I Swear I Love You

Brian’s POV

TAKE IT OUT! TAKE IT OUT!

What the hell?

On my way back to the hotel room I heard these screams filtering down the stairs into the foyer, the people around me sharing the same confusion, and then curiosity, that I had. You could pretty much tell that any person over the age of 16 had thought up the exact same explanation; obviously a couple was having a rather loud love-making session and from the sighs from the hotel workers, it happened frequently. It was one of those times that you always wondered how these types of things happened since you couldn’t imagine it happening to you- at least that is until it does happen to you.

“Matt? Val?” They both jumped as I called their names, having been standing outside the door to the room I shared with Jimmy and Jess and listening in. “What the hell are you doing?”

A look of guilt flashed across their faces for a few brief moments before it made way for a grin. “Having fun.”

I raised an eyebrow at her reply. “Having fun? You call listening in on people-” I couldn’t say Jess or Jimmy’s names since it made me feel a bit weird even thinking that the noises had come from them. “- having fun?”

“This is.”

GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!

That sounded like Jess, so I guessed that Jimmy had struck out. Too bad for him.

A second later the door burst open and Jess sprinted out, in nothing more than a towel, only stopping when I called to her. “Jess?” She took a few cautious steps forward, but remained pretty much at the other end of the corridor. “What the hell are you doing?”

“There’s a-” She was cut off when Jimmy burst out of the room next, a pure look of fear across his face. Jess took one look at him, and screamed. “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”

He moved to run towards her but I quickly grabbed him by the back of his shirt and demanded an explanation. “What the hell is going on?!”

As if suddenly realising I was there, he grabbed me by the shoulders and began shaking me. “GET IT OFF! GET IF OFF!” I was cursing his profession as a drummer as it literally felt as if my brain was rattling around in my head, even despite my protests and trying to get him off. He must have seen something on himself because he yelped and instantly leapt backwards, ripping his shirt as he pulled it over his head and threw it on the floor before backing away from it.

I could only stare in confusion at the scene before me, not even able to form any semi-plausible reason to explain his irrational behaviour. Clearly Jimmy wasn’t the one to give us an answer since a moment after he had discarded his shirt he ran back into the room and slammed the door, leaving Jess behind.

“Can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” I asked, sorely regretting choosing now to have gone to the shops. “Matt?” He shook his head and grinned. I sighed. “Val?” She did the same. One last chance. “Jess?”

“Huh?” She tore her gaze away from Jimmy’s shirt to look at me. However before I could ask for any explanation, Val decided to take the opportunity away from me with one simple sentence.

“Hey Jess, what’s that black thing by your feet?”

Mimicking Jimmy’s actions perfectly she jumped up, took one look at the ground before obviously deciding that whatever was on the floor wasn’t worth looking for and instead ran off from it, stopping outside our door and pounding on it. “Jimmy! Jimmy let me in!”

“Fuck no!” Came his reply, muffled slightly from the door. “You might bring it back in!”

“Jimmy!” She pleaded, glancing fearfully back down the hall before returning to her assault upon the door. “Please Jimmy let me in!”

“What the hell is all the noise for?” To the left of our room the door opened, revealing the confused expression of our young bassist. He glanced over at Jess in her towel and his confusion deepened. “Why are you standing outside in a towel? Where are your clothes?”

“Johnny!” She didn’t say anything else as she darted through the open door and into their room, slamming the door behind her and effectively locking Johnny outside. I had never seen the guy look so completely perplexed at a situation before.

“For fuck’s sake Christ! Shut the door quietly!”We all guessed that Zack was sleeping- or rather had been. “Wait a minute… you’re not Johnny…” A moment later Zack burst out just a pair of boxers, a hand over his eyes as he pointed with his other accusingly into the room. “What are you doing standing there in a towel?! I can’t see you like that!”

“I wish I didn’t have to see you like that,” Val sighed with a shake of her head. “My innocence is forever lost.”

“You lost your innocence a long time ago Val,” Matt murmured slyly, wrapping his arms around her waist as she giggled at his touch. “A very long time ago…”

“Shush you,” Val said, pulling her head back to kiss him on the chin before refocusing her attention on Zack. “What were you doing sleeping? You do remember we’re going out in a couple of hours, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” he grumbled. “I was just having a nap.”

“I’m not sure sleeping for five hours counts as a nap anymore,” Johnny pointed out.

Zack scowled. “I was getting round to getting up.” He glanced at the door. “Well, not anymore.”

By this point, I’d had enough. “You’ve had your fun, now spill,” I demanded, turning to Matt and Val, arms crossed. “What did you do?”

They looked at each other before putting on clearly faked innocent expressions. “We don’t know what you’re on about.”

“Like shit you don’t,” I muttered darkly, walking over to where Jimmy’s shirt was on the floor and picking it up. Something black fell from it so I instantly dropped it again, only to see what had caused all the trouble. “A rubber spider?” I turned to them, the rubber culprit in my hand. “You know Rev is scared of them! Are you trying to give the guy a heart attack?”

“It was only a bit of fun,” Val murmured, her gaze dropping initially before sneaking glances over at Matt, trying not to smile.

“Although getting Jess as well was priceless,” Matt added, grinning at Val. “I didn’t know she was freaked about them too.”

“Well you better not tell her it was a fake,” I warned.

“Why not?”

“Because I can guarantee that whatever you think that she’ll do to you in return, what she really does will be a thousand times worse.”

--

After the whole fiasco earlier we finally managed to ease Jimmy and Jess into unlocking the rooms, something which took about an hour of constant reassurance that there was in fact no spider, just so that Zack, Johnny and myself could get ready to go out, since I highly doubted any of the clubs would let Zack go in wearing just his boxers. The female hotel staff didn’t seem to mind it though.

At least one good thing came out of the whole rubber incident though; Val could no longer complain about any of us making her late for tonight. Zack was one to use this to his advantage and managed to sneak another hour or so of sleep, pretty much going down to the final minutes before we were ready to leave him behind to quickly shove on some clothes and join us.

As with any time though that Jess came with me down to a club I always made sure that she wasn't the only one left unable to drink; and as always, she was trying to protest against it.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

I looked up at Jess and smiled. “Of course I don’t.”

She turned with a desperate look to Jimmy, sat on her other side. “You don’t need to not drink because of me!”

His gaze flickered to hers as over the rim of his glass of coke. “I’m fine Jess.” His eyebrow rose. “Does it matter if I’m not drinking? Surely it is better that I’m not, right?”

She was stumped. “Well yeah but…” She slumped back against her seat and sighed, resigning herself to gulping down the last of her drink. She had been nursing the raspberry vodka and diet soda for the last hour, and even though I knew she was fine with doing it, there was a part of her that wished she could gulp a number of them down in a matter of minutes. Some things in life just weren’t fair.

“I’m going to go get another drink… do any of you guys want anything?” She asked as she got up, grabbing her purse off the side.

“I’m fine,” I replied.

Jimmy, on the other hand, got up to stand beside her. I don’t know why, but the notion made me feel a bit uneasy. “I’ll come with you.”

“If you meet Matt or Zack on your way over, tell them to stop trying to get Johnny a girl otherwise Lacey is going to get annoyed,” Val said, glancing over at the trio as they attempting to dance on the floor, and not doing particularly well with it.

I looked at her. “I didn’t think there was anything happening between Lacey and Christ.”

She shrugged. “Maybe not, but call it a woman’s intuition.” Val turned to Jess. “And if you’re offering, I’ll have a refresh on a Cosmo if you don’t mind.” We both watched them go, leaving Val and me alone.

This she used to her advantage to ask me something. “So what’s going on with you and Jess?”

“Me and Jess?” I paused. “Well… nothing.”

She didn’t look like she believed me. “Oh really?”

“Well we’ve been friends for a long time.” She gave me a look that just screamed ‘yeah right’. “What are you expecting me to say exactly?”

“That you like Jess.”

“Well of course I like her; we’ve been best friends since kindergarten.”

She sighed. “You men are all so blind.”

“Blind to what?” This is one thing I hated about Val sometimes; when she knew something you didn’t, she would give you these stupid cryptic clues instead of actually telling you.

Unfortunately Matt and Jimmy came back at that time interrupting our conversation, leaving her to just smile mysteriously as they took their seats.

“Where’s Jess?” I asked after a quick glance back at the bar informed me she wasn’t there.

“She took over my spot,” Matt chuckled, pointing over at the centre of the floor where she was dancing in between Zack and Johnny. “I think she boosted their manliness points up a bit.”

The last song faded into the next, separating the floor into friends and couples as people joined in order to sway to the soft beat. However while Johnny made his way back to us Zack and Jess stayed behind, shuffling awkwardly until Zack picked up her hand and placed his other on her waist, bringing the two of them together. I don’t know why but I got a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched them; almost as if someone had just taken something special to me.

“Why so glum, chum?”

I didn’t notice the song had finished as I looked up to see Jess standing over me, perched on Zack’s back. I shook my head. “I’m not.”

She leant in and peered deep into my eyes. “I don’t believe you.” She slid off Zack back onto the floor. “I wonder what has made you into Mister McPouty.” She moved closer until our eyes were essentially only inches apart, staying like this until she pulled back with a large grin. “Is it because I danced with Zacky?” I don’t know what I did that made her assume this thought was right but she then grabbed my hand, trying to pull me up from my seat. “Come on then!”

I just let her pull on my hand, refusing to budge. “Come on what?”

“Let’s go dance.”

I snatched my hand back. “I don’t dance.”

“Don’t be like that,” she whined, her lips dropping into a pout. “You used to dance all the time when we were hitting the clubs in high school.”

“But there’s a difference between then and now,” I pointed out.

“And what’s that?”

I held up my glass. “I’m drinking coke without any Jack in it.”

She offered her hand to me again, but this time didn’t reach for mine. “Then why don’t we get you some?” Reluctantly I let her pull me onto my feet, but still emphasised the effort-even though it really wasn’t any- to her. The acceptance made her overjoyed; bouncing on her feet as she curled her arms around one of mine. “Then we can dance.”

--

As Jess disappeared again this time with Brian Val turned to Zack who was currently staring after the pair, his eyes focused upon one in particular.

“What’s with the look?”

He tore his gaze away to look at Val. “What look?”

“The look you had just now.”

He appeared confused. “What look?”

“The look you gave Jess when she was walking off,” she replied. “You looked kind of sad.” She smiled slyly. “Has someone got a crush on our little friend?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Zack said quickly, his cheeks slightly flushed, getting up even though he had only been back a matter of minutes. “I’m going to get a drink; anyone want anything? No? Okay, I’ll be back.”

Val laughed. “I have never seen someone run away like that before.” She glanced over at Jimmy who had the same, lost look that Zacky had only moments before. “Don’t tell me you’re crushing on her too.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he gabbled, standing up sharply much like Zacky had done. “I’m going outside for a smoke.”

In a matter of seconds he too, had vanished. Val couldn’t help but be amused at the whole situation. Jess seemed to have a knack for tying down the Avenged Sevenfold members, and right now, she was three for five. Well, technically three for four since Matt was already taken.

She turned to Johnny, addressing him with a playful tone. “You know if you want to start fluttering around Jess then go ahead. She’s already got three of you; you’re the last piece to the set.”

“I’m good thanks,” Johnny replied, taking a swig from his beer.

“Got your eye on someone else?”

He grinned. “Nah, I’m just not really up to sharing my things- girlfriends included.”