Memories

|9| • A Happy Thing •

Rubbing my back, Brian took a deep breath. "I like your shampoo," he mumbled.

Laughing softly, I pulled away so I could wipe my eyes. "What? Well, thank you."

"Are you crying?" He asked, gently rubbing my arm.

"No, I mean.. kind of." Chuckling, I shrugged. "You know me, it doesn't take a lot for me to get like this."

"I know, I know," he told me, amused, and wrapped his arms around me again.

"It's just because this is so nice.. you know?" I hugged him again too and sighed happily.

Brian hugged me a little tighter. "It really is."

"I like your shampoo too..."

Brian laughed and rubbed my back gently with his hand, making me shiver slightly. "Thank you, thank you, that's very sweet of you." We just sat in comfortable silence, just enjoying the sun and each other's company. Until Brian pulled away slowly and looked at me with a growing smile for a moment. "What do you want to do now?"

"I don't know.. we can just stay out here a little longer? I'm sure we'll find something to talk about and I kind of want to enjoy the sun a bit more.."

Nodding, he smiled at me. "That's perfectly fine with me. I like that plan."

I lay down on the picnic blanket again and waited for him to join me. When he did, I turned my head to look at him. "So tell me what you have been up to recently. Where have you been with the band?"

"This year?"

I nodded and shrugged. "Sure."

"Well... in the US, in January, February and March, we were in all the big cities basically, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, LA... "

"You say that like it's not a big deal," I told him amazed. "LA, New York... just like that."

"Well it's not really a big deal because we get to see the airport, the concert venue, the hotel, maybe we have like an hour or two to spare, but nothing extraordinary. In LA we had four concerts in three days, and the day after we were in a different city again, so it's rushing around a lot. Well, in New York we were for three days and we had two days off before and two days off after, but still, it's nothing like being a tourist in those cities. It's work. It's fun, but stressful."

"That does sound crazy, yeah. Four concerts in three days? How does that even work?" I looked at him, genuinely wondering that.

"On the first day we had an afternoon and an evening show.."

"That's insane, honestly. How do you manage that?"

"The concerts are exhausting, but if they're good - which they usually are - that definitely helps to keep the motivation up. But of course, it still gets exhausting which is why we do have days off every now and then, at least once a week. To just recover," Brian explained and looked at me too.

"That's something, yeah.. still, it's impressive."

"It's my job, and I have to - and I really want to do it. Some days it can be a little hard to motivate yourself to get up, but in the end it's always worth it, and I'm always excited to go out and play for our audiences."

"You definitely put on a great show.. definitely. I told you you were really talented all the time, didn't I?" I looked at him and smiled. I knew he remembered that I always used to tell him to fight for his dream because he had talent, just like the other three. Which was exactly why they were where they were now.

Brian smiled and nodded. "Yes, you did..."

"So where else did you go? Just the States?"

Brian shook his head. "No, after San Diego - the last gig in the States - we had a bit more than a week off and then we played ... uhm.. well, a few gigs in Japan."