14 Days

It was nearing 2pm by the time the group reached Rock on the Range. Evie had her phone glued to her ear, talking to her brother on the other end of the line to try and find one another. She led the group through the artist and crew entry, flashing her ID and pass to the bouncer and quickly moving on, the Avenged crew struggling to keep up with her.

Evie weaved her way through the crowd, not letting herself get distracted with the myriad of famous faces that littered the tents, and kept her eyes peeled for the Jagermeister bar. At this stage she didn’t car whether the Avenged guys were following, or if she had lost them to the other band members they knew and were friends with, right now she needed to find her family, and she could deal with the rest after that.

“Okay, so I am through the catering section, just passing the Red Bull stall now. Am I getting close?” She asked her brother, her head moving at an alarming pace to try and find any other distinguishing features of the area she was in.

“Keep coming through there. Turn right at the PR tent,” Josh told her, yelling over the music that was playing nearby. He hadn’t been at the festival much longer than his sister, but knew to make mental notes of how they had made it through the labyrinth so she could find him when she arrived.

“Ah ha. Holy shit, that is Duff McKagan,” she said, letting herself get a little distracted with the former G’n’R bassist as he was talking to the press. “Is this Guns N Roses week or something?”

“What?” Her brother asked, not understanding the muttered statement.

“Long story, tell you soon,” she promised. “Okay, so I am past there, so I go left?”

“Right,” he corrected.

“Right. So towards the stages?”

“No, that’s left! Go to the right, dipshit,” he said, unable to help rubbing at his temple with his free hand as he tried to get her going in the correct direction.

“You said ‘right’ after I asked left! You confirmed it, dickhead!” She exclaimed, doing a quick 180 and started off down the left passage.

“No, I didn’t! I corrected you by saying to go right!” He argued, sighing loud enough for Evie to pick it up over the noise. The background music was now getting louder as she upped her pace, flowing through one ear from the end of the phone and now into her other ear.

“You have always been the worst at giving directions,” she told him, eyes darting around and searching for the correct sponsored bar.

“Fuck off, I am the best at directions! Remember when we went on that road trip to Ottawa? Remember who got us around that closed bridge because dad was certain that-”

Instead of listening to her brother rant on and on about the shared memory from their early childhood, Evie hung up the phone and jumped on his back, startling him into dropping his own phone to instinctively catch her.

“Hey big brother,” she said into his ear, before letting go and returning to her feet. With a huge grin, she watched her brother turn around and didn’t even have a chance to look at him before she was buried in his chest in a crushing hug.

The siblings slowly broke apart after their lengthy embrace, neither having to verbalise how much of a toll the separation really took on them. It was only two weeks, but to them it felt closer to two months, especially after being on top of one another for nearly their whole lives, from sharing a bedroom for their first 9 years, to endless nights sharing the same van bench. There was such a small age gap between them that they had always considered themselves twins, a pesky 14 months separating their births.

“Remember us?” A voice spoke from beside them, Joe with a massive grin on his face as he watched the Smith’s reunion. He held his arms out, and Evie made her way over, hugging the guitarist.

She made her way through the group, slapping at Arejay’s arms as he tried to lift her up, pulling the other tech Troy into a resented hug before finally turning to her favourite female.

“Saving the best ‘til last,” she told Lzzy, embracing the singer in a giant bear hug.

“Now that’s a hug I would like to get between,” Johnny said loudly, making Evie immediately turn and glare at him. The boys had managed to keep up with her quick pace through the backstage tents, promising various friends that they would be back to properly mingle soon, and watched the reunion of their temporary tech.

“Don’t be gross,” Evie told him, pointing a stern finger at the bassist along with her iciest glare.

Regardless of his crass entrance, Johnny’s words were a great ice breaker and Evie watched as her two worlds collided. She introduced the bands to one another, a round of friendly handshakes and ‘Hi, how you doing?’ going around, even a hug here and there (mostly thanks to Jimmy and his exuberance).

“You forgot to mention that they are all hot as fuck,” Lzzy mumbled in her ear once the formalities were over. She raked her eyes over the group, sizing up each member.

“I tried not to let myself realise that,” Evie admitted, a smirk on her lips as she watched her friend stake out the eye candy.

She was surprised of the sudden flare up of insecurity as Lzzy blatantly looked Brian up and down, checking him out from top to toe as the guitarist was making small talk with Joe. Birds of a feather, she couldn’t help but think. Her worries ebbed away as Lzzy’s attention turned to the hunky singer, her eyes lighting up as she took in his physique.

“You better tell me now if you have claimed one, before it’s too late,” she whispered, trying to gauge Evie’s reaction to her words.

In Lzzy’s mind, there was no way she could resist if any one of them had come on to her, so she assumed that the same could be said about Evie. She knew the tech was not impervious to the charms of a good looking guy, having seen Evie take home a guy or two in the past when the urge struck. Being around this many good looking guys for two weeks was surely enough to make her estrogen levels high enough that it started messing with her prim and proper disposition. She watched as Evie’s eyes quickly glanced over to the brunette talking to Joe, and observed the intense, though speedy, look that was shared between the two.

“I don’t know about ‘claimed’,” Evie muttered, pulling her attention from Brian and back to her best friend. Lzzy’s shit-eating grin was enough to tell Evie that she didn’t believe a single thing she was going to say on the topic. Evie sighed in defeat, adding yet another person to her ‘people who know something is up’ list. “It’s nothing serious.”

“You sure about that?” Lzzy asked, lifting an eyebrow in disbelief as she questioned her friend quietly.

“I’m sure,” she said definitely. “We haven’t really spoken about what it is, or if it’s anything at all. It could just be for now, for convenience for all I know.”

“You’ve said nothing at all?”

“Well, not really.”

“So there has been something then,” Lzzy said, trying to coach the words out of Evie. If there was nothing, surely she wouldn’t have left the answer open ended.

“Sort of, but I don’t want to look into it too much and get my hopes up,” Evie explained, laying the truth bare. What was it about best friends that made you verbalise things you hadn’t even let yourself think yet?

“What was it?” Lzzy asked, excitement lacing her voice. She watched Evie’s gaze wander to Brian again, a slight blush colouring her cheeks as she caught him looking at the same time. Disgustingly sweet, she thought. There was definitely something more than Evie was alluding to. “Did he do something? Say something?”

“Kind of both?” Evie replied, questioning herself.

The more she thought about it, the more she recalled things that had happened over her time with Brian, and started to think that maybe the actions weren’t as innocent as she had once thought. It was the conversations that she had originally written off, like the evening they spent drinking in the parking lot getting to know one another more than just ‘guitarist’ and ‘tech, or when she helped coach him through the weird situation with his ex. They were definitely not things she had done or discussed with any of the others, but those instances coupled with his words and actions over the last two days had really got her considering the possibility that they could actually make something out of this.

“Like what? You need to tell me,” Lzzy said, grabbing her arm as her excitement continued to rise.

Before Evie had a chance to reply, Phil, the Halestorm manager, came over and interrupted the group. He greeted Evie with a head nod before letting them know that it was time to start rehearsing in one of the rehearsal spaces.

“When are you guys playing?” Matt asked, vocalising Evie’s thoughts. She immediately felt terrible not knowing when they were playing, but having the time for Avenged’s set tomorrow committed to memory.

“3:30,” Phil replied on behalf of the band, already starting to walk away and back to network. Evie once more thought of how perfect he was as a manager, perhaps he was a bit off the usual social spectrum, but he definitely knew the business side of things inside and out.

“Did you guys want to come along,” Joe offered, gesturing further into the bowels of backstage with his thumb.

“I think we are just going to go catch up with some of the other guys here, but we will make it for the set,” Zacky told them, looking around to his band mates to see if the unspoken decision was shared by all. They all nodded along, agreeing with the plan.

“No worries,” Joe said, shrugging before turning and starting off towards their allocated practice area. He waved to them as a goodbye, the rest of the Halestorm crew falling into step behind him.

“Good luck!” Jimmy shouted out, making Evie crack another smile at the drummer’s never ending energy. Before she could start to feel too melancholy about the thought of having to leave behind his friendship as well, Lzzy fell in step with Evie and grabbed her arm.

“So, tell me about you and Brian,” she litled, wiggling her eyebrows as she tried to pry more information out of Evie.

“Maybe not when my protective brother is within earshot,” she suggested, nodding at Josh who was only a few paces ahead.

“Good point,” Lzzy agreed, knowing how Josh could get when there was a prospect on Evie’s horizon.

After a particularly bad break up years earlier, Josh had taken it upon himself, much to Evie’s chagrin, to approve or deny anyone that could possibly get close to his little sister so she wouldn’t hurt that way again. It was sweet, in an over-protective, slightly over the top way, but it warmed Lzzy’s heart that they were so close. She felt the same with her little brother, always keeping an eye out on any woman that came too close and made sure she wasn’t using him in any way.

“But after we rehearse you and I are talking, young lady,” Lzzy told her sternly, giving Evie no way out of this conversation.

“Yes, ma’am!” Evie replied, giving Lzzy a salute and dissolving into a fit of giggles.

With Lzzy pushing, Evie knew that she soon would have to confront a lot of the feelings she had been pushing to the back of her mind, and it was getting close to crunch time for her and Brian to actually have a proper conversation about their ‘relationship’. The thought alone made Evie slightly nauseous, though she wasn’t sure if it was due to the storm of butterflies in her stomach that seemed to arise every time she thought of Brian, or the idea of having to leave it all behind.

Notes

Look at me, back to back updates.
Don't get used to it ;)

Xoxo
Sas