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

I was really confused when I woke up, to say the least. The room was darker than I’d realized when I’d gone to bed the night before. The shades were drawn tightly, and there wasn’t even any light coming in from under the door.

The red numbers on my alarm clock told me that it was only 2 in the morning, so I had no idea what I was doing up. I didn’t usually wake up like that randomly, especially not after I’d only gotten a few hours sleep. Groggily, I went to get comfortable, and then –

BAM.

I ended up on the floor. The stupid bed was way higher up than the bed I was used to on tour, and much more narrow that the king sized bed I was used to sleeping in at home. I struggled for a second, and then decided I was just going to sleep on the floor.

Apparently though, my phone had other ideas. It started vibrating instantly, meaning that I had a phone call. Who would call me at 2 in the morning?

The caller ID read Jack. I was instantly awake. I pressed the speaker button.

“You better have a good reason for calling me at 2 in the morning, Jacko.” I said, a smile crossing my face nonetheless.

I heard his laughter through the phone. “I wouldn’t have had to call if you had answered my text message,” he said, and I could hear the childish pouting in his voice. “I guess sleep is more important to you. Fine, I get it.”

I ran a hand through my hair and laughed softly. “I didn’t get any messages. But then again, I just woke up and fell out of bed. I haven’t really had a chance to do anything, much less check my phone. Your message could have very well been what woke me up though. I knew SOMETHING had made me wake up.”

“You fell out of bed?” he said, trying to keep the humor from his voice and failing. “What I would give to see that.”

I frowned at the phone. “Meanie. It hurt.”

“Awwww, want me to come kiss it better?”

“Yes.”

He smiled through the phone. I could feel it. “I wanted to ask you something, actually.”

“Go for it.”

“Want to come over and go on the trampoline?” he asked.

“Um … Jack, are you out of your mind?” I asked lightly. “My parents, who aren’t really on speaking terms with me right now, are sleeping in the next room. Several members of my family who probably think I’m a douche bag are in the living room and guest rooms. I can’t get out of here!” I really thought Jack must be psycho right about now. He had the weirdest ideas sometimes, it was incredible.

“I’m not crazy. I miss you, I want to see you. Come on, you used to sneak out all the time when you were younger. Just do like you used to. How hard can it be?”

******************************

How hard can it be? 10 minutes later, those words were haunting me. Apparently, it could be a lot harder than it seemed. For one, I wasn’t the same size that I’d been at 15 and 16 when I’d snuck out. Two, I wasn’t as agile anymore (I guess I was getting old). And three, the tree that used to hang so conveniently outside my window was getting old, too. I realized that the moment I heard a sickening snap and felt gravity pulling me down.

I landed in rose bushes. Great … another reason for my mom to hate me. Picking myself up, I brushed the petals and leaves out of my hair and the mud and dirt off of my pants. On impulse, I grabbed a rose and stuck it in my back pocket.

I had just managed to take one step out of our garden when the porch lights suddenly came on. I dropped to my knees behind the lilac bush and waited. I heard scuffling sounds, and then footsteps. I held my breath.

“Nothing’s out here, Is. I told you that. It must be the wind, or a squirrel or something. Go back inside; you’re going to catch a chill.”

The light remained on for a few more minutes after the footsteps had made their way back towards the house, so I waited before moving. This time, I stayed down on all fours and crawled past the windows, only getting to my feet once I’d reached the sidewalk at the end of our property. Then, I ran.

Five minutes later, I walked on the edge of Jack’s parents’ property. All of the lights were off in the house, so I felt a little more at ease and didn’t walk so cautiously. I knew the path around the back of the house to the trampoline like the back of my hand, so I picked up my pace.

And the next thing I knew, something attacked my foot, causing me to scream.

I plopped down on the ground, waiting to be found out. When bright light suddenly blinded me, I knew I’d been caught. I looked up; ready to explain why I was here in the middle of the night. And almost screamed again at the shadow looking down on me.

Jack covered my mouth with his hands. “Geeze, Alex, I know I’m scary when I just wake up, but I didn’t think it was this bad. What are you doing over here, trying to break my yard and wake the whole house up? What’d you do?”

“Something attacked my foot.”

“Something attacked your-“Jack couldn’t even finish. He shone the light around, looking for the thing that had ‘attacked my foot.’ “It’s a tree stump, Alex. You walked into a tree stump.”

This struck me as hilariously funny and apparently Jack felt the same way, because waves of laughter washed over us. We both rolled on the ground, trying to not let our laughter out, because we knew once we did, it would be uncontrollable. We gasped for air and squeezed each others’ hands, and finally, managed to get off the ground and onto our feet.

We walked hand in hand through the rest of the yard, the moon our only light.

“So, what made you decide to bring me out here, of all places?” I asked Jack. “This used to be our hook up spot with girls when we were younger,” I mused, remembering all of the times that one of us, sometimes both of us, would be back here with a girl. We’d walked in random sex acts so many times that after a while we stopped caring.

“I remember,” Jack said. “I remember very well. I also seem to remember that this is the place that we had our first kiss.” He looked at me. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”

I hadn’t forgotten, it’d just been a long time since I’d thought of it.

Flashback

“Jack! Jack! Get your behind out here; I’m going to kill you!” I screamed, running around the garage, trampoline, and pool, looking for Jack. My fifteen year old hair was long and held back by a bandana, and my too big pants were falling off.

“Jackary! You can’t hide from me forever!” I yelled. “I’ll find you!”

“No, you won’t,” came a childish voice from somewhere near me. I could feel that he was near me. I just didn’t know where he was. I was going to find him, I was going to eat him for dinner, then spit him back out and make him pay for a new guitar, since he’d broken mine.

“Jack, come out. I’m not mad; I just want to talk to you.” I sang, and tensed, listening for his answer. I knew that he wouldn’t be able to resist answering me, he lived to argue.

“Yes you are mad at me, Alex. Don’t lie. You hate me.”

The voice sounded like it was coming from … near my feet? I dropped to my knees in the long grass, and sure enough, the dark haired boy was sitting under the trampoline, his knees hugging his chest. When he saw me, he made puppy eyes at me.

“Don’t hurt me, Lex. It was an accident, I promise. Don’t hurt me.”

I melted. I couldn’t stay angry at Jack. He was too damned cute. I felt protective of him. Even at the tender age of 14, he still seemed so fragile and easily hurt.

“Do you really think I’d hurt you? I just wanted to know why you didn’t tell me when it happened,” I said softly.

“I … I thought maybe you’d tell my parents. And then... they’d be mad at me,” he whispered.

“Aw, Jacky, come here,” I said, opening my arms. “I’ll protect you. Always. Do you trust me?”

He looked at me, his eyes brimming with love and trust. “Always.”

And then I’d kissed him. It was a kiss that lasted all of maybe a minute, but it was enough to leave us wondering. His lips were soft under mine, his tongue darting across my lips, until I opened my lips and let him in. Then, the two of us broke away, scared by what we were feeling.

It was the best kiss I’d ever had.

“It was the best kiss I’d ever had,” I said out loud, echoing my thoughts.

Jack smiled, the smile reaching his eyes. “That’s what I thought, too.”

We walked the last few feet to the trampoline, and I was shocked at what I saw.

Candles were lined up around the edges, giving it a eerie, romantic glow. Blankets covered the trampoline, and a bottle of champagne sat in a bucket of ice in the center.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, until Jack took my face in his hand and turned me to face him.

“You did all of this for me?” I asked him stupidly. “Why?”

“Because you’re worth it, Alex. We’ve never been able to have a proper date; we’ve never even been able to really have any time alone since everyone found out because the guys thought it would be cute to ruin everything. And then … the stuff with Lisa kept us away from each other, and now, well … there’s no one to interrupt us. My mom’s probably sleeping like the dead, so we pretty much have this place to ourselves.”

I closed the distance between us as his voice trailed off, and kissed him so fiercely that I nearly caught him off balance. Taking his hand, I led it to the back of my jeans.

He laughed into my lips. “Mmm, Alex. You have a nice ass.” He grabbed it then, firmly.

I smiled and batted playfully at his hands. “Take the rose out of my pocket,” I whispered to him. “Then you can continue to molest my ass.”

“It’s not molesting if you like it,” he said. And then my words must have sank in. “You brought me a rose?” he said. “From Momma Isobel’s garden?”

I smiled. “Yep. I remembered.”

Flashback:

“Alexander William! Why are you in my garden with scissors?” came my mom’s horrified voice from somewhere behind me. I ignored her, and continued to cut. She screamed something else and then went back inside.

“ALEX!”

This new voice intruded my thoughts and I turned just in time to be tackled by my best friend. Even at 16, he was smaller than me, but still managed to knock me on my back.

“Happy birthday, Jack-o! I want to give you something.” I held out the flowers. “They make me think of you,” I said shyly.

He smiled at me. “Flowers make you think of me?” he asked.

I nodded my head and looked at my feet. “They have happy faces,” I explained. “Like you. No matter what you’re going through, you’re always smiling. These flowers are the same. Even when it rains, or when my little cousins are trampling them, they look at me and they seem happy.”

Jack didn’t know what to say.

“From now on, these are Jackroses.” I said.
“I love you, Alex,” he said, hugging me.

“I love you too, Jack,” I said, hugging him back, the roses pinned between the two of us.

“Jackroses,” Jack breathed. And then he tackled me in a hug, like he had that day. “I still love you, Alex,” he said.

“And I still love you, Jack.”

We lay there for a few minutes until Jack pulled me up. “Let’s go on the trampoline.”

We climbed onto the trampoline. Jack poured the glasses of champagne, and then we both got to our feet, and started jumping around. The ice in the bucket sloshed all over our legs, and our champagne flutes titled haphazardly in our hands, and it wasn’t long before we collapsed in a heap on the blankets that were spread out.

Jack lay on top of me. I could feel the warmth radiating from his body. I reached up and took his face in my hands and pulled it down to mine. I kissed him, softly at first, and then more and more hungrily. Our tongues danced, and our breath came in short and rapid gasps. His hands were all over me. He delved deeper and deeper into my mouth, sucking on my tongue, scraping his lips along it, biting my lips and sucking on my lips until I couldn’t breathe anymore.

I could feel the length of his body against mine, and it was turning me on. I moaned his name, and he responded by running his hand down my stomach and over my belt buckle. I squirmed against him.

He ran his fingers along the waistband of my pants, and I moaned again, louder this time. His fingers against my bare skin were like ice on hot skin. He covered my lips with his to shush me, and I responded by sucking on them until he writhed on top of me. I held him to me for a few minutes, kissing the tender spot on his neck until he was almost crying as he said my name. I thrusted against him, feeling his hardness brushing mine through the layers of clothing we were wearing.

He peeled the shirt from my body, and kissed his way down my chest. He stopped to suck and bite each of my nipples, and then kissed his way down to my belly button, which he proceeded to lick until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I dug my fingers into his neck and he made an inhuman noise.

“Jack, please. Jack, just, Jack,” I couldn’t even string together a coherent sentence.

“Do you trust me?” he asked, his hands slipping into my unbuttoned jeans and gently stroking across my boxers. My dick leaped to life, pulsing in his hands.

“A-always,” I panted. “Always trust you.”

His hands were suddenly on my dick through my boxers, hot and ready. He stroked me expertly, his hands giving me the pleasure I’d so desperately wanted. My hands grasped at the blankets and my hips lifted off the trampoline and arched continuously. I moaned and cried and still couldn’t achieve what I wanted.

I could feel Jack hot and hard against me. I ground up against him, and little spasms of pleasure raced over me.

“Fuck me, Jack,” I moaned. “I can’t take this anymore.”

He stopped abruptly. “Are … are you sure, Alex?” he asked, but the desire was evident in his voice. He leaned down and started sucking on my neck.

“Yes, yes, yes!” I all but screamed. “Do me now.”

He slowly started to peel the jeans off of my legs. My boxers followed. He ran a finger down my ass, and I almost jumped out of my skin. A finger crept inside of me at the same time that his leg made its’ way between mine. I could feel his dick pressing into the crack of my ass, against his finger, and I arched my hips so that he was even closer than he had been before. His finger went further into me, and I couldn’t stop the noises that came from my throat.

His hands dug into my hips and then once again found my dick. He started rubbing me up and down, feather light, and I almost came right there. His hands were working miracles on my body, but I still didn’t feel complete.

“J-jack,” I moaned. “Now.”

His finger was suddenly gone. I pushed up against him, feeling his bare dick against me. I felt his body tighten in response, and then, I felt him in me. The pain mixed with the pleasure from his hands caused me to stop breathing. He stilled for a few minutes, giving me time to adjust. He moved slowly, teasing me. I dug my nails into his, and he started to pick up the pace. I could feel myself ready to release, but forced myself to hold it back for a few minutes. His hands went faster and faster, the same way that he was picking up speed inside of me. I cried out, as I came all over his hands. He thrusted into me one last time, and then I felt heat spiral into me. He pulled out not long after, and lay down beside me. Our hands reached for the others.

We lay there for a few minutes. I started to feel slightly sore. I wiggled, trying to get comfortable. Jack laughed at me. I glared at him.

“You’re going to be sore tomorrow,” he said lightly.

I hit him playfully.

“Just wait until it’s your turn.”