Cigarettes [Bennoda] ✔

Chapter 10

Mike's POV
A couple months after I came out, that still feels so fucking weird to say, I released some new tour dates. The album was doing extremely well and my managers wanted to get me back on the road as quick as they could. I was pretty happy because Arizona was on the list. I prayed that Chester would be there. I needed to see him again.

The only thing that I wasn't looking forward to was the size of the venues that I'd be playing. I had gotten so used to playing little venues that held only a few thousand people, and now I was going from that to playing venues that held almost 20 thousand people.

I hoped that I could get myself together and not be nervous when I played the shows.

Chester's POV
I forced Ryan to find a job with me that afternoon of the day that he told me Mike was coming back to Arizona. He didn't want to find a job, but I told him to at least come and look with me. He needed to get a job anyway because he was almost eighteen and needed to start saving up for whatever the hell he was going to do after high school.

We went to a few restaurants to apply, but they weren't hiring. We eventually made our way to the music store that we always shopped at. They were hiring and gave us a job right then because they had only had the one worker which was the guy who owned the place.

Ryan got a job as the cashier and I got a job putting away and organizing records and CDs and greeting and helping people.

Working there was great. We got along with the boss and the customers that came in. Also I knew a lot about a lot of the records there and could easily help them pick something out that they might like. Ryan did well as the cashier because he was funny, good at math, and was good at convincing people to buy a magazine or something extra that they didn't necessarily need.

A few weeks later the school year ended and we both, along with Amir, surprisingly got up our grades and passed all of our classes. All three of us worked everyday during the summer. I had convinced my boss to give Amir a job so we were all working together.

Within just a few months of working there, I already had more than enough to buy a ticket to Mike's show in December. I was so excited.

The new school year started a couple months later. We were all finally seniors.

We had started making our own music together which was fun. It took some of our money of course, to buy instruments, but we were still working and had enough for tickets.

One evening, when I was about to go out and meet up with Ryan and Amir at Ryan's house to buy our tickets for the show, which was only a month away at that point, I heard my mother crying in the kitchen. I stepped back into the house and shut the door back.

I walked into the kitchen and the table was littered with bills like it always was, but this time my mom had her head in her hands crying instead of silently signing envelopes and putting money in.

My dad was sitting beside her rubbing her back and whispering that it was going to be okay to her.

I stepped further in making a floor board creak. My mom looked up and quickly tried to dry the tears off of her face. My heart broke.

I went in and sat in the chair on the otherside her.

"What's the matter?" I whispered as I looked at her and the bills with concerned eyes. Part of me already knew what was wrong, but I prayed it was something else.

"Nothing Ches. You go meet Ryan and Amir. Don't worry about it. It's okay." She said. "No. Tell me what's wrong." I said. She broke down again.

"We don't have enough money to pay for this month's bills." My dad said quietly as he continued to comfort my mom. "Oh." I said when he told me what I was already expecting.