In This Starless City

Banner by Martyyy. I just couldn't refuse this banner...not that I'd ever want to. ;]

____________________________________________

I was woken up the next morning by the sound of the front door of the bus slamming shut. I shook awake completely and looked around, feeling a pair of arms around my middle constrict slightly and someone take a deep breath beside me. My eyes twitched sideways to see Jack sleeping soundly. Butterflies sprung to life underneath his arms.

Hating myself for having to do so, I poked Jack on the collarbone. “Jack,” I say quietly, smiling when he did in his sleep, his hair falling in his eyes, tickling his face and causing him to pull one of his hands across my stomach, raising goose bumps in its wake. “Jack, wake up. We’re in Seattle and it’s time for breakfast.”

Jack’s eyelids fluttered and opened, connecting with mine right off the bat. I smiled at him. “Morning, star shine.” he smirks before looking down and noticing our closeness and the location of his arms around me and the close proximity of his face to mine. He snuggled into my shoulder instead of choosing to the option to get up.

“Jack,” I protest reluctantly as he pulled me closer. “We have to get up.”

“I don’t want to,” he complains childishly. “I can’t remember the last time I slept that well.” He took another deep breath and his eyes closed again. “I want you and me to stay here until our set…and then I want to come back here and pick up right where we left off.”

I sighed, laughing as he gave me a light squeeze. “Okay, how about this…” I start, causing him to sit up and look at me, interested. “We go and get some breakfast, spend the day doing entirely ridiculous and exhausting things, play our show, and then come back here and sleep like passed out drunks?”

He grinned wildly. “A woman after my own heart,”

He sprung off the bed, grabbing my hand as I slid slowly after him, still waking up a little. Jack went skipping toward the door but I pulled my hand out of his grip. He turned to look at me. “I want to change clothes before I go anywhere,”

“So do I,” he replies, running his hands down his torso slowly, making me look away and laugh, rolling my eyes. “Do you mind?”

“In fact, I do,” I say, swishing a hand at him. “Now get up out of here. Now.” He smirked and skipped out of the bus.

I walked to the back room and looked through my drawer, pulling out a light blue pair of ragging old jeans and a black and gray flannel shirt and a white and black striped beater. I closed the door to the back room and pulled yesterday’s clothes off and that day’s outfit on.

I was lacing up my shoes when I saw Jack’s hat sitting on the floor by the bed where it had fallen the night before. I smiled at it and then at the bed where the blankets were disheveled and the imprints of our bodies were made. We had been incredibly close to each other the entire night, Jack and I, and I found that I couldn’t wait to be there with him again.

I snatched his hat off the floor and put it on my head before walking out of the bus. It was a slightly overcast day in Seattle and it was still pretty early in the day. The air was crisp and cool and refreshing and the buses had parked just outside of that evening’s venue which was built on top of a grassy hill. The sun was peeking from behind the fluffy, yet slightly dark-looking, clouds, and each time the rays touched me, I felt warm and my mood lifted further. I couldn’t help but think that it would be a good day and I hoped that nothing would change that.

I squinted as I walked toward the venue, but stopped at the sound of my name from the opposite direction.

“Come on, we’re going to get some breakfast,” Alex says after jogging over to me with Rian and Oliver following close behind.

I didn’t ask questions, just followed them as they walked back from the way they had come. “Where’s Jack?” I ask, trying not to sound desperate as I looked around inconspicuously for him, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Alex and Rian both looked at each other with strained expressions and I thought I even saw Oliver physically tense up at my mentioning of Jack

Alex looked at me with a face that was meant to comical but came off as warning. “It’s his time of the month,” he says, his voice joking but with a cutting undertone. I looked at him curiously and then turned my attention to the pavement as it passed under my and my friends’ feet.

We walked into a little diner a few blocks away from the venue and I was thankful that they already had a booth saved for us because the very second we stepped into that diner and the sweet, savory smell of pancakes and bacon flowed into my nostrils, I realized how ravished I was and a deep growl ripped through my empty stomach.

My mouth watered as I sat down at the booth and I nodded at the boys sitting around me as they welcomed me. I ordered my food and sat back in the booth, waiting impatiently as my stomach continued to rumble.

The door of the diner opened and closed, the little bell above the door jingling, and I looked up to see Jack walking toward the table. And I was shocked at the expression on his face as well as the way he carried himself as opposed to the mood he seemed to be in when he and I woke up not even an hour before then.

And I had a feeling that God had flipped me off for just being narrow-minded enough to wish for a good day.

His face was long, his eyes were dull, and the corners of his mouth were pulled down into a deep grimace that did not suit his face whatsoever. He was bent over slightly, his shoulders slouched with one of his hands in his pocket while the other held his cell phone in front of his face. His eyes twitched back and forth quickly as he read…whatever it was he was reading.

I watched as he sat down and the conversation at the table resumed. All of the boys were trying not to notice the mood that Jack had suddenly dragged to the table. But I couldn’t participate in any conversation at the table as long as Jack was acting the way he was. He continued to look at his phone in rejection.

I huffed and pulled out my phone, opening a new text message and placing a check mark next to Jack’s name. But before I could even write the message, I received one. I opened it curiously and then couldn’t help the smile that crept across my face.

Nice hat.

I turned my attention across the table to see Jack looking down at his phone, still looking somber but with an ever so slight curve on his lips. I opened the text message to him again and began typing.

What’s up, buttercup?

I pressed ‘send’ and it was off and I placed my phone in my lap, waiting and watching Jack carefully from the corner of my eye.

I noticed Jack’s eyes stop their rotations back and forth and I could’ve sworn I saw an itsy bitsy twinkle in them. His gaze turned to me and he was grinning crookedly. My heart skipped a beat as my phone buzzed in my lap and I opened the text message reply from Jack.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. ;)

I looked at him through devious narrowed eyes and he was smirking as he tapped away at his phone. I went to reply to him, but he had already sent me another message. I opened it and I had to keep my jaw from dropping after I read it.

Before you ask, the right side of the bed was you. :D

My stomach rolled and I glared at him as he smiled smugly and innocently at me. Then, his phone vibrated in his lap and he picked it up, probably expecting a witty response from me, but I hadn’t sent him one, and when his expression sobered and his bad mood gripped him again, I grew unsettled once more.

Seriously, what’s the matter?

Send.

Buzz. He read my text message and his facial expression was not one that I wanted to see.

Tap tap tap.

Buzz.

I picked my phone up and opened Jack’s text message. But it wasn’t Jack’s message. It was from Nathan.

Leave him alone, Char. It’s evident that he doesn’t want to talk about it.

I twitched as I looked across the table to see Nathan looking at me crossly. I ignored his text message and looked to Jack, but much to my dismay, he had put his phone in his pocket and apparently had no intention of texting me back any time soon. I picked my phone up to send him another message, but Nathan cleared his throat across the table and I stopped, sighing irritably and sliding my phone in my pocket as well before looking at Nathan and sending him a look that screamed, ‘There? Happy?’

I finished my breakfast and then left the diner after dropping my money on the table, completely ignoring the boys’ requests to pay for my meal. I wasn’t in the mood for chivalry whatsoever.

I walked down the block and back up the hill to where the buses were parked and the venue was. The roadies were pulling our equipment out of the trailers and setting it up on stage for the evening’s show. I saw the guitar rack and quickly stopped the two men that were moving it. I reached inside and grabbed my bass and thanked them, walking out onto the grassy hillside and sitting down, appreciating the sunlight that was suddenly showing through a hole in the bleak grey sky.

I strummed a few chords and watched the sky. The sun wasn’t very high over the horizon just yet as it was barely even nine thirty in the morning. Despite the earliness, however, the clouds were already looking dark and rain looked more promising then shine. The ray of sunshine that was showing victoriously through the dark veil was swallowed up quickly and I heard thunder rumble through the sky.

“Charlotte?” I turned around to see Zack standing there. I smiled at him before turning and resuming looking at the clouds. I heard him walk forward and then he was sitting next to me.

“Hey Zack,” I say after a delay as I continued to pick the strings on my bass. Zack said nothing and just watched me, his eyes flicking from my face to my moving fingers and back.

I couldn’t help but wonder what he wanted with me. Did he want to talk about why I was sitting on a hillside with my bass when clearly rain was on the way? Did he want to make sure that I understood how badly water and basses mix? Or was he just enjoying my company…or rather was I to be enjoying his?

Obviously I was. He’s Zack Merrick, possibly one of the most adorable bassists in the music industry today. His company alone was enough to make that overcast day a little sunnier.

But finally, the lack of conversation and my curiosity got to me and I looked at him. “May I help you?” I tried not to sound snippy or dire.

He smiled gently and scratched one of his knees that had been pulled up to his chest. “I wanted to talk to you…about…Jack.”

Well, that sure came from left field.

My hands stopped moving on my bass and my attention was now fully on what Zack had to say. He swallowed and then continued.

“The reason he’s PMSing right now is because he’s having a hard time with this girl,” I made an ‘o’ with my mouth and looked at my shoes as hurt rocketed through my midsection. I pressed my bass closer to my stomach in a vain attempt to dull the pain.

“Girlfriend issues,” I murmur, then not wanting to discuss this topic at that particular moment.

“No,” Zack says and suddenly the pain vanished in my stomach vanished. “They’re not together. She broke up with him and he’s completely heartbroken over it.”

“Why?” the pain was back and I had to keep talking to keep from losing my composure.

“They’d known each other since high school and he had allegedly thought that she loved him because he loved her more than anyone he’d ever known. But then, right before this tour, she broke up with him, claiming that he had been cheating on her with groupies and shit.”

My stomach tightened and contorted and I imagined a pretzel-looking organ in my thoracic cavity.

“But as it turns out, she’s been cheating on him,” Zack adds then.

My eyes turned to his and my hurt turned to unyielding fury. How could anyone do that…especially to Jack?

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled, gawking at Zack as he nodded. “If that whore cheated on him, then where in the hell does she come off with the authority to put Jack on the spot like she did?” My anger was palpable. I was positively seething. “And I better question: why the fuck is Jack pining over a girl that is obviously just treating him like a piece of meat?”

That’s when Zack lowered his eyes. “Because he doesn’t know that she’s been cheating on him,”

Well, that did it. I jumped to my feet, bass in hand, and walked toward the buses. Zack called after me. “Charlotte, don’t tell him,”

“Why? He has the right to know.”

“Because he’ll get pissed at you for being nosey and then at me for discussing his personal life with you.” Zack tries to reason with me, but I wouldn’t be swayed right now.

I did stop walking, though, because Zack was right on one front. He would be pissed at him because of what I was about to do. But my mind worked fast and I had an alibi to go off of.

“How did you find out that she was cheating on him?” I asked.

Zack winced. “From Alex,” he answered and I dropped my shoulders in disappointment. “She was trying to get in his pants but nothing happened because Alex knew he couldn’t do that to Jack.”

My rising anger with Alex then disappeared and there was nothing left for me to ask Zack. I had picked my poison and before I turned to walk to the All Time Low bus, Zack hollered after me from where he was standing.

“If he’s pissed at me, Charlotte, I’m going to be pissed at you.”

That made me smile. This shit sounded like high school drama. I turned to look at him while taking backwards steps. “He won’t be,” I holler back. “I promise.” And I continued to the bus.

I got to the door and didn’t even bother knocking. I walked inside and to my pleasure, saw Jack sitting on the couch in the front lounge, his phone in his lap, looking depressed.

My heart jerked with sympathy as I looked at him but then I remembered why I was here and he was looking the way he was and I got furious again.

“Hey Jack,” I say normally, my rage covered with a calm façade. “Is Alex in here?” Jack shook his head. “Rian?” No, again. “Good because I want to talk to you.”

Jack’s brown eyes were on me and interest swirled in them. “About what?”

“About this girl that has you down,” I answer, holding his gaze. Something inside of him must’ve twinged at the reminder of the girl, but I wasn’t fazed. “Jack, she’s not worth it.”

“How do you know?” he asks, clearly angry already. “You don’t even know her.”

“I know her better than you do, obviously.” I snap and Jack’s curious face turned dark.

“I take it you’ve been talking to Zack,” he assumes lethally, discarding his phone onto the couch beside him. I nodded and he scoffed at the ceiling. “That fucker,”

“Hey!” I say firmly. “This isn’t about Zack. This is about you and that bitch,” Jack looked about to retaliate, but I cut him off. “Jack, she’s calling you a cheater when you’ve been nothing but loyal.”

His eyes narrowed. “And you know I’ve been loyal?” he counters but my sure exterior didn’t even waver. “How?”

“Because I know you,” I answer collectedly and sincerely. “You’re sweet and honest…sometimes brutally honest…and I know you would never intentionally hurt anyone or anything.”

“Why are you even saying this, Charlotte?” he asks. He sounded like he was giving up. “Why do you even care?”

“Because I think you deserve better,” I say, my voice small and the electric pain that had surged through my stomach out on the hillside returned and it took everything in me not to visibly wince. “Because you deserve a girl that will be there for you before you even ask; a girl that will not be put off by your double entendres and sexual innuendos; a girl that understands you and loves you for who you are and doesn’t care about who you’re not; a girl that needs you more than you need her and that knows it.”

Jack was watching me as I spoke and I could feel my anger draining from me like water was drained from a bath—slowly at first, but the less there came to be, the more quickly it disappeared.

“And how do you know that she isn’t the one for me?” he sounded pleading now like a part of him knew I was right about everything but the rest of him didn’t want to accept it.

“Because she’s been cheating on you,” I say emotionlessly.

The look on Jack’s face as the words exited my mouth was heart-wrenching and blood-boiling. He was hurt and betrayed and angry but not because of this girl’s actions, but because of which grapevine he’d heard it through. He hurt that I knew more about his personal life than he did; he was betrayed that Zack had told me everything; and most of all, he was angry because he knew I was right about it all.

“Jack?” I ask, putting my hand on his shoulder consolingly. “I’m sorry, Jack.”

He gave a shaky sigh and I couldn’t tell if his anger was really that uncontrollable or if he was on the verge of tears.

“If you’re angry, don’t be at Zack. This was all me. Zack had nothing to do with it.”

He looked at me for a millisecond and then spoke quietly and monotonously. “Just leave, Charlotte,” I was so shocked at this response that I didn’t move. “Please. I want to be alone.”

He didn’t say it rudely and he didn’t sound mad, but I was still worried.

And then suddenly, he was on his feet. “Okay, I’ll leave,” he walked to the door.

“Jack, are you okay?”

He stopped with one foot outside and his hand on the doorknob, turning so I could see the side of his face. “No, I’m pissed…” he trailed off and I knew I could see wrath burning his those eyes of his. “…at you.” and he slammed the door behind him, leaving me alone in his bus and I heard thunder crack through the sky again and I had a feeling that I should get used to the pain that was pulsing through my vitals in that moment…because it would be staying for a while.