We're in a new city, another outside stage. We're scheduled to go on in five hours. The rest of the boys are cursing loudly and shoving each other while playing video games, as much as I wanted to join in and order pizza, I couldn't.
"Michael, do I have it right?" Jane asks politely, tapping my arm with the guitar head.
I pull my eyes away from the other boys and look to Jane. Who has the finger placement wrong, yet again.
I give her an 'you've got to be kidding me' look, "What note exactly are you trying to do?"
"Uh, A I think." She mumbles.
I put my guitar down, scooting closer to her.
"Your grip on the guitar is a little too tight, you're not trying to strangle the thing." I chuckle, loosening her grip and moving her fingers around.
"That's a A, you were close before but you're index finger was on the wrong string." I explain.
I look up to make sure she gets it. She nods.
"Okay, let's go through the notes you've learned once more. E, F, G, A." I pause after saying each note to make sure she has the right finger placement.
"Now B." I move her fingers again.
A throat clears and my head whips up to see Calum looking at us intently.
"H-Hey Calum." I greet awkwardly.
"The boys and us are going to get some pizza, want to come?" He asks, eyeing the distance between Jane and I carefully.
I stand up, "What kind of question is that?"
"Let's go then." Calum says, dragging me toward the door.
I look back to see Jane looking down at my one of acoustic guitars sadly.
"Jane. Want to come?" I ask, taking pity on her and inviting her along.
Even though she's a murderer.
Right! I nearly forgot, it's the cat slippers, they throw me off.
Michael you idiot, you invited a murderer to get pizza with you.
"Sure." She exclaims excitedly, slipping out of her cat slippers and quickly putting on some white Toms.
There's no way to dis-invite her now unless I want to be rude or let her know that I know her true identity.
Calum's grip on my wrist tightens slightly, he's not happy about it either.
He must know too!
We meet in front of the unmarked tour bus, the fans don't know we're two hours ahead of schedule.
"Patrick told me there's a pizza place down the street." Ashton gestured to the right and across the street.
We set off quickly, eventually coming to a stop across the street from the local pizzeria, it looked like a family owned restaurant, nice and cozy.
The road is extremely busy and we stand there for five minutes, looking both ways just to see another line of cars zipping along the asphalt.
Jane being a lot short than the rest of us couldn't see over the cars parked on either side.
She starts walking as a red truck whips around the corner.
"Fuck." Calum swears, quickly grabbing her hand and tugging her back just in time.
The driver honks once and speeds away.
"Language." Ashton scolds Calum, hoping to lighten the mood quickly.
Calum pulled her back so quickly she collided with his chest and he had to wrap an arm around her so she wouldn't ricochet off and fall on the ground.
That's too bad, it would have been fun to watch.
To make the situation even better a group of girls walk out from a shoe store and see us.
"Are you dating?" One of them exclaims, noticing Jane in Calum's arms.
He nearly shoves her to the ground in attempt to get her away from him. "No, she's a friend of Michael's." He says quickly.
They all give him a sly look, obviously not believing him.
I want to joke about Calum and I being together but they'd actually believe it because I'm gay.
"Dude, I though we were dating." Luke jokes, trying to relieve the tension.
"What is this? Calum, tell them your my boyfriend." Ashton joins in feigning hurt.
"Okay, the truth is. I'm actually dating Michael." Calum jokes, causing my jaw to drop.
"Don't play with my feelings." I snap jokingly.
"Right, I keep forgetting you're actually gay." Calum says awkwardly.
"Can I have a hug?" One of the fans ask, probably sensing the sudden build up of awkwardness.
I'm silent until I realize she's talking to me.
"Yeah, of course." I mask my hurt with a smile.
I just turned my back on Jane the Ripper.
She won't get you here, too many witnesses.
"Thank you." She gets a selfie with me after, this sets off an entire wave of hugs and pictures from the rest of them.
"What's your name?" One of the more confident ones asks Jane after a while.
"It's Jane." She shifts awkwardly, not used to the attention.
"Cane!" They squeal, "I ship it so hard!"
They leave after, as they're walking away I hear the fort girl to hug me talk.
"I ship Malum." She mumbles, bringing a smile to my face.
"Get over yourself Andrea! When are you going to realize that just because one's gay doesn't mean the rest are." The confident one says, shooting a glare at Andrea and the other nod in agreement.
Ouch.
Jane and the lads don't hear them.
"Besides, Michael's a freak." She adds.
Double ouch.
"Hey Andrea!" I yell, attracting a lot of attention as I gesture for them to come back.
"First of all, that was rude." I state, pointing a finger at that one girl and putting the other hand on my hip.
She scoffs loudly.
"Don't scoff at me, you can't just call someone a freak and get away with it. You're lucky you didn't call someone else a freak because I'd have to challenge you to a Pokémon battle."
Slay. Michael, slay. I praise myself enthusiastically.
"In this family we don't encourage bullying or name calling." Ashton pipes up.
"Anyway, back to the reason I called you back, Andrea are you going to our concert?" I ask excitedly.
I consider her a friend because she ships Malum.
"Yeah but it's kind of a drag the signing is across town. It's in like half an hour and we're walking." She says, tossing her curled black hair as she shook her head.
I look at rest of the band confused, a signing? Wasn't that tomorrow?
"Frick! We do have one!" Ashton exclaims, checking the time on his phone.
"We've gotta jet, you ladies want to carpool?" Luke asks like the polite horny teenage boy he is.
"That would be cool." One of the girls say in an overly breathy voice.
Someone needs a drink.
"Hey Cal, wanna race?" I ask excitedly, feeling an overwhelming amount of pent up energy.
"You? Run? What kind of joke is that?" He laughs.
"You're just saying that because you know you're going to lose." That's a lie, we walked two blocks and I'm slightly out of breath.
"Are you willing to bet on that?" He challenges.
"Hell yeah, loser has to do what the winner says?" I ask, crossing my fingers and hoping that I'll beat the odds.
"Deal." Calum shakes my hand before poising himself on a line in the sidewalk.
Without hesitation I start running, not even shouting go.
"Damn it Michael." I hear Calum shout, followed by feet slapping the cement behind me.
The foot falls were getting louder, and I was running low on oxygen.
I ended up tripping over something and didn't have enough energy to get back up.
It wasn't long before Calum caught up, "You okay Mikey?" He asks, coming to a stop.
"I am never running again." I whine into the cracked sidewalk.
"Does that mean you give up?" Calum chuckled, sitting down in my line of sight.
"Only if you carry me the rest of the way." I breathe heavily.
I could go for some pizza right about now.
"Fine, get up." Calum laughs, hoisting me up after him.
I cheer and jump onto his back, wrapping my arms around his neck loosely and resting my cheek on his hair.
"Your hair's really soft Cal." I mumble.
"Thanks?"
Suddenly there's a hard impact on my rear end, and I nearly fall off Calum. The slap ring through the empty street.
"What the fuck?" I yell, rubbing my bum and looking behind me.
"Language." Ashton chides, walking side by side with Luke.
Jane and the other girls trail behind us in hushed conversation.
"What just happened?" Calum asks, looking up at me.
"Hemms Lukeing just smacked my butt." I whine, my though process deciding I wasn't into that kind of naughty activity.
I nearly fall off Calum's back once again at the sheer momentum of him whipping around to face Luke.
"I call dibs on Michael's bum, now you can't touch it." He jokes, playfully moving his hand to pat my butt.
"So if I were to touch him inappropriate after calling dibs, you wouldn't say anything." Luke smirked.
"No." Calum protested, trying to find some loop hole to his own logic.
"I call dibs on Michael. Now you can all shut up." Ashton grins when I shoot him a quizzical look.
"Hey," Now I'm protesting, "I think I should have a say in this. Actually, it's my body and none of you can have it." I pout.
The rest of the band exchanges glances before Calum speaks up, a joking frown evident on his face.
"Nah."
"So Calum, how much do you want for Michael's body." Ashton jokes nonchalantly.
"Now I'm a prostitute?" I groan loudly in disbelief, watching as they ignore me.
"What if I call shotgun on Michael, it means I get to sit in the front seat. If you know what I mean." He jokes.
My dick certainly knows what he means.
Think of straight sex, Michael.
That's disturbing.
It's working to fight the jack in your box that wants to make an appearance though.
"You know what sounds good right now?" I interrupt their elaborate plan on kidnapping me and selling me to Mexicans in exchange for tacos.
Calum could be mistaken for a Mexican.
"Pizza." I state when no one responds.
Calum all but drops me when the tour bus comes into view.
He leaves me on the ground whining like some needy chick.