five: schedules & sell-outs

one month later

"Hey, Austin, I need you to sign these contracts," Trish stated as she waltzed into the Music Factory. A month had passed and the final details had started to come together; it was just the nitty-gritty tasks that still needed completing. Austin nodded and grabbed the contracts, on which Trish had indicated the parts he needed to sign.

She had invested in an earpiece awhile back, and now that tour details were starting to lock into place, it was being put to good use. Austin and Ally had agreed to pay her double because she'd been working overtime, and although they didn't have the money at that moment, they assured Trish that she would get her cut after the first show.

"Trish speaking," Trish said into the earpiece. She paused. "Oh, hey, Martin. Glad to hear from you." She exited the room and continued chatting to Austin's former rhythm guitarist, who she was trying to recruit for Austin and Ally's tour as well.

Ally, who was sitting beside Austin on the couch, laid her head on his shoulder. Her boyfriend smiled. "Ally, can't you see I'm busy?"

"I like watching you work," she sighed.

Austin chuckled. "Have I mentioned before that you're cute?"

She gazed up at him. "Not nearly enough."

He put his arm around her shoulder. "Well, alright then. You're super cute."

"Thanks." Ally blushed. "Hey, I wonder how Dez is doing. You should call him."

"You're right," Austin said. "I'll shoot him a text." He grabbed his phone and clicked Dez's contact, then started typing.

Hey, bud! How r u doing? Haven't heard from u in awhile. Tour details coming together here. Can't wait for u to join us!

Austin sent the message and put his phone down. A few seconds later, it buzzed.

"Wow, he responds fast," Ally observed. Austin shrugged and picked it up to read the message. There was no text, just a selfie of Dez and Carrie with a llama.

He laughed. "Looks like he's living the dream." A few seconds later, Trish waltzed back in. "What are you guys laughing at?" Austin showed her the picture, and she snorted. "Wow, why am I not surprised?"

"Because it's Dez, and this kind of thing happens pretty much every day," Ally responded.

"Well, anyway, I thought I should let you guys know that Martin agreed to come with us on tour again. He was the last one I had to call, so now you guys have a band for tour!"

Both of them cheered. "Thanks for doing this, Trish. You're awesome." Ally stood up and gave her friend a hug. Trish smirked.

"Hey, you agreed to pay me double— it's my pleasure." She smiled. "Anyway, since nobody has to approve the schedule but me, it's all completely set. You guys officially have a tour schedule!"

"Sweet," Austin said. "So, is there anything else you need us to do?"

"Just finish signing those contracts, and you should be good for now," Trish replied. "The last ones should be coming in the mail within the next couple of days. We're going to need to get those turned around and back in the mail really fast in order to make the booking official, though."

"You know, Trish," Ally said, "You've been working so hard to make this tour happen; why don't you take a short break? We can go to the food court and just hang out for a bit."

Trish nodded and tucked the notebook under her arm, knowing that although they were taking a break from tour planning, they'd probably end up needing the book anyway. "Fine by me. Let's go." Austin and Ally hopped off the couch and followed Trish to the food court.

"It feels like these past few months have really flown by," Ally commented, taking a sip of her smoothie. "It's almost surreal. I can't believe I'm actually going on tour with you guys again."

For the next few minutes, Austin and Ally chatted about other things tour-related while Trish looked over her checklist in the Tour Notebook—again. She couldn't help but think that if she never had to manage another tour again, she would be completely fine with it. Trish always did her best with managing and treated her clients with kindness—most of the time. But the one thing that she had kept buried during the tour planning process was that her dream was to perform herself— to star in Broadway shows, feel the lights shining down on her and hear the cheers of the audience. Trish didn't know how much longer she could be Austin and Ally's manager before the thrill of it would start to wear off. She hated to admit it, but she was starting to think that it already was.

"Ooh, hey, Trish," Ally said, snapping her back to reality. "Who do we contact to design the merchandise? I think I have some ideas for our new logo."

Trish grinned slightly. "I was hoping you'd ask— I have a few leads on a graphic designer. Here are the numbers." She tore the page of phone numbers for graphic designers out of the Tour Notebook and they took off with it, giving her a quick "Thanks, Trish." She nodded and went back to studying the Tour Notebook.

They still had so much to do, and the tour started in two months. Sure, Austin and Ally had agreed to help a bit, but they were still the pop stars, not the managers. They had their responsibilities with their music, and Trish had hers with putting everything together. Dez had some, too, but most of the time he was just... there, according to Trish.

Trish did another glance over of the Tour Notebook, letting out a quiet sigh. She couldn't help but think that they had gotten insanely lucky about being able to book the venues that they did. She knew that normally, you have to book these types of venues at least a year in advance. Having such a limited amount of time to do it had been putting more pressure on Trish than usual, and while part of her was happy about Austin and Ally going independent and agreed with their reasoning, the other couldn't help but wish that Jimmy was there to help her. There had just been too much drama that had ensued in the duration of the time that Austin and Ally had been partners and she was glad that was over, but planning a national tour in three months had been putting quite a bit of weight on her shoulders.

ten (ish) minutes later

Back at the factory, Austin and Ally were making calls to the numbers Trish had listed in the notebook. Not many of them were willing to do it under such short notice without increased pay, but they finally succeed after calling the third number. After hanging up, Ally gave Austin a high five.

"Woo! We did it!" she exclaimed and let out a deep sigh. "Okay, now it's nap time." She laid her head on Austin's shoulder, and they both sat back against the couch and closed their eyes.

"You know," she said, "I'm so happy we get to tour together. I've been anticipating this since you suggested it at the Helen show."

Austin smiled. "Yeah, me too," was all he said, and they leaned into each other, starting to doze off. They'd been up late working on new songs for the tour together, and now they were both starting to feel the effects of it. Ally fell asleep not long after, and Austin's eyes were about to close when Trish burst into the factory again, unaware they were sleeping.

"Hey guys—oh," she said rather loudly, waking both of them up. She visibly cringed, pausing before asking, "You were trying to sleep, weren't you?"

Austin rubbed his eyes. "Yeah. We were."

Trish shook her head. "Sorry. Well, anyway, I had an idea. You guys don't have a combined social media page yet, do you?" They both shook their heads.

"I think you guys should make one. To let people know that you're 'officially official,'" she said, making visible air quotes. "Anyway, what are your thoughts?"

"I don't know, Trish," Ally started. "I mean, we're already running our own social media pages separately, and"—

"I'll manage it," Trish interrupted. "This will be where I'll post all things Austin and Ally-related; not so much your personal lives, but your lives together as a duo— your new music, tour information, etcetera. So, what do you say?"

Austin nodded. "Sounds lit. Good idea, Trish." Ally agreed, and they watched as Trish started creating the account on her phone. After the initial account setup was done, they decided to post their tour schedule.

"I made a fancier tour schedule that could be posted to your accounts the other night," Trish mused, pulling up the photos on her phone. "I can send it to you guys, and then you can post it to your individual accounts. Make sure to put in the caption to follow the official Austin and Ally account."

Both of them nodded and followed her suggestions, and within minutes, both of their photos had thousands of likes. An hour later, the Austin and Ally Instagram account had gained over 3 million followers. Apparently, the fans were just excited as they were about their partnership. By then, it was already lunchtime, and Ally insisted on making sandwiches so they could save money for the tour. After she got back from the grocery store with the sandwich fixings, she was met with another of Trish's questions.

"Hey, Ally, question for you," Trish noticed her at the door and held it open for her. "Have you put together a set list yet?"

Ally sighed. "No, we've been too busy writing new material to even think about what order they'll be in. Why?"

"The band is asking for the music so they can start practicing it ahead of time. So, I would say start working on that as soon as possible." Ally nodded and set the bags of groceries on the table.

"Okay, I've got everything you guys requested: Cheddar cheese and ham for Austin and I, Swiss and turkey for Trish, some potato chips to share," she paused as she pulled each item out of the bag. "And pickles for me." She smiled brightly, and Trish made a face. "You and your pickles, I swear."

Austin frowned. "Don't swear. It's not nice." Trish rolled her eyes.

"Could you guys get started on the set list? I have a phone call to make." They both nodded as they started to make their sandwiches.

"So," Ally started, buttering her bread and handing the knife to Austin, "Which song should we do first?"

"I don't know," he replied. "We don't really have many songs we sing together, but I still have all of my old ones memorized."

Ally nodded. "Same here. We could start with a duet, switch off between your songs and my songs, and then end with a duet?"

"Sounds good," Austin said. "But which duet do we start with?"

"It should be more upbeat, since this is the first time we've been onstage together in four years...how about 'Can't Do it Without You?'"

He smiled. "Perfect."

"We should save Two in a Million for the very end... what about the encore?" They continued talking about the set list for another half hour, and they had a rough draft within what seemed like no time at all.

A&A Two in a Million set list

Can't do it without you

Chasin' the beat of my heart

Double take

Finally me

Better than this

No Place Like Home

Steal your heart

Superhero/Parachute

Stuck on you (acoustic)

Two in a Million

You can come to me (encore)

"Well, this seems like a good start to me." Austin yawned and pulled out his phone, where he noticed a notification on the home screen. His eyes widened, and he frantically tapped Ally on the shoulder. "Ally, look!" She glanced over at his phone to find him pointing at a message from their ticket service, indicating that the first Miami show was sold out.

"Sold out? That's amazing!" She immediately embraced him in a hug, and then planted a kiss on his cheek. "We should go tell Trish!" The two of them raced up the stairs and burst into the practice room. Trish jumped up from the piano bench and frantically hung up the phone.

"What do you want?" she hissed. "I was in the middle of a phone call!"

"Our first Miami show sold out!" Ally exclaimed. "Look!" Austin showed her his phone, and Trish's jaw dropped in surprise. Her face immediately changed from annoyed to surprised.

"Oh my...guys, this is amazing!" She embraced the two of them in a hug. "Man, I didn't expect tickets to sell this fast. Your fans must have really missed you." The three friends let go and took a step back.

Austin put his arm around Ally and flashed a proud grin. "If they missed us as much as I missed her...nah that's impossible." Ally smiled and planted a kiss on his cheek.

Austin pulled the rough set list out of his pocket, where he had stashed it last minute before they ran excitedly up to the practice room. "We finished the set list— the rough draft, at least. But since we don't have a lot of extra time to update it, it's probably the final draft."

Trish grabbed the piece of paper from him and nodded. "Looks good. I'll email this to the band. Thanks, guys." Austin and Ally exited the practice room and went back downstairs, still in disbelief.

"Hey, uh, I think we forgot to add our new songs into the set list," Ally said. "Unless we just perform them acoustically, we're going to need to send those over."

"I was thinking we wouldn't use the band for that," Austin replied, pulling out the sheet music for their new songs. "I mean, these would sound better with just us and a guitar." He paused. "Hey, I should text Dez and tell him that our concert is sold out— he'll probably be really excited."

Ally nodded in agreement, and Austin picked up the phone to compose a short text to his friend. Within the next minute, he had gotten a response congratulating them and asking if he wanted to play video games. Austin texted back, "Thx, man. Ur on. C u then." The three friends worked on getting other tour-related details set in place for another few hours until none of them had any energy left.

After the sun had gone down, the three friends agreed to pack up and go their separate ways. Trish said that she had emailed the set list to the band and left the music factory with a quick goodbye—it was obvious that she was eager to leave. Austin gave Ally a quick peck on the forehead before going home, and Ally stayed a little later to close up the factory.

Just as she was about to lock up, Ally received a text from Trish. She frowned as she pulled it out, thinking it was for something tour-related but grinned when she saw the message.

Trish: you never told me about ur convo with austin that one night before his show. wht did he say?

Ally: Trish, it's been over a month since that conversation even happened. Why did u wait until now to ask me?

Trish: i've been busy planning tour and forgot about it til now. spill the tea bestie

Ally rolled her eyes. This was so like Trish to try and get information out of her, when she thought that the moment had long passed. She sighed as she reluctantly typed out the message.

Ally: Well, he basically just said that on tour, he 'let himself loose.' I was terrified at first, because my brain assumed the worst. He said that he had a new girlfriend every few months but assured me that he hadn't... y'know... because he still had hope that we'd get back together. He said I was the one he wanted to save himself for.

She sent the message, then after a minute with no response from Trish, started typing again.

Ally: I was so worried he was gonna tell me he wasn't a virgin, Trish. You have no idea.

Ally: And then, all of a sudden, he says that he already knows he wants to marry me. This was the day after the Helen show, Trish! I freaked out a little bit, internally, because I felt like we'd been apart for so long that I needed to get to know him all over again, to really establish our relationship. I was— and, if I'm being honest, still kind of am— worried that we might be moving a little bit too fast.

Ally read over her text, then sent it, not realizing that the nervousness she'd been feeling the night of Austin's concert was still buried deep down inside of her somewhere. She pressed send and finished locking up the store before heading over to the parking lot and getting into her car. She checked her phone again to find that Trish had not only replied, but sent multiple messages.

Trish: wow. this boy must rly be in love with you, huh.

Trish: idk what to tell u ally. austin was in love with u from the very beginning, so it'd make sense that he'd want to permanently establish the relationship. but it does seem to be a little too early to be talking about marriage n stuff.

Trish: maybe talk 2 him about it? tell him how you feel. be honest w him. relationships are a 2 way street.

Ally put her phone down without responding. She knew that Trish was right—most of the time she was. But she had a feeling it'd be harder to talk sense into Austin than Trish had implied.

She drove home in the dark, listening to the radio at a low volume, and when she got home, Ally went straight to bed. She turned her lamp next to her bed off and drifted right to sleep.

Back at his apartment, Austin switched on his gaming system and Dez joined not long after. After taking some time to catch up while they fought zombies, there was a moment of awkward silence.

"So how have things been going between you and Ally?" Dez asked.

"Amazing," Austin answered. "Now that we're back together, I don't want to ever be apart."

"I know the feeling," Dez replied. "It's been so fun being with Carrie 24/7. I still miss you guys, though."

"Aw, I miss you too," Austin said. "Yeah, it gets harder and harder to say goodbye every day. Like, it sounds cheesy, but I keep wondering how I ever survived without her."

"Whoa, there, buddy. Calm down."

"Sorry, it's just— I love her so much. You know what I mean— to have somebody that you can't live without and want to spend the rest of your life with."

Though Austin couldn't see it, Dez's eyes widened. "You don't mean you're going to..."

"Well, yeah, I thought that was obvious. I don't know when, but I want to... you know... pop the question at some point. We talked about it a little at my Miami show and she seemed a bit freaked out...but she'll warm up to the idea eventually."

"Wow, my little boy is all grown up," Dez commented after a moment of silence, and Austin could tell he was getting emotional. He rolled his eyes, and Dez continued. "Wait until you know for sure, though. Like, maybe when you go on the world tour."

Austin nodded. "Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too—if we get a world tour. Although, I don't see how I could change my mind."

The rest of the night, Austin's mind swirled with thoughts about their conversation. He had only really thought about marriage a handful of times, but now that they were back together, the thought rarely left his mind. He couldn't wait until the day came where he could ask for Ally's hand in marriage; as far as he was concerned, it couldn't come soon enough.

Review, favorite, follow! B) -ej