#matty why is the merch so expensive

[because-she-goes]

did i just buy a $90 hoodie? you betcha!

[sunsetinmyvein]

I Know That I’ll Lose - Chapter Five - Where’s the Fun in Doin’ What You’re Told?

After his comment when she was leaving the hotel, she had expected Matty to be in pretty regular contact with cheesy one-liners and attempts to win her over. But how much they spoke to each other actually seemed to mysteriously lessen. A part of her wanted to ask him about it, but the other part of her assumed that he was probably just busy finishing off the tour that he was on. Eventually, she had the feeling that she might have worked out why he was suddenly less chatty. It was heard through the grapevine that perhaps a certain band with a certain curly haired frontman were travelling back in her general direction. There were rumours that they might be booked as a last-minute additional headliner for a nation-wide festival to try and move their ticket sales. The day before the news was officially announced, Matty texted her a picture of the line-up for the festival with ‘The 1975’ haphazardly scrawled across the top of it by him.

11:16am You should work this. The line-up looks good.

11:19am I’m not sure, looks pretty meh if you ask me. That headliner is a bit overrated.

11:20am :O

She laughed lightly as his message before just telling him the truth. It surprised her that he hadn’t already heard this news from his bandmates, because it had come up the weekend prior at the party under the conversation starter of ‘things Matty doesn’t know yet’.

11:20am I’m already working it. Got asked to a little while ago.

Her phone started ringing the second after that message had been received.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked as soon as she answered the call.

“I figured you’d find out soon enough.” She answered with a shrug he couldn’t see. “You only just got home, didn’t you? When do you fly out again?” She asked.

“In two days. I won’t be at your stop on the festival tour for a little under two weeks, though.” He explained. From the background noises she could hear, it sounded like he was at a restaurant or café or something. She absent-mindedly wondered who he was out with. “You reckon you can wait that long?” He added.

“I think I’ll survive, Matty.” She replied with a laugh.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to pretend.” He continued, the teasing tone instantly finding its way into his voice.

“Oh, good to know. In which case I will definitely die a slow and painful death by next Wednesday if you don’t get here before then.” She shot back seriously. 

There was a pause on the other end of the line before he began chuckling, “Well, you have to wait until next Sunday before we can hang out. Don’t die before then.” He said. 

“You know that it’s proper work, yeah? I can’t just sit around with you all day.” She asked, knowing full well that festival merch was very different to headline concert merch.

“Yeah, ‘course.”

  * * *

  “This is boring.” Matty groaned from his spot on the floor of the merch tent where he was fiddling with her permanent marker. He’d come down to merch as soon as the band arrived on site, and had been sitting in the merch tent for nearly an hour now. She had tried her best to warn him about the difference between counting in and displaying merch for one headliner and support act compared to a festival line-up with 20 bands that all had a minimum of two shirt designs each, but he hadn’t listened. The workload was especially bad considering her brother wasn’t here, he wasn’t meant to be getting in on his flight from the previous stop on the festival track to help her until well after doors had opened. But Matty insisted on coming down anyway despite this.

“That sounds like a you problem.” She laughed as she continued counting shirts from what felt like the millionth box that she had opened. His company was nice, but it was also fairly distracting. “You could help me, you know.” She added.

“I am helping. I am providing essential company.” He answered as he reached over and pulled a slip of cardboard off the ground.

  “How did you manage to swing coming back here for a national tour so soon after you just left, anyway?” She asked. It had surprised her to hear that he had been able to organise an international tour to the same country twice within as many months. It didn’t seem very viable to the band to be back in the same spot so quickly.

“We had downtime once we finished up the tour that we were on.” He shrugged. “I just suggested that we find something else to do and saw this. Put it to Jamie that we offer to be a last-minute addition to the set and he sorted it.”

“Isn’t downtime meant to be for actually having a break from this stuff?” She asked as she moved onto the next box.

“Downtime is boring.” He huffed.

“Burning the candle at both ends a bit there, Matty.”

“Death is inevitable, and I’d rather die busy than die bored.” He deadpanned. She glanced over at him, expecting him to be having some deep philosophical moment over this information. But there he was, sitting on the floor of her merch tent, scrawling a drawing of a dog on a piece of cardboard in permanent marker. “Look, it’s Allen.” He said with a grin as he held up the drawing.

  As much as he felt like boredom was about to overtake him, Matty was adamant on hanging out in the merch tent for as long as he could. She had actively set him a challenge by telling him that she’d never say that she was into him. He already knew full well that at least a part of her was, even if only for superficial reasons, because she wouldn’t react to him in the ways that she did if she wasn’t. It was potentially a bit arrogant of him, but he had pretty good reason to believe that he was fairly proficient on picking up other people’s signals and being charming. So, her comment was just a red flag to a bull; to say that she’d never tell him something like that. He had been thinking on the best way to go about it, and certainly step one was to maximise the amount of time that they were actually in each other’s space. Being able to come out for the festival was something in the interim until he could come up with a more concrete idea, but he wasn’t about to waste any time that he had available. Step two was that he had to work out the right buttons to press to get her to admit that she fancied him. There was a fine line between being a sleaze and being charmingly flirtatious. He liked to think that he walked that line pretty well. But nonetheless he had to be careful that he was pressing the right buttons, and not crossing that line by pressing the wrong ones. That was going to be a meticulous process of trial and error. He watched her with mild curiosity as she worked around the tent, trying to think of half decent ways to get her attention.

  “Give us your phone.” He said after a few minutes of silence.

“Why?” She asked without looking up from the numbers she was entering into her spreadsheet.

“So that I can play some tunes.” He answered.

“Just play music off your own phone?” She frowned as she glanced down at him.

“International roaming is expensive and I know that you have stuff downloaded. Please?” He asked with a sappy smile. She rolled her eyes before grabbing her phone out of her pocket and handing it to him. As soon as he opened her phone, he saw that it was still sitting on their text chain and then noticed that his number was still… just that, his number. Not his name. Not a dorky nickname. Not anything. “Hey! Why haven’t you saved my number? It’s been nearly two months since I gave you that!”

“Why are you snooping through my phone?” She asked with a slight laugh. “I know who you are, I don’t have to save it. Maybe I’m trying to value your privacy in case certain people in my life decide to search through my phone when they’re meant to be playing music.” That second part about valuing his privacy was an afterthought to cover her own laziness for not having saved his contact, but it sounded good.

“Not my fault that you had it open on our conversation history.” He mumbled under his breath, shrugging as he quickly saved his contact as a kissing emoji.

  A little while passed in silence, and she was beginning to get worried that he actually was going through her phone looking for something. There wasn’t anything too incriminating on there, but if he went into the right conversations on the right apps he might find some comments she had made about him that she’d rather he didn’t know. “Are you gonna play something, or what?” She asked after about ten minutes of him scrolling, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice.

“In a minute, I’m just making a playlist.” He answered. Shortly after that, the beginning of Feeling This by Blink 182 filled the tent. She nodded her head in approval at his choice, having not heard the song in a while. It wasn’t until a few songs had passed that she was beginning to notice a common theme in his playlist. XO, Situations, Lying Is the Most Fun, Shake It… these were all songs blatantly about sex. Sure as anything, as soon as she realised what he was doing, Sex by The 1975 started playing. She couldn’t help but laugh.

“I am beginning to sense some underlying messages here.” She chuckled, leaning against the counter to face him.

“Hm?” He questioned, looking up at her in confusion.

“Don’t play dumb, Matty.” She said as she shook her head.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. What underlying messages?” He asked innocently. As soon as she went to call him out on it, the doubt in the back of her mind set in that maybe it was just a coincidence. There were about 4,000 songs on her phone, it was possible, albeit unlikely, that maybe it was just chance. Was she just pulling a pattern together herself? Unless he just wanted her to think that it was all in her head? That sounded like something he’d do. The longer she took to answer, the worse the smirk on his face got.

  Thankfully before she had to dive headfirst into that conversation, there was a noise from the other side of the tent. “You both still alive in there?” A familiar voice called as George poked his head in through the door.

“George! Hey!” She grinned as he stepped inside over Matty’s legs and pulled her in for a hug. “Good to see you.” She added as she hugged him back tightly.

“Hi, love! Hope he hasn’t been too painful?” He asked as he gestured down to their friend on the floor. She looked behind George at Matty, only to see him smiling up at her unassumingly. The music had also mysteriously stopped.

“He’s been… interesting.” She laughed. He just gave an over exaggerated wink in response.

“Well, I am here to take him off your hands.” He said as he offered a hand out to the frontman. “Doors are in thirty, Matt. Come on.” Matty grabbed his hand, standing up with a sigh. The two of them headed out of the tent, and she was glad that she might finally be able to get the last of her work done.

“Oh, wait!” She heard Matty shout as he suddenly came barrelling back into the merch tent, a wristband in hand. “Here, you need one of these.” He said as he took her left wrist in his hand and secured the all access wristband. He intentionally let his movements linger, and it didn’t go unnoticed. She just looked at him sceptically as he pulled his hands away, trying to work out what the hell he was doing. If he could work out her weak spots, he could easily use them to his advantage. He would just have to keep testing the waters until he hit the mark. “See you later!” He shouted as he ran out to catch up with George.

“What are you doing?” The drummer asked him with a tired look.

“Nothin’.” He shrugged, smiling to himself.

  The half an hour until doors opened flew by in no time at all, and soon the torrent of concert goers started to flow in through the gates. Management running the festival had told her that it was sold out, and festivals were generally a much higher capacity than a regular concert, so it was anticipated to be a pretty busy day. Especially when she was working by herself for the first half of it. She hadn’t quite been able to finish all of the set up by the time that she had to start serving customers, probably in thanks to Matty, which meant that the first hour of selling shirts was also coupled with folding the remaining shirts. But time goes quickly when you’re busy, so it was not long at all before her brother suddenly appeared in the tent, and then by their powers combined the sales were through the roof. The merch tent ran like a well-oiled machine when the two of them worked together, and the more they sold the more efficient it got. It wasn’t until her phone buzzed in her pocket that she snapped out of Sales ModeTM and came back to reality. It had been nearly six hours of solid selling, and she was starting to feel the effects of standing up for so long. She was probably due for a break soon. Which, apparently Matty shared the same sentiment. Or, at least that’s who she assumed the new contact that was listed as just a winking kiss emoji was. She had to chuckle a little at his choice of contact name.

3:46pm Come hang out.

3:52pm Can’t. Have to work.

She shot back as another person stepped up to the counter. She would have to wait until it got a bit quieter before she got her chance to go grab some food.

3:53pm Just get someone else to cover.

3:59pm There isn’t anyone else to cover. I’m here to work, I can’t just dick around with you all day.

  The sales continued, the sun started dipping a bit lower in the sky, the bands on stage came and went. By this point in the day the festival was in full swing, and it was slowly but surely dying down at the merch tent. The people that were lining up now were the ones who took a million years to decide, then had to message their friend to check if they should get that shirt or the other shirt, and then in the end said ‘I’ll be back later’ only to never return. As she was waiting patiently for any of them to step up and actually buy something, she heard her name being called from the back of the merch tent. She turned to see her brother on the phone to someone.

“Can you go grab a few boxes for me?” He asked with a pleading look, covering the receiver with his other hand. “Apparently there’s some back behind catering that are a part of a giveaway or something. I’ll hold down the fort here if you can go get them.” He added, before gesturing out to the few people still trying to make up their minds outside.

“Yeah, no problem.” She nodded with a smile before ducking out of the tent.

  It took a few minutes and chatting to a couple of security guards to work out where exactly catering was, but eventually she found it tucked behind a few of the food vans. As she circled the pop-up tent, she realised that she wasn’t entirely sure what sort of boxes she was looking for. Were they small boxes or big boxes? Should she have brought a trolley? Were they many huge boxes full of heavy hoodies or a couple of small boxes with posters in them? Shit. Who would she get to help bring them back if she couldn’t carry them all? Maybe she’d just have to make a few trips? Suddenly, all of her questions were answered. She rolled her eyes as she saw the curly haired boy sitting on the two boxes that she assumed she was meant to grab, joint in hand and staring idly around the venue. “I really should’ve known that you’d be here.” She chuckled as she walked over to Matty. He glanced up at her in curiosity, then looked down at the boxes he was sitting on.

“Oh, I’m sorry! Are these your boxes?” He asked innocently as he stood up off of them.

“They do say ‘for merch’ on the side.” She pointed out.

“That could mean anything.” He shrugged as she picked one of them up. It was oddly light.

“Are these empty?” She asked as she picked the other up as well. As she flipped open the lid, her suspicions were confirmed. “Did you put these two boxes together?” She narrowed her eyes at him in accusation.

“How strange…” Matty hummed quietly, opting to ignore the question. “While you’re here, d’you fancy a quick drink?” He added casually.

  Of course. Of course he had managed to get her out of the merch tent and here to hang out with him. She pulled her phone out with a sigh, quickly verifying what the time was. It was just past five. She had started work at nine that morning. It was probably as good a time as any to take a break. Once it began getting dark there was going to be the usual small rush of people realising that they hadn’t brought enough layers and needed to purchase more, so it only made sense to take a break now rather than later. It was just purely coincidental that she was going to take it with Matty. She flicked her brother a quick text to let him know that she was going to take her break while she was out, and also that the boxes were not for them, before slipping her phone back into her pocket.

“Only if we get food too.” She agreed, laughing a little as she watched the satisfied grin split across his face. “You sort drinks, I’ll sort food.” She added. He gave a sharp nod before looking around for somewhere he could actually get a drink from. A large part of him had expected her to say no and to just go back to work, so he hadn’t really expected to get this far. While he jogged off in search of alcohol, she made her way to the first food van she saw and placed an order; pickiness wasn’t really an option when you were hungry with limited time. And given how many people were already here at the show it was likely that all the food vans would have a decent wait time before she actually got anything to eat. As she waited for the food to be ready, she took a quick look around the festival to see if she could spot where Matty had run off to. He was at a bar across the way, chatting to the female bartender who was running the till. There was clearly a lot of flirting going on. Lots of arm touching and laughing and Matty was just leaning right over that counter to be in her personal space. It had become pretty apparent in the time that she had known him that he was just a generally flirty and charismatic guy. She had seen it a little bit at the shows, but it had been very obvious at the party the other week. Which was fine. That was just him. She could accept that. But it didn’t make it any easier to watch him be like that with other people. Not that she was jealous, being jealous would mean that she specifically wanted that attention directed towards her, which she totally didn’t, it was just- The call for her order thankfully snapped her out of her thoughts before they went down that rabbit hole of justification.

  As she turned around with the food, she saw that Matty was walking back with a triumphant look on his face and two bottles in his hands.

“Free drinks!” He cheered as he handed her one of the ciders and kept on walking right past her.

“Where are you going?” She asked with a frown.

“Dressing room.” He shouted back over his shoulder. “It’ll be quieter there and I’ve got some stuff to do.” He explained, cracking open his bottle and taking a swig from it.

“Oh, so you can work, but I can’t?” She laughed as she began following him, trying to balance the food in one hand with her drink in the other.

“You only work because of me.” He answered with a smug look.

“Other bands exist besides yours. You know that, right?” She asked.

“Yeah, but they aren’t as good. My band is the best out there. So, we pretty much have a monopoly on the gig industry. We own you.” What might have started as a serious sentiment on his part quickly devolved into a joke, and as much as he tried to keep a straight face, he couldn’t help but laugh when she scoffed at what he had said.

“You wish you had a monopoly on merch. I don’t think I’d ever get anything done if you were my boss.” She chuckled as she took a sip of her drink. That didn’t sound like such a bad thing… Her words had given him an idea. But he’d have to fire off a few texts tomorrow to see if it had any possibility of working.

  They finally reached the backstage area after a couple of wrong turns around all of the tents that looked exactly the same. That was the downside of outdoor festivals, everything was a temporary setup hired from the same company. So, everything was exactly the same style of tent. The two of them sat down, eating their food in silence for a little bit before Matty decided he had better start to get ready for their set. “Which do you prefer,” He said as he held up two separate outfits. “go all out with the suit, or stick to basics with the shirt and ripped jeans?” He was hoping that this question might give him a bit of insight into which look she preferred on him, but the blank look and noncommittal shrug weren’t exactly helpful.

“It’s your show.” She answered before taking another bite of her food truck dinner.

“Yeah, but…” He started, before deciding that explaining himself was going to take too long and probably detract from his aura of confidence. “Never mind.” He said with a sigh, deciding to just stick with the shirt and jeans for the sake of comfort and consistent image.

  After quickly changing he came back into the green room to sort out his hair. He had been feeling like he was probably overdue for a haircut. It was at that awkward length where it was not short enough to stay out of his eyes and not long enough to properly sort it out. Gelling it back seemed like the best option for the meantime. As he was messing about with his hair, he caught her staring at him through the mirror. He combed the gel through his hair and looked back at her with an eyebrow raised. “What?” He asked after a moment.

“Why are you gelling it back?” She asked with a frown.

“I just get annoyed by how it gets in my way sometimes.” He answered, shrugging slightly.

“Hmph. Fair enough.” She did not seem happy about this information. He found that far too amusing. 

“You prefer the bed head look?” He asked with a mischievous smirk spreading across his face. He could work with that information.

“It’s just-”

“No, no, I get it. It’s very close in similarity to the post-sex look so I can see the appeal.” The smirk had spread into a grin at this point as he watched her cheeks redden.

She just shook her head at him, “Why are you like this...”

  “Matt, did you end up sorting-” Ross began saying as he waltzed into the room, before looking up from his phone and spotting Y/N/N sitting in there as well. “Oh, hello!” He said with a smile. “What’re you doin’ here?” He asked as he sat next to her on the couch and stole one of her chips.

“Got dragged here by him.” She answered, gesturing towards Matty who was still messing with his hair in the mirror.

He nodded in understanding. “How’s merch going?” He questioned.

“It’s going good! I think we’ve already hit the expected sales total per head, so it’s only up from here.” She said eagerly, proud to finally get to tell someone that they were doing really well today.

“Well, I hope it’s not taking too much of your energy, the boys and I were sort of hoping you’d come out for a drink with us after.” He offered as he nudged her shoulder with his own.

“Which boys were thinking that?” Matty asked instantly as he spun around from the mirror.

“Obviously the ones that aren’t you.” Ross stated. “You wanna come out for a few?” He asked again.

“Yeah! I’d love to.” She beamed. The band had been excellent company the last time that she had the pleasure of hanging out with them and she was keen for the chance to get to know them better. “I’ll be finishing later than you guys, though. Probably a couple of hours later as long as that’s okay?” She questioned hesitantly.

“It shouldn-”

“Of course, it’s fine!” Matty interrupted. The two of them glanced over at him, before continuing to chat between themselves.

  Eventually, the other two members of The 1975 found their way to the green room, and it wasn’t long after that before she had to regrettably head back to work. As much as they were fun to be around, she had a job to do. They all agreed to head to a nearby bar after the show and that she would meet them there once she’d finished up her shift. She stood up from her spot on their couch, already halfway out of the room before Matty called her name.

“I’ll walk you back to the merch tent?” He offered, not really waiting for a response before getting up out of his seat and walking out with her. “Are you gonna come watch the show?” He asked offhandedly as he lit up a cigarette.

“I can see the stage from merch pretty well, so I’ll probably just stay there.” She shrugged.

“You’re not gonna come up to watch?” He questioned with a ridiculous pout on his face. 

“Why? So that you can wink at me any time there’s a mildly suggestive lyric?” She shot back with a laugh. He’d been overly flirty all day today, which was saying something since the usual amount was already pretty high.

“I’m only trying to look out for you, love. I just want to make sure that you can have the best possible view when I take my shirt off during the set.” He said casually. She looked over at him, expecting a wink or suggestive expression or something, but he was just acting like he hadn’t said anything at all.

  The rest of the festival went by very quickly. There were a few more customers to serve, then it wasn’t long until The 1975 went on. She couldn’t tell from where she was at merch if Matty had been telling the truth or not, but it was probably better that she wasn’t able to confirm that information. Once their set was finished it seemed that people just wanted to head out of the venue and go home. It was a nice relief to not have an after show rush, it meant that they could begin packing up earlier than expected. By the time that she finally got to the bar that they agreed to meet at, it was just after midnight. She had rushed through a couple of aspects of count out, opting to do the rest tomorrow morning so that she had more time with her friends tonight. The band were incredibly easy to spot as she walked in, namely because Matty was currently in the midst of trying to wrestle a phone away from Adam.

  “Just give me the phone, Hann!” He shouted, practically climbing over the table to try and get to it.

“Only when you agree to turn the damn thing off.” He argued as he scooted back in his chair to avoid his prying hands.

“Calm down you two.” She laughed as she walked up to their table. Matty instantly stopped what he was doing, looking up at her in surprise before abruptly sitting back into his seat. As he did, Adam threw the phone over to him without saying another word. She felt like she had interrupted something.

“Good to see you. Take a seat.” George smiled, gesturing to the empty space in the booth next to him. “How was work?” He asked in an attempt to break the tension that had apparently settled around the table.

“We did really well.” She answered with a grin. “How was the show?” She asked back.

“It was also really good!” Ross chimed in as he took a sip from his beer.

“The crowd were rowdy as hell.” George agreed with a nod, before giving Matty a knowing look. His face lit up as he remembered something that had happened during their gig.

“I have the best story for you about what happened when we played Give Yourself a Try-” He began, leaning over the table eagerly as he launched into it.

  The conversation flowed easily once George had worked his magic and moved everyone away from Matty’s awkwardness. Adam had taken his phone away from him when he wouldn’t stop checking it for the last hour, waiting for messages about when she was going to get to the bar. Apparently Matty had been unable to recover from the pure shock of seeing the person that he was waiting for magically appear at the table. Normally he was pretty good socially, but once he’d had a few drinks and was staring at things through rose coloured glasses, he could be a right mess. George had a feeling that Matty wasn’t going to own up to that, though. So, for his best friend’s sake, he could get everyone to forget that it had happened. The time passed quickly with the five of them having fun, and it was not long at all before glasses were running empty.

“I think I need another drink.” Matty said, motioning that he wanted to make his way out of the booth.

“Don’t stress! I’ll go get us another round.” Y/N/N offered quickly as she stood up, not wanting to bear witness to another round of her favourite game: Watching Matty Flirt with Bartenders.

  As she waited at the counter, the reason that she had gotten up ended up following her anyway. He leaned on the bar, fiddling with the coasters sitting on it. “Come here often?” He asked nonchalantly. She didn’t respond at first, unsure if he was joking or legitimately asking. “Name’s Matty. I’ll buy you a drink?” He offered as he held his hand out for a handshake.

“You’re such a twat.” She laughed, shoving him lightly in the shoulder. He grinned in response, making a mental note that she had probably reacted best to his dorky jokes out of everything else that he had attempted today.

“I came up to help you carry the drinks.” He explained as the bartender brought them over. They scooted back into the booth, handing the drinks out and diving back into the conversation.

  It was hard not to notice during their discussions that Matty was pretty good at being the loudest opinion at the table and was also very proficient at talking over his friends. It was especially apparent when he was enthusiastic about a topic. She could see that after two decades of being together, the other three men were just used to it at this point in their lives. George especially seemed to receive the majority of it. As the boys chatted about heading back home tomorrow, she noticed Matty’s arm making its way across the back of the booth behind her. She gave him a sceptical look as he did it, but he didn’t look away from his friend’s conversation. A part of her wondered if maybe he had jumped up to help her at the bar so that they’d have to be sitting next to each other when they came back…

  Eventually after a few moments he spoke up. “Admit it.” He said in a low voice as he leant in closer to her.

“Admit what?” She asked in confusion, frowning up at him.

“That you’re into me.” He elaborated as he turned to her with a smirk. Ah. She understood why he had been acting different all day now. He was trying to con her into confessing feelings for him. Not that there was anything to confess.

“What? No.” She laughed.

“But you are.” He argued with a cocky expression, sounding far too sure of himself for comfort.

“Am not.” She maintained.

“Cut it out, kids.” George said to them without looking away from Ross. Matty wasn’t about to argue with George after he bailed him out earlier, but he wasn’t done pushing the point either. He’d need to find more time to talk to her. However, he knew that wasn’t likely to happen tonight.

  By nearly two in the morning, they collectively decided that they should begin winding up their night. She had started work at nine that morning and the fifteen-hour work day was quickly catching up with her. And the band had a flight to catch the next day. The five of them stood outside the bar, watching as the last few stragglers made their way home. George, Ross and Adam all said their goodbyes, exchanging hugs and saying that they were looking forward to seeing her again at some point. They took a few polite steps away, giving Matty the chance to say bye without them hanging around to give him shit for it.

“You’re welcome to come back to the hotel.” Matty suggested with an eyebrow raised. She let out a sigh, ready to decline the offer but he continued. “For real, though, funny business aside. The hotel is closer to here than your place.” He said, his tone instantly switching from joking to serious.

“It’s okay, I’d rather get a good night’s sleep in my own bed.” She replied. “I have to finish up a few things with the stock tomorrow back at the warehouse, anyway. Thank you, though.” She added with a smile.

“It’s all right.” He nodded, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it. “Was good seeing you, as always. Get home safe.” He said as he pulled her in for a tight hug. He still had that familiar smell of stage sweat clinging to him around his usual combination of weed and charity shop clothes. As soon as he moved back, she was already missing his company. Any day with him always ended up being an exceptional one and she hadn’t realised how much she missed being around him until he was back again. If she was totally honest with herself, a part of her probably was into him. But she was glad that she wouldn’t have to see him for a while and deal with that. Having feelings for someone like him would not be fun to confront. He turned and started walking back to his friends, already writing the text messages in his head that he had to send off tomorrow.

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