Girl That You Love

Patrick watched her eyes wander around the open foyer area, examining every inch of stained concrete and exposed brick wall. With eyes wide and a large smile on her face she turned to look at him and give him two thumbs up. Patrick leaned against a support beam in the middle of the empty living room area and smiled at her with satisfaction. He loved seeing her happy and knowing that it was somehow his doing made him happy. The realtor that they hired from Marie’s suggestion was talking animatedly to Emma about the layout of the three bedroom condo in they were standing in located in Manhattan. The lady was perfectly manicured in every way, from her tailored black suit to her shiny nude pumps. She obviously had many clients like Patrick, and probably even richer.

“She seems to like it,” Robbie said to him, walking out of the kitchen area.

Patrick glanced back at him and slid his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, she really does. If she actually makes up her mind on this one, I will be relieved.”

“Not a house hunter?” Robbie asked.

“No, I like it, but I am more excited to just move in together. So, as long as it has everything we need, I’m good.”

“Man, I can’t wait to find a girl to settle down with,” Robbie sighed.

Patrick grinned. “Wow, Robbie, never imagined you a romantic.” He then looked at Robbie apologetically. “Guess it’s kind of hard to start something when you have a job like this.”

Robbie shrugged. “I’ve met a few girls here in New York. They have expensive taste though. Give me a down home girl from Alabama any day.”

“Is that where you’re from?”

“Born and raised. Joined the Army at 18, served a six year tour, special forces and got out because private security paid way better.”

“That’s awesome, man, really cool,” Patrick replied.

Emma ran up to him and grabbed his hand. “Let’s go upstairs and see the bedrooms!” He followed her up the spiral staircase that went up to the second floor.

Joe had given him some advice when it came to shopping for houses with a girl. “Just let her pick it, man. There’s no sense in arguing with her because at the end of the day, she’ll be there way more than you will be.”

“Geez, that sounds kinda depressing,” Andy commented, twirling his drumsticks in his hands.

Patrick rolled the sleeves up on his black Youngbloods jean jacket. “Yeah, now I feel like a bad future husband.”

Joe looked at both of them with surprised looks. “What did you expect me to say something else? Dude, let’s be real, right now, how often are you at home in L.A.?”

“Not a lot,” Patrick admitted.

“And that’s how it’ll be in New York too. Just because you get married, we’re not going to suddenly have all this free time to hang out at home.”

“It’s true Patrick,” Pete said, stepping into the dressing room. “Hey smile guys!” he snapped a picture and Joe stuck up his middle finger. “That’s fucking rock and roll man thanks.”

“Why are you taking pictures Pete?” Andy asked him.

“I’m gonna have them upload them onto our Instagram and Facebook page for the fans. Give ‘em a look at our backstage stuff.”

“Just stay out of the bathroom man. That’s my last private place,” Joe remarked.

“Scouts honor,” Pete said, crossing his fingers. “So we’re talking about Patrick and Emma’s future marital bliss?”

“Kinda, more like where are they going to live,” Andy answered. “Joe is being all cynical, making Patrick feel bad.”

“Psh, I am not! I’m just being fucking real,” Joe replied, sitting back on the couch and crossing his hands over his chest. “Pete, tell him, when it comes to the house, it’s really all the girl’s decision.”

Pete nodded. “It’s true man. When Ashlee and I bought a house together, I kinda just hung back and let her make the decisions. They know better than us anyway dude. There is something like inherent in them when it comes to picking out a place to nest.” He walked over to the mini fridge and grabbed a beer. He took a sip and studied Patrick’s face. “What are you worried about?”

“What Joe said! About not being there for her. Is it a good idea to promise a girl to marry her and be like the head of your household and not even be around enough to really be that person?”

Joe and Pete looked at each other skeptically. “You know you’re talking about Emma right? If there is one girl who understands your lifestyle, it’s her. Hell, she wants your honeymoon to be our European tour. If there’s a girl more accommodating to your life, I don’t know her,” Pete said.

“Please don’t tell me that you’re having second thoughts about marrying her,” Joe retorted. “It’s literally only been two weeks since you proposed.”

“No!” Patrick said quickly. “No, that was probably the best decision of my life.”

“Yeah, way better than going vegan,” Joe muttered. Andy shot him a look and Joe rolled his eyes.
“I just feel bad, you know?”

“Seriously, Patrick, you need to relax. Joe’s married and he and Marie are happy.”

“Muchos felicitaciones!” Joe chimed in.

“Isn’t that like congratulations in Spanish?” Andy asked him.

Pete and Patrick exchanged amused glances. “Yeah, it is,” Patrick said.

Patrick knew that Joe was right though. He wasn’t going to be there every day and every night, but Pete was also right; Emma understood that and she still wanted to be with him.

“Okay, so this is a very spacious layout, lots of windows, with excellent views of the city,” the realtor said, gesturing toward the tall windows through which they could see the tall buildings and from afar Central Park. Emma looked back at Patrick and gasped.

“It’s gorgeous!” she exclaimed running to one of the windows, pressing her face against the glass.

Patrick walked up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “How much do you love this house so far?”

She turned and smiled at him. “It all depends on the master bath.”

Patrick turned to the realtor and asked, “Master bath?”

The realtor grinned, her perfectly straight bleached teeth shining through her dark red lips. “Of course, right this way.” She led them through the bathroom door and turned the light on.

Emma pushed Patrick out of the way and glided into the bathroom, slowly spinning. “Look at all this room!” she cried out. Patrick laughed. It certainly was a lot bigger than her apartment’s bathroom. “And look at that, a tub and a walk-in shower.” She opened the glass door to the shower and stepped inside. “It’s so spacious and the tile is beautiful!”

“And his or her sinks,” the realtor added eagerly.

Emma looked around the frame of the shower door at the realtor. “Oh we don’t care about that.” Patrick stifled a laugh, and looked back at Robbie who was doing the same. The realtor looked stricken.

“Oh my apologies,” she said.

Emma looked at Patrick. “What do you think? Is that space for your recording studio downstairs a good fit for you?”

He nodded. “It’s perfect Emma. I’ll call Pete’s friend to do some sound proofing and stuff and it’ll work out.”

Emma glanced at the realtor and then walked up to Patrick. “Are you sure? I mean this place is a lot smaller than your house in L.A. I mean all the places we have seen have been smaller than it…”

Patrick lifted his fedora and smoothed out his hair. “Emma, most of that is wasted space anyway. I love the feel of this place. It’s modern and urban and I can see us living here.” He took her hands in his. “I just want to make sure you like it, Emma. ‘Cause you’re the one…”

“Who’ll be spending the most time here,” she finished, smiling. “I know, Patrick. It’s okay.” She kissed him on the cheek. “So, what do you think?”

He looked at the realtor. “What is the asking price?”

She took her iPad out of her briefcase and swiped her finger a few times on the screen. “The owner is asking for 3.”

“Million!?” Emma exclaimed. She looked at Patrick worriedly. Patrick just smiled at her.

“Okay, but we are looking at going no more than 2.5,” Patrick stated. Emma looked at him bug-eyed. He probably should have talked about the money with her first, but they really never had the opportunity. She grabbed his arm.

“Excuse us for a minute,” Emma said politely to the realtor and then dragged Patrick out of the bathroom and then the bedroom. Robbie started to follow them, but Emma gave him a death stare and he backed off. Once they were out of earshot she said, “Patrick! That’s so expensive! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Patrick glanced down at his feet. “We just never really got around to it, I mean, I never… Emma, it’s okay really. I told her what our price range was.”

“And how is 2.5 million dollars in our price range? Rolling Stone doesn’t exactly pay me in diamonds!” she exclaimed.

Patrick glanced at her and started biting the inside of his lip. “Trust me, Emma, without your income we can handle it, okay? I didn’t want to go any higher than 4 million, but the lower the price the better I say.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said, leaning against the wall. “Patrick, I didn’t… I didn’t know…”

He brushed a piece of her hair out of her face. “It’s okay, Emma. I know, these are probably things that we need to discuss together. You should probably know financially what you’re getting yourself into before you marry me,” her eyes widened. “No, I mean, don’t worry, I’m not like secretly doing drug deals with other famous people or anything.”

“How much do you get paid for writing songs and stuff?”

“More than I probably should,” he replied.

“I don’t know why this is so shocking to me. It’s not like your place in LA was a hole in the wall,” she said foolishly.

“We never talked about money back then, Emma. I just paid stuff or had it come out automatically. I wasn’t even really looking at managing the stuff. Until I used my own money to make my solo record, that taught me a big lesson about money management.” He flinched, remembering the financial and emotional cost of that album.

Emma sighed and rested her head against the wall. “Patrick, I have never bought anything for, like more than a couple of grand, maybe. No, wait, my crappy Kia Sonata that I had in college was like 15,000 but I had to finance that,” she groaned, “I’m feeling super naïve right now.”

Patrick pulled her into a hug. “Stop it. We are about to make an offer on our first real home together. I don’t want you to feel horrible about it.” He rubbed her back comfortingly. “Emma, this is me providing for you, you know being the man and stuff.”

“You are so sexy when you talk like that,” she teased. “I can’t wait to have my way with you in that bedroom… and that shower.”

“Well then, I better go ahead and make that offer,” he said, grinning widely.

After they sat down with the realtor, did up some paperwork and put in their offer, they decided to grab something to eat. Emma took him and Robbie, by default, to a small café right outside of Central Park. Robbie pulled up in front of the café, and a valet attendant came up to them, greeting them. He then started talking to Robbie about the SUV and Emma and Patrick began walking inside, when a couple of men with professional cameras approached them. One of them was short and heavyset with a balding head, while the other was taller and lankier, with long hair tied into a messy pontytail. They both looked desperate to get pictures of anyone remotely famous.

“Patrick!” One of the guys shouted, his camera snapping rapidly.

Patrick was glad he had his sunglasses on because at that moment, he was less than pleased that his lunch date with his fiancé was being interrupted by paparazzi, and he was sure he was glaring at them. He lowered his head and clutched Emma’s hand tighter. “Come on babe,” he muttered, pulling her faster toward the entrance.

“Patrick, how’s the house hunting going?” The other one called out. “How are the guys doing? Is Pete going to miss you not being in LA all the time?”

“Emma, what’s it like working for Rolling Stone magazine?”

“Emma, is it true that you only got your promotion because of who you were dating?”

Emma stopped in her tracks, and Patrick nearly fell over from the sudden stop. “What?” she turned around and looked at them, shocked.

“Emma, ignore them, come on,” he muttered, trying to pull her away.

“No, where did they hear that?” she said to him.

The lanky one, who had asked the question closed in on them. “Several sources say Christian Hoard only promoted you to senior writer because you were dating the lead singer of Fall Out Boy, is that true?”

Patrick glanced back at Emma who was trying to avoid the men’s cameras, but he could see a confused look in her eyes. He was okay with the paparazzi going after him, but he wasn’t very fond of them speaking directly to Emma. “Okay, I think you guys should just leave,” Patrick said, pulling Emma toward the door to the café.

“If you don’t have a comment for us, can we assume that it’s true?! And if so, doesn’t that ruin your journalistic integrity?”

Just then, Robbie came up to them and Patrick handed Emma’s hand to him. “Take her inside,” Patrick said in a low voice. Robbie nodded and started leading Emma into the restaurant.

Emma tried to turn around but Robbie held her fast. “Patrick!” she exclaimed.

“Hey, aren’t there more famous people you can bother?” He called out to them, approaching them angrily.

“We just go where the story is, man,” the larger one said, lifting his camera up to take another picture of Patrick. “So is it true, you help your little girlfriend get her raise?”

“Just leave us alone, okay?” Patrick said.

“You should be so lucky if you were still fat we wouldn’t give two shits about taking your picture,” the lanky one said.

“Okay, you know what,” Patrick raised his hand to grab the camera, but a larger hand firmly grasped it.

“Not a good idea boss,” Robbie said stoically. He got in between Patrick and the two men. “I think you guys need to go.” He pushed Patrick forward into the cafe. They started calling Patrick names, but Robbie held him fast. “The last thing you need to do is react to them. That’s what they want.”

“I don’t like them trying to mess with Emma’s head,” Patrick said, trying to break free from Robbie’s grasp. Unfortunately, Robbie was bigger and stronger than he was.

“Don’t worry, the owner already is on it.”

Just then two large waiters opened the door for them and as they let Robbie and Patrick enter, they exited and stood in front of the doors, pushing the two men away. When they got inside, Robbie let go of Patrick and Emma walked up to him, huffing and puffing.

“Patrick, what were you thinking!?”

He really didn’t know. He had handled paparazzi before, sure, but lately, it just seemed to become more annoying than it was before. He remembered how Pete would complain that he and Ashlee could never go anywhere without people following them, and Patrick was always grateful that he was just not an interest to the paparazzi, but all of that was changing. “I’m sorry Emma, I didn’t like them talking to you, especially like that.”

She wrapped her arms around him. “Patrick, I love you, but don’t risk your own career for me. I just wanted to know who is saying that stuff.”

“They wouldn’t have told you,” Robbie spoke up. “They probably don’t even have a source. They are just saying that because they want you to speak to them. They want pictures of you. The more pictures of you, the more money they get.”

“But I’m not worth anything,” Emma said.

“When you’re standing next to him, you are,” Robbie said, pointing to Patrick.

“Um excuse me, Mr. Stump?” They all turned to see the tall, attractive red haired hostess tentatively approaching them.

Patrick sighed and took Emma’s hand. “Yes?”

“We have a table in the back ready for you,” she replied.

“Okay, thank you.” He looked at Emma. “I shouldn’t have let them get to me, Em, I’m sorry.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s okay, I just don’t want to have to bail you out of jail. We just put a huge offer on a house, I don’t know if I could afford your bail,” she joked.

“That’s what three best friends are for,” Patrick replied ruefully.

The hostess escorted the three of them to a small table in the back of the café, away from the prying eyes of the other patrons. Robbie didn’t sit with them, but chose to stand a few feet away to keep an eye out. Patrick was relieved about that because at this point he was feeling as if they were never going to get any privacy at all no matter what they were doing.

As they looked through their menus, Patrick could feel the anxious energy emanating from Emma’s body. She kept chewing on her lip as she searched the columns for her lunch. Patrick set down his menu and softly grabbed hers, pushing it onto the table. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and puzzled.

“Emma, don’t worry about it okay?” he said, staring at her hard trying to drive his point home.

“I know I shouldn’t, but it makes me feel bad. Like, does the rest of the staff feel the same way? Is that why Christian promoted me?”

“Christian promoted you because you are the most knowledgeable person there and you’re an amazing writer,” she gave him a look of cynicism, “And I’m not just saying that because I’m your boyfriend. I’m saying that because that is what attracted me to you in the first place.”

“What a relief, here I thought I was marrying a superficial jerk who only liked me because of my body,” she joked, winking at him playfully.

“Well, that doesn’t hurt either…” She gasped and pushed his shoulder playfully. “Seriously, Emma, don’t worry.”

“Well, as long as you don’t try to attack any more cameras. You guys are doing so many good things right now and are better than ever, I don’t want you to ruin it on my account.”

Patrick wanted to protest, but he knew that it wouldn’t really do any good. “I’ll try, will that work?”

She nodded. “It’ll do, pig, it’ll do,” she replied imitating Farmer Hoggett from the movie Babe. He chuckled and handed her the menu again.

Once they ordered their food, Patrick started telling Emma all about the band’s recent trip to Monterrey Bay that he had just come back from. He loved how excited she still got over all of the guys performances and how much she cared about him. It made him fall in love with her even more. He still couldn’t believe sometimes that he was stupid enough to leave her. He always wondered if things would have been different if she was by his side when he tried to go solo. Not that it mattered too much to him. Having the band together again seemed like the right thing to do. He loved performing by himself with new people, but there was really something about the four of them on stage together that just seemed to be better than everything else. The other guys could see it too.

Just as their food came out, Patrick’s phone started vibrating. He glanced down at it and groaned.
“What is it babe?” Emma said, glancing at his phone.

“It’s Pete.” Emma gave him an interested smirk. “I know, I know, I just wanted no interruptions. I mean I’ve been here for, what maybe 12 hours?”

“And about 8 of those you were actually sleeping,” she added, looking down at the phone as it continued to vibrate. “Answer it. I’m sure Pete wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t important.”

Patrick sighed and opened up his phone. “Hi Pete.”

“Dude, were you really going to let me go to voicemail?”

Patrick looked at Emma who smiled and then started digging into her salad. “It entered my mind briefly. You can thank Emma for making me answer the phone.”

“That girl,” Pete said, pleased. “Anyway, I know I’m interrupting your alone time with your “fiancé” but Wendy called and said she booked us on the Ellen Show for Thursday.”

“Really?” Patrick replied, slightly irked.

“Sorry man, that’s what it is. Rehearsal is Wednesday, so you will probably want to book a flight for tomorrow to head out here.” Pete sounded remorseful about the entire ordeal, but it didn’t make Patrick feel any better. “We do have to promote Alone Together and this is as good a way as any,” Pete reminded him.

“I know, it’s just,” We haven’t had enough time to spend together, he finished silently.

“I know man. Promise, right after the show, you can get back on a plane and head back. Probably want to call Joe to and schedule your flights together.”

Patrick had almost forgotten that Joe was also in the same city as him that exact moment. “Yeah, I’ll give him a call.”

“See ya tomorrow Brohan.”

“Adios Bro Montana.” Patrick hung up and looked at Emma sadly. She had just stuffed another forkful of her salad into her mouth and she paused when she saw his face.

“Wha?” she said with her mouth full.

“Wendy booked us on Ellen… for this Thursday.”

Emma’s eyes widened and she quickly chewed and swallowed. “What? But we have to go look at venues for the engagement party tomorrow and I had planned your first tux fitting for Thursday and a couple of meetings with some photographers…” She stopped herself. “It’s okay babe. It’s what you have to do.” She gave him a forced smile.

“Emma,” Patrick started. Then his phone started vibrating again. He groaned and looked down at it. Joe.

“Answer it, I’m sure it’s probably something to do with Thursday.”

“Hi Joe,” he said sullenly when he swiped to answer.

“Well, isn’t this some bullshit,” Joe responded. Patrick cracked a small smile.

“Yeah, but it’ll be okay. I was just about to call you and see if we can get together and book our flights.”

“Yeah, probably should. Marie wants you guys to come over for dinner anyway. She is way too excited about this whole double dating thing we’re apparently going to be doing now.”

Patrick laughed. “I thought married couples don’t date.” He looked up at Emma who raised her eyebrow at him. He just shrugged in response.

“Apparently they fucking do in the 21st century. I don’t know man, my parents never went on dates. It’s a different generation.”'

“Well don’t get so upset about it,” Patrick teased.

“Uh-huh. You think that it is hard keeping a girlfriend satisfied? Try a wife. They expect so much more out of you now that there’s some legal binding agreement between you.”

Patrick glanced at Emma warily. She had resumed eating her salad, but she looked more downcast than before. “Yeah, but I guess that’s the job we signed up for.”

Joe snorted. “I know it. If I didn’t love her so damn much… Okay, so seven sound good?”

“Yeah, we’ll be there.” They exchanged goodbyes and hung up. “Marie wants us to come over for dinner tonight.”

Emma took a sip of her water and grinned. “That’ll be fun.” She then went back to sitting silently, finishing her meal.

Patrick glanced down at his Portobello mushroom sandwich, feeling the weight of Emma’s disappointment pushing down on him. Suddenly, his stomach wasn’t feeling so empty anymore.