Good Love

Jared and John entered the apartment after band practice that night, feeling sweaty and tired. It was almost midnight, and they were exhausted from practicing and working out new songs.

It’d been less than a week since Macy had flown in from Chicago, and Jared was so glad that Annie had her best friend with her now. He knew, despite going to a therapist and hanging out with everyone, that she was still feeling depressed. And what better way to make her feel better than to fly out her best friend?

“Dude, what’s that smell?” John asked, sniffing the air as he slipped off his shoes.

“It smells like-” Jared was cut off by the sound of giggling coming from Annie’s room. The two of them walked down the hall and pushed open her cracked door -to reveal Austin, Annie, and Macy, all three with a tightly rolled blunt in their hands. No wonder it smelled.

“What the hell?” Jared groaned, earning another round of laughter from the three of them.

“Austin brought a present!” Annie said, bouncing on the bed and letting out a breath of smoke.

“Seriously, Austin? You had to get my little sister high?”

“Of course, man! I gotta keep my favorite pretty lady satisfied!”

“Hey, what about me!” Macy whined, shoving his shoulder lightly.

“You’re my favorite sexy lady!” Austin laughed, causing the other girl to laugh. Annie, on the other hand, rolled her eyes. Even while high, she still knew Austin was only trying to seduce her best friend. How charming.

“Come on guys, live a little! Have some fun! Austin has more weed. Right, Austin?” Annie grinned, reaching over and digging in the boy’s pockets. After a second, she pulled out a little baggie containing a green substance. “See! I found it!”

“Ann, you know this isn’t a good idea...” Jared said. Always the party pooper.

“If you don’t wanna, that’s fine bro. More for us. How about you, JohnO?”

Jared glanced over at his friend, knowing what look he’d find on his face. It was a look of excitement. John never was one to turn down free smokes.

“Hell yeah,” John laughed, walking over to Annie and sitting beside her on the bed as he took the joint from her hands and lit it.

“Come on Jared, you know you want to!” Macy grinned, holding out the other stick.

After five more minutes of persuasion from his friends, Jared eventually gave in and accepted the blunt, earning cheers from the rest of them.

“Ah, this is great,” Austin laughed. “Getting fucked up with my best friends.”

Jared rolled his eyes and inhaled, watching his sister giggle as John tickled her. The two of them were starting to seem closer and closer these days, and he was glad. He was glad that Annie had come on tour with them. It had done her good; she was much closer with the guys, and that’s exactly what he’d aimed for. If Annie were to get better and move on from what happened to her, she needed to be surrounded by people that loved her. And if that meant she was friends with John, then so be it.

“Stop tickling me!” she laughed again, falling back against her pillows with John’s hands against her waist.

“But your laugh is so pretty,” he teased. John might have been high after twenty minutes of breathing in the drug, but he was still loving every second of this moment. He didn’t care that Jared was watching the two of them intently or that Macy and Austin’s faces were getting closer and closer. He only cared about the laughing girl in front of him, her white-blonde hair framing her face like a halo.

“Ya know, if I were a little more high and a lot more drunk, I might fall for that, O’Callaghan.”

“I can make that happen, baby,” he grinned, holding out his blunt to her. She’d finished hers just as soon as John got his in his hands.

“Don’t be a pig,” she giggled. “Mmm, I’m hungry.”

“For a pig? ‘Cause you know I’m available,” he teased.

“Sorry, I’m a vegetarian. Will you drive me to IHOP?”

“Ann, I’m high as fuck. I can’t drive.”

“Ugh,” she whined, enunciating each syllable. “Will you cook me food then?”

“You bet, baby,” he said, grabbing her hands and pulling her out of the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. “What sounds good?”

“Macaroni!” she said without hesitation.

“Okay, macaroni comin’ up,” he chuckled, getting into the cabinets and pulling out a box of Kraft mac-n-cheese. It probably wasn’t a good idea to run the stove while under the influence, but hey, what the hell. The possibility of burning down the house wasn’t gonna stop him.

At that point, what could?

He had a pretty girl giggling and dancing in his kitchen and a blunt in his hand. He was on fucking cloud nine.

“I think you burnt the noodles,” Annie laughed, taking another bite of the macaroni once it was done cooking.

“But you’re still eating it,” John grinned as the two of them sat on the couch, each with a bowl of macaroni and cheese in their lap. They could hear more laughs and shouts coming from her bedroom, where their other three friends were still sitting.

“Because I’m high and I have the munchies. Otherwise, this shit would be in the garbage right now.”

“Nuh uh,” he argued. “You love my cooking.”

“John, you never cook. How can I possibly love something that doesn’t exist?”

“Damn,” he sighed, leaning closer to her. “You win.”

“I always do,” she laughed. “But I gotta admit, it was pretty sexy watching you make me food.”

“Oh really? You think I’m sexy, now?” he grinned. Now, he was still high and Annie was still high and the walls were starting to spin a little, but he didn’t care. Annie Monaco just called him sexy.

“Only when you cook.”

“I guess I’ll start cooking more often, then.”

“Oh, yeah right. When hell freezes over.”

“I’ll cook for you any day, baby,” he smirked, and then suddenly and without warning, they were attached at the lips.

Their bowls were set onto the coffee table without care as Annie climbed onto John’s lap, kissing him playfully. He responded instantly, laughing and pulling her closer as their lips moved against each other.

The laughter from the room down the hall had died down, and John and Annie didn’t give a second thought towards their friends. The only thing Annie could think about was having fun, and the only thing John could think about was the fact that he was kissing her.

She was going crazy, already high from the weed but feeling twice as intoxicated as she kissed John. God, he was such a good kisser. She’d kiss him for hours, if she could. What a great way to come down from a high.

She definitely wasn’t thinking straight.

Annie slipped her tongue into John’s mouth, feeling the white teeth against his lips, and retracted it a second later as she pulled away and yawned. “I’m sleepy,” she giggled. “To be continued?”

With a confused and slightly pained look from John, she grabbed the blanket that was lying on the floor and covered herself and John with it, cuddling herself into his chest.

Ten minutes of John playing with her hair and wrapping his arm around her, and she was passed out. Just like that. One second she was going crazy, the next she was out cold.

He, on the other hand, was up for another hour, kept awake by his thoughts of the girl lying next to him.

***

Annie was awoken the next morning by the sound of someone clearing their throat.

“Are they dead?”

“We are not dead, assholes. We were asleep,” John groaned before stretching his arms and yawning, his other arm still around Annie’s waist as she lay next to him. “And then you shit-heads decided to wake us up.”

“Any reason you two fell asleep on the couch.. together?” Kennedy asked, raising his eyebrows.

“We were baked last night, Ken, cut us some slack,” John said, angry that his friends had ruined their moment. He thought he’d just dreamt up kissing Annie and then falling asleep with her next to him, but was happily surprised when he woke up and she was still under his arm.

“Whatever, man,” he said, taking a seat on the armchair and turning on the tv. Tim and Halvo were still standing across from the couch, staring. Eric was giving him a funny look, and he knew he’d get teased about this later.

“Morning, boys,” Annie spoke for the first time, smiling sweetly. She gave John a pat on the cheek before pulling the blankets away, getting up, and padding down the hall and into her room, leaving the boys with surprised looks on their faces.

When she pushed the door of her room open, expecting to find Macy passed out, she instead found Austin, dead to the world with his head on her pillow.

“Wake the fuck up,” she said, shaking his shoulder roughly.

“Macy?”

“No, it’s Annie, motherfucker. Remember me?”

“Oh,” he groaned loudly, rolling over onto his back. “Hey, pretty lady.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she scoffed, walking over to her dresser and pulling out a clean pair of clothes. “Where is Macy, anyway? And please don’t tell me you two slept together.”

“We slept in the same bed, if that’s what you mean,” Macy answered instead, stepping into the room with a towel wrapped around her and a large, mischievous grin on her face. “And if I heard correctly, you also slept with a boy last night.”

“You what? Who?” Austin asked immediately.

“Uh, the only other boy in the house who isn’t my brother.. John. Duh.”

“Yeah, Austin. Duh,” Macy laughed. “Wouldn’t surprise me if they did that all the time.”

“Oh, shut up, Mace. Austin, get the hell out so we can change.”

After a few grumbles and curses, Austin pulled himself out of bed and trudged into the living room. Macy immediately chucked her towel, not having any shame whether her best friend saw her naked or not. Annie wrinkled her nose and turned away with a laugh as she dressed, walking to her closet to find an outfit for the day. She decided on a simple sweatshirt and jeans, thinking maybe she and Macy could make the short walk into town.

“So you really did sleep with John last night?” Macy asked, fully clothed.

“Nothing happened,” she answered a little too quickly, a nervous undertone in her voice.

“Oh, really.. I’m not convinced, Annabelle.”

“Fine, I think I kissed John last night! So what?”

“Wait a second here. You think you kissed John? You’re not for sure?”

“We were high! I don’t know remember what’s real and what’s not!”

“Well, I’d sure say it was real if you two fell asleep on top of each other.”

“How do you know we were on top of each other?” Annie snarked.

“I heard Jared bitching at your loverboy because you were, and I quote, on top of him.”

Annie laughed. It was ironic, really. Jared wanted her to make friends? She made friends. And got baked with them -and her brother too, for god’s sake- and kissed them, and fell asleep with them. And now Jared was pissed that she’d had a little fun with her friends? He could go suck a dick, for all she cared.

“Look at you! You’re giggling. You totally like him, don’t you?”

“Shh! No I don’t!”

Macy simply stopped what she was doing, placed a hand on her hip, and raised her eyebrows, as if to say, of course you don’t.

“He’s Jared’s best friend and bandmate, and also my roommate, Macy. I think he’s cute, but that’s it.”

“And by cute, you mean you’d totally have sex with him, right?”

“Stop it,” Annie laughed, pulling on a pair of jeans before wiping off the old makeup on her face. “Do you want to go get breakfast somewhere?”

“Yeah, let me get ready first.”

Annie nodded, stepping out of the room to find the boys sitting in the living room. She could feel a certain boy’s eyes on her, making her body feel like it was on fire.

“So I heard you had a nice sleep, Annie,” Jared said casually, though she could tell he was irritated.

“I sure did, bub,” she grinned devilishly, as if nothing was wrong. She batted her eyes sweetly when he scowled at her. After thirty seconds of this, his expression softened into a smile and Annie knew she’d won.

She continued to ignore the other boy’s stare on her as she sat down next to Austin on the couch, training her attention to whatever nonsense show that was on tv. While she waited for Macy to come out, she listened to the boys chatter about unimportant stories, not once hearing something of worth come out of their mouths. Entertaining, sure, but not important.

Ten minutes later, and Macy was walking towards her, fully dressed in her Chicago-styled attire. She could see Austin’s eyes glued to her as she walked, and wondered if anything had happened between them last night. She’d been so focused on getting Macy off her back that she’d forgotten to ask about her and Austin.

“We’re going to get breakfast. You guys wanna come?” Annie asked, glancing around the room. The boys all nodded and stood up, easily ready to go. They were boys; they’d never turn down food.

The group walked out of the apartment, half of them taking the elevator and the other half taking the stairs. When they reached the parking lot, Annie had originally planned on walking into town, but no one would take the five-minute walk with her, and she didn’t want to chance having to be alone with John. God knows what would happen after that kiss last night. What would he say to her?

So she watched as everyone loaded into their respective cars, and she intentionally avoided getting into John’s rusty old pickup truck. She knew she had to face him eventually, but at the moment, she was scared shitless. What did you say to someone you made out with while high?

They walked up the sidewalk of the boys’ favorite breakfast joint, and Annie watched as John held the door for everyone, wincing as she walked past him. He looked at her, a peculiar look in his dazzling green eyes, and she could tell he wanted to say something to her. But now, in front of everyone, was not the time.

That’s how their entire breakfast went. Jared, Kennedy, Tim, and Halvo joked around as they usually did, laughing obnoxiously and asking the waiter for beer at ten in the morning. Austin and Macy kept sharing secret smirks at each other. And both John and Annie stared at each other, instantly looking away when the other’s eyes turned to meet theirs. It was like a game of tag; they ran when in danger of being found. But curiosity and temptation kept their eyes on each other like a magnet.

As they loaded into their cars again for the ride home, Annie thought about what Macy had said to her. About John.

There was definitely no way in hell that she liked John like that.

They kissed. So what if it tightened her chest just to think about?

They spent the night on the couch together, asleep and cuddling. So what if it was the best night’s sleep she’d ever had?

It meant nothing. It all meant nothing.

“Ann?”

Speak of the devil.

“Yeah, John?” she answered. They were standing in the parking lot of the apartment complex; everyone was slowly making their way back up the old wrought-iron stairs.

“Can we talk, please?”