The busses had arrived in Vienna only an hour or two before midnight, but due to a long nap midday with Rob, Jane was wide awake. She had tried earlier to beg him and Austin to go out with her on the town, but they had scheduled an interview for the morning and respectfully declined. They hadn’t had much time apart in the past forty-eight hours, but it wasn’t by accident; ever since they had talked behind the venue, they had nearly been inseparable, and all tension that had built up was now released. Well, almost all of it. Jane had yet to really dig into to her connection with Andy with Rob, let alone herself. Over the past two days, she hadn’t even really texted him, and she was starting to feel guilty for the lack of communication on her end. He was an innocent bystander in this situation, undeserving of being ignored, but the more that Jane began to think about him, the more it felt like she was doing something wrong. Logically, she wasn’t. She was going by the agreement that her and Rob had put into place, and if she had to admit, Jane wasn’t ready to give that up. Not yet. It wasn’t like Jane and Andy were going to continue when the tour ended and they both went back home. She highly doubted that either of them would make a fifteen hour drive to see each other enough to keep up any sort of connection, and Jane had completely made amends with that fact. But, to end things between them prematurely seemed as though it would be a waste of energy. As everyone got ready for bed, Jane shot a text to Andy. [i]Jane; 11:34 PM:[/i] [b]Everyone is going to bed over here. Wanna go out for a little?[/b] [i]Andy; 11:38 PM:[/i] [b]Sure. Meet me outside in 5.[/b] One they met, they embraced each other quickly and called a cab to bring them into the city. The conversation remained light until they arrived at a bar they had looked up online. It was a dim, open spaced, packed to the brim with patrons, none of which approached either of them for pictures or autographs. “So,” Andy began as he twirled the ice in his cup with his straw, “haven’t seen much of you lately.” Jane sighed and nodded; he wasn’t wasting any time. “Oh…yeah. Rob and I talked after that show and he told me he loved me, and that he still wants to be with me.” She hadn’t found the courage to look up from her beer. “I guess we’ve just been spending a lot of time together since then.” “Ah,” Andy nodded. “Are you happy?” Jane looked to him and smiled faintly. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I am.” “Well, I’m glad,” Andy replied as he pushed his hair out of his face, which revealed an unsatisfied expression. “What’s wrong, Andy?” asked Jane with a furrowed brow, turning her body to face him. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to have such a conversation right then, but apparently he was. “What’s that mean for [i]us[/i], Jane?” He rested his face in his hand. “Soon, we won’t be touring together. We’ll be hundreds of miles apart. Don’t give up on me just yet.” Jane looked down when he finished. He was feeling the same way she was (whatever that was). “I know, I know,” she sighed. “But now that he and Zoe are done, and I had gotten [i]so[/i] jealous, I feel guilty for whatever is happening between us.” Andy placed a hand on her knee and squeezed it softly. “Who knows if we’re even going to see each other again after this, Jane?” Her finger’s disappeared deep in to her hair as she took a deep breath. “Do we [i]have[/i] to talk about this now? I wanna see if I can break my record for not fucking things up. I’ve got two days so far.” He couldn’t help but laugh. “Fine. But we need to talk about this eventually.” “Yeah,” she smirked. “I know.” [center]*****[/center] Soon, they were walking the streets of Vienna together arm in arm, laughing about a story Andy had told about a party he went to in high school. Both of them had a decent buzz on, accidentally bumping shoulders with those walking by or taking a misstep, only making their laughter increase. A sliver of pavement separated two tall buildings to their left, and Andy quickly grabbed Jane’s hand to yank her into the the alleyway with him, and there, he brought both hands to the side of her head and kissed her with passionate. “Andy,” she mumbled into his lips. “It’s too exposed here, we can’t – “ “I’m not trying to get laid, Jane,” he explained as he pulled away from her face a few inches. “I’m just enjoying the time we have left together, okay?” “Okay,” Jane replied quietly, and they both leaned back into each other. Only moments passed, though, before a bright light flashed towards them, causing them both to startle and turn towards its source: a man, possibly in his early thirties, with a large camera in his hand had just taken a picture of the two of them. “Get the [i]fuck[/i] out of here, man,” Andy nearly yelled as he approached the man, who ran off instantly back out onto the busy sidewalk and down the block. “I’m sorry, Jane,” Andy softened. “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Jane whispered over and over again as she began to pace in the alley. “You know [i]that’s[/i] going on the internet.” “Hey, it’ll be fine. There had already been some rumors going around.” “Yeah, but this is proof,” Jane groaned. “Plus, things are going so well with Rob. This is just gonna be a slap in the face.” “Let’s get you back to the bus, huh?” he suggested as he threw an arm around her shoulder. “We’ll deal with this tomorrow.” [center]*****[/center] Jane awoke to the undeniable sensation of nausea in her stomach, and she abruptly hopped down from her bunk and dashed for the bathroom, puking as soon as her knees touched the cold tile floor. She only had three, maybe four beers last night. Not enough to make her vomit… She only had time to wipe her mouth before Sam had appeared in the doorway with his phone facing her. “This is on three news sites so far,” he said in his usual neutral tone. There it was. Her hands were on Andy’s chest, one of his hands were in her back pocket, and another in her hair. They were deep in a kiss in an alleyway late at night. “Damn it,” Jane cursed, her voice still weak from vomiting. “What’s it say?” “Jane, front woman of In Bloom, caught kissing Vicarious’ vocalist Andy Ramirez passionately in a Vienna alleyway. What does this mean for her and Rob’s relationship?” Sam shrugged as he finished, sticking the phone in his back pocket. “Jesus, is Rob here?” “No. He and Austin left for the interview about an hour ago. You know, you gotta deal with this soon. The next two weeks of shows are gonna be huge, and Harold will flip if shit doesn’t go well.” “I will,” she whispered as she looked up to him. “Hey, Sam?” she called to him as he began to walk away. “Yeah, J?” “Promise not to tell the guys about me barfing?” “Yeah.” Jane eventually returned to her bunk to be greeted from by a text from Andy. [i]Andy, 9:42 AM[/i]: [b]Shit. Worse than I thought.[/b] [i]Jane, 9:44 AM[/i]: [b]Yeah. I’m probably gonna lay low for a while.[/b] [i]Andy, 9:45 AM:[/i] [b]I understand.[/b] [center]*****[/center] After some digging, Jane released her longboard from a pile of bags tucked away in the bus’s storage, and after brushing her teeth and putting on some warm clothes, she took off out of the lot the busses were parked in and out onto the street, slowly weaving her board from left to right on the barren road. Her earbuds were playing [url=https://youtu.be/07EVdwinSIk]Candy Flips by Spires[/url], and she was enjoying the song so much that she caught herself closing her eyes for just a second too long, nearly hitting a parked car. “Shit!” she yelled as she curved her board, but made a split second decision to run off of it instead of trying to ride it out. The board shot out, maybe thirty feet, and just as it slowed, the undeniable [b]crack[/b] of it breaking in half rang through the air, along with the cursing in a foreign language from the driver of an SUV. Jane ran towards it to see what she had suspected. It was nearly clean down the middle, with jagged pieces of wood sticking out from both sides. She picked both up in her hands and walked back to the sidewalk to plop down on a bench, and that was when her lip began to quiver. Wait, what? [i]”Am I really about to cry over my fucking longboard?”[/i] In all fairness, she had owned it for ten years, replacing the trucks and grip tape frequently to keep it ridable. She knew she needed a new one, but this one had so many memories attached to it. [hr] [i]Jane and Rob had gotten into yet another argument while they were driving home from the studio together about the single, with her in the passenger seat. If she had to look back now, she wouldn’t be able to remember what words were exchanged, besides her last statement: “Fuck this. I’m skating home.” At the next red light, Jane exited the vehicle and began to push her longboard down the dark road, expecting Rob to take off in the car ahead of her. Instead, without saying a word, he drove next to her for blocks. At first she was annoyed, her pride not even allowing her to look over to him, but after about a mile, she found that she was beginning to smile, and she got off her board and once again got in the passenger seat. “Asshole,” was all she said with smirk before they endured the rest of the ride in silence.[/i] [hr] Tears were rolling down her cheeks, but Jane couldn’t help but laugh at the memory as she sat with the broken board in her hands. She had to talk to Rob about the news articles he had probably already seen, but she felt it’d be best to calm down first before she saw him face to face. Maybe a text? No, a text would be too ingenuine. Jane put her phone up to her ear and waited as it trilled over and over again, eventually going to voicemail. “Hey, it’s me. I got out for a little to clear my head. Um, a car ran over my board.” She laughed and took a deep breath. “Anyway, I don’t know what you’ve seen yet, but I didn’t want you to think I was running away from it. I, uh, I don’t know what to do, or to say besides that I’m sorry… I’m sorry and I love you. Not Andy. But, um, I’m gonna head back soon, so I guess I’ll see you then. Bye, Rob.” She ended the all and rubbed her temples as millions of thoughts raced through her mind: [i]Why did she barf this morning? What if she was pregnant? Who would the father be? Can she even [i]get[/i] an abortion out here? Will Rob want her to end things with Andy? How would Andy react? Is Rob upset with her over the picture? [/i] Instead of getting up to walk back to the lot, Jane decided to give herself a little more time to center herself. She put on [url=https://youtu.be/W4F0eeFqiU4]Fever Queen by Nothing[/url] and laid herself down on the bench, closing her eyes tightly and breathing deeply. Jane didn’t look forward to what could await her back at the bus.