FG 3 - The Wedding Blitz (2 page)

“Not much of anything right now,” I sighed as I laid my head back down on his shoulder and we snuggled in together again.

“Umm…Riley?”
Lizzie called over her shoulder. “Do you think you could read me the directions to the Shoreline Amphitheater from the MapQuest directions on your laptop?”

“What happened to ‘Greta’ the Garmin?”

“I ripped that bitch down an hour ago.”

“Oh hell,” Riley groaned. “I’m on it.”

“I thought that was a lot of turning,” I mumbled to Hawkins as Riley carefully got up from the safety of the kitchen booth to retrieve his laptop.

“You think?” Hawkins rolled his eyes. “That was one hell of a wakeup call I’ll never forget, that’s for sure.”

“Hey I haven’t killed anyone…
yet
,” Lizzie must have overheard us because she huffed, “Can we all just focus on that?”

“It’s good to know that you’re expectations are high, Lizzie,” I joked as Riley zigzagged his way to the front of the bus with his arm securely wrapped around his laptop like some kind of running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“Hey, I don’t see anyone else volunteering to drive!”

“Yet,” Hawkins muttered under his breath as Riley got situated on one of the steps leading down to driver’s platform.

“So where are we now?” Riley asked.

“If I had a freaking clue, I wouldn’t have asked for your help in the first place!” I could tell that Lizzie was quickly losing her patience.

“You want that drink now babe?” Warren snickered as he took Riley’s seat at the kitchen booth.

“Sure do!”

             
We all laughed when Hawkins’ cell suddenly went off from within his jean pocket. “Who could that be?” his eyebrows knitted together as he pulled out his Blackberry to check. “Sorry, but I have to take this,” he then got up and went to answer it. “Hey mom, how are you?”

             
Riley stopped looking at the overhead highway signs at the mention of Hawkins’ mom long enough to flash me a wicked grin.

             
“What?” I mouthed with a smile on my face.

             
“Nothing,” he shrugged though it didn’t look like
nothing
.

             
“Riley focus,” Lizzie hissed causing him to turn back around.

             
“So how was the flight back from Johannesburg?” I overheard Hawkins ask his mom as he slowly paced the aisle of the bus. “That good, ay?” he snickered then after a minute of listening to her, he added, “Umm…mom?” Hawkins glanced over his shoulder at me before lowering his voice as he continued to walk down the aisle away from me. Though I still managed to overhear him say, “I’d like for you to finally meet Joie.”

What?
Hawkins wanted me to meet his mom? I knew that this day would come eventually; I just didn’t know it would be this soon. I think most girls would normally be thrilled to be in my position, but I wasn’t good with parents.
Period.
In fact the only parent I had still living was just starting to speak to me again I lied to her about working for a presidential campaign when in fact I had been following the band around on their summer tour.

“No mom, it can’t wait. We’re going to be in the Seattle area anyway,” he sighed as he entered his bedroom and quietly closed the door behind him.

             
“That can’t be good,” I mumbled under my breath.

When Riley stole another look in my direction, I knew he had overhead as much as I had but he quickly turned back around to help navigate. “You want to merge right.”

With Riley’s help we finally arrived at the Shoreline Amphitheater, though a few hours behind schedule. It must have been long enough to concern the band’s staff and crew because Rob Harlow, head of the lighting crew, came out to meet us halfway across the parking lot after Lizzie managed to park the bus without taking out any other vehicles.

I always thought Harlow was more attractive than the other crew members. Maybe it was because most of the other crew looked like the type of men who could actually carry the heavy equipment and rig it up above the stage—the kind of guys I wouldn’t want to meet in an empty alleyway. But Rob Harlow on the other hand practically looked like a hippie in comparison. His sandy blonde hair hung down over his blue eyes which he was constantly tucking behind his ear. He was dressed in a hunter green North Face sweatshirt, tan khakis, and had leather Birkenstock clogs on his feet. It wasn’t hard for me to see why Riley was attracted to Harlow in the first place; though he claimed it had nothing to do with his looks as much as it did with his talent. The two guys had been
secretly
dating because Harlow, who was older than Riley, hadn’t officially come out of the closet yet.

“What took you guys so long?” Harlow asked as we unloaded from the bus. Rob had never had a problem treating the other band members as equals since he had been with them from the beginning.

“I blame the Garmin.” Lizzie nominated the only thing that couldn’t speak for itself as she helped keep Warren up right. “It’s the devil himself disguised as ‘helpful technology’ when it really just wants to lead you down the wrong path.”

“Do you think this is funny? The opening act is already on the stage. We didn’t know if we were going to have to cancel the show or not,” he explained the severity of the situation.

“Cool it dude,” Warren came to Lizzie’s defense. “We’re here now, isn’t that what matters?”

“Are you
drunk
?”

“What if I am?” he challenged.

“How are we supposed to have a show if he can’t even stand on his own?” Rob turned to Hawkins for an explanation but Warren was in rare form and beat him to it. “Why don’t you let me worry about my job and you and your little boyfriend over there,” he jerked his thumb in Riley’s direction causing everyone who was sober to become deathly silent. “Worry about
your
job.”

“Warren,” Lizzie whispered clearly shocked by what he had just said.

“
What?
” Warren scoffed. “Really how many times does it take two people to go over the ‘lighting arrangements’ when it’s forty shows later and the tour’s almost over?”

“You wouldn’t have said that if you weren’t drunk,” Lizzie looked embarrassed for Riley. “It’s just the alcohol talking.”

“No it isn’t,” he hissed. “
Everyone
knows about them.”

“Warren
stop
—

“No it’s okay,” Harlow stopped Lizzie by holding up a hand. “He’s lost someone close to him and now he feels entitled to destroy everyone else’s happiness including his own…but he’s right about one thing, I still have a job to do.” Harlow took the high road before turning back around and headed for the backstage door.

“Take him inside,” Hawkins muttered to Lizzie clearly pissed with his best friend.

“Dude—

“I’m not you’re dude right now, Warren,” Hawkins snipped.

“Whatever man,” Warren waved him off and with Lizzie’s help
he
too turned to head for the backstage door.

“You okay, Riley?” I finally turned to my best friend who still looked shell shocked by the turn of events.  

“He’s not going be okay with this,” Riley whispered almost to himself.

“It’s Harlow, Riley, I’m sure it’s going to be okay.”

“No, you don’t understand, being professional means everything to him. If he senses for a second that the other guys on his crew think we’ve been inappropriate…,” he drifted off. “And he’s not even told his family yet, so no Joie, he’s not going to be okay with this,” Riley sighed and with a drop of his shoulders, he headed inside next.

I turned to Hawkins who could only shake his head as he wrapped a comforting arm around my shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong,” I mumbled under my breath wondering how this would impact Riley’s night.

After a raving lunatic stalker had abducted me and the recent bomb scare, Hawkins had insisted that I watch the rest of the shows from the safety of the lightening booth which depending on the venue was usually located on a platform under the amphitheater roof, up above the audience or out in the center of the seats blocked off from the rest of the concert goers.  I discovered as I moved through the crowd that Shoreline Amphitheater’s lighting booth was located at the latter, in the restricted center of the seating blocked off from the rest of the crowd. 

Riley was already there with the rest of the lighting
crew
, well, with the exception of one major key person. Harlow was once known for arriving at the lighting booth the same time the band took the stage but that was before Riley came along. I had become so used to his welcoming presence that the absence of it spoke volumes. When he finally did arrive, he didn’t acknowledge either Lizzie or I as he got ready for the show to start by putting on his headphones.

Harlow who had become like a teacher to Riley, didn’t seem in the mood to explain anything to him tonight. I also noticed that his body language was tense and distant sitting there beside Riley, instead of open and relaxed like I had come to expect. I could tell Riley must have been right, being a professional meant everything to Harlow.

“Kill the spotlight on Warren,” I overheard Harlow say with frustration causing me to look up at the stage for the first time since I had arrived in the lighting booth. Someone had propped Warren up against a large piece of stage equipment making it appear as if he was just leaning against it as he played the bass guitar. I could tell Hawkins was trying to pull everyone’s eyes in the crowd away from Warren, by playing up his interactions with Swank, the saxophonist, on the other side of the stage which for the most part I think worked. But when the show was finally over, Harlow groaned something about the show
being a disaster
before quickly fleeing the scene.

             
“Come on,” Lizzie wrapped an arm around Riley’s shoulder and led him out of the lighting booth. “Let’s get you drunk.”

“I think that there’s been enough drinking for one night,” he stressed and I got a sense that he partly blamed the alcohol Warren drank for what happened between Harlow and him tonight. “Besides, who’s going to make sure you don’t get lost on your way to the Gorge later?”

“Just because
Joie’s
having a baby, doesn’t mean she’s a complete waste of space.”

“Nice, Lizzie,” I smiled with a roll of my eyes. 

“Plus with Hawkins gone tonight it’s not like they can continue their endless pursuit to give that baby a twin.”

“
Eww
…wait what?” I stopped her. “Hawkins isn’t coming with us tonight?”

“He has some unfinished business he needs to take care of,” Lizzie explained.

“Like what?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you. Both Riley and I have been sworn to secrecy,” she pretended to zip up her lips and throw away the key.

“So it’s a surprise? …I hate surprises.” After being abducted by Cyrus and then the men from National Security, I didn’t like
anything
to be a ‘surprise.’

This is a good one,” Riley assured me as we made our way down the backstage hallway for the exit. I was hopeful that I might see Hawkins in the parking lot so I could at least give him a kiss goodbye. I knew what Lizzie had said was wrong or at least how she had gone about saying it was wrong but I did look forward to Hawkins and my nights alone together. So when I didn’t see any sign of Hawkins outside, I felt my heart drop. With all this talk about
secrecy
I realized that he must have wanted to make an escape without being bombard with questions.

It was however a nice
change
to join my friends at the front of the bus as we got ready to leave. It almost felt like being in my dad’s old Volkswagen Van at the beginning of the tour again. The sight of Riley with his laptop balanced on his knee a step up from me brought back a lot of memories. Since we never had the kind of money it took to invest in a Garmin, we had to rely on our MapQuest directions instead. Everything felt the same that was until Lizzie finally started up the bus and decided to move ahead because surely she would
find
the switch for the bus’s headlights eventually
. Without saying a word, Riley gently pulled my shoulder back so I could rest securely in between his legs.

Screech!!

Riley and I quickly turned our heads in the direction of the sound of metal scraping against metal.

“
Whoo
hoo
!”
Lizzie hooted, completely undeterred by the ominous sound. “I finally found the lights!”

“Lizzie I think you scratched another bus,” I went to point in the general direction of where I had heard the sound.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t hear anything”

“What kind of mentality is that?” I asked.

“Lindsay
Lohan’s
,” Riley snickered as we exited the fenced in the parking lot and were quickly ushered ahead of the other concert traffic by the venue staff. Just one of the perks of being with the band I guess you could say.