Good Love Will Find Me

"You are a despicable human being, Natalie Marie Smith," John growled before getting up and sliding out of the booth.

"I was thinking about going back to California."

Even with her little voice, John still heard the wretched sentence, and he felt as if the words had punched him in the stomach. All the air left his lungs and his eyes became wide. He turned back around. "You're not serious, are you?"

"My mom doesn't need me here. She has Henry. Bridget has the record store, she's doing fine. Luke has his mommy and daddy. Everyone has someone or something. You have a future, Johnny boy. You have a band. You don't need me."

Despite her attitude from before, her tone was sad and somber.

"I'll just rot in the city of angels. It's okay. No one in Arizona needs me, John."

He shook his head, sitting back down.

"Don't say that, Natalie. You're lying to yourself and you know it."

"What part of it is a lie, John? All I do is get in the way. And I'm just fucking you up! We both knew this was never going to last."

John closed his eyes and sighed. "I need you here, Nat. I need you."

She was quiet for a moment, letting him speak.

"I don't care if you'll never love me back, or you think you won't. I don't know what I would do without you. I can't even imagine what it would be like waking up every day and knowing I won't be able to see you within five minutes. You're a part of me now, and I'm not denying it anymore. It doesn't matter what I'm doing, or where I'm going, or who I'm with. You're always on my mind. Every time I'm at the store, or some other place, I see something and I think of you. Everything reminds me of you. I'm so sick of it, but I'm addicted to you, Nat. I need you to survive and if you go back to California, I'm almost sure that I'll die."

When he opened his eyes, he saw that she had closed hers and there were tears slowly running down her cheeks.

He almost reached out and wiped them off, but stopped himself from doing so, not wanting to make her angry.

"Please don't say those things, John," she whispered.

"Why not? They're all true."

"Because you're not supposed to love me. I don't deserve you. All I can do is hurt you."

"You make me happy, Natalie."

"Was I making you happy ten minutes ago? Was I making you happy in the desert when I told you I hated you? Was I making you happy then?"

"I'm always happy when I'm with you. Sometimes, it just gets overshadowed by other emotions, but the happiness is always there. I don't care if we're fighting, if we're yelling at each other until our voices go hoarse, I don't care if we're punching each other's faces or if even you're trying to fucking kill me. As long as I'm with you, and I know that you're real, and I can reach out and touch you to make sure that yes, you're still here and yes, you're still with me, I'm happy."

"Why are you making it so hard?"

"Making what so hard?"

"You're making it so hard to keep my word."

"Your word to who?"

"Myself. I don't want to fall in love. I promised myself I never would. And you're making me feel something close to love, or I think you are. When I wake up, the first thing I think of is your name. When I go to sleep, it's always you that's running through my veins. Whenever I'm not with you, I don't know what to do. It's like someone ripped my arm off, or my leg, or one of my hands. I don't function properly. I don't know. It scares me to feel like this."

"Why don't you just let yourself love, Nat?"

"Because I don't know how."

"Do you think you love me?"

"I don't know, John. I don't know anything anymore. Can we leave it at that?"

He nodded. If she wasn't saying yes, at least she wasn't saying no, and he would take what he could get. He would wait an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, or even a lifetime for Natalie to say yes. He didn't care how long it would take. He would always be waiting and ready.


John slowly opened his eyes to the sound of something buzzing rather close to his ear. He stuck his arm out lazily and grabbed his iPhone off his nightstand, blinking the sleep away from his eyes so that he could see who had been texting him all morning.

Secretly, he wanted it to be Natalie. He had dropped her off last night, and she was quiet the entire ride home. When he reached her driveway, all she did was kiss him lightly on the lips and she practically bolted from the car and up the walkway to her front door.

Alas, it wasn't Nat. It was his old friend Allison.

Just landed see you soon XOX - Alli

With slight panic, in that moment he realized he was supposed to pick Allison up from the airport at 11. It was 10:45. Shit. John grabbed a shirt and some basketball shorts, threw them on, and sprinted down stairs.

"Where are you going, dear?" his mother called.

"I'm gonna go pick Allison up at the airport."

"Oh, I missed her. Tell her that, Johnny!"

He rolled his eyes at her nickname. "Okay ma, see you later!" John said to her as he went into the garage, starting Valerie up.

He made it to Phoenix Skyharbor International Airport in record time. He thought it would be amusing to make a sign saying her name on it like people did in movies when they picked their friends or loved ones up. He had a few minutes to spare, so he rummaged around in his glove compartment and found a piece of paper and a Sharpie, writing Allison's name prominently on it.

John walked into terminal B and waited for her to come around the corner. After standing there for about 2 minutes, she came around the corner. His heart started to beat faster and his throat closed up, his brain halting all function, but in the most pleasant way possible. He held up the sign with her name on it and flashed the cheesiest smile he could muster. She stopped, dropped all her bags and sprinted towards him. Her auburn hair flowed and she was smiling from ear to ear. She thrust herself upon his lanky body and and John lifted her off the ground and spun her in a circle.

"Hi," she said to him as she stood there with her arms around his neck, running her fingers through his hair, "I missed you like crazy."

He leaned over and pecked her on the nose, whispering, "I missed you like crazy too. How was Australia?"

"It was amazing! I learned so many new things and met so many unforgettable people. I wish you could have come, John. It wasn't the same without you."

"Did you bring me back a koala?" he said.

She ran back over to her bags and brought them over to where John was standing. She opened her green duffle bag and pulled out a small stuffed koala and handed it to him.

He smiled, kissing her. After grabbing her bags, they walked over to the doors and both of them were hit by blistering heat of Arizona.

"God, I missed this," Allison whispered to herself. John grabbed her hand and intertwined their fingers as they walked over to Valerie.

"Ladies first," he said as he helped her into the passenger side. He took her bags and put them in the bed of the truck. He got into the car, started her up and made his way home.

About halfway there, Natalie said, "What is this god awful song we're listening to?"

John looked at her as if she had grown a third eye and gills, along with a tail and four noses. "What? Transatlanticism by Death Cab For Cutie? You used to love this song, didn't you?"

Allison shook her head, confused. "I've never liked this song, John."

"I-I don't know how you...Natalie loves them as much as I do," he said more to himself than Allison.

"Who's Natalie?" Alli asked, suspicious, with a jealous and defensive edge in her voice.

"She was my best friend. Then she left me to go live in California. She just moved back and I hung out with her once or twice while you were gone. It's not like we wrestled or anything," he replied smoothly. A clean lie.

Saying it was a clean lie was a lie. It came out jumbled and rushed, something unusual for John, especially around Allison. He just hoped she didn't ask anything like, "How come I've never met her?" or, "You weren't friends with her before I left, were you?"

He glanced sideways over to Allison and she was staring at him with a very confused look on her face.

"Wrestled? What the fuck is that? Like, do you mean the literal sense of it, or is it code for something else?"

And there it was. The bitchy side of Allison that no one else really ever saw but John. He sure had missed this.

John had forgotten that the only people who knew that he referred to sex as wrestling were Leigh, Luke, and of course, the girl he had been wrestling with, Nat.

"No, no, I mean like the WWE guys who kick the shit out of each other just to win a stupid belt."

"Alright, O'Callaghan. Better hope that's what you meant," she snapped.


They pulled into John's drive way and he cut the engine. Alli hopped out of the truck and grabbed her suitcase from the back. John took all her other bags and followed her into his house.

"Jenny! Oh, how I missed you!" Alli said, beaming at John's mother and pulling her into a hug.

"I missed you too, Alli dear! It seems to me that Australia treated you well," his mother said after she pulled away from the hug, looking at Alli from head to toe.

She had been in Australia for a little under 9 months and she had changed. She was...different, and John couldnt quite figure out what had changed. It might have been that she dressed differently instead of wearing dressy clothes; her atire consisted of an oversized t-shirt and jeans. Or maybe it was her hair, which was much longer than her previous shoulder length. After a few minutes of thinking it over, John noticed it. She wasn't as thin as she used to be. John just brushed it off as nothing. Now there was just more of her to be friends and have a good time with.

"Oh honey," John's mom chirped at him, snapping him of his trance, "Don't forget about Jared's barbecue tonight."

"Wouldn't miss it! I can bring Alli and have a good time with her," John said with a smile on his face. After his mother turned around, Alli walked over to John and dragged her finger across his chest, proceeding to walk up the stairs to John's room with her suit case. He followed, his hands full with her other bags. When he got into his room, he dropped all of Alli's bags on the floor. She walked over to him, stood on her tip toes and kissed him passionately. Alli pulled away and rested her forehead on John's.
"I missed that more than you could ever imagine," she whispered. He kissed her again and kisses on the mouth transformed into kisses down her jaw and then other parts of alli's body and ended with discarded clothes all over John's room.


While John wrestled with Allison, all he could think of was Natalie. Her touch, her taste, her smell, her everything. Allison was so much different then Natalie was.
John rolled over so he was facing Allison and put his arm around her. For a second, he was surprised to see a face other than Natalie's, but he got ahold of himself. Allison flashed her stunning smile at John and even though she wasn't the girl he was hoping to see, his heart skipped a beat. "That was amazing," she whispered while looking straight into his eyes.

"I missed that so much, Nat," he whispered back to her and as soon as the words left his mouth, he wished he could take them back.

"Excuse me?!" Allison said, moving away from John, "Did you just call me Nat?" she hissed at him.

"No! You misheard me, I said um, flat. Yeah, flat," John stuttered quickly.

"That is the worst cover up I've ever heard in my life, John O'Callaghan," Alli spat back at him, getting out of bed, finding her clothes. She threw on her bra and underwear and then she grabbed John's shirt and some shorts, bolting out the door.

John didn't bother to go after her. He knew it would just make Allison more upset in the long run. He figured she would attempt to go back to her place and try and figure out what had happened. He hoped she'd come back and want to talk it over.

That was one thing John loved about Allison. She never wanted to stay mad at people. She always wanted to fix things and move on with her life.

While he waited for Alli hopefully come back, John just laid there in silence, staring out the window and watching the clouds move in the sky. He started thinking about both Natalie and Allison.

Allison had moved to Arizona two years ago and he met her at Starbucks. He accidentally took her order, a grande vanilla bean frappuchino, because he ordered the same exact thing. She confronted him and he gave her the grande vanilla bean frappuchino that she had ordered. When John handed it to her, she took it and wrote her number on it, and handed it back to John. He stared back at her with his mouth practically on the ground. He didn't understand why someone as gorgeous as her would give someone like him her number. He could barely say thank you to her, frozen solid from shock.

He remembered when he called her and asked her out on a date, and Allison said she would love to. Later that night, John remembered bringing her to go see some movie and he remembered that they sat in the back. He carried out all the cheesy moves on her, including the arm stretch over Allison's shoulder. She didn't mind. In fact, she moved closer and the next four words she said to him still rang in his head today. "Never let me go."

The whole deal was so sickeningly sweet, so completely corny that John had to chuckle at how they went about meeting. But he was glad that they did meet the way they did.

He remembered the stupid fights they had over the smallest things and all the times they wrestled. He remembered little things about her, like how she liked pink flowers, never red ones. And she only wore the reddest lipstick she could find, among so many other little things.

And then John turned over so he was on his back, and started thinking about Natalie.

How she rejected him at the airport, and how she had been so carefree at the party, skinny dipping in the pool with him. How at the wedding, she practically spilled her guts out to him, and how lowly she thought of herself. How she had asked him to love her, but never promised to love him back. How over the past few months, Nat and John had become so close, and how he loved spending time with her. How every minute of the day, he would think of her.

He realized he loved both girls dearly and more than anything in the world.

A knock at his door interrupted his thoughts.

"Hey," he heard the voice say. "Can we talk?" The voice came from Allison. She opened the door and walked over to John's bed and sat down on the edge of it.

"What I said before was just a slip of the tongue and it should have never happened. I am so sorry my dear," John told Alli. He couldn't help but think of the day at the record store when Luke asked him why he was singing to a deer.

"Look, I don't know who Nat is, but I feel like at this point in our lives, I can over look that as long as you promise and swear to god that it will never happen again. You hear me, John?" she demanded.

John stood up found his boxers, put them on and walked over to Allison. He leaned over and kissed her on the nose. She smiled and John sat down next to her.

"You mean so much to me Allison. I hope you never forget that," John whispered into her ear. "Now let's get ready for Jared's barbecue. You won't be sorry if you go."


They pulled up in front of Jared's house. Alli and John got out of John's car and walked to the front door. He opened the door for Alli and she waked in. Before walking through the door, John took a deep breath and proceeded to put one foot in front of the other. They walked to the backyard, seeing everyone spread around on the grass.

"Hey bro, what's up?" Jared said as he engulfed John with a hug.

"Not a damn thing my man. Hey, is Nat here?" John questioned.

"Um, I think so," he mumbled as he looked around for her. "Oh, she's over there talking to Tess," Jared said while nodding to an area behind John. He turned around and his heart sank.

Kennedy had his arm around Natalie's shoulders and it wasn't a friendly looking sort of thing. They were basically attached at the hip and she was resting her head on his shoulder.

He wanted to kill Kennedy. He wanted to punch him in the gut, grab him by the ear and push him into a wall. He wanted to -

"Ow, John, jeez! Let off on the grip a little, will you?"

He hadn't realized he had been squeezing Allison's hand so hard that his knuckles turned white. He quickly apologized and kissed her cheek.

His mind stayed focused on the subject of Natalie and Kennedy, though.

"Why don't you go say hi to everyone? I'm gonna talk to Jared for a little."

Allison shrugged and walked towards Moose and Pat. John turned to Jared who was giving him a disapproving look.

"I told you it was going to come back and bite you in the ass, John."

"What do you want me to do, Jared? Break up with her?"

"Which her are you referring to, exactly?"

"Natalie. I mean, Allison. I mean, Na - fuck, I don't know."

"You can't have both of them."

"I know."

"No, I don't think you do."

"She told me she would never love me. I told her everything. I told her that I needed her, and I loved her, and everything else that I could think of. But she turned me down. I might as well stay with Allison."

"She's not what you want, though."

"Is it that obvious?"

"John Ohh, I'm your best friend. Of course it's obvious to me. Let's just hope it's not obvious to anyone else, okay?"

John ran a hand over his face. "What the hell do I do, Jared?"

"All I can say is that Natalie's something special. Allison, not so much. I never liked her. No one did and you know it. Just hold on to what makes you happy, okay?"

John nodded and contemplated Jared's advice.

"Hey, what's up with Kennedy and Nat?"

"Jealous?"

"Yes," John said, being blunt. There was no point in lying to Jared, ever.

"She came in with Bridget, but Bridget went straight to Pat and she went straight to Kennedy. They aren't kissing or anything, but they've been standing together since she got here."

"What the fuck?"

"If you're so curious, just go over there, John."

He mumbled something about Jared always being right and how he hated it and stomped over to the area where Kennedy and Natalie were, talking to Tess. Luke was sitting on the ground, arms snaked around Natalie's leg, singing some made up song about a hippo getting stuck in a tree.

"Hey guys!" he said, forcibly inserting himself into their conversation.

"John!" yelled Luke, excited to see his uncle. John scooped him up and bounced him up and down, smiling like a madman, mostly because he didn't want Natalie to see how much she had hurt him and how much she was still hurting him.

She frowned, the life draining from her eyes.

Tess, seemingly ignorant of the sudden death of the conversation, kept chatting away. Chat chat chat.

Suddenly, he blurted out, "So, are you two like, dating, or something?"

"So, are you like, gay, or something?" she shot back, mocking him.

John put Luke back on the ground.

"I'm not kidding, Nat. I want to know if you two are together or not," he hissed at Nat.

She got up, walked over to Kennedy's seat and plopped herself on his lap, scowling at John. She flung her arms around Kennedy's neck and kissed him.

She kissed him!

As soon as her lips touched Kennedy's, John didn't know what to do. Anger rushed through him, filling every possible part of his body, followed by jealousy and complete, utter confusion. He was ready to burst at the seams with emotion.

"Does that answer your question, O'Callaghan?" she sneered.

He pursed his lips, nodded, and turned away frantically, searching for Allison. He found her talking to Bridget and Pat. John walked over to her and hugged her from behind.

He leaned down so his lips were right next to her ear. "I'm gonna leave now. Come with me? I have a surprise for you," he whispered.

Allison turned so she was facing John.

"I'm having fun, though."

"My surprise is better than this. Please, just come with me," he pleaded.

"Okay," she said. "We're gonna leave now. I'll see you two later!" Allison said to Pat and Bridget. They both waved and John took Allison's hand and led her out of Jared's house in a hurry.

They both got into John's truck and started to drive. John's mind started to race. The surprise he had in store for Allison couldn't be short of perfect. He started to think where he could bring her. He thought about his backyard where they had hung out for countless nights and talked late into the night about life, or if he should take her to their favorite park.

And then the night he had taken Natalie out for an adventure came across his mind. He thought about driving out into the middle of nowhere and just wrestling with her.

But then he realized he couldn't do that. That was his and Natalie's special thing and it wouldn't be the same if he brought Alli there.

He decided to bring her to the Starbucks they had originally met at.


It took them 20 minutes to get there from Jared's house. In that time Jared had texted him no less than 30 times because he saw what had happened. John just ignored it. He was nervous when they pulled into the parking lot of Starbucks. He cut the engine and gripped the steering wheel to try and calm his nerves.

"Starbucks?" Allison questioned. "Why Starbucks? They have awful coffee. I only like their frappuchinos."

John turned so he was facing her. "You think I don't know that, Alli?"

"Wait," she said. "Isn't this the Starbucks we met at?"

"Yes, of course it is. I don't go anywhere else. This is one of my favorite places in the world, my dear," John said, leaning in and gently kissing her nose.

They both got out of the truck and walked hand in hand into Starbucks. They walked in and waited in line for a few minutes. John's hands were sweating like crazy. Allison let go of his hand immediately.

"Why is your hand disgustingly sweaty?" she questioned, wiping her hand on her jeans.

"Hi, what can I get for you?" the person taking the drink order asked them.

"Can I get a gr-" Allison started to say.

"I got this, Alli. May we get two grande vanilla bean frappuchinos?"

"Alright, that will be $7.46, and what's the name for that?"

"Cornelius," John replied with a smile on his face.

The man taking the orders rolled his eyes and started to make their drinks.

John and Alli went over to two big red chairs. They sat down and waited for their drinks.

"I have two grande vanilla bean frappuchinos for Cornelius," the man called out.

John got up and his heart was pounding so hard he was sure Alli could hear it. He walked over to the counter and grabbed the drinks. He picked them up and walked back over to Alli. He handed her the drink and she began to drink it. With every sip Johns heart pounded more and more.

"Allison," he started. "I know we've known each other for two wonderful years now. And every day I get to spend with you is a day I will always cherish. I missed you more than you could ever imagine while you were in Australia. All I could think about when I did something and when you were there, the only thing that ran through my head was, 'I wish Alli was here.'"

She kept sipping her drink, getting closer and closer to finishing it.

"I never want to go another day without you. I want you and only you. I love you Allison."

She was two sips away from finishing. She took one last sip and that's when she looked down and saw it. When John had gone to get the drinks, he had put a diamond ring in hers. Her eyes widened and she finished the drink. Allison practically ripped the top off her drink and held the ring between her thumb and her index finger. Tears started to roll down her face.

"Allison Isabella Falcone, Will you be my girl and marry me?" John said as he took the ring from her and got down on one knee.

"Yes, John. Yes, absolutely yes," she managed to say amongst all her tears.

He took her left hand and put the diamond ring on her left ring finger. He stood up, pulling her up with him, and kissed her. He kissed Allison for a long time and everyone in Starbucks was clapping for them. When they finally stopped kissing, John pulled her in for a hug.

"I love you, Allison."

"I love you too, John" she whispered back.

She let go of him and sat back down.

"That'll show Natalie, I don't need her" John whispered to himself. "That'll show her."