Time Ahead

chapter twenty-nine

Perrie's POV:

"Mamy, are the pancakes done?" Izzy asks as she tugs at my arm. "Not yet, sweetie," I say. She looks at me with a sad face. "Why don't you go color at the table with Jaz and Jolie?" I tell her motioning towards the them. "Okay," she says a little happier. I glance up at the clock on the microwave, it reads 11:00. We slept in pretty late because today is our first show of tour. We have to be at the venue at two for soundcheck even though the concert doesn't start until seven.

I felt a hand on my shoulder with made me jump a little. I turn and see Jade standing there. "Woah, are you okay?" she asks feeling me jump. "Yeah, I'm just a little nervous for tonight," I say. "Don't be, you're going to do fine," she reassures me. I nod and ruffle through Kaiden's hair, who is in Jade's arms.

"Food's done," I announce as I grab the plates and silverware. "Here, let me do it," Jade says putting Kaiden back in his crib. A line forms by the counter and Jade puts food on a plate and hands it off to the next person. I got my food and sat at the table next to Izzy. "What are you coloring?" I ask her. "A mermaid," she says. I laugh at her adorableness, looking at the picture which is colored with purples and pinks.

I finished my food and went to put the dishes away when I saw Jade trying to feed a fussy Kaiden. "Babe, have you eaten yet?" I ask her. She shakes her head. "He won't eat," she says. "Here, i'll feed him, you go eat," I say. "Are you sure?" she asks. "Positive," I say. She hands me the crying baby and his bottle. I gently rock him to soothe him. He finally calms down and he starts eating.

Once breakfast was done, we quickly got ready and headed over to the venue. We walked inside and looked around. It was definitely one of our biggest theaters. "Wow," is all Leigh could say. "And it's sold out?" Jesy adds. "Yeah," I say. "Well, I hope Manchester is ready," Leigh adds. We set up everything we need in our dressing room. Luckily, it's a really big one so there will be room for us to get ready and the kids to be playing on the other side. "Ladies, sound check in five," the tour manager said through the door. We get our sneakers on and walk down to the stage.

We go through all the choreography in all the songs and for some reason, I couldn't get it right. "Perrie, you keep missing this step, let's try it again," our choreographer said. I did the step that time, but messed up a different part. I felt a hand on my shoulder once we finished the song. "You're going to be fine tonight," Jesy whispered to me. I nodded, all the girls know I get really nervous before going on stage. We all do, but me and Jade are probably the worst ones.

"Okay, you're done. Remember show starts at seven," the tour manager says. Normally, we just stay at the venue and order food. We walked back to the dressing room and put in our food orders. "What time is it?" I ask. "Four," Leigh says. "We should probably get started on hair and makeup," Jesy says. "Jesy, you're first for hair," our hair stylist says. "Jade, you're first for makeup," our makeup artist said.

Everyone was in and out of the rooms, until all of us had our hair and makeup done. "Food's here," a back stage member said handing us the food. "Thank you," Jesy says taking the boxes. She distributes it out and we begin eating. Once we're done, we begin our kids looks. We decided at the end we want to bring out each of the kids since they've never been on stage before and it's our first concert having them. I call Izzy over and begin to do her hair. She's already wearing the dress she picked out. It's a white and silver dress and a flower on the waist. She paired it with some white flats and she looks adorable. I put a french braid in her hair and spin her towards the mirror. "Do you like it?" I ask. She jumps up out of the chair. "Yes, thanks Mamy," she says giving me a hug. I look over and see all the kids almost ready. Jacob is wearing a dark blue button down shirt with some black pants and some black dress shoes, the small thing as Andre. Rhea is wearing a bright pink dress with some black detailing on the bottom and some black sandals. Jaz and Jolie have matching dresses, Jaz in navy blue and Jolie in a dark purple. Both with sequins on the sleeves and matching white shoes. Kaiden is wearing a little jumpsuit that is brown and some tiny shoes. Sophie is wearing a red dress and some black shoes.

We all change into our first costume and begin warmups. All of our warmups sound weird but they work. As we're finishing our warmup, the backstage worker came back to get us. "Showtime girls," he said. All of our husbands and kids said various forms of "Bye" and "Good luck" as we exited the room. Finally, the backstage manager gives us the cue to walk onstage. Right before I went on I was nervous and anxious but as soon as I stepped on stage, I relaxed a bit.

We went through our first few songs before we started interacting with the audience. "Can we try the Mexican wave?" Jade asks. "Why do you always want to do this?" Jesy laughs. "Yeah, it never works," I say also laughing. She gives us silly but also sad face. "Fine we'll try it, but just for you," I say in a playful tone. "Thank you," she says. We attempt to do the wave and it actually worked on our third try. We sang a few more songs and just for fun, at the end of "Secret Love Song," I winked and hugged Jade at the end. The crowd obviously went wild and started chanting "Jerrie." The wink was intentional for the crowd to get excited but the hug was more of me comforting her because I know how emotional she gets during the song, especially with everything that's gone on in the past few months.

We reached our final song and performed it. Towards the end there was some background music still playing from the song so that's when we decided to call the kids out. "First, here is Jacob!" Jesy announces. Jacob runs out and joins Leigh, who ruffles his hair and gives him a small hug. "Next is Rhea!" Jesy says. Andre walks out holding hands with Rhea over to Leigh. "Next, we have Kaiden!" Jesy says. Jade walks out holding Kaiden. The whole audience immediately filled with awes. "Next is Jaz and Jolie!" The twins walk out holding hands and go over to Jade, who gives them each a kiss on the head. "Next is Izzy!" Alex walks out with Izzy and they dance around over to Perrie, who kisses Alex on the lips and Izzy on the head. "Last, we have Sophie!" Jesy said proudly. The crowd roared at her name and Sophie and Chris walk out. Chris twirls Sophie around and they go over to Jesy who gives each of them a hug. "Thank you, Manchester!" Jesy says as the curtain closes.

"That was such a great show!" Leigh says happily as we go back into the dressing room. We all chat a little before heading back to our buses, ready to do all of this again in a few days.