The Now or Never Kind

I paced the floor between the door leading to my hotel room and the wall next to Beth's bed, chewing my lip. "You're not helping doing that," Beth said, not looking away from the mirror as she did her makeup. I stopped and put my hands on my hips, eyes on my shoes, the same red patented leather heels Beth had given me for my birthday.

"I'm nervous," I explained emphatically. "I never get nervous."

She looked at me in the mirror, raising an eyebrow in surprise. "You're wearing a hot dress, hot shoes, and red lipstick. You're a knock-out. Why would you be nervous?"

"Um, because I'm going on a date with Alex Gaskarth?"

"Good point. Be nervous." I groaned and threw myself onto her bed. Great thing about hotels: your bed is always made for you. "Oh, quit griping. You know he adores you."

I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. "Yeah, and he's admitted, albeit drunk, that given half the chance he'd get me out of my pants." I sat halfway up to look at her. "I'm not wearing pants, Elisabeth!"

Beth snickered, turning around in her chair. "Tights are the modern chastity belt," she reasoned, motioning me over. "Sit so I can do your hair."

I heaved myself up and slumped in the chair. "They're stockings, actually," I said after a few minutes. "I somehow managed to pack both my striped stockings and my garter belt without realising."

She paused in fixing a clip into my hair before shaking her head. "You're really asking for it, aren't you?" Beth laughed.

I sighed as she finished with me and made some last adjustments to her own outfit. Apparently Shawn was much more casual than Alex decided to be—for once—so Beth was only mildly dressed up. After all, she knew where they were going and what they were doing. I however was a moron and when Alex asked what I wanted to do, I smiled and said, "Surprise me. Just don't fuck it up."

A knock came at the door and Beth strolled across the room, grabbing her purse on the way. Shawn waved at me after greeting his date; I couldn't help rolling my eyes at the flower. "Have a good time, Ange," he said, with only a hint of irony.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, going to flop on Beth's bed again. "Play nice. Beth's not a huge fan of super spicy food. And you don't want to hear what happened the last time Matt tricked her with chicken vindaloo."

Alex was late, which didn't really surprise me. True, it was only six minutes and eleven, twelve, thirteen seconds late, but I got anxious when people weren't on time for plans involving me. Instead of pacing and staring at the clock, I played my new old guitar… and stared at the clock.

At eleven minutes and thirty-five, six, seven seconds I stopped playing the Jeopardy theme and began playing the same riff over and over, going faster and faster until I split the end of my ring finger. "God!" I growled, shoving my guitar back into its case. "Where the fuck are you, Alex?!"

"Behind the door!" came a muffled call.

Very embarrassed, I shuffled to the door and eased it open. I met Alex's eye, full of amusement, sheepishly. "Hey."

"Hey." His gaze flickered over my shoulder. "Ready?" I glanced back into the room, wondering what the hell he was looking at, and grabbed the beaded red purse I borrowed from Beth before shutting the door, sucking on my bleeding finger.

Oddly enough our date was relatively normal, at least as normal as any other date I'd been on. That didn't say much, though. Mostly it was simply Alex and I talking about normal things, catching up on whatever we'd been doing in the other's absence. He said he hoped it wasn't too cliché if we got Italian. I shrugged in response. "Who doesn't love Italy and things that come thence?"

"Certainly not me," he said a certain smile. I arched an eyebrow, resulting in a wink.

Oh. I think he means me.

Alex held the door for me, pulled out my chair for me, and even asked what I was thinking about getting. He ordered wine, glancing at me once or twice to make sure it went with the food, and made shockingly pleasant, mature conversation. Needless to say, I was paranoid.

But I couldn't deny that I was enjoying myself. Alex, admittedly, had always made me laugh (when he wasn't being obnoxious) and we certainly had things in common. That didn't stop me from watching him suspiciously, though.

"Okay," I said, setting down my glass of white wine. I had finished eating, and my date for the evening was pushing the remains of his food around. "Why are you being such a gentleman? It's kind of freaking me out."

Alex smiled slightly into his plate but didn't look up. "Because I kissed you earlier and you seemed kind of shaken up," he replied forthrightly. "What's up with that?"

I blinked a few times, sitting back in my seat. "You surprised me," I excused shortly, making his grin twitch and eyes lift to mine.

"That's all?"

"That's all."

He leaned his chin into his hand, smiling patronisingly. "So nothing to do with the fact that I might have been taking advantage of your newly singleness?"

It was difficult not to gape at him. I frowned, scrutinising Alex through narrow eyes. "…Zack?"

"Zack."

"Bastard."

Alex laughed. "It's not his fault," he said, polishing off his glass of wine. "I told him I had a date with you and he gave me this shpeal about you being vulnerable and liable to do something drastic without thinking."

I smiled wryly as I sipped my wine. "Meaning you," I guessed.

"Maybe." Alex had a strange tint to his smile, which definitely didn't help my paranoia. It made me want to smile, but not in that 'you're fucking hilarious' kind of what, or even 'you're a dork'. "I wasn't expecting to get laid. This is our first date, and you've got standards. Which kind of makes me wonder, what the hell are you doing with me."

"…Okay, now you're really scaring me." With another grin, Alex picked up the bill, but I snatched it out of his hand. "Ah-ah. I feel the need to restore my independence as a woman by not letting you pay for this meal."

"Fine by me," he said as I slipped my credit card into the folder. "Fancy restaurants like this will put you back some paychecks."

I held onto the check in giving it to the waitress; she tugged it, frowning at me, but I was looking at Alex. "Alright, if you make another Matches reference, I'm not talking to you for the rest of this trip," I swore flatly.

Alex grinned blithely. "Like you could stay away."

The doors of the restaurant shut, leaving Alex and I standing at the edge of the canopy watching the rain pouring from the sky. We exchanged a look. "Shit," he said, looking down the street at the traffic, "Well, so much for my next idea."

I lifted a hand, feeling the icy droplets hit my skin. "And now for my next trick," I muttered, staring upward with a small smile. I dropped my hand and turned, finding Alex watching me. "What was your idea?"

"I was going to suggest we go walk somewhere." He shrugged, glancing up again. "I guess that's out now."

"Nonsense." I stepped out from under the awning and whirled around, shivering. I beamed at his bemused expression. "What? It's only water."

He looked down at himself. "But we're all dressed up," he said incredulously.

"So?" I challenged, pulling the clip from my hair and letting it spill everywhere. "They're just clothes. If your shirt's dry-clean only, just hang it up in a shower, and if your pants are dry-clean only, we can go back to my hotel room and you can take them off."

Alex raised an eyebrow at me. "Really?"

I shot him a cryptic smile and turned down the block. "We'll see."

Alex had told me, several months before during a phone conversation, that he loved my silly moods; I assumed it was because every other sentence out of my mouth was a joke, usually innuendo. I personally enjoyed when he was more serious, still a smartass but not bouncing and spastic like he got sometimes. So with both of us in our respective favourite moods, we were getting on famously. We talked about whatever came to mind, interspersed with jumping over large puddles and dancing in circles.

"I already knew you were single," Alex half-shouted over the surrounding noise; he'd abandoned attempting to make his hair look somewhat normal nearly twenty minutes before. "Before Zack told me, I mean."

I cocked my head sideways before hopping over a puddle. "Oh?" I replied interestedly.

He nodded. "You're not as much of a maze as you like to think you are."

"You're not as much of an asshole as everyone makes you out to be," I countered with a smirk.

"…Okay, I can see how I might deserve that. But back to my point." We paused at the curb and in front of a huge puddle. When the light turned, Alex jumped over it and held out his hand; I took it and, as daintily as I was able, leapt to his side. We both glared at the car that honked at us, and I found myself walking a little closer when he laid his sopping wet arm around my soaked shoulder.

"You knew I was recently single," I prompted when he looked up in thought.

Alex smiled. "Thanks. Yeah, my first clue was at the bar."

"Have you been watching crime investigation shows again?"

"Yes, now shut up," he ordered flippantly. I grinned and continued strolling in silence. "I know you don't hit it hard unless you have reason, but having Jack play your boyfriend was a little too strange." Amazingly we ended up at my hotel, and the man behind the lobby counter stared at us, agog, as we sauntered to the elevator.

"Next, the, uh, vehemence that you played 'Vegas' with. Kind of a tip-off that he's from Vegas." Amazingly the elevator came just after I pushed the button, so we strolled in, still attached at the hip. "Also, you let me get close enough to kiss you before we got food. Which brings me to my final point."

The elevator doors opened, and we walked down to my room. "You didn't stop me from kissing you earlier," Alex declared, stopping in front of me beside my door. "And you didn't hit me or anything. In fact…" He leaned in conspiratorially and whispered. "I think you liked it."

I smirked and crossing my arms, I leaned against my door. "You're pretty sure of your evidence there," I observed, noticing that he moved with me as I moved. "What are you going to do with such information?"

"I could blackmail you," Alex mused, stepping closer. "Obviously you're here to get away from him, and I'm guessing from your lack of band that neither he nor they know where you are. So I could threaten to tell them unless you do what I want." My back pressed against the flat panel of the door, and he smiled. "But that would probably just give you reason for revenge."

I smiled down at the sopping white shirt clinging to his chest and up past his stringy wet hair hanging in his eyes. "Probably," I agreed softly. "And that wouldn't be very nice."

Alex grinned, eyes flickering downward briefly. "Or…"

"Or…?"

He ducked his head to the side, and my skin prickled as his lips skimmed across my cheek to my ear. "Or you could open the door," he murmured, hand going to my waist.

"If I open the door," I said after wetting my lips, "We'll both fall, and that would make you the second guys who's accidentally landed on top of me in a week."

Alex tilted his head. "The second?"

I rolled my eyes. "Long story." We looked at each other for a long moment. I swallowed hard. "Want to watch a movie?" He grinned, and I took that as a yes.

I couldn't help chuckling to myself as I opened the door to my hotel room; to an outsider this probably looked pretty scandalous, two dripping wet kids, smiling at each other as they crept into a room. There was nothing reprehensible about it. Except for what was behind the door.

One of the maids—or room-cleaners or whatever politically correct shit you want to call them—was being pressed against the wall next to the bathroom door by one of the cooks, one of her legs wrapped around him. I could only gawk, feeling the blood rush to my face.

"What the—" Alex tugged me back out of the room and slammed the door shut. He pulled me down to the end of the hall, and I numbly stumbled after him. My brain had shorted out, and all I could think of was how unclean my room now was.

"Angie." Alex seemed concerned. Odd, he was hardly ever concerned.

"C'mon, snap out of it." I wanted a new room! One without the certain knowledge that people had been… doing things… in it. If anyone was going to be doing things in my room, it should have been me! And since this was only a first date—

Suddenly I realised that Alex had stopped his attempts at trying to distract me and had… well, distracted me. But then again, it's hard to ignore someone who's kissing you.

Hemanaged to tear himself away pulled away, hands still resting on my face, and I stared at him blankly. Was it National Confuse Angie By Kissing Her Day? If so, why wasn't I informed? I would've locked myself in my room. But back to matters at hand, I couldn't think of anything to say. That was the second time Alex had kissed me that day, so I did the first thing that came to mind.

I slapped him.

Not hard. Just enough to get him to realise he shouldn't go around kissing girls.

Er, me.

"I would say sorry," he said, stepping back and moving wet hair out of his eyes.

"But it would be disingenuous," I finished. Alex shrugged admittedly. I snorted and walked back down the hall. "They've had enough time to clear off. If they haven't gotten their shit together and out of my room, I'm getting people fired."

Alex caught up with me as I pulled out the keycard for the room. "You've been hanging out with Beth too much."

"Bite your tongue, child," I chided mildly, “Beth wouldn’t have given them a chance to run.” I poked my head into my room. "All clear." I strolled in, tossing my purse onto the table and going into the bedroom to kick off my shoes. When I came back to tell Alex I would lend him some clothes, I found him on the couch sifting through the purse. "Hey!"

I stalked across the room and made to grab it, except that he held it out of my grasp at the last second and sent me sprawling. Across his lap. Alex seemed to stop caring, and I snatched my purse out of his hand. "Oh… my… god," he marvelled as I sat up.

Next thing I knew, Alex had pinned me to the couch, sending my purse rolling across the floor. But he wasn't looking at me; he was more interested in my dress, which he was edging up my thigh. I swatted his hand, but I faltered when Alex dipped his head and attached his lips to my neck. A gasp slipped past my lips as he nibbled the skin just below my ear. His hand pushed my skirt up further, and Alex drew his head away to smirk down at my red garter belt holding up my black-and-white-striped stockings.

"You… fucking cheater," I breathed, trying to push him off me again.

"You know, I've never seen a girl wear these in real life," he mused, trailing his fingers over my skin.

"Alexander William Gaskarth, I'm going to kill you, or worse, if you don't get off me."

"Worse?"

"Several things spring to mind, all of them incredibly painful." Alex chuckled and got to his feet, holding out a hand to pull me up; because I'm an idiot, I took it and ended up pressed against him. He stole another kiss, and I sighed. "Have I told you today that you're an asshat and a shameful seducer?"

He grinned. "That's a new one," he said, letting me go. "Not all bad, though."

I locked the bedroom door when I changed into my sleep clothes—unfortunately I didn't pack anything more modest than a pair of Matt's boxers and a t-shirt—and walked out with a similar outfit, which I threw at Alex's head. He tipped his imaginary hat and walked to the bathroom; once the door shut, I scrambled for my phone to send out several SOS's.

I almost dropped my cellphone when Alex reappeared. "I hung my clothes up in the shower," he said, ruffling a hair through his hair, now mostly dry. "If that's okay with you." I nodded mutely, desperate to keep my mouth shut lest I say something stupid.I kept all those things to myself. Alex smirked. "You're blushing."

"No, I'm not, shut up," I quipped, sweeping past him. I heard him follow me into the bedroom and when I settled myself into the bed, he was standing in the doorway with his head cocked to one side. "What? I'm cold and wet, and bed is warm and dry."

Alex shook his head. "I don't think I'll ever figure you out." He drew back the covers and climbed into the bed.

"I don't see what everyone's obsession with figuring me out is," I commented, settling myself into the covers. "Why can't you just accept that I'm a complex person and I don't want to be figured out?"

"It's not like you make it easy," he yawned. "Shit, I'm tired. What time is it?"

I glanced at the clock-radio. "Quarter-past eleven."

"Fuck, I feel old."

"Random."

Alex and I continued talking, interspersed with yawns, until we looked at each other and realised neither of us could stay awake. So I turned off the light and settled into the pillow, listening to the sounds of the New York City night and trying not to focus on Alex breathing. I tucked an arm under my head—cursing my brain for making me more awake in the dark—and after a while stole a glance over at Alex. He was asleep already, mouth open and hair in his face. I smiled into the dim light and turned on my side, shutting my eyes.

I could see the sunlight trying to crawl in under my eyelids and could hear voices, but I really didn't want to get up. I knew there was too much to do that day, and hotel beds were a rare commodity.

"Mom?" a voice asked. I raised my head blearily. Three pairs of big brown eyes peered at me under identical mops of messy brown and blonde hair; they were sitting on the end of the bed. "Mom?"

"What, boys?" I asked sleepily, struggling to sit up.

"We're bored," the middle boy whispered loudly. The other two nodded.

I groaned slightly and fell back into the sheets. "Go play with your Uncle Jack," I said, shutting my eyes again. The bed bounced several times, and I opened one eye to watch the three little figures run out of the room before shutting it again.

A hand snaked across my middle and I smiled, feeling the body beside me press against my back. "Hey," he whispered, kissing my ear.

"Mmm… hey," I replied sleepily. The hand trailed downward as his mouth moved to my neck; I chuckled. "Alex… the boys are awake…"

"So?" he replied against my skin. Alex urged me to roll over and smiled at my sleepy face. "Let Jack and Rian deal with them. I never get time for just my baby." His hand continued its venture downward, and I bit my lip. "Besides, I want you so bad, Angie."

I jolted awake, eyes going wide. There is a hand on your stomach, I told myself. Its owner grumbled sleepily. "Babe, it's like seven-thirty in the morning."

I screamed. I couldn't help it. I also couldn't help falling out of bed, which I did. Then I stayed on the floor, trying to get my bearings, and when Alex looked over the side of the bed at me, his hair sticking up in all directions and looking incredibly confused, I jumped up and slapped him.

Hard.

…Couldn't help that either.

"I swear to the gods, if you get me pregnant, you are so dead," I hissed, tugging on a hoodie and holding it tightly.

Alex stared after me, rubbing his cheek, as I stalked out of the bedroom. A minute later I heard him call, "What the fuck?" I flopped onto the couch, propped my feet up on the table, and texted furiously.

Before you get the wrong idea or the bastard gives you the wrong idea, I am not steadily conquering my way through your band. I shoved my phone into a pocket and crossed my arms over my chest, one foot tapping against the other. Zack got up early, right? He shouldn’t be asleep.

Jack and Rian hate you. I smiled to myself. Oh well! And darn, that would have meant I was next.

…Why didn’t I pick him again?