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Meet My Dedication

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I was nearly outside of the fairgrounds by the time I saw the tall rockstar with a full sleeve of tattoos and a torn up tank top. "Austin!" I ran as fast as I could over to him. "There you are, I've been looking all over for you!"
He didn't look at me, but he did seem like he had calmed down much more than from earlier.
"Austin, please... I'm really sorry about bringing it up. I never knew that about-"
"Please don't say his name. Either of them. It's done with now, and I've moved on from it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Okay, Mikey?" His gaze still didn't meet mine, but he took my hands in his.
"I'm sorry. I won't bring it up again, I promise." I released my hand from his and put it on his cheek, making him look at me. "Am I forgiven?" I put on the best puppy dog face I could think of and batted my eyelashes. It was the only thing I could thing of that would at least make an attempt to get him to smile.
He looked up at me finally, and a small smile. "Yes you're forgiven, but only because you're cute."
"That's all I wanted to hear." I got on my toes and my lips met his. His smashed his lips onto mine, deepening the kiss.
"You're lucky you're cute," he poked at me.
"You're lucky you're Austin Carlile." I poked back at him, he just laughed. "Can we go back to the bus now? Or are we figuring out another way for me to get home?"
His smile faded, but he didn't let go of my hand, still. We walked back, hand in hand, to the buses. I saw Zakk standing over by Matty and Jake from Memphis May Fire, but I didn't let that be known to Austin. I figured there had been enough drama for today, and didn't need to add on to it.
I guess Zakk didn't agree with me because he started hooting and cat calling us. "Get it, Carlile, before it's gone!"
"Ignore him, he's just being a jerk," I hauled Austin out of view of Zakk and inside his bus. "I found him," I called and the rest of the guys all cheered.
"Finally," Alan laughed, "we thought you two had run off without us!"
Austin and I both rolled our eyes in unison. "Can I go home now?"
The whole bus went quiet, and it became awkward. "Why? Don't you like hanging out with us?" This time Aaron spoke up. I hadn't really talked to Aaron much, he was pretty quiet around me. Even Phil and Tino had spoken to me more than I expected. "Oh... It's not that I don't like hanging out with you guys, but I have to get back to my life. I.. I have a job, and my cat..."
"You have a cat?! What kind?! Why didn't anyone tell me!?!?!"
Of course, Alan got excited when he heard I got a cat. It is Alan, after all. "She's a sphinx, named Paxton. She's only three months old. I'm just hoping Milly's been taking care of her." He smiled, but I knew I couldn't change my mind.
"You can bring her with us! I can help you take care of her! She and my cats will get along great!" Alan sounded much too excited and it hurt my heart to know that I couldn't stay with them.
"Alan..." Austin spoke up this time, "can I talk to you guys for a second?" He looked at me, "we'll be back in a minute, okay?" He kissed my cheek and he and the boys made their way to the outside of the bus, leaving me on the couch.
It was a good 15 minutes before anyone came inside, I was laying upside down on the couch, playing Candy Crush on my phone.
"Okay, Mikey, we've... We've come to a decision." Austin spoke first, and I put my phone beside me.
"Have you now? I didn't know there was something to decide." I turned myself around and sat up on the couch, crossing my legs.
"Yes. Warped Tour is for another week."
I looked up at him, "uh huh?"
Austin got close to my face. "I want to come back for you. Our next tour isn't until February, and it's starting here, in Orlando."
"I don't... I don't understand. Why do you want to come back?"
"I..." He looked at the rest of the guys, "we want to get to know you better." He looked back at me, right into my eyes, "and living on the other side of the country doesn't help us much. And Skype and all the social media networks? It's too much hassle."
"Oh, Austin... I..." I was at a loss for words. All these guys, in the very short time I have spent with them, especially Austin. "This is a lot to think about, guys. I don't know if I can just move to LA. Not in a week... I'd need time, and what am I going to do for work? Where am I going to live? What about Milly? There's a lot to think about. And my car!"
"Mikey!" I was rambling, everyone knew it. Austin put a hand over my mouth.
"What?" I muffled through his hand.
He removed his hand and kissed me. I felt like I could fly, and it was a high that I never wanted to come down from.
"That was a nice way to tell me to shut up."

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My life slowly returned back to normal after Warped Tour. Zakk was barely speaking too me, even when I went in to talk about starting my sleeve for my arm. I wanted to do a music dedication piece, that had my favorite band's symbols. He had some ideas, but we had some differences on which band to do first. I figured he'd want nothing to do with it if I put Of Mice & Men in it, or he's purposefully make it look bad. We decided I would start with Tim Burton movies that I loved, and he was all for it. I had the outline of it done by Christmas.
I was working even more now, and spending most of my mornings working, and trying to steady my drinking. Paxton had gotten bigger, but she wasn't going to be the size of a regular cat, and that was fine with me. I didn't want her to grow much, I enjoyed the fact that she was only going to be 5 lbs by the time she was an adult.
My parents... well, I guess some things never change. My dad was getting even more irritable, and I was pretty sure his drinking was more frequent than my own, and he started much earlier than I ever have. With him, more drinking meant more abuse.
Milly, Gavin and I hung out more often. I was starting to get more used to going out, being social, and starting to be... normal again. There was just one thing that was wrong:
I couldn't stop thinking about Austin.
I missed him.
I'd fallen in love with him.

I was sitting in the back room, at work, when my coworker, Ashley, popped her head in and tapped me on the shoulder. I had my headphones in and was mindlessly doing dishes. "Is it true?" She asked. I assumed no one was in the store, otherwise she wouldn't have bothered me. "Are you Austin Carlile's girlfriend?"
I froze, and nearly dropped the knives I was cleaning. "What? Where did that even come from?" I looked up at her with a shock and equally terrified expression. Girlfriend? Not even close. "No, I just won a contest and got to go on a date with him, and that was it. There's nothing going on between me and... him."
She wasn't buying it, and I wouldn't have either, except for the fact that no one had brought up Austin and I since I practically broke down in Olive Garden with Milly. I couldn't talk about him, and I tried not to think about him most of the time. I had to continue distracting myself, even got more hours at Toys R Us some days. He and Alan would both text me, but I would ignore it, and I couldn't even listen to their music most of the time.
I didn't want to talk about it anymore either, so I made up some lame excuse to take out the trash, and she needed to head back to the front.

I gathered all the trash bags and made my way to the dumpster when I heard a all too familiar laugh that made my heart skip a beat. I stopped what I was doing to look and see if it was who I thought it was, but saw no one. I shrugged and continued making my way to the dumpster.
I made my way back and heard Ashley flirting up a storm in the front, giggling and hopefully not making a fool of herself. I washed my hand and replaced all the trash bags in the back and made my way up front. I was in the middle of counting my drawer when I heard that laugh again.
"Mikey?" The voice was deep and sounded just as happy as I was to hear it. I stopped counting and looked up.
"Austin..." I sighed, "I..." I was speechless, and excited, I almost thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest. "Hey," was all I could muster out and gave a small smile.
His smile was as bright as the sun and I couldn't help but get lost in those big brown eyes of his. "Hey, I've missed you."
My smile grew bigger, he hadn't talked to me in half of a year, and he still thought of me. "I've missed you too, Austin." I moved out from the front counter and towards him. "I've missed you very, very much."
I had forgotten that Ashley, or anyone else in the world, existed. He had embraced me and a tight hug and pressed his lips onto mine.
Ashley cleared her throat, making her presence known to us. We separated, but not enough to stop touching.
"Mikey, get out of here." Ashley was tapping her fingers on one of the blenders.
"I can't, it's not the end of my shift yet, I have another half hour." I let go of Austin.
Ashley looked me straight in the eye, "Go. Think of it as a very late Christmas present."
I smiled wide and hugged her, "you're the best, thank you."
"Don't worry about it, go.. Go!" She smiled and clocked out for me.
I made my way to the back and dragged Austin with me. He pulled me into him and kissed me deeply. I kissed him back, and bit his bottom lip, with had him moaning softly. "God, I've missed you Mike," he started kissing his way down my neck and too my shoulder.
"Austin," I whispered, "not here." I really didn't want to be fired, not yet. "Later, Austin."
He stopped, and grabbed my bag for me. "Where's your car?"
I pointed to a blue 2012 Ford Fiesta over by the Books A Million right across the street from the shop. "There,"
"It's cute." He smiled and walked me to my car, even opened the driver's side door for me. After I got settled he went to the passenger's side and got in. "I took a cab to get here.."
I shook my head, I couldn't believe I was about to do this.
"Where are we going?" Austin asked when I pulled out of the parking lot and out of the Mall complex.
"My house."