I heard a rattling sound, then my room was faintly lit with the glowing screen of a cell phone. "Frankie?" I heard whispered from the doorway. I pretended I was still sleeping. I felt him sit at the edge of my bed. He placed his hand on my hip and gave it a gentle shake. I opened my eyes to see a shirtless Ross grinning at me. "Hey, I can't sleep." I sat up, rubbed my eyes and smiled. "Any chance I could talk you into taking a drive? I need to clear my head." "Wait, what?" I asked him. Then I looked at my alarm clock." Ross, it's 2:15 in the morning. Where are we going to drive to right now?" " Nowhere, just drive, ya know, around." " I gotta get dressed." I said, then there was an awkward pause as I waited for him to leave the room, when he didn't, I motioned to the door and hinted for him to give me a few minutes to change. "It's fine, just throw some shoes on. Were not getting out. Geez." I rolled my eyes, but did just as he said.
We made our way quietly out the front door. My car was parked in the driveway, again, he opened the car door for me and closed it behind me once I was inside. He got in, plugged his iPod into my stereo and adjusted the seat, as he is quite a bit taller than I am. "seatbelt" he ordered, as he fastened his own. Still having not started the engine, he began going through songs on his iPod deciding on Black veil brides version of 'Iris'. I was just about to tell him that this was one of my favorites, when he began singing along. My heart was melting, I needed to get my mind back on track. "Are we gonna move at some point?" I asked. "oh yeah haha sorry. I love this song." he answered, then turned the key in the ignition. And we slowly eased out of the driveway and onto the road.
It was a beautiful night, just cool enough to keep the windows down, Ross, still shirtless looked amazing with the wind blowing through his hair. We found a side road that took us up into a wooded area, even at 2:30 am the streets of L.A. were busy and loud, so the quiet stillness of our new found surroundings were almost heavenly. We drove slowly through the hills talking and laughing, he was opening up to me, almost as if he had never really been able to talk to anyone else. Sometimes, during one of his happier stories, his eyes would light up. I mean like a child on Christmas morning. Other times, he seemed near tears. We ended up parking and walking to a picnic table where he asked me to tell him about myself. I told him where I was raised and he seemed shocked. "You don't seem ghetto." he laughed. "I was raised right." I told him. I told him about my past relationships, how I was nearly married once, right out of high school. That at one time I too dreamed of a career in music. I told him how I worked all through high school to raise money for dance lessons from Diana Corvaughn. And that I soon after became her P.A. "Why are you an assistant now, if you wanted to be a performer?" he asked. "I never really caught a break. I needed to make money, and she needed an assistant, so there I was." At one point he asked me to sing for him. I refused. He insisted, asked about 50 more times, but I refused every time till he finally gave up. Though he pouted for a good long time after.
Ross laid back on the picnic table. "Glad I decided to give you a chance, you kind of... make me feel... calm, ya know? Like I have someone that's only here for me. Not Ross Lynch of R5 or Ross Lynch of Austin & Ally. But me, like, someone for me to lean on." "Absolutely. Ross, you're amazing. You have so much on your shoulders. And you handle it so well. I don't think I could cope." He smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders. "I'm really just good at keeping up appearances, ya know. But my head's kinda jacked up. Which is what I'm saying. If you never drive me to another shoot, never remind me about another rehearsal, never never send me another text about where I'm supposed to be that day, it'll be fine. As long as you wake up at 2 am to take a drive with me." again he smiled at me. Oh my god. I thought to myself. I'm gonna fall in love with him. And there's nothing I can do to stop it from happening. And then what? I mean really? There's no way he could ever want me the way I want him.
He stood up, breaking my train of thought. "Look," he said. "the sun is coming up." "Oh my god, Ross we've been out all night. We gotta get back to the house." "5 more minutes Frankie." he said, staring toward the rising sun. I couldn't say no. His silhouette was mesmerizing. Even with his shirt off and his muscles gleaming, all I could look at was his smile. His smile, I realized at that moment, was what now made my world go around.
