Tom DeLonge's Intern

Chapter 31: Pizza and a Documentary

"This Modlife thing is bullshit," Tom angrily remarked as he furiously clicked the mouse attached to the desktop computer.

I guess there were still a few bugs to work out. The site had launched a couple of days ago and it was flooded with people signing up for it, which caused it to crash on occasion. Tom was trying to create his own account under the username "cosmicmessiah," a name he came up with on his own. I suppose I didn't expect anything less from him at this point. He did have an entire shelf at home filled with books about space. And he went through a brief spell where he thought that he was the second coming of Christ while recording We Don't Need to Whisper. He thought he could walk on water. In that respect, I guess the 'messiah' part fit him, too.

I chuckled lightly, causing him to glare at me, so I covered my mouth with my hand so he didn't see me laughing at his frustration.

"Is my pain funny to you?" He asked, cracking a smirk of his own.

"No, no. I was just thinking of a joke. More specifically, this joke of a website."

"For fucks sake." Tom said, shoving the mouse out of the way, "that's beginning to be truer every day." He agreed with me, leaning back in the computer chair and heaving his feet onto his desk. He adjusted his flat brimmed hat that was backwards before looking at me and smiling. "What are you even doing in here? Don't you get paid to perform a task? Or do you get paid to sit in my office and make fun of my technological struggles?"

"Either or, if you wanted me to."

"You could get paid for something else." He teased, gesturing towards his crotch.

"Alright. I'm gonna go back to my office. I'll see you later tonight at your place for dinner and a movie." I smacked his foot and turned to walk out of the room.

"Oh come on, I'm just kidding! I love you." Tom cooed after me, but I just shook my head and muttered under my breath as I opened the door.

"I love you too, you fucking idiot."

A smile grew on his face as he went back to focus on whatever he was doing on the Macbeth site, and I went back to my office space, eyeing the stack of papers on my desk and sighing.

Tour was starting in a couple of days to promote the band's new record I-Empire, which was set to be released in November of 2007. Tom had been busy with the company, recording and trying to have a life outside of music. But most of that time was spent with either me or the other members of Angels and Airwaves, so I guess he didn't have much of one. Tom's sister Kari was coming to stay at Tom's place to take care of Grey while Tom was away for a couple of months. I was going to be stuck in the Macbeth tent as usual, left to deal with the kids that just wanted to see Tom for five seconds of their lives, but couldn't because how busy Tom is. When, in reality he would just sit on the couch in the bus for a couple hours and watch TV or drink in order to prep for the show. Every now and then he'd come out for a couple autographs, but that was few and far between. The band had upgraded their Macbeth bus for this tour, though; it had a retractable side to the bus, as well as a spot to hang and hook up a flat screen TV, which was going to play trailers for the Start the Machine DVD they were going to release in a few months after the final edits were made. It was going to be a decently timed tour, though, so I was going to be gone for a while. At least I was getting paid.

I hopped in my car when my shift was over to drive over to my apartment. My dresser drawers were becoming emptier and emptier by the week because of how often I'd been staying over at Tom's house, though. I contemplated moving back in with him, and we had talked about it a lot. I just didn't want to have shit hit the fan once again and be stuck trying to find another place to live. But maybe things would be different this time. I hoped so, at least.