Standing By

Austin's Mouse

(Austin)

7:30 came much too early in my opinion. I started slapping blindly at my phone, which was acting as my alarm clock, and by some miracle, got it to shut off by the seventh or eighth whack. Curling right back up under my blankets, I closed my eyes again. I refused to be a slave to a damn alarm.

Course, it rang again five minutes later. I reissued the exact same treatment. Five minutes after that, my hand never quite landed right on the screen to hit the snooze and I just knocked it off the nightstand instead. It continued its irritatingly peppy song from the floor. I glared down at it, wondering what had ever possessed me to choose this song as an alarm. I had to have lost my mind when I did. I finally sat up and grabbed the damn thing from the floor. Flicking the alarm off, I started going through my Twitter feed. For some reason, Kevin had posted a short video of himself cooking an omelet of some sort, cracking eggs, chopping tomatoes, and peppering it up real good. I shook my head. Whatever, dude. Your Twitter, not mine. And if video ever surfaces on Twitter of me cooking breakfast, you'll know I've been hacked and/or was being impersonated. Last time I'd tried to cook, it'd been a noodle-y, thick paste of a casserole and my smoke detectors had advised I not try that again. So I haven't.

I tossed my phone aside on the bed and made my way over to the coffee pot. I stuck the pre-filled ground coffee filter in and poked the buttons aggressively when it failed to start brewing. Took me a minute to realize I'd never given it any water to work with. Too lazy to go get a glass of water from the bathroom, I popped open a nearby bottle of water. The machine liked that and started doing its job. A few minutes later, I was stirring sugar and non-dairy creamer into my cup. Ahh, coffee. Have coffee, will function. I took a couple of sips while I shifted through my suitcase to find what I might want to wear today. After pulling out every single article of clothing I had in there, I selected a black and white shirt, clean jeans since I'd spilled mayonnaise on myself yesterday, blue boxers, and boring socks, then leaned over to fish my boots out from under the bed. There we go. Coffee needed to work on my brain quicker though. I made my way to the bathroom for a shower, hoping for the best.

By the time I emerged, got dressed, and got myself situated for the day—and a second cup of coffee in me—I was much more alert. I gave my hair a final comb-through and start heading down to meet the others. I glanced at the clock by the elevator. 8:06. Oops. Hoped I wouldn't be late. I bypassed the elevators in favor of the stairs; it'd be quicker.

I found Adam, Tim, and Chance already down in the lobby, each with breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and juice in the lobby. I grinned. Should have known I'd beat Rob down at least. Susie Sunshine he is not.

Adam handed me a bag and a coffee. "Juice is inside the bag. Did you happen to catch Rob?"

"No." I shook my head. "Sorry."

He rolled his eyes. "We told Pentatonix we'd meet at the theatre at 8:30. Got to get a move on." He stuck his head around the corner. "Yeah, Austin's here now, just waiting on Rob."

Tim slurped on his juice. "Austin, you're zippy. Go get him."

I stared at him. "I'm zippy? Whassat mean?"

"You is fast," he spoke slowly as though I were special needs. "Run upstairs and get Rob."

"I'll go get him." Adam shoved his bag in my hands. "Hold on to this."

I scowled. What he think I was, a bag holder? I shifted his bag to my other hand and started going through my own. Orange juice, potato wedge, breakfast sandwich, and an apple. I bit into the apple and was just throwing the core away when Adam came down with a sleepy-looking Rob.