Sing Me To Sleep

“I’m gonna frickin’ kill him,” Cassadee hissed, pacing back and forward in Jack’s room with said boy and Katy watching her. Katy made a face from her curled position against the wall on Jack’s bed. Jack just rolled his eyes.

“Cassadee,” Katy began, coughing from her crying fit. “It’s not even his fault. Calm down.” Her eyes followed the petite girl back and forward, across the room.

“It is!” Cassadee all but screeched, plopping herself down on the carpet.

“How?” Jack asked incredulously.

“I…” Cassadee paused at a lack of reason.

“Exactly,” Katy mumbled. She seriously regretted telling Cassadee now. Jack had taken the news with sympathy, hugging Katy and telling her he was sorry. Cassadee had completely flipped a shit, just after she had just calmed Katy down herself, and so Katy and Jack had to calm Cassadee down. But she still wasn’t calm. “Look, Cassadee, I made a mistake. I’m the only one to blame.”

“But it’s not fair!” Cassadee wailed.

Katy rolled her eyes.

“Let’s forget this for now,” Katy mumbled, straightening out and scooting forward to sit next to Jack. “Let’s figure out how we’re gonna get you and that other dumb ass back together.”

“W-What?” Cassadee choked, looking at her friends as they shared a devilish grin.

“You and RiDaw,” Katy explained. “You guys being pissed at each other is unnatural.” Katy scratched the back of her head. “I kind of feel bad anyway. If you hadn’t been at my house then this wouldn’t have happened.” Katy spoke up again before Cassadee could protest. “So, are you going to apologise to him? Or do we have to, like, brainwash you?”

The three friends spent the afternoon planning out how Cassadee was going to apologise, what she was going to say, when she was going to say it, how she would say it, whether she’d go to his house or she’d invite him over. It successfully distracted all three from Katy’s incident, and for that Katy was grateful.

Zack arrived at four thirty, and they started to set up the living room. Jack brought his comforter downstairs and also the comforters in his brother and sister’s rooms, who only used them when they came to stay. Jack pulled Katy away from Zack and Cassadee to help him find his parents’ spare comforter in the cupboard upstairs, just outside the bathroom.

After a lot of giggles, tickling and cussing, they successfully acquired the spare quilt from the back of the cupboard. Katy and Jack collapsed on top of it on the landing, exhausted.

“So,” Jack huffed, leaning back on his elbows. “You kissed Alex, huh?” Katy blushed and picked at a loose thread on the quilt.

“Yup,” she mumbled. Jack nodded, staring at the thread.

“You’re positive he didn’t want it?” Katy groaned and shook her head at Jack’s ridiculousness.

“Jack, I already told you. He freaked out after he realised what was happening.

“But he kissed you back for a bit,” Jack pointed out.

“It’s Alex,” Katy countered. “If a Martian kissed him he’d kiss it back, even just for a little while.”

“Touché,” Jack agreed, “but I still think you’re totally blowing it out of proportion. Maybe he likes you, too.”

“Right,” Katy said sarcastically. “Because I can totally compare to the girls that Alex normally gets with, like Lindsey.”

Jack shot a look at Katy and she stuck her tongue out.

“C’mon,” she muttered, standing up. “Let’s get this downstairs and finish setting up.”

After they were done, the room was packed with junk food, comforters, pillows and a huge stack of DVDs, with ‘Home Alone’ perched gracefully on the top.

“Jack,” Cassadee began in a warning tone. “We are not watching ‘Home Alone’.”

“What?!” Jack whined. “Yes!”

“No, Jack!” Zack protested. “God dammit!”

“Yes!” Jack yelled like a spoiled five year old. “Katy!” He turned to the younger girl with a pout on his lips.

“Aww, Jack-O…” She giggled. “I really fuckin’ hate that film…”

“You guys suck!” he whined.

“Sorry, Jack?” Cassadee asked. “What did you just say?”

“N-nothing!” he gulped, backing up. Zack, Cassadee and Katy jumped at him, ticking his skinny stomach, making him fall to the floor.

Everyone was being so noisy they didn’t notice the other person enter the room, and they didn’t notice them dump their bag on the sofa. They didn’t notice them until said person coughed.

Jack bent his neck back to look up from his position on the floor.

“Alex!” he said, scrambling up. He looked at the clock. “You fucker; you’re half an hour late!”

Jack intentionally ignored the tired look in his best friend’s eyes; the tear stains on his cheeks and his extremely tousled hair.

“Sorry, bro,” Alex apologised, smiling weakly. He looked at his sock-clad feet – no doubt Mrs. Barakat had made him take his shoes off before he entered her house – and scratched the back of his neck.

“Sit down, then, you fat fuck,” Zack joked, cracking open a can of coke and drinking it. Alex rolled his eyes.

“Says you, chugging the fucking full-fat coca-cola!”

Zack grinned and flipped the dark haired boy off, before shuffling back onto a comforter.

“Oh, yeah,” Jack said, remembering something. “Two of you are gonna have to share the king size quilt. I get mine because it’s mine.” He stuck his tongue out and jumped on his own. Zack was already sitting on a single quilt. Cassadee glared at Alex and went to open her mouth, but Zack got there first.

“I vote Alex and Katy share it,” he muttered, grabbing a pack of popcorn. “That double quilt is closest to me, and Cassadee talks in her sleep and wakes me the fuck up.”

“I do not talk in my sleep!” Cassadee protested.

“Yes, you fuckin’ do,” Zack told her, chucking a piece of popcorn at her.

“Hey!” Jack growled. “Don’t make a fuckin’ mess, bro.”

“My bad,” Zack said, chucking a piece of popcorn in his mouth before making a face at Cassadee.

“Cass, get over on this quilt next to me,” Jack sighed. Cassadee stared at him in disbelief. “I’m not gonna put up with Zack’s bitching all night. Over here. Now.”

“Shut the fuck up, Jack,” Cassadee hissed. “I’ll stay where ever I damn well want until we actually have to sleep.”

“Why don’t you all shut the fuck up so we can watch a movie?” Katy spoke up, cocking an eyebrow at everyone. “Jesus Christ, if I didn’t know better I’d have thought someone had replaced all my friends with middle aged people, maybe excluding Zack.”

Everyone stared at Katy, especially Cassadee. Katy smirked at the blonde and brown haired girl.

“Alex,” she began, looking up at the sheepish boy still standing, “get your ass over here and help me pick a DVD, because God dammit, I’m having first pick!”

“Hey!” Jack chipped in, grinning. “This is my house?” Katy stuck her tongue out at the skunk-haired boy.

“Tough,” Katy told him. “Alex! Seriously, get over here.”

Alex stared at Katy, bewildered. She was carrying on as if nothing had happened.

Really, wasn’t that what he wanted? That was the best outcome. Katy was in love with someone else. She was ignoring it. They were still best friends. He should be grateful.

But he wasn’t. He wanted more. He’d crossed a line with Katy. They’d kissed – and not innocently, either. He craved more. He wanted her more. He’d never been this sexually attracted to her. Sure, he thought about her like that, but he loved her for her. Right now there was an itch under his skin, a burning, yearning for him to get close to her, to touch her, to run his fingers through her hair and-

“Alex!” she said again. “Get your hairy butt over here!” Alex jolted back into reality. Everyone was staring him. Well, everyone except Cassadee. She was glaring.

“I-I’m g-going to the t-toilet,” he stuttered out, turning on his heel and heading for the Barakats’ downstairs toilet before anybody could say anything.

The room went silent.

“Did something happen that I don’t know about?” Zack asked, eying his friends with a scrutinizing glare.

“No,” Jack told him calmly, reaching over for a packet of chips. “Alex and Lindsey are just going through a rough patch,” he lied smoothly, popping a crinkled chip into his mouth. Zack snorted.

“Rough patch? Is their relationship solid enough to have one of those? I thought it was just about sex for them.”

Jack shrugged and continued his destruction of the potato treats.