Original Love

Alex's POV:

The crowd burst into screams and cheering as the four of them walked out on stage, instruments in hand. This had always been one of Alex's favorite parts of the show, hearing the crowds reaction and knowing that they had made such an impact on their lives and maybe even saved a few of their lives. It always made him feel good when he knew he was giving back to others by living his dream. He sometimes came off as self centered and cocky but he really wasn't. Alex was just a normal guy that went through the same doubts and worries that others his age went through also. There was nothing special or different about him. He was just a 24 year old following his dream with his best friends.

The show seemed to fly by and just as they were beginning to play Jasey Rae, the drums suddenly cut out. Soon the rest of them stopped also and Alex turned behind him to see Rian sitting behind his set only holding one drumstick with a confused look on his face. Alex laughed as he turned and picked up the missing stick since he was the closest to it. Glancing at his other two bandmates, he saw Zack with the familiar small smirk playing on his lips and Jack with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Alex couldn't help but sigh at that. It had been a week or so since he had told Charlie about Jack's weird behavior over the phone when they had first gotten there. And his best friend was still acting weirder. It was driving him nuts but he pushed that to the back of his mind as he handed Rian the missing stick and then proceeded to go back to his mic and poke fun at the drummer.

As payback for the teasing, Rian and Colussy had decided to gang up and play Eye of the Tiger in the middle of the set making Alex laugh more. They finished the show with huge smiles on their faces and then walked off stage to go and get showers now that they were nasty with sweat from their hour and a half set. Alex didn't really pay attention to the conversation that was going on as they headed back to the dressing room. All he really cared about was getting a shower and maybe calling Charlie before it got too late in the States for him to call. Going over to his bag, he grabbed all the things he needed and then headed down the hall to where the showers were and started to sing to himself as he turned the shower on and waited for the water to heat up. He usually took his time but he hoped that if he hurried, he might get Jack alone and try talking to him again to maybe see if the younger boy was willing to finally start talking. But when he got back to the dressing room fifteen minutes later he only found Zack and Rian there quietly discussing something.

"No, but Alex might," Alex heard Zack say as he walked into the room.

Alex frowned slightly, not liking the tone that the bassist had. "Alex might what?" He saw both of them looked up with a small black device in Rian's hands. "Is that Jack's phone?"

"Yeah, we wanted to see what's got him acting so weird lately." Rian replied.

Alex nodded, knowing that both of them were just as worried as he was about the youngest boy. Maybe having Jack's phone, which he seemed unable to put down lately, was the key to understanding what was going on with him. Sure they were being snoops but if this was the way they could find out what's going on, well then Alex would do whatever it took.

He thought for a moment before looking back to his two best friends. "Did you try 'dick'?"

Zack smirked as Rian took a breath and then slowly typed it in. The phone stopped a moment before flashing the red warning sign saying that it was wrong.

"We only have like five more tries or it's going to lock you out completely and Jack's going to know we were creeping."

"Will it stop if we turn it off and turn it back on?"

Zack shook his head, "no. This happened to me once before. It won't let you in no matter what unless you have the right password."

"Then we're going to have to put our thinking caps on."

Taking a moment to think, they all continued to try and think of what it could be. They tried birthdays and other important dates but each time the same blinking red screen telling them that it was wrong. There was only a few tries left before they were busted and Jack would know that they were snooping and that they were trying to pry even though Jack clearly didn't want them to know whatever it was that was going on with him. But this was getting ridiculous and Alex was seriously worried that something bad was going on. That maybe his best friend was being threatened and blackmailed by someone even though the poor guy couldn't even hurt a fly. Jack was always the one to try and settle an argument, not that there was a lot of arguments among the band and crew. They all got on really well and whenever something did happen, Jack was the first to try and make things better and usually the one not to start the argument first. And after all this happening Alex was really worried something bad was happening to his best friend.

Finally Rian broke the silence, pulling Alex from his thoughts with another idea. "Try 2-0-0-3,"

Alex took a deep breath and crossed his fingers as he watched Zack carefully type the numbers into the phone. Only for it to yell at them once again that they got it wrong.

The door to the dressing room opened and the three of them froze and Alex, who was now holding the phone, dropped it as quickly as possible as he looked up to see who it was. When they saw who it was standing there, they all let out the breaths they had been holding as Ben smirked and made his way over to the other end of the room where they were. The surfer had been there a total of a few days after flying from California to hang out with them since he was Zack's best friend after all. But he was always fun to have on tour. He and Jack were always crazy and doing stupid stuff to pass the time between set up and before they actually went on stage. They were exactly alike in so many ways that it was scary even though they were complete opposites in appearance. They could have been twins in another lifetime.

"What are you guys doing?" Ben asked with an amused smile. Alex knew that Ben knew that they were doing something sneaky since the three of them were horrible at hiding anything. He also caught the look he had in his eye when he saw exactly what they had been doing but played it off like he hadn't. "Are you looking at gay porn? Is that why you all looked so guilty when I walked in?"

Zack rolled his eyes at his best friend, "no we're trying to get into Jack's phone. We've only got one try left before it completely locks up and Jack know's were snooping."

Ben nodded as she took the phone. Alex watched the other boy curiously as the blonde studied it for a moment before pressing a few buttons. He was about to say something, saying that he just blew their last chance since it was unlikely that he would know the password if they didn't. But a second later, the phone froze for a moment as if to say it was wrong again before it clicked and then showed the start menu. The three of them stared blankly at the blonde, all in shock at the fact that he had successfully unlocked it with one try when it took them all the other tries to fail.

"What did you type in?" Alex asked as he took the phone from Ben.

Ben just shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal, "1-9-9-0."

Those numbers meant nothing to him. What in the world could that mean? Or even stand for? Was it a year? But what would have happened during that year that had such an impact on him that he set it as his password?

"The year Home Alone came out? Really you guys? You've known him longer than I have. You should know this crap." Ben finally said in a 'no shit' voice making Alex roll his eyes at himself.

But of course. Ben was right, he should have known that. What kind of friend would he be if he didn't know that? It was pretty sad that he didn't even think of that first. But that was a conversation to have at a later date. Right now he was staring at Jack's unlocked phone with everything open and ready for him to snoop through to see what the hell was going on with the lanky boy.

Opening up the texts, he began to scroll through them. There was a few from his sister, one from him, another couple from Flyzik asking where he was, and a handful from someone he didn't know. Tapping on the most recent one from the person he didn't know, curious as to what it said and who it was from.

From: Erica
What are you doing right now? ;D

Well that wasn't suggestive at all....

"Who's Erica?" He asked out loud, only voicing one of the many thoughts going through his head.

The other three glanced over at the device to see what he was talking about. Continuing to go though the texts, it got stranger and stranger as Alex realized that they seemed really familiar with each other. And he didn't even know if it was that kind of familiar or not. Whatever it was though, he was really confused as to why he was just now hearing, or rather seeing, this name. Usually all of them were really open about latest girls in their lives, even smug sometimes. Almost as soon as Charlie and he had started dating he had told everyone, and they all knew about her even before they had made it official. They had even demanded to meet her next time they were in Wisconsin and wouldn't take no for an answer. But this was something Alex was a little worried about.

They had all been too engrossed in the phone that they didn't hear anything else going on around them. Such as the door to the dressing room open and the footsteps walking inside until they heard an all too familiar voice cut through the silence.

"What are you guys doing?"