I Can't Not Love You

[Alex]

I woke up in the morning to the sound of Jack coughing and my eyes opened quickly. I blinked a few times and chuckled softly, seeing that Jack was still asleep on my chest. He must have just been coughing in his sleep. I yawned and shook him by the shoulder to wake him up, not wanting to lie there and watch him sleep. That would be slightly creepy.

“Jack. Jack, get off me,” I said sleepily. He woke up and scooted off me quickly when he realized that he was lying on top of me.

“Sorry,” he said, his face turning pink. I laughed.

“It’s fine. Did you sleep well?” I asked, standing up to stretch.

Jack nodded, “Yeah, especially after you gave me that neck rub. Thanks, by the way.”

“No problem,” I smiled. “C’mon, let’s go up front and see who else is awake.”

Jack followed me up front, where we found Zack passed out on the couch. A bunch of the crew members were running around, going in and out of the bus.

“Is he dead?” Jack asked, poking Zack in the bare shoulder and looking up at Flyzik.

“He drank too much last night and passed out as soon as Jeff and Rian lugged his drunken ass back here. He’s probably got a hell of a hangover,” Flyzik chuckled.

“Let’s find out,” I grinned. “Zack, wake up!” I yelled, leaning over to yell in his ear. He jumped and his head hit my face. I squealed and jumped back, holding my jaw, “Ow!”

“What the fuck was that for?!” Zack growled, shielding his eyes from the light and burying his face back into his arms.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Jack giggled, earning a middle finger from Zack.

My stomach growled and I looked over at Jack, “I want food.”

“So do I, but the food on the bus sucks,” Jack said.

“Excuse me?” Flyzik raised an eyebrow at us.

“I want real food, not poptarts and pizza rolls!”

Rian spoke up, hearing our conversation, “I’m starving too. It’s nearly noon; we should all just head out and eat some lunch.”

“I’m not moving until this hangover goes away,” Zack mumbled from the couch.

Jack walked over to the table and found the ibuprofen, then tossed it at Zack, “Here – take it. We’re going to go eat.”

“You’re pushy,” Zack muttered, but he popped open the pill bottle to take two.

“Well your hangover isn’t going to go away for hours, so you might as well take some medicine and eat,” Rian pointed out with a shrug.

“Is there anywhere to go eat around here?” I asked, almost falling when Grieco bumped into me as he ran by to grab something.

Rian nodded, “I saw a diner right down the street, only a few blocks away.”

“Cool! The four of us just need to get dressed and then we can head out!” I said, running into the back to find some clean clothes.

Twenty minutes later, we were all headed to the diner right down the street. It was snowing, making it cold and slippery. Zack was grumpy and shivering, I was sliding through the icy sidewalk on my feet, and Rian and Jack were laughing. Right as I got to the door of the diner I slipped, almost falling until Jack and Rian both reached out to grab me by the arm.

“Dumbass,” Zack chuckled, pulling the door open and pushing me in. We walked inside and Jack shook his snowy hair out on me as I leaned away from him.

“Table for four,” Rian told the waitress when she came up to us, and she led us to a table to sit down. I slid into the booth with Jack, and Zack and Rian sat across from us. We ordered food and talked for a while before our food came, and everyone dug in immediately.

“I swear you always eat more when you’re recovering from a hangover, Zack,” Jack said with a laugh.

“Fuck off,” Zack rolled his eyes.

“I’m just saying – usually I’m on the verge of puking when I’m hungover,” Jack said, holding his hands up in mock surrender.

I chuckled, taking a bite of the burger I had ordered, “That’s because you puke easily. I think everyone gets hungry when they have a hangover.”

“Well Zack gets really hungry.”

“Are you calling me fat?” Zack demanded, his mouth full of food.

“No!”

“Somebody is a little grumpy today,” Rian smirked, and Zack punched him in the arm.

--------------------

When we left the diner after lunch, we were surprised to see that it had snowed at least two inches. There were about six inches on the ground now, in addition to the snow that had already been there. Jack ran through the snow with sudden energy, obviously feeling much better now that his pneumonia was just about gone. I saw the grin on his face as he tiptoed up behind Zack, making a snowball with the snow in his hands. He pelted Zack in the shoulder with it and Zack spun around, eyes wide.

“Jack Bassam Barakat! You did not just throw a snowball at me!” Zack exclaimed.

“Zachary Steven Merrick, I did so just throw a snowball at you,” Jack mocked, grinning at him. Zack cracked a grin for the first time today and picked up a handful of snow, throwing it at Jack, who screamed and ducked. The snowball flew past Jack and hit Garrett, who was walking toward his bus with the rest of his band.

“Dude!” Garrett exclaimed, seeming angry as he wiped snow off his jacket.

“Sorry!” Zack apologized.

Garrett didn’t reply; he just formed a snowball and threw it back toward Zack, hitting him in the chest. “Bulls-eye!” he grinned.

Within a matter of seconds, the rest of us joined in and started pelting snowballs at each other. Our crew realized what was going on and soon our little snowball fight turned into an all-out, three team snowball war – Jack, Zack, Rian, and I were on one team, Garrett, Pat, John, Kennedy, and Jared were on another team, and Evan, Vinny, Danny, and Grieco were on the third team. No one knew who was winning, to be honest. We were all just running around, throwing snowballs and tackling each other into the ground.

Flyzik finally must have realized that half the crew was missing because he walked out of the venue to find the snowball war going on. “You guys! You’re all going to freeze, and Jack’s going to get sick again! Get your asses inside right now!” he shouted over the madness.

This immediately earned him about six snowballs thrown straight into his face, and everyone burst out laughing.

“Lighten up, Flyzik! We’re having fun. You should be glad that Jack’s energy is back,” I grinned, looking around. Everyone’s faces were flushed pink and covered in bits of snow.

“Yeah, lighten up,” Jack teased, throwing another snowball at Flyzik.

“Fine. You wanna be like that?” Flyzik asked, raising an eyebrow. He snatched up a ton of snowballs from Zack and Jack’s pile and pulled them up into his arms, throwing one at my head right away.

“Run!” I shrieked, running toward our tour bus as Flyzik started firing snowballs at everyone.