The Words I Thought I Would Never Say

"Can you please stay on your side of the freaking bed?" I grumbled to Brian as he rolled closer to me on the air mattress.

Yet again, Riley had gotten tired of us and had gone to sleep in with Matt, Zacky, and Jimmy. She complained that Jimmy snored too much but it was better than listening to Brian and I bicker all night.

"I'm a cuddler. Get the fuck over it." He groaned as he continued to toss and turn.

"Then go cuddle with Zacky!" I hissed as I flipped over and glared at him. His head was propped up on his hand and he was looking at me expectantly.

"I can't fucking cuddle with Zacky." His eyes rolled in their sockets. I took the moment to observe that he was yet again shirtless and the sheet and blanket only covered up to his waist. I flopped down on the bed making it bounce and groaned into my pillow.

"Sure you can. You've slept in a bed with him on tour before. I'm sure it wouldn't be the first time you two have cuddled."

He slid closer still and I knew if he got any closer and I decided to move away I would end up on the floor and I really didn’t want that to happen. He narrowed his eyes and inched even closer. Before I could blink an eye his arms shot out and grabbed me around the waist. He tugged me closer to him and I settled into his arms unwillingly.

"Much better." He mumbled against my hair.

"Why are you so annoying?" I grumbled.

"Because I feel like annoying you. Besides, I already told you, I like to cuddle." He informed me once again.

"Oh, so just because you don't have some skank to pull into your arms means that you have to use me instead?" My sarcastic front came through and Brian instantly glared at me.

"You know, I try and be nice and all I get is shit from you." He retorted but didn't remove his arms at all.

A chirping sound came from his side of the bed and with one hand he reached behind him and grabbed onto his cell phone that was making the noise.

"Hey baby." He said pulling it up to his ear. I closed my eyes and tried very hard to resist the urge to knee him in the balls at this moment. He was talking to that whore again and I didn’t want to be around it. I struggled against him but his grip didn’t budge.

"McKenna I told you, I'll be back in a few days. I'll fix it then."

My struggling instantly ceased when I heard the name he had called the girl. It was McKenna. Brian noticed my frozen state and looked at me quizzically.

Well if I didn’t feel bad before I sure felt bad now.

"Baby I've got to go. You sleep well alright? And tell dad to chill ok? Goodnight babe." Brian closed his phone and tossed it across the tent behind him.

"You alright?" He questioned after noticing the change in my demeanor.

"Fine. That was McKenna?"

"Yeah. Her laptop broke and my dad is flipping shit over it. He doesn't want to take it to get fixed. It's probably something simple that I have to fix when I get back home."

I nodded and relaxed my body some. Brian wrapped his arms around me again and continued to hold me close. He dipped his head so it was resting against my own.

"You thought she was someone else didn't you?" He mumbled against my hair.

"No."

"Don't lie to me." He chuckled. I turned my head to face him and narrowed my eyes.

"I'm not lying." I told him firmly.

"Yes you are." His tone was mocking and showed me that he knew better. He didn't believe a word I was saying.

"Alright fine. I thought she was someone else." I admitted in a frustrated voice.

"I know you did. You thought she was Holly." I closed my eyes and refused to look at him as he continued to speak. "I know you overheard me the other day too. Admit it." His teasing tone was really starting to get to me.

"I thought she was Holly. Happy now?" I concluded as I snapped my eyes back open to stare into his.

"Not quite. Why would you be upset if I were still with Holly?"

Now it was my turn to give Brian the disbelieving look. "Are you serious? I'd be pissed because I don't want her around after what she said about me and Riley." I whispered harshly once I realized that my voice had been steadily increasing in volume. I didn't need to wake everyone up and have them all mad at me.

"And that's exactly why I'm not with her anymore. I wish you'd trust me more."

"Well your track record doesn't really allow for that kind of trust now does it?"

Brian's eyes were overcome with hurt when I mentioned that. It was the harsh truth though. For as long as I've known him he's been a player and I don't typically trust guys like that. I don't think any girl should trust a guy like that because they only end up getting hurt.

"Ouch." Brian said as he moved one of his hands to place it on his chest, his other one still wrapped tightly around me. "That hurt right here." He said as he pointed to his heart for emphasis.

"The truth hurts." I retorted. I lifted my head slightly and propped it up with my arm. "Why would you expect me to say any differently? We both know you're the player of the group so why try and deny it?"

"I always have been the player, yes. But maybe I don't want to be the player anymore." I couldn’t help but scoff at this. Trying to get Brian away from women was like trying to get Jack Daniels away from Zacky. It just wouldn’t work. "I'm serious." He said again. "Why would I lie about that?"

"To get in my pants." I grumbled under my breath.

Brian's eyes held more hurt when I said that. "Jade I would never do anything to hurt you or Riley. That's not even an option in my book." He explained as he shook his head lightly causing his limp hair to flop side to side gently.

I let out a sigh knowing what he was saying was the truth. I just didn't want to admit it.

"Whatever. I just want to go to sleep." My head flopped back down on the pillow and Brian let out a sigh.

I felt Brian's arms shift slightly and he pulled me closer still to his body. I was frustrated with myself to admit that the warmth that he was generating was very welcomed by my body. I instinctively let my head rest against his chest. The pounding of his heart sounded in my ears with every beat.

I jumped slightly as Brian's fingers gently lifted up the bottom of my tank top and started to draw tiny circles on the small of my back. With my eyes still closed I formed a scowl and furrowed my eyebrows.

"Are you ever going to let me get to sleep?" I asked the agitation clearly evident in my voice.

"Well I'm not tired yet." His response was somewhat childish and I secretly thought he was doing it just to annoy me.

"That's nice. This isn't all about you though. I'm actually exhausted. Unlike you I have to chase a three year old around all day and believe it or not it's rather exhausting."

"Sounds like you need a massage." His hands shifted yet again and my agitation overcame me.

"Brian stop it!" I whispered harshly as I flopped around trying to get away from him. "Stop! Just stop! Cut it out!" The sheets were flying in a heap in the air and the bed was bouncing all over the place as my struggles finally paid off. I was sitting up and glaring down at him. He was lying there with an innocent grin on his face and his hands folded across his bare chest looking angelic. I'm sure my hair was completely disheveled and my tank top was hanging lopsided, not that I really cared at the moment.

I lifted my finger and pointed at him as I continued to glare. "Leave. Me. Alone." I said placing emphasis on each word that came out.

"Who me?" He pointed to himself with a look that said I was crazy to have been talking about him. I wasn't finding this situation funny however.

I only scowled even more at him and flopped down on the bed before untangling myself from the sheets and sorting them out on top of me. Once I was settled again I took a deep breath and curled up on the edge of the bed, as far away from Brian as was possible.

I didn't even get to close my eyes all the way before the bed took another bounce and I was staring up into the face of Brian who had pounced on top of me. I squealed in surprise and fought to push him off of me but my futile attempts were useless.

He rolled over twice with me still pressed against him and I was eventually still underneath his body. The smirk on his face was unbelievable and I wanted nothing more than to wipe it right off.

"I like it when you're feisty." I growled in response to his statement and decided that me getting upset was giving him exactly what he wanted. So instead of giving into him I decided to lay still. I stared up into his eyes and glared; that was one thing that wasn't going away.

Silence met my ears for a quick second before a new sound started to cross the airwaves. This one was a high pitched hiss that caused my eyes to widen drastically. It wasn't but seconds before I felt the mattress start to sink under our weight.

There was a hole in it.

"Damn it Brian! Look what you did!" I seethed as he started to laugh lightly.

"I didn't do anything." He stated calmly.

"Yes you did! You popped the mattress!"

"I did not. That was a team effort."

"It was not! If you had just let me fall asleep then the air would be staying inside of the mattress and not be blowing out!"

All Brian could do was laugh. I'm so glad he was finding this situation to be oh so amusing while I was quite heated about it. As far as I knew we didn't have another mattress so we were pretty much out of luck on this one. The only thing that might save me was if there was a patch repair kit hidden somewhere. Like I'd ever be able to find that.

"I hate you. Did you know that?"

"We've been through this before. You don't hate me." He said as he rolled his eyes. His body tipped off of me and the loss of the extra weight meant that I was now lying flush against the ground. I closed my eyes and took a nice deep breath in hopes that I wouldn't blow up at him.

My attempts didn’t work.

"Now what the hell are we supposed to do? I sure as hell am not sleeping on this cold floor. You had better fix this before I take drastic measures." I all but yelled at him.

Brian just sat opposite me, looking at me in amusement. "What might those drastic measures be? I mean, I know some really good ways to generate body heat." He said as he wiggled his eyebrows at me.

"Lets put it this way, there will be no more 'heat making' for you after I cut your balls off and go find a bear to feed them to." I smiled at him sarcastically but he only laughed in return. I was really getting tired of him laughing at this whole situation. It wasn't funny at all.

He must have sensed my frustrations because he stopped laughing. "Chill. I'll go find us some sleeping bags or something." I watched as he sat up on his knees and pulled a hoodie over his head. He then slid some sweats over his boxers and crawled over to the flap of the tent.

Once he was outside I allowed myself to run a hand over my face and let out a sigh of annoyance. Why was everything always so complicated with Brian? He could never do things the easy way. Had he of just left me alone and we would still have a blown up air mattress and I would be sleeping by now. But no. Apparently that wasn't part of the plan tonight for some reason.

I continued to sit there in annoyance for a few minutes before deciding that it was taking Brian far too long. I pulled a hoodie over my own head as well as some Spongebob pajama pants before I unzipped the flap and headed out into the cold night. I shoved my hands into my pockets before I looked around and realized Brian was nowhere to be found. I craned my head around and when I still didn’t see him I decided to go find him.

I searched around the other tents and still didn't see any sign of him. He wasn't near the fire that was now almost completely out and he wasn't near the storage containers that were resting underneath a tarp next to the table.

The only other place I could think he would be at was near where the cars were parked. I made my way over and sure enough, there was Brian. He was standing with his upper torso inside of his car as he searched for something.

"Brian?" I asked softly, not wanting to startle him. My attempt was a failure though because his head jerked up and he hit it on the door frame. He let out a string of colorful words before he reached up and rubbed the top of his head. I covered my mouth in an attempt not to laugh.

As he turned around he pulled out a sleeping bag that was all rolled up and tied with a black string. His eyes gave me a slight glare and my mouth formed an 'o' shape as he continued to rub his head.

"What?" He asked grumpily. I stifled a laugh and brought my hand down.

"Sorry. I was just seeing if you needed help finding anything."

"No I don't. There's good news and bad news though. Good news is I found a sleeping bag. Bad news is it's pretty small and now I've got a nice bump on my head."

I closed my eyes in a painful expression and groaned. My night just kept getting better and better. Why couldn’t anything ever be easy for me? Why couldn’t things that involved Brian ever be simple? I swear up and down that whenever he is involved things get ten times more complicated than they ever should be.

"How small is small?" I asked afraid of the answer I was going to get in response.

"Umm like big enough for one person." That was exactly the answer I didn’t want to hear but it was the one I was anticipating anyway.

"Fantastic." Brian continued to scratch his head as I mumbled under my breath. His eyes shifted from me to the sky and I watched as they lit up mysteriously.

"I've got an idea." He stated as he turned and walked away from his suv and toward Jimmy's pick up. I followed curiously and watched as he pulled the back end down and climbed up into the bed. He unrolled the sleeping bag and laid it out flat.

"Go get the sheets and pillows." He told me as he continued to flatten out the sleeping bag. "Please." The extra addition to the sentence was greatly appreciated on my part and I did as told and went to gather the sheets and pillows from the deflated air mattress.

I knew what Brian had in mind and I actually thought it might be sort of fun. I had never slept out under the stars before and considering it wasn't too cold it was the perfect night for it.

Once I returned I handed him the items and he set them on the makeshift bed. He then squatted down and reached his arms out to me. I allowed myself to be hoisted up effortlessly onto the pick up truck by him.

I looked up at the sky and smiled at how clear the night sky was this evening. Brian settled down on his side of the bed and patted the empty spot beside him. I sat down first and then allowed my body to extend out so I was lying flat on my back. Brian tossed the sheet over me and I shivered at its cool touch.

"Cold?" He asked quietly after a few seconds of silence between us.

"Sort of, yeah." I admitted just as softly.

His body shifted and I allowed him to wrap his arms around me tightly so I could get warm. This time I didn’t so much mind the cuddling because he wasn't being a pain about it like he had been before.

I shifted so I was comfortably lying in his arms and yet I was able to look up at the stars at the same time.

A small ghost of a smile crossed my lips as I remembered how Matt used to try and teach me to sing twinkle twinkle little star when we were both little. I'll never forget when we had come to visit and he had learned it in school and wanted to show it off to us. He sang it proudly and then insisted on teaching me how to sing. I chuckled inwardly as I mentally could hear him singing as a kid and noticed just how his voice had changed as he had grown up. He no longer sang about stars but instead was all about strippers and songs about a crazy trip to Las Vegas that was depicted in his favorite book.

"What are you smiling about?" Brian asked curiously as his fingers started to trace circles on my back without my protest this time.

"Just past memories."

"Of what?"

"Matt and I growing up." I laughed.

"Care to share? I'm always up for dirt on one of my best friends."

As I explained what I had been remembering to Brian he cracked a smile and laughed along with me.

"Damn. It sounds like the two of you had a lot of good times growing up."

"We did." I nodded. "He's basically like my older brother."

"So why then did I never meet you until just a few years ago?" His question was one I knew was bound to come up eventually. It was sort of complicated to say the least.

"When you guys started out I stopped visiting because I didn't want to interfere with Matt's life. I had enough problems as it was and Matt also had enough on his plate. I finished high school and that's when my parents basically abandoned me. I was too full of my pride to go to Matt."

"So you went to Mike instead."

"I did. Matt and I still talked on the phone but I never really visited. He would come up and see me when you guys were on tour and that's about the time he found out I had been raped. I learned that I needed Matt more than ever and we sort of rekindled our relationship. I still tried to avoid the band because I didn't want to bring my messed up life into yours but Matt was insistent that I come down when I could with Riley."

I paused to take a breath and contemplate how I was going to continue.

"Eventually I realized it wasn't worth it and that's the time I met you all. I didn't really want Riley around your lifestyle either so she was staying with my friend up north when you all came over to visit. I didn't want it known that I had a little girl because I was nervous as to what you all would think of me at the time. Most guys first reaction is that I'm some whore who can't keep my legs closed when it's actually rather the opposite. I just didn't want to deal with opening another can of worms."

"That's understandable. I mean, we weren't quite the best group of guys back then. I just wish I had known about you guys sooner though."

Brian's last statement puzzled me. Why did he want to get to know us sooner? What difference would that have made for us all?

Not wanting to ponder that too far I shoved it away into the back of my mind and let out a content sigh once it was stored away.

"It's just all complicated Brian."

"I know it is. But now you have a family that cares about you guys. It doesn’t have to be complicated anymore."

"You're right. It doesn’t."

"You should get some sleep." He told me softly as I let out a yawn. I nodded against his chest and let my eyes stare up at the midnight sky. The stars were ever so softly twinkling down at us as we lay in silence.

My eyes started to drift closed and I think for the first time in a very long time I was finding myself enjoying the company of Brian Haner Jr.