Transitions

What's The Catch?

I giggled at how nervous this girl was. We looked at our menus attempting to make a decision. I ended up ordering a grilled chicken sandwich with French fries and an orange soda to drink. Michael had to, of course, order pizza. Ashton found a mac and cheese-burger. It was a burger, filled with mac and cheese, and covered in mac and cheese as well. It sounded really good, but more like a heart attack on a bun. Mackenzie being the child she is, decided to get chicken nuggets with a mixed fruit and veggie snack tray. We placed our orders with the waitress and sat around to wait for our food. We were giggling and overall having a great time. After eating, the time was getting close to having to be back at our gate to continue the last leg of our journey. As we were walking back to our gate, Michael stopped dead in his tracks to greet someone who was walking towards him.

"Hey man! How is it going? We haven't seen you in ages." He shouted at the blonde haired boy who was being followed by 7 other boys around the same age.

I looked at Mackenzie in question to see if she knew what was going on. I looked up and thought about the faces of each boy, and then it dawned on me. It was The Vamps, and their opening set The Tide. I've seen their videos on YouTube and they were certainly impressive. The Vamps did a song with Demi Lovato which gave them many more brownie points from me. The Tide was up and coming, they did mostly covers, but their voices meshed really well together and I remembered the face of one of them from the X-Factor in 2012 when I auditioned and made it through to boot camp. The one I recognized from the X-Factor, (which I'm still forever grateful for Abbi pulling strings to allow me to audition) was tall, with dark blonde hair.

"Hey! Riley! It's been about 4 years. You've grown!" the blonde boy shouted.

I blushed, "Hi Austin. Congratulations on making it into the music industry! I'm so proud of you guys!"

We talked for a few minutes and reminisced about our X-Factor days. When I auditioned in 2012, he was 16 and I was 13. Neither of us made it very far, but we had a great time. It turns out they were on our flight as well and had seats near us in first class. Since it was now around 10PM, we were all tired from flying all day. This upcoming flight was a 15 hour flight. Whether it will be quiet enough to sleep, I have no idea. We stood in line to prepare to board. It was now pitch black outside and all you could see were the lights and all the reflective tape from the vests of the ground workers. They called for boarding of first class and we went one by one down the jet way and handed our tickets to the crew members. There was a woman standing at the end of the walkway greeting every first class passenger.

"Good evening Ms. Conway. We're happy to have you aboard. At your seat you will find a brochure of information about food, drinks, movies and all other amenities we have to offer."

She directed me to my seat, and did the same with each passenger that came on. The 12 of us filled the first class section on our own. We all had our own little cubbies with a TV screen, a power outlet for our phones, and a shelf for our belongings. I sat down in my spot and picked up the booklet. I glanced over it, looking to see that they had coke products to drink, and lots of options for snacks. The one thing I wasn't prepared for was the time zone changes. Sydney was 14 hours ahead of Connecticut. The boys and my sister filed in one by one taking their seats and making themselves comfortable. There was a curtain dividing us from the economy class, which was interesting. I wasn't sure if I liked being in first class. The accommodations were nice, but who in their right mind wants to spend this much money for a plane ride. Once we got up in the air and got settled, we all sat around and played a game. One of the games I had in my backpack was called 'The Game of Things'. It was a silly card game like Cards of Humanity. We played that for about 2 hours until we decided it was time to attempt to sleep a little. The seats here are practically flush together besides the arm rest in the middle that can be moved up. I rolled up my sweatshirt and put it under my head as a pillow, and pulled my blanket up to attempt to fall asleep. I felt myself drift into a deep sleep, but was woken up by Michael nudging me.

"Hey, good morning, you've been asleep for 8 hours. I want you to stay up for a little while longer since we're getting ready to transition into another time zone. Jet lag is going to kick in soon. Come sit with me."

I opened my eyes and smiled at the blue haired boy in front of me. The Vamps and the Tide boys were still sound asleep, whereas Mackenzie, Mikey and Ashton along with myself were awake.

"When do we start school?" Mackenzie asked Ashton.

He pondered on the thought for a minute, "The schools are on summer holiday right now, so you probably won't go back until February, which gives you time to adjust to your surroundings. After New Year's, we will stop in and get you guys registered for classes. Don't worry about school yet. Let's enjoy the holidays first. My sister is so excited to meet you."

The other boys started to wake up one by one as a flight attendant came around and offered coffee and breakfast. I picked up the menu that was left on my tray table to look at the options for breakfast. The options were simple, oatmeal with berries, a breakfast sandwich, or pancakes with sausage links. I ordered pancakes, a bowl of fruit, and a coffee. The boys got the same as me since we were full of munchies from the night before. When the flight attendant brought over our meal, these were not ordinary frozen pancakes that you throw in the microwave; they were real pancakes that were fresh off the griddle. We ate our food in silence and enjoyed each other's company. After breakfast was done, I asked the flight attendant how much longer was left on the flight. She informed me that there was still 3 and a half hours left until we landed in Sydney. We were still over the Pacific Ocean. I got up and went to go sit with Austin and his band for a little while. Austin got up and went to sit on Levi's lap so I could have his seat.

"Hey guys. This is Riley. She was on the X-Factor with me a few years ago. Riley, this is Levi, Nate and Drew."

I smiled at the 3 boys and laughed as Levi proceeded to bounce his leg up and down making Austin fall off. I asked Michael to hand me my video camera from my bag so I could film the little misadventures we were having.

"So I'm here with the boys from a new upcoming band called The Tide. They are touring with the wonderful, the only, THE VAMPS! Say hi guys!"

The boys looked at my camera making crazy faces and inappropriate gestures. I set my camera down on the ledge as Nate started to tap the beat of their newest song Young Love on the tray table. We sang a couple verses of the song and had a pretty good time. I turned off my camera and stuffed it back in my bag and went to go switch seats with Austin and Levi so I could go talk to Nate for a minute. He seemed like the shyer one of the bunch.

"Hey. I've seen your videos on YouTube. You're a great singer. We're doing a few private gigs around Sydney next week, and there's a headline tour after Christmas, if you maybe want to come and sing with us, and of course if it's okay with the other boys." he asked.

I smiled, "Yeah! That would be fun. What's the catch though?"

Austin and the other boys started laughing, "The only catch is that you go on a date with little baby Nate."

My eyes widened in disbelief, but I had to fake a laugh. This was going to get really weird, really fast. Sure, Nate was cute and Michael and I haven't officially established anything yet but I had no idea what the hell was going on. I needed to wait until we landed in Sydney. I knew from my Skype session with Luke one day when the boys were filling out paperwork, that he would be the best to talk to. I pulled out my phone and logged into the Wi-Fi. Opening iMessage, I noticed I had a text from Luke.

Hope your flight is going well. Cal and I can't wait to see you guys. We're on our way to the airport now. xx