One time, at Band camp. . . (Candira x Atom)

V, left on her jeans and tank, putting on more of a smokey eye to give her a glamorous, yet edgy look and put her hair up in a chic style that made her look pretty. Then came a silver leather jacket that fit her nicely. She slipped on a pair of nice heeled boots and some jewelry before she came back out to Morty. She had glossy lips as well and she was ready to go, looking bad ass and beautiful. She walked out with Morty and waved good bye to everyone.

"Lunch? I just got done with breakfast...Later on, I could go for some vegetarian stuff."

---

Sophia decided to pretend like nothing had happened between them. It would only make things more awkward. "How's your head, Tom?" She asked, grabbing the flyers and carrying them since he had the keys. She could drive stick too, her parents having taught her on principal. But since he wasn't sulking, she'd let Tom drive. "Nah. Maybe later. I'm fine just going along for the ride."

---

Roxxi chuckled at Ryan's comment, walking with him and carrying her share of the CD stack. "Nah. Sophie can take care of herself. Besides, why would I wanna text her when I have a cute boy to talk to all day?" she teased, flirting just a little as they headed out into the hot sun. "Mmm, kinda wishing I'd done sunscreen. Redheads don't do well in the sun."

The guitarist nodded and headed out to the car that Morty had left for them. Taking a glance at the flier to find the firt destination. He didn't know why he even bothered, considering he didn't even know any of the roads or anything around here. They were parked at the convention center, so downtown must be close right? He knew that there was a university in this town, but he had no idea where it was, otherwise that's were he would have started.

Getting to the car and putting the key into the ignition, he revved the engine a few times before squealing his way out of the parking lot. There was a bit of a straight away and Tom decided to see what the car could do, pressing his foot on the peddle, pumping the clutch, and shifting gears with ease, the car moved but not quite as fast as it seemed. How lame.

They had been silent for the past couple of minutes and Tom looked over at her. "So. Did you have fun last night?" He asked, just trying to make conversation with the girl sitting in the passenger seat. Around them were a bunch of business buildings, nothing that really seemed like they could draw a bunch of people with their fliers.

------

The man ran a hand through his hair. "Sunscreen? We are almost inside!" He said as he opened the door for her. He let the comment about them spending the day roll off of his back. Searching through the horde of people, he just started to hand out CD's to people who wanted them, trying to promote the band. It was pretty smart for Morty to split up the guitarist and the drummer of the band because who wanted to talk to the bassist and the keyboarder of any given band.

It wasn't as though he didn't like Sophie, but to be fair, how many keyboardists could anyone name from a given band vs how many guitarists or drummers one could name. He thought to himself while handing out CDs. Trying to talk to Roxxi but finding himself unable to hear himself, let alone hear Roxxi, he just decided to hand out Cd's as quickly as possible. He wanted to just have a handful of hours to spend with Roxxi when they were done here.

Sophia had been thinking of places to go in a city like Tuscon where there would be a lot of foot traffic. Shopping areas and maybe a few restaurants would let them put up their fliers...she hoped. She was just pulling out her phone to see if there was anything like that in their area when he asked if she had fun. "Mostly," she said with a little smile. And it was true. Most of the night had been fun for her. Up until the end...

"Did you?" She asked, deciding to see what he remembered.

---

She laughed. "I thought there was an outdoor stage. My bad." She let him open the door and then edged through with her stack of music. Once they got inside, the noise was deafening--so many people in one place. It was going to be a great place to plug their band...They just had to find a way to do it. She didn't want to lose Ryan in the crowd--she might not find him again. So she stuck close by his side, trying to hear him when he spoke to her, and trying to speak back. It didn't work very well, so she gave him a stack and had him start handing out CD's with her. She looked for groups of people rather than singular people. That way, she could be sure that a crowd was either drawn or repulsed. But she also gave them to people on phones.

About an hour or so later, most of the CD's were gone.

The man looked at her as he drove down the street, scanning for where he could put the fliers up. She said mostly and then he tried to think what he did do the night before. "Well, I think I did." He said searching his brain for anything that could have happened. He knew he felt pretty good by the end of the night. "Why mostly?" He dared to ask, hoping he didn't do anything stupid like try and pop a feel on her or try and get in her pants or something.

The car came to a screeching hault as they reached downtown Tucson and he got out of the car with a stack of fliers and started to walk around and put them in car windows and on other things that warranted getting a flier from their band on it. He was almost half assing the job considering how there were so many fliers to hand out. Moving from place to place, he decided to keep his conversation with her going.

----

The man moved and looking down all of his CD's were finally gone. With her still behind him, he walked out of the convention center and moved back towards the bus. Looking around him, there was a mall, and a few strip malls near the area. "Well, did you want to go check out the mall?" He said as he started to walk towards it, realizing that he should have saved some CD's for that little venue. That would have been a perfect little place to plug their band.

Sophie waited until they were stopped and she was slightly less terrified of Tom's driving skills to say anything about her night. "Well, I guess if you don't remember...we had something of an argument last night." She shrugged and then got out of the car with him, watching as he attached flyers in places that really wouldn't garner that much attention. She saw a few restaurants with local bulletin boards and posted some fliers in there, asking a few more places if she could put them in the break rooms of the employees.

She walked with him through it all, and kept the rest of the information to herself until he asked about it.

---

Roxxi still had a few of her stack left. Not many though. She put looked around and saw the mall and little strip malls. "Sure. Let's go to the food court and hand these out before we get some lunch. Sound like a plan?"

The man looked at her and decided to drop the issue until they arrived downtown where they had starting out putting the fliers. He shook his head to himself and had a pretty good feeling about what they had been arguing about. It was most likely something about his ex and the matter got escalated because he had been drinking that night. Well, he had been guzzling, not really drinking. Stopping for a second and pulling out a cigarette, he lit it with a white BIC lighter. Personally, Thomas thought that Zippo lighters were stupid.

With a sigh and a puff of his cigarette, he turned to her. "I went off about V, didn't I?" He said with another sigh. He didn't have to see her reaction to know that he was right. He would leave it at that, he didn't think of V as bitter as he may have sounded, he was just drunk that night. Pretty drunk. "Look, I'm sorry." He said as he finished his cigarette after a bit of a silence. "I just, had too much to drink and I felt like I missed a few notes in our show. I mean, it's not an excuse but. . ." He said trailing off for a second. There was a bit of an awkward silence, so Tom decided to see what he could do about it. "By the way, you look great today." He said with a little smile.

---

Ryan nodded as he headed into the mall, handing out CD's to the fine people who were eating at the various restaurants in the food court. He talked to some skater kid about their type of music, he talked to a girl who seemed like she was pretty into him, but she might have just been a flirt and he handed some of the CD's to the people who worked behind the counters trying to get them to hand some out. Moving back over to Roxxi, he smiled. "Well, we have the rest of the day now, eh? What do you want to do?"

The redhead did her share of the work, handing the last of the out to some hipsters who looked like they only listened to bands that no one had heard of. Well, that was them in a place like this. The hipsters seemed excited, in that they didn't do anything ironically or scoff. So she left it at that and shrugged. Roxxi managed to catch Ryan flirting with a pretty girl as he handed one over but let it go. It wasn't like anything would come of it, and even if it did, it wasn't her business.

She was relieved, however when they were finished and he looked at her with that charming smile and asked what she wanted to do. Chuckling she shrugged. "Any stores you wanna check out while we're here? We could always grab lunch," She offered, not really sure what an afternoon with the guitarist would be like.

---

Sophia didn't dignify his statement with a response, knowing that he knew exactly what had gone down, even if he couldn't remember the particulars. "Well I'm sorry too. It was kinda fun for a little bit." She didn't let the silence go on too long, but he beat her to breaking it. "Thanks for the compliment. I'd say the same to you, but you still look a little out of it," she teased. "Anyway, I'm not really mad about it. If I was, I wouldn't have given you aspirin or a blanket." She shrugged and smiled back at him.

"Well, let's hand out some flyers quick so we can slack off," she said, only partially joking.

The man shook hands with someone who had been running by who they had given an album to, and he guessed he had heard of them or he just liked the free album. The cover was pretty classy, not something stupid like graffiti or something that the new age bands were gravitating to. Ryan wouldn't mention it, but the girl he had been talking to earlier had been an ex that had moved to Tucson and she had given him her number in case he wanted to "meet up" with her as she so delicately put it. It ws probably better that he didn't mention it to her, considering how that might not have gone the right way.

Turning to Roxxi as the man walked by with a huge grin on his face, he spoke. "Whatever, we are already in the food court and we have until six anyway." He said as he looked around, trying to see which restaurant he actually wanted to dine at. Deciding on Subway, he moved over to it, letting her pick what she wanted to eat. He would meet her at a table or something, discuss further plans.

---

"Thank you for that by the way." He said as he brushed off her comment. He was a little out of it, but he was slowly recovering from his night of drinking hard alcohol. The fliers were moving out of his hands rather quickly, and while he wasn't spending as much time on this task as he probably should be, he was still a little bit bitter that he got stuck doing this job. At least he was with one of the cuter girls in the band. Placing fliers here and there and handing them to some random people, he quickly ran out of the fliers he had. He decided to tease and flirt with Sophie abit, afterall, what was the worst that could happen? Turning to her after giving away the last one, he smiled again. "So, will I have the pleasure of making up to you being an ass last night? Let me take you out tonight." He stated just matter of factly

Roxxi smiled and liked the idea of eating here. He seemed to be happy enough. She saw him head for subway, but she was going for the taco Johns. She grabbed a Super burrito and some chips and queso to share or eat alone, with a Pepsi. She didn't look it, but she could put food away like a vacuum. Once she was out of the line, she looked around for her band buddy. Hopefully, it'd be a good day of just hanging out.

---

Sophie grinned and chuckled a little as he asked her if he could make it up to her. "Well...maybe. Are you going to drink?" she teased, handing out the last of the fliers she had. "Phew. Last one."

Tom smiled at his question. "No, I promise." He said as he saw the last flier get handed out. He looked at their clothing choices and realized they need not change into something nicer. Looking around for a second and looking for a place to go. They were in downtown Tucson, there was plenty of stuff to do for the two of them. He wondered if this would be considered a date or not, but he decided not to delve further into it. "Let's find somewhere to eat." He said with a smile.

----

Ryan had found a table for both of them to sit at. He waited as she made her way over, and even waited for her to sit down before he opened his sandwich up and dug in. It was a pretty plain and simple sandwich. Bologna, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and white bread. That was it. Looking at what she had got, he smiled. "Looks good." He said as he took another bite of his sandwich. "Any stores you want to hit?" He asked with a smile

Sophie smiled and nodded. "Okay then. Let's go." She held out her hand and waited for him to take it if they were going to walk, or hand her the keys if they were going to drive. She kind of liked the idea of walking with him better. It would give them more time out of the bus and a car so they could just relax and have a little fun. "Any kind of food you particularly want?" she asked, wondering just what he had in mind for this little adventure. She decided to not call it a date. Partially because he probably wouldn't, and partially because it just sort of ended up this way--they hadn't planned it.

---

Roxxi found his table and sat down with him with a grin. His sandwich...didn't look all that appetizing. Seemed kinda plain to her. But his compliment to her food prompted her to share hers. "Eat some chips and dip if you wanna," she said unwrapping her burrito. Looking around at the different stores she could see, she shrugged. "I don't really need anything, but we can always look around and see what they've got if you want."

The man reached out and grabbed her hand. They would save some of their money if they walked. Walking down the street, he realized that he was still holding onto her hand and let it go, showing a little embarassment, but he quickly brushed it off as he saw a man pushing a cart around. He had heard of these places, they were usually cheap and the food was usually pretty good. Buying the two of them two burgers and tipping the man handsomly, he handed one of the burgers to Sophie. "Sorry if you don't eat meat. Heh." He said as he took a seat at one of the set up tables. He had been so used to V who was more of a vegetarian.

--

With a laugh, he took one of the chips and ate it plain. He figured they probably should go around the mall because otherwise they would be stuck back in the bus, for hours, until it was time to gather back and practice for their show tonight. "Yeah, let's do that." He said with a laugh. They could probably find something cool in the mall, as it looked like a pretty big mall from the outside. Finishing his sandwich and cleaning up the table a little bit, he stood up and looked around. Which way to go now?

Sophie smiled, a little surprised that he'd held her hand for so long. Actually, she really liked holding his hand, but of course, he was embarrassed as soon as he realized he was doing it. She just smiled, letting it go. They found a burger food cart while strolling about and Tom jumped on the opportunity to sample the local food...via the street. Well, it looked good, and the cart looked clean, so why not?

His afterthought made her laugh and she shook her head. "V may like veggies better, but I'm a meat-loving gal." She winked, knowing how it sounded as she unwrapped it. It had all the things she liked on it--cheese, onion, ketchup, pickles, and mustard. It was well balanced too. "Points for the burger stand," she said, taking a bite out of hers.

---

So Ryan liked plain food. Interesting. She was more of a flavorful gal, but she was okay with simple food--it could be just as good as more complicated stuff. She ate it fairly quickly, though she still managed to finish after him. His suggestion to walk around, was one she accepted, and once she cleaned up her mess, she looked around. Which way indeed?

"Hmmm, let's go..." she closed her eyes, spun around and pointed. "That way!" She was pointing to the left.

The man laughed digging into his own burger. He laughed at her comment and took another big bite of his burger. Glancing at his watch, they still had hours, literally hours, before they had to be back at the bus. Leaning back in his chair after he devoured his burger he grunted out of satisfaction. "Man, that was a damn good burger." He said to Sophie as he patted his stomach, showing that he was full. Looking around his eyes settled on a movie theatre and a place for mini golf. Looking back at Sophie, he smiled. "Well, any preference?" He said pointing the two out.

--------

The bassist just smiled and nodded. "Alright, deal." He said as he started off in that direction. There wasn' really any stores that stuck out to him. "See anything?" He asked her as he moved along the mall walkway, not bothering to look for any stores himself. Seems the mall here was terrible, he couldnt judge hat she had wanted to do, he wondered how many stores they would hit before they just decided to go back to the bus.

Sophie chuckled and finished off her burger slowly, enjoying it just as much as Tom did, but with less sound effects. When she was finished, she tossed the wrapper in a nearby trashcan. "Well, we're off to a good start. And kudos for letting me pick," she said with a chuckle. "I feel like we sit around too much. Wanna do mini golfing?" she asked, looking to have a little more fun than what the movies could provide. "I'll let you pick the ball color first," she offered, teasing just a little.

---

Roxxi chuckled as she walked around with Ryan. He really didn't seem to mind her little quirks, and that was refreshing. Usually she was too...something when it came to guys she dated in the past. And the people she danced with really only wanted to rub up against her, so Ryan really was the only guy who seemed at least willing to play along. There really wasn't a lot to pick from in the mall here, but there was a select comfort mattress store, and damn if she was giving up a chance to demo one of those.

"Come on. Let's go annoy some salespeople," she said, pointing it out to him.

With a laugh, Tom moved quickly across the street, dragging her along with him. Once across the street, the man even decided to pay for his bandmate, picking his color, pink, and grabbing the tallest club. Smiling, he wouldn't let her know that he was actually a pretty good golfer in high school. Putting just happened to be his strong suit. After she picked her ball and her club, he moved and smiled. "After you." He said with a smile. The course was a pretty big course, it was half one of those blacklight glow courses and the other half was outside with artificial grass and hills. It seemed worth the twelve dollars that he paid per person. At this point, Tom was unsure if he would let her win or not, looking down at the scoring paper.

-----

Nodding, he headed into the mattress store. Walking around, looking for an area of interest, an area of "cloud like" mattresses. Jumping on one, literally leaving his feet, he landed hard on the mattress, sending everything flying in various directions. Laughing to himself, he sank in, finding it very difficult to gather himself and get himself back up. It was like fighting out of quicksand or a cloud or something. Finally getting out, he smiled. "Your turn."

Sophie followed after him, chuckling as he dragged her along. She wasn't used to seeing Tom like this after the break up, so it was good to see both his old self and this new side of him as well. Watching him pick out a pink ball and a tall club. She was more of a hobby putt-putt golfer. She was fairly good, but there was no doubt that someone with experience would do much better than she would. Her lips curved into a smile and she chose a bright, neon green ball with a tall club. Then, she let him lead the way.

"Wow...this is really nice," she said with a grin. "Let's find the first course." She was in a good mood already, so, thus far, he was making up for upsetting her last night.

---

Roxxi laughed as Ryan jumped onto the cloud, sending various sales tools flying and then sinking down deep. She offered a hand to help him up and smiled, just shaking her head. Still, when he told her it was her turn, she did the same thing, jumping, bouncing, and sinking hopelessly. "Oh no! I think I'm stuck," she laughed, trying to get up. It was a bit difficult to do though. By this time, a sales associate was coming over to see if he could help them find anything.

The man found the first course. A pretty basic one, with artificial grass and an upward hill with a hole at the end. This day was about making things up to Sophie for last night, therefore he decided to let her go first. Holding his pink ball and such and moving towards the first hole, he was determined. By the time they were at the last hole, they were pretty much tied up. Whether that be that she was just shooting as well as he was, or the fact that he had missed a few putts on purpose, he decided to make things a bit interesting for their game. The score was tied going into the final hole, and it was her turn. This would decide who would win or lose. Sure, there was some teasing from Tom when she missed badly, and he was flirting with her a bit, overall, it was a good first date. If one actually cnsidered it a date.

------

The man looked and saw the sales associate make his way over. Cursing under his breath, he reached out and muscled her out of the mattress. They had to move. Ryan ran around, avoiding all of the sales associates and making his round about way, taking the time to ruin another mattress display in his free time of avoiding the mob of sales associates trying to track them down. It must have been pretty frustrating, having two grown ass adults, running around just to screw their days up. . .

Roxxi laughed, glad that Ryan helped her out of the sinking cloud that had to be way too soft for anyone to actually sleep in. She ran with him, giggling and smiling, messing up a few more mattress displays of her own. It was probably lame to have fun like this, but she was enjoying herself. Finally, she decided they should probably leave before they actually got thrown out of the mall. So she pulled him out with her and just laughed, catching her breath as they walked away.

"Okay. Your turn to pick. What now?" she asked, looking up at him.

---

Sophie was having a blast. She loved mini-golf and they were neck and neck now. It was hard to tell if he was at her level or not because he seemed to be really good, but now and then he'd really hit some bad ones. If he was letting her win, she was a little disappointed, but touched that he would think to make her feel better about herself. If he wasn't, then it was just fun. By this time they'd made it into the "extreme" portion of their golf game and her ball glowed brightly as she nudged it just a tiny bit too hard and it missed the hole. "Awww. Your turn."

It was Tom's turn. Getting up on the green and dropping the ball, he aimed. It was an easy hole to nail. There was a ramp that if you hit it just so perfectly it would go right in the hole. Here he was, he ball was barely off from the hole and he was tied. He needed to sink the ball into the hole here. Putting a little butt smack on the ball, it zoomed to the ramp and launched off course, bouncing a few times and landing into the water. Tom looked at where the ball landed and gave a little curse under his breath, looks like that was at least a two stroke penalty for him. Looking towards Sophie, he just shook his head. "Well. thats probably game then. ." He said with a sigh and a laugh.

----

The man panted as he looked around. They had almost gotten kicked out of a mattress store. How old were they? Ten? Moving away from the store and glancing around hte man looked for another fun store for them to frolic in. Of course, his eyes landing on a toy store and he disappeared right into the store, leaving her standing around. Knowing his way around the toy store, he found the dart guns and loaded one up. Popping out of nowhere, Ryan shot Roxxi right in the breast with one of the darts and disappeared again.

Sophie laughed and stepped out of the way as it bounced at her. She had really been expecting him to get it in no time. "Tell you what. I'll give you a mulligan since it's the last hole." What did they have to lose? It was just fun to play the game, so why not let him not count a bad shot? At least they were on the same page now.

---

Roxxi cleared the tears from her eyes from laughing so much. Ryan looked around and then disappeared into a toy store. She'd just gone in after him when he scared her by practically teleporting in front of her and shooting her breast with a dart. "Really? I didn't know you were that kind of guy," she teased, picking up the Styrofoam flying dart. "You realize, this means war," she teased, dashing off to find a gun of her own. Luckily, she found it. If it came down to paying for the gun, she would, but now, she needed to get some revenge...

The man shot again. Same result. Shit! He thought as he looked back towards her. "Just put me out of my misery." He said with a laugh as he moved back towards the waiting area. Glancing down at the score card, she just needed to sink this pretty easy putt and then she could be declared the winner. Everything had been going good, V wasn't even in his head. There was something about being with Sophie that made him forget all about V. Things were great. Watching intently as she shot, he held his breath, hoping she would win already.

----

The man was very good at hide and seek. Something about being in this situation was just fun to him, well that and he learned alot about hiding in plain sight from all the different video games he had played. Sneaking around, this time a shot smacking her right in her ass, a giggle and he was gone again. She might get lucky and find him, he was often not as good at hiding as he thought he was. After all, he was sort of pompous when it came to video games.

She chuckled when he was faced with the same result. As he told her to put her out of his misery, she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, no pressure or anything," she said sarcastically. Still, she lined up her shot, tapped the ball and watched it go into the little cup that served as a hole. Smiling, she gave a little bounce. "Hooray, I win! Well, this round," she said with a chuckle. "I think you might have beaten me..." She didn't seem to notice if he was paying her any extra attention or not. She was taking this whole situation lightly, enjoying the time she spent with Tom as she would enjoy the time with her other friends. Still, she wondered what he thought this was all about.

---

Removing the second dart, Roxxi moved to the next aisle over--the opposite direction of him, actually. She snuck around much better than he did, then again, she was trying to outwit him now. She smirked when she walked up behind him and squeezed the trigger a few times to get him back.

Finally, she had won. Moving back towards the front desk, and handing the ball and club back to the man behind the desk, he smiled. "She got the better of me." He said as the man laughed and he headed outside into the hot Tucson sun. Walking with her, he eyed around the area. There was so much they still had to do. Reaching into his pocket and pullling out a wad of cash, he peeled off a twenty and placed it into a cup of a homeless man that happened to be walking by. Looking towards Sophie, he smiled. "Now what?"

-----

The man felt the dart hit him and he let out a laugh as he turned and fired a few shots errantly in order to try and hit her. All of the shots missed and he realized he was out of darts. "Shit." He said under his breath as he snuck around to the playground area. Eyeing a ball pit, he had an idea. He had to get that gun from her, so he would have to surprise attack her into the ball pit. This was going to be great. Finding a place to hide, he just sat and waited.

Sophie walked along with him, smiling proudly at the mention of his defeat. She wasn't sure if she'd won only on her merit or not, but she'd had a lot of fun. "That is a good question. Let's see, we've eaten and played mini golf...how much time do we even have left?"

She looked at him and watched as a homeless man suddenly became empowered. Well that was a different sight.

---

Roxxi followed after him, looking around, the redhead, losing sight of him once he entered the playground things. She looked around, gun in hand, looking for her target as she neared the ball pit.