All I Know | Bojan Cvjetićanin

21. There Was Never Gonna Be A Perfect Time

Eva's POV

After Bojan showed me what the boys were planning to wear I quickly headed outside. I sort of expected the boys to still be waiting for us outside, but they (rightfully) assumed we'd be taking more than a minute and had scattered amongst the crew members. It didn't take long until we spotted Sophia, who was conveniently talking with a sound engineer. Bojan explained to the sound engineer that I would be joining the band on stage, and I quickly pulled Sophia apart. "Could you do me a huge favour and head into town for me to find me a top for tonight? Nothing too bright or shimmery. Not white, it'll cause disasters with the light. Maybe something mesh or lace with something underneath? Just buy a few options."

Thankfully Sophia agreed and took one of the vans to head into the Maribor city center. The hours leading up to the concert were spent going over and over and over the basslines of all the songs in the setlist ...and over the backing vocals. I tried to argue that I didn't know any Slovene and that I'd fuck up the pronounciation of all words. But Kris was helpful enough to spend more than two hours with me going over everything.

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It was a little past nine when the five of us were getting ready to go on stage. Sophia had picked out a few gorgeous tops and I ended up wearing a black lace body with my own black flared jeans. She even helped with my hair and makeup. If she wasn't already an amazing photographer, she'd be a damn good hair and makeup artist.

"Let's do this guys. For Nace." Bojan finished off his short pep talk. "SSF!" All of us chanted in sync. Earlier today I tried to bribe Kris to tell me the meaning behind the abbreviation now that I was joining them on stage, to which he cheekily replied I had to be on stage at least five times before he could tell me.

The screams of the crowd were deafening. The nerves were taking over my body rather quickly. I tried to focus on breathing. In.... Hold.... Out.... In.... Hold.... Out.... Making eye contact with the guys helped. I don't know if they could see just how nervous I was, but their encouraging smiles told me they definitely knew I wasn't completely comfortable. It was too late to back out now. Everyone was counting on me. And fuck. That was exactly the thought I shouldn't be having right now. My breathing started to get heavy and more and more difficult. This was all a mistake. A huge mistake. I should've never agreed to this. Why did I think I was able to do this?

Bojan walked up to me and gently squeezed my shoulder. "Just have fun. Zero pressure." He whispered. I could feel the tension slowly leave my body. I felt grounded again, I felt safe. I was still nervous, but it no longer felt like it wasn't something that I couldn't overcome. I looked up at Bojan and smiled, resting my fingers on top of his to let him know I appreciated his small gesture. 

Jan, Jure and Kris were the first to head out, closely followed by Bojan. "Hvala Maribor!" I heard Bojan's voice through the sound system. "Thank you everyone for coming out here. As you know, Nace unfortunately cannot join us today. Thankfully, a close friend of ours is willing to join us for one night only. She's an incredible musician. Please give a round of applause to Eva Young!" Bojan said as I jogged on stage while the crowd cheered. I showed them a quick wave before looking at Bojan and making a gesture to speed things up. My heart was still pounding in my chest and I hoped the nerves would just disappear when we started making music. Just have fun... Bojan's words sounded so easy, then why wasn't it that easy?

Once we started playing Katrina I started to feel a little more at ease, although my adrenaline levels were still through the roof. Even during the second song, Ne Bi Smel, I felt out of place. I didn't move from my place.  Even with mainly Kris and Bojan running around and dancing on stage. All I could focus on was the music and continuing to breathe. Thankfully no one seemed to notice as I needed to be in front of the microphone for the backing vocals. Jan and Kris tried to get me to loosen up by interacting with me, but right now I couldn't let myself be distracted. I needed to focus on playing, on breathing, if not I would end up making a fool out of myself. 

By the time we got to the third song, Plastika, their efforts slowly started to work. I no longer felt out of place, and looking at the crowd no longer gave me the feeling of passing out, but rather their energy only seemed to boost mine.

The rest of the concert went by on a whim. I jumped, I danced, I sang, at one point I had both Kris and Bojan on their knees in front of me, the latter causing some very umazane misli ...speaking of, after Bojan let a few girls in the crowd sing the chorus of the song, he held of the microphone to me. I popped out one of my in-ears before making eye contact with Bojan and singing the chorus. I tried to pronounce the words as well as I could to do the song justice, and from what I could tell from Bojan's expression it was going pretty okay. There was definitely some tension between the two of us there for the duration of the chorus, and it probably wasn't that hard for the crowd to notice it either. Once I finished we sped up the song again and Bojan finished singing the rest of the song flawlessly, just like he always did. And fuck, hearing my voice through the venue speakers felt way better than I remember it did.

Novi Val was the first time when I could take it all in. After giving the bass guitar to one of the crew members and taking a sip of water I sat down on the edge of the stage next to Jan. The capacity wasn't huge, my former management would've snapped my neck if I considered doing a gig in front of only four thousand people. But today, it was just what I needed. They all sang so loud I could barely tell the difference between them and a crowd five times its size. And let's be real, I never would've had the guts to step on stage in front of a crowd of twenty thousand people. Upon seeing a sign with Nace's name, a heart, and some words in Slovene I was quick to hop off the stage and approach the girl holding the sign, who handed it to me after I promised to hand it to the band's real bassist.

After playing Carpe Diem the five of us did one final wave to the crowd before we headed off stage. I almost instantly felt Bojan's arms around me, and not much later Jan's, Jure's and Kris' as well. "You fucking smashed it, Eva." Bojan almost shouted out of excitement.

I could only nod in return. On stage, I was fueled only by adrenaline. Now that all that was gone, I could barely remain standing on my own legs. All of the feelings I should've had on stage were all rushing through me at once. The nerves, the excitement, the anxiety, the breaking away with my past in a sense. "Thank you." I managed to whisper quietly as I felt tears welling up in my eyes. When the boys stepped away and I made eye contact with Bojan I couldn't stop the tears that escaped my eyes.

Bojan quickly embraced me in his arms again and held me close to his body. "Hey..." Bojan murmured as he rubbed my back. "You did amazing. I'm so fucking proud of you." He continued as I nuzzled my head in his neck. "You don't regret it do you?" I was pretty sure I could hear the worry in his voice.

I shook my head and bit my lip before l stepped back, wiped my eyes and looked at Bojan. "No, no." I muttered quickly. "Not at all. I just never thought I'd be strong enough to do this."

"Of course you are." Bojan whispered softly as he brushed another tear away with his thumb. "I never doubted that for a second. You're one of the strongest people I know. I love you."

After a brief moment of insanity where I was frozen to the ground I couldn't stop myself from giggling. "I love you too, Bojan. More than I ever thought possible." Once again I wiped my cheeks to get rid off the last few tears that now thankfully had stopped falling. It wasn't even a question if I was going to say it back. It simply felt like the most natural thing to do. Like I had known all along that I was in love with him. "You couldn't wait to tell me that until I stopped ugly crying?" I laughed and playfully pushed against his chest before wrapping my arms around his neck.

"There was never gonna be a perfect time." With the two of us... probably not. Things have been rocky from the start, but started to feel solid as a rock now too. I laughed as we headed back to the dressing room where music was already blasting. 

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A/N

Thank you all for reading [once again ;)] and all the love you've shown towards this little concept of mine. 
It was such an important moment for me to have Eva overcome her fear. 
There's one more chapter lined up after this one, and after that I'll probably write the epilogue, which might be split in various parts because I cannot let these two go.