A Simple Love Story. Not!

I was confused. Majorly confused.

The reason? The fact that two boys, one who I have known for about 2 months now and one I just met today, happen to have the same exact phone number.

"What's wrong with you?" Ally asked me as I made my way home and bringing me out of my trance of trying to figure things out.

I glanced at my phone really quickly before back up at her and then the road before responding.

"Nothing, I'm just a little confused is all."

"About...?" she pressed as I opened my phone and looked at the picture message I thought I had sent to Joe when the name was coming up as AJ.

"Well...," I started before placing my phone back down into my lap and paying attention to the road. "After we left the boys, I opened up my phone to save Joe's cell number, but when I was looking for the text I sent him, I sent it to AJ, but it still came up on his phone."

"Let me see!" she said with a little bit of skeptisim in her tone and grabbing at my phone.

After a few silent minutes passed between us and I turned onto the street where we resided she said, "Maybe Joe is AJ."

"If that's the case, don't you think he would've told me or something?" I shot back at her, my fear coming to life once that suggestion left her mouth.

I thought I knew him, he told me practically his life story and if that was case, how come I couldn't put two and two together and figure out Joe Jonas was AJ? How come he didn't have enough courage to tell me that he was AJ when we spent nearly 4 hours together?

"Well, maybe he didn't want you to find out. Maybe he wanted you to like him for who he really was and just forgot about it when you actually met. He did freak out at the hospital when you said you were going to text AJ to let him know what happened to you." she reminded me and I nodded my head to signal I heard her and understood but that still didn't anwer my question of why he didn't tell me after the hospital when we were outside making snow angels, or at Applebee's, or when we were saying goodbye.

"Yeah, that's true, but there's only one way to find out for sure." I said as I pulled up into my driveway and grabbed my phone back from her and sent him a text asking what his full name was, hoping and praying that he would just stop his little masquarade and just tell me who he really was. I can't stand liars, and the fact that he lied to me for 2 months, was really breaking me down inside.

Adam Jerry Jackson is my name, but everyone calls me AJ, well at least my friends do.

What bullshit! Call him out, or trap him to let him know that you know about him.

Really, that's interesting cuz I met Joe Jonas today and when I texted him, your name popped up in the little name place. Do you care to explain that to me?

As I gathered all my stuff out of my car, while Ally sat there in the passenger seat freaking out and asking me what was going on, I got a text back and opened it, sending my anger into overdrive from reading his text.

No.

That's it? No? That's all you have to say for yourself? I text him back as I got out of my car, everything in my hands and kicked my car door shut as I made my way up to the house, Ally at my heels asking me who I was texting and what was being said despite my lack of answers for her.

I couldn't answer her. Not right now. What's wrong? Huh...if I actually told her what was wrong, it would come out with me yelling it and probably crying and I was in no mood for getting into a fight with her considering I was being filled a whole crap load of emotions.

And none of them were good.

Umm...yes.

I shook my head, feeling my tears filling up with tears from knowing that I wasn't going to get a straight answer from him and decided I was going to send him one last message to just get it all out in the open. Having no intention of ever talking, or texting him ever again.

You are so low, you know that. I really liked you, AJ or Joe, who ever the hell you really are. I'm just disappointed more than anything that I could like a guy as much as I did and have this happen to me. I never want to talk to you again. Good bye!

I slammed my phone down onto my dresser upon entering my room after sending the text, only to have my phone burst into life about 5 seconds later.

"This is an S.O.S., don't want to second guess, this is the bottom line, it's true"

I grabbed my signing phone and read who it was calling me, "AJ calling" before I hit the ignore button and started to get ready for bed.

I didn't want to talk to him and hear his lame excuse as to why he lead me on for so long.

2 months! 2 months I was being lied to. How messed up is that?

I told him things that only Ally knows because, well, we're sisters. And then to find out that it was just an act all the time.

I didn't even know what to think I was so upset. All I knew was that I never wanted to listen to another Jonas Brothers song again, never wanted to look at a picture of them again either.

And throughout the whole time it took me to get ready, I kept hitting ignore from hearig the insesiant song of S.O.S. performed by them over and over again.

I kept hitting ignore button until I finally fell asleep to the sound of S.O.S.

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The next moring when I woke up, I was instantly pissed, just from remembering what happened the night before.

Grabbing my phone off the charger that I didn't even remember putting it on last night, I saw that I had 34 missed calls and 7 new texts.

The texts pretty much consisted of the same thing such as; Please answer your phone. and I want to talk to you and explain everything.

Wow! Is this boy desperate or what?! Whatever, he'll move on. He's famous and gorgeous, eww, I mean horrible! He'll find someone else who he can lie to and they'll be ok with it.

As I got up from my bed and grabbed a towel from the linen closet to take a quick shower, I decided that today would be a good day to go shopping with Megan, one of my really close friends from high school.

She was the one I always went to whenever I had boy problems. She was one of those people who wouldn't lie and take your side even if they thought you were wrong in the first place. She was always brutally honest, and I loved her for it. She always opened up my eyes to see what was the right choice to do in a situation. Basically, she was both the little angel and little devil on my shoulders that whispered to me what to do all the time.

I checked the clock to see it was going onto 11:30 and figured that she would be up by now to do something if she wasn't doing something already.

Waiting for her to pick up, I picked out my outfit and when she answered she simply asked, "Mall?"

"How do you always know? Seriously, that freaks me out sometimes." I stated to her with a laugh before saying a quick yes to her question.

"Because I know you. And food court or Starbucks?"

I laughed from how business like this was getting, but that was Megan, she was always ready to work something out whether it be my love life or actual work.

"Defiantly starbucks!" I said while a small smile made itself presant on my face and I could hear her TV getting turned off in the background.

"Ok, see you there! Bye Hun!" she said before hanging up abruptly while I laughed slighlty and quickly changed and finished getting ready to do some therapeutic shopping with her.

* * * * *

Arriving at the mall and making my way to Starbucks, I already saw her standing there, her Carmel coffee in her hand while holding a Strawberries N' Creme Frappiciano for myself and I smiled before quickly jogging over to her and giving her a big hug.

"Ugh! That bad?! Wow, this is gonna take a while!" she said after she saw my smile falter slighlty from remembering why we were at the mall in the first which only caused me to chuckle slightly before smacking her shoulder lightly and taking my drink from her.

"Ok, spill!" she said to me as we made our way over to one of our all time favorite stores : Forever 21.

While we shopped and drank, I filled her in about the whole AJ situation, which she already knew a majority of it, and then told her about the concert last night, me waking up in the hospital, hanging out with the boys which she didn't get all crazy on me for considering she never really was a big fan of theirs. She's always liked rap. and then I told her about the fiasco that happened last night with all the text messages and the 34 phones and 7 text messges I awoke to this morning.

"And basically, I'm done with all of it. I don't know how many more lies I can take." I stated and then took a long sip from my drink while she turned towards me and started shaking her head with a disappointed look on her face.

"What the hell are you doing Steph?" she asked after a few seconds and I looked at her confused before asking her what she was talking about.

"He obviously wants to talk to you about this. Just give him the opportunity to at least try and make you see why he did it to you. Maybe you're sisters right, maybe he wanted you to like him for who he really was and not just because he's famous. You can't blame him for trying to not get himself hurt. He's probably had it done to him loads of times." she said, eyeing me up to see how I would react.

We stood there, silent for a good few minutes before I let out a sigh and directed my head to look down at the tiled floor before saying anything.

"Ok, let's say I do understand why he didn't want to tell me at first, but why not tell me when we hung out for like 5 hours yesterday?"

"Well, I guess that's just one thing you're going to have to ask him when you talk to him." she said in a matter-of-fact tone while looking at a brown shirt.

Letting out a frustrated and agitated sigh from knowing she was right, I quickly took a step towards and said put the shirt back on the rack from where it came from and explained to her when she gave me a bewildered look, "That was hideous! There is no way I'm letting you try that on!"

As we continued to roam around the store, picking up random things to try on, my phone started to ring and I quickly answered it to stop all glares I was getting from nearby shoppers.

"What's up Al?" I asked from seeing that it was Ally calling me and I heard let out a upset sigh from my nickname for her, causing me to laugh a little bit.

"You know I hate it when you call me that. It makes me sound like a boy!"

I laughed slightly at her outburst before asking her why she called.

"Where are you?" she asked and in an instant, her voice changed from irritated to shaky, making me panic slighlty.

"I'm at the mall with Megan. Why? What's up?"

"Oh, no reason. I just wanted to know where you were." she said and I faintly heard someone ask "What store?" in the background.

"Who's there? And I'm in Forever 21 right now but I think were going to be going to American Eagle after that and then maybe Hollister." I said back to her, my panic subsiding from knowing that she wasn't in any sort of trouble.

"Oh, just umm...." she said in a shaky voice before practically screaming, "Eric." into my ear.

What the hell is going at my house!?

"Eric who?"

"My friend Eric silly goose egg!" she said while laughing somewhat and for some reason it sounded like a forced laugh.

"Ok, well tell him I say hi." I said back to her with confusion laced into my voice but she shot back with that he just left and had to do some stuff.

"Oh, ok. We'll, I'll be home in maybe about 3 hours or so." I said back to her when Megan tapped me on the shoulder and held up an adoralbe powder blue shirt.

"Ok. Bye!" she said quickly and I said a quick bye back to her and upon hanging up, I heard her whisper somewhat, "I hope she doesn't hate me!" before the line went dead.

What the heck was that all about?!

As I was just about to re-dial her number, Megan practically threw the shirt at me and told me to go try it on.

After about a 3 second deliberation span, I decided I'd ask Ally about her comment when I got home and went to wait in line for a fitting room before trying the shirt on.

"I want to see it on you!" she called to me 5 minutes later as I was lead to a fitting room by a worker and I laughed slightly under my breath before entering it and closing the curtain closed.

I changed into the shirt and perfected it quickly before exiting the fitting room, halfway through calling her name when I noticed that she was talking to a guy.

A really cute guy.

A guy that had long shaggy black hair and a little taller than her that I knew and met just yesterday and I instantly cut myself off, hoping that he wouldn't notice me, but unfortunately, Megan turned just then and pointed towards my fitting room while my eyes caught his and it felt like I just jumped into ice cold water and couldn't breath.

He's not here. He can't be here. This isn't happening.

There he was, Joseph Adam Jonas, standing there talking to me best friend who was pointing at me and the only thing that I could think of about what their conversation topic was about was me.

At that moment, so many things ran through my head. Like why the hell he was here, talking to my best friend. And how angry and hurt I was last night about the way things were left off from the lack of truth. Did he honestly think that showing up here unexpectedly he could talk his way out of this?

But all my thoughts and questions were pushed aside when he slowly made his way towards me, never breaking my eye contact and there I was, mouth hanging open, eyes wide like a deer in headlights in a shirt that wasn't even mine.

I had no idea what to do.

"Wh-what-what are you doing here?" I finally asked him, but only above a whisper as he was right in front of me and I looked down to the ground considering my heart was practically numb from everything that happened within the last 24 hours with this boy and I didn't know what to say to him.

I wanted to know why he was here but at the same time I couldn't bare to listen to his voice, afraid that more lies would come out.

"I came to apologize to you and explain, since you weren't answering my phone calls." he said, and I could feel his gaze cut through you, but all I did was continue looking down to the ground.

At his sentance, a bitter emotion ran through my body and I lifted my head up to him to show him how defiant I was while taking a step backwards towards the fitting room and saying, "Ok, explain. Although I don't think that I should listen to you because you have lied to me for 2 months so far. How can I trust you anymore?" I paused and read his face which was emotionless with a little bit of sorrow mixed in his eyes with remorse. "How would you feel if you liked me and then one day you find out that I'm not who you thought I was and I could've told you about it but decided not to? I told you things that nobody besides my sister knows, and she only knows because she lives with me. I thought you were different. So please, enlighten me with your reasoning of making me feel like a complete idiot." I said to him, my voice cracking only once from trying to hold my tears back.

I couldn't lie now, I had a lot of feelings for him, well at last for AJ, at least who you thought was AJ and they all came gushing out now, right in front of him.

Great time Steph. Fantastic.

When he didn't say anything and cast his eyes downward towards the ground I took a deep breath to steady my tears and forced them down for a few more minutes before they burst out of me.

"How do I know that you, Joe Jonas, are going to be talking or AJ, is going to be explaining this to me."

After a few intense minutes of silence, me looking at the top of his head while he looked down at the ground, he snapped his head back up at me and stared at me.

I looked into his eyes intently, trying to read him, hopig that I could and wondered what he was thinking, wondered if he was going to say anything to me or not, and if he was, would it change my mind about him.

To be completely honest with myself, I wanted him to say something amazing and sweep me off my feet, but the longer that we stood there, staring at each other, the little bit of hope that I had that he would say anything at all, disappered and that alone made my eyes tear up.

And then, right when I was about to let a sigh and just give up all my hopes, he reached towards me and wrapped me up in a hug that I wasn't expecting at all.

"I'm sorry." He whispered into my ear, sounding like he was on the brink of crying.

I could hear the sorrow and regret in his voice and I knew, that he knew how badly he hurt me with his lies.

I stood there for a few seconds and chocked down my tears that were begging to be released, but as soon as I put my arms around him and hugged him back, I cried out all of my anger and frustration that I had with him last night onto his shoulder while saying inbetween sobs, "Just tell me why you did it."

He pulled away and looked down at the ground while letting out a forlorn sigh before looking up at me again and gently grabbed both of my hands.

"I don't know. At first it started out just that you were cool and fun to talk to. And then we started talking everyday, and you treated me like...you treated me like I was normal. You were funny and sarcastic and understanding about things. We got along so great and I wanted to tell you, but I didn't want to tell you online or over the phone. I never thought I would get the chance to meet you so for a while I thought that I would never have to tell you. But when you told me that you were going to be at the concert, I thought about how I was going to tell you over and over in my head. But then I saw you at the concert and when I saw you get hit, I forgot and I was more worried about your safety than about telling you who I really was." he said quietly, looking me straight in the eyes and I could feel more tears slip from my eyes and he quickly reached up and wiped away at some of my new tears before grabbing my hand again and sniffling a little.

I took in deep breath to steady my voice while looking into his eyes asked him why he didn't just tell me in the hospital when I was going to text him.

"I didn't want you to find out that way, in front of everybody. I had this image in my head where we would be alone talking and then I would tell you and everything would be ok, but the more I thought about it, I realized how little kid fairytale it was. I knew it wasn't going to be that easy. So I figured I'd tell you when you got out of the hospital but then we all started having so much fun and I didnt want to tell you because I didn't know how you would take it and I didn't want to ruin your day. I just loved seeing you so happy and having fun with my brothers and I."

He brought both of our hands up to his chest and squeezed them a little bit before continuing with so much sincerity in his voice I almost cried.

"You had no idea how much that day meant to me. I knew you were different, you didn't treat my brothers and I like all the other girls do. You treated us like we were normal teenagers who just wanted to have fun. And I love that about you."

I felt my eyes widen and my could practically hear my heart beating from when he used the 'L" word.

I never pictured this was how a guy that I had feelings for, would tell me that he liked me, well not tell me that he liked me but would tell me that he loved a quality about me.

Standing in a shirt thats not yours, in a store by the fitting rooms with your best friend watching.

Not the picture perfect way, but at least it was a way.

I smiled quicly before looking down at the ground to hide my blush from over thinking the use of the 'L" word but he let go of my left hand and lifted my chin up to look him in the eyes.

Simply put, his eyes were amazing. Dark chocolate brown, with a hint of gold flecks in them.

They had sorrow and a hint of happiness mixed into them with the gold flecks and he kept looking at me straight in my eyes. Well, he was until my phone went off making me jump slightly and him to laugh a little bit.

I tried turning as it kept going off but Joe wouldn't let go of my hand until I said that I should probably get that, and he released me with a smile on his face.

I bent down to get it out of my purse that was on the ground and opened it up to see a new text from Megan, causing me to pop my head out of the fitting room and look over at her to see a smile on her face while Joe moved in towards me and opened up the text for me.

He laughed lightly while looking back at Megan and shaking his head somewhat while I looked down and read her command.

"Kiss him already!!"

I looked back at her and shook my head while smiling and blushing like crazy before putting my phone back into my purse and when standing back up again, I noticed I was trapped in my fitting room, Joe standing with both arms resting on each side of the wall and keeping me contained.

"I truly am Sorry. I don't know what else to say to make things better."

Everything was making me feel like I was spinning around in a circle up in the clouds due to the hug, and the talk and his proximity, his cologne that was fogging up my brain, but I managed to find my voice and say something back to him.

"There's nothing you really can say, Joe. You hurt me bad." I said to him and took a pause to see him let his head drop while his arms dropped to his sides from my rejection of him before I continued with a mock sigh in my voice. "I guess you're just going to have to prove to me somehow that I can begin to trust you again."

He snapped his head back to look at me so fast that I was shocked he didn't say anything from the possible whiplash later he might recieve and a huge smile was on his face.

"I know. And I'll start right now!" he said, lifting me up in a hug and twirling me around.

I laughed for a few seconds before asking him of how he was here in the first place and that shouldn't he be in Minnesota but all he did was smile even more widely, it that was possible, and set me back down on the groud and explained that there was a huge snow storm and all the roads were blocked off so they came back to Milwaukee.

I coudn't contain the smile that made it's way onto my face, even though I didn't even know why I was so happy to hear that.

"So, how long do you have then? To stay here I mean?" I asked him, trying to cover up my obvoius excitement.

"I have like 2 days or so. We had off tomorrow, so we were planning on staying an extra night there, but since we aren't going to be there, we're stuck here!" he said while smiling.

Megan started making her way over us when she saw him pick me up and heard the last of his statement of him being off and having 2 days here which caused her to say, "Well, I think I'm going to take off now. Don't call me for 2 days. You give him a chance missy! And then call me when he leaves so we can over-analyze every little thing and do girl talk." while shoving me playfully in the shoulder.

Joe just smiled at her and said, "Well, I'm glad I met you and hopefully we will be seeing each other sooner than later."
"You can count on it!" she said back to him and then gave me a quick hug good bye.

As she started to walk away she turned towards us and walked backwards while saying, "By the way, you're getting that shirt!" and then turned around and walked right out of the store.

I just laughed at her and went into the fitting room to change quickly and purchase the shirt when Joe randomly stopped me halfway to the register, grabbed the shirt and booked it to the register, saying that he was going to buy it for me.

"Joe, you buying me stuff isn't going to earn your trust back. You do know that right?" I said calling after him while laughing and shaking my head somewhat from his goofy behavior.

"I know, but I still want to get it for you." he said back to me when I reached his side at the register and I noticed the girl working the counter probably having a mini panic attack in head from the look on her face.

It was weird, to see someone acting like that with the guy that I just cried on, but it was just something that I would have to get used to if I wanted to be friends with him. And trust me, I did. He was basically my best friend. I had to have him in my life. There was no if's, and's., but's about it.

"Thanks, but you really didn't have to." I said to him while giving him a quick hug around his waist and he pulled me into him, saying "No problemo" while giving the behind the counter an award winning smile and nearly giving her a heart attack.

He smiled widely at me again and took in his surroundings when we exited the store and we both noticed how we were receiving awkward looks and some "Oh My Gosh!" looks from people who were slowly recognizing him.

"Let's say we get outta here!" he quickly while walking a little bit faster to the food court where I assumed he came from and where his ride was waiting.

I smiled up at him and grabbed his hand while we walked quickly through the crowds and steered him in the right direction to his safety net before I made my way back to my car dand met him back at my house.

While getting into my car, having a few people looking at me suspiciously and snapping a few pictures of me, I couldn't help but laugh nervously from how different my life just became in those mere 5 minutes of walking him to Big Rob and the SUV.

Needless to say, these next 2 days were going to be interesting, especially with Joe around, trying to regain my trust.