Time Bomb

Somewhere in the middle of telling each other secrets that they had never told anybody else, Riley felt something snap. Not physically, but mentally, it was as if somebody had flipped a rationalization switch in her brain and it couldn’t be turned off. Lying on the bed talking with Jack was all well and good, she enjoyed being with him, he was a great guy.

Jack Barakat was the type of guy you could take home and your parents would be proud to say their daughter was his girlfriend. He was well mannered, polite and unlike any other guy Riley had ever dated, he was clean and responsible with no criminal record. Riley doubted Jack saw her the same way, in reality he shouldn’t. She wasn’t the type of girl a guy like Jack would ever be proud to take home to his parents. Still, there was this feeling and Riley couldn’t seem to shut it off.

Jack was stretched out on his queen sized bed, propped up on a pillow half heartedly watching tv and playing with his phone. He glanced up when Riley slid back onto his bed, snuggling herself in next to him and resting her head on his shoulder. He liked having her close, Jack loved the feeling of having Riley snuggled up to him and his arms wrapped tightly around her, protecting her from the world.

“Jack.” Her voice was silent, almost lost in the noise of the show Jack had on but completely started to ignore once Riley joined him.

“Hmm?” Jack asked reaching for the remote to turn the interference off.

“I um.” Riley paused, taking a second to collect her thoughts. “Thank you.” She smiled at him.

Giving no verbal reply, Jack dipped his head down and did something he’d wanted to do earlier but stopped himself. Kissing her softly at first, he took it slow, waiting to see if Riley would resist or freak out on him. When his only reply was a pair of arms wrapping around his neck and pulling him closer, it was good enough for Jack.

Tugging and pulling, Riley giggled as Jack groaned loudly trying to get rid of all the damn clothing they had on. In truth there wasn’t much seeing as they were both in their sleep wear, but to Jack it was like taking off entire snow suits just to get what he wanted. He didn’t want this to be rushed; he wanted it to be nice and slow. At the risk of sounding a little cheesy, okay a lot cheesy, Jack knew it had to be special. Riley didn’t care; she had let Jack take control from the second he had kissed her, wherever he took this she was just going to follow.

“Hey you.” Jack whispered, pulling her closer to his body and wrapping his arms around her tightly.

“Hey.” Riley smiled sleepily at him and rubbed her eyes. Rolling over to face him, she traced her finger along his jaw line and down his neck, rubbing her hand over his chest.

They laid snuggled into one another, talking for a good hour or two, laughing and even singing silly songs to one another. As much as Jack had enjoyed doing what they had just done, he had a nagging feeling that it was going to change something. Isn’t that the way it happened? You got close to somebody, you became friends, you had sex and suddenly there was always this huge elephant in the room. This time the elephant never seemed to show up.

Riley pushed her hands through Jack’s messed up hair and smiled at him when he rested his forehead against hers and stuck his tongue out at her. This guy was adorable and she thoroughly enjoyed it. Pulling his glasses off of his face, Riley put them on and blinked hard.

“Dude, you’re blind!” she loudly announced causing Jack to laugh harder at her. “How do I look?” she asked making a silly face at him.

“How would I know, you have my glasses. I’m fucking blind remember?” Jack laughed, taking his glasses back and putting them on. “We can’t all be perfect.”

“I’m far from perfect.” Riley sighed heavily, tucking her head so that it rested on his chest. Her fingers lightly traced the outline of his giant tattoo that ran on the left side of his chest.

“I think you are.” Jack kissed the top of her head and rested his chin there, holding her close to him.

“I think you’re insane, but what can we do about that?” Riley giggled, her giggles muffled as they landed on his bare skin.

“I lo...” Jack paused. “I like to think you are and I’m going to keep thinking that, because you’re my kind of perfect.” He smiled kissing her forehead. “You know, you don’t always have to be the strong one who smiles because she’s scared if she doesn’t the world will fall apart. It’s okay to let yourself be vulnerable.”

Listening to his words, Riley took a moment to let them sink in. It was a nice theory. Who knew that the moment you had sex with Jack Barakat he suddenly became a lot wiser than expected.

Riley shook her head and sighed; her hot breath hit Jack’s skin causing him to shiver. “No it isn’t, not for me.”

“Riley, you can be anything with me that you want or need to be, I’m never going to hurt you. I can’t promise you won’t get hurt, but it won’t be because of me...” Jack swallowed hard trying to gather where this was going. “I won’t have all the answers or even the solutions to the problems you have, but I’ll always try my best to give you what I can.”

“You sound like you’re trying to choke out a marriage proposal, Barakat.” Riley giggled and yawned. “But thanks, it means a lot to me.”

“You are very welcome.” Jack smiled kissing the top of her head as she yawned again. “Go on, go to sleep. I’ll stop yakking so you can rest.”

“You’re the one who wore me out. Night, Jack.” Riley mumbled snuggling in closer to him, her fingers lacing tighter into his not wanting to let him go.

After telling Riley something he had never told anybody and after their little escapade in their hotel room, Jack felt somehow it was now as much his responsibility to help her as it was Josh’s. If he could get better then so could she, Jack knew it was likely that Josh had the same mindset, but the difference between Josh and Jack was that Josh would only push her, Jack was going to let her realize things on her own.

It was a bit of a gamble, but Jack had successfully talked Riley into staying on their bus. The bigger task was getting Josh and Flyzik to approve, once both of them agreed that maybe having Jack look after Riley was a good idea, they gave it the go ahead with a few stipulations of course.

Flyzik’s usual bus rules applied no sex on the bus, which Josh agreed whole heartedly with. If she got too annoying or distracting she was gone and there would be no pleading from Jack.

Josh’s rules were the same rules Riley had been given from the second she stepped onto this tour, only now he was putting it onto Jack to make sure she followed them, if not then she was back on her own bus.

Their little sex-capade didn’t get brought up once they were back on the bus, as far as everybody else was concerned they had two separate beds in the room in which they had used successfully to do nothing more than sleep. Back on the highway to the next city on the list, Riley was comfortably moved to her new surroundings, where she was eagerly welcomed by the others dwelling there.

Alex was a bit surprised to see her sitting cross legged on the couch across from Cassadee, the two girls laughing and chatting, when he had boarded the bus from the hotel stay. He didn’t say much, simply asked where Jack was before dashing off to find his best friend who had decided to take a nap. Jack had claimed he didn’t get much sleep the previous evening, since he and Riley had gone to the Hedley concert and were out a bit late.

Bullshit, everybody knew they were back before midnight and way before anybody else in the two groups got back to the hotel. Ripping open the curtain to Jack’s bunk, Alex climbed in with his best friend as he began shaking Jack to wake him up.

“Fuck off, Alex.” Jack snapped, groaning as Alex muttered about how much of a bitch Jack could be. “Why are you in my bunk?”

“Why is Riley on our bus?” Alex asked excitedly. He was such a girl at times.

“Because I took your advice, she needs my help. If I am going to help her, I kind of need to be near her.” Jack explained cuddling his pillow.

“You took my advice or you want her here for your own selfish needs?” Alex asked wiggling his big eyebrows.

“Go bug Zack or something.” Jack said shoving Alex out of his bunk.

Leaving the bunk area, still complaining about how much of a pissy bitch Jack was being, Alex left his friend alone. Closing his curtain, Jack groaned hearing footsteps again. Did Alex not know when to leave him alone? As his curtain opened again he was ready to tell Alex where to go when Riley poked her head in.

“Hey.” Jack greeted her moving over as she crawled in.

“Have a good nap?” Riley asked laying down next to Jack’s body, kissing the tip of his nose.

“I was hardly asleep when Alex came in.” Jack explained, wrapping his arm around Riley and holding her body against his. “It’ll be a good nap now though.”

Riley smiled and nodded in agreement. Jack sighed and closed his eyes; maybe helping Riley was going to be good for more than just Riley.