This is for Bri (ledalo56), who adores Garbo. By the way... the incident with the pink Sharpie DID actually happen, with me at my concert. Fan club in GA and all. I also tried to write this much like Garbo writes his blogs--if you haven't read his blog, it's hiliarious. Greggarbo.blogspot.com.
Famous In Her Eyes
So, yeah, being the bassist for a band as huge as the Jonas Brothers is an awesome job. And they’re definitely some of the coolest guys I know. And, of course, there’s the inevitable celeb treatment that goes with it. We get the fancy hotel rooms, the backstage p*CENSORED* to shows that aren’t our own--not that we have much time to go to those--and even people screaming when you walk past. Which hurts my ears. A lot.
But along with that oh-cool-I’m-famous thing comes the realization that I’m not actually famous. The guys I work for are. Which is, you know, cool. But every now and then, I wish that someone would come up to me and be like, “Oh! You’re Garbo! Can I have your autograph?” and not follow with, “Can you give this to Joe/Nick/Kevin for me?” I love those guys and I love what I do, but it does get a little tiring. I have the stories I tell on them down pat and the “Oh, sure, I’ll tell him you love him,” completely memorized. One of these days I’m going to say, “No, I won’t give your scrapbook to Nick, not unless you make me one first.” Well, no, maybe I wouldn’t, but you see what I mean.
Sometimes you just wish your fame wasn’t the rain dripping off of someone else’s back, if that makes any sense. No, it doesn’t, but that was the illustration that came to mind. Every now and then, when you have time to think between performances and travel, you wish someone loved you for you and only you. You know, you wish that you had someone who would love you whether you were touring with the Jonases or still picking out riffs in your bedroom.
And that’s where Bri comes in. Beautiful, blonde, brightest smile on the face of the earth. Smart enough to make Einstein look like a preschooler, so you can imagine what I look like compared to her. And yet, for some reason, she has this thing for me. It’s this amazing thing called love. It’s in the way she looks at me, the way, when she cheers at concerts, she’s cheering for me and not Joe’s voice or Nick’s aerial or Kevin’s hair. It’s in the excitement in her voice when she called tonight and said, “Hey, hon, I’m on my way out of the airport. Be there in twenty.” And it’s the way her whole face lit up when she saw me leaning against the door out front of the venue, waiting for her.
I think she almost forgot to pay the taxi driver, but she tossed him a handful of bills and ran across the grass towards me. She was never one to conform to something as petty as sidewalks. I opened my arms and she threw herself into them, twining her arms around my neck and burying her face in my chest. She took a deep breath and whispered, “You smell so good.”
I blushed. She has to be the only person on the planet who can make me blush by something as simple as a comment about my cologne. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
She nodded, her breath warming my chest. “Me too.”
There’s nothing more right than holding her. I mean, before I dated her, I had no idea what people meant when they said that. What makes holding a certain person feel right? I didn’t get it--until the night she hugged me, I wrapped my arms around her, and it all clicked into place. Holding her and feeling good was like the Jonas Brothers and fan girls--it was just a given. Anytime I held her, I felt good, no matter what my day had been like and how big a headache I had from stage lights and distorted guitars. Yeah, holding her was definitely right.
As we walked inside together, I had to think back once again to how we met. It’s amazing how God brings people together. I met an online friend of hers at a concert. She gave me her hot pink Sharpie to sign autographs and told me I had a fan club in Georgia, which was pretty cool to begin with. Then, few months later, I was at a Radio Disney concert in the Peach State and this girl, maybe two years younger than me and cute as can be, ran up to me and introduced herself in the weirdest way possible. “I’m Bri. Do you still have the pink Sharpie?”
I, of course, had no idea what she meant and, being smooth, told her so. Ladies’ man Garbo would have said, “Of course I do! Use it all the time!” But… ladies’ man Garbo sleeps a lot and is not often available for consult when I need him. So she reminded me of the girl at the other concert and told me that she was the leader of the unofficial fan club, which was pretty awesome. We started talking. She talked about me. I tried to get her to talk about herself, which is like pulling teeth for that girl. By the time I had to go do band stuff--which I have never resented more--I had decided that this girl was one I couldn’t let just walk away.
So, four months, five dinner dates, countless phone calls, and one long weekend visit later, there is no one more precious to me than Bri. I know she cares about me, it’s in her eyes, but she’s never said it. “I love you,” has never crossed her lips to me, except in the most playful way. And I’m dying to tell her how much I love her, but afraid to jump the gun. Stupid things tend to just spill out of my mouth at the worst times. I seriously have no sense of diplomacy.
As we walked inside together, she leaned into my shoulder and I put my arm around her. “So,” she said, “about an hour till lockdown… where are we going till then?”
“Well, we could hang out with the JoBros,” I suggested, but she shook her head.
“I want to hang with you.”
And this is why I love her. Not because she doesn’t want to hang with my friends, because she likes them, really. It’s because she just turned down most girls’ dream, an hour of hanging out with the Jonas Brothers, to hang out with me and just me. “Sounds good,” I replied casually, but my heart was pounding. She smiled up at me with that kissable mouth and I lost my breath. I’ve never kissed her because it never seemed like the right moment. I wanted to wait until I was sure it was a good time, until we both cared about each other so much that it was just the thing to do. That was how I felt right then… but I pushed the thought away. This wasn’t the time.
But as we found the empty dressing room with my name on it, crashed on the couch, and talked, I couldn’t completely get the thought off my mind. Nor could I get it out of my head that today was the day I needed to tell her I loved her. The feeling was so strong, I just couldn’t let her leave without letting her know, even if she wasn’t ready to say the same to me.
We talked easily for a while, and she started telling me a story about a particularly bad day she had a while ago. Her boss had gotten angry with her over something that simply wasn’t her fault, then she had gone home and her computer wasn’t working, so she yelled at it in Latin. Yes, I said Latin--I told you the girl was a genius. “Then the phone rang and it was you,” she said, holding my hand, “and everything was okay again.”
The casual way she said it hit me square in the chest. It was obvious she didn’t know what it meant to me to know I could brighten her day and make her happy again. She looked up at me with those beautiful, sparkling blue-gray eyes and I couldn’t help myself. “Bri--”
“Hmm?”
I brushed my fingertips across her soft cheek. “I love you.”
Her eyes got big. “Really?”
What kind of question was that? “Really. I love you.” I bit my tongue--ouch--to keep from babbling on, and just sat looking at her, praying to hear my words echoed from her mouth.
“It’s about time, Garboggs.” The crazy nickname she had given me had never sounded so good. “I love you, too.”
Imagine a herd of elephants stampeding on a bass drum. Got it? Okay, now you know how my heart sounded. I stroked my thumb across her bottom lip and she sighed, closing her eyes. I had always planned to ask before I kissed her, but if that wasn’t an invitation, I had no idea what would be. The moments that passed as I leaned forward were probably the most terrifying, yet beautiful, of my life. And her soft mouth brushing my lips was the most electrifying thing I have ever experienced. I cupped her lovely face in my hands and tried not to let my heart explode. It was a short kiss, but it felt like forever--in an entirely, unbelievably good way, of course.
Someone knocked on the door. “In,” I called, breaking my gaze from Bri’s face.
JT peeked in. “Hey, man, it’s time for lockdown and--and you’re not ready.”
I looked down at myself. The jeans were okay, but the hoodie and sneakers definitely had to go. “Right. Give me three minutes. I’ll be there.”
JT laughed. As he left, Bri stood up. “If that shirt of yours I like is clean and you can find it, wear it for me.”
“I washed it just for tonight,” I said honestly, smiling. “Go wait backstage.”
“I love you,” she said sweetly, pecking me quickly on the mouth before running out the door. Mouth tingling, heart just plain bursting with love, I pulled my hoodie off. I kicked my sneakers across the room as I pulled on Bri’s favorite shirt, a dark green button-down. I shoved my feet into my converses on my way out the door and yanked my hands through my hair.
When I burst into the lockdown room, I said, “Sorry I’m late, I was--”
“With Bri,” everyone finished for me.
I rolled my eyes. I’m that obvious, clearly. “Fine. Let’s get this party started.”
Our prep time ended, we prayed, and we headed on stage. On my way out, Bri stepped from the wings. “You look great, hon,” she said, running a hand down my chest. Well, that got rid of the pre-show jitters pretty quickly. “Good luck out there tonight.” She tiptoed to kiss me gently and let it linger before whispering, “Rock star.”
I have never walked out on stage blushing before, but Bri did things like that to me.
As we played the first song, I saw her slip into the crowd and stand at her seat in the front row. She jumped to the beat and danced, beaming at me with those eyes and that smile. She was the only one who screamed louder during my bass solos than during Kevin’s guitar riffs. She was the only one whose eyes were on me during Nick’s aerial. Joe dropped through the trapdoor and she didn’t even react because she was watching me, and she pointed straight at me when Nick sang, “Burning up for you, baby.” JT shot me an amused glance at that, and I nodded. Yeah. I rank.
After the show, I walked out to the bus and a few people screamed for me. Then, of course, the noise multiplied a hundredfold when the three Jonas boys walked out seconds later. Talk about knowing your worth.
But looking up, I saw one girl staring right at me, glowing like a firefly. She ran to me and I swept her up in my arms and crashed my mouth down on hers, unable to grasp how I’d gone without her kisses up until a few hours ago.
The rest of the world might be focused on the three guys behind me, but who cares? I was happy knowing that I’ll always be famous in her eyes.
