Patience

Twenty

Our week in London flew by. I mean, the band played three sold out shows in a different country! How cool is that? Now, it was time for us to board the private jet again and head to Phoenix.

I sat down in one of the seats of the private jet and immediately fell asleep, my head resting on Axl's shoulder.

***

Once we arrived in Phoenix, we were escorted into our hotel. The band was not nearly this famous before we left. There was a giant crowd of people waiting to greet us as we walked into the hotel.

We were immediately escorted to our rooms and told to stay put until they could get rid of the crowd. Axl had pushed the curtains open and stared at the large crowd of screaming fans surrounding the hotel below. He beamed at them.

I walked up to the window where Axl was, and stood beside him.

"Wow," I said, looking down at everyone.

"I know. That's insane," Axl said in disbelief.

"Are you ready to handle all of that?" I asked, turning to face him.

"Oh yeah. It'll be just fine, lovely Lucy," He said to me, still admiring the crowd below.

"Since we can't really go anywhere, what are we supposed to do?" I asked, sitting down in a chair beside the bed.

"Who said we can't sneak out. I mean-," Axl walked across the room and began to rummage through one of his bags. He pulled the purple sparkly hat he had jokingly bought from that small store in London. 

I rolled my eyes. "There's no way," I said.

"Come on. Let's go mini golfing or something," He urged me.

"Well," I said, standing up, "I am the putt putt queen." I tossed my hair behind me and placed a hand on my hip.

 "We'll see about that, Lucy," Axl said, matching my sass, "Now, put this on." He tossed a scarf and a fedora at me.

"Where the hell did all of this come from?" I asked, catching the items and looking at them, somewhat perplexed.

"That's not important," He said, putting sunglasses on.

"Axl, they won't recognize me," I said, wrapping the scarf he gave me around his neck and putting the hat on his head.

"Good point. Do I look like me?" Axl asked as he did a little twirl. He was wearing that ridiculous hat, a black scarf, and some blue teashade sunglasses.

I laughed. "No, you look like an idiot."

"Good. Let's head out," He said.

I laughed at Axl as he pretended to be a spy. He was up against the walls pretending to sneak around while humming his own spy music. He put his finger up to his mouth to shush me, but I couldn't help myself.

"Lucy, all your laughing is going to give me away," He said, putting his hand on the door handle.

I threw my hands up in the air in defense. "Sorry," I said sarcastically.

The two of us causally walked through the lobby, well, as casual as we could be considering how ridiculous Axl looked. Somehow, nobody noticed us as we walked through the crowd outside. Once we had made it little ways down the street, Axl took everything off, except the hat and just threw it in the trash can.

"So, that's it?" I asked.

"What's it?"

"You're just going to throw it away?" I asked.

"Yeah, pretty much," He shrugged and we kept walking.

We found a mini golf course and we payed the fee to get in. I grabbed a pink ball and Axl picked a green one. The course was animal themed, so there were statues of creepy looking animals everywhere you turned. The chipped off paint and spine-chilling eyes of the metal animals that seemed to stare into your soul made me draw back at first, but I eventually got used to it.

"Rock paper scissors for who goes first?" Axl suggested.

"Sure," I said.

I won the first game and Axl didn't like it, so he suggested best two out of three. I won again, and he ended up just suffering through the fact that I was going to go first. I couldn't help but tease him about it, just a little.

"Don't mess up," He told me.

"Oh trust me," I said, positioning the ball where I wanted it, "I won't."

I spread my feet and got into position. I pulled back the golf club and hit the ball. I could've sworn it was going to make it into the hole, but it's rolling slowed and then stopped just before it could. Axl found that amusing and he clapped at my slight failure. I just rolled my eyes at him.

"Okay, my turn," Axl said, playfully pushing me aside.

He hit his ball and it flew way past mine, and the hole, making me laugh. When it was my turn again, I hit the ball and it went in. Not bad, only two shots.  Axl had about four or five shots before he made it in.

"Just wait and see, lovely Lucy, I'll catch up to you," He said as we moved on to hole number two.

I doubted Axl, but karma is a bitch. It started taking me four, five, and even six shots to make it in each hole, and it was only taking Axl a few. He was right, he definitely caught up to me.

We were finally near the end, and Axl was in the lead. It was my turn to go. At this point, I was frustrated because I'm very competitive when it comes to putt putt. I lined myself up again and took a deep breath in and held it. I hit the ball, breathed out, and it ended up being a hole in one. I threw my arms in the air and cheered. I knew for a fact that I had still lost the game, but it felt good, still.

"Maybe all that frustration and anger is what you needed, Lucy," Axl said. He was definitely full of himself right now.

"Let's see if you can top that off, though," I said as I placed a hand on my hip.

"Lucy, I'm winning at this game. I already am, miss putt putt queen," He teased.

Axl hit the ball and it went flying way above our heads, and into the mouth of a nearby hippopotamus statue. Both of our jaws dropped at how awful that move was. I noticed that the teenager running the putt putt stand had given us a dirty look, but I didn't tell Axl that.

"Well, fuck," Axl said, scratching his head.

"You sure showed me," I told him.

After we found Axl's ball, we just decided to call it a game. Now, Axl wouldn't stop calling himself the putt putt king.

When we got back to the hotel, the two of us were kind of hungry, so we decided to get some snacks from a vending machine.

I put in the money, and the chips that Axl had wanted got stuck in the machine as it was pushing them out. I just laughed it off, but Axl started shaking the machine and trying to put his arm up there to reach for the chips. I stepped back, waiting for some sort of alarm to start going off.

"Axl, stop, you're going to break it," I said, and right after I said it, the vending machine shut down.

"Jesus, Axl," I said, shaking my head. Axl's arm was still stuck in the vending machine.

When he pulled it out, he had his bag of chips. "Hey, at least I got my chips," He shrugged and pulled the bag open.

While we were walking back down the hallway to get back to our room, we ran into Duff.

"Hey guys, I think the rest of the band is meeting up for dinner downstairs in about an hour or so," Duff told us.

"Oh, okay, cool," Axl said, "We'll be there."

Duff started walking on, but Axl stopped him.

"By the way," Axl said, "Don't use the vending machine. It's broken."