Don't Hesitate

Kellin was sitting with his knees curled up beneath him in the corner of his sofa, nose buried in a music magazine full of glossy photoshoots and clustered pages of listings. As he turned a page one well-manicured hand flew down on top of the page and a shrill voice exclaimed,
"Kellin, are you even listening?"
He looked up, mouth slightly agape as he looked down at the pile of open magazines spread across the floor and answered slowly, "Uh, the red one?"
"No, God, no, we're not even talking about clothes any more," Julia said tiredly, rubbing her cheek.
"We're choosing buggies?" Alice added, who was sitting beside her friend on the floor, her ridiculous question intonation and ponytail tied on the top of her head provoking a half-smirk from Kellin who shot back,
"Well sorry I wasn't concentrating for like five seconds?"
"Guys!" Julia hissed throwing her hands up into the air dramatically. "Like give it a rest?"
Kellin watched as Alice leaned over and slid her arm around her friend’s shoulders, emitting low soothing sounds and rubbing her back.
"It's like I'm not even allowed to be like a tiny bit hormonal," Julia muttered inhaling and wiping underneath her eyes dramatically. She turned her head towards Kellin and catching a glimpse of what was lying in his lap said sharply, "What are you reading?"
"Uh," Kellin murmured, lifting the magazine up a little. "This."
"Since when were you into magazines," Julia muttered, reaching forwards to stack a couple of baby magazines into a pile. Alice was still rubbing her back and making soothing noises.
"Since Demi," Kellin murmured under his breath, folding up his the copy of AP.
"What?"
"Nothing," he replied brightly, leaning forwards to toss the magazine onto the coffee table.
"Whilst you're on your feet," Alice said curtly, "Why don't you make Julia a coffee?"
"I can't," Julia replied, holding up her hand. "The caffeine."
"Oh," Alice murmured, glancing a little to the side, her hand falling to the floor. "Well," she added, "I'm gonna go make one." She stood up and without a backward glance at Kellin left the living room. Kellin leaned forward slowly, the leather creaking underneath him, ran one hand up his arm across the swirls of ink to his shoulder where he squeezed to relieve invisible pain. He watched Julia as she leaned back a little on her hands, lifting her head up and her chin towards the ceiling, hair tumbling across her shoulders. She heaved a sigh, and Kellin watched the slight bump as it appeared and disappeared under her shirt.
"You can already see it," he said softly.
"Hmm?" Julia asked, looking at his over her shoulder.
"The, uh. The bump."
Julia glanced down, her hand moving so quick to her stomach it was instinct. "Oh," she said, with a quiet smile. "Yeah."
Kellin got down onto the floor and kneeling beside her he couldn't take his eyes off that hand and where it lay. His eyes were full of questions.
"Here," Julia said suddenly, and before he knew it Kellin's hand was wrapped up in hers and pressed against her abdomen like there any possibility he could fee anything except tension. "Sooner or later it's going to be kicking," she said breathlessly, and their eyes met uneasily.
"Listen," Kellin said, and looked down. Julia reached out a hand and placed it on his cheek, and he peeled it away slowly with a look of shallow resignation. "I meant what I said the other night."
Julia frowned and pursed her lips. "You said you weren't gonna stop taking care of me."
"I said I was going to be a friend. Like a friend."
Julia looked away haughtily. "This is a responsibility thing, isn't it."
"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Kellin asked, his tone getting sharper.
Julia looked at him questioningly. "So somebody agrees with me."
"No," Kellin muttered, biting the inside of his cheek. "I'm sticking around, OK. That's what I need you to understand. I'm not, I'm not just ditching on you."
"Even though you're starting recording like, next week."
"But I'll be coming back."
"Justin said you're gonna be working with a producer in LA."
"Justin doesn't know shit. He said that?"
"Jesse said so too."
"Since when did you talk to them before me?"
"Since we stopped being...Us." Julia sniffed and got to her feet hastily and Kellin followed her up, reaching out to study her as she stumbled a little. "Don't touch me, Kellin."
"Julia," he said, rolling his eyes. "I don't want you to feel like this. I want to do my best to look out for you." He cleared his throat. "And something tells me I can help you a little more than Justin or Jesse."
Julia looked at him timidly, a slow smile appearing on her face as she reached out and grabbed him by the forearm. "So come hang out with me this weekend. I'm going to start looking for baby clothes at that superstore on the edge of town."
"This weekend, I can't," Kellin said apologetically.
Julia released him. "What? Why?"
"I'm driving down to see Mom tonight, it's her birthday..."
"Oh," Julia said, pursing her lips again. "Her." She pushed some hair angrily from her face and muttered bitterly, "She always wished I was some other girl. Like Demi. Ugh."
Kellin drew his eyes away from Julia's face and crossed his arms stiffly.
"How is she?" Julia asked quietly.
Kellin swallowed. "I-- I don't know."
"Not talking to her?"
"Something like that."
Julia smiled contentedly to herself and they both looked up as Alice strolled back into the room with a cup in one hand and the newest issue of American Baby magazine in the other. Kellin moved away and took a seat again on the sofa, reaching into his pocket to take out his phone.

---

The sun was just starting to dip lower in the sky as Kellin pulled up outside a house. Turning off the ignition he sat there for a few moments absorbed in thought, his expression thick with the kind of concern that grips each and every muscle and holds it in spasm at its worst. After a moment he got out and slamming the door behind him strode up towards the front door, eyes down on the floor right up her sounded the bell and the door opened.
"Uh, hey Kellin."
"Hey, Justin," Kellin replied with a tight smile, one hand going automatically to run through his hair. "Are you busy?"
"Um, no," Justin said slowly, turning away back into the house before he beckoned Kellin with his arm. "Come in."
Kellin followed him inside and pushed the door shut behind him, lingered in the hallway with one hand held up. "I'm kinda busy, I can't stay."
Justin shrugged, half way into the kitchen as he turned back around and approached Kellin with a slightly raised eyebrow. Golden light was flooding in through the dappled glass around the door, elongating Kellin's shadow, throwing a wonky halo around his head, and Justin was hanging around in the diffused glow.
"What's up?" He asked.
"Uh, well," Kellin said, chewing his lip. "I was hanging out with Julia today and she told me you'd said we're going to be working with a producer in LA."
"Um, yeah, I said that."
"Well, how the hell didn't I know? Did I miss that memo or something?"
Justin gave another shrug.
"I mean, fuck," Kelln murmured, "Since when do girls find out about what's happening in my own band before I do?"
"I don't know," Justin replied. "I guess you missed Andrew's message is all."
"I don't have," Kellin said, pausing to take in a breath, "Any messages."
"You've been kinda pre-occupied Kellin, no-one's gonna yell at you for that."
"I don't have any--" Kellin caught himself growing irritated and centred his concentration on his friend. "What's the deal?" He asked calmly.
"Andrew's buddy just finished working on a new studio out in LA, he went to some wrap party last week where he met the dude. He wants to work with us, he said he rated the last album, he has some ideas."
"So this is pretty set."
"I don't know, Andrew sounded sure enough to book flights."
"Book flights for when?" Kellin exclaimed.
"Beginning of next month."
"That's three weeks away!" Kellin hissed, locking his hand into his hair. "What the fuck, man? I can't just ditch everything for a few months to go out to LA."
"Well, that's what we did this summer on tour," Justin said.
"Yeah, and some of us came back home during that time, remember? Like Jesse thought it was fine to just leave for a couple days, Gabe came home, I was stuck out there doing promo..."
"But everyone was cool with that, man. We need to get some stuff laid down, this is serious."
"You know things have changed. I should be with Julia."
"Don't worry about Julia," Justin said, looking into Kellin's eyes briefly. "People are looking out for her."
"What, like you? You sure looked pretty close the other night."
A thick silence fell and Justin's eyes lowered, he swallowed and pressed his lips together, and Kellin watched him, waiting for an answer, any sound at all. After a moment he seemed to decide what to say and said,
"I don't know what you're suggesting. But she needs friends right now."
"She has friends," Kellin shot back, "They're girls. They buy her fucking baby magazines and take her shopping for buggies."
Justin looked back towards Kellin's shoulder, not meeting his eyes, and took in a deep breath.
"I don't even want to talk about this. I just want to know-- I mean, fuck, what was wrong with our other studio?"
"Nothing was wrong, Kellin, I just think this was a good opportunity for us and Andrew saw that, is all."
"I can't believe I didn't even get a damn message."
"Kellin, you were CCed, I saw you tagged in the e-mail!" Justin came back with, angrily. "Just accept you've been too wrapped up in other stuff lately--"
"Like what have I been wrapped up with?"
"Well I don't even know, I haven't heard from you since that Vans party, you know? Even your fucking Twitter account's been dead."
Kellin studied the other man intensely, pressing the tip of his tongue against the top row of his teeth. "Well do I have your permission to go to see my Mom this weekend? I might not be able to be at your beck and call."
"Do whatever the fuck you want," Justin muttered and then, like an afterthought, his voice dropping in volume and softening up a little, "What's gotten into you, anyways? Is this just, just because of everything with Julia?"
Kellin thought for a moment and then nodded slowly, a lump rising in his throat.
"You guys'll work things out," Justin offered meekly, but there was no smile that accompanied it.
Kellin felt is stomach twist, felt a little sick as he shook his head gently and said quietly, "Just make sure I get all the messages about this."
"Alright," Justin said, and then reached out to place a hand on Kellin's shoulder. "Good luck this weekend man. Sucks doing family stuff by yourself."
Kellin rolled his shoulder away from under Justin's touch and said, "It's no biggie."

Kellin left the house unsettled, and even the radio in his car couldn't drown out the sound of his thoughts, thoughts which tumbled around and made his head ache. This was the first time he hadn't been straight with one of his friends and it felt odd, to have looked into Justin's eyes and to have known they weren't picturing the same thing, but there had been something else about his friend which when he thought about it harder made him put his foot on the gas and break sharper. Suddenly, the thought of being cooped up with them in a studio made him uncomfortable.

For the second time that evening he pulled up outside a house and, peering out of the window up towards the building he felt the tension keeping his shoulders taut ease a little. As he watched the front door opened and slender figure flew down the steps, an oversized hoodie thrown around her shoulders, legs clad in skinny jeans, hair tumbling across her shoulders.
Kellin got out of the car with a smile on his face, pushed his cap back on his head with a grin as she rushed up to him and straight into his arms. "Ready?" He asked.
Demi answered him by throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him on the mouth, her bag discarded on the pavement beside her, and as Kellin kissed her back he found himself laughing because he'd dreamed about this in the best sort of dreams.
"Linda's not here?" He asked suddenly, pulling away and looking back up towards the house, and Demi shook her head, resting her hands on his chest. "So we're really going to do this?"
Kellin nodded, looking at her intently. "If you're sure."
Demi grinned and placed a kiss on his cheek before she pulled away and said, "I'm sure." And it was the best thing he'd ever heard her say, even if he didn't see the slightly uneasy smile she gave as he bent over to pick up her bag. But there was a long drive ahead of them.