Page 65 of Take My Hand

A flight attendant comes around with a snack basket and I take a package of crackers. She hesitates for a moment, waiting to see if Hayden will stir. Just as she’s about to leave, he pops an eye open and grabs a handful of food. With a glance to the single item I took, he grabs a few more before thanking her and plopping them on my tray.

“You took so many!”

He rolls his head to the side. “It’s first class,” he says, like that explains everything.

And maybe it does. I just wouldn’t know.

The attendant comes back around with drinks and once we’re both settled with a ginger ale for me and water for him, he closes his eyes again and pulls the hood of his sweatshirt over his head.

A few strands of his black hair hang over his forehead and tickle his cheekbones. His bottom lip is slightly bigger than the top one and part of me is tempted to run my finger along his cupid’s bow. But because I have self-control, no matter how small, I keep my hands to myself and let him rest. He looks exhausted.

The photos finish loading, and I start to flip through them while I nibble on the cheese and crackers quietly. The stage was pretty boring last night. Just a plain black backdrop with the music festival’s logo on it. Standard light setup. No catwalk or additional platforms spaced across the stage besides Walker’s slightly elevated kit. Nothing fancy, nothing special.

The shots I took from the pit are first up. I mark a few single shots for Reid, Nikolai, and Hayden, as well as a few cool group ones. I didn’t have the best angle to get many from Walker from this vantage point, so I jump to the ones I took from the sides of the stage and find some good shots of him there.

Now that I’ve narrowed them down to a smaller bunch, I comb through them again and pick the best ones out to edit. The one of Nikolai leaning slightly back, arms draped open at his side, blue shirt open and showcasing his golden abs…yep, that’s the one for him. He’ll love it.

There’s one of Reid with his head down, brow drawn together in concentration, while his forearm flexes over his guitar.

Walker has a few really cool ones, but I pick the one of him frozen in motion, one drumstick about to crash against a hit-hat while the other is mid-twirl around his fingers. I make a mental note to send that one to Scar later, too.

I get to Hayden’s and click through once, scanning over each of them quickly before going slowly, looking at the details more. As I scroll through from beginning to end over and over again, I notice something’s off as they progress. The first few are from when he first stepped out onstage and he has a smile on his face. From the surface, he looks excited to be there and ready to play.

But as the photos progress, there’s a strain around the smile. And zooming in, there’s a vacantness to his eyes. It grows deeper and deeper with each photo. Pulling back out, the shots as a whole look like Hayden, bassist for Whisper Me Nothings, having a great time playing for the crowd under the setting sun.

To some, it may look like his eyes are focused out on the crowd, trying to take in as many faces as he can. But to me, it looks like he’s trying to see out past the crowds, see as far as he possibly can and zone out of what he’s doing.

There’s a concentration, a focus, a sense of performance that I see in the photos of Walker, Reid, and Nikolai. But in Hayden’s, there’s a distraction, a disconnection, almost a mask in place.

I want to wake him up and ask him if he’s okay. If something happened before or during the show.

Maybe I’m reading too much into things. When I put the best shots together, four individuals and three groups, they look cohesive. Hayden’s doesn’t stick out in any sort of way.

I’m probably just being overanalytical. My emotions are heightened after yesterday and my attraction to him is stronger than it’s ever been and I’m just finding an excuse to look at his photos longer. I’m sure that’s it.

But I know he’s talked about struggling with anxiety, especially when it comes to shows out in the open where there are less controllable variables. Maybe he shut down as a way to cope, a way to get through the show and back to somewhere he felt safer.

I glance over at him and his neck is bent at an awkward angle. Just looking at him makes my own neck hurt and I know he’s going to regret it the moment he wakes up.

Before giving myself a chance to overthink it, I reach over and gently pull his head toward me. He stirs slightly, but doesn’t resist as I guide his head to lay on my shoulder. I hold my breath for a moment, then two, waiting to see if he’ll move.

But he adjusts himself in his seat and exhales, keeping his head on my shoulder. Soon enough, his chest rises and falls rhythmically and I know he’s out.

I finish with the band photos and am about to move on to the shoot with Hayden, but a yawn catches me by surprise. With the weight of his head on my shoulder and the buzzing of the plane engines, I feel a pull toward sleep. Shutting my laptop and drinking the last of my soda, I fold my arms over my chest and lay my head on top of Hayden’s.

The musky and fresh scent of his cologne is strong in my nose, and I breathe in a lungful, taking it with me as I drift off to sleep.

“Who is that man standing there holding a sign with your name on it?” Hayden asks into my ear as we stride down a hallway at LAX.

The sign just comes into my line of vision as one of the band's bodyguards steps slightly to the left. Two of them were waiting at the gate upon our arrival. I recognize the heavily bearded one from the tour, but the other one must be new. They quickly and efficiently ushered us through the crowded airport. Beside a small cluster of fans who somehow managed to find out the flight information and get into this side of the airport, as well as wait outside the gate, people have left them relatively alone.

I was worried what Hayden’s reaction might be to see the crowd waiting when we stepped off the plane, but he simply pulled his hoodie back over his head to hide his messy hair and greeted the fans with a smile. The four of them took pictures before being scooped up by the two bodyguards, not wanting to draw a crowd.

I must’ve given Hayden a funny look after we parted with the fans because he asked me what was wrong and I told him I hadn’t really seen him interact with fans much in the past. There are plenty of photos of him out there from years ago, posing and smiling with fan after fan. But on tour earlier this year, he rarely stopped to greet them when they gathered outside by the buses before or after shows. But Reid rarely did either, so it’s not like he stuck out with it. Just something I had noticed.

As we walked away, he said, “They’ve all gone through TSA,” and that was enough explanation for me. He felt safe that none of them had something on them that could potentially bring him or his friends harm.

But now, he eyes the man holding a sign with CARTER O’CONNOR in large, scribbly letters like a fancy driver waiting to pick up their client with suspicion.

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