The Smile You Fake, The Steps You Take

POINT OF VIEW: Alex Gaskarth.

"Where do you want to go?" Amanda and I were hovering awkwardly in the parking lot, not knowing exactly where to go. "We can catch a cab and go basically anywhere."

"Hmm," she put her finger to her chin in mock-thought. "I just really wanna get something to eat. And are there any night clubs or anything around here? I need to forget all this shit."

I nodded. We'd just endured a ten-minute argument with Jack about how Amanda was "acting ridiculous" and I was "being a retard for siding with Amanda on her ridiculousness." Oh, how Jack had a way with words. most of his rant was just incoherent ramblings and we left the hotel room without so much as a goodbye in the middle of his so-called speech.

"I see an Olive Garden down there. We can walk to that, get something to eat, then catch a cab and find a club to go to. Sound like a good night?" I suggested, hoping she'd be up for it. Personally, I liked the sound of this night.

"Yeah, that's amazing." She started across the parking lot with me, discussing Jack's level of absurdity. By the time we were seated in our table, we'd run out of words to properly describe Jack recently and resorted to making up words.

"Assholiness," she offered.

"Nah, because it makes him sound like some sort of rude priest or something," I shook my head. "Dickwadiness?"

She nodded seriously. "Yes, I like that one very much."

We paused to order our food, which took a bit longer than expected since the waitress flipped out and pulled a digital camera on me. "I totally love your band," she grinned, lifting up her uniform to reveal an All Time Low shirt.

"Aw, thanks," I smiled, hoping that she'd chill out and take our orders.

"I know this is gonna be annoying, since all you and your girlfriend want to do is eat, but can I get a picture with you?" she begged.

"Um..." I began, trying to decide whether or not to set her straight on the "girlfriend" thing before refusing the picture, but Amanda intervened.

"Yeah, sure! I'll take it." she stood and held out her hand for the camera. "Get in closer. Be a good boy, Alex, just smile."

"Yes, dear," I teased, smiling for the camera and putting my arm around the waitress casually.

Amanda handed the camera back and smiled. "That was really cute."

The waitress smiled. "Thanks. Your girlfriend seems really nice. Oh, right: what would you like to eat?" once we'd given her the orders and she'd scurried away, I laughed.

"My girlfriend, huh?" I teased.

She shrugged and sipped her Coke. "Why bother correcting her? It'd just take more time. I don't wanna waste my life arguing when I could be eating my chicken caesar salad with extra croutons and dressing."

I nodded. "True, true." After we'd recieved our meals and were midway through eating them, I got an idea. "Manda," I began and she looked up at me.

"Wha'?" she demanded through a mouthful of chicken.

"Ew," I snickered. "chew and swallow first."

she laughed and nodded, swallowing. "Oh, right, that. Anyway, what?"

"You're getting jealous because of Izzie-"

"Not jealous," she quickly interupted. "Try 'pissed beyond belief.'"

"Okay, pissed beyond belief. So what's the best way to make Jack realize that he's going to lose if he keeps doing this?"

She tried to understand where I was going with this for a moment, but quickly gave up. "I don't know," she sighed, shoving another forkful of salad into her mouth. "Tell me."

"Just flirt with me a shit-ton. It's gauranteed to piss him off. We get bonus points if he punches me in the face."

"Alex, that's fucking brilliant," she grinned. "So how are we going to execute this?"

I considered her question for a moment. "Well, we can definitely flirt a lot when we're coming back to the hotel, that way he thinks something happened while we were out. Then if he asks you to hang out with him, tell him we already made plans. We can just go out to eat again or something. Then I think to really seal the deal - "

"We'll kiss," she filled in for me.

I hadn't intended to suggest this, but it made a lot more sense. The possibility of kissing Amanda later on sent my stomach into nervous spasms. "Yeah," I agreed, "We'll kiss and then Jack will want you back." Putting the two sentences together seemed odd and made my mouth feel dry. I probably shouldn't have opened my big mouth.

POINT OF VIEW: Amanda Rothman.

"You think this is really gonna work?"

Alex nodded. "Jack's always been the jealous type. Let's just make sure he knows what he's going to be missing if you leave him for someone else...namely his best friend. That'll really get him."

I nodded and took a deep breath. "This will work," I told myself out loud. It was the morning after Alex and I had gone out to eat together and the waitress had mistaken us for a couple, the moment that a brilliant plan to win Jack back had formulated in Alex's head. This had to work, it just had to. I didn't know how I would function properly if Jack ended up dumping me for...her. We were sitting in our hotel room on the bed we shared, cross-legged and across from one another. Jack had just woken up and had been holed-up in the bathroom for the past twenty minutes.

"What is he doing in there?"

"Jacking off," Alex suggested seriously, then laughed. "No pun intended."

"That was an awful pun," I smirked and shoved his shoulder lightly right as Jack entered the room. What impecable timing that boy had.

"Morning," he yawned, stretching and pushing his tangled hair away from his eyes.

"Morning," I replied indifferently, forcing myself to turn back to Alex even though all I wanted to do was marvel in how adorable Jack looked today.

"So listen," Jack began. I didn't turn to face him, simply kept looking at Alex. I might need moral support when I turned Jack down for plans or refused to listen to his apologies; more than anything I just wanted to tackle him onto his bed, kiss him, and tell him that everything was okay. But I couldn't very well do that, not if I wanted him to understand what I'd been going through for the past few weeks. "I was thinking that you and I could go to the restaurant in the hotel tonight and, you know, talk about stuff. We haven't talked much for a while."

"I wonder whose fault that is," I mumbled under my breath.

"So what'dya say? It's a date?"

I dared to turn and look at him but immediately wished that I hadn't. His face held this hopeful sort of expression, one of actual excitement at the prospect of spending time with me, and if I locked eyes with him I wouldn't be able to turn him down. I whipped back to Alex and hissed, "Help me!"

Alex nodded and looked over my shoulder at Jack. "Sorry, man. Me and Amanda already have a 'date,' " he offered, utilizing air-quotes.

I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Jack's face fall in defeat. "You can't skip it, Manda? Just this once? We really do need to talk, don't you think?"

"Well, yeah..." I began, looking down. "I, I guess I could-"

"You know what you've gotta do," Alex whispered.

"I can't, Jack. I'm sorry, but I don't break plans. Unlike some people I know." The last sentence came out more icily than I intended and I could tell that I'd hurt him.

"Please?" He strode over to me and took my hand. "Please?" he repeated, this time his voice a bit lower.

"No." I ripped my hand out of his and turned away. "You've had plenty of chances to talk to me. C'mon, Alex." I jumped off the bed and grabbed Alex's hand, pulling him from the bed as well. "Let's get out of here. I don't want to be anywhere near him." I slid on my flip-flops and allowed Alex to do the same before storming out of the room, still tightly gripping Alex's hand.

"Later, dude," Alex smirked, giving a snotty little wave to Jack before shutting the door behind himself.

As soon as the door closed I let fall several tears. "That was so hard," I sniffled, resting my head on Alex's shoulder as we walked down the stairs hand-in-hand. "I don't want to ignore him. I don't want him to get mad at me. He's going to hate me."

"Shh," he whispered and tipped my face up. "It's fine. You're fine. And how could anybody possibly hate you? You're perfect."

I blushed and looked away. "Don't say that."

He shrugged and wiped the tears from my cheeks with his free hand. "It's true, and it's sort of amazing that you don't seem to understand how wonderful of a person you are."

I blushed again, more fiercely than before, and kept my gaze fixed on the ground. "Stop saying stuff like that, you're embarrassing me. Besides, it sounds so cheesy. We aren't on the front of a Hallmark card, Alex."

He laughed. "See? Stuff like that."

"Whatever," I giggled and shook my head.

He nodded and glanced back to where our room was. "You can probably let go of my hand now. Jack isn't around to see anything."
"I don't care." I smiled and squeezed his hand before starting back down the stairs, pulling him along with me. "Let's get out of here."

POINT OF VIEW: Alex Gaskarth.

We got back to the hotel late, around eleven at night. Amanda and I each had a handful of missed calls and unanswered texts from Jack; he'd been trying to talk to us all night and all night we had been ignoring him. Amanda had reasoned, "What's the point? He's just gonna bother us even more if we talk to him. Wanting to know where we are, what we're doing, shit like that." But this only meant that he was jealous. Amanda and I entertained ourselves by comparing the content of the texts we got from him. Amanda's first text was, "Can you please come back to the room? I need to see you," while mine was, "Where the fuck are you?" After technologically harrassing us for nearly forty-five minutes, Jack sent Amanda, "I miss you. Come back, please? I know how I can make up whatever I did to screw stuff up [;" (this text made me want to barf, but I held it back). Moments later, he set me a text that read, "Where the FUCK did you bring my girlfriend? I'm serious, Alex, bring her back. Now." It was actually very humorous.

"You know he's probably sitting in the lobby waiting for us," I warned as we walked through the front doors. She shrugged and pulled me over to a couch. We sprawled across it, her leaning on my chest while I leaned against the back of the couch. She yawned and looked up at me.

"Let's play the question game," she said with a smile. "You know the rules?"

I nodded. "Yep." I'd played it a million times before with her, but for some reason I felt that this time it would be a bit more intense. "Okay, you go first."

"Um..." she was silent for a long moment. "Oh, I got one! What was your first impression of me? You know, back when we met in your junior year. Freshman for me, obviously."

"That's an easy one. I thought you were one of the prettiest girls I'd ever met, even though you were two years younger than me. After I got to know you, you seemed even more awesome than before. I liked you from the start."

She grinned. "Really?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "But Jack called you in our senior year."

Amanda sat up abruptly. "What?"

Shit. I probably shouldn't have said that. "If you really want to know-"

"I do," she interupted.

"In our senior year, you came into the conversation somehow. I think Zack was making fun of the kid that you were going to homecoming with-"

"What was wrong with him?"

"Nothing, if you like unibrows," I laughed and she punched my shoulder. "Okay, okay. Anyway, Zack was making fun of the kid and Jack said something like, 'I wish I'd asked her before that faggot.' And Rian was messing with him like, 'Why, do you like her?' then Jack flipped out and was all, 'Is it that obvious? Don't tell her, don't tell her!' We didn't say anything because it got all awkward, and he took that as a hint that we liked you, too, so he flipped out again and was like, 'I call her! You guys can't make a move on her, that's not fair, she's mine!' So...yeah. It was really awkward and weird."

She considered this before nodding and laying back on my chest again. "Your turn."

It flew out of my mouth before I could stop myself. "Has Jack told you he loves you?"

She sighed. "No. There have been times that I thought he was going to say it." Amanda was quiet for a long moment. "But he never has. I mean, it's too early anyway, isn't it?"

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Good."

Once again, Amanda sat up, this time slowly, and looked at me suspiciously. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing! I just...I-" I stammered. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What's wrong with me?

"Alex."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it," I said quietly.

"Yes you did."

I could tell that my face was turning red and I kept quiet.

She took my hand and forced me to look her in the eyes. "Whatever it is, you can tell me. I promise, I won't freak or anything. You're my best friend and you know that."

I nodded. "You promise you won't freak?"

She nodded.

"Okay. But remember, you asked for it. If things get all awkward, this isn't my fault." Silence. "Okay, it would be my fault, but still."

"Alex, just spit it out!" she laughed, rolling her eyes.

Oh god, her laugh. And the smile. "I don't know how to say it."

"Then just be blunt, 'kay? Don't beat around the bush or anything. Just fucking hit me with it." She smiled, which made me feel worse. I couldn't do this to her and Jack; it would complicate things and she didn't deserve all the drama that it would bring to the table.

"Don't freak. Remember, you promised," I reminded her.

"Okay!" she cried, grinning. "Just come on! I'm waiting."

I looked down at my shoes and mumbled incoherently.

"What?" she pushed.

I repeated it, still not audible to the human ear. I could tell she would be getting frustrated anytime now, but I was still trying to build up the necessary courage. I'd never said anything like this to anybody before and I almost felt bad that Amanda would be the first person I told it to. It was also very likely that I'd be the first person to say it to her; it was unfair, taking something like this away from Jack, but she wasn't going to let it go until I spilled.

"Alex, come on."

I frowned, still looking down. I opened my mouth to say it, three incredibly simple words. Or at least, three words that would be very simple for anybody but the two of us, especially the two of us in the situation that we were in. Finally I decided that words would fail me each and every time and resorted to Plan B. No words, just actions. I hesitated for a moment before reaching over, running my hand through her hair, and pulling her towards me into a kiss. To my relief, she didn't push me away.