Three's a Crowd

“Alex? What’re you doing here?” Jared asks her when he opens the door.

“I’m here to get my things and my car,” she tells him while averting her gaze.

“Johnny.” Jared greets the other man, shaking his head slightly as he follows Alex into the apartment.

“Jared.” Johnny mutters, not looking at the other man as he walks into the apartment, shutting the door behind him.

“I should have known that you’d be the one doing all this for her,” Jared states as he sits down on the couch in the living room.
Johnny watches Alex disappear down the hallway before sitting in the recliner across the room from Jared.

“Look, I know you don’t like me, but it’s for Alex’s best interest if we continue to keep this under wraps,” Johnny tells Jared quietly.

“I’m not going to hurt her. I probably did enough of that today when I hit her beloved Brian,” Jared mumbles.

“Yeah about that Jared, why would you hit a guy who kissed your girlfriend on the cheek? It was completely friendly and the only reason it looked wrong was the angle that the photographer used.”

“Johnny, you don’t know what it’s like to see the woman you love in the arms of another man with his lips on her.”

“You’re wrong about that, but believe what you want.”

Jared didn’t know what else to say, and neither did Johnny, so the two men sat in an uncomfortable silence until Alex finally emerged from the back with two large duffel bags and one overnight bag. Johnny got up, laughing as she struggled to drag them all into the living room, which earned him a glare, until he grabbed one of the duffels from her hand and pulled it over his shoulder.

“Jared, the least you could do would be to grab this bag for me,” Alex states, still avoiding eye contact with him.

He grumbles a response that no one hears but gets up and takes the bag from her, not looking at either of them as he leads the way out of the apartment and to the elevator. The entire ride is awkward and uncomfortable for the three of them, but they manage to get the bags out of the apartment building and into her car in the parking lot in the back of the building without any incidences.

Jared clears his throat after he gets his bag in and backs away from the car, his arms crossed as he watches Alex shut the trunk before she turns to face him.

“Thanks, uh, for the help,” she mutters, staring at the ground.

“What the hell Alex, at least give me a damn hug,” Jared snaps, effectively catching her attention and holding her gaze.

She gives him a small smile and wraps her arms around him tightly, inhaling his scent as he holds her close to his body, his face buried in her hair. Too soon, Alex pulls away, but before Jared can react, she leans up and presses a gentle kiss to his lips, “bye Jared.”

The words seem stuck in his throat as she backs away from him before turning and getting into her car, turning it on and pulling out of the spot, pausing for Johnny to pull out of his spot so that he could get ahead of her and lead the way. Alex felt her heart throbbing painfully, but willed herself to not look back as she followed Johnny out of the parking lot and onto the busy streets of L.A.

After driving for far too long, Alex dial’s Johnny’s number and pushes the button on her blue tooth, turning it on and putting it in her ear in time to hear Johnny answer the phone.

“How much longer?” She asks him, almost whining.

“Well there’s a problem,” he states.

“What?” She asks him, as if she hadn’t heard him correctly.

“There’s a problem. We drove by my house already.”

“Why?”

“Well because Brian’s car was parked in the driveway.”

“Well what the fuck do we do now?”

“We? I want to go home!”

“My home happens to be an hour in the opposite direction, and my mom’s home is a forty five minute drive on a Sunday morning with no traffic, so yes, what do we do now?”

“We go back to my place, and you tell Brian what’s going on because I’m going to bed.”

Angrily Alex hangs up on him, throwing her ear piece onto the passenger seat as she follows Johnny through the same neighborhood they had been driving around for ten minutes until he slows down in front of a rather small house. She immediately saw Brian’s car in the driveway, and could see his silhouette against the car where he was leaning against it, the tip of his cigarette the only thing giving away his position. She watches Johnny pull in next to Brian, giving her enough to room to pull in behind him before shutting his car off and getting out. Alex slowly pulls into the driveway, avoiding Brian’s questioning glance as she shuts her own car off and gets out.

“Anyone care to explain what’s going on?” Brian asks as he pushes away from his car, throwing his cigarette on the ground before stomping it out.

“Alex said she will because I’m going to take her bags in and then go to bed,” Johnny tells him as he walks towards Alex’s car.

With narrowed eyes, she hits the trunk button on her key ring and watches silently as Johnny takes all of her bags and struggles towards the house. She snickers as he loses balance near the door and falls into it, dropping one of her bags on the stoop. He must have heard her, because he makes her laugh when he lifts his hand high in the air and flips her off before opening his door and disappearing into the house with her bags.

“So do you want to explain or should I guess?” Brian asks, sounding as if he was trying to be reasonable.

“You have a right to know what’s going on, actually everyone does, but you’re the one that matters right now,” she tells him, leaning back against her car.

“Alright, well I’m listening,” he mutters, leaning back against his own car and lighting another cigarette.

Alex takes a deep breath and looks up at the dark sky, “I met Johnny ten years ago,” she starts, the stars in the sky reminding her of the first time she and Johnny had become closer than anyone she had ever been close with before, “he was going out with my best friend, but he was from a different school than we were. He was nice, quiet most of the time, unless it was just the three of us. We became inseparable, and he was taking her to the prom. Lacey was her name. I remember that prom night better than I remember any other night in my life,” Alex sighs as she recounts the events from that night, “Johnny rented a limo and he had it pick everyone up at my house.”

“Alex they’re here!” Lacey calls out from the bedroom.

Alex walks out of her bathroom with her makeup finally finished just as Lacey races down the stairs. With a chuckle she followed her best friend down the stairs and into the living room where her mother was waiting to take pictures of everyone. After pictures had been taken, they got in the limo and went to the prom. Prom was everything Alex had hoped for and more; she had her two best friends, a decent boyfriend, and everything was going right, until everyone started leaving and they couldn’t find Lacey. They had searched everywhere but the bathrooms, and finally they decided she must have had some of the spiked punch, and had wandered off in search of the bathroom. They were part of a handful of people that were still milling around, looking for lost articles of clothing, or waiting for a ride to a party or home, so they decided that Alex would go in first, and if it was clear, Johnny would follow, because Alex knew she’d never be able to get Lacey out by herself, not if she was drunk. What followed next was painful for both Alex and Johnny, and they’d never forget it.

Lacey had indeed wandered off to the bathrooms, but not because she had gotten drunk. She had somehow gotten a hold of the quarterback of the football team and was on her knees in front of him in one of the stalls, the door was wide open, revealing the tall, thick football player and the small, frail looking form of Lacey. Johnny was furious, beyond furious, and all Alex could do was stand there and watch as her best friend gave head to the boy Alex had crushed on since fourth grade. Johnny somehow sensed Alex’s pain, because instead of doing anything like a rational boyfriend would do when catching his girlfriend in such a lewd act with another guy, he took Alex by the arm and lead her out of the bathrooms, but not before kicking all the stall doors open to let the pair know that someone had seen them.

“I’ve never been so close to someone as Johnny, not before that night and not even after that night. After that, Lacey and I didn’t speak. Johnny ended up beating the daylights out of the guy and Lacey never saw him again, at least not that I know of,” Alex finishes, looking down from the sky to see Brian staring at her as if she had lost her mind.

“There’s something you’re leaving out. If you and Johnny are or were so close, then how is it that I’ve never met you, or you’ve never been to any shows or anything?” He asks her, still staring at her.

With a blush, she turned her head away, “it was my fault, really. I told Johnny when I went to college and he started playing in the band that we should go our separate ways and one day we’d meet up again. I knew he was going to get big,” Alex tells him softly, “and I wanted to make it on my own. He had offered to talk to Matt about having me on as a roadie and doing photography, but I didn’t want his help. I didn’t want anyone’s help.”

“So because you were stubborn, you pushed your best friend away?” Brian asks her incredulously.

“Because she was stubborn, she made it to the top all on her own. I watched her back, always have and always will. I went to the shoots she did for other bands and I was there when she met Jared,” Johnny states, surprising Brian and bringing a smile to Alex’s face as she had watched him walk out of the house just as she had started explaining to Brian how they had become so close.

“How did you two keep such a low profile friendship?” Brian asks, almost laughing.

“It was easy keeping from you guys. Remember that girlfriend you all thought I was hiding from you? I was hanging out with Alex,” Johnny tells him, as if it was obvious.

“And it wasn’t such trouble on my end. Jared knew we were friends; he didn’t like it, but he knew.” Alex states rather coldly.

“Why didn’t Jared like him?” Brian asks curiously.

“No reason,” Alex snaps, pushing off the car and walking towards Johnny’s front door. She listens as Brian repeats the question to Johnny, and being curious as to what Johnny would tell him, she opens and shuts the front door, keeping against the wall so that they would think she had gone inside, though she was sure Johnny knew she was listening.

“We got drunk one night and we kissed; simple as that.” Johnny tells his friend, his own voice hard and unwelcoming.

“I don’t think it’s that simple Johnny, but if you don’t want to tell me, just say so. Just remember, I’m your best friend and nothing you say is going to make me think any differently of you,” Brian tells him.

Now Alex was sure Brian thought she was inside, completely oblivious to the discussion, but by the tone in Johnny’s voice from his last statement, she knew he knew she was still listening, because he had been perfectly fine when he had told Jared about it; cocky even when he had told Jared. But she hadn’t been there when he told Jared; she had had to hear about it from Jared and Johnny in different places, at different times and they both told the same story.

“It’s really something I don’t want to talk about Brian. Just leave it where it is; Alex is one of my best friends, she’s staying with me and that’s the end of it. You know why we’re so close and why we kept it secret, so let it go,” Johnny snaps testily.

Alex could imagine Brian throwing his hands up and backing off, and all too soon she heard the roar of his engine, knowing that she had been right. She doesn’t bother slipping inside; instead, she waits for Johnny to come to the front door, his eyes landing on her as soon as he steps around the corner.

“You had to leave it at that? You couldn’t have told him it was just because he didn’t like me?” Johnny asks her; annoyance wasn’t the primary emotion in his voice, but she picked up on it the easiest and it made her sigh, “I’m sorry Johnny, I just didn’t want to talk about it,” she states, turning her head defiantly; her gesture effectively ended the conversation.