𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 ─ new kids on the block

𝒙𝒙𝒊𝒙.

JULY 23, 1990
→ J O E Y

✦

THE TIME HAD flown right by like crazy and just like that, the end of July was slowly approaching. Me, the guys, Tinnie and Emily were currently in Long Island, about to hit the stage on our second night in Wantagh, New York. The girls were going to leave on Donnie's birthday, August 17th, which was the day before their first day of senior year and they had to be home by then. The thought of me and Tinnie parting ways in a little less than four weeks was already starting to kill me but I tried my best to not think so much about what would be, and instead focus on the now.

Me and the guys were getting ready for the show as the girls were reading the new issue of the Smash Hits magazine. They seemed very immersed in whatever it was that they were reading.

"Oh my God, he's so fine!" I heard Emily yell from out-of-nowhere. Just as she said that sentence, Jordan's head turned from Danny, who he had been talking to, in her direction in no time. "I hope you're looking at a picture of me," he said to her, half-jokingly. Unfortunately, Emily didn't hear him and so he walked over to her to see who this Prince Charming she was referring to was.

"You think he's fine?" Jordan said, pointing at a picture of Michael Hutchence from INXS who was standing next to the beautiful Kylie Minogue. From the tone in his voice, he didn't seem too pleased with what he had just heard. "Yes, look at him! He's drop-dead gorgeous," she confirmed. Jordan looked at her like she was crazy. "Him? Him? Really?" he kept repeating. Emily just rolled her eyes at him and continued reading the magazine with Tinnie.

"Say, Tinnie, do you find this Michael Hutchence guy fine?" Jordan asked—he just couldn't let it go, now could he?

"He's okay. Johnny Depp on the other hand... Oh my". And just like that, I was up from my chair, heading in the girls' direction. "Johnny Depp? What?" I asked Tinnie in disbelief.

"Yeah Joe, do you have a problem with that?" she questioned me, not really understanding why I was struggling to wrap my head around that. To be honest, I didn't really know either. I wanted to have no problem with it but the fact that Tinnie found other celebrities good-looking too, well, that was a little hard to take in. However, for reasons far beyond me.

"No, no problem at all," I told her as I went back to my seat.

The girls kept scanning through the pictures in the magazine as me and Jordan tried to maintain calm. It wasn't that big of a deal, right? I mean, these were just celebrity crushes... They didn't mean anything. Right?

✦

Three hours later, after the concert, we were back on the tour buses. This time, me, Tinnie, Emily and Jordan were all sharing a bus together, leaving Jon, Donnie and Danny on the other one. Though Dick, our manager, would have much rather preferred to not have us be alone with our girlfriends on the bus, we had somehow convinced him to say yes to it just for tonight.

Me and Jordan were sitting at the front of the bus, watching cartoons, as the girls were trying to cook something up in the small kitchen of the bus. We could hear them burst into laughter every now and then, having no clue what they were talking about. For all we knew, they could've been talking shit about us, or even worse, exchanged secrets about the either of us to the other one...

"Yo, come over here," Jordan told the girls after a while. He was definitely annoyed but also curious about the chatter that had been going on for the past ten minutes in the kitchen.

"Why?" Emily asked, pouring chocolate chips from a plastic bag into a big bowl. The girls were apparently making cookie dough. Our bus didn't have an oven, though, so they couldn't bake the cookies.

"Because..." he said, not really having a proper reason for it, "just come."

Emily handed the bowl to Tinnie, who then grabbed the spatula and started eating cookie dough off it.

"What's up?" the brown-haired girl asked as she made our way over to us. Jordan's face lit up like a night sky full of stars—the moment her girl would be near, his world was complete. It couldn't have been more obvious. "You guys want some cookie dough?"

"Hell yeah," I said, trying to get Tinnie to come over as well so I could've had some cookie dough.

"Hey, uh, what were you two chit-chatting about?" Jordan then popped the question as his curiosity got the best of him.

"Oh, nothing. Really. It was stuff you guys would find boring," Emily said, looking at Tinnie. The two exchanged very odd, very interesting looks and then, bursted out laughing.

"What?!" Jordan asked in confusion. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, trust me," Emily said, covering her mouth with her hand so she wouldn't start laughing again. You could tell she was struggling to keep it all in as she ran to the end of the bus and closed the door of the main bedroom.

"What the hell did you two talk about?" Jordan asked Tinnie. He was desperate for some truth.

"Honestly, nothing that the two of you should know," she said, licking the spatula with a mysterious look in her eyes. Oddly enough, the sight of that really turned me on. "Are you guys watching Tom and Jerry? Oh my God, that was my childhood!" she then said, seating herself between me and Jordan.

Right then, Emily came back. "What are you guys doing?"

"We're watching Tom and Jerry, come over here!" Tinnie said, waving her over. She moved a bit closer to me so that Emily could sit next to Jordan and her.

✦

We spent about an hour watching the cartoons and eating cookie dough, not talking much. Let's face it—we were all exhausted from the long day we had had, especially me and Jordan, having performed a concert in front of thousands of young screaming girls.

Tinnie was asleep on my shoulder, and both Jordan and Emily had dozed off with each other. I picked up a blanket from the opposite sofa and covered the three of them with it, ready to head for the bathroom to brush my teeth.

"Joe?" I heard Tinnie's soft voice speak to me. I turned around and looked at her. "Are you going to sleep?"

"Yeah, are you coming with me?" I asked. Since Emily and Jordan had already fallen asleep on the sofa, it meant that me and Tinnie could sleep in the big bedroom at the back of the bus and not have to sleep in the tiny bunk beds which none of us really liked.

Tinnie nodded slowly to answer my question, her eyes half-closed as she got up from the sofa. I opened up my arms and she walked into my embrace. I then kissed her forehead and grabbed her hand, making sure she wouldn't hit her head anywhere because she was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. It was sweet.

"I love you, Joe," she said to me as she laid down on the bed and covered herself with a blanket.

"You know I love you too. So much."