Twenty Four

"Kel? Where do we go after Ft. Lauderdale?" AJ called out from the bathroom where he was doing last minute packing. We were leaving the next morning for the beginning of the tour and neither of us could sleep. I sat on the bed triple checking my list of things we needed to take with us in my head while flipping through a magazine but not really reading it as AJ ran around the house panicking that he was forgetting something.

I smiled and shook my head, "Charlotte… then Atlanta, then back to Tampa for the Super Bowl, followed by Philly, DC, New Jersey, New York, Toronto, and Pittsburgh." For at least three days he’d had been asking me that same question. I knew from experience that he was getting the pre-tour jitters and that as soon as the first concert was over he’d be much better. So when he’d ask, I’d repeat myself for him.

"How do you remember all of that?" he asked, still in the bathroom as I could hear him rustling through drawers.

"I don’t know, I just do. I’ve looked at the schedule for so long it’s stuck in my head. It’s also in my planner so when I look in it I’ll know where we are at all times. I get just as confused as you all do when the hotels all start to look the same." I looked up from the magazine that I’d been flipping through when I saw the bathroom light finally turn off. "Honey, watch out for the…"

He fell to the floor with a thud as he tripped over pile of notebooks I’d left lying in the floor. I began to giggle and covered my mouth as I looked at him. "Kellie, I swear…" he sighed as he stood up and then moved to sit on the bed.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah I’m fine… Can you explain to me why you have little piles of shit all over the house in front of the doors though? I wasn’t going to ask but I’ve tripped three times tonight already for crying out loud!"

I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of him tripping over my things and then looked at him with apologetic eyes, "I’m sorry, baby. It’s just how I pack."

He inspected his elbow and mumbled, "You’ve never packed like this before…"

I smiled at him and held back another chuckle, "Yeah I have.  Did you hurt your elbow?"

"Rug burn…"

I made a face and scooted closer on the bed to him and kissed his cheek, "Sorry…"

"Thank you. But I still don’t get it. How does leaving stuff all over like that help you pack?"

"Come here…" I said holding my arms out to him and leaned back against the headboard as he laid his head in my lap and I ran my fingers through his hair. He almost immediately relaxed and his eyes closed. I smiled down at him, "I know it’s a silly way to pack. But I figure if I have to step over something as I walk out of the room, I’m not going to forget it. But if I leave a pile of books on a bed, I could very easily walk right out and not realize that I’d forgotten them until I go looking for them and it’s too late."

"Baby?"

"Yeah?"

His eyes opened and he looked up at me with a grin, "You are so weird…"

~~~~~

I opened the front door the next morning in mid yawn and Brian laughed at me, "Good morning, Sunshine!"

I rolled my eyes at him and shook my head, "Brian, if you’re going to be this chipper at this time of morning during this whole tour, I’m going to end up killing you real quick."

He laughed again and grinned, "No you won’t, because you love me…"

"Yeah and?" I asked yawning again.

"And I brought you Starbucks…" He pulled a bag and carrier of coffee from behind his back cheesing at me.

"Okay you’ll live… come on in…" He followed me into the house and I curled up on the couch hugging my knees to my body. "Why is it so cold? I thought this was Florida?" He laughed and handed me my coffee, "Don’t tell AJ I said that… he’ll never let me live it down."

"Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Speaking of our tattooed friend, where is he?"

As if on cue we heard a thud above our heads and I closed my eyes and began to laugh, "Upstairs…"

"God DAMN IT!" we heard AJ yell from upstairs.

"Did he just trip?" Brian giggled.

I laughed and nodded, "Oh god, he’s going to kill me…"

AJ came downstairs and sulked into the room and I stopped laughing. He tossed a pair of shoes into my lap and then sat down on the couch next to me, "You forgot those…"

"Sorry, honey…" I smiled and kissed his cheek. He merely grunted at me and began looking through the bag of muffins that Brian had placed on the coffee table. I shot Brian a look and stood up to stick the shoes into one of my bags.

Brian smiled and looked at AJ, "So you all ready, Bone?"

AJ grunted a yes and began eating a muffin. I stood behind him and looked at Brian making a goofy face and smiled. I put my hands on AJ’s shoulders and massaged his neck a bit. "Brian why don’t you help me get this stuff into the car and Age can eat."

"Alrighty…" he smiled and got up and began picking up bags.

I leaned over the back of the couch and ran my hands down AJ’s chest and over his stomach before kissing his neck, "I’ll make it up to you, baby… I promise to kiss all of your sore spots tonight okay?"

He smiled and nodded, "Okay."

"Eat your muffin…" I smiled and kissed his cheek again before standing up. I turned around to help Brian with the bags and promptly tripped over AJ’s backpack that he’d brought downstairs with him when he brought my shoes down. "Shit… ow!"

Brian walked in the house and laughed at me as he stood looking down at me and AJ sprang off of the couch to check on me, "Geesh… what’s with you two? Has all of the screwing thrown off your sense of balance?"

I laughed through the pain and AJ and Brian both stretched out a hand to me. "Hey, Brian?" I groaned as I stood up and winced slightly at the pain in my knee from hitting the hardwood floor.

"Yeah?"

"That offer to kill you on this tour still stands…"

~~~~~

"Oh stop laughing at me why don’t you?" I groaned as I limped through the bus and thwapped Brian in the head before sitting down next to Kevin.

"Hey! AJ you gunna let your woman hit me like that?" Brian whined as he rubbed his head.

"Uh, yeah?" AJ yelled from the back of the bus where he, Nick & Howie were playing video games. "I don’t know what you did, but I’m sure you deserved it…"

"Man… I forgot how everyone always takes the girl’s side… this sucks!" Brian laughed. "I’m going to go play video games with the children…"

I stuck my tongue out at Brian as he walked away and smiled as Kevin shook his head at us. "First day of tour and we’ve already had an injury and you’re beating up Brian… I’m not sure if this is a good omen."

"Oh we’ll be fine…" I smiled as I stretched out sideways and put my feet in his lap as I laid down on the couch looking at him. He returned the bag of ice that he was holding for me to my knee carefully, "Thank you…"

"Welcome… So tell me something?"

"Uh oh…" I laughed and he smiled.

"Sorry but I have to ask…"

I whined and covered my face, "You’re already starting with the Kev Questions? We’re not even to the first city yet!"

"I’m just doing my fatherly duty…" he laughed.

"Okay…" I said peeking out from behind my hands. "What?"

"Have you and AJ decided if you’re going to be public on this tour?"

My hands dropped to my sides and I looked at him with my head cocked to the side, "What do you mean?"

"About your relationship… Are you going to be public about being together, or keep it hush hush to keep publicity down?"

I sighed and looked up at the mirrored ceiling of the bus and then closed my eyes not wanting to look at myself. "I don’t know. We didn’t really talk about it that much. I mean we want to be public… But now that you mention it, I can see how it could be messy."

"Yeah…"

"A lot of the fans already know me… but if they see that I’m working for you guys now and I’m dating Age then the ones who didn’t like me already will have all sorts of fuel for rumors and Anti-Kel websites…"

"Yup…"

"Shit…" I sighed again and opened my eyes looking at Kevin.

"I’m sorry. I just wondered if you guys had thought it out in detail."

"What would you do?" I asked quietly and grabbed my camera that had been sitting in a bag on the floor next to me. I busied my hands by loading a roll of film into the camera and listened to him.

"Truthfully? I think I’d keep it quiet at least for a little while. Feel out the whole thing before deciding to go public. Even the fans who know you might not take too well to the idea that you’re touring with us the whole time this time. See how they react and then decide if you should go public with it or not." I looked through my camera at Kevin’s hand resting on the bag of ice on my leg and snapped a picture of it. "You’re going to be faced with the evil fans no matter what. It’s a fact of our lives. But maybe if you wait to see how things go, you might save yourself some unneeded additional stress you know?"

I aimed the camera up at the ceiling and got a picture of his refection in the mirrors then put the camera down on my stomach, "Yeah…"

"At least you two have always been very affectionate in front of the fans up to this point. So he can still love on you, just not heavily…"

I laughed and nodded, "We’ll have to have a no-tongue clause again…"

"You had a no-tongue clause?" he laughed.

"Yeah… broke that one a few weeks ago in the backyard though and the rest is history," I smiled.

He smiled back at me, "I’m really glad that you two finally got together…" We were interrupted as a loud roar of laughter came from the back of the bus where the rest of the boys were playing. We laughed and he nodded his head in their direction, "Looks like everything is going pretty well with Nick too… You have something to do with that?"

I shrugged, "The three of us went out and played pool together the other night… Got drunk together."

"You didn’t screw him did you?"

"What?" I looked up at him in shock. "Kev…"

He laughed, "I was kidding Kel… drunken threesome joke?"

"Oh…" I sighed and fidgeted with my camera again.

"You never did tell me what was going on with all of that you know?"

"I know…" I smiled. "I will though…"

"When?"

"Kellllllllllll!" AJ called out from the back of the bus. "I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeed you!"

I laughed at his call and shook my head as I sat up and took the bag of ice from Kevin and began to get up, "Apparently not right now…"

"Just remember… I’m not letting you get out of this. Eleven months of touring.  I’ll get you my pretty…"

"Yeah yeah and my little dog too…" I laughed as I began hobbling back to AJ. "Soon, Kevy… Soon…"