The Dip and the Resurface

Part 2

Tyler

"What the hell took you so long?" Josh said as I handed him the drink.

For now, I wanted to keep my encounter with the cute girl to myself so I just shrugged and said, "line was long."

"And why are you soaked in brown liquid?" he scrunched up his nose, "you stink!"

"I tripped..."

"Of course you did," he shook his head, "I should have known. Sometimes, you're a fool, did you know that?" He gave me a playful wack on the back of my head before he took a sip of the long island ice tea and turned his attention towards the band on stage.

I couldn't really concentrate and started chugging my drink just to have an excuse to go back downstairs.

-

"Hey, Ty!" Josh called after me as I emerged from the bathroom.

The show was (finally) over, and I just wanted to go home. I had been stretching my neck and gone to the bar to fetch drinks for me and Josh several times with hopes of meeting this girl again, but I hadn't. She and her friends had vanished or they had simply left. Either way I couldn't help but feeling a bit restless at the thought of never seeing her again. Josh, however, was still unaware of her and I liked it that way. If he'd known about her, he would've already forced me to do something stupid to find her and get her attention. And I was definitely not falling for that one again! He might look charming when he acted goofy, but somehow I always ended up looking like Kermit the Frog. Definitely not attractive.

"What's up?" I asked Josh as I approached him. He was standing next to a guy that I recognised as the lead singer of Panic! at the Disco.

"This is Brendon. He just signed with Fueled by Ramen so we'll probably be seeing him around."

"Nice to meet you - I'm Tyler," I said as I shook the guy's hand, "woow, firm handshake," I exclaimed quietly without having weighed my words beforehand. I felt stupid and prayed that Brendon hadn't heard my awkward little outburst.

"Haha thanks," he laughed (So he did hear me..), "I'm a big admirer of your work. Powerful lyrics, man!"

Overcome with a sudden uncomfortable feeling stretching from my toes to the top of my head, all I could muster was a small croak that probably didn't sound anything like 'Thanks!' 

Brendon didn't seem to notice and continued while looking at his watch, "listen, it was nice meeting you guys but I actually got to run," He was American too. South western accent. Arizona or Nevada, maybe? "A friend of mine is hosting an afterparty just down the street. And the party doesn't start until I walk in so I better get going," he winked at us.

"I had no idea that you were a European party starter," Josh called after him with a laugh as Brendon walked away from us.

"Hey, I'm a party starter on every continent" he called back, "Come and see for yourself!"

"Sounds fun!!" Josh shouted back, "we'll be there in a bit!"

"Sounds fun???" I looked at Josh in pure mock as soon as Brendon was out of hearing range, "be there in a bit????"

"What? It does sound fun!"

"I thought we were going home now. I'm not in a mood for a party," I said while thinking about my comfortable king size bed back at the hotel.