play the game | l.h [on hold]

10. backstage shenanigans

BACKSTAGE SHENANIGANS

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The whole concept of time zones confused Blake to no end.

Her flight left Los Angeles at 7:30am on Tuesday, and the plane touched ground in Sydney on Thursday at around 4:45pm. The fifteen hour flight cost her almost thirty three hours and she found herself gaining a headache as she attempted to wrap her mind around the thought.

Before she left for the airport, she had shamelessly downloaded all of 5 Seconds of Summer's music, because after watching them perform live, it was evident that she needed to give it a listen. After listening through their discography almost three times on the plane, she decided that her favorite song was either Teeth or Why Won't You Love Me.

About halfway through the excruciatingly long flight, she found herself feeling emotional about leaving and almost shed several tears while watching Spider-Man: Far From Home (she thought the title was quite ironic). She had already desperately missed Marvel and Natalia, but Natalia ensured her multiple times that she'd continually spam her phone with photos of the orange tabby cat, as well as a weekly FaceTime call if time permitted.

Along with this sadness about missing her friend and her cat, she was also going to miss Luke. Talking to him had become part of her everyday routine, and although she would deny it if she were asked, she genuinely enjoyed messaging the boy. She realized that she could talk to him any given moment, as their entire friendship was based solely on messaging, but her lack of downtime would ultimately lead to her lack of time spent on the Xbox. Snapchat was always an option, but she met Luke through the game and wanted to keep that going — whatever that was.

After retrieving their luggage, she and Myles were driven to the hotel and checked into their rooms. Myles was in the room directly across from her, and he told her to meet him in the hallway in ten minutes so they could discuss some things about the upcoming Australia shows.

With a tired sigh, she held the keycard up to her door and struggled to push it open with her excessively large suitcase being lugged behind her. As soon as she stepped inside, she established it to be one of the nicest hotel rooms she's ever stayed in, and the white, feather down comforter seemed like the most inviting thing in the world.

But, she knew Myles would be waiting for her, so forgot all about the bed as she dropped her luggage near the window and walked to the bathroom to freshen up her appearance.

She'd never been on a fifteen hour long flight before, and never wanted to again after looking at herself in the mirror and determining that she looked like a rabid animal with absurdly large under eye bags. She rubbed her tired, bloodshot eyes for a moment before turning on the faucet to splash her face with cold water, hoping that it would wake her up at least a little bit.

Just as she was drying her hands, she heard a loud, continuous knock on the door of her hotel room. "It's only been seven minutes!" She called out, groaning at Myles' persistence — and lack of time awareness.

"I don't care!" His muffled voice rang through the room, and she rolled her eyes in response before exiting the bathroom and walking toward the door.

"You're going to disturb the guests," she spoke pointedly as soon as he came into view.

"I'm sure they'll be fine," he said as he gently pushed past her and into her room. "Huh, you have a better view than me," he mumbled, causing Blake to laugh. "Wanna switch?"

"I'm good, thanks though."

Myles sighed before sitting down in the office chair stationed in front of the desk. "So, I talked to Melanie and—"