Chapter 9: Three Months

                                    

                                          
Demi’s POV:
                          
“And thanks to you all, who without, none of this would have been possible” Jeff's voice droned on.
                          
A loud cheer escaped his audience.
                          
Jeff was making the closing speech for the tour. The three months of our “Unbroken” tour had finally come to pass. Earlier in the night we had performed our last show at the Onyx arena in Colorado; and now the whole crew had gathered at a little Italian restaurant just down the road from our hotel to toast our accomplishments before we all broke up the following day. 
                          
“And now let us wine and dine like we never have before!” Jeff raised his glass then followed by another cheer from the crew, louder than the previous one.
                          
“You look tired” He said, turning to me as he took his seat again.
                          
I was. The tour had all but sucked every ounce of energy out of me. It had been an endless routine of perform, rehearse, perform and rehearse some more. And now with it finally all over there was nothing I wanted more than just to find a bed and sleep for a week.
                          
“At least have something to eat” Mom offered, leaning over from my other side.
                          
“No thanks” I replied. “I’d rather just be done with all this and go off to bed.”
                          
My mom and Jeff exchanged a look, worried looks on their faces. They too knew how outdone I’d felt from the shows I’d had to give every second night of the preceding three months.
                          
“I guess you could go up to your room and rest up now” My mom looked questioningly at Kevin over the table as she spoke.
                          
Jeff nodded. “All formalities are done anyways, no one is going to notice you gone for much longer anyways” he said, indicating his head at the cart filled with unopened wine bottles a waiter had just pushed past us.
                          
“Great” I quickly pushed back my seat and was up before they could even say anything else. “I’ll leave you guys to it” and grabbing my room key, made my way towards the elevator doors.
                          
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The warm shower had done me good. I felt a little of the stress I had been carrying on my shoulders all day since my 4am early start, begin to lessen. Wrapping my bathroom robe around myself and letting my hair air dry I hopped onto the bed seconds before my cell phone started ringing.
                          
It was probably Joe.
                          
“Hello” I answered.
                          
“Hey babe” I was right.
                          
Since I had been away Joe had called me twice every day, once in the morning and once at night. We had had to schedule our phone calls because we both knew I was on a tight schedule and he could not call me at the most inopportune times. He had also been to visit me four times over the duration of the tour and one of the occasions had been my birthday. Yes I had spent my 20th birthday on tour. I hadn’t really expected any sort of celebration but Joe had turned up out of the blue while I had been rehearsing, pushing in a cart carrying a cake large enough to feed a whole village. I had ended up taking the rest of the day off while we had gone go-karting and eventually to dinner later at night. The times he had visited me on tour had been the easiest and most fun filled.
                          
“Excited about coming home tomorrow?” he asked, a hint of excitement in his voice.
                          
“You have no idea” I sighed.
                          
“Well good on you for sticking it out” I could tell when he smiled. “Now you can relax”.
                          
“Not really” I replied, “Have you forgotten about a specific talent show I have to mentor and judge over the next four months?”
                          
“Oh X-Factor!” came the reply. “I totally forgot. Oh well at least you won’t be travelling anymore.”
                          
“Yeah I guess that’s right but it will still be long hours. But anyways I have a week and a half off when I get back before any of that starts so don’t stress me out already talking about it ok”
                          
“A week and a half, great!” he exclaimed. “We can do so many fun things in that time’’
                          
“Uh I was actually hoping to sleep that whole time” I put in bluntly.
                          
“You’re kidding right? You’ve been away three months and when you finally see your boyfriend again you wanna sleep?”
                          
“Yes I’m exhausted” I half kidded.
                          
“Ok well maybe we can compromise. You can sleep for the first two days here and the rest we’ll spend time. Yeah?”
                          
He wasn’t going to be beaten clearly.
                          
“Ok then” I caved.
                          
“I’ll pick you up at the airport then tomorrow?”
                          
“Sure. Mom’s headed back to Dallas so I’ll be flying into LA alone.”
                          
“Great everyone’s excited to see you again. Mom, Dad, Frankie, Kevin, Danielle, Selena – Oh and Nick’s here! Isn’t that great!”
                          
Hold up.
                          
“Nick’s there? As in he’s in LA?” I asked shocked. All of a sudden my heart was pounding so fast. That was not a name I was expecting to hear.
                          
“Yeah he’s here for two weeks while the show is on hiatus. You’ll both be home at the same time and we’re all really happy about it” He really did sound happy. I, on the other hand felt my head spin.
                          
“So we can all hang out together like old times…..” Joe was still going on about it. I had tuned out however. All of a sudden my mood for conversation was gone.
                          
“Hey babe” I interrupted him. “I’m all but flushed out right now do you think we can save the catch up for tomorrow I need to get some rest” I was lying, I was wide awake now. My mind was running a million thoughts in one second.
                          
“Uh sure” He replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Goodnight baby”
                          
“Night Joe” I replied, before hanging up.
                          
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Nick. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since that night in the theatre when he had kissed me and left abruptly. I hadn’t tried to make contact with him either. I had my reasons. I kept telling myself it was because I had no time to do anything and that the shows needed to be my one and only focus right now. But deep down inside I knew that the real reason was because I was scared. Scared because I did not know where a relationship with Nick would lead. I was dating his brother for god’s sake. As much as I loved Nick I knew deep down inside it was not worth tearing a family apart for it. This had been Nick’s notion as well when he had left. He had chosen his family over me. So I had kept quiet. The only difference was that even after three months I still found that my heart was still aching for him.  He on the other hand had probably moved onto the love of another. The thought had broken my heart.
                          
My plan had been to avoid him from now on at all costs. Which I could have happily gone about doing knowing he still had five months in New York. But when Joe had said he was in LA right now, I was overcome with panic laced in with the tiniest of exhilaration? He had probably changed now. He would not look at me the same.
                          
Suddenly tomorrow did not seem so bright anymore.
                          
 Author's Note: I realize alot of fictions I've read on here has teasers at the end of their chapters to entice the readers to keep reading. I'm sorry to say I don't have this fiction panned out before hand the ideas usually just come to mind when I write. I only have an overall direction. Hope this is okay with you all. Btw I didn't want to cover Demi's tour too much because it doesn't have alot of Nick in it which is why I chose to just take off from the end of her tour.  Thanks for reading :)