*Chapter 12: If I Believe in You, Will You Believe in Me?*
Around 7:00, a dark blue BMW sedan drove into an empty parking lot in front of a tall brick building in downtown Los Angeles. Jason Taylor got out from the driver's side, as Nate Clark climbed out and shut the passenger side door. After grabbing their guitars from the backseat, Nate pulled a set of keys out of his pocket as he neared the side door of the building, and Jason locked the car, following behind him.
"I still can't believe Shane is bringing this Mitchie girl with him tonight," Nate mumbled as he inserted the keys in the lock and turned it.
As they walked inside, Jason reached over and flicked on the lights in the entryway, while his friend punched in the code to disarm the alarm on the wall. "What's wrong with it?" Jason asked, puzzled.
Nate shrugged as he opened the door in front of them and walked through into a hallway off of the main lobby. "I didn't say it was a bad thing, Jase. Just said that I can't believe it. It's really unlike him."
Jason followed Nate down the hall and into a recording studio at the back of the building. As the boys sat down in the production side of the studio and pulled out their guitars, Jason finally said, "It's really unlike all of us, Nate. Maybe it's about time we trust someone."
Nate looked up from tuning his acoustic guitar. "Why does she deserve it?" he asked point-blank.
Jason rolled his eyes. "I just think we should wait and see how tonight goes before we pass judgment is all. The fact that Shane's somewhat dropped the fucking cement walls he's built around himself for this girl means something, doesn't it?"
"Yeah…" Nate trailed off, not surprised at all by Jason's cursing. The topic of this Mitchie Torres girl had been a point of contention between them for a while, with both of them agreeing that although she'd been good for Shane so far, it was also frustrating because they were waiting for the other shoe to drop. In their experiences over the past four years, no one offered anything to them for free – not advice, not help, and certainly not friendship. They wanted to believe what Shane had said about Mitchie, but were scared of letting someone in, only to be sold out again.
"Seriously, Nate," Jason said, when his friend remained silent. "Let's give this a real shot tonight. I know you're always the serious one when it comes to the band, and I'm not saying you have to drop that image for this girl, but let's at least give her the benefit of the doubt until we have reason to do otherwise."
"Okay," Nate sighed, finally agreeing to agree with his friend. "You know I'm not trying to be difficult, though, right? It's just that this whole thing scares me. Shane's changed really quickly."
"And you're worried about his judgment?"
Nate shrugged again. "A little. It's nice to have him back, but it's almost too good to be true."
"If Mitchie had anything to do with the change, though, isn't it worth it to see what else she can do for us?"
Nate nodded. "You're right, Jase, I know that. I promise to be on my best behaviour tonight," he reached out to Jason with his left hand, pinky finger extended.
Jason just rolled his eyes and laughed as he completed the pinky promise. The boys went back to quietly strumming their guitars and making idle chatter, until they heard a loud knocking on the outside door.
Jason watched as Nate took a deep breath, leaned his guitar against the couch, and stood up. "Guess this is it," he breathed out, and walked down the hall to let Shane and Mitchie into the building.
The rest of the ride into downtown Los Angeles had passed quickly for Shane and Mitchie, as Shane enjoyed pointing out various sights to her, since she'd never been to the city before. Her face was practically glued to the window as they drove by the places she'd heard about and seen on television and in movies, and as they finally pulled off a quiet street and into an almost-empty parking lot in front of a brick building, it finally clicked with her that Shane was used to life in fast-paced L.A. It had been odd to see him so relaxed in the insane traffic jams, and so at ease with the complicated arrangement of streets, but she liked seeing every side of him she could.
As Shane parked the car next to the only other one in the lot, he reached over and grabbed her hand. He noticed she was almost shaking with nerves, and did his best to calm her down. "It's going to be okay, Mitch, I promise."
"What if they hate me already, just for intruding on your life or something?" she rambled nervously.
Shane laughed. "The fact that you've intruded on my life is what you have going for you right now, Mitchie. You've won some major points already because they know you haven't put up with my bullshit, when any other girl I would have met would have just accepted my attitude."
Mitchie let out a little laugh. "I hope you're right," she breathed, and he leaned over to give her a soft kiss on the mouth.
"You ready?" he asked, his forehead pressed to hers.
"Yeah," she said, forcing a grin and pulling away to open the car door. They both climbed out and he reached for her hand as they met in front of the car and walked toward the door. Mitchie grabbed the keys from Shane's hand and locked the car when she realized he'd forgotten to do so.
He looked at her in disbelief as they paused in front of the side door of the building, where Nate had instructed Shane to knock. "You really think that if someone wanted to steal something, they'd go for the station wagon instead of the BMW right beside it?"
With a laugh, Mitchie handed the keys back to him. "Didn't think you'd want to explain to your uncle Brown what happened to his car if we ended up needing to cab back to camp."
Shane smiled. "Always thinking, Miss Torres, always thinking." He turned toward the door and, with a squeeze of her hand, knocked hard on its surface.
They waited outside for a few moments before they heard another door open inside, and footsteps coming closer to the outside door. A moment later, they heard the metallic click of the door being pushed open from the inside, and it opened to reveal Nate.
"Hey, man," Shane grinned, as he held the door open for Mitchie to enter, following behind her and quickly pulling Nate into a hug.
Nate was surprised at Shane's actions, but returned the hug, saying hello to his friend. They pulled apart, and after Nate had made sure to lock the door behind them, he turned to the girl who had arrived with Shane. He was pleasantly surprised to see that she looked nothing like he'd expected – no skimpy clothing, no over-done makeup, just some skinny jeans and a ¾-length red shirt made of sweatshirt material.
Mitchie, meanwhile, had observed Nate's surprised reaction to Shane's hug, and was unsure what to make of it. She noticed that Nate wasn't wearing the mega-stylish clothing she was accustomed to seeing on him in the media; instead he was in loose jeans, a tight gray t-shirt, and an open blue plaid dress shirt, with Converse sneakers. As she was deciding the look worked on him, he finally turned to her and spoke.
"You must be Mitchie," he said in a neutral tone of voice, extending a hand out to her.
"Yeah, hi," she said nervously, reaching out to shake his hand quickly. She didn't like the appraising look he was giving her, although she'd tried to prepare herself for it.
"I'm guessing you obviously know I'm Nate," he said, as they dropped hands and he opened the inside door to the lobby to allow them to pass through.
"Yes, but thanks for clearing that up, because clearly Shane sucks at introductions," she said without thinking, then felt mortified that she'd let her sarcasm slip out ten seconds after having met Nate Clark.
To her surprise, Nate turned to her with his eyebrows raised and a genuine smile on his face. "He really does," he agreed, leading them down the hallway.
Shane groaned at his girlfriend and best friend. "You guys just met, there is no way you can possibly be ganging up on me already." He smiled to himself as he noted that it was probably a good sign, though.
Mitchie didn't respond as she took in her surroundings. They'd initially walked into a hallway to the side of a large oak desk with a wall behind it, and a large seating area in front of it. To their left was a hallway filled with doors and other hallways branching off of it, and at the end of the hallway was an open door with a light on inside. As Nate reached the door and walked inside, she felt Shane's arm wrap around her waist in support.
When they walked through the doorway, Mitchie saw a large room with producing equipment on the far side, where a glass window and door provided a view of a comfortable-looking recording studio. The room they were currently in held couches and chairs and a small table, and Mitchie had to contain her squeals at the sight of the first real recording studio she'd ever been in.
Her attention was drawn toward a tall boy setting down his guitar and standing up. Jason looked very much as she'd expected him to; wearing black skinny jeans and a loose white t-shirt with a black vest over top, she found herself inexplicably more intimidated by him than by Nate, simply because he looked the part of the big celebrity.
"Jason, this is Mitchie. Mitchie, Jason," Shane said, extending his hand toward each of them in turn before flopping down onto a couch. "See?" he smirked at Nate. "I can rock the introductions when I want to."
Nate rolled his eyes and sat down in one of the chairs across from Shane, as Jason turned toward Mitchie with a smile.
"It's nice to actually meet you," he said, also reaching out a hand to shake hers.
She took it in surprise; she hadn't been expecting such a formal greeting from Jason. He'd always been known as the goofy and fun-loving member of the group, and while she hadn't exactly been expecting a hug as a welcome, she hadn't really thought she'd be formally shaking hands with him either. "Nice to meet you too, Jason," she smiled warmly at him, trying to ease her nerves, before dropping his hand and sitting down next to Shane.
Jason sat back down in his chair to the side of the couch as well, and an awkward silence settled over the group for a few moments.
"Okay, this is weird," Shane said finally, sitting back up and blinking his eyes a few times.
That seemed to release a little of the tension, as everyone else visibly relaxed slightly.
"So how are you adjusting to the camp lifestyle, again, Shane?" Jason asked, obviously to break the silence, as he'd been talking to Shane several times since his arrival at Camp Rock.
Shane ignored that fact and replied, "It's getting better now," smiling at Mitchie by his side. "I've actually been really, really productive lately."
"Did you finish that song?" Nate asked, leaning forward in interest.
"Yeah, actually, we finished it yesterday," Shane said, nodding at Mitchie.
Jason's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You helped?" he asked her.
Mitchie nodded shyly. "Yeah, well he thinks I did, at least. I feel more like I just unscrambled his ridiculously confusing thoughts about what he wanted to say."
Jason laughed. "Thank God it wasn't one of us who had that job for once," he said, indicating Nate as well.
Shane glared at his band mates. "Very funny, guys. But yes, she helped me, but not just by helping with the lyrics. I was going to give up on the song a few days ago, after I'd heard from the label and before I called you, but she convinced me that was the wrong way to go."
"So we have you to blame if this direction doesn't work out?" Nate smirked at Mitchie.
She froze, staring at him, unable to form any words.
Nate saw her expression, and how Shane was wrapping his arm around her waist in support, and quickly dropped his expression. "Sorry, I didn't actually mean that how it sounded. I was just joking."
"You joke?" Mitchie snapped back, raising her eyebrows.
Nate was taken aback and let out a bark of laughter. "You're right, Shane," he said, looking at his friend. "She's definitely a good kind of different."
"I know," Shane said simply, tightening his arm around her waist as Mitchie turned toward him with a small smile.
"Really, though, sorry about that Mitchie," Nate continued, looking back at her. "I didn't mean to imply anger with you or anything."
Mitchie shook her head. "It's okay," she said, still smiling slightly. "If I hadn't gotten all surprised, I was just going to tell you you're wrong anyway. The song's good, and if you guys really take this as a step in a different direction, I can't actually see it not working out."
This time, it was Nate who sat frozen in surprise at her words, and it was Jason's laughter that broke the silence.
"Seriously, man, where did you find her?" he asked Shane, still laughing at Nate's expression. "I like your confidence," he added to Mitchie.
She let out a breath with a small laugh. "That's about all I have of it," she admitted, glancing from Jason to Nate to her boyfriend, whom she was slightly angry at for having been so silent and leaving her to fend for herself so far.
Nate shook his head. "I hope not," he said simply, before turning to Shane. "Ready to play us what you've written?"
Shane nodded, and reached down for his guitar, before it hit him that he hadn't brought it at all. "Shit, I left my acoustic at camp!" he exclaimed.
"It's cool, Jordan said we could use his instruments if we wanted to anyway," Nate said. "They're in the room down the hallway, second door on the left."
"Thanks, be right back," Shane said, as he stood up and left the room after giving Mitchie's hand a squeeze.
Mitchie had to fight back nerves as she sat alone in a recording studio with Jason and Nate of Connect 3. Although they'd been very nice so far, if not extremely welcoming, she was still intimidated by their very presence.
Jason must have noticed this, because he broke the silence that had settled by asking her a question. "How are you making out with camp, Mitchie? Shane said it's your first year there."
Mitchie nodded, glad to latch onto something to talk about. "Yeah, it is. I like it so far, because I'm learning more about music than I could have ever expected to. I went there thinking that maybe I'd get some practice in with my guitar or the piano, and some vocal training, but the lessons I've gotten in everything from music writing to dancing have all helped me out too. I feel like I'm going to leave camp this summer a whole lot surer of my music than when I started there."
She hadn't noticed Nate looking at her in surprise at her comments. "You play the piano?" he asked, and she nodded. "Shane mentioned that you played guitar and sang, but he never said anything about the piano. Do you write your own stuff?"
She nodded again, shyly this time. "I think that's kind of what started things off for Shane and I; that we were to talk about the struggles of writing songs."
Jason looked blown away. "Seriously?" he said stupidly.
Mitchie sent him an odd look. "Yeah, why?"
Nate answered for him. "Shane doesn't exactly share his music, Mitchie. Until songs are in their final stages, it's usually just me and Jason who even know they exist."
Mitchie blushed and looked down. "I don't know why he trusts me," she said softly.
Before either of the other two boys could respond, Shane came back into the room carrying two acoustic guitars. Mitchie looked at him in surprise as he handed one to her, and then sat down beside her with the other one.
"I was thinking you could play with me?" he asked her, motioning toward the guitar she now held in her hands. "Just like yesterday? It'll give them more of an idea of what I'm thinking."
Blushing profusely now at the thought of playing the guitar for two of the best guitar players in the music industry, Mitchie could only nod at Shane.
Shane grinned at her and reached over to squeeze her hand before settling his hands back on top of his own guitar. "Keep in mind this is obviously just the acoustic version. I can hear the final version with much more of a rock sound behind it."
"Okay, man, let's hear it," Nate said, sitting back in his chair and looking expectantly at them, as Jason did the same.
Shane looked at Mitchie and counted down. "4, 3, 2, 1…" and Mitchie began playing the beginning strums of the song, just as they'd done the day before. Initially, she only paid attention to her playing, but as Shane started to sing, she found herself looking over at him with a smile on her face. She knew he was happy to have finally completed this song, and even happier to be sharing it with people he knew would appreciate the effort, even if he was scared they wouldn't agree with the direction the music itself was taking.
As he started into the second verse and was still going strong, she found her gaze wandering over to Jason, who looked surprised but was nodding his head along with the music. She then turned toward Nate, who was looking at Shane was a small smile playing on his lips, looking deep in thought.
Before she knew it, they'd played through the entire song, and both she and Shane glanced over at Nate and Jason. She noticed her boyfriend's hands were shaking slightly as they rested on top of the acoustic, and knew he was nervous to hear their opinions. Subtly reaching over toward him, she pulled one of his arms down so she could grasp his hand in hers. He shot her a quick smile before refocusing his attention on his band mates.
They'd remained silent throughout the whole thing, although Mitchie had noticed them getting into the music. Finally, Nate opened his mouth, "You did really good work, Shane," he grinned.
"Yeah, man," Jason nodded. "I can't wait to dig into this and rock some guitar."
Shane let out a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding. "So it was alright?" he asked, relieved.
Nate laughed, "Hell, yes, it was better than alright! Nice to hear some of that old sound creepin' back in."
"Is it ever," Jason mumbled in agreement. "This may be a happy song, but at least it isn't about unicorns and rainbows and puppy love like the rest of the shit the label makes us write."
Mitchie was surprised at his words, but didn't feel as though it were her place to add her input to the conversation. "Told you it'd be fine," she smirked at Shane playfully.
He squeezed her hand, letting her know he appreciated her help as he said, "Yeah, yeah, you're always right. Whatever."
"And don't you ever forget it," Mitchie smiled. Turning to Nate, she asked, "Would you mind telling me where the washroom is?"
"Yeah, no problem," Nate responded, and directed her down the hallway.
After Mitchie had left to find the bathroom, Jason turned toward Shane with an eyebrow raised. "Well, she was unexpected," he said, confusing his band mates, who were trying to puzzle out his logic.
"What?" Shane finally asked, frowning at Jason's words.
"Well, I don't know about Nate, but I was expecting some idiotic fangirl who had brainwashed you into thinking you'd come up with something clever."
"Gee, thanks, Jase," Shane said, a bit hurt.
"He said that wrong," Nate said, rolling his eyes. "We just weren't expecting someone so talented and so…normal."
"Haven't I been telling you that for the past couple of weeks?" Shane asked, looking at his friends like they were crazy.
"Yeah, but your judgment's been off lately," Nate explained. "But she seems okay."
Jason nodded. "Definitely," he agreed. "I can see why you're starting to feel safe with her."
Shane smiled. "Um, I kind of asked her to be my girlfriend last night," he said, after realizing that he hadn't told them the news, wanting to wait until they were in person to do so.
He received blank looks in return, and had to laugh as they tried to work through the information.
"Seriously?" Jason asked yet again, disbelief written all over his features.
"Shane Gray has a girlfriend?" Nate asked, still looking at his friend in shock. "Like, a real one?"
"No, man, like a fake one," Shane rolled his eyes.
All three of them were silent as they waited for someone else to break the silence.
"You know what?" Nate said after a moment. "I'm starting to think this may be a good thing."
"Really?" Shane asked, and saw his friend nod. "So you're not pissed at me for bringing her with me tonight?"
Nate opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment, the door to the studio opened, and Mitchie walked back in.
She stopped just inside the doorway, her hand still on the doorknob, when she noticed that all three of the boys had frozen in spot, Jason and Shane staring intently in Nate's direction. "Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt," she said, feeling awkward and beginning to retreat.
"No, don't worry about it," Shane said quickly, motioning for her to come back into the room.
She shut the door and walked over to the couch to sit down beside Shane, her nerves back in full force as all eyes landed on her. "So what now?" she asked, breaking the silence.
"I think me and Jase need to work on getting what's done so far," Nate suggested. "And we should probably also start thinking about other instruments and what we need to do for the background beat."
"Why don't you and Shane start working on that, and I'll have Mitchie teach me the chords she just played?" Jason said.
Shane nodded and kissed Mitchie on the temple before standing and opening the door into the recording room, Nate following behind him. They sat down inside and immediately bent their heads together over the notebook Shane had pulled out containing the written music for his song.
Mitchie's eyes followed Shane's movements in the other room as she grew nervous realizing she'd be working alone with Jason. He moved over to sit next to her on the couch, carrying his guitar with him.
"Alright," he said, propping his guitar on his knees. "Let's tear this up."
Mitchie giggled a little, mentally slapping herself for doing so, and took a deep breath before teaching him the chords, starting at the beginning of the song. As they worked their way through it, she found herself relaxing in Jason's presence, pleasantly surprised at how quickly she was feeling comfortable with him. Time flew by as she taught him, and their dialogue flowed easily.
Eventually, Mitchie was jolted out of an intense conversation with Jason when she heard the door to the recording room open, and looked up to see Shane and Nate coming out. They looked exhausted, and Mitchie glanced down at her watch, shocked to realize so much time had gone by. Shane walked over and plopped down in the chair to her right, and Nate did the same across from him, running a hand through his hair with a sigh.
"How'd you guys do out here?" he asked, looking from Jason to Mitchie.
"Great, actually," Jason said, grinning at Nate. "We tweaked it a little to make the shift from acoustic, and it still needs work, but I like where it's going. I can work on it some more tomorrow."
"What about you guys?" Mitchie asked, feeling brave enough to question them on their progress.
"Pretty good," Shane said, glancing over at Nate. "Taught him the rough guitar part, and came up with a few ideas for adding in the drums. Still needs a lot of work on our end though, not to mention throwing everything together."
"Well, yeah," Mitchie said, throwing Shane an odd look. "You guys should know better than anyone that this stuff doesn't just fall together."
Nate laughed. "We're more used to only reaching a certain point before the label takes it out of our hands, Mitchie. While we've always finished things for ourselves before, this is one of the first times we'll get to go all the way through with it for the public."
"We don't want to screw it up," Shane added, looking serious for once.
Mitchie nodded in understanding. "Does that mean you're going to do it, then?"
"I think it would be a good move," Nate admitted, sighing again.
"And it is a wicked song, man," Jason said, leaning across Mitchie to bump fists with Shane, who laughed.
"Thank God you guys think so, because I probably would have killed you if you'd hated it after all the work I put in."
"And then I would have had to hear about it all the way back to camp," Mitchie added. "So thanks from me too."
The boys all laughed at her, and it made her feel a little better to see Jason and Nate starting to slightly relax around her. Jason, especially, had been decent to her during their guitar work, but she hadn't spent much time with Nate, and was unsure where she stood with him. She was pulled out of her thoughts when Shane stood up, however.
"I think it's time we head back, it's getting late," he said, glancing down at Mitchie, who nodded and stood up as well.
The four of them left the room and moved down the hallway toward the outer door, where Nate spoke up again.
"I think we need to work pretty intensively on this if we want to get it out there by next week," he said, reminding Mitchie of how business-like he'd always seemed in interviews.
"Next week?" she asked, surprised that they wanted to perform it so soon.
She saw Shane nod. "Yeah, Nate and I talked about it, and as long as it's okay with you, Jason," he glanced at his friend, "we'd like to do this as soon as possible, which we figure is next week. Summer's almost half over, meaning I'll be back from camp in a little over a month, and it's better to do this far in advance of having to face the label and be back to obeying their commandments."
"Works for me," Jason said, nodding his head. "We've got a lot of work to do, though," he sighed, running a hand over his face and blinking his eyes widely.
"Yeah, any chance you can get back here tomorrow, Shane?" Nate asked.
Shane nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think so. Brown seemed like he was willing to give me quite a bit of freedom in order to pull this off. I'll talk to him when I get back, but I'm pretty sure it'll be fine."
"Just text and let us know," Nate told him, and turned to Mitchie. "Can you make it tomorrow, as well, Mitchie?"
She was completely taken aback and just blinked at him for a moment. "Um, yeah, sure … I mean, if you really want me here?" she questioned him with a furrowed brow, and missed the look of pleasant surprise on her boyfriend's face as well. "I don't want to just hang around and annoy you guys or anything."
"Are you kidding?" Jason raised an eyebrow. "It's been productive tonight, and you played a major part in that. We'll see you tomorrow," he said definitively, and to Mitchie's surprise, he came over and wrapped her in a tight hug. She hugged him back quickly, as he backed away with a smile.
To top things off, she just about fainted when Nate came over and did the same. "Thank you, Mitchie," he whispered into her ear before pulling away without any further explanation.
She furrowed her brow in his direction; he was a complete enigma to her – one moment very business-like and withdrawn, the next friendly and interesting to talk to. She assumed that the latter was more indicative of his true personality and that he was simply withdrawn with her because she was unfamiliar to him, and so she appreciated his goodbye and thanks that much more, even if she had no idea what she'd done to deserve them.
The boys said goodbye to each other, and Mitchie followed Shane outside as Nate shut the door behind them.
"So that wasn't too bad, huh?" Shane asked as they climbed back into the station wagon.
"Jason Taylor and Nate Clark just hugged me," Mitchie said in disbelief, turning toward her boyfriend, who just grinned and leaned over to kiss her quickly.
"And Shane Gray just kissed you," he smirked.
Mitchie just blushed and looked down at her hands in her lap. "Sorry," she muttered.
"Don't be, you're cute when you're star-struck," Shane said as he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.
This seemed to jolt Mitchie back to herself, and she groaned. "Oh my God, was I really that bad?"
He laughed again. "You weren't, actually. A little more subdued than normal with the wisecracks, maybe, but…" he trailed off as she punched him on the arm.
"Well, aside from the fact that I was so damn nervous, I didn't know if they'd appreciate my joking with them."
"Why not?"
She shrugged. "It's kind of an indication of familiarity, isn't it? I didn't want them to think I was going in there assuming we'd be all BFF or something."
Shane grinned at her. "You worry about the strangest things," he shook his head. "I can't believe you were even star-struck in the first place; I'd have thought you were used to being around celebrities because of your mom's job."
Completely caught off guard, Mitchie could only stare at Shane in return. "Well, um," she cleared her throat, thinking fast. "She's over in China, so I don't really get the chance to be around them that much. Plus, when I go there, it's a lot of celebrities that we're not familiar with here so they don't really have an effect on me."
"I guess," Shane brushed off her response. "But you really are gonna have to get used to Jason and Nate."
"Hey, um, can we stop for food? I only ate a snack before we left," Mitchie said, needing to change the topic.
"Yeah, definitely," Shane agreed.
They argued briefly over where to eat, before Mitchie won and directed Shane into a drive-thru. They ordered and soon had their food, eating as Shane steered them out of LA and through the darkness onto the highway.
"You did well with the song, Shane," Mitchie said after they'd been driving for a while.
"Thanks, could you tell I was nervous?"
"A little, but you covered well," she laughed.
Grinning in thanks, Shane changed the subject and commented, "So it looked like you and Jason were doing well together."
Mitchie's eyebrows furrowed. "Yeah, actually, it was pretty easy to work with him."
"You sound surprised."
"A little, yeah," she admitted. "Not that I thought he'd be difficult to work with or anything – or that I'd be working with him at all, actually – but I thought he'd be kind of … airhead-y," she glanced at him with a sheepish look.
Shane's eyes shone knowingly. "Surprised he's got a serious side?"
"I had no idea," Mitchie answered. "What was that about?"
Shane shrugged and turned serious. "He does behave really juvenile most of the time, don't get me wrong. But there's also this other side of him, this incredibly serious, hard-working side, that he covers a lot. It comes out when he's concentrating really hard on figuring something out, or when he trusts someone enough to show himself."
"What do you mean?" Mitchie asked, sensing a shift in the tone of the conversation.
"He does it to protect himself," Shane said quietly, staring ahead of him at the road. "The goofiness, I mean."
"From what?"
"You know I have my own trust issues, obviously." Mitchie nodded. "Well, they've also been through a lot in that department. The stories are theirs to tell, and I wouldn't be surprised if you win them over and hear them for yourself pretty soon, but suffice it to say that he kind of withdrew after everything he went through. He's a good guy, but he just finds it easier to deal with everything if he acts like the goofball. He's more untouchable if he doesn't let himself get involved and fazed."
Mitchie was quiet for a moment. "Makes sense, at least based on the super extremely vague explanation you just gave me."
"Sorry, I know it's not much information," Shane sighed. "I'd tell you if I could."
"No, it's cool, and I totally get it," Mitchie assured him. "I just had no idea things could be so difficult for you guys; everything always seemed great when you did interviews. Except with you, of course," she gave a small smile, attempting to lighten the mood.
It partially worked: Shane glanced her way with a tiny smile, but his face was still set with a serious expression. "That's kind of the point though – we're not exactly supposed to let fans and the media know if something's wrong. Especially not if they're the ones who helped caused the problems in the first place," he added darkly.
Mitchie reached over and squeezed his hand gently. She hated seeing him in pain when he talked about how much fame had changed his life, sometimes for the worse. "But it's all worth it in the end, right?" she asked finally, searching his eyes.
Shane was silent for a while, before he sent a look at her. "Sometimes," he said, squeezing her hand in return.
A/N: We finally met Nate and Jason! Please tell me your thoughts on them? :) And some more hints/foreshadowing about issues coming up!
I know a lot of you are really anxious for the lie to come out, but trust me, there's a plan for this. It was mentioned in this chapter that there's a little over a month left of camp, I'm figuring about 5-ish weeks, and it's going to be at least a couple of weeks before the he finds out. There's honestly a lot that is going to happen before that point, probably at least as many chapters as there have been so far, so I'm sorry that you'll have to wait a while for that drama!
Thank you all for your reviews, please keep them up! Cate – glad you're liking the songs! Also, TheSunday – I have plans for the story to go past Final Jam, but because of its length, I'm not sure if it'll end up as a sequel, and it also depends on interest.
Tweet me if you have any questions!
Chapter title is from "Kangaroo Cry" by Blue October.
March 14, 2010
