J'exploserai

Alex was taking a swipe at the whipped cream off his coffee when his phone buzzed. He licks his fingers as he reaches to check who texted, and Jack can’t not stare.
Alex frowns.
“Who is it?” Jack asks. When Alex just presses buttons on the screen, Jack leans forward to sneak a look at the contact name.

'The Lady'

Jack rolls his eyes.
Alex sees when he glances up. “What?” He furrows his eyebrows.
Jack looks at Alex with wide eyes. “Nothing!” His voice inflects too high.
Alex nods slowly. “Uh-huh.” He looks back down to his phone. “Nah, it’s just Lisa. Says she misses me and wants me to come home for a few days.”
“She kidding? We’re in the middle of tour. We’ll be back in Baltimore in, like, a week, anyway.”
Alex shrugs. “If she wants me home, I can come home.”
“When?”
Alex drags his finger up his phone’s screen. “Tomorrow.”
“Pussy-whipped.” Jack mutters as he reaches to take a sip from his coffee.
“No ‘m not.” Alex grabs at his straw as he continues looking at his phone.
“You’re flying back to Baltimore tomorrow when we’ll be there soon anyways just because she asks?”
Alex raises an eyebrow. “Yes?”
Jack scoffs. “You’re so fucking pussy-whipped. Why can’t you just tell her no?”
“Because I don’t want to, Jack.”
Jack sighs.
“Now, see? Look at that.” Alex turns his phone over and holds it out to Jack, showing him something Lisa tweeted. “She loves me. Isn’t that sweet?”
Jack has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something snarky. Instead, he opts to say, “Yeah, it is.”
“I’m lucky to have her. She’s a sweet girl.”
“I’d say she’s luckier to have you.” Jack replies softly.
Alex gives Jack a weird look.
“What?” Jack looks up at Alex quizzically, with big brown eyes like a puppy.
Alex can’t rag on him, not with that, that… honest look Jack has.
That’s sweet, it really is. That Jack cares so much.
So Alex cracks an easy smile, says it’s nothing, man, nothing, and lets it be.
***
Jack, though rolled up in his bunk, can clearly hear Alex talking to Lisa on his phone in the lounge. He wishes they would just shut up, shut up already, it’s not cute anymore. Alex murmurs ‘I love you’s down the line, and why can’t he be saying that to Jack?
Lisa’s better, she must be.
Jack would like to think Alex wouldn’t be wasting his time on her if she wasn’t.
Alex hangs up, finally, and must have said goodnight to whomever’s still up because now he’s padding in to the bunk aisle and rolling into the bunk directly opposite Jack’s.
Jack stares at the picture he has on the wall of his bunk, of him smiling in front of the Home Alone house. Actually smiling, genuinely happy.
Jack flips over, pulls the curtain back just a few inches and loudly whispers, “Night, Lex.”
Alex chuckles. “Night, Jay. Sleep tight.”
Jack smiles himself to sleep.
***
Jack wakes up just as the front door of the bus slides shut. He checks the time on his phone and wonders who the fuck feels the need to go out for a stroll at four in the morning.
He gets up to investigate, and is greeted to his surprise by a groggy Rian seated on a couch, drinking water.
“Hey, man. What’re you doing up?” Jack inquires.
“Alex’s bumping around woke me up and I can’t fucking get back to sleep. I swear to god, he’ll be the death of me.”
“Did he just leave?”
“Yeah, going to the fuckin’ airport.” Rian snorts. “Lisa’s a great girl and all, but flying back to Baltimore just to spend the day off with her? Even I have to admit that’s a little excessive.”
“I know, right?”
“He’s pussy-whipped, I’m telling ya.”
Jack points an excited finger at Rian. “Exactly what I was saying, dude.”
Rian yawns. “I’d better go try sleeping. You gonna stay up, or…?”
“Yeah, maybe for a bit. See if Alex decides a six-AM flight was a bad fucking idea.” Jack goes to grab some chips from the kitchenette cupboard.
Two Doritos bags and six hours of sleep later, Alex apparently has not decided that a six-AM flight was a bad fucking idea and Jack is left without him for their day off.
“What the fuck can you even do in Detroit?!” Jack says, exasperated.
“Get shot?” Flyzik suggests.
Jack sets out to do just that, but Zack intervenes. “Come on, bro, chill. Yeah, it’s kinda lame on Alex’s part, but we can deal. Let’s play some football or something.”
“The Tigers probably have a game today.” Flyzik says.
Jack can Instagram them having fun at the baseball game, without Alex. Surely he’d see the picture.
“Yeah, okay. That sounds cool.” Jack shrugs.
Jack can have some sober fun without Alex, can’t he?