I let out a groan, rolling over to silence my blaring alarm clock that reads 7:00 a.m. Momentarily shoving my face back into the pillow, I let out a sigh, wishing I had a few more hours of sleep. I didn't get much sleep last night, letting the first day of tour jitters overwhelm my thoughts, preventing me from getting a good night's rest.

Sitting up and stretching my limbs, I reluctantly get out of bed and head for the shower. The scalding hot water wakes me up enough to finish my morning routine and get dressed. Since it's the first day I decide on a white, flowy tank top with black jeans and some cute, strappy sandals, adding a simple necklace and some bracelets. I want to look cute but casual for my first official day on the job.

With five minutes left until I have to wake up Alex, I make sure I have everything ready and go to knock on his door down the hall. I wait until the clock on my phone hits 8:00 a.m. on the dot and I faintly hear his alarm go off on the other side of the door. I give it a few seconds until I tap my knuckles on the door and I hear him shuffle around until he opens it.

"Morning," he rasps out, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the heel of his hands.

"Morning, happy first day of tour!" I smile as soon as he opens his eyes to fully look at me.

"Happy first day of tour." He lazily smiles back, leaning against the door. "I guess I'll go down to the gym for an hour and then come back up to shower. I'll probably grab something to eat too really quick because we have to meet the car at 9:50, right?"

"Right. But, actually, how intent are you on working out this morning?" I nervously ask, slightly rocking on my heels.

"I mean... Honestly, I could take it or leave it. I really just wanted to sleep in this morning, but Chris thought it would be best to work out to release some of my anxiety," he air quotes. "It doesn't really calm my nerves anyway. Why?"

"Well..." I nervously drag out the word. "I kind of have a surprise for you, if you want it."

"Really?" His face perks up with a smile.

"Yeah, I actually picked up some extra groceries from the store yesterday to make breakfast. I looked up some recipes for pancakes and grabbed ingredients to make some from scratch, as well as some eggs and bacon. I wasn't sure what you would want or like so I just grabbed those to play it safe. I know you said you were nervous about today and then when you were telling me about how you like cooking... I don't know. I just thought it would be something fun and calming for you to do. I asked the lady down at the front desk if there was a kitchen or something we could use and she said that there is a small kitchenette on the main floor by the laundry room we can use. That is if you want to. Don't feel ob—"

"Joslyn," he cuts me off from my rambling. "I would love to." He brightly smiles. "Just let me take a shower and get ready real quick. I'll come knock on your door after."

"Are you sure? Because you really don't have to if you don't want to. I just thought—"

"Joslyn," he cuts me off again. "It's happening," he practically demands. "I'll come knock on your door in about twenty minutes, ok?"

"Ok," my voice is small.

"Good." He flashes me his perfect smile one last time before closing his door.

I can't help the small smile on my face as I walk back to my room to wait for him. I sit on my bed absentmindedly watching the news as I anxiously wait for him to knock on my door. About twenty-five minutes later there's a knock.

"Let's do this," he says as soon as I open the door, determinedly clapping his hands together once before cracking his knuckles.

I can't help but let out a giggle. "Alright, let me grab the stuff and we'll get going."

He grabs the bag of dry ingredients while I take out the refrigerated items from the hotel room mini fridge. I quickly grab my phone and room key, shoving them in my pocket, and we head to the kitchenette. The room is small but big enough for the two of us. It has a round kitchen table in the corner and the rest of the room is furnished with a stove top, oven, microwave, sink, andsome cooking instruments.

"Alright," I say, setting the ingredients on the table and he does the same. "What should we do first?"

"Pancakes?" he suggests, pulling the dry ingredients from the bag.

"Good with me." I shrug, pulling out the rest of the ingredients. I'm not the best cook in the world, half of the time I'm not sure of what I'm doing.

"Um, Joslyn?" he asks, rummaging through the bags, seemingly looking for something. "Did you get measuring cups?"

Shit.

Of course I would forget those and ruin this entire plan.

"No... I just thought we could Rachel Ray it." I calmly shrug, trying to play it cool despite how I'm actually feeling, embarrassed and awful.

"What?" He laughs.

"Half of the time she doesn't even use that stuff, she just guesses the measurements and throws them all together. It can't be that hard, right? You're the cooking expert, I'm sure it'll be fine."

Honestly, I've only seen her show a handful of times, but I do remember her not measuring everything out.

"I'm not so sure that's how it works, but I guess we can try." He laughs.

Reading the recipe off of my phone, we try our best to blindly measure out the exact ingredients, mixing them into a bowl.

"This seems pretty runny," Alex says after mixing it all together, lifting the spoon and watching the mix quickly run off.

"Well, let's add a little more of each dry ingredient. That's what Rachel would do, right?"

"I don't know. What would Rachel do?" He turns to me with a humorous glint in his eye, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning his hip on the counter.

"I don't know! You're the expert cook and celebrity. Shouldn't you have her number or something?"

"I do, actually," he says, standing up straight, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

"Really?" I ask, shock evident in my voice.

"Mhmm," he hums, putting the phone to his ear and his index finger to his lips, signaling for me to be quiet.

"Rachel? Hey, it's Alex. Yeah, listen, I'm making pancakes and they're a little runny, what should I do? More flour? Ok."

Before I know it, he's reaching his hand into the bag of flour and then reaches up to swipe the white powder across the side of my cheek, causing me to gasp.

"Alex!" I shriek out in shock.

He quickly lowers his phone, shoving it into his pocket, before taking his clean hand to try to cover up the booming laughs coming from his mouth.

"Oh my God!" He's nearly doubled over from laughing so hard. "You should see your face!"

"You are such a jerk!" I swipe my hand across my cheek, gathering up some of the flour before brushing it across his face. Now it's his turn to gasp and look at me with wide eyes.

"Oh, it's on," he says, grabbing some more flour out of the bag.

I squeal and run behind the table, trying to put distance between us. We dance around the table, him trying to catch me. Finally, he just decides to throw the flour at me, the white powder flying through the air, slightly hitting me and falling all over the table.

"Alex!" I scold him for making a mess.

"Ok, ok!" He laughs. "Truce?" he asks, extending his hand across the table while raising a brow.

I give him a skeptical look before hesitantly taking his flour covered hand in mine, giving it a firm shake.

"Ok," I say walking back over to the counter top with all of the ingredients. I quickly grab the roll of paper towels and throw them at him. "Clean up your mess," I sternly demand like a mother to a child before turning back to the counter.

Before I can react, I feel Alex next to me and he grabs my face in his hands to swipe his thumbs across the bottom of my eyes to create thick, white powdered lines under my eyes.

"You got it chief," he says with his infamous smirk before letting go of my no doubt blushing face and picking up the paper towels again, going to clean up the mess.

I let out a frustrated groan, turning my attention back to the ingredients and I hear him chuckle behind me.

When he's finished cleaning, he comes back over to stand next to me, ready to get back to cooking, but I have other plans.

"Thanks, buddy," I say before smacking my flour covered hand over his hard chest, leaving a visible handprint on his solid black t-shirt.

"Oh, you're going to regret that." He shoots a playful glare, advancing on me.

"No. No!" I try to sternly yell, giving him a pointed look while grabbing his wrists to keep his flour covered hands at bay. "No more or else we'll never get to the venue on time."

He keeps his intense gaze locked on me, almost as if challenging me before letting out a huff. "Fine," he whines, giving up the fight.

The rest of breakfast goes smoothly. Everything ended up tasting pretty good, except the pancakes weren't as fluffy as they should have been. Regardless, it was good.

By the time we finish eating at the small kitchen table it's already 9:30. We rush to clean everything up before bolting out of the kitchenette and into the main lobby to catch the elevator. People are looking at us like we're crazy, running through the extravagant hotel like maniacs, still covered in flour. I can't say I blame them.

"Go, go, go!" I yell at Alex as soon as the elevator doors open to our floor.

We both run to our rooms to clean up, only having less than ten minutes until the car arrives.

I run into my room and quickly go straight to the bathroom. I grab a washcloth, running it under the faucet to wipe off the flour from my face. After my face is clear, I plug in the hair dryer, using it to get some of the flour out of my hair and off my clothes. Since my top is already white its hard to detect any evidence from our flour fight.

Giving myself one last look over, I'm happy with my appearance and run to grab my backpack before bolting back out the door. Alex is already halfway down the hall dressed in a new, clean shirt with a clean face. When we reach the elevator he repeatedly pushes the down arrow, willing for the elevator to come faster.

The elevator dings and he quickly grabs my wrist and pulls me through the opening doors, getting inside and pushing the main floor button before the doors are even done fully opened.

When the doors open to the lobby we rush out, running through the lobby once more with one minute left to spare. Chris stares at us with wide and disapproving eyes, yet he doesn't question us as the car pulls up at the exact moment and we climb in.

Chris sits in the passenger seat, leaving me and Alex in the back of the car, trying to suppress our heavy breathing and laughter from the whole situation.

Pulling up to the arena, the screaming of the usual crowd of girls can be heard as we dash out of the car and run to his dressing room, still riding on our high of energy.

"Good morning to you two." Shay greets us with confused eyes.

"Good morning," I greet her as Alex plops down into her chair in front of the vanity, bursting into a fit of laughter, causing me to laugh too.

"What is wrong with you two? Are you high or something?" Shay asks, pulling her brows together, causing Alex to laugh even harder.

"No!" I'm quick to defend myself.

"Mhmm," she hums out, skepticism written all over her face as she grabs some hair styling gel, ready to get Alex prepped for his interviews.

"Um," she says, pausing her movements just before her hands meet his scalp. "What the hell is in your hair?" she asks him, squinting her eyes and wrinkling her nose.

Again, he bursts into laughter and I can see from my spot on the couch that she's referring to a patch of flour covering his hair.