Janelle was grinning from ear to ear. What had started out as her worst day in her whole entire life, had turned to be an ABSOLUTE dream!! Here she was, given a chance to meet these cool looking brothers.... even though she'd never even heard of them....but, well, they were a whole lot cooler than her two idiot brothers who were still looking like airheads from the flight. They had arrived at Oklahoma City International Airport at 11:15 pm and were tired stiff. Of course, Janelle wasn't the least bit tired...........she was going hyper and was jumping around everywhere. Her mom, relieved to see that her daughter was no longer bumbed out about the move, agreed to let Janelle buy the Middle of Nowhere CD the minute they got off the plane. Janelle had to admit that she was surprised that she had never heard about the young band before. But like Arwen had said, they're single "MMMBop" hadn't even been released for air-play. Man, was she lucky!! She was gonna getta meet the brothers and actually getta watch them make music!! Not to mention, she was gonna be living in the same town as them!!! Things were DEFINITELY looking up.
Janelle waved good-bye to Arwen who gave her her business card with where to contact her. She as supposed to be meeting her at the record company within three days for the dress rehearal. Janelle was totally psyched out. Her brother, Brenden was still fazed from the scene on the plane, and he actually got the nerve to talk to Arwen after they got off. She was real nice about it, but when Brenden found out that she was 24, he decided to start looking at the blonde chick that had been sitting three rows behind them on the plane, and who seemed to be around Janelle's age.
When they got to the hotel, everyone went straight to their rooms without a single word. Everyone was exhausted, and Janelle's mouth muscles were going crazy from all the smiling and grinning she had done on the plane, not to mention on the way to the hotel, too. Janelle quickly brushed her teeth, and jumped into bed. They were spending the night in the hotel, but they'd be moving into their new home tomorrow, really early. So Janelle decided to go beddy-bye fast.
The next morning, Janelle blinked her eyes confused because she wasn't sure where the heck she was. But then yesterday's events came pouring back into her mind, and she was up in a minute. She quickly pulled on some clothes, and ran to started to wake her brothers up. "Get up! We're gonna be leaving at 11!! Hurry!!, " she called. Brenden slowly sat up with his eyelids half way open, and his half his head of hair was sticking on end. He was such a dork. It was only 7 and they still had another 4 hours or so in front of them. "AWW man, get dressed fast, you look BAD!!" Ethan was now awake, and he said, "ACK!! Haha!! Yer gonna scare all the chicks away going out like that." Brenden replied, "Haha, look who's talking, I'm not the one who has a bird's nest growing on mah head." Janelle assumed he was referring to her mousy brown hair that did nothing for her. It just "sat" there. She was in too much of a good mood to let him get to her. She just quickly replied, "I'd hurry if I were you. I heard that there was a whole floor booked by these Swiss girls that just arrived here last night. If yer lucky, ya just might run into one of them." Without another word, she quickly strolled out. She walked to her parent's room, and she knocked on the door. Her mom, looking just a tad better than her older brother, opened the door and mumbled, "Oh, good morning, did you sleep well, sweetie?" Janelle quickly responded, "Yeap, had a blast, hey mom, i'm gonna go downstairs first and look around, I'll meet you guys in the lobby at 11, okay?" She was about to walk away, when her mom called back, "Did you finish packing all your stuff? You don't want to forget anything!" Janelle called over her shoulder, "Yeah, yeah, don't worry Mom! I already did all that. I'll see ya later Mom!!" And with that, she quickly slipped into the hotel elevator.
Janelle peered over and saw a guy, about the same age as her, standing on the opposite side of the elevator from her. He quickly glanced at her, and gave her a small smile and then went back at looking at the numbers on the elevator panel. Janelle stared intently at him. She was almost positive she had seen the guy from somewhere. One thing was for sure........he sure had these awesomely intense blue eyes, and the greatest smile she had ever seen on any other guy before. She couldn't take her eyes off him, but then decided to look in the opposite direction before she started to REALLY stare at him and appear weird to him. But of course, the hotel's elevator just HAD to have mirrors all over it's four walls. And to Janelle's surprise, she saw the guy staring at her thru the mirror. She turned around and looked at him, and he quickly looked away. Just then, she heard a loud THUD. And the next thing she knew, she was being thrown to the floor of the elevator.
When she looked up, she saw that the elevator had stopped moving, and that she was sitting right next to the guy with adorable blues, and she could have sworn her heart stopped beating for a second. He got up, and held out his hand for hers, and she slowly took it. He pulled her up and asked her, "Hey, are you okay? That sure was something." Janelle replied, "Oh, yeah, I'm fine thanks." She was stammering, and the guy seemed to notice because he grinned at her. And Janelle didn't know what to say, she just stood there looking at him. But the guy said, "Hi, I'm Taylor. Looks like the elevator stopped moving." He turned and looked at the elevator panel, and started pressing the "Emergency" Button. There was a faint noise, and some crackling on the other end. Then someone's voice came through the elevator speaker, "Hello? Yes? Is anyone there?" Taylor quickly responded, "Yeah!! Hi! Um, could you please come quick? We're stuck here in this elevator, and don't know what to do. It looks like the elevator just stopped moving." Taylor looked reassuringly at Janelle, and she smiled weakly at him. Janelle found herself thinking, "Geesh, here I am, stuck in an elevator with this........." Janelle didn't get to finish her thoughts. She was interuppted by an abrupt piercing noise on the other end of the speaker, and she quickly looked up at Taylor, who was now pressing the buttons frantically, in hope of getting through to the guy on the other line. He was having no luck at all. Then all of a sudden, the other line went dead. No more crackling noises came from it, and Taylor sat down beside Janelle.
He turned his face to her and said, "Sorry, looks like we're stuck here for awhile." Janelle shook her head and said to him, "What? Uh-uh......it's not yer fault! These things happen, i guess you just never expect them to happen to you." She turned and gave him a sweet smile, only to find herself looking into his intense blue eyes. He smiled and replied, "Yeah, I know what you mean." He cleared his throat and asked, "Are you from around here?" Janelle turned to him and said, "Huh? Me? Uh, no, actually we just got here last night. We're from California, and well, y'see, my dad was offered a job here, so here we are." Taylor smiled brightly and said, "Hey!! Cool!! Welcome!! You're gonna like it here! Oklahoma's a real cool place." Janelle thought, "I bet....especially since you're here." She smiled back at him and said, "Are you from Oklahoma City?" He shook his head and said, "Nope, I'm from Tulsa. My family and I are just here for some other business." She nodded and then stood up, "Hey cool.......We're gonna be living in Tulsa too!" Taylor smiled and responded, "Hey, this is great! So have ya seen the sights and met the people yet?" Janelle laughed and said, "Nope, just the airport and the Burger King along the way here." Taylor smiled and was about to say something else, when a small ray of light poked in from between the elevator doors.
Both Janelle and Taylor turned their heads to the opening of the elevator doors, and saw a bearded man in gray trousers holding a large metal tool box. "Hey, sorry 'bout that kids. Don't know what went wrong. It's never done that before. I'll hafta check up on it again later." Taylor stood up and faced the man and said, "Hey thanks pal. We were starting to run outta air in there." He turned and grinned at Janelle who was stepping out of the drafty elevator and into the magnificently decorated hotel lobby.
Taylor turned to her and asked, "So, where were you headed? I mean, before the elevator went out on us like that." Janelle looked at him and replied, "I was just gonna do a little exploring, y'know, see the sights and meet the people." She smiled at him and he laughed. He said to her, "Hey, well, you've already met me! How 'bout this, I'm not gonna be doing anything until about noon, so I can take you around for awhile. Y'know, show you all the cool places around here." He looked into her eyes for some kind of response. She quickly nodded her head and smiled, "Sure, let's go!"
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