His heart rung through his ears as if they were invaded by the sound of a thousand elephants storming across the Plains, a heard of bongo drummers followed up, with the sound of rattled snakes shaking a beat as his eyes scanned the room. He hadn’t felt so nervous in so long, but tonight had its reason. Palm sweaty, knees weak; Tyler was now able to understand why some stuttered and lost their breathe at ill-prepared moments. An unease laugh would roll off his lips every five minutes or so as he tucked his hands before him in a protective manner, the feeling that lined his stomach was one he hadn’t experienced since high school. ‘Anxiety, my old’ was all he could think, his accent thick with sarcasm. The blond stood tall, hair combed neatly as he listened the the women in the pink puffed dress talk about her granddaughter, an admire of his who was half his age. With a dry mouth that lightly tasted of bourbon, The Aussie curled his lips while listening to those around him talk of the great charity that brought them together tonight, them and the other hundred that filled the room. Was he nervous because he came alone? Absolutely not. Was he anxious by the fact he was among the handful of young adults that were invited? Hardly, he felt it was a blessing. Was he worries he’d say something stupid in front of others?No. He was nervous to see her.
Little did the world know, cool collective Tyler Bates was dying inside. His blue gaze scanned from table to table as the talks began, not a word registering while his mind drifted from face to face but she was not insight. Was this a blessing? Was she carried away to another duty or was she out with her beau? He hadn’t seen Andi in three weeks, three long weeks he spent the otherside of the world away from her. Their shared moments at the festival resulted in a guilt-like-parasite he could not outrun, so he sought to time to cool down. That was until he saw her tweet ‘bout the event. As the talks continued, he rose from his chair and made his exit for the nearest door to clench on the freshest wave of air he could get, while his fingers fumbled with the cigarette box and lighter. He was a light smoker but in recent days he fell into his nasty habit of stress smoking from the pressure of the media and his job. As he took a drag, a shadowing figure under the dim lights made its way towards him, resulting a grunt from his peached lips. “Please, no photos” he stated, knowing photographers crawled the event to satisfy their gossip-driven hunger.