Devil in the Details

Acting Odd

"We fucking killed it guys!" CC shouted as the members of Black Veil Brides made their way back to their dressing room.

"We kill it every night Chuppy" Jake laughed high-fiving one of CC's out stretched hands.

"Happy first week back on tour boys." Jinxx laugh as they got back to the dressing room, grabbing his half finished Sprite from earlier and holding it up the rest of the band laughed and agreed in Jinxx's declaration all holding up their drink, CC and Ashley the only ones with alcoholic drinks.

"And here's to the next 2 years of tour." Andy laughed as he sipped his Diet Pepsi.

"The next 2 years of being together." Ashley smiled at his bandmate holding up his beer and sipping it, glad to be back on the road with his brothers after so long.

"Yo, Purdy!" Ashley turned on the heel of his cowboy boots, still sipping his beer when he noticed Yanni calling for him, "The sound crew and I are headed out to the strip club across the street, wanna join?" He smirked.

"I'm good for tonight Matt, but that's for the invite." Ashley smiled politely, shocking both his bandmates and head of security.

"What?" He questioned seeing the looks of shock on the mens faces.

"You, Ashley Purdy, turning down a strip club?" CC questioned pointing at the man he called his best friend and that he though he knew inside and out.

"I can't want one night on the bus without you guys interrogating me?" He questioned.

"You haven't gone to a party for the whole time we've been on tour Ash." Andy frowned, he had never seen Ashley act like this, even since they first met Ashley was always looking forward to the next party he could attend.

"Well, we haven't been on tour in ages and I'm still falling back into it." Ashley defended himself.

"It normally doesn't take you this long to fall back into touring life." Jake said staring at Ashley in curiosity.

"And I normally don't take off 4 months in the middle of writing a record, but obvious circumstances are different this time so can you just fucking drop it?" Ashley asked glaring at Jake before swigging down the rest of his beer and grabbing his already packed suitcase of stage clothes.

"I'll see you guys back on the bus." He grumbled before storming off down the hall of the concert venue, heading out to the bus. Pushing open the back door of the building and pulling his sweatshirt hood up to avoid fans and try to look like a member of the crew and not himself. He loved the fans but he couldn't deal with them, not tonight.
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"That was, odd..." Jinxx trailed off, finally breaking the silence that was hanging in the room since Ashley had stormed out.

"Yeah, he's acting strange." Jake agreed.

"When in the world does Ashley Purdy turn down a strip club, I can't remember a time where he's ever done that." CC said, cracking open another beer.

"He's been acting off since his time off, maybe he is just taking more time than usual to fall back into routine, he did just lose his grandmother." Andy said, not fully believing it himself.

"You know what, now that I think about it. He hasn't brought a single girl back to the bus since we started tour." Jake said, chewing on his bottom lip, "And that's not like Ashley at all."

"When has Ashley ever gone a week without a random hook up?" CC questioned, wondering if it happened in the earlier days of the band when he wasn't with them yet and they still had Sandra as their drummer.

"When he was in a committed relationship." Andy said, face twisted in thought, did Ashley have a girlfriend and not tell them? That was extremely odd considering Andy was always the first person Ashley came to whenever he was pursuing a romantic relationship considering they were basically brothers since the beginning of BVB, their relationship had been strained due to small fights and disagreements but he still cared for Ash as if he were family.

"But he would tell us right? He always shows off his girl as soon as they get together." Jake frowned in confusion, Ashley's odd behaviour was starting to make him question how well he actually knew the bassist.

"He has always told us, so maybe it's not that he's dating someone and he's still figuring out falling back into his normal pace of life, Ashley's fucking resident but he just lost a parent figure, it takes a while to recover from that." Jinxx tried to reason with the rest of the guys, although he also suspected that maybe Ashley was possibly pursuing a romantic relationship and not telling any of them.

"While you're usually the logical thinker, Jinxx, meaning you're almost always right. I think Andy and Jake may be right." CC mumbled recalling a memory from when Ashley had just moved back to LA after taking his time off and they were just putting the final touches on the album and preparing for tour.

"Why do you think that Chuppy?" Andy questioned, CC was right Jinxx was always the more rational one and the one to come to the most likely solution while the rest of them went on long winded fantasies that almost were never true or to farfetched.

"I remember when we were taking a break during rehearsal and powering though signing booklets for Vale and Ashley had gotten up to get water, I was across from him and his phone went off. I tried not to look but curiosity got the better of me, I didn't have time to read the message since he was walking back and I didn't want him to see me prying because he hates stuff like that, but the name had a heart emoji next to it and Ashley almost never uses emojis in his contacts. He's too business orientated for that." CC told them what he remembered during rehearsal.

"Emojis in contact names is very un-Ashley like." Jinxx nodded.

"Yeah, the dude it too business minded for that." Jake agreed.

"Were you able to read the name Chuppy?" Andy questioned, curiosity getting the better of him since it was very odd behaviour from Ashley to put emoji's in his contacts, if he did this might be more serious that a casual girlfriend.

"No, the emoji caught my eye because he never does that but I think the name started with an A and it was short."

"A and short..." Jake frowned in thought, "Anna?" He guessed.

"That's my girlfriend's name you dolt." CC smacked the guitarist upside the head.

"Hey it's a good guess" Jake defended himself.

"If it was Anna I would've remembered it." CC pointed out sipping his drink.

"Whatever her name is, Ashley's serious with this, and Ashley hasn't been serious about a relationship in years." Andy said deep in thought.

The rest of the guys made sounds of agreement as they all sipped their drinks in thought.

"So, who's up for figuring out who this mystery person is?" CC asked with a smirk, stretching his hand out hoping the others would join.

"I'm in." Jake smiled, placing his hand on top of CC's

"What the hell me too, Ashley always tells me everything and this has me curious." Andy joined in with the guitarist and drummer, the three of them turning to stare at Jinxx who was looking at them in thought.

"There's no way you're letting this go are you?" He asked the painfully obvious question.

"Nope." CC shook his head, grinning wide.

"I always get roped into your shit." Jinxx sighed placing his hand on top of Andy's causing the three men to grin that they had gotten Jinxx to join in their plot.

"Mission find out about Ashley's girlfriend is a go!" CC cheered raising his hand the other three quickly following with similar cheers of delight.

"You're all children." Jinxx laughed and shook his head as he brought his pop can to his lips watching the rest of his bandmates already formulating plans to find out the identity of Ashley's mystery girl.