I Know You've Got Your Life In Place But I've Yet To Take The Hint

I had ended up being the only one left in the living room. Alex had thrown a hissy fit and walked out, Zack had followed him, and then the other three had decided to go and find some food.

I knew Alex was pissed at me, but I was just trying to put everyone else first. It wouldn’t do any good to tell everyone else and make a big deal of it and most likely make everyone else uncomfortable before we even had a chance to discuss everything ourselves. And pissing Flyzik off had been a big mistake, too.

I was staring blankly at the screen when a shadow passed over the light.

“Knock knock, Jack-o, are you awake?” Rian’s voice sang.

I looked up at him. “Yeah, barely. I thought you went to talk to Cass and get food, what happened to that? You could have brought me some food.”

He sprawled out in the chair beside me. “Actually, I did manage to talk to Cass for all of ten minutes. And then I got distracted, sooo. Here I am. I need to talk to you.”

I didn’t like this. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone right now. Maybe Alex, but I didn’t really think that he was in the mood for talking to me right now. My heart hurt whenever I thought of him being mad at me, but I told myself that it was for the better and I had to suck it up.

“Okay … what do you need to talk to me about?” I folded my arms over my chest and made it evident that I wasn’t really in the mood to talk, I was just humoring him.

He looked slightly uncomfortable. No, wait, that wasn’t the right word. He looked slightly angry.

“I want to talk about you and Alex.”

I sighed, because somehow, I’d been expecting this. Obviously Alex couldn’t keep his mouth shut and had gone and told Rian anyway. Who knows, maybe he’d told the rest of the crew too and that’s why they all had felt the need to stand guard over us and watch what we did.

“Go ahead. Talk.” I wasn’t going to make this easy on him. If he wanted to be mad, I could be mad too.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Jack? I’m your friend. Don’t go and get all bitchy on me because YOU were hiding things from me. Do you honestly think I would care that my two best friends finally pulled their heads out of their asses long enough to realize that they belonged together? It’s been pretty damn evident to everyone else around here for a long time. We’ve been hoping it would happen, because quite frankly, you two are better for each other than any of your random sluts are for you or Lisa is for Alex. Who cares what Flyzik says to you, he’s not your mother. Even your mother would support this, damn it. Stop being an asshole and tell everyone!”

Without a doubt, I knew that it had to have been Alex who told Rian because a) nobody else knew that Matt knew and b) he had always had trouble keeping his mouth shut. I could feel the anger slowly boiling beneath my skin and I knew that it was going to be Rian who was going to get a blast of shit.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Rian,” I started, sarcasm oozing from my voice. “I wasn’t aware that I had to tell everyone about my sex life. You sure as hell don’t tell everyone about what happens between you and Cass, now do you? Because let’s face it, the only stuff that’s happened between me and Alex is sexual. You want to know what happened, really? We’ve sucked each other off. Crude enough for you? Like the mental images of your two best friends moaning each others name and grabbing at each other and fumbling like a pair of teenagers? Cause that’s what it comes down to. Lust. We want each other; we would have had each other if Matt hadn’t walked in. But besides that? You want the truth? I’ll give you the damned truth! I’m in love with Alex! Happy? But he can’t be in love with me. He just can’t.” My voice broke and I buried my face into the pillows. My hands pounded on the cushions and I just wanted to lay there and scream and cry like the idiot I was.

Rian just let me be. I knew he was still there, I could feel his weight on the cushions beside me, but he didn’t touch me, he didn’t talk to me. He just let my anger drain itself out until I barely had the energy to look up at him.

“Jesus, Ri, I’m so sorry.” I said, shame being the first thing that colored my senses. I reached up and put my hand on his, expecting him to flinch or jerk away, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me up, into him. He put an arm around me and sighed.

“What am I going to do with you, Jack?” he said sadly. “You can’t always put other people first, you know. You’re going to bury yourself alive under all these emotions that you hide behind those pretty eyes of yours. I don’t care if you want to yell and scream, or kick and punch me; you need to do something to get rid of those emotions. You worry us, kiddo.”

“I know. But how can I ask Alex to leave Lisa now? I really can’t. I mean … if you found out Cass was pregnant and someone else tried to get you to leave her, would you?”

Rian looked me dead in the eye. “No.” He held up a hand before I could say anything. “There is a big difference, though. I love Cassadee. I wouldn’t leave her if she was pregnant, I wouldn’t leave her if she wasn’t pregnant. Alex doesn’t love Lisa, Jack; he hadn’t loved her in a long, long time.”

I buried my face into Rian’s chest. “I know. I know. But …” I couldn’t even bring myself to finish the thought that was lodged deep inside my heart.

“But what, Jack? You can tell me anything, I’m listening.”

It came out in a rush. “But what if Alex sees the baby, and realizes that he wants more babies, and decides to go back to Lisa because she can give him babies and I can’t? This whole thing would be for nothing and everything would just be fucked up again.”

Rian’s hand moved up and down my back for a minute, and his strength poured into me. I realized that this thought had been in the back of mind all along, that I guess part of the problem with not wanting to make things official with Alex was because that if we didn’t have anything, we wouldn’t be able to screw it up. I was so afraid that I wasn’t going to be good enough for him.

“Everyone has insecurities, Jack. Its part of life. You just can’t let them get to you. Alex loves you. He’s not going to stay with Lisa because he wants children. You guys can have them too, you know. It’s not just a guy-girl thing.”

I looked up at that, my eyes wide.

Rian shook his head and his cheeks went slightly red. “I mean … you guys can adopt babies, you know. It’s legal. I think you two would be great parents, let’s face it. I can see it now. Lisa … she’d be too protective. Alex probably wouldn’t even get a chance to really see the baby, or bond with it. But with you two … the kid could tour with us during the summers when it was older, he’d see the world. He’d have a huge family that always loved him and supported him. Can’t you picture that, Jack?”

I could. My eyes half closed, I could just see me and Alex, Alex holding the baby while I took thousands of pictures and posted them all over Twitter because I was so proud of my two loves. I could see us bringing the baby onstage to celebrate its first word. I could see the barbecues that our parents would hold for his birthday, how all our families would be so proud of us. I could see Zack teaching him to skateboard, Rian buying him his first drum set and setting it up in our garage to annoy us, Matt taking him to Disney to meet Mickey Mouse, Evan feeding him waffles at 3 in the morning. They were such beautiful images that I could feel my eyes tearing up at the thought of it.

I looked at Rian. “I can see it. I really can.”

Rian looked at me. “Then go, make it happen.”