The Loud Crowd

9. Girlfriend in a Coma

I know I've been gone ages. So sorry. I'll explain after the chapter? Love you all, mwah

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The next three shows were as exhilerating and crazy as the first, with the result that I was becoming increasingly acclimatised to the rushed panic of backstage and the exhausted yet adrenaline-pumped feeling of returning to the van with the guys. 

The night of the fourth show was different. It was the first night we were thrown an after-party.

We were playng Ohio, and the crowd was absolutely wild. We were explosive, we were lightning, we were on fire. Nate's voice thundered throughout the arena with an animalistic rip and I joined in with just as much power and  volume. Freddie and Chris were completely insane with riffs dropping from Freddie's guitar like spits of fire and the larger-than-life beats from Chris' kit magnified to one hundred percent.

Every night, the crowd seemed bigger, louder, even crazier than the last. They were singing our songs, they waved banners and home-made signs. They wore Kick the Crown t-shirts emblazoned with a crown similar to the one inked on my ribs.

After the show in Ohio, we stood backstage in silence. We were all reeling from the set, from the feeling of performing on such a huge scale. Nate and I were still panting from the ferocity with which we'd belted out Ziggy Stardust. 

Then Freddie said: "We should throw a party."

I grinned. "What, at the hotel? Tonight?"

"Hell yeah," He replied, seriously. "Right now. I mean, what else are we gonna do? Go to sleep?"

Chris threw a drumstick in the air, watched it spin, then caught it deftly with his left hand. "Fred, I like the way you think."

I glanced at Nate. He was rolling his eyes, but there was a smirk slipping across his mouth. The smirk that meant something was going to happen, that this wasn't a night to be missed. I knew it meant all this because I was smirking the same way. 

With barely a 'goodbye' to all the stagehands and Emily, the trendy if reserved concert manager we'd been introduced to a few nights before, we raced from the cramped backstage alley to our dressing rooms. 

We split off to our individual rooms. Inside mine, I grabbed my backpack an crammed in the shorts and Kinks t-shirt I'd been wearing before Jesy had gotten her hands on me, along with my iPod and Nate's red shirt. Slinging it on my shoulders, I shut the door behind me and knocked on the door opposite.

Nate opened and grinned, before throwing his arm across my shoulders. "Ready?"

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When we got to the hotel, we saw that Freddie and Chris had beat us to it. There was music blaring from the windows of the whole top floor - which had been all for us, since we were making such a huge profit on ticket sales. To be honest, I kinda preferred sleeping on the bus.

Inside the reception was almost empty, seeing as it was three A.M. The sleepy receptionist managed a tired bat of her eyelids in Nate's direction, and I flipped her off behind his back as we made our way past her and into the elevator. 

Once inside, Nate grabbed my waist and pressed me into the wall. I wrapped my legs around his waist, gripping the hair at the back of his neck. The doors slid shut with a ding! and that was all we needed. His lips slammed into mine almost painfully, his hand gripping the top of my thighs. I pulled him even closer, wrapping my arms around him until I couldn't tell where I ended and he began, and all the while he kissed me harder and harder, as though this was our last chance. He kissed down my neck and I sighed, twining my fingers through his dark hair.