The Only Exception

As fun as being around Sunday was, Alex couldn't stand to be around Amber. The bitter feelings ran high in the blonde, and she frequently made snippity comments while the three of them sat outside around her small fire. There were attacks on Alex's character in general, his behavior when he was amongst alcohol and his friends, and small reminders of how poorly he had handled things after he and Amber had hooked up in Cabo. Thankfully, any comment that Amber made went right over Sunday's head; Alex was the only person she was listening to.

Twenty minutes or so after Alex and Sunday had rejoined Amber, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips came outside to bring them their food. The remainders of Alex's pack of Heineken were hidden under the blanket behind him, buried with the sand somewhat as well. Nevertheless, he nervously shifted so that he was directly in front of them while Sunday's parents were around.

The stress didn't immediately evaporate though as Mr. and Mrs. Phillips sat down. Amber gave Alex a wicked grin before she opened her box of takeout, putting him on edge even more. Sunday's parents would not be oblivious to Amber's comments. "What brings you to California, Alex?" Mrs. Phillips asked in an obviously forced attempt at civility.

"Work," Alex answered. He thought it sounded better than, I'm in a band with my three best friends. We make dick jokes a lot and don't understand the concept of monogamy. Besides, they were unnecessary details at the moment.

"And what do you do?" Mrs. Phillips scanned Alex's tight T-shirt and shorts.

His throat was dry, but Sunday quickly took over. "He's in a band!" she told her parents. "They're called All Time Low, and they're working on a new CD. Alex said he'd let me hear their songs as soon as they write something. He's the singer." She cast a proud smile at Alex that almost made him laugh.

"How interesting," Mrs. Phillips commented. "Is it a well-known band?"

"Oh, they have quite the fan base," Amber cut in. "A lot of groupies and teenyboppers."

"You sure would know about those groupies, huh Amber," Alex shot back in a low voice.

Mrs. Phillips gave both Amber and Alex disapproving looks as Sunday asked, "What's a groupie do?"

Mr. Phillips gave a snort, like he was on the verge of laughter, but he covered it with a cough and ignored Sunday's question. "Don't forget to eat your egg roll." Sunday obeyed, forgetting her question.

"Are you going to be in California long?" Mrs. Phillips asked. It was obvious that she was praying Alex would say no.

"The release date for the CD is next July," Alex explained, "So not really long. Probably like February or March at the longest."

Sunday mentally began counting. October to November. November to December. December to January. January to February... She stabbed at her egg rolls. Why were her friends always going away?

Mrs. Phillips smiled in what was evidently relief. "That's nice."

Sunday cut in, "But maybe it'll take longer than you think. That's happened to people before, right?"

Alex laughed. "Yeah, it has," he nodded. "But tours start in April."

"Hmph." Sunday buried her toes in the sand and put her head on her knees. "I'd like to go to one of your shows one day," she commented, her tone already sounding lighter.

"Oh, you'd love them, Sun," Amber said. "Alex and his friends make the funniest jokes while they're on stage. Like, this one time, Alex was talking about how his eyes are fake because his friend Jack has a big nose and when they make out—"

Gritting his teeth, Alex snapped, "It was just a joke. I've never made out with Jack. He just has a huge honker."

Mrs. Phillips looked sickened by the fact that this was her daughters new friend, but Alex was pleased to see that thus far he has Mr. Phillips's approval. The man had been laughing into his Chinese food nearly every time Alex opened his mouth. It was a rarity that he managed to impress anyone's father, so he was grateful for this break in his usual routine of terrifying them inadvertently.

"Can we have marshmallows?" Sunday asked suddenly. "For s'mores," she added with a smile.

Something in Mrs. Phillips's expression changed, and she smiled as she began picking up everyone's garbage. "Sure, Sun," she smiled. "Your dad and I will bring the stuff out for you."

"I haven't had s'mores in forever," Alex mused as Mr. and Mrs. Phillips left them alone.

Sunday smiled and laid back in the sand. "Your life has been incomplete then," she told him. Alex scooted closer to her, reasoning that the waves were drowning out her voice a little bit. Amber's eyes narrowed as she noticed Alex shift closer to Sunday. He resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at her and say something immature like, Does it bother you that I like her better?

As soon as the marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate were deposited to the trio, Sunday grabbed a poker and stuck a marshmallow on it before inserting it into the flame. She twirled the poker in her hand for a minute before pulling out a perfectly toasted marshmallow. "That is a skill," Alex declared. He gave her the puppy dog eyes. "Make me one?"

A happy little laugh filled the air as Sunday squished her marshmallow between graham crackers and chocolate and handed it to Alex. "Take it," she insisted, "I'm not really hungry anyway." She jumped up and skipped to the shoreline, bending down to pick up a seashell.

From across the fire, Amber threw a block of chocolate at Alex's head. It connected and hurt. "What was that for?" he hissed, even though Sunday probably couldn't hear him. Disturbing her with any problems seemed like an almost indecent thing to do.

"You took her s'more!" Amber snapped. "You're so inconsiderate and selfish!"

Alex glared at Amber. "Whatever your problem is, you need to get over it," he told her, "Because all of this name calling is starting to get way too reminiscent of third grade."

"Easy for you to say," Amber spat. "You didn't get left at some fucking Mexican airport by a total doucher."

Alex's blood was boiling. He opened his mouth before Amber cut him off. "Save it, Alex," she snapped. "Or else I'll tell Sunday. Everything. I wonder if she'll like you so much then."

His eyes narrowed and a red haze formed around Amber. What a bitch. Alex knew that girls had a tendency to be calculating and malicious, but this was a new low. Sunday's opinion and good favor seemed to actually matter to him—for reasons that Alex was still unsure of—and Amber was threatening to ruin that.

Thankfully, Alex was a problem solver by nature. He stood up, and said in a much kinder voice, "I'll be right back."

Ten minutes later, he returned to Sunday's backyard. Amber was laying on her back and typing away on her phone while Sunday was still on the hunt for seashells. "Oh, you came back," Amber sighed in obvious disappointment.

Alex bit back the smart response that jumped to his tongue and sat down close to Amber. Too close for his liking. She was pretty but her attitude made him want to stay as far away as possible. This is going to get her off of your back. For the night at least, he reminded himself. Which was definitely better than nothing. "Am, you're right," he whispered. "What I did in Cabo was bad. Worse than bad." He set down a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses like they were a peace offering.

Amber raised an eyebrow. "Is it poisoned?"

Alex poured himself a shot and threw it back. "Don't think so. It was in the kitchen though, which means Jack had access to it. Proceed with caution."

Suspicious look gone, Amber grabbed the bottle and took a long drink from it. "Not bad, Gaskarth."

It was just by a lucky coincidence that Alex kenw that Amber was a lightweight. Half a bottle of vodka and an hour later, she was snoozing on the blanket, finally quiet. It was only then when he wasn't listening to Amber's drunken rambling that he realized that Sunday was still sitting by the water. A whole hour later. He had to admire her attention span as he walked towards her.

"What's up?" he asked as he sat down in the cool sand.

She looked at him and smiled before gesturing to the star that she had produced in the sand using seashells. "You're such a dork," Alex said, "But that is kind of cool."

"I wish I had a camera," she mused as she patted one of the seashells. "It's pretty."

Eager to grant her wish, Alex produced his cell phone from his pocket. "That's a phone," Sunday said as he put it in her hand.

He laughed and pressed the camera button before positioning it over the star. "Well, that's new," she smiled as she placed her finger over Alex's and pressed the camera button again. The picture was then saved to his phone and Alex went to slide it back into his pocket, but Sunday took it. She somehow managed to find the pictures and started looking through them.

"Who are they?" she asked as she came to a picture of Alex and his friends out at STK.

"Jack, Rian, and Zack. They're in the band and all insane as fuck."

"I'd like to meet them sometime," Sunday commented.

Alex chuckled, "You probably will. Jack's really nosy."

Sunday's smile widened before she said, "I want to listen to music." She abandoned her seashell star and walked back to the blanket that Amber was sleeping on. Alex hadn't noticed the sleek iTouch before, but he read the songtitles over Sunday's shoulder as she scrolled through it, looking for something.

"You have a seriously impressive taste in music," Alex told her.

Her smile turned sheepish before she mumbled, "Yeah. I kind of have heard of your band before since a lot of bands that I like tour with each other and people in their genre."

"Were you impressed?"

Her eyes locked on his. "Yes," she said. "But it made me sad."

His eyebrows knit together. "What song?" he demanded. It wasn't often that All Time Low's almost dancey songs made people sad.

Sunday's thumb moved across the screen of her iPod before one of the band's older songs, Lullabies, started streaming from the small device. Alex's throat felt thick, and he blinked a few times. "Can I see what other songs you have on here?" he asked as he took Sunday's iPod. He didn't want to listen to the song. Alcohol often stirred up emotions that he normally tried not to acknowledge, and he couldn't listen to it that night.

"You have a lot of Jack's Mannequin stuff on here," he commented.

"My favorite," Sunday smiled. "Nothing personal."

He smiled and clicked on a song. "Why do you like McMahon so much?" he inquired.

Sunday shrugged. "I like the piano. And the lyrics. He seems like a very benevolent and sincere person, too."

"Yeah, he's a cool dude," Alex nodded. He dropped her iPod as Dark Blue started playing and inserted a marshmallow into the fire. "You hungry?"

"Yes," she admitted. "You going to pay me back for that s'more?"

He shot her a devilish grin before unveiling the remainder of his pack of Heineken. "Yep. And you can wash it down with this, because you still owe me a rematch."

She smirked. "You're on."

Somehow, the pair managed to eat nearly a whole bag of marshmallows. As the Heineken disappeared, several of the marshmallows burned to crisps and fell to the bottom of the fire and they broke a few graham crackers but as time wore on, they both became very full. "I feel kind of sick," Sunday noted as she stared up at the silver dotted sky.

"I know what you mean," Alex agreed.

She shifted so that she was a little closer to him; it was cold. His arm instinctively curled around her shoulders, and he felt Sunday snuggle into his side. "Alex?" she asked softly, sounding sleepy.

"Yeah?"

"Why does Lullabies make you sad?"

He tightened up a little bit. "How do you know it makes me sad?" he asked in a futile attempt to change the subject.

"I can tell," she shrugged.

Alex sat up, unsettling her. He grabbed another blanket and threw it over them. "It's cold," he noted.

She fixed him with a hard stare and Alex sighed. He laid back down and Sunday repositioned herself, a little closer to his with her head resting on his arm. He toyed with the ends of her wavy brown hair as he considered what to say next. "I wrote it after my brother died," he said simply.

A moment later, his voice thick with emotion, he added, "And, you know, I miss him."

She rested a comforting hand on his chest and looked up at him. "My brother died too," she empathized. "I know what you mean about missing him."

Alex shut his eyes. "Let's not talk about sad stuff anymore."

Sunday's eyes fluttered shut as well. "What are we going to talk about?" she whispered, growing a little closer to sleep.

"I'll tell you a secret," he decided.

"I'll tell you one too," Sunday agreed. "You go first though."

"I really like being friends with you."

Sunday's stomach did a happy sort of flop. She smiled and let her eyes close for good for the night. "I really like being friends with you too."

And the two just laid there until they both drifted off to sleep, almost simultaneously.
_____________________________________________________________

Feeling something was off, Mrs. Phillips got out of bed around two in the morning and decided to check on Sunday. When she opened her daughter's door though, she was terrified to see that her full size bed was completely empty. "Greg!" she hissed as she hurried back into her own bedroom.

Her husband sleepily murmured, "What?" His eyes were still closed.

"Sunday's not here!"

In an irritated fashion, Greg Phillips sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Nadia, she probably just fell asleep outside with Amber and Alex. Just calm down and come back to bed."

But Nadia was already at her window, peering out at the beach through the blinds. "Greg! Come see how close they are!"

Just wanting to go back to sleep, Greg decided he would humor his wife. He stepped out of bed and joined her at the window. It was true that Sunday was lying a lot closer to Alex than to Amber, but it wasn't as big of a deal as Nadia was making it out to be. "Let her have some fun," he insisted, "You can tell she likes being around him."

"I don't trust him," Nadia huffed as she got back into bed.

"Aren't fathers supposed to be the possessive ones?" he mumbled as he tried to get comfortable again.

Her muttered reply was quiet, but Greg still caught Nadia's, "Maybe you're not doing your job right then."

He sat up and turned on the light on the nighstand next to his side of the bed. "Nadia, you're being ridiculous," he snapped, "I agree with us taking care of Sunday like she's four years old and I understand why you keep her practically locked up, but this is just ridiculous. She's going to be friends with that boy whether you like it or not. She's twenty years old."

Nadia's mouth opened then she shut it. "When he makes her cry, I'm going to remind you of this," she snapped before rolling over so that her back was to him.

Greg sighed and turned out his light, wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep immediately.