I was startled awake not much later by a loud knock at the door. “Aston!” shouted a voice.
I swiveled in Aston’s grip to see he was still fast asleep, or at least pretending to be. As subtly as I could I loosened his grip around my waist and slipped out of bed, slipping on some pants and opening the door.
“Good morning,” said Marvin.
“Hi Marv,” I yawned.
“Breakfast is downstairs in a bit… Just making sure the boy wonder is awake.”
“Thanks,” I smiled. “Do you always come and make sure he’s up?”
“Not always,” laughed Marvin. “I just like to look out for him since he’s the youngest, he’s sort of like my annoying little brother.”
“I’ve noticed,” I giggled.
“Ok, well I’ll see you downstairs in a bit,” he said.
“Yup, thanks Marv,” I replied as I shut the door to the hotel room and wandered back over to a sleeping Aston.
He was sprawled out all over the bed, the covers only falling to his waist, his bare back and shoulders exposed. Quietly I climbed up on the other side of the bed, kneeling over him. I placed several of my fingers softly on his back and then started to draw circles and patterns, attempting to gently wake him up.
“Babe?” I whispered quietly as I drew a circle around the tattoo that fell between his shoulder blades. “Wake up…”
“Hmmphhh,” I heard as he snuggled deeper into bed.
“Fine,” I said more loudly, and then I stood up on the bed and started jumping away. At one point I slipped slightly and ended up jumping on Aston, which caused him to wake up immediately.
“What the hell?” he groaned, flipping over and looking up at me standing above him.
“Wake up sleepyhead,” I laughed, before jumping again. I only got about three jumps in before Aston grabbed my legs and pulled me down on top of him.
“You need to calm down missy,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me and placed a small kiss on my cheek.
“Gotta get going,” I mumbled into his chest, “Marv’s already been around to make sure you’re awake.”
“Really?” sighed Aston.
“Yup…”
“Well then let’s go,” he said releasing me and wandering around trying to find something suitable to wear. Having had a wash only a few hours ago, I went into the bathroom just to brush my teeth and wash my face, making sure that my hair wasn’t too terrible. I left it down and ran my fingers through it a bit, it looked a bit beachy today which I didn’t mind.
Wandering back out to the bedroom area I grabbed my bag as Aston slipped into the bathroom. Quickly I changed my underwear and then slipped on a pair of denim shorts and an off the shoulder t-shirt. I threw some things into my bag, including my laptop because I knew I could end up sitting around for a fair amount of time over the course of the afternoon while the boys did interviews and that. Finally I slipped on some sandals, and grabbed a cardigan and my ray bans.
Just a minute later and Aston was ready too, he grabbed my hand and together we wandered down the hall of the hotel to the elevator and down to the private dinning room that had been sectioned off for the JLS group.
“Morning,” I smiled as we dumped our stuff on the floor and grabbed a seat. A few people were around, and Oritse was there listening to his iPod.
“You alright?” he asked.
“Yup, I’m well excited for today,” I said.
“Good.”
I sat and ate some eggs and toast while the rest of the group slowly filtered down. Eventually we were only waiting on JB and Chloe, much to everyone’s amusement, and as soon as they came we were ushered quickly on to the bus.
“Bit of late start there,” smirked Aston at JB as we rode over to the venue.
“Leave me alone Ast,” mumbled JB.
“How can you deal with mister grumpy all of the time Chloe?” he asked her.
“Well…” she giggled awkwardly.
“Ast, let’s leave them alone ok,” I said, patting his leg.
“You’re no fun,” he whispered to me as he placed a little kiss on my head.
“You’re just being really naughty this weekend,” I replied with a smirk. “Thought maybe you’d wake up and be on better behavior.”
“Well when you get woken up by someone jumping on you…”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I laughed.
We sat and chatted for another half hour as we drove through town and out towards the venue for the show. The boys had sound checks in the morning and then a handful of interviews with local papers and radio stations. Chloe and I were planning on watching the sound check and then we were going to have a bit of a chill out in the sun while the boys worked.
As we pulled up at the venue I was slightly shocked at how massive it was. I guess I’d never really pictured the boys playing to crowds of thousands. In my head they were still the same four guys that would rehearse in my front lounge while I laid on the couch three years prior.
It was now late afternoon and the boys were starting to get pumped up for the show. I was sat with Aston and the others in the catering tent, enjoying an early dinner of pasta and chicken when one of the stage directors came running into the tent.
“Uh boys, we have a problem,” he said.
“What?” asked Marvin.
“Your opener is stuck in London.”
“How?” asked Oritse.
“He was meant to fly up this morning but his flight got canceled due to some bad weather down in London. They rebooked him on a later flight but it had to turn around after take off due to mechanical problems. Right now it doesn’t look like we can get him up here until tomorrow.”
“So?” asked Aston. “We don’t need an opener do we?”
“Well, gates are opening here at the park at 6 for your fans, and you’re not meant to go on until 8,” the Director replied.
“Yeah Ast, we can’t possibly leave the fans to stand there with no entertainment for two whole hours, they’ll go crazy,” said Marvin.
“What if we go on early?” said JB.
“We can’t do fireworks until 8, and we’ve got media coming later in the evening. It’ll just be too hard to move your schedule around with all of these other factors.”
“We could have the dancers go out and do some of their independent stuff for awhile,” said Oritse.
“Yeah and have us exhausted for the actual show?” one of the dancers piped in.
“So you see the predicament we’re in…” asked the Director.
“There isn’t any one in town that could come down? Singer? Dancer? A DJ even?” asked Marvin.
“Not that I know of, or not that we can get here in the next hour or so to start getting ready…”
As this conversation was unfolding my attention was caught briefly by Aston, who had the cockiest smile I’d ever seen in my life and the most mischievous glint in his eyes. I just knew the next words coming out of his mouth were going to top all of his wicked behavior so far this trip by a mile…
