Warped Tour (A Shannon Leto Story)

The Morning After

The loud bang of the hotel room door hitting the wall startled me awake. What time was it?

"Hey," Ace's voice floated from the bathroom, "how was your night?"

"Huh?" I mumbled sleepily.

"Syd? Hello? Are you awake?" Sitting up I saw Ace stumbling into the main room.

"I am now. Did you just get in?" She nodded before throwing herself on the bed.

"Yeah," her voice was wistful, a grin painted on her lips.

"Ohhhh," her grin had me smiling back, "want to tell me what that's all about?" I gestured to her glowing form.

"After you tell me how your night went." I sighed before throwing myself back against my pillows.

Sadly nothing had happened between me and Shannon. The cab ride had still been a quiet affair, but Shannon had relaxed again, finally going back to the man that had joked and laughed with me. After he took the time to walk me to my room, I invited him in as we were still talking and neither of us were tired. After changing, I walked into the main room to find him sprawled over the bed near the wall. I climbed up next to him to continue on with our conversation and by the end of the night my head was across his stomach, using him as a pillow.

"Nothing happened. We got back here, I changed, then we just hung out, talked until I guess I fell asleep." I shrugged.

Ace looked at me skeptically and I continued to think about the previous night. How did I get under the covers? It didn't look like I had crawled under them myself and I don't remember getting up the night before at any point. I felt my brows furrow as I dug through my memories... Oh shit!

"I'm going to go, you've got a show tomorrow and you can barely keep your eyes open." Shannon's deep voice, now even deeper with exhaustion, murmured.

"Mmmhmm," I managed to mumble out.

"See?" He chuckled out.

I felt the bed shift as he climbed off before his arms pushed under me, slowly pulling me towards his chest, the warmth of his body seeping into my chilled skin. All too soon he was laying me back down on the mattress and shuffling the covers over me, but I missed the feel of him against me.

"Stay?" I whispered, snagging his hand to pull him back.

I was sure he had already told me goodnight and left, but the feel of the bed dipping behind me had me shuffling over to allow him space to settle in next to me. The feel of his muscled arm curling around my waist had my tired lips shifting into a small smile as he pulled me back against him. Sighing in contentment, I finally allowed sleep to pull me under completely.

I started shaking my head back and forth in disbelief while Ace stared at me, head tilted to the side as she tried to piece the puzzle together.

"Fuck me," I finally breathed out.

"Umm? Care to enlighten me as to what just went on in that head of yours?" She asked, confusion clear on her face.

The door once again slammed open, followed by the voices of Charlie, Brook and Karah. Soon their smiling faces came into view as I frantically grabbed my phone from the side table.

"Is she ok?" Charlie asked, concern evident in her voice.

"Your guess is as good as mine at this point," Ace said, "we were just talking about her night before she kind of went catatonic."

I could feel everyone's eyes on me as I unlocked my phone. A few missed calls, some social media notifications, but there on the screen a missed text from a contact I knew I didn't have before I went to sleep last night.

Good luck today. I had a great night last night.
Can't wait for the tour. Text me when you wake up. -SL

"Fuck me!" I yelled.

"That's now the second time you've said that," Ace announced.

"Sydney? Are you ok?" Karah asked, sitting on the edge of the other bed, careful not to startle me.

"I asked Shannon to stay last night." I managed to squeak out.

"Hell yeah! Go Syd!" Charlie said laughing.

"No, no," I shook my head, "I mean nothing happened. I fell asleep on him while we were up talking, he went to put me to bed and I asked him to stay. Guys, what am I doing?" I ran my hands through my hair in frustration.

"It sounds like you had a sleepover, pretty straightforward and simple to me." Brook said as she laid down beside me.

"Always know how to put it so elegantly don't you sis?" I said, poking her in her side.

"I mean if 'nothing happened' as you say, then there's no reason to freak out." She responded, slapping my hand away.

"It's not that I didn't want it to, but there's something different about him. I don't want it to be like Andy. What if what he's feeling is the same way? What if all he wants is something physical?" I threw my hands up in surrender, "you know what? I can't handle this right now. We have a show to get ready for."

"And Ace has to tell us why she has a grin the size of Texas on her face." Karah laughed out.