The Now or Never Kind

“Where are you going at this hour?”

I cringed, hand an inch from the doorknob. So close, I thought as I turned. I cocked my head slightly. “Normal people have breakfast at eight-thirty,” I reminded Beth, who was standing in the doorway between our rooms in her pyjamas.

Beth looked at me almost in disbelief. Yeah, I wouldn’t have bought it either. “When have you ever professed to even attempting to be normal?” she challenged. I grinned innocently, shrugging my hoodie back onto my shoulder. Beth rolled her eyes. “Shawn, I’m guessing?”

“No,” I admitted slowly, “Though we will be having lunch with them tomorrow because the bastards didn’t tell us Justin was jumping ship.” She crossed her arms, an overly patient look painted on her features. I smiled guiltily at my shoes. “Merrick.”

“Ah.” My eyes darted up to see her nodding. Beth turned back to her room and unmade bed. “Well, have fun. Use protection.”

A blush crawled up my neck as I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like that!” I protested, opening the door. “Breakfast between two friends with no sexual interest in each other.” Beth leaned back into the room and raised a sceptical eyebrow at me. “…He’s not Alex.”

“…Touché. And thank God.”

Somehow in the two seconds I had my eyes shut as I walked down the street with my headphones in—listening to an aria that I wanted to sample in a song sometime—I managed to run into someone. I flinched, ready to defend myself, when whoever it was caught me and turned me around, but luckily it was Zack.

“Don’t do that!” I laughed, whacking his arm.

“Sorry to ruin your moment,” he chuckled, leading me in the direction from which he’d come. “But walking down a crowded street with your eyes shut isn’t that smart.”

I stepped closer to him as a group of men leered at me, muttering amongst themselves things I didn’t want to think about. “Which is why I have you.” Zack gave me a confused look, and I rolled my eyes, hooking my hand through his elbow. “I should never wear anything that an Amish woman wouldn’t.”

We sat down at a booth in a nondescript diner, both comfortable with silence. When the waitress came around—I had a hard time not laughing at the irony that her name was Gladys—Zack ordered a meal that consisted of a full stack of pancakes, sausage, bacon, steak, fruit, and hash browns instead of eggs.

I blinked across the table at him a moment before cracking up. “Breakfast with boys,” I muttered, shaking my head. “I’ll have hash browns, fruit, and cranberry juice, if you please.” Gladys nodded, scribbling in her notebook. “Oh! And a bottle of ketchup.” She looked up at me and eyed the bottle already on the table. I smiled. “We’ll need more than that.”

Gladys shrugged and walked towards the kitchen. Zack smiled. “Aww, you remembered.”

“Well, it’s hard to forget a guy’s love for ketchup when you watched him eat an entire bottle of it in one night,” I replied, grinning. I leaned on my fist as our waitress brought our drinks (and ketchup, with another strange look) and gazed out the window. “The funny thing about people offering to listen to me is that I’m terrible at talking.”

“I’m not going to force you,” he said, sipping his soda. Coke at nine in the morning, I thought wonderingly, watching him. “I just offered. Whatever you want to say is cool.”

I pursed my lips for a moment before taking a swig from my glass with a minute sigh. “Your singer is a bitch.”

Zack frowned slightly. “This is news?”

“Well, no,” I replied, laughing quietly. “But he’s also the kind of guy who gets under your skin and sometimes the things he says stick in your brain. Which is slightly less obvious.” He cocked his head curiously, bidding me explain. “Since my birthday I’ve been thinking … well, it’s more that I’ve been wondering something.”

Gladys returned with our food, at which I didn’t even look. Zack looked at me curiously as he jabbed a forkful of hash browns,dowsed dribbled it with ketchup, and stuck it in his mouth. “Do you think I’m a slut?”

Zack choked, coughing and sputtering until he regained his breath. I watched him calmly, not touching my food or moving to whack him uselessly on the back; if a person was coughing, they could still breathe. “What?” he croaked, eyes watering. He took a drink and shook his head. “Of course I don’t.”

“Do other people?”

“No…” He frowned. “Why would you think that? Did Alex say something?”

I shrugged, finally picking up my fork and taking a bite. Potatoes need salt, I decided absent-mindedly. “On my birthday,” I explained, shaking salt onto my plate, “I was dancing with a lot of guys… apparently it was racy.” I shrugged again. “And Alex… well, he did and said some shit that made me wonder. Also since Ryan and I split, I’ve been kind of an idiot and slightly more lax with my morals.”

“When did you guys break up?” he asked, chewing as he looked at mewith those pretty green eyes. Stop that. You’re trying to argue against sluttery.

“The day I got my nose pierced and we all went to the bar,” I muttered, stabbing at my plate. “Hence why both of those happened.”

“And why you kissed me and Jack?” My fork clattered loudly out of my hand and onto my plate, and I stared up at Zack with wide eyes. “I mean, the kiss in the cab wasn’t anything huge. You’ve kissed me on the cheek before.”

I stuttered a few seconds before running my hands over my face. “Oh fuck, he remembered,” I groaned.

Zack snorted in amusement at my reaction. “Barely,” he said comfortingly. “Mostly he remembered the sandwich.” I burst out laughing before quickly covering my mouth. He chuckled to himself. “Yeah. But kissing Jack doesn’t make you a slut. It makes you a drunk girl who just got out a relationship and used her drunk friend for a rebound.”

I slumped back against the booth, leaning my cheek into my hand again. “Wow, Zack, way to make me feel like a bitch.”

“You’re not a slut,” he declared definitively, focusing on his breakfast. “And you have your bitch moments.” I fished a piece of melon out of my bowl and tossed it at his face. “Aah! Hey!”

I smiled, forking a bite of hash browns into my mouth. “You were having a bitch moment,” I pointed out sweetly.

He rolled his eyes, smiling slightly. “I’m going to pass on some wisdom about Alex I’ve learned in the years with him. Promise you’ll listen and take it to heart?” I opened my mouth. “And no singing Mayday Parade.”

My teeth snapped shut, making Zack’s grin widen. With a dramatic sigh, I held up two fingers together. “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a poodle in my eye,” I recited.

Zack stared at me. “Okay, a few things. Boy scouts is two fingers, girl scouts is three. And it’s ‘stick a needle in my eye’.”

“Do you really think the girl scouts would take me? And needles freak me out.”

“…Kay.” We both dropped our serious expressions into soft laughter. “But back to my point about Alex.” I looked up at Zack, who had that adorable, playful smile entertaining his features. “Don’t listen to a fucking word he says.”

I blinked across the table at him, a tiny smile slowly growing on my face. “Remind me why I don’t spend more time with you,” I requested.

“You’re usually too busy avoiding my band mates.”

“I’m bored,” Beth announced the instant I walked into the hotel room. I glanced over my shoulder at her as I shrugged off my hoodie. She had that grin that meant huge fun and entertainment for us and terror for practically anyone else. “And I have an idea on how exactly to remedy that.”

“Oh?” I asked, kicking my shoes off and across the room. “And what does it entail?”

“You, me, boys, and completely uncharacteristic outfits.” Beth sat on the arm of the couch, crossing her legs at the knee. “Think about it: Beckett in not-skinny jeans. Harris dressed like a normal person. Gaskarth and Barakat in shirts and ties.”

My eyes widened in unholy glee and an evil smile split my face. “Saporta in that god-awful Hawaiian shirt I found in his guest room.” She cackled, and I pulled my vibrating phone from my pocket, frowning curiously. Pete: Ash n i r in nyc. Meet @ gabes? I grinned again. “Wentz in no hoodie and the lately missus as his stereotype equal.”

Beth tilted her head, and I showed her the text. “…Oh, this is gonna be fun.”

We got Ashlee—okay, that is a new level of weird—to come to our hotel under the pretence of a bit of girl-time before hanging out with the boys; she also managed to raid Saporta’s closet for some items. Once we explained the idea to her, she was as delighted as we were; she even contributed the idea of a contest to see who got recognised last. Apparently evil genius is contagious.

Beth and I decided that it would only be fair, since we were forcing everyone into strange clothes, that we play dress up as well. This led to a long discussion of what stereotype each of us wasn’t and what we probably wouldn’t be caught dead in otherwise. As it ended up, Ashlee wasn’t an indie chick—in skinny jeans, ballet flats, “vintage” t-shirt, and hoodie—Beth wasn’t a completely skank— in a mini skirt (that was unfortunately mine), loose off-the-shoulder top, and slutheels—and I wasn’t… well, it was hard to tell by look what I wasn’t, but I got stuck in a floaty white summer dress that laced up with ribbons up the back and copper gladiator sandals.

The hard part was getting clothes for the guys, which we discussed on the cab ride over to Gabe’s apartment. Eventually we decided to just fill Shawn in (only the basics as not to ruin the fun) and asked him to bring some of his clothes with him; the rest we could steal from Gabe and William. I snickered at the mental image of Jack dressed up like Shawn and decided that needed to be made a reality.

I thanked whatever deities I could think of that it was decently warm and not windy as we exited the cab and entered the apartment building. Beth, Ashlee, and I looked at each other in the elevator and cracked up. We looked oddly good, and we knew it, even if we wouldn’t admit it.

“Gabe!” Pete called, having answered the door. He was smirking as he stared at us. “You have three hot redheads at your door!”

“With ingenious ideas for fun,” Ashlee added, kissing his cheek as we strolled in.

Four sets of eyes went wide as Beth strolled gracefully down the hallway to retrieve clothes. I leaned against the wall my arms crossed and a smirk, thankful that Beth was more striking than I. “To what do we owe… this?” Bill asked, eying me suspiciously.

I opened my mouth to reply when another knock came at the door, and being the closest I set my camera on the table and opened it. Shawn grinned at me over an armload of more clothes. “Ah, there you are,” I greeted, taking half the pile. “I was beginning to wonder.”

“You ever try to get a cab looking like you’re going to do laundry?” he challenged, following me and dumping the clothes on the coffee table.

“Um, what the fuck are you two doing?” Gabe asked.

“Gentlemen,” Beth announced with a smile, walking in and dumping down clothes onto the pile. “…Alex.” Alex rolled his eyes. “We’re going to play a game.” She and I began to pass out outfits. “Each of you is going to put on what we give you, we’re all going to go out somewhere, and we’re going to have a contest to see who is the least recognisable by their clothes.”

Bill made a face that the trench coat and jeans I handed him. “And why are we doing this?”

I shrugged and laid one of Gabe’s ties on Jack’s head. “For shits and giggles,” I replied. “You know I like dressing up and breaking social protocol.” I grinned at Shawn’s heavy sigh at the jeans and t-shirt Beth had handed him. “Bet you wish I didn’t remember your early days, don’t you?”

Beth snickered at Ashlee trying to wrestle and wheedle Pete out of his hoodie; she laughed harder when I sighed, walked over, unzipped it, and tugged it off his arms. The couple stared at me in shock, and I just shrugged. You learned how to deal with certain things in the business.

Grumbling the boys began to shuffle further into the apartment to change into their disguises. “This looks itchy!” Jack griped, pouting back at us girls. I smirked and snapped a picture of his expression.

Walking behind him, Shawn pushed him down the hall. “It’s not, quit bitching,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Hurry up!” Beth sing-songed, opening the front door. “We might not wait for you!” That got the boys moving. Mostly Pete; I think he wanted to keep on eye on us that we didn’t corrupt Ashlee. Odd thought, eighteen- and nineteen-year-old girls adulterating someone five years their senior.

“Don’t be offended when I ask this,” Ashlee said as we exited the building, “But are you two always like this?”

Beth and I exchanged a look over her head. “Yep,” Beth answered at the same time I said, “Pretty much.” We grinned when she rolled her eyes helplessly. My ears perked up at the sound of footsteps. “And we have our first customer.”

“You’re right,” Shawn said, falling in stride with us. “I do hate that you remember when I was your age.” I beamed at him, trying not to laugh at the ripped-apart jeans and my black All Time Low shirt with the octopus on it. Instead, I snapped a picture.

“Think of it this way,” Beth said lightly. “At least she didn’t do your hair.” He quickly stepped away from me and walked around our group to join her.

“So did you plan for us to go together?” I blinked at the appearance of Alex beside me, and we fell back two steps as not to crowd the sidewalk. He grinned. “You look good like that.”

I gave him a once over—crisp white shirt, black tie, black jeans—and rolled my eyes forward. “You’re not quite clean cut enough to match me,” I replied dryly. I quirked a smile and looked at him again. “Unless you let me fix your hair.”

Alex sighed as I heard Beth mutter ‘Told you’ to Shawn. I pushed out my lower lip and widened my eyes. “Oh, you suck, Callaghan,” he muttered, stopping. I beamed and combed my fingers through his hair, pushing it to the side. Surprisingly Alex looked pretty good with his hair somewhat neat.

“Scary.” Apparently Beth and Ashlee thought so too.

With a grin, I ruffled up the back. “There you go,” I chirped. I danced up onto my tiptoes to peck him on the cheek, and Alex, at the last second, snaked his head around and caught me by the lips. I jerked back, surprised, and blinked at his smug grin.

Luckily as I faced forward again, the rest of the guys jumped into our midst. Pete nudged Beth out of the way to put his arm around Ashlee, and Jack siddled up to me. “I suck at ties,” he muttered.

I took the opportunity to crack a smile and stepped in front of him, walking backwards and successfully getting away from Alex. “Don’t feel bad. Shawn’s wardrobe is difficult to deal with if you don’t imitate it regularly.” Shawn threw me a knowing look, which I combated with a wink.

When I turned back around, I burst out laughing, and everyone had to stop because I almost fell over. The only one of them not confused was Gabe, who just looked annoyed in his bright yellow shirt covered in pink pineapples. “Oh, ha ha,” he said wryly, as I wiped my eye, still chuckling. “Shut up, Red.” I stuck my tongue out at him and snapped another picture.

Eventually we packed ourselves into two cabs and drove gods-know-where—Wentz directed the cabdriver and I didn’t listen to what he said. When we got out, the other cab (full of the contestants in the game) was right behind us.

“As hilarious as Gabe in that shirt is,” Bill said with a grin as we stood around, “I still don’t see why we’re doing this. Besides your amusement,” he added to Beth and me.

“Okay,” Ashlee said exasperatedly, “Since you’re all so demanding, the last two people to get recognised win a date with Angie or Beth.”

We both spun on our conspirator, gaping. Grins spread across several faces. “What?” we exclaimed.

Ashlee, curled into Pete’s arm, shrugged. “Hey, it got them interested.”

“And to think I thought you were awesome,” Beth muttered, tugging me by the arm. The rest trailed after us casually. “I think this means we’re in trouble.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head seriously. “This means we’re fucked.”

Surprising to exactly no one, Gabe was the first to go. Really, someone that tall is easy enough to see, but stick him in some lurid clothing and you could practically see him from the moon. Beth wasn’t exactly disappointed (at all) that he was out of the running, since she tried to spend as little time with Gabe as possible. I wouldn’t have minded, personally, but I got the feeling my partner-in-crime was gunning for a certain tall, dark, and drop-dead-sexy man.

Wait. That was basically the entire group.

Jack, being flamboyant by nature, dropped out next, which left Shawn, Alex, and Bill. Obviously some had an advantage of being more indie, but we were in New York City. Hell, I could have been the next one recognised.

Bill wandered up beside me after a while, as Beth and I were discussing, in whispers, what would happen if we ended up with certain people. “Walk with me, Princess?” he requested, smiling.

Beth arched an eyebrow at him. “You know that if you have a tall redhead attached to you, you stand out more, right?”

I laughed, shaking my head. William seemed to take this as a refusal of his offer, and looking almost sad he fell back. I blinked, confused, and looked back. “I was going to accept,” I marvelled to Beth.

“He learns too well,” Beth reasoned, glancing back as well. “Which is disappointing, because his distraction just made him lose.”

The group of us stopped to wait for William, and a thought struck me. “Hold on,” I said suddenly. “Gabe’s out. Jack’s out. Pete was never playing. Bill just lost—and I was going to walk with you, idiot,” I added as he joined us. Bill rolled his eyes. “Which means…”

“Game over!” Pete announced, amused. Not that he was paying much attention to anything but his new wife. Now I remember why I hate hanging out with couples, I thought, rolling my eyes as Ashlee giggled.

Pause.

“Dibs on Angie!” Alex announced, grinning. I jumped, whirling to face him. Luckily for him, Shawn had already sauntered over to Beth and asked her to dinner—“Do you like Indian?”— leaving me wide open. Apparently everyone won.

We continued meandering around for a while, laughing and making jokes as usual. I did my best to avoid talking to (and looking at) Alex, but there were only eight of us. I knew the instant he slid his arm around my waist and the shivers went up my spine that I was doomed.

“Will you be wearing that dress later?” he asked, breath swirling hot around my ear.

It’s Alex, I reminded myself, carefully not looking at him. Do not be swayed by his… charm. “Now, why would I do that?” I countered quietly.

“Because it shows how absolutely gorgeous you are.” Alex pressed his lips briefly just below my ear. I’ll reiterate, just in case I didn’t make myself clear before: wet, tingly, and Alex did not go together in my universe. But I’m pretty sure the goosebumps on my arm said there could be a renegotiation on that.

I smirked, edging away from him. “I’ll consider it.”

He grinned. “I’ll settle for that. For now.” I quirked an eyebrow at him sceptically. “In the meantime.” Alex put a hand to his head and vehemently ruffled up his hair. I watched, cracking up, and gently picks pieces out of his face. He tugged my wrist, moving my hand out of his face, and keeping his eyes fixed on mine, kissed my knuckles. A grin crept onto my lips.

“Get a room!” Beth called, snapping us both out of it. I put on an innocent expression to combat her pointed look.

“Don’t encourage him,” Bill commented dryly.

We grouped up into two cabs again, surprisingly in the same order with the exception of Gabe in the front seat of ours and Ashlee on Pete’s lap in the back with Beth and I. “For the record,” I muttered to her as we took off back to Gabe’s apartment, “If I’m not back in the morning, I’ve done something stupid. And then probably thrown myself off a bridge.”

Beth smiled comfortingly. “Have fun!”