A Love Like War

I couldn't believe I was doing this. I couldn't believe I was standing in front of a mirror getting ready to record a song singing with Alex Gaskarth. I must've considered taking my word back at least twelve times in the past half hour. But I'd made a promise to Jack, and that was one promise I refused to break.

I yanked a brush through my hair one more time. It always got tangled when I straightened it. By now it was longer and layered, and I was considering chopping it off again. Long hair is a lot of work.

I was dressed extremely casually and I wondered if I should change. I was wearing a loose grey v-neck that I'd collected from some guy in high school and skin tight black skinny jeans with combat boots. I sighed, turning from side to side in front of the mirror, and walked out of the bathroom before I could start to stress myself out. Why was I so nervous about this? These guys were my old best friends, I'd never been nervous around them before.

But I knew it was because of Alex. How would he react to seeing me? Had Jack even spoken to him about it? What if I showed up and he was just completely disturbed?

I grabbed my purse and stuffed my phone, iPod, and a bottle of water into the already full tote. With one last glance in the mirror I was out the door, sliding my sunglasses down onto the bridge of my nose.

The ride down the elevator seemed too long. I was thinking too much. I was still worried about what would happen. My feet subconsciously carried me to my car. I quickly tapped the address Jack had texted me into my GPS and hit the road.

I must've taken at least six wrong turns and the supposedly twenty minute drive turned into a forty-five minute one. I was thankful that my paranoia of being late had gotten me to leave earlier than should've been necessary. Jack had told me to be at the studio at noon, and by the time I pulled up in the parking lot of the building, I still had ten minutes to spare.

The lobby of Baltimore Studios was more crowded than I'd expected. The people sitting on the red couches all looked like various musicians, and I felt like I was in a movie. The man at the front desk smiled warmly and extremely fakely at me.

"Welcome to Baltimore Studios, how may I help you?" she asked, her voice clipped. She looked stressed.

"I'm here to record a song with the band All Time Low?" it came out as more of a question. "They told me they're in booth four."

"Through the double doors, second door on the left."

"Thank you," I said, smiling slightly.

I pushed through the heavy dark brown wooden doors and walked much too slowly down the hallway. It took me about half a second to find booth four, but probably the rest of the ten minutes I had for me to gather the nerve to actually push it open.

The room was small, and separated into two parts. The part I'd just walked into contained a small couch and a couple fold out chairs, all of which were occupied, a control panel, and a window and a door leading into the sound booth--the second part of the room.

"Hey guys," I said quietly to everyone in the room. I was immediately greeted with the grinning faces of Jack, Matt, Rian, and Kara.

"Kristin!" they all shouted at once, and I was bombarded with hugs all around.

Jack looked the same, except he was now sans blonde streaks. Rian had shaved his head and started bulking up. Matt just looked older, more mature, cuter. He now had a nose piercing and small gauges in his ears. Kara looked the same--gorgeous as always.

"How've you been?" Rian asked.

"Good. I've been good. How about you guys? I haven't seen you in forever," I replied. We small talked for about five minutes before I noticed other presences. There was a boy with a mound of curly brown hair and a lot of muscle sitting in one of the fold out chairs. He had a bass guitar in hand.

"Hi, I'm Kristin," I smiled at him, holding my hand out to shake. "You must be Zack."

"That's me," He replied softly, returning the smile and shaking my hand.

There was also a man working the control panel for the sound booth. He was distracted with the buttons in front of him, so I didn't bother introducing myself yet. That was when I actually paid attention to who was in the sound booth, sitting on the stool and singing into the mic.

It was Alex Gaskarth, and to put it bluntly, he was maturing extremely well.

His hair was still shaggy but it was a slightly cleaner looking kind of shaggy, and it was now striped with blonde. His face was older looking, angular and mature. His brown eyes were closed and he had headphones on, so I assumed he hadn't noticed me entering the room. I took in his body, which had grown even taller. His tight white v-neck enhanced the muscle tone in his thin but quite obviously strong arms and torso. His dark blue jeans hung low on his hips, which my eyes lingered on longer than they should have.

I snapped my gaze up and that was when I realized he had stopped singing, and was staring at me wide-eyed. It became obvious to me that Jack had definitely not discussed me with Alex.

And it also became obvious that I had too much lust for Alex for it to be considered healthy.

This was not going to be an easy week.