Spin Me Around

Chapter Five

The next few days felt like they were stuck on fast-forward, almost like some insane fever dream, and day one of four unfortunately started with Ellie violently shaking me to wake me up.

"Get up! Get up! Get upppppp!" She yelled in a sing-song voice, still continuously jostling me around with her hands on my shoulders. "We have a hell of a few days in front of us, so I need you to be awake and get your ass up out of bed!"

I glared at her through one half-opened eye. There was a teeny tiny part of me that hoped this was some kind of nightmare and I actually still had several hours left before Ellie was going to be gently waking me up with her gentle hands and her soft gentle voice. Unfortunately this wasn't a nightmare, and Ellie really was standing over me yelling at me to wake up and aggressively shaking me.

"Ellie," I groaned, rubbing at my face with my hands. "Go away."

"Sorry, I can't do that, baby!" She was laughing as she spoke, her eyes glinting from how funny she was finding herself in this moment. "It's time to get up!"

"I literally can't do that."

"I don't care, get up!"

I hated how funny she was finding this.

"I can't stand you."

Ellie laughed at me again but didn't respond this time. She knew I was going to argue with her for as long as I could because if she was distracted with arguing with me, then I could continue to not get out of bed.

I watched her rifle through my suitcase and pull out a few items of clothing. She settled on a pair of denim cutoffs and a cropped oversized rebel riders t-shirt and threw them at me. She didn't even bother to apologise when they hit me in the face or when I groaned, the clothes were followed by a balled up pair of socks.

"I hate you."

"No you don't," she laughed but I didn't say anything else because she was right. I didn't hate her, I couldn't hate her... I just really disliked her in this moment and she knew it.

With the annoying realisation that Ellie wouldn't be letting me continue sleeping, I forced myself to sit up and swing my legs of the side of the bed. Ellie excused herself to go back to her room to get ready and I was going to get up, get dressed and get myself ready for the day.

By the time I had pulled on my boots and finished getting ready, Ellie was back and ushering me out of the room. When we finally made it downstairs to the restaurant everyone was already there filling their plates looking happy to be there. Ellie took a seat beside Phil and immediately went into meeting-mode, pulling out her planner and a pen from her purse. I bypassed her to the only other seat left, the one at the other end of the table beside Morgan.

"Mornin' sleepyhead." He pushed the chair out for me. His voice was husky and he looked like he had also just rolled out of bed.

"Thank you," I said, yawning in my fist.

I dropped down into my seat and immediately reached for the coffee pot. If I was going to make it through Ellie's weird energy and her jam-packed schedule then I was going to need as much caffeine as humanly possible. I needed to feel the caffeine buzzing through my veins.

"Did ya sleep well?" Morgan asked, spearing his fork through some bacon and lifting it to his mouth.

"No," I grumbled.

"No?" He chuckled.

"Ellie slept in my room last night and she kicks... And then I woke up to her shaking me so hard..." I took a really long sip of my drink and then started filling my plate up before continuing. "I think she may have given me SBS."

"SBS?"

The look of humour that flashed across Morgans face as he listened to me grumbling annoyed my morning brain but I managed to croak out an answer; "Shaken baby syndrome."

Morgan laughed loudly, his voice echoing across the room and turning a few heads in our direction. I ignored them and speared my fork through a grilled cherry tomato, popping it into my mouth and chewing it slowly.

"And you're the baby?"

"I'm the baby," I confirmed.

He must have realised that I wasn't in a talking mood because we fell into silence and I continued aggressively stabbing at the food on my plate and chewing like the food had been the one to violently shake me awake that morning.

There was so much chatter going on at the table, everyone was excited for the tour to begin. They would all be insanely busy, but everyone on a tour was like a family so it was fun in the most intense way. There would be family breakfast, family lunches, family dinners, drinks at the bar after a show, more than likely a few pranks. It was an environment unlike any other. It was home away from home.

Slowly one-by-one the table emptied. Morgans band and my band were heading off to the venue to start setting up for the show so the only people left at the table was Ellie, Phil, Morgan and myself.

I could see Ellie trying to catch my attention from her seat but I kept my head down and ignored her. If she was going to wake me up early and ride me hard all day, then she could wait for me to finish my breakfast and down at least three more cups of coffee before she could get my full undivided attention.

"Alright!" Ellie finally had enough of me ignoring her and clapped her hands. I rolled my head to the side to look at her and she grinned, showing more teeth than was really necessary. "I have three radio interviews booked for you, Emme. Kix Country, TexasBase and Morgan will join you for the interview with NashvilleLive."

"We'll come back here for lunch after the interviews and then Morgan you have an acoustic set at Hybrid Records-" Phil said, trailing off.

"And Emme you will be organising your setlist for the show." Ellie clapped her hands again. "Let's go! We have a car outside waiting for us."