A Simple Love Story. Not!

“It is 7:24 AM on this fine Tuesday, and it’s our second day here. And look at this, the girls are all fast asleep right now.”

“Not quite!” I said into my pillow and raising my arm up into the air to signal Kevin that I was well awake. Sadly.

If it really was 7:30 in the morning, I got about 4 hours of sleep and it was all Joe’s fault. It was his fault in the first place for waking me up, but then I ended up staying awake for an extra half hour over analyzing everything that happened between us outside on the playground. Not that anything really happened, but still. He was acting…differently than he normally did around me. And for literally about 10 minutes straight, I tried coming up with a specific word for it, but all I got was different. Stupid Joe and his weirdness.

“So she speaks.” I heard Nick say from somewhere and if I wasn’t so damn tired, I probably would’ve laughed at his comment. Instead, I just rolled onto my back and fluttered my eyes open.

“First of all, how the hell did you get in here and second of all why are you video taping me?” I asked, more like yelled the second part of my sentence while picking up my pillow and throwing it at Kevin and his stupid video camera. It was already the second day and I wanted to break that damn thing. And I’m pretty sure the rest of the girls wanted to too, since I woke them up and they now noticed what was going on.

“Liz and I exchanged keys so we could visit each other throughout the days for emergencies and stuff.” Kevin explained to me while throwing my pillow back at me as Liz got up from her bed and asked, “And this qualifies as an emergency?” while giving him a hug and kiss on the cheek before going into the bathroom.

“Yes it is, thank you very much.” Kevin yelled through the door while I shook my head at him.

“And how exactly is this an emergency?” Duckie asked my unspoken question while Nick made his way past Kevin and over to Ally and sat down on the bed by her, moving a few strands of hair out of her face softly. That sight alone made my heart melt.

“If you must know…” Kevin trailed off, whipping his camera around so fast that I’m pretty sure all of us would get sick while watching this later.

“He missed Liz.” Nick answered for him while placing a sweet kiss on Ally’s forehead, waking her up while a loud, “Awww.” sounded from the bathroom and Liz exited it a few seconds later. “That’s so sweet.”

“Well, as sweet as that is…” Nick started upon seeing Liz give Kevin a giant hug. “We’re leaving in an hour, so get up and get ready!” he finished, giving Ally another kiss on the forehead before making his way back towards the door to leave.

“We will see more of these lovely ladies later on today. I’m Cameraman Kevin, and I’m out!” and with that Kevin saluted the camera quickly before turning it off and exiting the room, shutting the door behind him while all of us girls let out a soft laugh at how dorky he was. But it was cute….in a weird way.

“I call shower!” Ally instantly called after we all woke up a little bit more and stopped our laughing.

“Man, now how are we going to get ready since she’ll be in there for the next 45 minutes?” Duckie joked while Ally threw her pillow at her before entering the bathroom.

“I’m sure the boys will let one us of use their shower and Mom and John are probably up and done getting ready so we can use theirs as well.” Liz said while pulling out an outfit for today.

“If that’s the case, I call Mom and John’s shower!” I yelled while making my way over to the connecting door and knocking on it.

John opened it up a few seconds later, asking if any of us girls were hungry and saying that our Mom just finished her shower, but was changing and to wait for 5 minutes.

“Can you bring up a bagel with strawberry cream cheese, 2 long john donuts and umm….I’m not sure what the other girls would like, but you’ll have to ask them.” I said to John before going over to my drawer and getting out a t-shirt and some jean shorts to wear for the day while putting my red swimsuit on underneath it for just incase purposes.

After about 10 minutes, my mom had emerged from the bathroom freshly cleaned and her and John wrote down all of our orders and left to go get the food from the breakfast buffet while I jumped in the shower to get ready for my day at Magic Kingdom.

After some quick girl talk, us girls agreeing to wake up the boys at 7 tomorrow morning to get back at them for waking us up today, we left and were on our way to Magic Kingdom. All of us ‘kids’ in one SUV, Kevin driving, while the parents all went in a separate one.

They ended up renting two of them for two reasons. The obvious one being that there wasn’t enough room in one of them for all of us and the fact that if the parents didn’t want to do something or us ‘kids’ didn’t want to do something, we had separate vehicles to go in.

“No One” by Alicia Keys just finished, all of us laughing somewhat since we all were singing it and myself and Liz were the only ones off key on singing, when Ally said, “I really like that song.”

“Why? It’s just like every other love song.” Joe shot back at her.

I would never understand him. He just sang along to it with all of us, and now he was bashing it.

Whatever Joe. Whatever.

“No it’s not!” Ally was quick to defend it though…although, it wasn’t a very good defense.

“Yeah it is. It’s all about how nothing is going to get it the way of these two people’s love for each other and blah, blah, blah.” Joe stated, throwing his hands around while talking which I had to choke back my laughter from seeing him do that.

“But, that’s why it’s so cute though. No matter what people say or do, they will conquer it all with their love for one another.” Ally rebutted while giving Nick a hug around the waist and giving him a kiss on the cheek, his cheeks turning a pink-ish color from their public display of affection. Even though it was with us.

Joe let out a sigh of disgust before turning towards his window and looking out it while I laughed at him and shoved him slightly. But I gave up trying to make him get out of his funk when I heard ‘Sweet Escape’ by Gwen Stefani playing through the speakers of the car.

Ally looked back at me and we both started singing, loudly, together to the song at that moment while trying not to laugh while doing our dance we made up while we were in Vegas since every where we went, that song was playing.

Kevin kept yelling at Liz to get the camera for the first 30 seconds of our singing and to video tape us since he was driving and after we were finished, both of us were laughing for a good 2 minutes straight while everyone looked at us like we were crazy.

“I miss Vegas now.” I whined after we came down from our high of hearing song while Ally sulked with me.

I noticed Joe open his mouth to say something, but then shut it and looked the other way, but he did have a smile on his face before looking away from Ally and I, which made me smile as well. At least he was out of his weird funk that ‘No One’ had put him in.

“We’re here!” he yelled a few seconds later as we pulled into the parking lot of Magic Kingdom while Nick muttered, “Finally” under his breath.

“I can’t help it that Dad drives really slow!” Kevin quickly defended himself but Joe and I were quickly out of the car, racing to the front entrance to even listen to the rest of the fight or hear the parents yelling at us to get our wristbands.

“I won! I won!” Joe yelled while doing a little dance in front of the gate before leaning forward onto his knees to catch his breath while I leaned against the entrance wall.

“Only because I let you! How embarrassing would that be if you lost to a girl Joe?” I shot back at him defensively. Of course I did lose to him but still, he didn’t have to know that.

“Fine.” he shot back at me, breathing heavily. After the run, the muggy heat wasn’t helping either one of us catch our breath. “Next time, don’t do me a favor. Bring your ‘A’ game missy!”

“Fine! I will!” I shot back at him and after about 10 seconds of us glaring at each other, we both burst into laughter from our competitiveness.

“So what should we do first?” Frankie asked once everyone was at the entrance, Mrs. Jonas glaring at the both of us from our unexpected race to the gate, as Joe and I put our wristbands on.

“Space Mountain!” Joe and I yelled in unison and then both turned towards each other and laughed again while saying, “Miss me high, hit me low!” and then raised our hands up, missed each others hands on going to smack them, only to come down and smack them when they were down by our hips.

“You guys are too weird.” I heard Nick mutter to himself, but Joe and I just chose to ignore. Or, at least I did. I don’t think Joe heard him. He seemed to be going into that….‘different’ phase again when he kept staring at me with a smile on his face. But after a few seconds, everyone noticed how he wasn’t doing anything except smiling in my direction and that’s when they all started calling his name which brought him out of his daze.

“So, Space Mountain it is?” he asked after his mom asked if he was alright and then grabbed mine and Frankie’s hands and took off towards the ride, the rest of the group following after us.

After that though, the day seemed to go by in a flash. We went on a few rides like Haunted Mansion and the Pirates of the Caribbean. And then we walked through the Swiss Family Robinson house thing, but we had to leave when Joe tried swinging on one of the vines and was escorted out. Lunch went by relatively quick and I didn’t know if it was because we ate so quickly due to the fans and paparazzi hassling us or that we wanted to go on more rides before we called it quits or something, but either way, lunch went by pretty quick. Then, Nick and Ally got really quiet after Kevin beat us all on the Indy Speedway and what’s when Mrs. Jonas asked if we all wanted to go to Typhoon Lagoon to cool off instead of going back to the hotel.

“Yeah, and then we can come back for Wishes Nightmare Spectacular?” Kevin asked excitedly from behind his video camera while the rest of us ‘kids’ looked at him with confusion. “The fireworks.” he stated . “That’s what it’s called.”

We all nodded our head in understanding then before my mom asked if we were all on board for Typhoon Lagoon.

“Let’s go!” Joe yelled, grabbing mine and Frankie’s hands again and running in the opposite direction of the exit.

“Joe…..Joe! Joseph!” I yelled at him, pausing between each use of his name before yelling his full one, causing him to turn around and practically glare at me. I knew he didn’t like the use of his full name, but it was the only way to get him to pay attention to me.

“What?” he shot back at me, letting go of mine and Frankie’s hands which Frankie took advantage of and ran back towards the group at that moment.

“The exit is that way.” I stated while pointing over my shoulder with my thumb and laughing a little bit to ease the tension that was slowly arising. Joe may be different from a lot of guys, but he still didn’t like being told which direction to go by a girl…it was his inner manliness. Or something along those line. I couldn’t actually remember the correct word he used when we had this discussion a while back.

“I’m sorry?” I more so asked him than stated while shrugging my shoulders towards his direction as he glared at me some more. “We can still go this way though.” I offered while giving him a quizzical look, still shrugging my shoulders.

“That’s right we’re going this way. Now come on!” he yelled and then bent down and threw me over his shoulder while I laughed a little at his antics along with his mom and my mom.

“I guess we’re going this way. We’ll meet you at the cars.” I yelled over to them as Joe quickly started walking away from them and I noticed Kevin rolling his eyes while Nick laughed and shook his head before turning around and following the group towards the exit.

After 10 minutes of Joe walking around, me still on his shoulder and it digging into my stomach, I had to open my mouth. Especially since we walked past the same hot dog vender dude 4 times.

“Joe?”

“Hmm?” he responded while stopping in his tracks and looking at all the directions we could go in.

“Are you lost?”

“Ummm….no.” he strung out. “I just…I don’t know how to get out that’s all.”

I let out a small laugh at his answer before saying, “How about we find a map? And can you put me down please? I’m sure I’m heavy now and it can’t be good for your shoulder.”

“Fine.” he sighed out after a few seconds, as if he had to think it over in his mind on whether or not to put me down.

“Ok…I saw a map over here.” I stated while walking in the general direction of where I saw one last and a few seconds later we were staring at a grounds map.

“We are….” Joe trailed off and then pointed to a giant red star that said, “You are here!” underneath it while finishing his sentence. “Here!”

“Wow Joe. You are a genius.” I stated, making sure to pause between each word to let him know that I was being sarcastic. But Joe didn’t seem to understand sarcasm and took it as a compliment, a huge smile coming across his face while he beamed at his ‘brilliance.’ I simply shook my head and turned back towards the map and looked for the easiest way out of the park and then directed Joe in what direction we should go.

After 10 minutes, Joe and I safely made it out of the park and to the vehicles to see a very upset looking Mr. Jonas, Kevin and Nick.

“What took you guys so long?” Kevin barked at us while fishing the keys to the vehicle out of his pocket.

“Steph got us lost.” Joe stated, me letting out a protest to his words but he kept on going as if I didn’t say anything. “I told her we should find a map to get us out and now look at us! All because of me!” he finished proudly while I scoffed and crossed my arms over my chest.

Stupid boys.

“I’m sure.” Nick stated while rolling his eyes and hopping into the vehicle while Kevin continued barking orders at us to get in the car so we could all go swimming. I simply just rolled my eyes the whole time at the way Kevin was getting so upset. It’s not like it was that big a deal about us wasting 20 minutes walking around in there. We were all going swimming now, and that’s all that really mattered.

Again, I must say it.

Stupid boys.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We spent a good 3 hours at Typhoon Lagoon, plenty of it where it was just Joe and I coupled up for water rides which I had no problem with, but I was getting hungry. And I wanted more than a stupid popsicle could provide. I want an actual dinner, and thankfully almost everyone else was feeling an actual dinner as well.

“I’m thinking we’ll head back to the hotel and get some dinner and then we’ll go back to Magic Kingdom to watch the fireworks?” Mr. Jonas all asked us while we were making our way towards the parking lot.

“Sounds like a plan.” my mom agreed after all of us ‘kids’ nodded our heads to the idea. “Let’s go girls.” she stated. Apparently, us girls were going with Mom and John back to the hotel while the boys went with their parents. It was a little weird, considering the only time we were separated from the boys was to go to sleep, but oh well. It would only be for the 15 minute car ride to the hotel.

“I’ll see you later babe for dinner.” I over heard Kevin say to Liz while the parents practically ran off to get to the vehicles. Apparently they were more hungry than I expected. He gave Liz a quick kiss and a hug while Duckie gave Frankie a kiss on the cheek, making him blush a bright crimson red. It looked so cute on his little face that I almost giggled from witnessing his crush first hand that he had on Duckie. Ally and Nick then gave each other a kiss and a hug, a quick one I might add, before they turned to start walking towards the vehicles, me following behind with a giant smile on my face.

Everyone was so happy and in love. Well, not everyone, but for the most part. Liz and Kevin were falling in love, Nick and Ally were falling in love…well, probably more so falling in lust with one another, Frankie was head over heels with his mad crush for Duckie. There was so much happiness being spread around by them that even my bummer mood of not being able to be in love with Joe, publicly and welcoming to him, made me happy.

“What about me?” I heard Joe say from behind us all as we all moved towards the SUVs were parked.

“What about you?” Ally was the first to ask what all of us were thinking.

Joe just pointed to each couple that was grouped off before pointing at me and saying, “Steph, come give me some sugar.” and then spread his arms wide open and having a smile overcome his face.

Now normally, I would’ve done anything to make the boy happy, but come on! ‘Come give me some sugar?!’ What the hell was that about? We weren’t in some 60’s disco movie and if we were, everyone was missing the tie-dye body suits and big hair.

“Yeah…umm…I’m good.” I stated while sending him a tight lipped smile and turning my back to him while everyone let out a small laugh. “Oh, and please don’t ever say that again.” I quickly said while turning around to say it to him, only to shut my eyes and put my hands over my ears.

He was sporting that ever so famous puppy dog look moments ago, and I was not going to fall for it this time.

“That can’t work if I’m not looking!” I exclaimed while I heard faint laughter through my hand covered ears. “La, la, la!” I started to sing, or say, to keep from hearing Joe’s pleas that would only make me visualize his puppy dog face.

Even though I was singing and covering my ears, I could still faintly hear Joe whining for someone to kiss him goodbye to make him feel part of the group. Did he fail to see that I didn’t receive a kiss or hug goodbye and that Duckie only gave one, she didn’t receive one as well? It wasn’t like he was completely left out.

I hesitantly opened one eye slightly to see Ally and Liz pulling Duckie towards Joe while she laughed and shook her head while Joe whined and jumped up and down. Frankie was video taping the whole thing since Kevin gave him his video camera while he gave Liz a hug and kiss while both Kevin and Nick were rolling their eyes and standing next to each other with annoyed looks on their faces.

But then, it all stopped in one mere second due to Kevin’s action.

He threw his hands up into the air and stormed over to Joe, grabbed him by his neck and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, silencing everyone’s coaxing and my singing and changing it into everyone standing there with their eyes wide open along with their mouths.

My hands slowly moved from my ears to my mouth to stifle my laugh, but it didn’t work very well and as soon as I broke the silence, everyone started laughing except for the two people who were involved in the kissing.

“Kevin, I said I liked it when you held me. Not kissed me!” Joe yelled while taking two big steps away from Kevin and wiping ferociously at his cheek while Kevin yelled, “Well it got you to shut up didn’t it?”

That only seemed to make everyone else laugh even harder, Nick actually doubling over in laughter. I couldn’t decide what was more entertaining, Joe and Kevin looking at each with sour faces or watching everyone else laugh or replaying the image of Kevin kissing Joe in my mind. It was just one giant tri-fecta at this point in time that was making me laugh.

But then I noticed, just to add more humor to all of this, that Frankie had the video camera and most likely got that whole thing of video.

“Did you….did you…did you get that on camera?” I asked through my laughter towards Frankie who was only able to nod his head while holding up the camera.

Unfortunately, Kevin and Joe seemed to be able to snap out of their sour faces to round on Frankie and try to get the camera away from him in order to recover the tape. But it turned into everyone VS. Joe and Kevin by us forming a human shield around the little guy while Kevin and Joe threw themselves at us to get to him.

Maybe it was fortunate that they heard me ask that since Frankie was able to get some of that too and I’m sure it looked pretty funny from where he was more so than terrifying, which I’m sure his brothers were going for.

“Stop running around the parking lot!” we all heard a stern voice yell to us which brought all of our moving, yelling and laughing to a complete halt.

“What do you think you’re doing? You could get killed or something if someone was driving around here.” Mr. Jonas yelled at us, already red in the face.

Now that was something terrifying. I’d have to remember never to piss him off again.

“Get in the car now!” Mr. Jonas yelled when none of us answered or moved out of the way. Even though the only vehicle that was coming was my mother and John.

“Fine.” Kevin was the first to say, glaring at Frankie while doing so. “But I’m not riding in the same truck with Joe.”

“I agree.” Joe chimed in and then brought his hand up to high 5 Kevin with a smile on his face. But all he got from him was an eye roll before he hopped into the vehicle that consisted of his mother and father.

“Come on Frankie, we’ll go with Mom and John.” Nick said, ushering Frankie quickly towards the other vehicle.

“Well, then I’m going with Frankie and Nick.” Joe sounded from next to him, sour face still on while I grabbed his arm and said he’d better be nice to Frankie.

“You better go with him. He’ll listen to you if you tell him to knock it off more than his own mother.” Liz pointed out when Joe climbed into the SUV. “The rest of us girls will go with Mr. and Mrs. Jonas. I have to calm Kevin down anyways.” she finished before making her way towards the vehicle and getting in, the other two following after her.
Once I was in the car, Nick practically lunged himself at me from behind and shoved the tape in between the car and myself while saying that I should hide it in my room until Kevin and Joe forget about it and then to give it back to him so he could slip it into Kevin’s bag.

Joe evidently thought that Frankie still had the tape though and kept trying to get it from him, even though it was practically right next to him, and then only reason he stopped his attempts was due to my mother telling him if he didn’t stop, he wasn’t going with us to see the fireworks later.

We had a quick dinner, definitely awkward for Joe and Kevin since we all managed to take seats that would require them to sit next to each other, and then were on our way back to Magic Kingdom to see the fireworks, the tape safely hidden in my drawer with my pants and shirts.

It was going on 9, and the fireworks were due to start any minute, but Joe and myself couldn’t wait that long so we took a seat on the cobblestone ground of the park, Frankie taking a seat next to Joe. Ally took a seat on my other side and Nick sat behind her, her leaning up against his front and his arms wrapped around her waist while Duckie took a seat next to them.

“When you wish upon a star…” Joe suddenly started singing and as I turned to laugh at him, Frankie joined in on the song as well.

“Makes no difference who you are.” Frankie sang with Joe as Joe gave Frankie a hug around the shoulders and pulled him closer while they swayed back and forth slowly.

“Everything your heart desires…” I heard Nick whisper from the other side of me and then gave Ally a quick kiss on the cheek, her giggling in the process before they sang loudly with Frankie and Joe.

“Will come to you.”

The parents got in on it then along with Liz. Kevin was too busy going from person to person who was singing and giving them some camera time, but when it came to the 3rd verse of the song, none us knew it, so Joe took it upon himself to start singing, “Na, na, na, na, na, na, na.” to the beat of the song before it got to the 4th and last verse and we all sang loudly together.

“Like a bolt out of the blue, Fate steps in and sees you through. When you wish upon a star…”

We all threw our hands in the air, people looking at us and laughing while some sang the last line, “Your dreams come true!” with us before we all started laughing.

I faintly heard some clapping and some whistling towards our little song that Joe started, but I was too occupied since Joe pulled me into his side and kept his arm around my shoulders to keep me in place. Not that I minded too much.

The fireworks started a few seconds after that though and Joe had me and Frankie cracking up since he was saying delayed things after each set of fireworks. Things like, “WOAH!” and “Did you see that?” but when his parents heard him one time and nudged him with their feet, he stopped and so did our laughing.

I was guessing they were still a little upset about us ‘running’ around the Typhoon Lagoon parking lot…but whatever. We were all fine and no one was hurt…no biggie.

We all walked into the lobby of the hotel at about 11 PM.

If I have to say so myself, I did an excellent job and pretending I was about to crash from the busy day. But of course, I was containing my excitement of mine and Joe’s date….or whatever you want to call it. But when I looked over at Joe, he really looked like he was going to fall asleep. Especially in the elevator. I tried to bite down my disappointment that there might not be any ‘Steph and Joe time’ tonight.

But when he came to give me a hug goodnight, he whispered, “Wake up sleepy. 12:30. Don’t forget.” and my heart practically came back to life from those few words that it was hard to keep myself looking tired.

I nodded my head and called bathroom first to quickly change into my swimsuit underneath my pajamas before the girls would notice and impatiently laid in bed until it was time for my time with Joe.