Do it for the memories and for Baltimore

Chapter 56

Alex's POV

"Happy album release day!" I heard softly in my ear as I started waking up.

I smiled and pulled the owner of the beautiful voice into a tight hug "Have I ever told you that I never get tired of waking up next to you when I'm not on tour?" I kissed her head.

"Maybe once or twice..." she grinned and slowly got out of my grip around her.

"Wait, where are you going?" I whined missing her warmth.

"Just a sec!" she said from the hallway.

A minute later I started smelling food as Rachel entered our bedroom with breakfast on a tray.

"To celebrate Dirty Work...I was kind of creative this morning. And don't worry about sharing, I already ate my breakfast."

She put the tray down on my lap and I laughed at her creation. She made a pancake in the shape of the band's skull logo, and two strips of bacon crossed together underneath it.

"You're the cutest" I said to her, and began eating.

"So, today you guys have that in-store acoustic set at the record store on Thames St. and then you have to announce the tour info on Facebook before 5pm today" she informed me as I ate.

"You're starting to sound like Flyzik. Are you our new manager and haven't told us yet?" I joked.

"I guess I'm just good at managing schedules" she shrugged.

I took a bite out of one of my pieces of bacon before setting it down, "so..." I tried to chew and talk, "will you be joining us on tour this time around? Maybe even just the U.S. portion if you can't miss a lot of work?"

I was hopeful for Rachel to join us on tour again. I knew some of our friends in other bands didn't like when their wives or girlfriends went on tour with them, but I personally loved her company as we travelled around the country.

"I put a lot of thought into it, and, I'm not going to come Alex" her voice was small. Almost to help me deal with the blow. She even knew that I would have loved to have her with us on tour.

"Oh. Can I ask why?"

"Remember my conversation with Jack when we were recording the album? He was right. You and I are together almost too much...not that I don't love every minute with you. And Jack's your best friend. He needs his time with you, without me being there. I think it would be good for us as well. Couples need their time away from each other occasionally, right?"

"Okay, I understand" I pulled her head in to give her cheek a kiss.

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Wednesday July 20 2016

It's been exactly a month since Dirty Work has been released and the guys left for their first of many tours 3 weeks ago. The first one being in the U.S. There wasn't exactly as much hype around this album as we all expected. A part of me had thought that the fans weren't so happy with the album because Interscope lead the band in a different direction. But, I kept my opinions to myself.

Although the band wasn't exactly meeting their sale expectations, they were still selling out shows and having great turnouts at their other events like meet and greets and in-store signings. They even booked 5 more tours in other countries so far.

I missed them, but of course we stayed in touch with texting and FaceTime. I kept busy at work and it wasn't so bad without Alex at home this time. I think I'm getting used to it by now.

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Alex's POV

"I know, I miss you too. It's already been almost a month away and we've got another one to go. And thats just for the U.S. tour" I was talking with Rachel on the phone — her being a couple thousand miles away from me, right where she's not supposed to be. She should be here helping us on tour so I could snuggle with her in our downtime before shows each night, but sadly she decided to stay home and I missed her immensely.

"If it makes you feel any better, we could say that theres only 5 more weeks until we could see each other. And then you gotta leave again" she replied.

I could almost hear her face form into a frown by the end of her sentence.

"But we need to tour as much as possible to promote and get our bands name out there more. Especially since Dirty Work wasn't our most successful like we hoped. To tell you the truth, us and our agent had a meeting today and it was a unanimous vote that after this U.S. tour, we were going to leave Interscope. They just changed our songs and the band too much." I explained to Rachel, although since she was the one who recorded our album, she saw first-hand how different of a direction we were lead in on Dirty Work.

I heard loud footsteps running through the tour bus as Rachel took her turn to talk; evidently it was Jack chasing Rian around with whip cream in his hand, ready to smash it in his face whenever he captured him. Fortunately for Rian, Jack wasn't as fast.

I couldn't help but think of the main reason my girlfriend wasn't here on this tour. I don't exactly want to blame Jack, but he was the one that said Rachel was hanging out with us too much. I can't lie, there have been times these past 3 weeks that I've given him the cold shoulder for that reason. Most of the time, eventually giving in and having a good time with my best friend — but not 100% of the time.

As Rian and Jack continued their game both inside and outside of the bus, Rachel and I were wrapping up our phone call. Saying our goodbyes and I love you's, I hung up the phone with a smile on my face.

"Aghhhhh Alex help me!!!" Jack's loud voice brought me out of my relaxed state when he came bounding through the tour bus door, slamming it closed.

I let out a heavy sigh, sometimes his crazy antics got a little old, probably because I've known the guy for half my life. "What is it Jack?"

"So I was chasing..." he was panting from running around so much that he would breath heavily between phrases "Rian with whip cream right? And then..." "I found out that..." "HE HAS WHIP CREAM TOO! HE'S GONNA GET ME!"

I opened up Twitter so I could absentmindedly scroll through tweets once Jack decided to give up on this "just run past him really fast into the venue, he might get lost if you hide."

"That's it?! You're not gonna help me or protect me?" he questioned me as if it were obvious that I was going to help him out.

"Deal with it yourself, Jack. You got into this, figure it out yourself" I said sprawling out on the couch, typing an "I miss you, save me from Jack" text to Rachel.

"What's up with you?" he asked laughing from the adrenaline of his situation.

"Nothing Jack" I replied getting slightly annoyed that he hadn't left yet, "I just dont want to partake in your chaos today."

"Whatever" Jack mumbled to himself before yelling like a young boy entering into a water gun fight with his friends and running outside of the bus.

Finally some quiet from that crazy ass man.