After Her Love

17. Grande escape

Iiris' PoV

Watching the guys and the girls I started to miss my old life even more. They were so close, basically a well selected group of people who they could trust, to whom each one of them could just go when they had a problem. They were all so supportive towards each other that I started to feel that I have been living my whole life so wrong. I rather stick with one friend, which was Susanne, to whom I could always go when I needed help or advice. We seemed to understand each other better than anyone I have ever met and no matter if there were other people hanging with us, I never connected with them the way I did with Susanne. She was, and still is, my best friend, the others were just someone I knew and spent time with but never in my life I trusted them with things I trusted Susanne. But these people here, they were family. They way Joel held Robyn so close to him, occasionally rubbing her belly and giving kisses on her cheek. How Niko and Miryam sat closely and Niko had his hand wrapped around the red haired girl. Pauline and Joonas seemed to both have a similar sense of humor that they were laughing together most of the time. Tommi and Yasmin seemed to be the ones who were maybe a little cautious of what was happening around but every now and then they either silenced them all with some funny comment or gave the answer to some question no one knew the answer. Then there was Olli who was just as friendly and chill as the others, and then, Aleksi. A guy, who was so easy to be with. Although I could see he got a little tense every now and then and got a little silent, he still kept his cool and followed everything that was going around. He kept on giving small smiles to me and just with his presence, he made me feel better. These guys had the most amazing support group they could have and they wanted nothing but the best for each other. I could sense it. I did not have that kind of support in my life.

The conversations were flying from one topic to another and sometimes I found it hard to really join into one when they were talking about the band stuff, upcoming shows, interviews and so on. I just listened to them but when the girls realized that I wasn't completely following the conversation, they started to ask some basic stuff about me, where I was from, what I've been doing and so on. I could see they were doing their best avoiding the certain topic and once Robyn went to speak on phone with Joel's mother who was babysitting their daughter, Miryam went to bathroom and Yasmin had some work stuff to discuss with Pauline, I totally fell into my own thoughts and started to think about Rauli and his behavior again.

"Iiris?" I felt a gentle nudge on my shoulder which shook me back to this hotel room.

"Sorry.. I zoned out.. Did you ask something?" I felt my cheeks getting a little warmer and Aleksi just smiled at me. I was so deep in my thoughts that I totally ignored the whole conversation that was going on around me.

"I did.. I just wanted to ask do you maybe want another cider?" Pauline smiled and pointed to the empty bottle I was holding in my hands. I looked at the bottle and then shook my head.

"Thanks but I'm fine with just one.. I still need to.. Figure things out.." I sighed and without even noticing I sort of brought up the topic I so badly wanted to avoid. The room went silent and no one seemed to know what to say. Aleksi knew that I would join them only if we were not going to talk about my situation but I had now brought it up and guess no one really knew how to carry on.

"Umh.. Not sure if you wanna talk about it right now, but.." Miryam carefully started and tried to read my answer from my face.

"We just cannot ignore what we saw at the bar and.. We're worried.. " She then continued and I felt how each pair of eyes were drilling through me, waiting for me to say something.

"I offered her to stay with me as long as she wants.. " Aleksi told the others about his plan. I was not sure how much they knew but realizing how close they were, he had probably told them and I could not be mad at him. He has been expressing how worried he is and he was just as helpless as I was. Only that these guys here still seemed to have so much more answers and solutions than I had.