Sam's Town

Mike was on tour and I was absolutely ecstatic to have him out of the apartment and away from me. I was fully mobile, back to work and back in the gym. With him on tour for the past month, I was able to re-paint my place, lose a few pounds and I actually hired a new assistant, an intern named Tori. Diablo seemed to really enjoy it being just him and mommy at home again, too. Even though the dog loved Mike, I think Di preferred to be the man of the house.

Things had been amazing while Mike was on the road as well. We talked in the morning and usually in the evenings if we had time. Pierce the Veil was becoming huge on Warped Tour, and they gained so many more fans and made a whole lot of friends. All of the stories he would tell me really made it seem like he was having the time of his life - and I was glad. I think the time away from one another, especially after the accident and being stuck together 24/7, was necessary and actually strengthened our relationship. We hadn’t fought once, neither one of us had thought about cheating, and we actually decided that once tour was over Mike may actually move in with me full time. He really wanted me to come out for a week, or at least for a few days, but I just wasn’t comfortable with the idea of being stuck in such a small area (aka a tour bus) and sleeping in a bunk underneath of Vic. We hadn’t spoken since he lectured me about Mike, we didn’t even say goodbye to one another when the boys hit the road. The Rae and Vic friendship had sailed, and it sailed for good.

I took a deep breath as I logged off from my computer. It was finally five o’clock, and I had come into work early this morning for a meeting. I rolled backwards in my chair and peeked over into Tori’s cubicle. “It’s five, chica. Log off that computer and lets go to happy hour!” I raised a fist in the air as she laughed, “I’m completely serious. Alex and I are going to get drinks, and if you want to get a job here when you graduate you better mingle… with us… fuck the rest of ‘em.”

Tori smiled and shut her computer down, “I’m totally game. We’re going in our work clothes?”

“Hell yeah,” I laughed. “By the time Alex goes home and gets changed happy hour will be over and we’ll have to pay the full eight dollars for a damn margarita.”

“I heard that!” Alex shouted as she turned the corner towards us. “Tori, you’re going to love having Rae as your boss. Doesn’t get much cooler than her.” She then turned and faced me, “Alec said he might join up with us while we’re out.”

“Fine with me. Let’s go!” I shouted as I stood up from my desk.

We walked down to the closest Mexican restaurant to the office building. When you walk in there around 5, it’s mostly people dressed in business attire trying to drink their jobs away, especially on Fridays. This was going to be Tori’s first happy hour with Nat Geo, more importantly her first one with Alex and I, and I guess Alec too if he were to show up. I was really into Tori and wanted her to start to come along with us because not that long ago I was in her same position. She’s a senior in college looking for a place to jump right into when she graduates, and she’s only a year younger than me and seems like a totally cool chick.

“Hola mi amigas!” Alec yelled as soon as we walk into the door. He looked over at Tori, “You must be my replacement! I hope Rae isn’t as hard on you as she was on me.”

I rolled my eyes, “Shut up you jackass. Tori, this is Alec. Alec, this is Tori. He was my old assistant but then got promoted to editorial shit and now we don’t see him as much because he’s on another floor… which I honestly prefer because he would be annoying as hell… but if you ever need your hair done he is your guy!”

“Nice to meet you,” Tori laughed and shook Alec’s extended hand.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Alec shot his million dollar smile and looked at her with flirty eyes.
I let out a gag, “I already see you being a perv, so you need to stop.”

“Oh please! Just because I flirt with a girl doesn’t mean I am being a perv!” Alec scoffed. “If I was a perv I would do this!” He grabbed a handful of Alex’s ass, “I see someone’s been doing her squats.”
Alex laughed and pushed his hand away, “Tori, you’ll get used to him. This is his personality. But feel free to call it sexual harassment anytime since he abandoned us he might as well just be kicked out of the company.”

We all laughed and the bartender came over and asked what we would want to drink. We all ordered different frozen margarita flavors, and once they came we got deep into conversation about well, NSFW subjects.

“So, Rae, how is the sex life now that the hubby is on the road?” Alec teased while sipping his drink, “Does he send dick pics on the regular?”

Alex burst into laughter, “You should really see the one he sent her last night. We’re sitting there watching a movie and we had her laptop hooked up to the TV and the fucking thing just pops up big as shit on the screen! Mia choked on a piece of popcorn and Steph just sat there dumbfounded.”
I removed my face from my hands, seeing as my cheeks were heating up and bright red, “Steph looks over at me and was like you weren’t kidding when you called it an anaconda.” Tori was laughing quietly and I looked over at her, “I’m sorry if this is totally like awkward for you! You’ll have to meet everyone once they are home from tour. Then you can understand why talking about them like this is okay.”

Tori smiled, “I feel like it’s not often that your boss takes you out for drinks and then talks about her boyfriends penis. I already feel like part of the group. I can’t wait to meet everybody!”

“So tell us a little more about you, Tori! What’s your story? What are you into? Chains and whips?” Alec grinned.

Tori took a big sip of her drink and sighed, “I’m Tori Levin. I am originally from Colorado, but came out to SDSU for college. I recently just got out of a pretty shitty relationship. I do like chains and whips. I’m twenty-one, obviously… I don’t know why I just said that…”

My phone started to ring and I rummaged through my purse for it, “God dammit…” I finally got it, “Sorry guys, I’ll go outside so you can get to know her.” I put it up to my ear knowing that it was going to be Mike, no need to look at the caller ID.

“Hey, baby,” I said into the phone as I walked out the side door of the restaurant.

“Not your baby,” Vic’s voice came through the phone, monotone.

I was taken back, “Vic. What’s up? Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine. I was just calling you because Mike had told me that he was struggling to get you out on the road with us due to our issues with one another. I think it would be childish for you to abandon your boyfriend on the road because you cannot face me, so I am just calling to let you know that if you come out here it’s fine. I’m not going to be a dick to you.”

“Excuse me?” My attitude started to grow, “It would be childish and I would be abandoning my boyfriend? Do you ever say anything fucking nicely, Vic? You’re calling me to tell me it would be okay for me to come out on the road with ya’ll, but you can’t even be like oh, hey Rae, it would be fine for you to come out here I won’t start a fight. You have to say I’m fucking childish? Does Mike know you’re saying this to me?”

“Mike just asked me to try to sort shit out with you so that you could come on the road without being a total bitch, Rae.” Vic huffed into the other line, “It would be childish for you to decide you aren’t going to come out on the road. If you loved my brother you wouldn’t care about how I feel about you or your relationship. You’re probably looking for an excuse though, rather fuck guys back home behind your boyfriends back rather than visit him on tour. I don’t get why he is with you.”

I was just so aggravated at this point I wanted to end the discussion. No point in continuing to argue with him and making myself any angrier. I needed a way to prove Vic wrong so that he would at least stop with the bitching. He didn’t have to like me, but I didn’t deserve the verbal abuse he threw in my direction. I sighed, “Okay, Victor. You can tell Mike that I’ll book a plane ticket tonight and I’ll be in Nashville next Wednesday evening. Nice talking to you, but I have to get back to my co-workers.”

I hung up and groaned, then lit a cigarette, taking a long inhale then exhale. I just didn’t understand why Mike had to bring his brother into this and have him call me… I was also wondering why he didn’t sit in on the phone call to know what Vic was going to say to me. Did he think it was going to be some fabulous conversation and we would be friends? Was he doing some crazy drugs while he was on the road? I was going to kill him when I got home and Skyped him. Fucking kill him.
I didn’t realize how many cigarettes I was chain smoking until Tori popped her head out of the door.

“Rae?” She said sweetly, “Are you alright? You’ve been out here for a while and we just got our checks.”

“Shit,” I muttered. “Yeah. I thought it was Mike that called but turns out it was his brother. We got in a small fight. Thanks for coming to check on me. I really appreciate it,” I smiled and threw my cigarette on the ground, stepping on it to put it out. “I’m sorry I missed happy hour. I owe you.”

Tori smiled, “It’s no big deal. Alex invited me to your girls night tomorrow at her place! But, let’s go pay our checks. I’m going to catch a movie with a friend in a bit.”

I laughed following her into the restaurant, “A girl friend or a guy friend?” She just smiled. “You better give details tomorrow.”


I sat on my bed, snuggled up with Diablo, in a pair of Mike’s sweatpants, a sportsbra and a big, pink, fuzzy blanket while watching re-runs of Sex in the City. I had a big bowl of popcorn sitting next to me, and was slowly shoveling handfuls of the salty, buttery goodness into mine and Di’s mouth. I decided against having a glass of wine, which was so unlike me, but decided to go against the grain and brought a Diet Coke home with me. I was so sucked into my thoughts that I wasn’t even paying attention to the television in front of me. I just couldn’t get my head around the fact that Vic called me, and not only called me, but was a total and complete douche to me. Like I knew that hiding a secret as big as the one regarding Charlie and myself from everyone was something that I shouldn’t have done, but if his own brother still loved me and cared for me, and Vic was my real best friend, why the hell are things still going the way they are?

My phone buzzed from the pillow next to me. The name Shithead popped up on the screen, a heart emoji and an eggplant emoji next to it, and a disgusting picture of Mike underneath of it. It was one I had taken prior to us getting in that huge fight over the whole cheating thing. He was lying on his bed, shirtless, and we were in the dark and I took a picture of him with the flash. His eyes were scrunched closed and his mouth was wide open, gaping and gross, a string of spit connecting his top and bottom lip… he was so gross, but he was mine so somehow the picture was still absolutely adorable to me.

“Hello princess,” I smiled into the phone, knowing he was probably grinning on the other side of the phone.

“Hello my handsome woman,” Mike said with a laugh. “I thought you would be out, but I hear the TV in the background. What are you doing?”

I sighed, “I went out for happy hour with my new intern, Tori, and Alex and Alec… then your brother decided to call me and ruined my evening… Sooooooo, now I’m laying in bed with Di eating popcorn, drinking Coke and watching Sex in the City in your sweatpants.”

I could hear him let out a big groan, “What the fuck did he say to you? I told him that he was making things difficult for our relationship because you weren’t comfortable coming on the bus if he was going to be rude towards you. I wasn’t expecting him to call you.”

“Seriously?” I popped some more popcorn into my mouth, not caring that Mike was going to get an earful of crunching. “He told me that you asked him to call me! And he told me that I was fucking childish for abandoning you on the road just because he and I didn’t get along. I’m guessing he didn’t tell you that I said I was going to book a flight and show up in Nashville?”

“You’re coming out to see me?” I could hear the excitement in Mike’s voice. “Baby I can’t wait to see you! But no, he didn’t say anything about that to me… and that wasn’t the conversation he and I had. I’m going to fucking kill him.”

I laughed at his excitement, “Yes, sweetheart. We’re going to be back together very soon. Don’t even say anything to him. I’ve just decided that I am going to be a nice girl and just show him that we are perfect together and that all of his worries are for no reason. I figure the more he sees us happy, the less likely he will be to continue to be so rude to me. Although, you could maybe whack him in the head with a drumstick at your next set for him saying to me that I was probably too busy fucking other guys while you’re out on the road to even want to come visit you.”

“Yeah, whacking him in the head will be done at tomorrows show. Maybe with both sticks.” Mike let out a small laugh, “So you’re wearing my sweatpants, huh? Are you wearing underwear in them?”

Notes

So yeah... it's been like what? Over a year since my last update.

I apologize. I re-read this story last night & decided that I am going to finish it up for those of you that still may be subscribed and interested in it. I'm not as interested in Pierce the Veil anymore, but I still have my entire plot written out for the story. It will maybe be about five or six more chapters and it will be done.

Thank you so much to those of you that continued to read and comment while I wasn't updating. I am really grateful for you guys. I hope you enjoy the update, and will stick with me for the next few chapters until the story is done.

I haven't decided if I am going to finish up Running or not...
You guys can let me know how you feel about that one, too.


Thanks
xoxo