Warped Tour (A Shannon Leto Story)

Accusations

Shannon's laughter brought my attention to the dark haired man, who was still lounged on the arm of the couch. I crooked my finger at him, urging him to come dance. His hazel eyes widened before he started shaking his head. I nodded back, ignoring his protests as I moved closer to him.

"Come dance with me," I grinned before putting on my best puppy dog look, "please?"

He finally gave in, grabbing my hand and spinning me away, only to pull me back with quick succession. Lightning sparked through my veins at the feeling of his chest against mine as we swayed off beat in a half assed jazz type salsa move. I felt my heart jump to my throat when he dropped me down into an unexpected dip. His deep chuckle made me glance up at his quick smirk before he pulled me back to him, causing my nose to brush against his neck, starting a fire that was slowly burning its way through my body.

"Someone's got some hidden talents," I jibbed, trying to get my beating heart under control.

"There's a lot you don't know about me," he spun me back out, his sunglasses almost flying off my head, "yet."

I snatched the shades from falling and placed them on my face as he spun me back in, letting our bodies move together. The pull of his body calling to mine, like they were meant for each other. I was thankful his dark lenses covered the blood rushing to my cheeks coloring them cherry red. The song was coming to an end as he slowly dipped me again, this time leaning down with me, our faces mere inches from each other. Time seemed to slow to a stop and I held my breath, waiting to see what his next move would be, I was completely trapped in his hazel gaze. A loud scream from the other side of the patio broke the trance and had us snapping our heads to the side to see what was going on.

Shannon slowly pulled us up so we were standing side by side, watching the events unfold. I pushed his sunglasses back on top of my head, eyes widening as Juliet flung her arms around, yelling at Andy. For his part he just stood there, letting her rampage on and on about god only knows what, she wasn't a very coherent yeller. Then Andy's eyes cut to me, locking with my own blue gaze and I knew what was going on. I don't know how, but she knew. I froze in fear as her eyes followed his and found me at the other end.

"YOU!?" She screamed as she stomped towards me.

"To be fair, I didn't know about you until after." I countered.

Let it be known that I don't honestly think before I talk sometimes, this was one of those times. The sharp sting of flesh meeting flesh didn't register until a few seconds after she had slapped me across the cheek. I've been told on numerous occasions that my sarcasm would get me into trouble, I found one of those moments. I stepped back as Juliet wound up to hit me again, this time with a closed fist, but Shannon grabbed her wrist, effectively stopping her.

"I think you need to come get your wife." He said, looking over Juliet's shoulder to lock eyes with Andy.

I stood stock still as Andy appeared beside Juliet, pulling her away. This is what I wanted to avoid, her finding out, her reaction, people finding out. Granted everyone in our group, sans Tomo and Jared, knew about me and Andy, but now the other bands had seen Juliet's outburst. My thoughts scattered when I felt a cool hand grasping my jaw, my eyes focused quickly on Shannon as he moved into my line of sight, moving my chin carefully to look at my cheek.

"I'm fine." I croaked out, I could feel tears pricking my eyes and quickly blinked them away, I would not cry.

"Are you sure, she clocked you pretty hard." The worry in his voice warmed me, but I was too angry at the situation to show it.

I nodded before pulling away from his tender touch. "I think it's time for me to call it a night."

Moving around Shannon, I walked back to our group of friends and family. The looks on everyone's faces ranged from outrage to out right shock to some slight confusion.

"Hey, do you need us to go deal with her?" Ace asked, looking over at Brook, who was currently being held down by Pete.

"I just need Pete to kindly LET GO!" Brook gritted out.

"Guys!" My voice broke slightly as I raised it, grabbing almost everyone's attention, "I'm fine, just drop it."

"Are you sure?" Charlie asked quietly. I nodded curtly.

"I think--I'm just--" I sighed loudly in defeat, "going to call it a night." The girls quickly protested, arguing that I needed to stay on principle, that Juliet didn't need to run me off. I shook my head sadly, "I'm not running away, I just really need to go."

"Then we'll go with you." Charlie stated, pulling away from Trevor to stand up.

"No, guys really, stay have a good rest of the night. Seriously I'm just going to go to bed, sleep it off." I argued.

"We can't just let you go back to the hotel alone!" Ace said vehemently.

"I am a fully grown adult, not a child. I can take care of myself. Y'all stay!" I just really needed some time away from everyone, some peace and quiet after the shit that just went down.

I moved over to give my little sister a hug, as she was still being held against Pete, moving over to place a quick kiss on Charlie's cheek.

"Call us? If you need us to come back." Charlie whispered before I moved away.

"I promise." I replied as I stepped back behind the couch and dropped a kiss to the crown of Ace's head before looking at all the guys, "Keep them safe or I will come after y'all." I locked eyes with Pete, Trevor and Jared, grinning evilly at them, "Night everyone."

I made it to the bar before I realized someone was following behind me. Turning around, I smacked straight into Shannon's firm chest.

"What are you doing?" I asked confused.

"Making sure you make it to your hotel safely." He said it with such authority it took a minute for me to realize what he had said.

"No, jeezus I'm not a damsel in distress. I can take a cab back to the hotel by myself!" I knew it was little unfair of me to snap at him, he was honestly just trying to make sure I was safe, but I needed to be alone.

"You can get mad at me all you want, but it's either me or the girls. They are worried about you, which means they aren't going to actually relax and have fun if someone doesn't come with you." He grabbed my hand, pulling me towards the elevators.

"And you just happened to volunteer as tribute?" I grinned up at him.

"Something like that," he laughed out, pushing the down button.

"Sydney." Andy's voice had me dropping my grin and spinning around. "Can we talk?"

"No." I stated firmly, "from now on if it isn't of 'life or death' importance or about this tour, I want nothing to do with you."

"Syd," he started moving towards me until Shannon cleared his throat.

"You heard her Andy," he almost growled out, "leave it alone."

Juliet took that time to reemerge from the women's bathroom, looking around she noticed me with Andy and her eyes clouded over with rage. I rolled my eyes before turning around to see Shannon standing in the door of the open elevator, the tension from earlier leaking back into his stance.

"Don't," I murmured, pushing slightly on his chest to get him moving into the elevator, "it's honestly not worth it."

The ride down to the lobby was almost unbearably quiet while Shannon stayed in his own thoughts and I stayed in mine. What was going on with my life? First the Warped Tour gig which was a godsend, then the magazine cover warping our popularity out of the ozone, everything with Andy and now the mess that just happened. Why couldn't I have just gotten through this tour with zero drama? I felt the elevator slowing down followed by the ding alerting us that we had arrived at our destination.