As Long as You're Around, I'll be Safe and Sound

Jack felt bad when he hadn’t heard of Sam’s band a few days prior, and so he’d done the logical thing and found their Wikipedia page, been linked to their YouTube and after listening to a few tracks decided he liked them, they were really, really good. He’d learnt that they were from New York, had formed in 2008 and achieved success with their EP “New”. He also found and listened to and downloaded their debut album “Static” in its entirety and he might just have bought a wristband and a shirt of theirs when he passed their merch stand a few days later.

It’s been about three days since Jack first saw Sam, he’s kind of managed to lose track of the days but he knows he’s played three shows between then and now. He’s wandering around the venue because he’s bored, occasionally bumping into fans and signing something or having his photo taken. He’s never really minded it, he loves his fans and when it comes down to it, they’re the ones paying his bills, so chatting to them for a minute is really the least he can do. He’s contemplating buying some of that pizza again because it was just that good when he hears something in the not so far distance that he recognises. It’s the intro to a song he’s listened to quite a lot the past few days, and he smiles when he hears it, changing his course and following the sounds to the right and around a few tents until he’s presented with a stage, and on that stage is Aftershock. He hangs around for their set, standing back away from the crowds and somehow managing not to get noticed in the hustle and bustle of the people around him, his eyes always staying focused on the band playing. He watches as Sam’s small hands move over her purple guitar and notes the look of pure concentration on her face as she plays, and how she seems to physically brace herself before singing the backing vocals. She’s not jumping around like Jack would be, but it’s clear she’s into the music by the way she’s kind of swaying and bouncing on the spot. Jack thinks it’s cute.

She has her eyes closed as she sings a chorus, and when she opens them again they connect straight away with Jack’s, who gives her a little wave and a huge grin. She misses the chord change and blushes, quickly picking the tune back up, eyes moving to the ground as a small smile pulls at her lips. She takes the chance to give him a little wave back between two songs while Josh is talking to the crowd and Jack pulls a face at her, sticking his tongue out and squeezing his eyes shut just because he felt like it. Sam giggles and though Jack can’t hear it, he can see the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders and how her smile is reaching her eyes. She takes a swig from her water bottle hoping it might quell the fluttering in her stomach that she hates to think Jack caused; she’s known him for what, four days? She risks another glance back up at him but he’s no longer stood where she’d just seen him and her smile quickly vanishes, the fluttering going along with it. With a small sigh she looks over to Josh who nods at her and she nods back, showing she’s ready to play their final song and as she plays the chords that have become second nature to her she ponders whether she might bump into Jack later in the day or ever again at all because she’d really quite like to maybe get pizza with him again some time.

All that pondering proves rather pointless when she says he goodbyes to the fans and leaves the stage, handing her guitar to a tech who all but rips it from her grip in his haste to get all his work done so he can get out and maybe see another band play. Josh pats her back and grins at her; she returns a small smile
“Good show, Sam. I’ll see you later, I’m gonna go hang out with the guys” he says to her and jogs off in another direction before she can reply, Sam doesn’t even know who “the guys” are, but she’s glad Josh has some friends to hang out with and figures she’ll just go back to the bus and read or write a song or something.

She barely manages to walk another two metres before she hears a call from behind her
“Sam!” the voice says and she stops, looking around timidly because the only person she know would shout for her just left and then Jack bounds into view from the direction of the stage
“I was side stage, you walked straight past me!” he pouts slightly
“Oh, sorry. I guess I just, uhh, missed you.” she stammers back, not understanding how she could have missed him and feeling quite embarrassed that she did
“It’s okay, I caught up to you” he shrugs and pulls her into a one-armed hug that’s over before Sam even registers that it’s begun and has the chance to hug him back. Jack moves to stand beside her, hands buried in the pockets of his jeans as they start to walk out of the backstage area.
“What’ve you been up to?” Jack asks her
“Playing shows and chilling on the bus really. What about you?” she half smiles because for a girl in a band, her life is as boring as it gets. She’s not really all that social. When she looks up to him he’s smiling down at her
“We’ve had a bit of press stuff and a few signings but other than that it’s been pretty chilled, I’ve hung out with a few new people which is always cool.” he nods. They walk quietly for a minute or so, both following the other which means they aren’t heading anywhere in particular. Sam is far too nervous to strike up a conversation, no matter how much she might want to, the hammering in her chest a constant reminder of this but Jack has never liked silence, so he starts asking things that will break it and Sam starts smiling when the first word leaves his mouth
“What your favourite colour?” He starts with
“Red. Yours?” Sam smiles back both at the silly question and how seriously Jack had been asking it
“I like blue” he answers “what’s your favourite food?”
“Um,” she thinks for a moment before saying the only food that comes to her mind “plain pizza. You?”
“My mum’s pasta meatballs,” he says with a smile and a chuckle “they’re the best things in the world. Sam smiles at this and she doesn’t even know why. They continue for a while with the simple questions, favourite place, favourite song, favourite item of clothing. Then he wanted to make it more interesting.

They’d found another place to sit where people would just walk past and not give them a second glance; they’re facing each other this time and Sam is trying her hardest to look anywhere but his eyes because she’s worried she’ll get distracted if she does then not listen to what he’s saying and embarrass herself.
“Let’s make this more exciting,” Jack grins and Sam pulls at the grass and bites her lip a little bit “so, we take it in turns to ask the other a question and whoever asks something that the other can’t answer wins!”
“Okay” she mutters tentatively because this could go really, really badly
“I’ll go first, what’s the worst thing on your iPod?” he shoots and she squirms a little, trying to think of something
“Umm, Kesha? Madonna? I have a lot…” she trails off and Jack chuckles, satisfied
“And now you ask me a question” he prompts and she thinks for a moment
“What’s your guilty pleasure?”
“Umm, eating a whole tub of marshmallow fluff in an afternoon? Does that even count?” he laughs before asking his second question “How old were you when you had your first kiss?” Sam blushes, again. She swears it’s all she does when she’d around Jack, that and laughing and smiling.
“I think I was about eleven, I’m not sure. Who was your first kiss?” she continues, trying to respond with a question on the same level of embarrassing as the one he just asked her
“Amelia Samuels. She was really sweet when I was like eight, and then by high school she was this huge bitch.” He says with a small shrug “umm, how many boyfriends have you had?” he asks and Sam pauses because she’s slightly embarrassed at the low number
“Shit, I forgot. You don’t have to answer that one if it’s a sore subject. I’m sorry” he reaches over to place his hand on Sam’s knee and the touch is strangely comforting to her, though she didn’t even know she needed, or wanted comforting.
“It’s okay,” she smiles “I’ve had two boyfriends” Jack nods at this then she connects eyes with him and it makes her smile a little bigger. “How long was your longest relationship?” Sam never made the conscious decision to turn their discussion from colours to relationships, that had been Jack’s choice and he’s slowly starting to regret it because his history with girls doesn’t exactly paint the best picture for him to present to the girl he’s fairly sure he’s crushing on.
“Um, around eight months, she was pretty cool. What about you?” he’s not completely sure he wants to know because it has to be more impressive than his short eight months
“I was with my first boyfriend for nearly a year and a half. He was a prick.” Sam says because she can feel how tense Jack is and she doesn’t like it because Jack’s supposed to be relaxed and happy, she’s the tense one. Jack laughs more than the statement deserved, mainly just out of relief.
“Are you single right now?” Sam asks next
“Yeah, I am. Very much so. I haven’t had a girlfriend in a really long time.” He says honestly. He can’t imagine himself saying that to anyone else, he’d probably word it more crudely, or say something about not wanting to be tied down because he’s young and doesn’t need a girl. He’d make it out like he’s single out of choice. There’s something about Sam that means he can’t help but trust her, he could never lie to those bright blue eyes, and he doubts he could even sugar-coat a truth.

“How many guys have you kissed?” Jack picks the game back up, placing his hand very close to Sam’s on the grass as he shuffles into a more comfortable position. Sam would blush again if her cheeks weren’t already a seemingly permanent pink.
“I can remember ten but it’s probably more.” She says, the actual answer is sixteen; Sam’s had her fair share of drunken nights. “How many guys have you kissed?” she asks cheekily and it takes Jack a moment to figure out why she’s grinning quite so much and when he does he starts laughing too
“Two. Two guys.” He admits sheepishly, his blush almost matching Sam’s now, as does his smile. Sam chuckles again at his sudden shyness.
“Okay, how many people have you had sex with?” he smirks cheekily and she physically squirms before quietly squeaking out
“Six.” She buries her face in her hands, curling up into a ball, she’s still grinning though. It takes a moment for Jack to figure out whether that’s a lot or not and he decides that on the scale of things it really isn’t. Though he’s kind of surprised because he never had Sam down as the one night stand type, not that she’s not capable because honestly Jack thinks she’s far beyond gorgeous, he just hadn’t pinned her down as that type. Though Jack could hardly judge her considering the number of people he’d slept with was no longer in single digits and he could count his number of girlfriends on one hand.

He leans forward and tries to pull her hands out of the way of her face but she resists with a small giggle.
“Come on Sam! It’s not even bad” he reassures her but she doesn’t let up, shuffling back and away from him though the giggles escaping from her mouth tell him she’s not really all that upset
“Yours isn’t half as bad as mine” he continues and that stops her and she lets Jack pull her hands away from her face before asking with a small smile
“Why? What’s yours?” Jack freezes, pauses and then speaks
“Okay, you win the game!” he says, clearly trying to just change the subject as quickly as he can. Sam’s smile drops
“Tell me” she pushes, lips turning into a pout and eyebrows pulling together a bit in a sort of upset face that Jack never wants to see on her again when she could be laughing like she was just thirty seconds ago. That’s what makes him blurt it out.
“Fourteen” he says and when Sam’s expression doesn’t change within a split second he panics and continues “we’re on the road and I get drunk a lot and it just kind of happens.” He genuinely looks quite ashamed of himself which has never really been a problem before for Jack Barakat because he’s never really cared about what people think of him though now he’s finding that he definitely cares what Sam thinks of him to the extent that he’s worn a clean shirt everyday since he met her on the off chance he might run into her. That’s quite a step for Jack.
“You’re acting like it’s a big deal” Sam murmurs “it’s not.” And though she’s kind of freaking out on the inside because his fourteen is more than double her six, she’s more focused on getting him happy and laughing again.

It’s a good while later, both of them having lost track of time and moved on from the game that Jack’s phone goes in his pocket and he knows he only ever gets text when he’s late for something, and he so desperately wants to stay and talk with Sam for the next million years but he knows he can’t. He’s late for the show, again, but he’s not going to let Sam go just yet.
“I have to go play my set, but do you maybe want to come and watch?” he asks with a hopeful smile and Sam nods
“Sure” she smiles and he beams, standing up and offering her a hand to pull her to her feet. He leads her to his stage and purposefully walks her over to the far side so she’ll be on his side rather than Zack’s when they perform. He leaves her there with a hug as quick as the first one they’d shared because he doesn’t quite dare to make it last any longer and then he’s whisked away to get his guitar. Sam’s heard bits and pieces of Jack’s band before, Josh had always been a bit of a fan, and she finds that she likes it. Though she’s not as focused on the music as she is on Jack; the way he and the singer crack jokes between songs, how he bounces around the stage while still managing to not miss a chord, how he’ll go over to the crowd and interact with them, throwing them a pick or holding someone’s hand even just for a second, and how he keeps stealing glances at her every so often to grin at her or pull a face.