Play the Game ~ R O G E R T A Y L O R ~

just a little a/n, within some of these chapters, i'll be adding actual facts about louisiana's culture and real places located in it. the festival that you and the band are going to is an actual festival called Festival Internationale du Louisiane, with shopping, food, and music from all over the world. pretty neat! one of my favorite times of the year :)

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It turns out that Freddie got the location of this festival wrong.

It was actually a two hour drive away from New Orleans in the city of Lafayette.

"I'm sorry again, Grace. You shouldn't trust me with shit like this." Freddie said out of the blue.

"You're still taking us, right?" John asked, eagerly peeking over the seat.

"Well considering I'm still driving the car, yes, John." I laughed.

After a moment of laughter and silence, I spoke up.

"So, tell me about the band. How did you guys meet?"

Brian was the first to talk.

"Well originally, it was only Roger and I in a little band called Smile. Our lead singer left, then we found Fred. Eventually we found John through auditions, and that's how the band was formed, in very simple terms." He laughed.

Roger chimed in. "Freddie and I used to work together in a little booth at a market, but just decided it wasn't for us. Music made us happier."

I looked at Roger for a split second out of the corner of my eye and saw a small smile begin to spread across his face. The fact that he gets to do the job that makes him the happiest made me smile too. We sat in silence for a bit until we struck up another conversation that lasted for the rest of the drive to Lafayette.

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It took us a while to find a spot to park, but eventually we did, parking the car in front of an abandoned frat house. We all got out and began walking along the sidewalk, keeping a steady pace so that we would not get separated when the big crowds of people would arrive. John, Brian, and Roger walked behind Freddie and I, which was a terrible idea since we began to get mobbed very quickly by fans. A nice old lady let us into her painting shop that was closed due to the festival and locked it promptly. She let us all sit together for a bit before we finally made a plan for Roger and I to walk in the front and Freddie, Brian, and John to walk in the back. Roger had sunglasses on so it would be harder for people to recognize him. The fans that were chasing us thankfully went away, so we started walking out of the building to go find the shopping.

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After walking around for a while, catching up with Roger, "accidentally" touching hands many times, and the boys behind us laughing about it, we finally found one area of the shopping. One of my favorite booths to go to every year is a jewelry booth with different items that are all made out of guitar strings. They had a wider selection this year, with earrings made out of guitar picks, and rings with guitar strings as the band. I ended up buying a set of guitar pick earrings with "The Beatles, Abbey Road" printed on them. I walked around to try to find the rest of the band, and found them at a booth that had old vynils that were splattered with paint from the owner of the booth using drumsticks to beat the paint onto them.

Of course, Roger was ecstatic.

The owner ended up recognizing Roger and gave him a set of two for free. It was a black vynil with different colored rainbow paints splattered all over them. Roger looked at me and smiled, handing me one of the vynils.

"We can have matching ones to hang on our walls!" He was like a kid in a candy shop. I laughed and nodded my head in agreement, thanked the man that gave him the vynils, then we walked off to go find the music.

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It was now 10:00. We listened to 3 different bands play, then went walk off to find one more. As I was walking around, I saw that one of my favorite bands were performing, and I immediately lit up with excitement. I told the boys to follow me. I went through the crowd of drunken teens and adults, carrying my beer bottle as well, and ended up getting front row. I eagerly put my hands on the barricade as the band stood behind me, now all wearing newly purchased sunglasses to blend in. They honestly looked like they would be bodyguards. The set finally began. The lead singer was making many remarks to the crowd, saying that we looked good and such, and every time he would say it, he would look at me.

Every time.

There was no other girls around me, so he was most defiantly looking at me.

Roger quickly noticed this and got, what I would assume to be jealous, or maybe a little too drunk. Not sure.

They began to play my favorite song and I started to smile and jump around. The singer looked at me and winked as the beginning chords began to play. I started swaying my hips to the beat, then I felt a pair of hands slide around them. I looked down and saw the sword tattoo that Roger has on his hand, and smiled. I leaned more into him as we both swayed to the song. The singer noticed and turned a different way and began looking at another girl in the crowd. I looked at his finger, and he was definitely married, so I just rolled my eyes and enjoyed the song before I was finally satisfied with how the night has ended, and told the boys I was ready to leave, and they agreed, looking extremely tired and drunk. I only had two beers, so I was stable enough to drive us home.

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Once we finally arrived at my home, the boys were too drunk to know where they even were, so they went upstairs and crashed in Mirina's bed. Roger and I only had one or two beers, and he didn't want to sleep with the rest of the band, so I changed into some PJ's, and I gave Roger one of Mirina's ex-boyfriend's unused shirts to wear. He slipped off his pants and just slept in his boxers. We both climbed into the bed, tipsy and giggly enough to scoot gradually closer to each other and laugh about it the whole time. We were touching noses when we both finally stopped laughing and began leaning in. He put his hand on the small of my back and pushed our torsos together. I smiled into his mouth as we kissed passionately. I looked into his eyes and smiled once more, loving the warm and cozy feeling he was giving off, completely ignoring the thought of what just happened just being the result of a drunken night at a music festival. I rested my head on his chest as I fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat and the thoughts as to of what was gonna happen next between us.