Hey Ratliff you picked the wrong lover

Chapter 4

*Rydel’s p.o.v*

The next morning we have a makeup band meeting since the one yesterday got messed up, I was up early as usual waiting for the others when Ratliff shows up.

“You’re early!” I exclaim, I can instantly tell he’s back to his old self.

“Hey Ell!”

“Hey Delly!”

We greet each other in our usual way, high fiving up, down, left, then right.

As we wait for the others to get out of bed we sit on the couch, almost awkwardly.

I can’t ignore the fact that our hands are almost touching, I pull my hand back and put it in my lap.

“How was your date yesterday?” I ask.

“It was great!” he exclaims.

“What’d you guys do?” I ask.

“Well let’s see, first I took her out to eat at olive garden, then we went and played mini golf, oh and then we went to see that new movie, um, ‘The mortal instruments’! It was really good and then we went to her house for a while and just chilled, what did you do last night?” he asks.

“Oh, uh, you know, just sat around and wrote down some new song lyrics.” I replied, trying not to think about the fact that I’d been thinking about him all night.

“Cool! You’ll have to show me!” he exclaims.

I mentally kick myself, now I’d have to find an excuse to get out of showing him the new lyrics I didn’t have.

Luckily about that time Riker came out of his room and started knocking on everyone’s doors to wake them up for the band meeting.

“Oh! You two are already here, ok, good, the others should be ready soon, Ratliff, hey you look a lot better, how was your date last night?” he asks.

“It was awesome, sorry again for being such a drama king yesterday.” He apologizes.

“Hey, it’s no problem, tour puts a lot of stress on a person, especially someone who is in a relationship.” He replies.

“I’ve been there done that.” Ross adds as he comes into the living room.

Having just got out of a shower he was only wearing shorts, and was still shirtless, and he was running a towel through his hair, and draped it over his shoulder.

“Oh, dude, come on put on a shirt!” I exclaim covering my eyes.

“Hey isn’t Laura coming over later to help?” Riker asks.

“Um, help us what?” Ratliff asks.

“Oh, that’s something we had to talk about today.” I reply.

“Tiger beat magazine wants us to do a photo-shoot for them at the place where we’re having our first concert, but, since it was going to interfere with our original departure date, I had them schedule it for next week, we’re leaving Monday.” Riker explains.

“But that’s two weeks early!” Ratliff exclaims.

“I know this is going to be really hard for you especially since you and Kelly are going through a phase right now, but we have to put ourselves out there as much as we can if we’re going to make this album a success.” Riker replies.

Ratliff bites his lower lip.

“Alright, I guess that’s fair enough.” He replies.

“You guys will be fine, I think you and Kelly are on the same page now.” I try reassuring him.

“You can do what I do, invite her over to help you pack.” Ross says.

I purse my lips at him and shake my head.

“You just like it when someone does your packing for you.” I reply.

Ross shrugs.

“Can I help it if Laura knows what I like to wear?” he asks.

“That’s actually not a bad idea…the inviting her over to help me pack thing, not the letting her do my packing for me thing.” Ratliff replies.

“Well okay it’s settled then, where is Rocky?” Riker asks.

“Sorry, I’m up.” Rocky replies tiredly as he comes out of his bedroom.

“You’re late.” Riker replies.

“I already know the drill, we’re leaving early, photo-shoot at the first gig, don’t make a girl pack for you.” He rambles.

“Um, that last one wasn’t part of the meeting.” I reply.

“Oh, right.” he replies.

“I better go call Kelly.” Ratliff says as he pulls out his phone and goes into the kitchen.

*Ratliff’s p.o.v*

I nervously dial Kelly’s number, it rings only once and she answers.

“Hello, this is Kelly.” She says.

“Kelly, it’s Ratliff, I need to talk to you, can you come over in like an hour?” I ask.

“Sure, I’ll see you in a bit.”

We finish our band meeting and I go home to wait for Kelly, not sure how I’m going to bring this up.

Before long I hear a knock at the door, I mentally prepare myself and go downstairs to answer the door.

“Hey Kelly.” I say as I take her hand and pull her upstairs to my room.

“Ratliff is something wrong?” she asks.

“I have something I have to tell you.” I reply.

“What?” she asks.

“We have to leave two weeks early.” I say, just coming out and saying it.

“What, but that only leaves us a week to hang out!” she exclaims.

“I know! And I’m sorry, but we’re trying to get as much media coverage as we can, and it just so happens we have a photo-shoot scheduled that would interfere with our original departure day, I promise you can spend as much time with me as you want, I’m really sorry baby.” I say as I sit down next to her wrapping her in a hug as she cries into my shoulder.

“I know we’re going through a rough patch right now, and I really don’t want to leave until we have things worked out, but I really can’t do anything about it, if I could you know I would.” I add.

She pulls out of the hug wiping the tears off her cheeks.

“No, it’s fine.” She replies as she gives me a fake puppy dog look.

“Just as long as you have a VIP ticket for me and maybe a plane ticket?” she asks.

“You know I do.” I reply as I kiss her lightly on the lips.

“I’ll give them to you before we leave.” I reply.

“And I’m gonna help you pack too.” She replies.

“Funny we were just having a conversation about that today at the band meeting.” I reply with a laugh.

She lowers an eyebrow.

“Really?” she asks.

“It’s a long story.” I reply.

She laughs.

She glances down at her phone.

“Oh, my afternoon break is almost up, I gotta get back to school.” She says as she gives me a kiss.

“I’ll see you later today; do you want to help us with the tour bus later tonight?” I ask.

“Sure!” she replies, giving me another quick kiss on the lips before she picks up her purse and leaves, turning around to give me another wave.