This Could Be All I've Waited For

“So you have a week, right?” Alex asked sitting down next to me while Jack was in the shower after a particularly long and hot day.

I sighed. I had been trying not to think about this all day, but I knew that I have five days of this left. Only five days left on this tour before I had to go back home and make sure that I had all of the necessary school stuff and settling back into the life as a normal college kid.

I wasn’t looking forward to going back, despite the fact that with home came family and air conditioning. Home just didn’t have this. It didn’t have Jack. Home didn’t have my boys. Home simply just wasn’t where my heart was.

“Five days,” I corrected him. I was two days short of a week and I would honestly do anything to get those two days back. Time seemed so much more valuable these days.

“Well you don’t start school right when you get back right?” he asked shrugging his shoulders as if I really didn’t have to go home immediately after tour.

“I start back exactly one week after we get back,” I told him almost regretting not getting into the music business when I had the chance. Back when I graduated, Derek had gotten me an internship at Hopeless… I spent the summer there and loved it… but I guess I just wasn’t ready for that kind of thing, too attached to the daily routine of school to stray from it.

“You could always come to Baltimore until the very last minute,” Alex said, “You and I both know that Jack would love it.”

I closed my eyes and rested my head on the back of the couch. “You have no idea how bad I want to do exactly that,” I told him, “But I have responsibilities. I made a commitment by starting school and I’m sure as hell going to finish it.”

Alex playfully pushed my shoulder obviously trying to get me out of this funk I’d let myself fall into. “No one said you would have to quit but I get what you’re saying,” he told me nodding his head.

“When does the next tour start?” I asked curious to know when I could expect my world to get ridiculously hard. I’m not a pessimistic person usually. I want Jack and I to work out; I really do, but sometimes I wonder when he’ll decided that we’re better off friends. Or when things will get too hard to keep up no matter how bad both of us want it.

“A couple of weeks after we get back,” Alex said sounding both happy and sad at the same time. I understood his tone completely. When you love your job as much as he did you couldn’t help but be happy that you’re still able to do it, but when you’re away from the people you want nothing more than to be around every day as much as he is it leaves a sadness that is hardly quieted by the few days off here and there.

I pushed air through my lips trying not to think about the what ifs of the upcoming months.

“You don’t have anything to worry about Cade,” Alex promised me, “He cares a lot about you he wouldn’t risk your feelings if he wasn’t one hundred percent sure about you.”

I hated it when Alex said things like this to me. I couldn’t stand it when people knew that I needed reassurance. I didn’t want to be that transparent, and I usually wasn’t… except when it came to Jack. He’d know as soon as he saw me that I was focusing on time again. Wondering what this would all come to. Our parents were happy to see us together and so were our friends but what if we were pushed together what if we didn’t come to this decision entirely on our own… and what if we later found that we just don’t feel the way we thought we did.

Jack came in laughing and throwing a playful punch at Rian shoulder before turning and finding Alex and I on the couch. I pulled at his t-shirt that I was wearing with a pair of shorts, concentrating on my pajamas seemed like a much better idea than looking Jack in the eyes and making him worry about my wondering thoughts.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alex rat me out with a nod of his head.

“Come on Cady,” Jack said softly taking both of my hands weather I wanted him to or not and pulling me off the couch, “Let’s go to bed.”

I sighed following him and flicking Alex off. I heard Alex chuckle obviously enjoying that I thought that the action would mean a thing to him. Jack pulled me down into his bunk and pulled the curtain shut. I curled into his side resting my head in on his pillow and pressing my face into his neck.

At first he didn’t say anything and I thought for a moment that he wasn’t going to saying anything to me at all. I thought that maybe he was tired of having this conversation; it always went the same way. I would tell him that I was afraid for when we weren’t together every day and he would tell me that he would do everything he could to make sure it feels like the next best thing; and it would go on like that for a while until one of us fell asleep both of us smiling.

“You know over the past couple of days I’ve been kicking myself for letting that first night go the way it did,” he told me softly. He was so quiet that it would have been nearly impossible for everyone else to hear him over the ruckus that was going on in either of the lounges.

My heart stopped. Was he going to say that he regrets this? Was he already rethinking our relationship. I fought back the panic as I told myself to listen to what he had to say.

“I kind of wish that we would have kissed and let the night end in a conversation about our future together,” he said and I breathed a sigh of relief, “We definitely let our emotions get the better of us.”

“We’re both too chicken to have actually said anything if it didn’t go the way it did,” I told him knowing that we would have simply laughed off the kisses and gone on the way we were before.

His fingers ran through my hair, “Yeah,” he said, “I just don’t want to rush through all of the good parts. I want this to be slow and sweet I want to enjoy every second for what it is.”

I wasn’t sure where he was going with this but I was definitely listening. I ran my fingers over his ribs trying to encourage him to continue.

“Is it too soon to tell you that I want to love you the way that your parents love each other?” he asked sounding both scared and surprised by his own words.

My heart rate increased for an entirely different reason at his words. Jack Barakat wanted to love me. A smile made its way to my lips, “No,” I told him because honestly while we were in Georgia I was wondering if Jack and I would be that way someday.

“They still act like they’re teenagers and every time they look at each other you can see it even if they’re just asking if the other wants a drink,” Jack said his tone reverent. “I want to love you like that.”

My breath caught in my throat. I’d told Jack several times that I loved him, but that was while we were just friends. Neither of us had mentioned loving the other since we’d decided we would try dating. “I don’t know where all of this is coming from,” I said, “but I like it.”

He laughed, “I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to get weirded out when I don’t say that I love you for a while,” there was a pause and I waited for him to think of what he wanted to say next. “I want to love you as more than a friend before I tell you I love you again. I care about you so much more than a guy cares for his best friend, but I want to be so in love with you that I’m bursting at the seams to tell you before we say it again,” he told me his fingers still running through my hair probably leaving more tangles behind than what I’d started out with.

“That is going to be really fun to see,” I told him lifting my head to look into his eyes.

He touched my cheek smiling, “So you get it?” he asked, “You aren’t going to freak out on me or any of that other crazy girl stuff?”

I laughed leaning down and giving him a quick kiss, “Jack, when have I ever done any crazy girl stuff?” I asked.

He shrugged and I saw a joking glint in his eyes, “I don’t know some time you get into these crying fits that scare the hell out of me,” he joked.

“You cannot hold hormonal fits over my head,” I complained knowing that he was talking about the times where my PMS was less anger and more tears. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d called him to make me laugh so I’d forget about whatever it was that had set me off to begin with.

He pulled my head down connecting our lips and he laughed, which only made me laugh too. I knew I’d miss this but as long as I had moments like this to hold on to then we could make it through these months that we had ahead of us. I might get down at times but that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t have Jack to talk to at the end of the day.

One day I am going to love Jack the way you see old couples loving each other and that was enough for me right now. Knowing that we would love each other and that for now we were committed to the pursuit of that love was enough. That was worth so much more than the number of days there were left to this tour.