Status: Completed.

Sooner or Later

Expect the unexpected.

Turns out the Maine business John had to get to was the guys deciding that they were going to go live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere to write their new album. Turns out John had been pretty busy with writing these days and they were going to go out into the wilderness and explore all of these ideas he had. Meanwhile Kenzie was going to be stuck at home, alone, and that worried John. So, he’d put Halvo on babysitting duty, without the girl knowing obviously. In her mind, Halvo was simply as lonely as she was with all of his friends out of town and wanted to spend time with her. Needless to say, it was a pretty good couple of weeks.

Halvo had all but moved it with the girl. He confessed that he knew it was time for him to move out of his parents’ basement and was looking for a place of his own. The moving in part hadn’t been intentional, or even talked about really, it just happened. Halvo was always at Kenzie’s anyway, so he had slowly been bringing things of his to the apartment; video games, consoles, DVDs, clothes, the necessities really. All his stuff was in the spare bedroom, but he mostly spent his nights in Kenzie’s bed.

“Halvo are you ready yet?” the girl called. She was jingling her keys in her hand, waiting for the boy. Again.

“Give me a minute!” he replied.

“That’s what you said twenty minutes ago. Come on, they’re already at the venue; let’s go!” The guys had just gotten back in town and were booked to play a home show, basically to announce that they were about to go into the studio to record their new album. “Fuck, you’re worse than a girl,” she muttered.

“Oh, so I’m the girl in this relationship?” he asked coming around the corner. He was dressed casually in a pair of beige slacks and a baseball t-shirt. What could have taken him so long? “You’re going to get it,” he warned once the girl had confirmed his question. He bent down, throwing her over his shoulder, making her squeal.

‘Halv, put me down!” she exclaimed. “I’m wearing a dress; I don’t want the whole world to see my underwear!” It wasn’t anything too fancy; a simply black dress with daisies on it that flared out a little from her waist and ended at the knee. She got to wear her black combat boots with it, so that made her happy. She’d even taken the time to straighten her hair and was still able to get ready quicker than Havlo had.

“No worries, it’s my job to make sure no one but me sees them,” he reassured her as he step out of the apartment, closing and locking the door behind him before her made his way out of the building and towards the girl’s car. He finally set her down on her feet and pressed a kiss to her bright pink forehead before climbing into the car.

“You’re lucky I love you,” she muttered, getting into the driver’s seat.

She got to the venue in record time and Halvo slipped his hand into Kenzie’s and pulled her along towards the back door.

“Oh, so now you’re excited,” Kenzie giggled as she let herself get dragged inside. The two were all smiles as they walked into the green room. The guys looked up as they barged in and stared at them quizzically. John was glaring at their entwined hands. The two quickly let go and went further into the room to great their friends.

“Hey you.” Kenzie turned to see Garrett behind her.

“Hey yourself,” she replied, pulling him into a tight hug. “I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too,” he chuckled. “But we did text every day.”

“I know, but it wasn’t the same. So how are you and Olivia?” she grinned and Garrett blushed a little.

“Good. We’re going to be seeing each other sometime in the next week. How are you?” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

“I’m good. Halvo and I are good,” she smiled. “The past few weeks have been good. Just what I needed.”

“Good,” Garrett smiled, teasing her a little about her overuse of the word. He knew she was better than she had been a couple of weeks prior but that she wasn’t completely good yet. He hugged the girl and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. “He’s staring at you,” he whispered into her ear. She rolled her eyes, turned and smiled at John.

“Hey,” she said approaching him and sitting down on the couch next to him.

“Cute dress,” he mentioned, pulling at the hem of it. “I’m glad to see that some things haven’t changed while I was gone. “

“What exactly changed?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. John laughed out loud.

“Oh so that whole hand holding thing with Halvo isn’t new? Have you been dating Halvo for a while now? Is that why you’ve been hanging out with him so much?” That made Kenzie laugh out loud.

“Me? And Halvo?” she laughed again. “You’re funny.”

“What so you hold everyone’s hand now? What about me, eh? My hand is pretty lonely,” he brought his hand up, wiggling his fingers. Kenzie rolled her eyes.

“You have a girlfriend. Halvo on the other has only been doing the babysitting you’ve assigned him,” she pointed out.

“My girlfriend can’t be here tonight and how did you know that?”

“Please, I know you too well. Halvo didn’t suddenly want to spend time with me 24/7. Yeah, we’re best friends, but that’s not how our relationship is. I knew you had to have a hand in it,” she explained.

“Speaking of hands,” John shot her a shit eating grin and raised his hand again until Kenzie placed her own hand in it. She caught sight of Garrett who was smirking across the room.

“So how’s the album coming?” the girl asked, trying not to get too distracted by John’s thumb that was rubbing circles onto the back of her hand.

“You know how the album’s coming. I’ve Skyped with you almost every day.”

“What about that last song? The one you were having trouble with?”

“It’s, um, done, finally.”

“Good,” she grinned. “I’m proud of you guys, I can’t wait to hear it.”

“Guys, you go on in half an hour,” Tim announced, popping his head into the room.

“Well that’s my cue. I’ll be in the crowd with Halvo. Break a leg,” she leaned over and kissed his cheek before getting up off the couch. “Come on Halv, you still owe me a beer from last week.”

They were sitting at the bar ten minutes later, waiting for their friends to take the stage.

“Hey guys!” They both turned to see Shannon standing behind them. She was wearing high waisted jean shorts, with a tight white crop top and what seemed to be John’s leather jacket.

“Hey, I thought John said you couldn’t make it,” Kenzie said, surprised.

“I was supposed to work, but I was able to find someone to cover my shift. I really didn’t want to miss my first opportunity to see my boyfriend play.” She leaned onto the counter and ordered herself a drink as the lights dimmed, like Kenzie’s mood. This was supposed to be a good night. She was supposed to be having fun with her friends and she had been, until Shannon showed up. She’d been avoiding the girl for weeks, she still felt horribly guilty about everything she had done to her.

“So where have you been these days?” she asked, turning to the girl.

“Just, you know, working on some personal things. Sorry for not taking your calls,” she apologized.

“Oh sweetie that’s okay, don’t worry about it! I know you’ve been busy with stuff, you know, with the breakup with Garrett. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Great!” she grinned, keeping her eyes on the stage.

“You’re so brave,” Shannon said, reaching over to grab Kenzie’s hand. Thankfully, the guys came out on stage and launched into their first song.

They were nearing the end of the set when John took a seat at his piano.

“So, as a lot of you know we’ve been working very hard on writing this new album. We should be going into the studio very soon and we’re very excited to let you guys hear what we’ve come up with. We’re actually pretty excited about the album in general; these past few weeks have been really good for us and we kind of want to share some of that with you guys. This next song is a new one and we want to let you guys have a listen. We’re still trying to give it a name but, other than that it’s pretty much finished.” He took a deep breath before his long fingers started stroking the keys.

I really should just go home. And play with myself.

Eric and Kenzie laughed. It was so like John to incorporate as much inappropriate underlining in his songs as he could.

Better that than stay, and do something else. Cause we can’t be friends that much I know. I wish it wasn’t so. And I can’t take my heart someplace it won’t go. Show me to the door.

Kenzie stopped laughing. She wasn’t too sure where he was going with this song, but she got a weird feeling in her gut. She had a feeling that she didn’t want to hear what came next. But John continued into the chorus.

As if a plane crash were timely, there’s no good time for bad news. These four words don’t come easy; I don’t love you.

It was certainly a blow to the heart. Who had he written this song about? Halvo could sense the girl’s distress and quickly snatched up her and squeezed it. The song finished quickly, as did the set.

“We’re going to head back stage, you coming to surprise your boyfriend?” Halvo asked Shannon. Kenzie had almost forgotten she was there. The three made their way backstage.

“So, that new song… Where does John get his inspiration?” Kenzie’s head snapped towards the girl. Could it be that the same thoughts that she was thinking were rolling around in this girl’s brain too? Suddenly words were ringing in Kenzie’s ears. I will never love her. Could it be?

“Loads of things,” Halvo replied. “His life at times, things that are happening to his friends and sometimes he just gets an idea out of the blue.” He forced a smile, but didn’t seem too convincing.

They stepped back into the green room where all the guys seemed to pause and look at the three new people who’d entered the room.

“Shannon,” John said, stepping towards the girl, wiping the sweat off of his brow with a towel. “What are you doing here?”

“Well hello to you too. I came to see you play.” John was slightly taken aback, but took a step towards his girlfriend.

“I am, I just… You said you wouldn’t be here. I was only expecting to see you tomorrow. Why didn’t you call if you knew you were coming?” he replied.

“Well I wanted to surprise my boyfriend. Do you not want me here?” John hesitated, which probably wasn’t the best thing to do. “You didn’t want me here did you?” She paused, almost hesitating. It was as though she was scared to continue, but she knew it had to be said. “Why? Because you didn’t want me to hear that new song? Tell me John, where did you come up for the idea for that song?” John glanced down at his shoes, taking a breath. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You know what John, maybe it was a good thing I didn’t call. Otherwise I would have been stuck in this relationship for another couple of months, hoping that maybe one day you’ll open up to me. I finally got that tonight John. Tonight, I finally found out how you really feel and that’s a hell of a lot better than wandering around in the dark. So thank you for that. Thank you for not making me sit around and wait for your album to come out to finally know how you really feel about me. And thank you for all the humiliation. When you do realize what you’re missing out on, I won’t be around to tell you I told you so. Find yourself a new coffee shop.” She shrugged out of her jacket and threw it at John. She turned on her heals and stormed out of the green room. Everyone else sat there in shock. They’d never heard the girl yell before. They could never picture her doing so. She was so calm and collected and sweet.

“John,” Kenzie spoke up. The boy looked at her, his eyes a little glassy. He felt ashamed, but Shannon hadn’t supposed to have been in the room. He was supposed to say these things to her face in a couple of days when he saw her. His time away had made him realize a lot of things. He had finally figured out what he wanted and Shannon just wasn’t it. “John you need to go after her.” He was surprised by his friend’s words. First she tells him that he shouldn’t be with Shannon and now she’s pushing him to fight for her?

“She’s right man. Even if you don’t want her back, you need to explain yourself to her. You need to apologize because that was a really shitty thing to do,” Jared pointed out. John turned his head back towards Kenzie.

“Go,” she nodded. John took a deep breath and headed out of the room to try and catch up to Shannon. They were right; no matter how he felt and no matter who heard that song tonight, Shannon deserved should have been the first to find out how he felt and she should have heard it directly from him. This wasn’t the man his mother had raised him to be. He definitely didn’t deserve her or anyone else for that matter. He deserved to be alone.
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I want to dedicate this chapter to Chelsea13 because I hope I gave her a heart attack at the beginning of the chapter and because she's been so anxious about it! I hope you don't hate me!

Big thanks to ewthatscute, godrea & everdeen for commenting! I hope you guys have a good week, and for those of you who, like me, at nearing the end of their semester: good luck on your exams and you can do it! One final push till the end! :) x