29. These Are The Days
TWENTY-NINE
THESE ARE THE DAYS
Halle
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about last month’s excursion to the What Makes You Beautiful beach and our cafe date after. The last month of tour, the last month with Cade, has been so good.
We’re still “just friends” who go on dates sometimes…or a lot of times. Exploring new places with him and seeing him perform has been the time of my life. Each show, he looks better than the one before, something I didn’t think was possible. Our morning routine has started to feel like home—coffee shops and conversations. Every time I think we’ve exhausted ourselves, there’s something else waiting for us to chat about. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve guessed that his mission this summer was to convince me to fall in love with him.
Cade has to know I like him, at least more than “just friends”, but I don’t think he knows the extent of my feelings. I know I told myself that I’d be more upfront and honest with my feelings rather than run away from them, but it’s a lot easier said than done.
We haven’t actually talked about us and what we may or may not be, and with the end of tour tonight, everything’s chaotic, so it’s probably not the best time to try to hash it out. Maybe after the show I’ll be brave enough to let him in a little more.
We’re finally home—or almost home, that is. We’re still about an hour drive away from Seattle. They’re performing where Seattle Rock Lovefest was at on Valentine’s Day. It’ll be nice to be at a venue we’re already a little familiar with, and being a hometown show, it’ll probably be the one with the most Tryhard fans in attendance. Their local fan base tends to always show up loud and proud for them.
Tour coming to an end is overwhelmingly bittersweet for me, and how I feel probably doesn’t even come close to how the guys feel. Selling my designs to fans and getting to watch so many people become new fans of Tryhard has been a dream come true. As much as I wish our time on the road wasn’t coming to an end, three months was a long time, and I’m ready to get back to real life.
I’m even more excited to see all of our friends at this show. I don’t think our friend group is necessarily a codependent bunch, but boy do I miss seeing their faces every day. The few and far between FaceTime calls I had with Mel and Ruby haven’t been enough. Everyone has been hard at work at The Pitch today, prepping for tonight’s after party, while we’ve been making our final driving stretch from Portland.
Right now, Cade’s asleep in my passenger seat, and I don’t know how he hasn’t woken up in all the stop-and-go traffic we’ve started to hit on I-5. I have the newest episode of Ruby’s podcast faintly playing in the background to keep me company. Right before we left for tour, I helped her design a logo and cover art for streaming platforms. She finally put her first episode out about a month into tour, and having a new episode to listen to each week—sometimes two, if we’re lucky—has helped me feel connected to her while I’ve been away.
I catch myself starting to hum along to her catchy outro music, stopping about halfway through, hoping I didn’t wake up Cade. I take my eyes off the road every few seconds, looking over at him to see if he’s still asleep. My heart starts to flutter every time my eyes land on him, anticipating that one lucky time his eyes will start slowly blinking open and I’ll get caught watching him sleep.
My ringer starts blaring through the speakers, jolting Cade awake as I scramble to answer the incoming call from Mel.
“What’s up, boo?”
“Boo? Is that the best you can do right now? Tour must have made you soooo boring!” Her laugh crackles through the speaker. “But actually, I was calling to see what time you need us all to meet you at the venue to get our passes?”
“Passes…yeah, um, I—” I stammer as I try to remember what passes she could be talking about.
“Oh my gosh, don’t tell me you forgot.”
“No! Of course not!” Think Halle, think.
Cade starts to wave his arms, catching my attention. He then holds out his phone, open to the notes app with “VIP PASSES” glaring back at me in bold font. Right, the VIP passes I promised for Mel, Abbott, and Ruby to be able to get in the venue early and be backstage with us before the show.
“So, what time should I get there?” Mel asks.
“Yeah, uh, I need to check with the venue staff, but I can call you back once we?—”
“One sec, Mel,” Cade interrupts, and I hear a faint ring coming from his phone.
“Is he calling them?”
“I think so.”
?Mel starts telling me what she’s planning on wearing to the show, trying to get my opinion on which shoes would match her outfit the best. Helping her out required all of my attention, using my imagination, picturing her outfit, as she described it.
I must have missed overhearing Cade’s entire conversation with the venue staff. He clears his throat and jumps into our conversation.
“They said 30 minutes before doors, so 5:30, and I vote for the black boots.”
Did he just? I think he did. I’m impressed that he was able to keep track of our conversation while he was on his call.
“Thanks, Cade. I gotta go get ready then, I’ll see you both in a few hours. Love you, byeeee!” She hangs up before either of us can say anything back.
I don’t usually hangout backstage with the guys before shows, typically I spend all of my time prepping the merch table, getting it set-up exactly how I like it. But, tonight is a different story. This venue always runs merch sales with their own staff, so I get the night off to enjoy the final show. Any other night it would make me itch to not work the table myself, but since it’s their last show, I’m excited to spend it right off the side of the stage tonight.
We have pre-show festivities planned—shotgun racing energy drinks in the greenroom, and taking all sorts of pictures with all our friends—as if the party tonight isn’t going to be enough to celebrate a successful first tour. I can’t complain though, it feels really, really good to have so much love and support coming from our friends.
I know that Cade fakes having a big ego sometimes, but he and the rest of the Tryhard guys are some of the most humble people I’ve ever met. The amount of unexpected success they’ve had this year hasn’t changed that, but I wish they would brag about it sometimes. Having their EP take off, and booking their first tour, even if they aren’t the headliner, is a huge accomplishment. If there’s any time they should be screaming from the rooftops about how dang cool that is, it’s tonight.
I’m so grateful for the opportunities we’ve all gotten to do the things we love and to do it all together—it makes me feel electric whenever I think about it.
I’m excited for them to play this show but I also can’t wait for the night to be over to congratulate them all and be able to say we made it to the end. I find myself walking onto the stage and I stare out at the empty room that’s soon to be full of people, and soak up every moment that’s led to us being here.
I’m brought back to reality when I feel an arm drape over my shoulder. I look and see Cade at my side and can't help but nuzzle into his touch.
“Valentine, I can’t believe we’re here.”
“Cade, you’ve put in so much work for this. This—” I gesture to the empty space in front of the stage that will soon be filled with people “—is all because of your passion and dedication.”
He squeezes me a little closer in appreciation and I wrap my arm around his back. We stand there just looking out to where the audience is going to be trickling in in 30 minutes, taking it all in from the stage.
“Cade?” I let his name out in a whisper, hardly breaking the silence.
I feel him turn his head to look at me. “Hmm?”
“Thank you for letting me be a part of this.” I’m trying not to get too emotional, but I can’t fight off the tears that have welled up in my eyes. I quickly blink them away and squeeze Cade a little tighter.
“There’s no one else I’d rather be in this moment with than you, Hal. I don’t even want to think about what this tour would’ve been like without you by my side.”
That does it and now I have stray tears rolling down my face. I wipe them away with the hem of my sleeve. I sniffle one last time before turning my whole body to face him. “Venue staff are working Tryhard’s merch table tonight, so I’ll be enjoying the show from the side of the stage.”
His grin takes up his whole face. “Perfect. Now I don’t have to work so hard to find you while I’m up here. I know we’ve still got time, but there are some things I have to take care of before we go on. Catch ya later, Valentine.” He walks off with a wink and I’m left standing in the middle of the stage alone.
I don’t know if it’s from being back home in Seattle or tour ending, but I’m thinking about this “just friends” thing and how I don’t think that’s going to be enough anymore.