These Stars Defy Love

I looked around my room at my bags thrown everywhere. I had always been terrible at packing. I thought I needed everything. I picked up a pair of black pumps and then tossed them in a suitcase without even thinking. I had no idea why I would need them, but I just knew that I would. I glanced over at the corner where all my photography equipment was neatly packed. Why couldn't everything be that easy? Why couldn't I have everything as figure out as my photography? I zipped up the two suitcases I had finally condensed my things into and plopped down on my bed. This was not what I had planned. At all. But for some reason it felt right. Sure, I wasn't backpacking across Europe capturing beauty in my photos, but I was still going to be traveling. And I had always loved photographing people, and concerts were by far one of my favorite things to capture. Mostly crowds. I loved the way they always became a family. Especially with the type of music we listened to. We all needed the music, and we all sort of needed each other. I turned my head to stare at the photos I had strung up along my walls since moving in. This had become my home, and these boys had become my family. Their smiling faces on my walls made me feel safe and calm.

I was really happy that the boys all knew about Vic and I, but the two of us had decided we were going to keep it low key for awhile. I didn't want a ton of questions and I definitely didn't want to have the conversation with my mother that would follow her finding out. So far it had all been fine, but being on tour with the band was going to make that pretty difficult.

A knock on my door brought me back to reality and I sat up quickly. "I'm almost ready!" The door opened a crack and Jamie peeked in.

"You pack a whole mall?" I grabbed a pillow and threw it at him.

"For your information, I actually did a swell job packing this time."

Jamie chuckled and grabbed a couple bags of my photography equipment. "I'm gonna take these down to load up, okay?"

"Yeah sure, they're all ready to go." Tony came in behind him and grabbed the rest of my photography equipment and I finished shoving the last of my things into my purse. Mike and Vic walked in just as I was about to grab my suitcases. "I swear to God I'm ready. You don't need to heckle me."

"Actually... we sort of have an offer..." Mike replied as he leaned against my doorframe. I raised an eyebrow at them and set my purse down, crossing my arms and facing them.

"What this time?" Last time these two had said they had an offer for me it turned into a dare that included eating insects. And I was certainly not interested in another situation like that.

"Well. We know you had already planned on taking a shit ton of pictures. And our photographer just called. She's pregnant, so she thinks she might take a pretty long break from touring with any bands right now... So we thought maybe you'd like to be our official tour photographer." I squealed and jumped on Mike, hugging him and squealing in his ear. He laughed as he set me back down. "I'll take that as a yes?"

"Fucking fuck yeah, that's a yes!" I jumped up and down a little and squealed again. Mike laughed and grabbed my two suitcases.

"Are these ready to get loaded up?" I nodded and he turned to take them down to the bus. I looked over at Vic, beaming and still slightly squealing. He chuckled and walked over to me, wrapping his arms around my waist. He kissed my forehead and smiled down at me.

"Thank you soooo much Vic." He chuckled again and pulled me closer.

"Eves. Of course I was going to ask you to do it. Who else would I ask?" I shrugged and squeezed him before letting go to grab my purse. "Plus, this will make it a shit ton easier to keep us on the down low if that's still what you want."

"It is, as long as your still okay with that." He smiled at me and nodded and we headed down the stairs to board the bus and start off on the biggest adventure I had ever had in my life.

Notes