My New Obsession [BxB]

Chapter Twenty-One- Tomorrow We'll Do It Again [Part Two]

Not many other hotel guests were frequenting the cafe today, and I wondered if many people were staying here at all. It wasn’t during the holidays, and this place really was kind of a dump… The dining hall was decorated in bland colours, apart from the carpet which was the same awful red and orange carpet that was in the lobby as well. It gave me an even worse headache just looking at it…

 Old photographs were hung on the walls and I wondered if they were people who had something to do with the hotel or if they were just random pictures that had been hung in a failing attempt to class the place up a bit more. Another sign of attempt at this was that there was a single yellow flower in a small white vase on every table. I removed the flower from the vase and stuck it in Jake’s hair. He glared at me and I chuckled quietly, well amused.

 “David!”

 This voice I didn’t recognise, and when I turned my attention to the doorway again I didn’t recognise the person either. Apparently he knew David, however, as they both laughed and embraced and started talking in great booming voices that made me want to punch something.

 Behind them, however, more people were entering the room. They definitely caught my attention. All of them were wearing all black and sunglasses, with pale skin, skinny but muscular frames and dark hair. They seemed to command attention just by standing there, the four of them appearing to be like some sort of gang.

 I was star-struck.

 “Boys, you listen to London Hell, right?” David asked us.

 I didn’t know how to reply. I wanted to reply, but I couldn’t. London Hell was one of our collective favourite bands. Their genre span included alternative, classic and punk rock, and they were awesome. A somewhat local band, they hadn’t achieved total popularity yet although their fanbase seemed to swell by the day…

 “Hey, guys.” David’s friend spoke to us. “I’m Jerry, the band manager for London Hell. David asked me to join my guys here so I could meet you. He’s played me some of your stuff, by the way, I hope you don’t mind. I have to say, for a debut album you guys sound pretty solid…”

 I wasn’t listening to a word he was saying because London Hell were literally a few metres away from me…

 The band members strode forward and surrounded us. A couple of years older, they seemed somewhat intimidating. The one nearest to me lifted his sunglasses and placed them on top of his head, holding back his fringe. I was going to throw up or faint or something-

 “We’re totally stoked to meet you at last!” he said to us all. “Jerry won’t quit talking about you guys and David. I’m Jethro, by the way. Jethro Dixon.”

 “We know,” Jake laughed. “you’re like… famous.”

 “Not really…” Jethro said, looking embarrassed. He shuffled his feet uneasily and I still couldn’t think of anything to say.

 Their drummer, Harry, pulled up a chair and started chatting away brightly with Bryan. The others followed his lead, but introduced themselves to us like they weren’t in all of our favourite magazines and we didn’t own both of their albums. They seemed really… normal, like guys we had just met in a pub.

 “I’m Lucas. It’s awesome to meet you all.” the bassist said. He smiled at all of us.

 “And I’m Tony.” the guitarist said. “That’s Harry. He’ll introduce himself when he’s stopped bothering your drummer about trading techniques…”

 Whilst I remained, silent the conversation started to flow. They seemed to be just four guys the same as any other, and it definitely relaxed me a little to know that there would at least be some cool people on this tour. I had been worried that we were going to be treated as the underdogs, the bottom of the chain, but these guys actually seemed to be quite into us. All of them told us that they were excited to get a copy of our new album, and it just felt really surreal.

 Soon David and Jerry and Eddie wandered off and we were left to ourselves to do whatever we wanted until we needed to leave. We asked the guys some questions about touring; none of us had done anything like this before.

 “Just make sure you don’t take any shit from anyone, or you’re gonna have a fucking awful time.” Lucas stated.

 “Yeah, one of our first tours was supporting Forty 101-”

 “You toured with them? No way!” George exclaimed.

 “You think that’d be awesome, but no.” Harry informed us. “Everyone in that band is a fucking asshole. None of them even speak to each other, let alone anyone else. They really treated us like shit, and we were really miserable.”

 “So you’re, what, starting recording on your third album soon?” George asked.

 “We’ve actually got a few demos recorded if you guys wanna have a listen-”

 “That’d be awesome!” I gasped. Jethro turned to me.

 “Finally. I thought you’d never speak.”

 I felt myself blush and a strong sense of self-loathing instantly washed over me. Jethro smiled and I smiled back awkwardly.

 There wasn’t really a lot to do besides talk, but soon we had to leave to get to the venue. Getting into the van didn’t seem quite so daunting now that we had friends on tour, but I still felt a jolt in my stomach with every metre that we crawled closer to the festival…