Status: Completed.

Sooner or Later

Is this the end?

Three days later they still hadn’t broken up. They were still looking for a plausible excuse for them to split but still hang out and they also didn’t want to give Eric or John or any other of the guys an excuse to get mad at Garrett. They were going to meet up tonight and figure something out once and for all, no matter how long it took. Kenzie had the day off from work and was currently lounging in her bed, waiting for Gar to show up. The doorbell rang a little early, which surprised her. Garrett had said that he would be out all afternoon. Maybe his plans had changed. Kenzie pushed herself up off of her mattress and dragged her feet to the front door. As much as she wanted to put an end to all of this, she would miss the bearded one’s company. She’d probably have to find a new cuddle buddy now too.

She pulled open the door to her apartment and was surprised to see John on the other side. They hadn’t spoken since breakfast the morning after the party.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I came to talk to you… Can I come in?” this wasn’t the kind of thing that he wanted to tell her in her front hall. Kenzie hesitated for a moment before stepping aside, opening the door wider. She followed him to the living room where she sat down on the couch and watched him pace in front of her.

“Look, I don’t know how to say this Kenz, but I don’t have a choice. You’re my best friend and I have to tell you things like this, no matter the consequences,” he took a deep breath and sat down next to her. Kenzie was confused, what was he going on about? She couldn’t help but let her mind wander; maybe this was the moment she was waiting for? She didn’t want to get her hopes up, but she couldn’t help but think that maybe it was a possibility. “I was at the mall with Shannon today and I um…Just don’t be mad at me, okay? I saw Garrett there… With a girl…” Oh. That wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear.

“So? He has friends John.”

“I know, but it wasn’t someone I recognized and they were pretty….cozy.”

Kenzie sat there, trying to find a way to react. This was it. This was her way out. Right? Unfortunately it would portray Garrett as a bad guy, but they could work on that later.

“Kenzie?” she snapped out of it. “I said are you alright?” She nodded getting up from the couch.

“Yeah, I uh, I just have to go see Garrett…” She left him there, in her living room as she snatched the keys for her car out of their bowl and rushed down to the parking lot. It was only when she parked at Pat’s and Garrett’s that she noticed John had been tailing her. She was going to have to make a scene now. This wasn’t how she wanted things to play out; this was going to ruin everything. She burst into the house without knocking and found Pat on the couch, playing some video game with Eric.

“Where is he?” she asked as John came up behind her, telling her to calm down. “Don’t tell me to calm down John. If you wanted me calm you should have kept your mouth shut!” she shouted. Footsteps were heard and Garrett showed up in the hallway, shirtless.

“Kenz, why are you shouting? What’s going on? I thought we were meeting at your place in an hour,” he said, thinking it was just the two of them, Pat being elsewhere in the house.

“We were going to until John here decided to show up at my house unexpectedly.” Garrett glanced at John who was behind her and Pat who was slowly approaching the group.

“I don’t understand…” Garrett said hesitantly.

“Well how about I refresh your memory. John was at the mall today, like you were apparently; with another girl, Garrett. You were with another girl while I was at home waiting for you,” her voice cracked as she yelled at him. Her chest heaved. Garrett’s eyes flickered to the boys, then back to the girl.

“Baby, it’s not how it seems.” He reached out to her but she yanked her arm away.

“Don’t touch me, Garrett.” They stood there for a moment, staring at each other; gaging how far they would take this. Garrett nodded lightly, as though he were giving her permission to keep going, to throw him under the bus. “I can’t believe that you of all people would do something like this.”

“Babe, can we step into my room and talk about this. Alone. ” Kenzie looked at the guys standing behind her, waiting to step in if things got too heated. John was murderously staring at his bassist while Halvo and Pat tried to smile encouragingly although pity was in their eyes.

“Okay,” Kenzie agreed as she followed Garrett to his room. He let her walk in first before closing and locking the door behind him. He turned to face her, it took a few minutes but the boy broke out into a huge grin.

“First, way to make a scene,” he chuckled stepping over to the bed so that he could sit down next to her. He grabbed a shirt from the floor and pulled it on. “Second I’m really sorry Kenzie, I didn’t think that anyone would see me and I swear that it was nothing but innocent. It wasn’t even a date, I just ran into her.”

“Who is she Gary?” Kenzie asked, leaning her head on her friend’s shoulder.

“Just a girl…” Kenz smiled up at him, urging him to go on. He sighed before going into detail. “I met her at the video store a couple of weeks ago. She was flirting with me and asked if I wanted to go out. I told her I was in a complicated situation at the moment so she said that maybe we could go out once it was sorted. I was stupid enough to not get her number, so I thought I was never going to see her again. Then, today, I ran into her at the mall. I got her number and I offered to get her coffee while I explained everything that was going on.”

“So she knows the ins and outs of my love life now?” Kenzie interrupted. Garrett blushed. “Aw, you like her,” she cooed, putting aside her slight annoyance.

“So what are we going to do about us?” he asked.

“Well clearly you’ve fallen out of love with me,” Kenzie teased. Garrett simply shoved her lightly. “Seriously, I don’t want you to get shit for this Gar. This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen. I’m sorry I made a scene, but John was there and…I, I don’t know what that was. My brain went into overdrive and I quit thinking…”

“Kenzie, don’t worry about it…Look, how about we tell them the truth?”

“No!”

“Not about you, of course,” he corrected himself. “The truth about me and Olivia. We can tell the guys that she came on to me and that I was simply telling her that I was already in a relationship.”

“Then what Gar? We live happily ever after? We’re supposed to be breaking up.”

“How about you say that there are no hard feelings, but that you don’t think that we can continue the relationship at the moment? That if you can’t trust me when I’m at the mall, you probably wouldn’t be able to trust me while I’m on tour. We can tell them that we’ll stay friends for the time being and that maybe in the future we’ll be able to date again.”

Kenzie thought that that seemed like a reasonable excuse and that the guys would buy it. She pushed herself up off of the bed.

“Whoa, hold on there. You can’t go out there like that! They’re going to call bullshit right away,” Garrett objected.

“Gar, if I’m not all smiles John will kill you.” The boy rolled his eyes.

“Please, he’ll probably get a punch in before one of the guys pulls him off me. As long as he doesn’t go for the face or the groin, I’ll be fine. He’s a pretty scrawny. You need to look a little upset about this. Tell them you want some time to think and we’ll let everyone calm down. Tomorrow we’ll ‘talk’ and tell them that we’ve decided to break up.”

Kenzie sighed and looked down at her feet. After a moment she looked back up and Garrett could see that there were tears in his eyes. Oh, she was good.

“Please keep things on the down low with Olivia for a couple of weeks, months maybe? Or else John really will murder you.”

She turned, pulling the door to his room open and heading downstairs. She past the three other boys in the living room and headed out to the porch. Halvo was the one to come outside and join her. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and silently led her to her car. He took her keys and drove her home. He didn’t say a word until they were both cuddled up in Kenzie’s apartment.

“Are you okay?” he whispered. It tore him up to see his best friend like this.

“Is Garrett?” she asked.

“John punched him in the nose before Pat got in between them. A little bloody, but I think he’ll be fine. What’s going to happen?”

“Dunno,” she muttered. “I said I needed some time to cool off. He said he’d call tomorrow and we’d try to talk things through…I’m hurt, but I hurt him by assuming the worst too… Can we just forget about this for now? Can we watch a movie or something? Just hang out.” Halvo smiled. He got up from her bed and chose her favorite movie to put into the DVD player. He joined her back on the mattress and held her close.

Kenzie woke up the following morning, alone in her bed. She didn’t have time to wonder where Halvo had gone before Garrett showed up in her threshold.

“You’re up! Good, I brought video games and food. I figured we could just camp out here all day, make it seem like we had a huge conversation, then announce the break up,” he rolled his eyes and took no attention to the girl who was silently trying to signal him to stop talking. Halvo was standing right behind him, in a pair of sweatpants, having just come out of the bathroom.

“Garrett?” The boy jumped as he turned to look at his friend. His face drained of color.

“Hey, uh, hey Eric,” he cleared his throat.

“What’s going on you guys?” the younger looking boy stepped into the room, suspicious of what was happening between the two of them.

“I, uh, just came over to talk to my girlfriend about what happened yesterday,” Garrett replied, wiping the grin off of his face and replacing it with a sad expression.

“With video games and ice cream?”

“Peace offering?” Garrett tried, but Eric wouldn’t have it. He had heard what the other boy had said. Gar sighed, glancing at Kenzie.

“I think we should tell him,” she said. “Halvo, you should sit down.” And talk they did.

“Who would have known that little Miss Wright would have fallen for bad boy O’Callaghan. As suddenly as your relationship with Garrett was sprung on us, I always pegged you for the type of gal to go for a good guy. You know, like me,” Halvo teased once he got the whole story. Kenzie laughed.

“Aw, are you jealous Halvorsen?” He scoffed.

“Please, as much as your new look has got me hot and bothered, it still creeps me out to have thoughts like that about you. Besides, even if I did have feelings for you there’s no way in hell I’d make your weird little love square into a pentagon. Scratch that, pentagon into a hexagon,” he corrected himself. He lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “So many things make sense now… What are you guys going to do?”

“Well, we’re going to stage our breakup this afternoon, maybe tomorrow and then Kenzie says she’s done.” Eric glanced at his friend.

“Is that true? Are you really giving up after all the trouble you went through?”

“I can’t do it anymore Halv, it’s too much. I can’t be hurt like this another time, I’ll break.” He shot her a sympathetic smile and pulled her into a side hug.

“Come on, let’s play some of those video games and eat that food Garett brought. We’ll deal with your love life some other day. For now, let’s spend some quality best friend time with your fake boyfriend before the two of you break up.”
♠ ♠ ♠
So Kenzie has given up all hope...

Big thank you to MedicatedDreams & jvlienne for commenting on the chapter last week! :)
Thank you for the continuing support! Have a good week! x