You're Not Quite Satan (Taylex)

Chapter 9

Tay's Point of View.

We finally arrived at the venue two hours before our show and I was in the dressing room reapplying my make-up when Jordan walked in. I glanced up at his reflection in the mirror as I started combing the mascara brush through my lashes.

"Hey, Jord." I greeted.

"Hey," he smiled and came to stand beside me, watching my hand as I darkened my naturally thick lashes. "You see the setlist for tonight?"

My hand stilled and I capped the brush. "Yeah," I said, giving him a strange look, "It's pretty similar to last year's, still closing with Kiss Me Again."

Jordan's jaw clenched and unclenched and I turned to face him. "Yeah, crowd favourite." he mumbled.

"Are you alright?" I asked, knowing he wasn't usually like this.

"I'm fine, just came to tell you we're on for soundcheck in five minutes." he said flatly before disappearing out the door.

"Well, alright then…" I muttered to myself and finished off my make-up before going to the stage where the crew was running around to make sure everything was set up, from my mike stand to Rob's kick pedal. I saw Cam off to the side, tuning his guitar, and went up to him. "Do you know what's going on with Jordan?" I asked quietly, concern evident in my voice and expression.

Cameron shrugged and let his guitar hang off his shoulders. "No, I didn't realize there was something up in the first place."

I bit my lip. "Maybe I'm wrong," I said and went onto the stage, going through the drills for soundcheck.

After we'd finished up, I sat around for a bit before I went over to Jordan. We had about five minutes until we had to open for All Time Low, but I couldn't go on stage when I was worrying about my best friend.

"Jordan, can we talk for a minute?" I asked, pleading with my eyes.

He stared down at me for a minute and sighed. "What is it, Tay?" he asked, impatient.

"What's wrong?" I asked, watching his expression with a hint of sadness. His face set into an emotionless mask.

"Nothing," he said and sighed when I crossed my arms, urging him to continue. "I'm hung over, can we drop it?"

Staring at him for a minute, I finally muttered a short "Fine" and trudged away to make sure my mic and everything was set up before we went on in the next two minutes. I waited side-stage hearing mixed chants of "All Time Low" and "We Are The In Crowd" erupting from the crowd. She smiled, because she knew that all though many of those fans were here to see All Time Low, a good number had also come for her own band.

I heard the stage director call out the ten-second warning and took a deep breath before running out to greet the crowd. "Hey guys, how you doing tonight?" I called into the mic, earning a chorus of cheers that spread another smile onto my face as Jordan and Cameron stood on either side of me, Rob behind a little farther back on the stage at his drums and Mike on Jordan's other side.

Glancing at the floor where the setlist was taped, I turned back to the crowd. "We're going to start off with a song called Both Sides of The Story; sing along if you know the words!" I smiled and started the intro. I couldn't help having my thoughts drift to Alex throughout the song. But I hated him, didn't I? That had to be it. I thought of him because of the hate line. As the song came to a close, I put as much emotion as I could into the final "You're not quite Satan, but I really think I hate you."

I gazed side stage just in time to see Alex standing there. That same hurt expression from before covered his features as the line filled the air around us and I felt a little bad at his reaction but shrugged it off anyway, continuing the set.