Take a Sad Song and Make It Better

Bailey's POV

“You’re getting pretty far on that painting, Bailey,” Tom commented as we sat in painting.

“Thanks for stating useless information, Tom,” Claire spat.

“Thanks for being a bitch, Claire,” he shot back.

“Thanks for being an asshole, Tom.”

“Thanks for shutting the hole in your face, Claire.”

“Thanks for not telling me what to do, Tom.”

“Holy titty fuck! Shut up!” Jack cried to both of them. “No need to make Claire talk more; we all know she is annoying.”

“We all know you’re immature,” she said to Jack.

“We all know you’re a fake,” Jack stated calmly.

“We all know you’re sucking--”

“Seriously?” I interrupted the fight going down at my table. “Let’s not spend an hour doing this like yesterday. It gets old before it even starts.”

“Thank you, Bailey,” Claire exclaimed. “Now, as I was saying, before Tom rudely interrupted my story. I saw Adam and Kaylie today. They are your friends aren’t they, Bailey? They are such sweeties. They are perfect for each other…” I groaned. I heard about Kaylie and Adam everywhere. But mostly, I was sick of Claire and her stupid accent talking.

Jack got up to change the water in our rinse bucket and Tom popped in his ear buds and listened to his iPod. I didn’t want to be so rude, so I took out my phone and held it in my lap so it looked like I was listening to Claire talk.

I received a message from Jade:

Im going to alexs house after school today so you can take the car.

I smiled and texted ‘ok’ back and looked at my message from Jack:

Ay baybay. Meet me in the girls bathroom. ;)

I rolled my eyes and wondered what time he texted that to me but nonetheless I texted the random word, ‘pickles’ in response and read Zack’s text:

Hey cutie lets hang!

==========

I lay sprawled out on the floor, a couple books on the floor and a few more on the couch. I wasn’t getting much done though. My mind kept wandering to Zack and when he was going to show up.

I wasn’t sure what Zack and I had. We were stuck in the middle of friend and couple. When we were with the group, we were strictly friends. When it is just us two hanging out, we were a bit more. We were touchy and we were flirty. We shared stories and feelings, and we kissed. But Zack hadn’t asked me to be his girlfriend. I guess I would call it a ‘thing’. But this ‘thing’ had been going on since I arrived in Lutherville. This was something more.

Zack and I never did end up talking about what happened in his car, so neither of us really knew what to call our relationship.

I jumped when the doorbell rang but quickly realized it was probably Zack. That was becoming routine lately. When I wasn’t spending time with Zack, my mind somehow wandered to him. I felt my squirming stomach start to churn as I ran to the door. I swung open the door and saw Zack shifting on his heels.

“Hiya, sir.”

“Hey, Bails.” I smirked at what he said and let him think about what was so funny. “Oh. Ha. Ha. Hey, Bails, hay bails. You’re so clever.”

“Actually, you said it,” I laughed lightly. I moved out of the doorway and let him step in. He moved towards me. I moved closer to him, but then saw his arms were held out. I quickly retracted and wound my arms around him in a greeted him with a hug, rather than a kiss. I didn’t know what he was thinking it was going to be. As we held the short embrace, I cringed at how awkward it was. Hugging as friends was completely normal. But now we were in this in between stage, so kissing hello wasn’t exactly appropriate but hugging, knowing we had something between us, didn’t feel as right as it should have felt.

“Um…” I filled the silence once we broke apart, “What do you want to do?”

“Not sure,” he said shortly. He never really had an opinion. “What were you doing before I got here?”

He followed me into the living room as I talked. “Homework. I have a whole butt-load.” I wouldn’t tell him that I was thinking about him.

“Wow, a butt-load? That’s a lot of homework.” He tried to hold back his smirk after the sarcastic comment and I smacked his shoulder. “Ow!”

“Jerk,” I pouted.

“You’re the jerk. You hit me!” he said rubbed his shoulder. I smiled and patted the spot where I hit him.

“I’m sorry,” I moved a little closer and looked closely at him. “Will you forgive me?”

“Yes,” he whispered. We sat there taunting each other with the other’s presence; our faces were only inches apart. I swallowed deeply after a while and Zack smirked. “You’re such a liar.”

Flustered at the sudden change, I stuttered, “W-What?”

“You weren’t doing homework, you were playing video games!” Zack accused me, pointing to the TV where controllers were lying.

“Very unlikely. It was probably Jade and Alex. They were playing it yesterday but they never clean up after themselves. It’s probably because they always end up making out…” I shrugged and Zack made an overdramatic disgusted face at the mention of Alex and Jade making out. “Or Melanie. She sometimes just comes over to play…which is…amusing. She’s not very good.”

“And you are?” he said skeptically.

“Excuse me, as a matter a fact I happen to very skilled, Zachary.”

“How? You never play.”

“Ah, but you forgot one very important detail. I had a video game nerd for a brother. He taught me all I need to know,” I smirked at Zack. He stood up and walked over to the TV to see what game was in the consol.

“I like Kingdom Hearts,” he said, bending down to pick up a controller.

“Yeah, well I like piggy back rides!” I leapt from the couch and onto Zack’s back, causing him to stumble forward a little. He laughed, finally catching his balance, and gripped my legs tightly. We ran around the house countless times through rooms and up and down the stairs. The entire time I laughed freely, having a lot of fun. The random singing and outbursts from us only made it more enjoyable. He galloped with me on his back for a good 15 minutes, neither of us getting bored. I always had something to focus on. His strong grip on my thighs, the way my legs pressed and squeezed his sides, his laugh.

Finally Zack stopped after dashing up the stairs one last time. He walked to my room, to the side of my bed and twisted his body to shake me off. “I think we’re being a hazard.”

I plopped onto the mattress and laughed. “Well, being a hazard is fun.” I lay back on the bed and looked up at him.

Zack was panting a little when he put a hand on either side of me and hovered over me to study my face for a while. I stared back up at him. I took in his pale skin, think jaw line and his hard eyes that looked so soft once you looked deep enough. What was he feeling right now? He was staring at me just as hard as I was; what was he thinking?

His face lowered down and I let him connect his lips with mine. I sucked on his bottom lip. They were becoming more and more familiar. I felt the bed shift and I noticed he placed both legs on either side me, straddling my sides as the kiss became deeper and more heated. His lips were pressing hard into mine. I lightly ran one hand through his hair and he took the other one and entwined our fingers together.

If I wanted to pull away, not that I wanted to, I wouldn’t have been able to. My head was pushed roughly on my bed that our kiss was only stopped when Zack pulled away. I opened my eyes and was met with his sparkling ones smiling at me. He leaned down and gave one more quick peck on my lips.

Instead of getting off from hovering over me to lie beside me, he lowered down from leaning on his knees and sat on me, still straddling my hips. I bit my lip shyly as his eyes lingered on my features.

Finally he spoke up, “I’m hungry, wanna get some food?” I was surprised at what he said. The kiss ended abruptly and I was surprised Zack didn’t lean down to kiss me again. I wanted more. I laughed lightly to cover up my disappointment but agreed nonetheless, grabbed his held out hand and we strolled out to his car together.

We drove in comfortable silence for a while, the radio lightly playing in the background. I looked out the window and admired the little patches of brown grass along the side of the road where the snow had melted away.

I tried to keep my mind on anything but the kiss earlier, but it kept roaming back to it. I didn’t understand why a kiss that completely capturing would end so quickly. I was confused by Zack. Not only was the kiss situation weird, the hug was too. I didn’t know what had changed and things were becoming odd for me. I needed to figure this out. I couldn’t keep torturing myself.

“That was awkward,” I said bluntly, forgetting Zack wasn’t able to read my mind and know what I was thinking about before.

“What?”

“The hug earlier, it was awkward,” I repeated again, a little more timidly. I shuffled around in Zack’s seat, not able to stop fidgeting.

“Why?”

“Well,” I turned to him as I talked. “You walked in and I was like “oh, he’s going to kiss me” so I was ready to kiss you, but then you held out your arms so I was like “whoa, never mind, we’re going to hug” and you were ready for a hug but then saw me leaning in and you were like “oh we’re going to kiss” but then you noticed me pull and away and put out my arms and then you were like “oh, back to the hug” and that whole thing was unbelievably awkward.”

“I didn’t want to say anything, but yeah, it was really uncomfortable.”

“It’s was kind of like, I don’t know what to do because I don’t know what he wants because we don’t really know what we want.” I heard myself rambling and forced myself to shut up before I said anything else that was stupid. I didn’t know what had gotten into me; I never said things so directly like that, even if it was tormenting me in my head.

Zack took a hand off the steering wheel and scratched the back of his neck. I didn’t want to nag him. What if he really didn’t want to have a relationship? But then why would have he insisted on being with me all the time? He continued to say he liked me and he kissed me back. Maybe I was just thinking about this too hard. Should I just not worry about it and let things happen? That might take forever.

“W-What, what do you want…?” he asked. I could tell he was nervous for my answer. I kept quiet, trying to figure out how to tell Zack everything that was floating in my head. “Bailey,” he pleaded. “Please say something.”

“Well, I just…I just don’t know…I don’t want this thing to be a huge deal. To our friends I mean,” I clarified after realizing he could have taken it the wrong way. “I see the way our group of friends makes kissy faces at Alex and Jay. They always taunt Kaylie and Adam. I don’t—”

“like the spotlight on you. I know.”

I smiled at him and how he could finish my sentences; he understood what I was thinking. “Exactly. Jokes flew when Jade and Alex finally got together, I can’t imagine what they would have to say once they found out we are together, and have been “together” for almost a month now. They’d flip. I would be embarrassed by all the attention I think,” I finished sheepishly. He didn’t say anything, so I continued speaking my mind. “We kiss in secret. We don’t let anyone see us and no one really knows how much we hang out except Jade. If we told them now…it would, gah I can’t even imagine what they would say.” I was being a little overdramatic, but it was mostly true.

“I agree with you. I don’t want everyone to pester us either. Neither us like to be in the center of things.” I nodded and smiled. I was glad we were on the same page. “Plus, All Time Low is just taking off. We have planned a tour right after school gets out. We are finishing up our record and it’s hectic.”

“Wait…so…you, you don’t want…”

“No, no, no,” he said quickly. “It’s just, can we just…wait? Wait to call it official for a while?” My smile was completely faded. “I just…” he grabbed my hand and kissed the top of it as he drove. “I don’t want to mess this up. I can’t mess it up.” His voice sounded so desperate, so sincere.

I smiled and could understand what he was saying. “Alright.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. He took his eye of the road and smiled at me quickly. “So we hold hands, cuddle and have hot make out sessions in secret?”

“Sounds good to me,” he joked.

“Kinky.” I had a little doubt. It tugged lightly in the back of my brain. I knew Zack wouldn’t just play around with me. He liked me. He told me all the time. But would we ever have an actual relationship or just hid in the corner. Time, I told myself. It takes time. Hell, it took us six months to tell each other that we had feelings for one another.

“So, where do you want to eat?” Zack asked, pulling me out of thought.

I shrugged and I put my feet up on the dash and tapped to the beat of the music. “You can pick.” I felt so content with everything and I was happy. The doubt I had was easy to forget about and I was with Zack.

A recognizable song come on the radio and I started to sing along, not sure where I had heard it before. It was very unfamiliar. Saxophones, trumpets and trombones sounded with some recognizable bass guitar. I hummed the melody so freely and when there were words, my mouth easily spit them out without me having to think. Zack reached for the dial to switch the station. “Wait, keep it here. I like this song.”

“You like jazz?” I smiled and nodded, realizing why I remembered the old tune.

“My dad used to have these old records. They were so awesome and he loved them a lot.” I chuckled at the memories that came back to me. “When I was really, really little, like probably seven or eight, my dad got all worried because his records started to go missing. He was really upset and my mom thought we were being robbed.

“But then,” I laughed again at the thought, “Sam walked by my room one day. And there I was, dancing shamelessly in my room to a bunch of my dad’s jazz records. Sam started to make fun of me and started referring to Jade and me as Jay and Ms. Jazz Records. He was trying to mock me and make me feel bad, but it just stuck. So then everyone started to call me Jazz.”

Zack chuckled at the story. “So that’s why Jade always calls you that.”

“Mmhmm,” I laughed freely again.

“Aw I can picture cute, mini Bailey, dancing around.”

I blushed. I was surprised at how easily that story came out. It was becoming a theme as I talked to Zack now; I wasn’t afraid to tell Zack things at all anymore. Personal stories like that or what I was thinking. Especially when it came to my brother. I name dropped Sam all the time even though at school and around the others it felt weird. Zack knew so much about me now and the more he knew, the more comfortable I was. “Man, I totally forgot about that. I was such a thief.”

“What else did you steal?”

I thought about it for a little while but couldn’t really think of anything. “Nothing. Well, except my mom’s make-up. But who doesn’t sneak their mom’s make-up when they’re little?”

“Tell me about it,” Zack said sarcastically.

“Ha. Ha.” Zack smiled widely and quickly leaned over to peck me on the cheek. I smiled back and reached my hand across the center counsel. I re-entwined my fingers with his and pressed my palm against his. I felt the warmth shoot through my body and somehow it gave me even more confidence. I sighed happily. I didn’t care that no one knew about me and Zack. I was perfectly content with just him.