All I Wanted: A Joshayley Fanfic

Chapter 1 - Gotta Let It Happen

*HAYLEY'S POV*

"Can't count the years on one hand that we've been together, I need the other one to hold you, make you feel, make you feel better."

The first line of our new single, Still Into You, belted out from my car's tinny stereo, followed by a crunchy guitar riff that sent the tiny toy soldiers and miniature zombie figurines tacked to the dashboard into a frenzied wobble. I smiled. The song hadn't been out too long yet - the unexpected experience of hearing it on Nashville's local radio station was as yet a novelty to me.

"I should be over all the butterflies, but I'm into you."

Hearing my own voice thumping from the speakers sent a wave of butterflies fluttering in my stomach, not unlike the ones mentioned in the lyrics of the chorus. I tapped the edge of the steering wheel with my forefinger in time with the beat as I looked out the windscreen onto the road, baking in the unseasonal heat wave until it gleamed with melted asphalt. I had the windows rolled down, and my freshly dyed pink-and-orange shock of hair blew wildly in the wind as I zoomed down Nashville's main freeway.

Our self-titled album - all seventeen tracks of it! - was out in just a few days. I didn't quite know how to feel. Anticipation? Nervousness? Excitement? It was all those things. The events of the next week, I knew, would determine whether the last year of hard work in the studio was worth it. I had every confidence that Taylor, Jeremy and I had succeeded in producing our best material yet - but would the rest of the world? We would be judged more intensely than we had been ever before - music critics would, undoubtedly, be eager to suggest that Paramore's first album without the Farro brothers proved they couldn't cope without them.

We could. We had. I told myself this every day.

We had managed to salvage something from the split with Josh and Zac three years ago; a few months after, Taylor and Zac and had met up and made peace with each other. Taylor told me it was still awkward between them sometimes - nothing would be the same as it was before. I'd seen Zac a few times since - we'd exchanged small talk and smiled uncomfortably - but it was still wonderful to have some of our old friend back. Taylor had even included him on his section of the new album's list of 'thank-you's.

Zac was happy, involved with a solo project called Half Noise and Josh's new band, Novel American. Seeing Zac that content - no tension or worry in his demeanour, as I had remembered him - made me feel a whole lot better. There was still no word from Josh, though, and I didn't think that was something that was going to change any time soon.

Shaking those thoughts from my head, I looked down at the car door on my right and smiled as I saw the note my sister, Erica, had penned on there during her rebellious phase when she was thirteen; along with all the other graffiti and Sharpie smudges there was the message: 'Your the best fugking sister!' I laughed silently at the grammar mistake and how she'd thought she could get away with it if she didn't actually write the word properly. 'It's got a 'G' in it, so I'm not actually swearing!', she'd giggled.

Thinking of my sisters reminded me of my destination. There was a long row of traffic on the opposite carriageway; on the rear view mirror I could see the flashing lights of a police car and a siren was wailing some way away. There seemed to be a commotion up ahead, and I could see some plumes of smoke rising into the air, but it disappeared into the distance as I took a left off the highway.

I was headed to Mom's house; we'd just returned from playing several promotional shows further south prior to the album's issue. Being in Tennessee again was comforting; back in the band's early days when we were still very young, touring had been difficult - it felt like had everything changed so much when went came home to Franklin. It didn't make me so homesick anymore; Franklin held a sense of familiarity to me now that made the city seem perpetual, timeless. Seeing these same old streets once more - Grimey's music store where I bought my first records; the corn-dog stall on the corner; the buskers by the mall singing country songs - made me happy, not bitter.