Six Feet Under the Stars

Alex left early the next morning to pick Caitlyn up from the airport.

For the good part of the waking hours, he had been banging around in his room and somehow managing to knock a lamp off of a bureau. The sound of the constant scrape of a spoon in a cereal bowl was the thing that had finally roused me from my dreams. Bleary-eyed without my contacts, I stared up into the heart of the ceiling wishing for a few more hours of sleep to wave off the headache I could already feel forming in the back of my skull.

Abandoning any hope of rest, I flipped the thin cotton sheets that had no doubt been used by countless travelers over time and joined the singer at the small table in the kitchen. The air conditioner chilled me in my mismatched camisole and shorts as I took a seat across from Alex at the sterile table. With a mouthful of Cheerios, he leveled his eyes with mine across from the purple bowl he was using, "Did I wake you?"

"No, I usually wake up at six in the morning." I told him sarcastically, but not bitterly. Ignoring etiquette customs, I leaned my elbows on the table and propped my dreary head up with fists.

"Sorry."

I shrugged, "Everyone has to wake up sometime. What brings you up so early though? I mean, I know they show Captain Planet at five in the morning on Boomerang but it seems like you're a bit too committed for that."

With a laugh, Alex slid his empty bowl away to his right, "Don't even get me started on that show. Kwame was such a badass. He'd use his earth powers for some crazy shit."

"Well, what the hell was up with the power of heart? That was so lame. I wonder how the producers came up with that power."

"That's the bitch role." Alex told me.

My laughter was so loud that I thought it might wake Jack up from the adjoining bedroom, "Damn, you really pegged that one down."

"Just saying what everyone's thinking." He shrugged nonchalantly and started fiddling with the silver spoon in his fingers. He held the metal up and scrutinized himself in the reflection.

"That vain?" I joked.

"Do you ever realize how if you look at yourself in a spoon, you're reflection is flipped upside down? It's crazy." The expression of absolute seriousness on Alex's face brought on another round of chuckles from me.

"One of the many wonders of the world. Just like why you;re up this early. You never did tell me why. I thought rockstars were supposed to party all night and sleep all day like owls."

"Owls party?" Alex raised an eyebrow.

Rolling my eyes, I said, "Oh, come on. You know what I mean."

"Well, I have places to go this morning. Caitlyn's going to be arriving at eleven and I don't want to miss her. She would get really pissed if she had to walk around the airport for three hours because I couldn't get parking. Plus, I haven't seen her in months."

I had no idea how I forgot Caitlyn was supposed to arrive that morning. It always seemed too far off, like the looming date of high school graduation. Everything feels normal and then all of a sudden, the date of graduation comes and you're kicked into adult life with only a diploma. Nevertheless, I put on a smile, "Yeah, that makes sense. Want some company along the way?"

He shifted slightly, "I thought about asking you, but... the taxi would get too crowded."

Unfortunately, I knew what Alex really meant: 'I thought about asking you, but it would be extremely uncomfortable for me to have my ex-girlfriend who I still have feelings for and you, the girl I most recently slept with all in a five food radius of me with enough distance to claw my eyes out.' Repressing those thoughts, I replied simply, "Okay."

After a moment with only the air conditioner blowing in between us, Alex scraped his chair backwards and carried his dishes to the sink to quickly hand wash them. Subtly, I observed Alex from behind and wished that things between us were repaired but all the time knowing it would take much more than a simple conversation to set things straight.

"Well, I better get going." Alex grabbed a map of directions, a wallet, and the room key card before pausing in front of the door, "I really hope you like her, Melanie. Just give Caitlyn a chance, okay?"

"I'll try." I gave him a weak smile before the door clicked behind him.

For a while, I sat on the edge of my makeshift bed and watched the stationary view of the balony from the inside of the hotel room. It still seemed surreal that I was in Seattle admist a tour with All Time Low. Part of me couldn't believe I was friends with the musicians, like they should have been different because of the fame. But it all boiled down to one fact; they, just like everyone else, were just ordinary people at the end of the day.

Keeping my thoughts away from anything Caitlyn related, I decided to get Jack up with a personal wake-up call. Tip-toeing to his room with a mischevious grin, I slowly opened his door wide enough for me to fit through and then shut it once more.

The room was dark and somewhat gloomy with the curtains drawn over the windows. Jack could be found druggily asleep, almost looking knocked out. His body was intertwined with the sheets making it look like he was trying on a toga in his sleep. A large barefoot hung off of the end of the bed and an was flung wildly across his face.

Laughing quietly at the sight before me, I decided to pull him out of his dreams nicely instead of dumping cold water on him or jumping on his body. With a flop worthy of a ten, I landed next to him causing Jack to bob up and down on the bed for a moment before the mattress settled back down. Mumbling unintelligibly, he scrunched his eyes together trying to hold onto the dreamworld. Smiling, I leaned in toward his ear, "Jack..."

Still in sleep, Jack shifted his position and his chin bumped into my face because of my closeness. With a roll of the eyes, I prodded his shoulder with a finger but he remained immobile. Obviously the 'nice' wake-up call was not going to work.

I stood up on the shaky mattress and waited until I balanced my weight on the contraption and the risk of falling was diminished. With a small leap, I slammed into Jack's body holding onto some grace despite the circumstances. He woke with a start and looked around at his surrounding quite confused about what was happening. "What the hell?"

I grinned, "Sorry. I decided to torture you a little bit this morning. But you look tired as shit so I kind of regret waking you up now."

Sporting dark shadpws under his eyes, Jack chuckled softly, "Gotta wake up sometime."

"That's what I told Alex this morning!"

"And where is the bastard?"

"Off to the airport. He left a good while ago to pick up Caitlyn. I'm a little nervous about meeting her seeing as the only thing I really know about her is that she got knocked up by a middle-aged laundromat owner." I told Jack, completely unabashed.

"I'm curious about what will happen. It'll sort of be like a science far project with human guinea pigs as the test subjects." The thought for some reason made his eyes shine.

"Okay, Einstein. I think you should just get back to sleep. Everything seems to be making you loopy in the morning. We don't need a mad scientist running around the hotel room with toxix chemicals."

Jack wiggled in the bed and started to protest, "I'm up now!"

My body was strewn over his diagonally and I pushed his chest down with a hand to stop him from sitting up. The atmosphere shifted immediately into a sexual, posessive air and both of our eyes grew wider as our hearts raced. "Maybe I should get up..."

"No. Stay here." Jack grabbed my hand and stopped my sheepish departure.

"And do what?" I asked almost at a mumble; we were so close already that anything above a whisper would be like a scream. Looking in earnest at his face, I waited expectantly for Jacks reply. Somehow I thought he'd have all the answers.

Breathily, he laughed from under me, "I don't know."

Biting the inside of my cheek, the nervousness inside me sent an overpopulation of butterflies rummaging around my organs. "Jack, I don't know what the hell we have--."

"Me neither."

"I don't know how I feel." I warned him for the second time meeting his eyes with all the seriousness in the world. His heart slammed against mine as if it were knocking on a door waiting for entrance into the inside.

With a hand he cupped my face delicately with his fingers as if custom-framing my cheek for display in a museum. Jack's lips were murmering almost against my skin and a shiver of anticipation pranced down my back, "That's okay."

Suddenly and surprised my my daring, I combed a hand through Jack's hair and tugged slightly at the roots as if trying to weedle answers out of the guitarist, "You're not drunk anymore, right?"

His answering laugh sounded enchanted. "Nope. Clean as a whistle."

"Good. Then you have the liberty to stop this with a clear head."

"I don't want to." Every ounce a gentleman, Jack asked me, "Is it alright if I kiss you?"

Laughing, I tucked my face in the crook of his shoulder and spoke my reply into the cotton pillowcase, "No one's ever asked me that before. I feel like you just stepped out of a Jane Austen novel or something."

"I'm not that conservative." Jack snorted and his hand glided softly down my back making me sink further into his comfort. He was like a Sunday-morning-driving-in-the-countryside type of guy when it came to affection; breezy and at ease.

"But just enough." I teased lightly leaning to look back down at him again.

Jack asked suspiciously, "Are you trying to avoid the question? I mean, if you don't want to kiss me just let me know now and we can both walk away clear from all this. No harm done."

I read the underlining meaning to his words; if we kissed then something of each other would be attached to the other person, always tied one way or another together. Moving forward would mean regrets and the potential for something great also. Quickly, I decided staying stationary was not realistic; the future was constantly changing and one had to adapt to the world or get left behind in the dust. Forgotten.

"No, I want you to kiss me." I answered with little hesitation. As Jack leaned up, I pressed my fingers to his lips to stop his move, "But after another date or two. I feel like I rushed things with Alex and we all see how great that turned out."

Lips quirking upwards from beneath my fingers, Jack told me, "I think I can wait it out. I've already waited long enough to get to this point with you so another date is not a problem for me. Honestly, I didn't think things would be working out this way in the first place."

"You're doing a good job with muddling my feelings," I admitted and finally rolled off of Jack in favor of laying beside him on top of the rumpled hotel sheets.

Nudging my arm, he half-joked to me, "Now that's what I like to hear."

Even thought Jack favored hearing about my tangled set of emotions, the sound I dreaded the most came much too soon: the hotel room door banged open announcing the untimely arrival of Caitlyn.