Since arriving at the Coffee and Beer festival, the guys and I stayed there for almost 3 hours. The festival was held under a bridge about 4-5 miles long. There were homemade coffee beans and beer competitions, a small stage for performances, and other vendors for food and drinks. There were corporation pop-ups like Tim Hortons and Starbucks and little mom-and-pop coffee shops advertising for their shops. As for the beer, it was almost the same thing. Corporate and small-town breweries.
The guys and I walked around trying everything from coffee-brewed beer to fruit-flavored coffee beans. I bought a handful of strawberry coffee beans. It tasted better than it probably sounds. We grabbed food from the vendors surrounding us and then sat for lunch. Toward the end of the bridge was a bunch of seats and tables surrounded by water. It was almost hard to find some seating since It felt like everybody came out for the festival, but luckily we found a spot right next to the water.
"I'm so excited to try this," We sat down, and Calum immediately pulled out his small container of rolled ice cream. "Never had it, but I heard it's supposed to taste better."
"How?" Michael asked while eating the same thing. They had sandwiches with their ice cream. Luke, Ashton, and I shared some pizza. "It ice cream just rolled up."
"Something psychology."
"Placebo Effect?" Ashton asked. "Because it's in a different shape, it causes the brain to taste it differently when it's the same thing."
"It IS the same thing," Michael said as he continued eating. "But onto more important measures," he placed the ice cream on the table, folded his right arm over his left, and looked at me. "Why are we here?"
I finished taking a bite out of my pizza and looked through them. I placed it on the table and thought about how I would come out with this, "oh, Uhm, I have some news to share with you guys, and you may not like it."
"Are you cheating on us with another band?" Ashton joked. "Gonna leave us with luke?"
I chuckled along with him, and everyone else then drank some of my beer, "Kinda." I said into my cup. Everyone else's laughs died down a bit one by one by my response. I wasn't cheating on them more, so explaining my horizons a tiny bit.
"Wait, what?"
I watched everyone's reactions and put my cup down. "Are you serious?" Luke asked.
I started playing with my fingers and explained everything to them, "A few months ago, the label did some testing to find our target audience so they can advertise for this tour,"
"Right, Caleb told us. That's why Five's Crown is here." Calum joined in.
So they also discovered that the fans are more fond of me since I'm the only woman in the band. So they told me that they wanted to try an experiment. I nodded my head and continued, "Right. With me. Solo."
I examined their faces to wait for a response. Nobody was talking, but they all looked at each other. "They want you to go solo?"
"They want me to do a solo album and check out fans' responses." More silence. "I need to release a single in a month and an EP by the time the tour ends in 3 months."
"Releasing an EP means going on tour," Michael pointed out. "We barely started our first one together, and you're already thinking about doing one next year without us."
"I wasn't thinking about this. It was never a plan of mine."
"Then why are you doing it?" Calum asked.
A look of disappointment fell on all of their faces, which is what I was trying to avoid. "I figured it would help us be put on the map some more. We're still newbies to this whole thing."
