In This Starless City

I don’t recall how long Jack and I spent on the deck of the pool area that night. I could only remember how great he felt pressed against me. My memory was foggy from the moment his lips had touched mine on the end of the diving board to the second he had kissed me goodnight in my hotel room.

Yes, that’s right. We slept in different beds, different rooms, even on opposite sides of the hallway.

And now it was the next morning. Sun was pouring in the window beside my bed, casting a rectangle of beautiful yellow warmth across my legs. I didn’t want to move, but there was a knock on my door not long after my eyes had opened. But I don’t believe in coincidence; I knew he it was on the other side.

I got up and shuffled tiredly to the door, opening it. “Good morning, Jack,” I say without really looking at him.

He replied with the same and followed me into my room. I caught his reflection in the television as I passed. He was already dressed and ready for the day. I was in my pajamas, which consisted of gym shorts and a t-shirt of The Matches. But it was so early, I was so tired, and my mind was so blown that I didn’t care what I looked like.

I flopped down on my bed again, slithering under the blankets and pulling them up to my chin. I felt Jack sit down by my legs, placing his hand on my knee. Then I couldn’t decide if it was because he wanted to be closer to me or closer to the warmth of the sunlight that caused him to bounce over me and snuggle up to my side.

I looked at him. The sunlight was casting down behind him and it gave him a heavenly look. I had to blink a few times to gather my thoughts.

“How are you this morning?” I inquire though I think I had a pretty good idea based on the glint in his eye and the smile on his face.

“I’m fucking wonderful,” he responds, running a hand across my stomach to hook it around my hip and slide me across the sheets and closer to him. “You?”

I gave an effortless shrug. “Just tired, really,” I blinked a few times again, my eyes flickering from his own to his lips and back in confusion and excitement.

“I think we should talk about what happened last night,” He says and I groaned. That was exactly what I didn’t want to do with my mouth at that moment. “Charlotte, we’re going to be touring together for another three weeks. If this goes to hell in a hand basket, that’s a long time for us to hate and have to put up with each other at the same time.”

His smoldering eyes connected with mine. “There’s no ‘this’,” I say brutally, waving a hand between the two of us, causing my heart to nose-dive toward my knees, a wave of honest hurt drowning me. But I kept my façade as nothing more than realistic understanding. His, however, was more straightforward and I could tell just by looking at him that I had hurt him with my comeback. “But I don’t think ‘this’ would go to hell in hand basket.” I tried to salvage the situation.

I tried to say more, but my throat had constricted and I could only look at him. His eyes had dimmed and his smile had vanished and I tried to contain some composure, but I knew the dams behind my eyes would overflow and that that would be my downfall.

“I didn’t say it definitely would go to hell in a hand basket,” he said softly. “I was speaking hypothetically.”

“You were speaking with such certainty,” my voice was little more than a squeaky whisper.

“I think I picked that up from you,” he was hovering over me now. His hand was on my cheek and his thumb was tracing the dark rings that were under my eyes. Lyrics were scuttling around my brain, but I kept my focus on Jack. I couldn’t have taken my eyes off of him if I wanted to.

“I’m never certain,” I murmur, my eyelids fluttering as his other hand marked out the indentations of my ribcage, causing a chill to run through me from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes.

“You seemed to be certain that the girl I used to be with was a cheating whore,” he insisted and I looked at him. His face was expressionless other than the slight smirk that was playing on his lips. I was glad that he was over her completely (if that’s what this was). “You seemed to be certain when you were telling me how much better I could do than her,” he paused as his eyes trailed down my face to where my lips were apart, wanting to say something. But when my voice box retreated once again, he continued. “You seemed to be certain when you were telling me what kind of girl I should have in my life.”

He was still counting my ribs lazily while his thumb continued to pace across my cheek. I could only inquire aloud, “You remember that?”

“You said it, didn’t you?” his smile widens as he knew he was getting somewhere with me. I quirked an eyebrow challengingly. “You said that ‘I deserve a girl that will be there for me before I even ask; a girl that will not be put off by my double entendres and sexual innuendos; a girl that understands me and loves me for who I am and doesn’t care about who I’m not; a girl that needs me more than I need her and that knows it’.” He quoted me flawlessly and I felt my heart swell into my throat.

“Again, your certainty is unflappable,” I say nonchalantly.

He laughed quietly, his fingers hitching into my side in what I hoped was an involuntary move because my reacting squeak and jerk toward him was completely involuntarily as well. But I had a feeling that he knew I would react that way…

“I’m certain that I know what I want,” he says after a pause and I looked at him for a long moment. He leaned down so that his nose was touching mine and more importantly, his lips were just millimeters away from mine. I could feel them move as he said, “And you know how I know I'm going to get it? ‘Cause I know how bad I want it.”

I hesitated. “Things like this won’t come easy,” I say as I took my eyes off of his mouth for what felt like the millionth time.

I wanted him to make a sexual joke. I wanted him to laugh and say something immature about the verb I had just chosen. But no, he decided to be the sensitive make-Charlotte-fall-further-for-you Jack and he replied, with such sincerity that I almost laughed in his face, “Nothing in this world worth having does.”

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Since my birthday was the following day, I was pleased to hear that the bar where I would be getting plastered at that night was already lined up and that all we had to do was get there after the show.

I thought that sounded simple enough.

We would be performing the next two nights in a row at an outdoor venue, and I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate my birthday.

I was on stage doing a personal soundcheck when Alex bound up to me with a hearty grin on his face. I stared down at my hands as I tuned my bass, hoping, praying even, that he’d skip away because a look like that on the face of that particular boy was bound not to be good news.

“May I help you, Gaskarth? I ask, not taking my eyes off of the tuning keys.

“No, but I heard you helped out Jack last night,” I turned a key too far and the string snapped, causing me to jump and both of my hands to slip. My consequential glare toward Alex only caused his smug grin to widen. “Unless you intend on doing the same for me right ere, right now, I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do that would…please me.”

The way he purred the last two words made my insides squirm and my cheeks flush pink. I kept my gaze down as I walked away from him, his eyes burning deviously into my back as I went offstage to find Zack so that I could steal a bass string, like I always did when I broke one.

I found him just offstage, talking and laughing with Rian, and I asked if I could have yet another string before apologizing for having made it my job to break my own. Zack only smiled and nodded, telling me that his strings were, unfortunately, all the way out in the van that we had rented. Groaning, I set my bass down and set out toward the vehicle.

And as I walked away, I could hear my name amongst the snickers that were being tossed back and forth between Rian and Zack. My mood depressed and my quick-stepped walk turned into a bit of a trudge.

I found the van after rather unsuccessful attempt at going unseen by fans. Don’t get me wrong, I loved meeting fans and I was very pleased that our music had extended over the Atlantic already. Of course, whenever any one fan caught a glimpse o a member of All Time Low, our fans’ reactions paled in comparison.

Which just made me want to get back to warming up all the more quickly.

I got to the van and slid the door open, climbing into the middle seat and ruffaging through the shit that had accumulated onto the seats at a remarkable speed being as we had only ad the vans for a little over twenty-four hours.

Charlotte Melancholic had our own van, which was parked behind All Time Low’s, and in each van, each member’s belongings were separated onto each row of seats. Behind Zack’s designated area of shit was Jack’s and whilst looking for bass strings, I was subconsciously wondering what fun things I could find one row back.

I finally found the strings I was looking for, but before I made to get out of the van and head back to the venue, I peaked over the seat to Jack’s stash of possessions. He’d never know I was back there, I thought slyly, and there can’t be anything that he’s trying to hide in a van he shares with three of his friends. So, with a quiet conscience, I hopped the seat and began mulling through the disheveled nonsense that was Jack Barakat.

There wasn’t much to find, I soon found out, but there was a ton to see. He had three of his baseball caps sitting under the seat and I pondered snagging one of them for a while. I found magazines, a few books, other pieces of miscellaneous clothing, and I wondered why he kept all these random artifacts in van.

“Find anything worth its weight in gold?” I jumped, hitting my head on the ceiling of the van and swearing under my breath. I ducked to see Jack sitting on the edge of the van floor, one leg dangling outside while he rested his arm on the knee of the other.

I had to physically keep myself from staring at him.

“Nothing yet though I wonder as to why you keep a magazine like this in a van,” I held up a Play Boy and gave him a stern look. He laughed, taking it from my hands and stuffing it under the seat.

“Because Alex is a lonely boy,” he kids.

“Well, he has reason to be now since you’ve been flaunting the fact that you made out with me on a pool floor,” the humor in the air vanished. “Do you really think I wanted the whole world and their sister to know about my personal life?”

He shrugged, adjusting his seat on the edge of the doorway. “I only told them because they were asking me where I was last night and if I hadn’t of told them, they would’ve assumed worse,”

I scoffed. “You know what they say about those who assume,” Jack just looked at me. “It makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’.”

“Clever,” Jack responds, the glimmer of mischief and fun back in his eyes and voice. I made to climb out of the van but he slammed the door shut and advanced toward me, causing me to stumble back on his seat away from him in surprise. I knocked quite a few of his belongings onto the floor, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

“Stop fooling around, Jack,” I warn reluctantly as he came closer.

“I like fooling around,” he countered and my stomach jolted.

“We have to warm up soon.”

I swallowed when I realized he was on top of me and I had slid down the side of the van so that I was completely underneath him. I couldn’t have rolled away from him even if I wanted to. He had me right where he wanted me…

“If by ‘we’ you mean you and I, well, we can warm up now.”

He lowered himself so that he was lightly touching me and then touched my lips with his. Of course, warming up was an understatement because the moment he kissed me, it was like tiny bonfires had been lit under every exposed area of flesh on my body.

As we continued to make out right there in All Time Low’s van, well aware than there were fans walking around without the slightest clue due to the heavily tinted windows, I felt things going somewhere fast. Jack’s hand, which had previously been underneath me on my lower back was now trailing down my side, running across the area of bare skin between the waistband of my jeans and the bottom seam of my shirt.

He knew he’d get the reaction he wanted by slipping his hand underneath my tee and onto my bare tummy. I gasped in surprise by the sudden movement and my stomach trembled with excitement, causing goose bumps to form all over my body.

Two could play at that game, I thought with vicious cunning. I extended my leg between Jack’s and pressed the lock down on the door with my foot, causing Jack to smirk and attack my mouth with much more fervor.

I brought my hands down over Jack’s back, applying light pressure which brought him closer and closer to me until we were pressed together completely. He was so busy trying to extract another reaction from me that he didn’t see me throwing something to him from left field.

I hooked my index fingers through the belt loops on his hips, getting a secure grip, and then I waited. Jack had been dragging his fingertips down my abdomen since he had first gained access underneath my clothing, but I had been strong willed in keeping quiet. And he had no idea what I was planning…

He broke the kiss, which had slowly become gentle and sweet, to take a breath and look into my eyes curiously. He wanted to know why I had suddenly given him the silent treatment.

Taking my chance, I tightened my grip on his belt loops and pulled toward me, causing our hips to grind against each other. Hard.

My reaction toward his dirty playing didn’t hold a candle to his.

His eyes rolled, eyelids fluttering, and a very husky moan escaped his lips. I bit my lip as I watched him dip his head down, trying to gain his composure as I stared at him with victorious superiority.

“You’re a fucking tease,” he breathes when he looks up at me again.

I craned my neck forward to press my lips to his again, caringly this time. I broke away and looked at him. “And you fucking love it.”

As if on cue, there was a knock on the window and Jack and I both jerked to look and see who it was. It was Oliver. He was cupping his hands around his eyes as he looked into the van to see Jack on top of me and me tangled up in him. I blushed and pressed my face into Jack’s neck as he laughed and stroked my hair comfortingly.

“What are we going to tell him?” Jack asks, clearly not looking to upset me again by taking the ‘personal’ out of my personal life.

“Well, I don’t think I silver-tongue my way out of this one. He can see us,” he gestured to Oliver.

“Well, he can’t see both of us. He can probably only see me.” Jack clarifies.

Wheels turned, gears clicked, and I finally had an idea.

Jack backed away from me and as I sat up, he stole another kiss, smiling sweetly. “Had to,” he reasoned and I stole a kiss myself before darting to the back of the van and tossing myself over the backseat. Jack opened the door and feigned a yawn. “Hey, dude.”

“Hey, have you seen Charlotte?” he inquires and I could just imagine him leaning into the van to look around. “Zack said she came out here to get some strings.”

Jack must’ve been stretching because a shadow cast to the back door of the van. “She was heading back to the venue when I got here. I was looking for a hoodie and I guess I dozed off when I laid down,”

Oliver didn’t buy this right away. “So she’s gone back inside?”

“Maybe,” Jack tried to be vague. “I can’t be sure because that girl is about as understandable as ancient Egyptian to me.”

Oliver laughed. “She thinks the same about you, bro.” And I heard him walk away. Jack slid the door shut and I saw him walk around the end of the van and stand there, making sure Oliver was completely out of sight before opening the two back doors and looking at me.

“That went swimmingly,” I say as I scooted to the edge and sat there. “You don’t get me, huh?”

“The feeling is apparently mutual,” he took my hand and helped me out of the van.

“Well, if we’re going to continue having make-out sessions, don’t you think we should get to know each other a little better first?” I was surprised with how open I was being.

Jack nodded and then side stepped so that he was in front of me, smiling. “Charlotte, would you like to go out on a date with me?”