14 Days

Evie woke from the best sleep of her touring life early the next morning. Glancing at her phone, she saw it was only 8am, and she smiled. It had been a very long time since she could let her body wake her up naturally. These 2 weeks were going to spoil her, she could just tell. Being cooped up in a bench seat next to Joe or Arejay to try and get enough space to sleep, the constant stopping for gas, or even just taking turns to drive the van was going to suck.

After stretching out her well rested muscles, Evie decided to get up. The lack of movement meant that they had arrived in Kansas at the next venue. Smiling, Evie rose, going directly to her bag to collect a few items to change in to. She quietly opened the curtain of her bunk, seeing a closed curtain directly across from her. All the curtains were drawn shut bar one, most of the crew still asleep due to the early hour.

Evie moved to the back of the bunks, making her way to the bathroom to relieve herself, and give her some privacy to change. Once finished, she threw her pjs back on the bed and moved through the bus to the front door. Before walking through it, she made sure she had her essentials; the bus key, her phone and her headphones. Once happy with her collection, she went outside, relishing the shining sun on her pale skin. There was a slight nip in the air, Evie putting it down to the wind, but she didn’t let it bother her. Soon enough she would work up a sweat and be thanking God for the wind helping her cool down.

She started to stretch her leg muscles, readying them for the run she was about to embark on. Bending over, she let out a small groan as she felt the tug on her hamstring, indicating the stretch was working. She moved over to her other leg, repeating the same stretches before starting on her arms. She loved that almost bittersweet feeling of her muscles pulling and stretching, the weird feeling just before you go too far, when you know that you are going as hard as you can.

Evie shook out her body and embarked on her run, starting off slowly to warm up before hitting her stride a few blocks out from the venue. It was times like this she was thankful of her observant nature, knowing that the small landmarks and details she noted as she ran would help her find her way back once she was sated. She relaxed to the repetition of one foot hitting the ground before the next, then the next, then the next, her pace timing perfectly to her 180 BPM running playlist.

As ‘Tusk’ blended into the beginning of David Bowie’s ‘Modern Love’, Evie was standing in front of the busses once more, her hour long run completed before she realised where her feet were taking her. Happy with her exercise for the day, she began to cool down, doing a few more stretches standing up before completing the rest sitting on the cool pavement. As expected, she relished the chill in the wind and the small bite of the asphalt underneath her, helping her body temperature drop.
“I am finally not the only exercise nut,” Dan spoke, startling Evie from her thoughts. She looked up to see him standing at the open doors to the trailer, a set of dumbbells in each hand. He didn’t stop his own workout, continuing to curl as he spoke. “Have a nice run?”

“It was actually really refreshing,” she replied, setting her headphones to the side as she finished up the last of her stretches. She watched Dan curl the dumbbells, impressed with the size of his biceps as he worked. He was watching Evie right back, taking in the sight of as she grabbed her foot and lay her body along the length of her leg. “You’re a gym junkie, hey?”

“I wouldn’t say junkie,” he answered, taking a breath before continuing, “but I try to work out when I can.”

“I can understand that,” she said, nodding along to his words. “No one else joins you?”

“Not at this hour,” he told her, taking a small break between sets. He quickly wiped his brow with a towel, soaking up the sweat forming from the weights. “Occasionally Matt, or the Berry’s use the weights, but they don’t see the sun until about midday at the best of times.”

“I have to admit I am surprised to see someone else up this early,” she commented, finally finished with her cool down and getting back up from the ground. She grabbed her headphones, sticking them around her neck before she brushed off the back of her pants with her free hand.

“I get up around 7am each morning, try not to let the tour life take hold of me too much,” he said, starting back up on his reps.

“Good on you, man. You have more will than most,” she said, laughing at the end. “Enjoy the rest of your workout.”

Evie gave him a quick wave before heading back into the bus to shower the sweat off her body. She made sure to grab some clean clothes and her towel before she disappeared back behind the curtain and into the very small bathroom, not sure what to expect of the on-board shower. She stripped down, placed her items where she thought they would stay dry, and turned on the faucet. It took a little while for the water to heat up, but it eventually got there and Evie ducked underneath the spray. She took a few moments to enjoy the water cascading over her body before she started to soap up, trying to make the shower as quick as she could as she assumed Dan would want to use it once he was finished his work out.

Not bothering to wash her hair, or do anything more time consuming than a general scrub, Evie turned off the water and grabbed her towel. She dried off, throwing her towel onto the sink while she put on her fresh clothes. Happy with her choice of clean black jeans, a Master of Puppets image tee, a hooded coat and a pair of boots, she left the bathroom, remembering to take her towel to hang up near her bunk.

She moved back into the sleeping quarters seeing that all the bunks, bar hers and Dan’s, were still occupied, her shower not having disturbed the other guys. She sighed in relief, glad knowing that she could shower without waking anyone up. Evie packed away her dirty clothes, separating them from the clean ones before filling her jacket pockets with her daily necessities. Once set, she retreated from the bus once more, slipping on her sunglasses and took out a cigarette.

Wasting no time, Evie lit the cigarette, enjoying her first drag more than she would like to admit. A cigarette in the morning was one of life’s greatest pleasures, nearly beating out a cigarette with a beer on a hot day, or a cigarette after a stressful gig. She frowned to herself, realising that maybe she shouldn’t be classifying life by if it was a good time to smoke or not, especially if she was still trying to convince herself that she wasn’t a heavy smoker.

“You’re looking deep in thought,” a voice said, startling Evie out of her reverie. She looked up to see a disheveled Matt Berry walking out from the bus door towards her current position. She had decided to sit on the pavement with her back against the wall of the venue, basking in the warmth of the mid-Spring sun before it turned too warm. “Care to share?”

“Just losing the battle of convincing myself I am not a smoker,” she told him, her lip twitching up in a wry smile as she continued to puff at the cigarette between her fingers. She pulled out her pack, offering one to Matt when he got close enough. He accepted, lighting his with her lighter before joining her on the ground.

“I’ve been losing that one for years. Every tour cycle I get sucked back in,” he told her, pulling his hood over his head to help protect his eyes from the bright sun.

“Glad I am not the only one,” she replied, turning and staring back into the void ahead of them. “You are up earlier than expected.”

“Yeah, wasn’t really planning on it, but when your body tells you that you need to pee, you listen,” he answered, listening to Evie laugh at his statement. “I was going to go back to sleep, but when I saw I wasn’t the only one awake, I thought I may as well get up and keep you company.”

“Well thanks,” Evie told him, leaning over and bumping him with her shoulder in appreciation.

“Why are you up so early?” He asked her, taking another drag of his cigarette before ashing it out.

“After my early night last night, my body told me to wake up. So when your body tells you to wake up, you listen,” she replied, paraphrasing his words back at him to make him chuckle. “Plus, I was able to get in a run and have a quick chat with Dan.”

“Oh god,” Matt groaned, making Evie raise her eyebrow at him questioningly. “You are an exercise person!”

Evie shouldered him again, this time a little harder.
“I like to run, so what?” She asked him rhetorically. “Dan said you guys work out.”

“That is different, that is weights,” he replied, knowing that even as he spoke his excuse was weak.

“You’re a loser,” she said, her voice light to let him know she was just playing around.

“At least I am not a loser that likes running,” he retorted, poking his tongue out at her.

“Careful or I’ll bite it off,” she warned, her words coming out before her filter could stop them. She didn’t mean for it to sound flirty, it just came out. She was so used to the oddly sibling-esque vibe of the Halestorm tour crew that her sense of humour forgot to change back to ‘normal’.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Matt warned her, his gaze piercing through Evie’s sunglasses and making a light blush appear on her cheeks.

Matt knew that her words were empty, but couldn’t give up the chance to be flirty back. He knew that each and every guy on this tour saw how attractive she was, and knowing them as well as he did, he knew that a few would make a pass at her before she was due to leave. He would be damned if he didn’t take his chance while he could, realising that she was not only gorgeous, but had a sense of humour to boot, and her tech-nerd side was as consuming as his.

“Anyway,” she said, trailing off as she tried to get her blush away from her cheeks. Not for the first time in her life, she cursed her pale complexion, her skin always giving in to the slightest colour to her cheeks. “When do you guys usually start loading in?”

“Depends on the venue, and when we arrive, but on a show like tonight where we are here so early, we usually try to get it all set up before 3pm so we have a chance to relax before the show,” Matt answered, a small smile on his face from her abrupt subject change. He didn’t want to push anything, knowing that mixing work and pleasure could get uncomfortable later on down the track.

“Ok, cool. So we have HOURS to kill yet,” she sighed, emphasising the word hours loudly. She had a thought, needing to ask Matt if it would be possible. “You know how you guys packed the trailer last night?”

“Yes,” he confirmed, unsure where she was going with her question.

“Is there a chance I can access the guitar boat to get the guitars out to start working on them?” She asked, praying that they would be easily enough accessible so she could fill the hours ahead.

“They are more towards the back, but shouldn’t be too hard to get,” Matt said, trying to remember exactly how they had packed last night. It was not an easy feat considering he had ingested quite a bit of booze between packing the trailer and this moment. “I’d have to come have a look to guarantee, though.”

Evie bounced to her feet, eager to get to the guitars. She held her hands out to Matt, yanking him from his seated position once he placed his hands in hers. He couldn’t help but smile at the excited look on her face, laughing as she dropped only one hand, pulling him along with the other to lead him towards the trailer of gear.

Notes

I could have very easily turned this into a Matt Berry/Evie fan fic this chapter. It was scarily easy to write them into a couple, and I did have to rewrite a few parts so it wouldn’t go down that road. They just wrote so smoothly together!
Let me know if you liked the slight bit of tension between them, or not.

Hope this is ok? Let me know what you think!

Xoxo
Sas