Free Boy Band by Jacqueline Smith Page B

what to say.”  Josh pretends to cry and waves his hand in front of his face.  
    “Okay, our last question comes from Savannah in Pensacola, Florida,” Cory says.  “She asks, ‘Is it hard being away from your friends and family for such extended periods of time?’”
    “Oh wow, that’s a heavy one,” Jesse says.  
    “The short answer to that is yes, it’s very hard,” Oliver says.  “But I think it’s also worth mentioning that we have some of our very best friends here on this journey with us, and I don’t know what they think, but I feel like we’ve become a family.”
    “Definitely, I’ve always felt that way,” Josh says. 
    “Same here,” Sam chimes in.  
    And even though I’m not a part of this video chat, I have to agree with them.  There are a lot of hard things about being on the road and away from home, the first of which being you don’t really feel like you have a home anymore. Of course you have a hom e, as in the place you grew up, but you don’t really live anywhere.  You also have to be really okay with just going with the flow and eating whatever you have in the hotel or the tour bus instead of sitting down for a nice home-cooked meal of your choice.  Everyone is busy and stressed and together twenty-four hours a day, so if you have even the slightest argument or problem, you’d better get over it quickly because you are going to be seeing that person all the time.  
    But when it all comes down to it, families are kind of the same way.  In fact, sometimes, I think that’s what makes a family.  It’s so easy to be around people when everything is... well... easy.  But the people who’ve been with you through thick and thin, who’ve seen you at your absolute worst, and who still want to hang out with you at the end of the day?  
    If that isn’t family, I don’t know what is.  
    ⋯
    It’s snowing.  
    It’s only November and it’s already snowing.  A lot.  
    Okay, it’s November in New York.  I’m guessing this isn’t as much of an unheard of phenomenon as it would be in say, San Francisco, but for a group of twenty-somethings who are from San Francisco (well, and one from London), it’s a weird experience.  
    Maybe not so much for the Londoner, but for the Californians, it’s weird.  That’s probably why we’re all making such a big deal out of it.     
    The second the snow started falling, Sam scrambled for his camera and ran out onto the balcony to take pictures.  About five minutes later, however, he remembered how much he hates the cold and ran back inside.  He’s been repeating the same pattern for about three hours now.      
    Josh, on the other hand, announced that we all needed fleece blankets, hot chocolate, and a fire.  Apparently, experiencing a real New York winter is a lifelong dream of his and he wants to do it right.  Unfortunately, Josh, Jesse, and Oliver don’t have a real fireplace in their hotel room, so we had to improvise.  As it turns out, there’s a cable station that, around this time of year, is a non-stop video of a fireplace burning and Christmas music playing in the background.  
    True, it meant we couldn’t watch a movie, but since the seven of us (actually eight... Cory has invited Tara to join us later) can rarely agree on what we should watch, it’s not a tremendous loss.  Especially since, after making us all hot chocolate, Jesse broke out his acoustic guitar.  
    So this is what we’re doing on a snowy, northern night.  We’re all in our warmest pajamas and covered in fleecy blankets.  We’re drinking hot chocolate by a pixelated fireplace.  And we’re singing acoustic radio hits from the 1990s and early 2000s.  It might be one of my most favorite moments of all time.  
    Especially when Sam scoots up beside me and pulls me into his fleecy, blanketed arms.
    “I’m cold.  Hold me,” he mumbles in a silly voice that is somehow still insanely cute.  So I happily oblige, linking my arms