We got off the plane and into the New York City airport very slowly; slower than usual because of Ian’s temporary disability. We attracted more attention than we wanted. People gave us looks similar to the look Kaylea gave me when she said we looked familiar. Ian took out his special sunglasses to disguise his famous blue eyes and I took out a new beanie from my suitcase to disguise my recognizable hair. That took away some attention but it was still awkward.
I looked at Ian and laughed; he looked like a blind disabled person. At least he was completely hidden from the rest of the crowd, as I was not. I decided not to worry about it as much as I was. At least Tailynn wasn’t here so I wouldn’t get shit for having a girlfriend; God forbid I even have one. Girls were very mean to her and I didn’t see exactly why. Tailynn is beautiful, smart, talented, creative, expressive, just perfect and she made me the happiest person alive. Selfish jealous girls just couldn’t see passed their own egos to be happy for me. It really pissed me off.
“Hey, look at that!” Ian’s voice interrupted my thoughts and I looked over to see him pointing to a group of people. One person held up a huge sign that said “YouTube Vidcon!” We headed towards their direction. When we got closer we saw that the group of people was actually a line of individual people holding signs with specific names on them. I recognized a lot of names; Chester See, Ryan Higa, Kevin Jumba, Shane Dawson, Fred, and…Kaylea Swan. I ran passed her sign as fast as I could to avoid coming in any type of contact with her. Ian did his best to keep up with me, and he did well for a guy who’d been on crutches for barely a week. We slowed down when we saw a bulky black guy in a grey suit with a purple tie holding a sign that said “SMOSH” in big letters at the top and “Anthony Padilla & Ian Hecox” on the bottom in smaller letters.
“This is us!” I smiled at the man to let him know we were Smosh. Ian hobbled over next to me.
“Hello person.” Ian greeted him.
“The name is Damien.” The guy said in a rich deep voice. His lips were in a straight line and he didn’t look at either of us.
“You seem like a swell guy.” Ian smirked. I laughed until Damien shot me a look that stabbed my eyes. I looked away almost fearing for my life before getting the courage to ask him what we were going to do now that we were here.
“We’re gonna go down to the hotel you’re staying at.” He eyed Ian, “judging from your state of health, we’re gonna have to move more slowly than the others.” His voice was deeper than deep. He really scared me especially since he was like, seven feet tall!
“Hey dude, I can do things on my own perfectly well. And speedy fast. Like a ninja!” Ian threw down his crutches and balanced on one foot; his hands were flat and he posed like he was gonna karate chop Damien in the throat. At least he wasn’t scared of him.
Ian’s stance caused Damien to…smile. Smile? I didn’t even know smiling was in his vocabulary let alone him knowing how to do it!
“Oh you guys are so funny!” his sudden change of emotion made me kinda happy. Damien actually thought we were cool!
“So, you’re a fan of Smosh?” I asked quietly as Ian picked up his crutches.
“Of course Anthony!” he looked at me, his eyes were kinder than the last time he looked at me, “That’s why I asked to hold up Smosh’s sign! Also, I thought it’d be really funny if I acted like a tough body guard. You should’ve seen your face, you were scared as hell!” he erupted into a fit of laughter. I smiled at him but gave Ian a look that said “this guy is crazy”. He nodded in return, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.
After Damien was finished laughing his ass off, he wiped away some tears and took a deep breath before taking Ian’s suitcase that I had set down. He offered to take my suitcase which was still in my hand but I solemnly refused; I had enough of this guy for today.
I gave him a polite smile to let him know I could handle it myself and he accepted it. Damien led us out of the newly packed airport and outside to a line of cars. We walked around the line and followed Damien to a black limo. A fricken black limo!!!
“Really?” I thought out loud.
Ian woo-ed and attempted to open the door. “Damn these stupid crutches!” he cursed. I took charge and opened the back door for him.
“Thanks Anthony.” He said as he hopped into the limo, broken leg first.
I gave Damien my suitcase to put in the trunk and jumped in after Ian. The limo was bigger inside than it looked. I gawked around the limo, admiring the smooth leather seats and examining the various buttons on the other side of the door. This was just too cool.
“This is just too cool!” Ian exclaimed. I laughed; we always thought the same things, people swore we could’ve been long lost brothers.
We took off as soon as Damien got into the front seat. When I looked out the window, I saw Ryan Higa getting into another limo with Kevin Jumba. Those two were cool guys, I was glad they were gonna be at Vidcon; I was relieved I’d know at least two more people there.
The limo took off onto the highway; Ian and I barely talked, we stared outside the tinted windows the entire time to see New York City’s buildings slowly pass by. When we finally arrived at the rim of the city my stomach flipped; I really wished Tailynn was here with me. It would’ve been amazing to share this experience with her. Instead, I was stuck with this broken goofball; not that I didn’t like Ian’s presence but truthfully I’d rather have my fully functional girlfriend. And I’m sure Ian would rather have his too. Even so, I tried my best to have a good time and call Tay whenever I had the chance to.
The limo driver took some turns here and there and a lot of stops were taken too. I almost got fed up that we were taking so long to get to the hotel but the last stop we took, the door opened. Damien held it open and Ian and I got out to see a gigantic 5 star hotel awaiting us.
“Whoa-ly shit.” I uttered.
“Whoa-ly shit is right.” Ian’s voice creeped up behind me.
A hotel concierge opened the door for both of us and we walked into the hotel. This place was freaking AMAZING. The ceiling was at least 15 feet tall, it looked endless, and the staircase that led up to the rooms was crazy big. The hotel walls were painted a dark yellow, and the dimmed lights around the lobby made it look gold. The concierge desk was just filling up with people from Vidcon, luckily Damien had set our things on a cart and was getting our room as we oo-ed and awe-ed at the elegant things around us that we never got to see in Sacramento.
It took Damien faster than expected to get us our room keys. When he approached us he had to snap us out of our trance.
“Hey guys, I got you your room keys. I gotta go get your booth ready at the Vidcon Fest so I’ll see you two later.” Damien gave us both high fives; he almost knocked Ian over with his giant meaty hand. I chuckled as Ian and I made our way to the now crowded elevator. Our luggage had to take a different route but I trusted the hotel workers to get it all figured out.
I was getting very tired so I decided as soon as we got into the room I was gonna call Tay then totally pass out. This hotel had about 10 floors and we were on the fifth. We stopped on every floor but it was still crowded by the time we got to ours.
When we finally got off on our floor we strolled down the hallway until we saw our room number, “514”. I used the key and opened the door; I was just about to rush into the room when two soft voices said my name.
“Anthony? Ian?” I looked to my right and saw two girls standing next to me holding pieces of paper to their chests.
“Yes?” I smiled at them.
“I-my-hi-I’m uh…” one of the girls stammered. I held in a laugh.
“I’m Sammi, this is my best friend Shari we’re HEEEUGE Smoshers I can’t believe you’re really Anthony Padilla!”
“I’m Ian Hecox!” Ian chipped into the excitement.
“Ian!” the girl whom I presumed was Shari spoke. I looked at Ian who was beaming from ear-to-ear at the attention he was getting. “What happened to you?” she continued.
“I was being a freaking ninja but my abilities failed on me and I broke my knee. No need to worry about me though, I’ll be better soon.” He smiled at the girls again.
“Can we sign your cast?” Sammi asked him.
“Oh, sure!” Ian held up his leg and the girls took turns writing something on his leg with their sharpie. “Thanks!” he said after they finished.
“Now can you guys sign these?” Shari handed me a picture of Ian and I from Food Battle 2010.
“Yeah.” I said and took the pen she was motioning to me with. I signed my name and gave the pen to Ian to sign his. We switched papers and signed again. When we were finished, I decided to do the polite thing and offer a hug.
Sammi squeeled and jumped into my arms, squeezing me tightly. I coughed but stayed friendly and nice after she let go. Sammi moved on to Ian and I heard his breath let out. I laughed and hugged Shari. Her touch was softer, perhaps too soft. I supposed she was just nervous concidering how she couldn’t speak to me two minutes ago. She moved to Ian and then they separated from us, waving goodbye.
“That felt cool.” I said as we finally got into our room and shut the door.
“Yeah, I’m fucking tired though.” Ian jumped onto the bed closest to the window.
“Screw you man I get the window bed!” I whipped off my beanie and threw it at his face.
“I’m the injured man so I get first pick!” Ian picked up one of his crutches and hurled it at me.
I jumped out of the way and it hit the door. “DUDE!” I yelled at him. He laughed as I picked it up and threw it back at him. He blocked it with his cast,
“Wawwwww!!!” He impersonated Bruce Lee.
“FINE.” I surrendered to his ninja-ness and took the bed next to the closet.
As soon as my head hit the fluffy hotel pillow, I took out my phone and speed dialed Tailynn. She answered on the second ring,
“Hey baby.” I loved hearing her voice but I recognized her tone. Something was wrong.
“Hey Tay, you sound…upset.” I tried to find the right words without making her madder than she must’ve been.
“I just…um…slapped a bitch and made her bleed.” I laughed at her random explanation. She began to explain what happened in detail but that just made me laugh more.
“Wow, I don’t know whether to be proud or scared.” I said after she was finished.
“You should be both. You should know by now if someone pisses me off, I’ll beat their ass!” She laughed; my heart raced. I loved her sweet laugh.
“Well, I’ll make sure to never make you angry,” I tried to reassure her that I’d never hurt her, “I don’t want my ass to be beat, especially from my beautiful girlfriend. You know how much I love you.” I turned the conversation around to make it about us. I loved her so much.
“I love you too.” Her tone was soft.
“I already miss you so much. I thought I could do this but knowing how far away you are, it…it hurts.” I held back tears. I didn’t want her or Ian to hear me cry.
“I miss you too…”
“Well…” I proceeded on telling her everything that happened after we separated at the airport.
“That’s awesome!” she replied to my comment about what happened with Sammi and Shari. “Listen, I just wanted you to know that we’re gonna be okay without each other for two weeks. This could be beneficial to our relationship, missing each other could make us stronger.” She was so good at making me feel better.
Suddenly, someone knocked on our hotel door. I looked at Ian and motioned him to get it but he ignored me. I clenched my fist, he was gonna make me say goodbye to Tailynn and answer the door myself.
“You’re right; missing you could be very beneficial. We could be a lot closer. I love you baby,” the person knocked again, this time harder, “I have to go now but I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Alrighty. I love you too. Goodnight.”
I sighed, realizing I had to say goodbye yet again, “Goodnight.”
No comments:
Post a Comment