Crossroads

-Joanna’s POV-

The week flew by quickly, and in that short amount of time, a lot of decisions were made, one major one being my decision to move in with the guys in Phoenix. Caleb argued with me for hours over me moving there. He and Ray both begged me to move back to New York, but I honestly felt that a change of scenery and time away from everyone might do me some good, so I decided to take the plunge.

So here I sat with Maxwell Green watching Scary Movie 4. Max and I had a bit of an argument the day after him and Lucy got totally shit faced off of Oxy’s. I finally got him and Lucy to set their heads somewhat straight. Lucy was the hardest to talk to. I kept getting choked up because I was fearful for my friend and her health, but finally after an hour of talking, she got my point and promised to control herself. I told her that I didn’t expect her to give it all up or drop it cold turkey. I just wanted her to control herself, which she promised to do.

As for Max, we got into a miniature screaming match, which Lucy claimed it looked like one of us yelling at our reflection. He refused at first but after listening to me and having Craig get involved, he cracked and finally said he would try but he would need help, which is something Craig and I would not object to.
As of late, Arizona was warmer than Huntington Beach during the day, but at night it felt like I lived in a freezer. I sat here in a lacy purple tank top, dark blue denim jeans, purple and white DC’s, my favorite purple lip ring, the ring I wore everyday from Aden and Lucy, and a Zombie necklace along with my ‘J’ pendant necklace. Max sat next to me in a Bullet For My Valentine t shirt, black shorts, and a pair of sunglasses sitting on top of his head with his hair pulled back. He had kicked off his shoes before resting his feet on the table.

Today I was going to be meeting Leila since Craig and Gabby had worked out some time for them to spend together, almost two months to be exact. She was even going to be tagging along when the girls and I, along with Caleb, were going to perform in Seattle next month. Craig kept telling me to not be nervous but I had actually been anxious to meet her. The way Craig and Max talk about her, even Monte and Robert, they make her sound like a major part of the ETF family and a blast to have around. I was rather excited.

“This movie sucks.” Max groaned.

“Yeah, what else is there to watch?” I asked.

He got up and walked over to the wall lined with shelves loaded with movies. “Uhm, how about,” he paused for a moment while he scanned the DVD’s, “Zombieland.”

“I love you.” I replied clapping. Zombieland was one of my favorite movies. He popped the DVD in and sat back down.

Before the DVD Menu popped up we heard the front door open and keys go into the bowl we had by the door for all of our keys. “We’re home!” Craig called.

“Watchin a movie!” Max called back.

A moment later I saw Craig’s yellow beanie bob around the corner. Once he emerged I saw him wearing one of his HK Army shirts, shorts and converse. Then I saw Leila. She was one of the most adorable sights I have ever seen in my life. She wore a red and white shirt with a heart on it, white shorts and cute little converses. She set her Hello Kitty bag next to the entertainment center before running over and hugging Max.

“Hi Uncle Max!” she yelled kissing his cheek.

“Hey there!” he replied with a smile.

“And Leila, this is Joanna.” Craig said introducing her to me.

“Hi Leila. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” I said smiling and kneeling down next to her and Max.

“Your daddy’s and Uncle Max’s new best friend?!” she asked with a smile.

“Haha, well I wouldn’t say the best but, yes I am a new friend of daddy and Max.” I replied with a smile.

“So, what would you like to do today?” Craig asked Leila. I was going to stick around and listen to what she suggested till my phone rang. I walked to the kitchen to answer it.

“Hey Aden!” I said picking it up.

“Hey chicken baby! What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing really, Craig just brought Leila over. They are trying to figure out what to do today.” I replied.

“Oh chool. What is she like? Is she cute?” she asked, I could hear her smiling.

“Oh my god Aden she is adorable! She’s one of the cutest little girls I have ever seen.”

There was a long silence, “Jude misses you. He keeps calling for you. You need to come see us soon.” She said.

“I know, I miss you guys too. I’ll be back soon. Besides we have that show next month, we have to practice. So of course I’ll be back!” I said trying to cheer her up.

“You shouldn’t have left whore.” She said.

“I know.” I frowned, “I just needed to get away from everything. This isn’t permanent. I promise.”

“You better be moving back.” She paused for a moment, “That fuckbag is moving in with Heather.”
I snorted a laugh, “It’s about time he got out of my bed.”

“Yeah, I’m going to miss Majesty and Icky. Oh, and since you left, Lolly has been miserable without Dribblez. Thanks for ruining my dogs life.” She said with a giggle.

“Tell Lolly, I’m sorry.” I laughed, “I’ll bring her boyfriend home soon.”

“You better. Shit, Jude’s awake. I’ll call you later whorebath.”

“Haha, okay. Later.”

After hanging up with her, I walked back into the living room to see everyone getting ready to leave.

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

“This little princess wants to go to Chuck E Cheese.” Craig said brushing her hair out of her face with his fingers.

“Will you come?” Leila asked me.

“Would you like for me to come?” I asked bending down to her level. She nodded and smiled, “Then I shall come.”

She gleamed at me. I returned the smile which faded quickly as I Max purposefully walked into me almost knocking me over. “You little shi- turd!” I said catching myself. He laughed at me, along with Craig.

Craig suggested that I grab a hoodie since their AC was always cranked, so I grabbed one of mine out of the front closet before we all piled in Craig’s Challenger. The ride was decent. I sat in the back with Leila as she told me all about the ETF family and how great they all are. I smiled and agreed with her. The guys were great, they really were. Then she began to ask me about everyone back in California. I told her about Lexi, Lucy, Aden, Katie and my brothers. I left out everything about Zacky, but I did mention the others, and Elaina and Jude.

When we arrived at Chuck E Cheese, Leila could not wait to jump out of the car and get in there. She was so pumped. As soon as we walked in we were greeted by a person in a Chucky Costume. Leila asked for all of us to take a picture with him, so we did. I had to do a dorky pose with both thumbs up and a horrible smile, but Leila loved the picture and we weren’t really up for taking another one.

We decided to eat some pizza before we let her loose, which was a great idea. Apparently we were all starving. We ordered 3 pies. Leila had 3 slices which caused me to wonder where she put it all. As for the remaining pizza, the three of us demolished it. No matter how many times a day these two have seen me eat, they were always amazed by my appetite. While we divided the pizza between the three of us, we ended up making it a mini math lesson for Leila, who I found was pretty damn smart.

Being that the three of us adults were pretty much children in adult bodies, we had to get tokens of our own to play the games. It was truly a horrible sight. There was one point Max even took some of Leila’s tokens, however me being the nice person I am, I ended up giving her the difference in my tokens, and punched Max in the arm whenever she wasn’t looking.

Craig and I got into this huge argument that could only be settled by spending almost $40 in tokens on a Fast and Furious racing game. We never quite got to figure out a winner since we got attacked by a horde of children. After being attacked came the best event of the day; the jungle gym.

We each had to take turns going on with Leila since we were far too big to be inside. We all dove into the ball pit but got yelled at because apparently the adults are just not allowed to join their children in the fun. Leila was our only excuse to go on.

Max came running once he hit the bottom of the slide and high fived me passing me my turn. I jumped into the ball pit and made my way to the spiral ledges that lead you to the top. Once I reached the top, I crawled through the tunnels and finally found Leila. She squealed when I found her and tried to run away, but I caught her as she was going down the slide. When we reached the bottom we were giggling and laughing as we made our way to Craig and Max.

“Your turn Craig!” I said high fiving him.

He smiled and took off running after Leila and dove into the ball pit. Max and I stood in the doorway of the room waiting our turns. “He’s really good with her.” I said watching him go through the tunnels after her.

“Yeah he is.” Max said with a small smirk. “She has never taken to someone quite as quickly as she did to you either.”

I looked at him, “Really?”

“Yeah. She’s usually really shy and doesn’t talk to people that are new.” He replied.

I was about to respond when we were plowed through by some of the staff. I was about to say something about how rude they were until I saw them screaming at Craig who was hanging upside down from some bar outside of the jungle gym. I slapped myself in the head while Max went in to retrieve Leila.

“You need to leave!” one of the staff yelled to Craig. He shimmied along the bar and fell into the ball pit before running over and scooping up Leila, who was giggling as she bobbed around, telling Max and I to run. Which we did.

We dove into the car and I quickly buckled Leila in before Craig shot out of the parking space and headed back for the house, the four of us laughing hysterically.

“So now where would we like to go?” Craig asked.

“Oh, uhm. Can we swing by Gamestop?” I asked. Max began to snicker.

Craig gave him a confused look, “Yeah sure.”

“You shut your fuckin mouth!” I whispered in Max’s ear.

Gamestop wasn’t that far either. When we got there I told Craig to stay in the car I was just getting one thing and I wouldn’t be long. Max however had to be difficult. “Move, please.” I said clenching my jaw. He snickered before he let me out. I made him come in with me.

“Don’t you dare say anything to him. I’m getting a game while I’m in here too so he doesn’t know what happened to his controller last night.” I said standing directly in front of him.

“Yeah, alright.” He smirked.

“Ugh!” I groaned before storming off to the controllers.

I grabbed a black one to replace his and I grabbed a new copy of Dead Island before going up to the register. The man behind the counter retrieved the game from the cabinet full of games they had back there to avoid thefts. When I gave him my credit card he asked for some I.D. which I supplied for him. He looked at my credit card, to my I.D, and then to me.

“You’re Joanna!” he said, his voice cracking.

I grabbed my license from him and inspected it, “That’s what it says on here, it must be true.” I replied.

“Oh my god! Are you guy’s breaking up?!” he asked.

His question took me by surprise, was he referring to Zacky and I? “What do you mean?”

“Shattered Halo, are you guy’s breaking up?” he asked.

“Oh! No, we are still together. Taking a bit of time to spend with family and such.” I replied with a smile.

“Oh thank god! I don’t know what I would do if you all broke up.” He said with a smile, “Can you sign this?” he asked handing me the credit card receipt.

I signed it and handed it back to him while he handed me my cards. I slipped them back into my wallet and went to grab my bag. “I’m sorry for glomping so much.” He said looking down at the counter, “But can I have your autograph?”

I smiled and pinched his cheek, “Only because you’re absolutely adorable.” I heard Max gag behind me so I elbowed him in the gut.

He handed me a piece of paper from a printer they had under the counter. “And what’s your name?” I asked.

“Trevor.” He smiled.

I did my usual signature and drew a little dude with a guitar next to it. “Do you want an autograph from this asshole too? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” I said pointing to Max.

“Holy shit! I didn’t realize Max fuckin Green was with you! Holy fuck! This is my lucky day. Would you please sign this for me too?!” he asked.

“Sure.” Max replied with a smile. He was signing the paper when the store manager walked behind the counter.

“What is going on here?! Trevor tell your friends to leave if they are not buying anything.” He said. He looked like he was maybe my age and a total asshole.

“Bu-but sir, this i-“ he began.

“I don’t care. You always have your friends coming in here. Tell them to leave.” He scolded.

“Uhm. Excuse me?” I said, I was rather irritated with how he was treating our most gracious fan. When he looked at me, he had a rather shitty look. So in turn, I gave him a shitty attitude.

“I bought something. Actually I bought two things. If you look around the store, you can see its pretty fuckin dead in here. If I worked in a place this dead, I would love to have some conversations with people so I wouldn’t die of boredom. Here, we have a fan that wanted a simple autograph which we had no objections to.” I felt Max nudge my arm, I ignored it. “With your shit attitude, I can see why it’s so dead. As for Trevor here, I don’t even know why he works here when he has you for a manager. Now I suggest that if you like your job, and you wanna keep it. Learn to treat your customers, as well as your employees, the way you would like to be treated.”

I turned to Max who grabbed my shoulder and tilted his head towards the door, “Trevor, it was a pleasure meeting you. We will probably see you soon.”

We headed out back to the car and I climbed back into the back. “What was all of that about?” Craig asked while I pulled out my game and read the back.

“What?” Max asked.

“Joanna was like, getting ready rip someone’s head off.” He replied.

“Oh that was just some as-idiot.” I caught myself looking over at Leila. She was playing Angry Birds on Craig’s phone. They both laughed and we headed home.

When Max got out, I bolted for the door. I had to replace the controller before Craig noticed. I reached into my pocket and realized I didn’t have my keys, I cursed at myself as Max climbed up the steps.

“Please let me in before he gets Leila out of the car.” I begged. He laughed before letting me in.

I ran straight to the living room, ripped the new controller out of the package and put in the batteries before setting it with the other controllers. I heard the others nearing the front door so I grabbed the broken one and ran to the kitchen and threw it in the garbage as Craig walked into the kitchen.

He eyeballed me for a moment, “You alright?” he asked.

I was breathing fast and still shaking from the adrenaline. I couldn’t speak yet so I just blinked fast and nodded, gripping the counter. He laughed and proceeded to go to the fridge and get a juice box for Leila.

“Joanna! Wanna play that game you bought?!” Max called from the other room.

“Sure!” I called and bolted out of the kitchen.

I ripped the plastic off of the game and took out the disc, putting it onto the tray of the XBOX. We watched the opening video when Craig walked back in and gave Leila her juice box while she played on her little laptop. “Max, I hate to ruin your fun but Robert just called me”

“Yeah, and?” he said not looking away from the screen.

“We gotta go back to the studio. One of the tracks messed up.” He replied.

“Ugh, you kidding me?!” he said throwing his arms up and throwing a mild temper tantrum.

“No, come on. The faster we get it done the faster you and Joanna can get back to your game.”

“Daddy, I don’t wanna go to the studio today.” Leila said emerging from the back of the room.

“Well honey you can’t stay here by yourself.” He replied kneeling down.

“Can’t Joanna stay with me? I brought my favorite movie. I want to watch it.” She said walking over to her backpack, producing a Beauty and the Beast DVD.

“Well,” he said unable to answer.

“I’ll stay home with her. It’s not a problem. Plus, Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite Disney movies.” I said getting up off the couch.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Craig said.

“Oh come on. I can watch her. It’s not like anything will happen. I mean, Katie and Aden trust me with their babies. I can supervise a five year old, no problem.” I said smiling.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Oh come on! Let’s go so we can fix the idiots mistake!” Max said putting his jacket on.

“Fine.” Craig said, “If you have any problems, just call me.”

“Don’t worry C-man. I gots it.” I said giving him a thumbs up.

He smiled back. “Alright, have fun angel.” He said kissing Leila on top of her head. “Thank you.” He said walking up to me and giving me a hug. I returned it and they were on their way.

“SO!” I said looking at the time. It was almost eight o’clock, “Wanna get into our PJ’s and watch the movie?”

She nodded, “Can we make popcorn too?! I know where daddy and Uncle Max keep it!”

“Haha of course! What good is a movie without popcorn?” I replied before we went to put our pajamas on.

She emerged from the bathroom in a Belle nightgown with pink, purple, and white striped tights, Disney princess slippers and a Minnie Mouse pillow pet.

“Hey! I have a pillow pet too!” I squealed.

I went into Craig’s room where my stuff was kept and put on a Metal Mulisha shirt, skull and cross bone pants, black slippers and my moose pillow pet. I grabbed my blanket and threw it on the couch before I let Leila show me where the popcorn was. I knew damn well where it was but, I decided to let her have her fun.

After we made the popcorn and got some juice together, we made ourselves comfortable on the couch as Dribblez trotted into the kitchen.

“Whoa! What was that?!” Leila yelled.

I forgot that she hadn’t seen him yet and I giggled, “Let me introduce you to one of my best friends. Dribblez!” I called. He came trotting to me. “Leila, this is Dribblez. Dribblez, say hello to Leila.”

She held her hands out and curled into me, obviously a little scared. He immediately started licking her and she grew comfortable enough to hug him. I smiled at the sight and quickly snapped a picture with my phone. I sent it to Craig, Lucy and Aden before turning on the movie.

I threw the blanket over us while Dribblez laid down on the floor. We watched the movie as we both sang along to all the songs. During the movie I was texting Aden and Lucy back and forth texting the lyrics to the songs and they would send me the next set of lyrics. And by the time the movie was over, Leila had fallen asleep.

I carried her into Craig’s room and tucked her into bed. I walked back into the living room and texted him letting him know she fell asleep. He texted me back saying thank you so I decided to text him back some sort of smiley, but fell asleep before I could send it.

I was dreaming about being back in California on the beach with the girls and my brothers. I was playing in the waves and woke up when something hit my leg. I looked around at my surroundings and found I was in Craig’s room. I rolled over to see who kicked me and it was Leila. She was sound asleep in between Craig and I. When I looked at Craig I noticed he was wide awake and looking at me. Quite frankly, it scared the living shit out of me.

“Sorry about her kicking you.” He said propping his head up on his hand. “She dreams a lot.”

“It’s cool.” I replied with a small smile.

“And you, you were dreaming too. You kept smiling and you giggled every now and then.” He said. “What were you dreaming about?”

“Oh, sorry if I was preventing you from sleeping,” I said sheepishly, thankfully it was dark and he couldn’t tell I was blushing, “I was dreaming about the girls and my brothers. We were on the beach just hanging out.”

“Ohh. Well I wanna thank you for watching Leila. She really seems to like you, which is strange for her.” He said.

“Yeah Max was telling me. I’m glad she likes me. And she has awesome taste in Disney movies.” I smiled.

“Yeah, she is my little princess.” He said smiling down at her. “Well, we should both get some sleep, she’s an early bird.”

“Indeed. Good night kind sir.” I said rolling over.

“Goodnight Joanna.” He said before situating himself. "Oh, and thanks for replacing my controller, you didn't have to though. But I really would like to know what happened." I could hear the smirk in his voice.

"Anger my dear Watson. And Maxwell for not sticking with me and going off on his own zombie expedition."

I felt him laugh and not another word was said.

I kept thinking about the dream I was having, and how pumped I was to see them again to practice for the upcoming show. I started thinking about Aden and I’s solos and in no time fell into a deep sleep.