FicWad

I pushed past Max, knowing that he was ready to give me a lecture, but I wasn't in the mood to hear his shit. I was in too good of a mood.

"What are you doing with her?" he asked.

"Nothing. We were just hanging out."

"At 2 in the morning? Ronnie, harmless flirting is fine, whatever, it's what you do. But you can't do anything more with her. She's Gerards wife! Do you know what would happen if you guys hooked up and he found out? We could get kicked off this tour."

"Max! I know, alright. Stop telling me, just leave me alone."

Everything he had said was true, but that didn't change the fact that, just in that two hour period I had spent with her, I felt more of an attraction to her than I had felt in a long time. The touch of her skin under my finger tips made me excited, my pulse quickened when I had her hand in mine, and my smile grew when she spoke my name.

I went to bed that night, with the wondering of what her lips would have tasted like if I had actually kissed her.
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"Where's Sara?" I asked Max and Rob, who were playing Guitar Hero.

"She and Ronnie went for a walk after we finished sound check," Max answered.

"Thanks."

In the past couple of weeks, Sara and Ronnie had been hanging out together a lot. I was jealous, and bugged, because she seemed to talk to him more than she was to me these days. And the one big worry I had was obvious; was she cheating me? I liked to think not because that's not the person she was, but then again, she had cheated on Tim with me.

My thoughts were often preoccupied with that thought, but I couldn't let it affect my performance on stage. I had to plough through it with as much energy as I could muster, and when the show had finished, I would give into exhaustion, frustration, and anger, and I would cry when I had a moment to myself.
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Ronnie nor I had mentioned the "almost" kiss since that night, but there was definitely something going on between us, and even if we didn't say it, we both knew it was true. I just hated that I wished something further would develop between us.

On one of our nights off, a whole bunch of us had decided that we were going to go out to a club for drinks, even though I didn't drink myself. I knew that Gerard wouldn't come, because he was still struggling to quit, but I wanted to invite him anyway. I found him at the back of the bus, his hand flying across paper.

"Hey honey," I said after a moment of watching him.

"Hey." He slammed the book shut and set it down behind him.

"We were going to the bar. You don't want to come, do you? I know you don't drink, but you could come anyway."

He smiled thoughtfully. "No thanks. I think I should just stay away from that stuff as much as possible."

"Okay, well I'll see you later." I blew him a kiss, and before I went outside to meet Ronnie, who was waiting in a cab for me, I made a detour to the washroom. I quickly applied some red lipstick that I knew he liked, messed my hair up a bit, and pulled off the t-shirt I had put on over the revealing top I had bought. I didn't want to admit it, but it was for him.

"You changed," he said when I joined him in the cab.

"Well, I wanted to wear something that was a little more club appropriate."

"You look great," he murmured, and then looked out the window. I watched his reflection as the cab passed under city lights on the way to the club. He wouldn't look at me, and when we arrived to meet everyone else, he hadn't said anything else either. He got out of the cab before I could even open my mouth.

Almost the rest of the evening, I spent by Alicia’s side. Neither one of us was drinking, and we were the only ones, so we sat off to the side of everyone else.

"I should ask you something, and don't hate me for asking, but Mikey is worried that there's something going on between you and Ronnie. Is there?"

I glanced over at Ronnie, who had three empty glasses in front of him, and one half empty in his hand. I marvelled at how much he could drink and still be in tune with what was happening.

"Ronnie and I, we're just having fun. He brings out a side of me that I didn't know I had."

"That doesn't answer the question."

Again, I looked over at Ronnie, but this time he was watching me. We made eye contact, and at first he didn't react, but then he jerked his head back, as if he had just realized what was happening, and turned away from me.

"No," I finally answered. "Nothing."
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Drinks kept coming, and I kept knocking them back like they were water. But they didn't help. Nothing seemed to get my mind off of her. Especially when she looked the way she did then. I wanted to stop feeling the way I did for her. I had to convince myself that there was nothing there, even though I knew there was, and I'm pretty damn sure she knew, too. The only way to do that was to distance myself from her, which, as soon as I saw her get up and announce that she was leaving, was impossible.

I muttered to the other guys that I had to go to the washroom, but none of them heard, they were too busy wrapped up in their own conversations that I had been pretending to follow.

I followed Sara to the door, and cornered her before she could leave.

"Move," she said angrily.

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong!?" she asked in a shrill voice. "You tell me, because you're the one who was avoiding me all night."

"I'm sorry, I just, I needed to figure some things out." I hugged her gently, and I felt her resist for a moment. I let her go and she quickly wiped away a tear.

She made me so confused. I wasn't sure if I wanted to give into my temptation, or if I wanted to fight it. Normally I wouldn't think twice about it, and I would have already slept with her. But she was different from all the others, she was somehow more meaningful.

"I think I should just leave," I heard her say through my cloud of thoughts, and I quickly followed her outside where she began hailing a cab. I noticed her shivering, even though it was late May, so I shrugged off my jacket and placed it over her shoulders. She gave me a week smile, and finally got a cab to stop.

I joined her in the back, and for the second time that night, we sat in a cab in silence. I didn't dare to turn and look at her, but I studied her slender hands, which rested on her knees, from the corner of my eye.

When we arrived back at the hotel, we walked around to where the buses were sitting, and she abruptly turned to me. "God, I feel so stupid."

"Why?"

"Because I did this for you, hoping that you would notice me. I thought maybe there was something but, uh never mind." She turned back towards the bus and muttered, "Guys like you never look twice at someone like me." Her hand reached for the door, but I blocked her way.

"Please just-"

"You don't think I haven't thought about you? You don't think that I wake up in the morning, thinking about you, and waiting to see your face? Or that I don't wonder what it would feel like to kiss you, or even just hold you in my arms?" I yelled. "I don't think anyone’s made me feel the way you do. But you don't have to make yourself like the girls you think I want. It's because you're so different from them that I like you more. In fact, I might even love you." And with that, I grabbed her face, and kissed her. My tongue automatically, and so naturally, slipped into her warm, sweet mouth. I kissed her for so long, that I ran out of breath, and I took a quick breath before engaging our lips again, and it was more perfect than I had hoped for.

Finally, I pulled away, even though it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do.

She smiled at me serenely, her gorgeous eyes sparkling in the moonlight. I reached out and cupped her cheek with my hand.

"Goodnight Sara," I said, giving her a lingering kiss before I turned to go back to my bus. But standing ten feet away from me was someone that made me stop dead in my tracks. Not because of who she was, but what she was holding.