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Ryan sighed and stomped on his pedal a couple more times. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that didn't fix it.
"Hey, man." Ryan looked up as Mike approached. "What's up?"
Ryan quirked his mouth and tapped his pedal again to demonstrate. "Broken."
"Let me have a look." Mike knelt at Ryan's feet and poked around a bit too . Ryan watched without much expectation. Mike played with the wires for a while, then stood.
"Give it another go," he instructed and Ryan obeyed. He didn't hold out much hope. If wriggling wires fixed things, Ryan would have been all over that. The pedal remained broken.
"I don't know, man," Mike said. He looked over Ryan's shoulder. "Oh hey, there's JWalk. He can probably fix it. He can fix anything. Yo, Jonny Walker!"
Ryan turned to face him.
"Jon Walker is my new favourite!" Brendon announced, slumping beside Ryan at the table.
"Really," Ryan said, turning the page of his magazine.
"Yes," Brendon confirmed. "He's overtaken you, I'm afraid. And Spencer. You are now second and third to Jon Walker, Guitar Tech Extraordinaire. Don't be too heart-broken."
Ryan snorted.
"I know it's hard, but you're going to have to come to terms with it," Brendon continued. "He sang Disney songs with me, Ryan. Disney."
Ryan smiled down at the pages. Yep, that sounded about right. Brendon sat up straight suddenly.
"I'm going to go see if Jon Walker needs me to help him take photos. He'll totally let me, because he's awesome."
"Pete," Ryan said, answering his phone.
"Ryan Ross," Pete greeted him. "We're going to talk about the tour, I want to talk about the tour, but first I want to talk about Jon."
Ryan inhaled sharply.
"No, no, don't say anything yet. Because I know it's a bit tough now, but it's always tough when you lose a band member. You got lucky with Jon, because he's an awesome bassist, but Ryan, dude. This is more complicated than that. Are you sure you want to be in a band with someone you're dating?"
Ryan choked a little.
"You have to be prepared. What if it doesn't work out? Are you going to be able to fire him? I don't want it to come down to a choice between your boyfriend and the band but it might, man. And you have to be ready for that. Okay?"
Ryan made a strangled noise down the phone.
"So tell me about the tour. How's it going?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
Ryan huffed crossly and folded his arms across his chest. Zack didn't budge. "You're not leaving here. I don't care if you want to buy Jon some cutesy little gift because it's your one hundred and fifty-day anniversary-" Ryan opened his mouth to protest, "-or whatever."
Ryan glared some more. He wished that worked on Zack.
"Ryan, dude, there are hundreds of rabid fangirls out there. Wait until we get somewhere no one will know you."
Sadly, Zack was right. Ryan groaned and dropped his head against Zack's shoulder, letting him push him backwards towards the bus.
"So how does it feel, reaching the big one-five-oh?" Zack asked casually. Ryan gaped up at him.
"What, you don't think Jon tried the same trick earlier?" Ryan flushed red, then looked down, grinning. Zack shoved him lightly again. "I swear to God, you two are so cute you make me wanna hurl."
No amount of sharing a twin bed with someone can prepare you for the reality of stuffing yourselves into a bunk designed for one small person. Especially since Spencer hit that unexpected growth spurt.
"Come on, Ryan, we're supposed to be sharing. Tell me, when is Jon going to make an honest woman out of you?"
Ryan shoved him. Spencer flailed about a bit, but managed to stay in the bunk.
"You know," he said quietly once he'd settled, "when you guys first started hooking up, I told him he had to be nice to you."
Ryan frowned, then smiled a little. "Seriously?"
"Yeah," Spencer said, knocking their knees together. "I can totally be a protective best friend. I'm way manly.”
Ryan said nothing, just directed a pointed look at Spencer's t-shirt. It had a care-bear on it.
"Shut up," Spencer said easily. "Like you're one to talk."
Ryan looked up as the curtain was pulled back. Jon stared down at them, eyebrow raised in question. Spencer rolled out of the bunk and gestured back towards the space.
"He's all yours."