Guts

"Hey, Alex." Luke waved, smiling at him.

"Well isn't it the one and only Alex Sasskarth and Jackass Barakat." Brooklyn glared at Jack.

"Hey, Brooke." Alex chuckled, pulling Brooklyn into a hug. He let go and examined her. "Why are you wet?"

"Michael." Brooklyn nodded at his direction.

"Oh, I thought you and James were together." Alex joked, smirking.

"Haha, very funny, Gaskarth." Michael said sarcastically, slapping the back of Alex's head.

James rolled his eyes and went to talk to Jack by the side of the stage.

"Hey, man, what's up?" Jack greeted, looking up from his phone.

James shrugged. "Eh, nothing much. You?"

"Nothing interesting. Broke up with Holly a few weeks back, though."

"No offense but, finally. I hated her. Sorry."

"It's fine. I didn't like her after all." Jack shrugged, pocketing his phone.

"No one did."

Jack let out a snort. "You guys did great, by the way."

"You think so?" James asked, scratching his nape.

"Oh, yeah. Amazing."

"Why don't you tell Brooklyn that?" James offered. He had always tried to connect Jack and Brooklyn, trying to get them to be friends at least, or to stop making them hate on each other.

"You know very well that I do not talk to her."

--

"That motherfucking son of a goddamn bitch." Brooklyn hissed under her breath, glaring at Jack's back.

"Oh, stop that." Bassist of the Maine, Garrett Nickelsen, said, playfully slapping Brooklyn's arm.

"I seriously froze on stage when I saw the dick in the crowd." Brooklyn's eyes widened as she ranted to Garrett as the two walking around the parking lot.

"Still bitter about him, huh?" 

"Fuck, yes." Brooklyn said, kicking a can of root beer aside.

Two girls suddenly approached them, one of them wearing a Your Guilty Pleasure shirt. Garrett looked at Brooklyn and smirked.

"Uh, hi." The blonde one managed to say. "Um, can we get a picture with the two of you? My cousin can take the picture for us, she doesn't really know you guys."

The girl she was with let out an awkward chuckle, waving a camera.

"Sure, sure." Garrett smiled.

Brooklyn pulled the blonde between her and Garrett, wrapping her arm around the blonde while Garrett had his hand on Brooklyn's back. The photo was taken and the blonde girl gave the two each a hug.

"Bye, and thanks again!"

"No problem." Brooklyn and Garrett said simultaneously.

"Oh, and I really think you guys would make a great couple. I know you aren't together, but the pictures you guys always have are really cute. Especially the one where Garrett was kissing Brooklyn's cheek! Oh, that made me so happy."

"Um, thanks?" Brooklyn chuckled awkwardly, scratching the back of her neck.

The blonde grinned again and walked away, heading for Mayday Parade's tent.

"People are still not over the two of us, huh?" Garrett laughed.

"I don't know what they see in us." Brooklyn laughed, shaking her head.

"It's fun, though."

"What?"

"You know, playing along with them. Like, they keep on saying stuff like we should be together and we play along by taking a lot of pictures wherein we're close to each other. It's fun."

"I guess it is. I do those things a lot with James."

"Oh, so you guys really aren't together?" Garrett looked at Brooklyn for clarification.

"We're not!" Brooklyn slapped Garrett's arm and the two froze when they heard a camera shutter. They turned around to see an amused fan with her camera on her hand.

"This is getting so many notes on Tumblr, I can feel it." She smiled widely and walked away.

"What the actual fuck?" Brooklyn blurted out when the fan was out of earshot.

"That was... strange."

"Well, that's enough adventure for today. I'm going to go help out with them merch." Brooklyn said, putting on her sunglasses.

"And we have sound check in a while." Garrett nodded, looking at the time on his phone. He looked up and gave Brooklyn a smile. "I'll see you, alright?"

"Sure, yeah. Just text or something." Brooklyn nodded and hugged Garrett tightly, chuckling at the sound of yet another camera shutter.

--

"Hey, Joe." Brooklyn smiled as she went behind the table filled with shirts, posters, and CDs. "Need help?"

"Not really, but Michael's looking for you." Joe said as he handed a shirt to a girl.

"Where's he?"

"Uh, he's watching All Time Low's show, main stage." Joe looked at Brooklyn cautiously.

Brooklyn cleared her throat and nodded. "Right. Yeah. Okay."

She hopped off the table and started walking her way to main stage, smiling at her friends from different bands and stopping to sign a few posters, CDs, shirts and whatnot of fans. By the time Brooklyn reached the main stage, she went to the side of the stage and saw Vinny Vegas and Matt Flyzik engaged in an animated conversation.

Matt stopped talking at the sight of Brooklyn and gave her a smile, Vinny following suit.

"Hey, guys. Is Michael here?" Brooklyn said as she approached them.

"He's watching side stage." Matt nodded at the direction.

"Thanks, Flyzik." Brooklyn smiled politely and stepped forward to start walking but stopped in her tracks and looked back at the two. "I can go there, right?"

Matt laughed. "Of course."

"Thanks." Brooklyn nodded and made her way to the side stage, standing right beside Michael without a word.

"Hey," Michael addressed Brooklyn without taking his eyes off the show.

"Joe said you were looking for me?" Brooklyn said, looking at her friend.

"Right, yeah. I was going to ask you if you wanted to come along with me to watch All Time Low, but here you are." Michael said, running his hand through his black hair and flipping it to the side.

"Stop trying to be Bieber." Brooklyn said, messing up Michael's hair.

"I so have better hair than him." Michael defended, fixing his hair again.

Brooklyn let out a chuckle and crossed her arms across her chest, watching the four guys play their last song. She heard Michael singing along quietly, mumbling the lyrics under his breath as he texted on his phone.

"Who you texting?" Brooklyn asked, not minding to look over at him.

"Your boyfriend." Michael smirked.

"James and I-"

"I wasn't talking about James." Michael laughed, cutting Brooklyn off.

"Then who?"

"Garrett." Michael gave Brooklyn a teasing smile.

"Like, Nickelsen, Garrett Nickelsen?" Brooklyn raised her eyebrows.

"Yup."

"What'd he say?" Brooklyn looked over at Michael.

"Nothing. We're just talking about this chick who approached the two of us yesterday. She was pretty hot." Michael shrugged.

"So, who's going to get her? You or Gar?" Brooklyn asked.

"Me, of course. Garrett has you." Michael joked, nudging Brooklyn's waist.

"We're not together." Brooklyn said quietly.

"It's so obvious that the two of you like each other, hello?" Michael looked at Brooklyn seriously. "Even if he did get the chick, I bet he likes you more."

Brooklyn scoffed. "He does not like me in that way."

"Whatever makes you sleep at night." Michael chuckled and texted away.

He noticed Brooklyn leave his side for a moment, hearing her asking for a marker from Colussy. She went back to standing beside Michael and he noticed that she seemed a bit uncomfortable since she kept running a hand through her hair and rubbing her hands together. Just as Michael was about to ask what was up, three of the four guys of All Time Low made their way to them, each smiling at their direction, sweating from the show they had just done.

"What'd you think?" Alex grinned at Brooklyn and Michael as he downed a bottle of water.

"Unbelievable." Michael said genuinely.

Alex looked at Brooklyn for a response, a smile still on his face. Brooklyn shrugged. "I missed more than half of your set, man. Sorry. But it was great. The guitars were amazing in Do You Want Me."

"Say that to Jack." Alex laughed and then realized what he just said. "Oh, right. Sorry."

Brooklyn shrugged. "Whatever."

Jack came last after throwing a few picks to the crowd. He had a huge grin on his face but it immediately dropped at the sight of Brooklyn.

"Why is the slut here?" Jack hissed.

"Why not?" Brooklyn raised an eyebrow at him.

"You don't even like us." Jack narrowed his eyes.

"Excuse you, I do like All Time Low." Brooklyn locked eyes with Jack and Michael and Alex started moving away, leaving the two alone.

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do. If I didn't, then why was I so happy the first time we met?" Brooklyn defended.

"I don't like you." Jack said simply.

"Never liked myself, either." Brooklyn shrugged. She let out a sigh and got a bottle of water from the table behind her and handed it to Jack. "Here. You're going to get dehydrated from the heat and, well, you just finished a set. Trust me."

Jack got the water bottle slowly from her and watched as Brooklyn gave him a small smile and left to go talk to Zack.

He opened the water bottle and drank from it, feeling the cold water hit his throat, making him sigh in happiness. He was about to close the bottle when he noticed that there was writing behind the plastic that was wrapped around the bottle. He cocked an eyebrow, closed the bottle, and ripped the plastic around the bottle off. When he finished unwrapping it, he noticed the familiar writing and he felt goose bumps all over his body.

You guys did an amazing job, and the guitars of Do You Want Me was pretty good. Nice job, Jackass.
-Brooke