Lights, Camera, Action

Pop Con

TWENTY-FOUR - POP CON

Mark's POV

June 25th arrived quickly, and before I knew it, it was time to head to Indiana for my first time at Indy Pop Con. I guess it somewhat snuck up on me, because I still had a couple videos left to record and some packing to do. Alyssa, on the other hand, had been prepared since the night before. She showed up at my place in the morning with her bags already packed and ready to go.

"You do realize that we're leaving tonight, right?" she questioned me when she saw my empty suitcase sitting on my bed.

"It doesn't take me very long to pack," I answered. "However, if you're that concerned that we won't make our flight in time, you could always pack for me while I record videos."

"Me, picking out what you get to bring to wear? That's tempting, but I'm sure you'll have time to do it yourself," she laughed.

It was a busy day of recording, editing, and eventually packing, and once it was dark outside, Alyssa and I made our way to the airport. After a bit of waiting around, we were able to board and we were on our way to Indianapolis. About halfway through the flight, I felt Alyssa's head hit my shoulder and I knew she was asleep. She wasn't exactly a fan of the late flight that I had booked.

"Hey, Lys," I spoke softly when we were about to land. "Lys?"

"Hm?" she muttered sleepily. She slowly opened her eyes and picked her head up.

"We're landing now," I explained. It took her a moment to fully wake up and realize what was going on, but by the time she did, we had to get up and get off the plane. She had tired eyes and she was moving slowly, so I knew she wasn't going to stay up for much longer. Sure enough, when we made it to our hotel, all she wanted to do was sleep. It was about 2 am Indianapolis time, so I couldn't blame her. We changed into our pajamas, got into bed, and passed out almost immediately.

************************************

We woke up to an alarm in the morning and I felt refreshed after a good night's sleep. Alyssa, on the other hand, was not a morning person and needed some convincing to get out of bed.

"Come on, Lys. You've gotta get up!" I told her.

"I'm not ready to get up yet," she mumbled into her pillow.

"If you get up and get ready we can get breakfast with Jack," I suggested.

"Fine, I'll get up!" she decided, sitting up rather quickly. I knew that would get her out of bed - she was excited to meet him.

We met up with Bob, Mandy, Wade, Molly, Tyler, and Jack at a local restaurant and I couldn't help but laugh at Alyssa when I introduced her to Jack.

"It's nice to meet you finally," Jack said, holding his hand out.

"It's really cool to meet you too," she answered quickly, shaking his hand. "I love your videos," she added, a huge smile on her face. She was definitely a Jackaboy fangirl. Her and Jack talked a lot throughout breakfast, and when we headed to the convention center to start meeting fans and doing autographs, I couldn't help but make fun of her for it.

"Ya know, you forgot to ask him for an autograph. And didn't you want a picture with him?" I joked.

"Oh, shut up, Mark! I was just as awkward when I met you, but you didn't make fun of me for that!"

"Yeah, because I was also awkward. It wouldn't have been very fair of me," I reminded her.

When we got to our set up at the convention center, it wasn't long before fans started arriving. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect - this was a smaller convention than previous ones I had attended, and Friday was supposed to be the least populated day. However, it sure didn't seem that way. The line stayed extremely long all day, and we didn't get as many breaks as we would have hoped for. We met fans and signed things for close to eight hours. Although it was tiring, it was also a lot of fun. It was always cool to see how excited people were to meet us. So many people seemed so nervous, which was always crazy to me. How could someone be nervous to meet regular guys like us? But I tried to make them feel as comfortable as possible, and the smiling faces made me feel great. I was happy to make someone's day, and a lot of people told me that I had.