Falling Too (Tyler Joseph)

Chapter 12

I couldn't stop myself from worrying that Tyler would be crept out by the gifts I had gotten him. What if he thought it was too much? His birthday presents consisted of several of the CD's he had gotten stolen and a gorgeous mahogany ukulele. Josh had mentioned that whenever they went to the music store together Tyler would always play on that exact one. I knew that he already had one that had been owned before, but I figured he deserved this new one since he clearly liked it so much.

I adjusted the two boxes on the floorboard of my car in the back, I didn't want him to know how much I had actually got him just yet. I starred at my reflection in the metallic blue wrapping paper for a moment, making sure that my straw blonde curls were still being tame for once. I straightened out my tan dress, running my hands over the white lace that laid overtop of it before getting in my car and driving to the recreation center. I had at least an hour before we had to perform, but I wanted to make sure that I had everything ready for when we did.

Right when I went to tune my ukulele I remembered that I had left my tuner in the music room at church. I checked my phone seeing that I still had enough time to run across the street and get what I needed. I slipped my gray coat back on and hurried out into the cold. I could tell from the whiteness of the sky that it was probably going to snow at some point today. I entered the church through the side door that lead into the chapel and much to my surprise Tyler was there, sitting behind the piano.

"Tyler!" I shouted without thinking and by the expression on his face I had startled him too.

As soon as he realized that it was me an ear to ear smile took over his face. "Hey, Ashley! Wow, you look really pretty."

I felt myself blushing as I murmured, "Thanks."

Tyler quickly got up to head over to where I was and then I could see what he was wearing. He had on tan dress slacks that were only a tad darker than my dress and a white long sleeve button up shirt with a black bow tie. Without even trying he and I had managed to nearly match.

"You look great too." I tell him as I gestured to his wardrobe.

He grinned, "Thank you, so what are you doing here?"

"Getting my tuner." I say, pointing in the direction of the music room.

"So are you nervous?"

I shrugged, "Not really, are you?"

"Sort of, but I'll have you there with me so I should be fine."

The heat in my cheeks got more intense at that, so I attempted to play it off by joking, "Yeah, just so they'll laugh at both of us if one of us messes up."

He rolled his eyes at me, but his happy expression never faltered. "Let's get your stuff and then head over to the rec center."

On our way out I remembered that I hadn't said anything about his birthday, so I shoved his shoulder slightly with my own saying, "Happy birthday Ty."

He grinned, pushing me back, "Thank you, Ash."

Once inside we saw that the place was filling up fairly quickly and we hurried to the back where the general audience wasn't allowed. We were the last act before the children's pageant, so we had enough time to run through the song one last time before they were calling us out. 

"And finally we have a special treat." Karen announces to the crowd, "Two first time performs for the Christmas festival. Ashley Blake and Tyler Joseph."

Carly, Dee, and Josh could be heard cheering for us, but at the same time, I could nearly sense the hesitation in the rest of the building. Now I was starting to get nervous, was this only going to make me look worse to the rest of our church? I glanced over at Tyler right as he was finishing up his vocal warmups and decided that right at this moment I couldn't care less about anyone else's opinion. I was doing this for myself and Tyler.