I smiled lazily at Nino, my shoulders slumped from the joint we had just shared. She laughed uncontrollably, her eyes beet red, as she placed down another playing card, beating me for the fourth time in a row.
"Gotcha!" Nino laughed and put out her cigarette butt, "Man, Pierce The Veil are on tour, I want to see them so badly," she whined, scrolling through their band twitter.
"When's the next gig?" I questioned, stuffing the cards back into their package and pulling out a cigarette from the pack Nino and I were sharing.
"A couple of weeks, they'll be around but it's a fair drive from the area we're touring right now," Nino answered, glancing up at me from her phone.
I shrug as I open up my own phone, scanning over the calendar I made of what we have to do.
"Dude, I'm thinking about buying a backstage pass, I want to see Tony," Nino emphasized, grinning at me as I remembered her massive crush on the older man.
"How much is the backstage pass? We could all try to contribute some cash so you can buy it," I offer, scooting myself near her so I could look at the tickets online with her.
"I think around $67 or something, sounds fair to me. I'm sure I have some money sitting around in my bank account," Nino shrugged, frowning. She turned off her phone and learned back against the side of the couch as we were sitting on the floor.
This tour was small, only five shows. Our second one was later tonight, and as soon as we finished this tour, we would have to look for a place to start creating music. I knew it was stressing Nino out the most as she worried about the quality and progression of our band.
After a few moments of silence between the both of us, I began, "We could make that happen, 67 bucks isn't too bad," I leaned back, alongside Nino.
"Hey, Gabi?" she muttered.
I snapped my head towards her, nodding once to urge her to ask her question.
"Shouldn't we start new music?" she asked me, worry evident on her face.
I had already had some ideas about finding a place to create our first original works, and Nino constantly reminded me.
"You have lyrics written, yeah?" I open my calendar on my phone as I open an empty log, writing in a random date for the next two weeks as I label it 'record studio'.
"Well, I do have a bunch of stuff somewhere, in my folders. It's humiliating though," she admitted, frowning while reaching for another cigarette.
"I doubt it's humiliating, we could make it work somehow," I assured, smashing the butt of my cigarette into the small ashtray sat atop the coffee table. I leaned back and folded my arms behind my head as I watched Nino light her fresh cigarette, exhaling a large puff of smoke.
"Is it about Zem?" I ask cautiously, not wanting to provoke her.
She nodded wordlessly, hinting that she didn't want to touch upon the sensitive topic.
I dropped it as began to twirl a piece of hair between my two fingers, listening to Nino puff her cigarette lightly.
"I just think we really need to improve our band, Gabi. I didn't go to college for this band!" she said sternly, her cheeks lighting up in slight anger.
She continued to ramble, "We need to look for better studios, better producers, better equipment," she stopped for a moment, taking a hit of her cigarette, "I don't wanna be stuck touring in small local venues around our home town. Warped Tour finally started up again, it could be our chance to try to get out there as a smaller band!" she commented, making wild gestures with her hands.
