nods.
"Taylor," Austin says and Taylor gives him a thumbs up causing me to laugh.
"Jack and Jack," He says pointing to both Jacks.
"But which is which?" Gilinsky asked with a smirk. Austin looked stumped at first but then he pointed at Gilinsky.
"Gilinsky and Johnson," He said going from Gilinsky to JJ I smirked to myself as Jack nodded his head in approval.
"Matt," Austin said without a doubt. Matt turned to me and had this fake fan girl look on his face.
"Oh my god Austin knows my name!" He said like a girl and I couldn't help but laugh and Lily joined me.
"Nash," Austin said pointing to Hayes and I cringed a bit. "I'm just kidding I know you're Hayes and you're Nash," He said pointing from Hayes to Nash. My eyebrows rose as I was quite impressed. But I am almost positive he wouldn't know who I was and if he did how could he know who Lily was? She wasn't in most of our videos.
"Having some trouble?" I asked Austin sweetly as he thought long and hard about who was who.
"I know I have seen you," He said. "I know you're his sister, but I can't remember your name," He says as he racks his brain.
"Oh my feelings are hurt," I say sarcastically causing him to laugh a bit. "No worries, my name is Malia and this is my best friend Lily," I say as I introduce myself and Lily.
"Malia and Lily," He says again as a reminder to himself. "It's wonderful to meet you," He says to both of us. "Well I got almost everyone right," He says as he looks at Shawn. Shawn chuckles but he had an odd expression on his face, one of confusion but he was masking it pretty well.
"Well I told them I would show them my dressing room, so we better get going before the show starts," He says to Austin and Austin replies with a smile. We followed Shawn out to his dressing room. I went up to Shawn to ask him what was wrong.
"Are you okay?" I asked slightly confused as to what could have happened in that short period of time that caused Shawn's happy mood turn into one of confusion.
"Kind of I'll explain later when everyone isn't around," He says, "Don't worry about me Mals," and with that we were now in front of his dressing room and it had his name on it in a star as well. "Guys, welcome to my dressing room," He says as he opens the door. It looked almost exactly like Austin's except the walls were like a greenish color instead of a yellow.
"You're so lucky you get your own dressing room," Aaron says.
"Wait, so there are five girls in Fifth Harmony, so do all of them have to share one room?" Gilinsky asked. That's a good question.
"No they each have their own," Shawn answers. That makes sense. To share a dressing room with four other girls would be such a hassle. Shawn pulled out his phone to check the time. "Well it is 6:00 and the show starts at 7:00. So there are probably a lot more people outside, so I better start getting ready, I'll see you guys," He said and we all left but I stayed behind. No one noticed and I was hoping they wouldn't for the next 10-15 minutes or so.
"So what was with you after we met Austin?" I asked curiously and he sat down on the couch and I sat down next to him.
"I just didn't understand how he didn't know your name. I talk about all you guys all the time and I mention you a lot to him about your singing and he always seemed interested in your singing so I was just so surprised when he acted like he didn't really know who you were," He said. I was shocked. Austin was interested in my singing. That's not the focus Malia.
"That is odd but maybe he just forgot, he has a lot going through his head so I wouldn't be surprised," I remark.
"I even showed him pictures of us because he wanted to know what you looked like, he even looked you up on youtube and watched a few of your videos," He said. Now I feel stalked. But should I feel happy that I was stalked by Austin Mahone? I don't really care, being stalked creeped me out.
"Should I feel worried?" I asked Shawn nervously.
"I don't know. Austin is a great guy but I think that you should make it clear to him that you do have a boyfriend, because he doesn't know you and Matt are dating," Shawn says.
"Okay yeah that's probably a good boundary to set," I say to Shawn. I stand up with a smile and give Shawn a hug before I exit the room.
"I'll see you soon," He said as he closed the door. I didn't really know my way around so I was kind of wandering until I crashed into a body.
"Oh hey, I was just coming to look for you," The person said.
"Really? Why?" I asked a bit confused as they helped me up.
"I talked to Austin's manager about letting you sing in the show tonight and he was actually fairly enthusiastic about letting you sing. If you don't want to you don't have to but it would be nice to know so we can get you ready," Camilla says. I didn't know how to respond. I had the opportunity to sing tonight in front of thousands of people with some of the biggest music people.
"I'll talk to my friends about it, you wouldn't happen to know where they are by any chance?" I asked hoping she could send me in the right direction.
"Actually yeah, I just passed them they are down that hallway and on the left," She says as she points me in the correct direction.
"Thank you so much!" I say and I hurry down the hallway to give my friends the news.
"Malia!" I heard a voice shout as I ran down the hall and I stopped in my tracks. Well I attempted to but due to my shoes I slid a bit but remained on my feet. I looked around for the voice and I saw everyone to my left just as Camilla said.
"Where were you? We were starting to get worried that you had been abducted or something?" Cameron says I just raised my eyebrows at him.
"Abducted really?"
"Oh be quiet, we were worried, where were you?" He asks.
"I was talking to Shawn. Turns out Camilla talked to Austin's manager and they are allowing me to sing, but I don't know if I can do it. Like what would I sing? Who would I sing with? Am I wearing appropriate clothes?" I asked starting to hyperventilate.
"Malia! Calm down!" Lily tells me as she holds me by the shoulders before slapping my cheek.
"OW!" I shout as I reach up to my cheek and rub it. It didn't hurt too bad it just surprised me but I know why she did it. I could see some of the guys had their mouths hanging open, but some of them were trying not to laugh.
"First of all you will do fantastic just like you always do, secondly, you look hot as always, thirdly you can sing with whoever you want and you can talk to Camilla about what you can sing," She tells me. I absorbed all her words and I realized she was right. I was making this a bigger deal than it needed to be.
"Oh yeah, this is why you're my best friend," I say with a smile and she smiles back. I quickly turn around and walk over to the direction Camilla had been headed. Once I saw her and the other Fifth Harmony girls I waved and she got up and came over to me.
"So have you decided?" She asks with a hopeful look in her eye.
"Yes I have. I'll sing," I say with a smile and her eyes light up.
"Okay did you have a preference of who you want to sing with?" She asks.
"Well whoever you guys want or need me to sing with. I work the best with Shawn because I have known him longer than a few hours but I could sing with you guys," I say. She chuckles.
"Then you can sing with Shawn, I want you to be comfortable," She says. "So you should go to Shawn to see what songs he wants you to sing with him on," She says and I nod. I make my way over to Shawn's dressing room and knock on the door.
"Come in," Shawn shouts and I open the door and walk in. "Oh hey Mals, what's up?" He asks.
"Well Camilla told me to go see you to see what songs you would like me to sing on," I tell him.
"You're singing with me? That's fantastic!" He says as he lifts me up in a huge hug and I laugh.
"Okay Shawn put me down I need to be able to breathe to sing," I tell him. "So what songs did you want me to sing with you on?" I ask him.
"Well I know you're good at improvising on songs so you can sing on all of my songs and just do your thing," He says to me. I smile that works for me. Improvising is one of my favorite things. I just make up harmonies as the song goes along and add small things into the song. It's one of the things I love to do most.
Some people can freestyle dance, or do improv comedy, or they can rap really well without any heads up, me? I sing well for improvising. Most of the time I don't know the song so I just add some stuff in and it turns out pretty well. The thing is I just never had anyone to improv with, because Cameron was unaware of my singing and both my parents weren't around so I didn't have anything. I would just play songs off of YouTube and then I would just sing with them while making up harmonies as I went along. It could be a gift and a curse, because sometimes if I heard people singing I would join in with harmonies and I wouldn't even notice I was doing so until they look at me in a funny way. Then I would quickly run away.
"Malia? Hello?" I heard Shawn before I saw his fingers snapping in front of my face. I shook myself out of my daze and looked at him with an apologetic face.
"Sorry, that tends to happen," I mutter and Shawn just laughs because he knows. "Well is there anything that I have to do before we go on stage, like microphones etc. I am a bit new to all of this," I tell him honestly.
"No you're not! We did this at Magcon all the time," He says.
"Yeah but this is different, this is like big and real and big," I tell him with wide eyes and he laughs at me.
"Yeah it's bigger but Magcon was just as real as this is," He tells me.
"That's not what I meant but I don't know it just seems so weird to me. I have wanted this my whole life and now I finally have this wonderful opportunity and I can't believe it," I tell him. Then a huge smile forms on my face. "Should I tell the Nafians? Or should we surprise them?" I ask with a huge smile.
"Surprise."
Okay, well I don't really think that is much of a cliff hanger but I am actually writing again! Surprendre as you can probably guess is the verb in French to surprise.