Disconnected

"Who is she?" Jack's voice from behind him made Alex jump slightly, the champagne in his glass almost spilling over and dropping onto the floor.

"Christ, Jack," he mumbled, shaking his head as he put a hand to his chest before he turned to face his best friend. "What?"

Jack grinned devilishly over at the older male. "Who is she?" He repeated, beer bottle titling over to the lady in the white dress with cascading brown hair. "The one that you've been staring at since she left you to go socialise with other people."

"How – "

"I may or may not have been staring at her since she walked in." He shamelessly admitted, shoulders shrugging. "So... Who is she?" He repeated for the third time before he took a swig from his beer.

"A, uh, a friend of Dean's," Alex settled on replying, taking a sip of his champagne. "Dean's the guy that Lisa's sort of seeing now," he explained when Jack look confused at the foreign name.

"Ohhh," Jack nodded, dragging out the single syllable word. "Well she's hot."

"Really hot," Alex nodded in agreement.

"You've got – " he paused, eyes darting over to the wall clock. "– twenty minutes to make sure that you get a date or something with her."

Alex furrowed his thick eyebrows together, "Twenty minutes?"

"It's twenty to midnight," Jack said easily. "New Year's kiss at midnight? Ringing any bells?" He teased as he ruffled the older's ridiculously long hair. He really needed to get a haircut.

Alex mock scowled at his best friend, shoving his hand away and then bringing his own hand to fix his hair immediately after. "I know, but come on: she's a complete stranger. And I'm barely even buzzed – what am I supposed to blame it on? The kiss, I mean." He snorted.

Jack shrugged, "Don't know, don't really care," he grinned. "But for now – off you go!" He practically sang before he shoved Alex in Cara's direction; the older gentlemen almost falling flat on his face, only managing to catch himself just before he did so right in front of her.

Alex's eyes widened as Cara gripped onto his forearm, in hopes of probably trying to make sure that he wasn't about to randomly fall over. He glanced up with an apologetic smile, and Cara only smiled back at him, shaking her head lightly as she silently told him that all was okay. Alex glanced over his shoulder then, looking for his skunk haired friend to send the deadliest of glares over in his direction, only to see that the lad was chatting up the lady he was eyeing earlier, not even sparing another glance towards the elder. Alex blew out an annoyed breath in between his lips before he turned back to Cara – who he now noticed was alone, since the people she'd been chatting with had walked away, probably assuming that Alex was drunk and wanted to chat with Cara.

"Sorry about that," he started with a sheepish laugh. "I'm not drunk, I swear. My friend, Jack," he waved carelessly over his shoulder in the general direction of where he'd last seen the aforementioned male, "He's a bit tipsy and thought it'd be funny to, um, push me...?" He meant for it to come out as a confident statement, but it ended up coming out as a question that made him bite back a groan as he took a gulp from his champagne glass.

Cara giggled lightly, "You're alright," she assured him. "No harm, no foul, right?"

"Right," Alex let out a nervous laugh. Fucking hell, she was gorgeous. "So... You having a good time?"

"Yeah," Cara nodded with a small grin. "I don't actually know anyone but I've been butting into random conversations. I reckon everyone's annoyed at me now." She joked with a small laugh.

Alex followed suit, shaking his head slightly as he took another sip from his champagne glass. "Nah, I know everyone here. They're all for making new friends and shit."

"I feel like I'm making so many new friends today," she grinned over at him and he chuckled again. "So I hear you're in a band?"

"Where'd you hear that?"

"I didn't, actually," she admitted with a sheepish chuckle before pointing over to a picture frame that held a photo of Lisa and the four boys of All Time Low – three of them with guitars slung across their shoulders – while they stood in front of their backdrop. "I've heard the band name before, and seeing as how you've got a guitar in that picture... It's a wild guess."

Alex snickered, but he nodded. "Yeah, I'm in a band."

And though Alex immediately started to assume that she would get all fangirl-y and stuff just because he was in a band – to get her few minutes of fame once she'd seduced him (because let's face it: she could just bat her eyelashes over at him a couple times and he'd willingly lead her to his bed), she didn't. Their conversation about the band ended there, really, and then they were chatting like they'd been mates for years. Alex told her stupid stories about the (mis)adventures of him and Jack while drunk – like Jack actually currently was – and Cara told him stories about the misadventures that she and her best friend had.

The countdown had started and their conversation stopped, in favour of turning to watch the telly whilst counting down with the rest of the attendees of the party. There was five seconds till the new year was ushered in and Alex was having an internal debate with himself.

He wasn't nearly drunk enough to just kiss the young woman next to him, but he knew that he would probably smack himself everyday if he didn't take the chance to just do it. True, there was that little voice that told him he might still get smacked – for kissing a girl he barely knew at midnight, something that was supposed to be shared by two people who were special to each other (or something) – but there was also another voice telling him that maybe by kissing her; he'd be welcoming the new year in the best way possible.

"Hey," Alex tapped gently on Cara's shoulder. She turned with a questioning smile on her pretty face. 3... 2... "Fuck it," he mumbled, leaning in to kiss her on the lips just as everyone shouted out cheers, popping poppers that had somehow materialised out of thin air. Alex pulled away, gulping a bit, as he stared down at her.

She was frowning lightly, but she had a small, definitely shocked, smile on her lips. "Didn't expect that." She laughed, and Alex let out an awkward chortle.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I just – you know – you're pretty, and it's new year's eve, well: it's 2014 now, but I thought, I dunno, maybe I'll never see you again and you're really fuckin' pretty and, like, – I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry – "

"– Hey." Cara interrupted him with a small laugh. "It's all good," she assured him. "And who says that we won't ever see each other again?" She teased, and his cheeks flushed even more than before.

"I mean, yeah, I guess I'll ask you out – wait, I shouldn't say that. I'll take you out? Someday? Like, um... Someday?" He tripped over his words, his cheeks burning with more and more embarrassment as he spoke.

He'd never gotten this nervous before.

He got nervous over shows and meeting his childhood idols, and other little things, but he never ever got this nervous over a girl. Perhaps it was because the only girl he'd ever had to properly ask out was Lisa, and that was in high school. He had had a little fling with Tay Jardine – the singer for We Are The In Crowd – in 2012, but that was just a fling. They messed around with each other, went on casual dates that couldn't really be classified as dates because someone else would always crash them, and they had sex whenever they were, well, horny.

Perhaps it was also because she was literally the most beautiful woman that he'd ever laid his eyes on. But he liked to tell himself that he fell for personality, and not looks. Looks still drew him in, though, because he was only human, after all.

Alex bit on his bottom lip before lifting his glass to his lips, downing the rest of the champagne in his glass. Cara watched him with a small smile. He swallowed the liquid, letting it slide down his throat before he turned to her, offering her his open palm. "Let's get out of here."

She raised a brow, "2014 just started, and you should be getting drunk with your friends, but you want to take me out... Right now...?"

"Yeah," he nodded confidently, finally feeling more like himself. "Dates at midnight are the best dates."

"I haven't ever been on a date at midnight before," Cara humoured him with a little smile as she slid her smaller hand into his. Her skin was so smooth against his calloused palm. He could only hope that she wouldn't feel like she was holding hands with an old man – holy shit they were holding hands.

Alex grinned, leading her to the door. "Then let me have the pleasure of bringing you on your first date at midnight."

"But it's new year's, at midnight. Where exactly could we go?"

"It's new year's, at midnight," he repeated with a little grin. "Which is exactly why our date is going to take place at the McDonald's five minutes away."

-----

The pair received weird looks from other people who were also celebrating their new year's in a McDonald's when they pulled off their coats to reveal their dressed up selves. Neither of them paid mind to it, simply because they were laughing over stupid puns and jokes that they'd exchanged on their way over to the fast food establishment.

It was curious – how they got on so well when they literally knew jack shit about each other. They just seemed to... Click.

After they'd put on their coats and walked out of the house to go on their little midnight date, Alex started talking about how he couldn't understand how girls could walk around with bare legs in winter, to which Cara simply responded that she was wearing skin-coloured leggings. And then that conversation turned into how leggings were a weird piece of clothing, and then Alex started trying to use his most cheesy pick-up lines on her, for no particular reason.

"So... Tell me things," Alex grinned at Cara once they'd sat down, from where he sat opposite her as he sorted out their food on the tray.

"What sort of things? Thanks," she raised a brow, accepting the box of Chicken McNuggets that he placed in front of her.

Alex shrugged, "Anything. And are nuggets really all you're gonna eat?"

"I have the diet of an eight-year-old." She laughed, poking the straw into the cover of her drink. "Get me nuggets and ice-cream and I'll probably be content for the rest of the week."

Alex laughed, shaking his head in amusement. "That's a thing I would've liked to know." He pointed out with a one-shouldered shrug, unwrapping his burger as he did so. "Tell me more things."

"Suddenly I've forgotten every little thing about myself."

The man laughed, taking a bite out of his burger. "Just things like... I don't know – where are you from? How old are you? What's your favourite colour? What's your favourite band? That sort of thing."

Cara raised a brow, blinking once. "Okay..." She nodded slowly. "Here, 23, um... white, and I can't really pick one."

"White?" He repeated with a small frown. She nodded in response. "Why? It's so... Plain."

"That's exactly why," she responded easily. "White is like... I don't know. Pure. It's like a blank piece of drawing paper that you can draw on, it's like a fresh start. It's like... You could add any other colour to white and white would change the original colour. I dunno, it's weird – " she shrugged unsurely, not finishing her sentence as she nibbled on a nugget.

"It's cool," Alex spoke up with a half-grin. "It's not weird," he assured her. "Also... Here? Then why do you sound English?"

Cara laughed. "I don't know, actually. I lived in London for a few years when I was a kid, but other than that, I'm purely American. My parents say that it's because I watched a lot of Winnie the Pooh whilst growing up and I kinda picked up the whole posh-slash-articulate way of speaking. I just... Pronounce everything properly, and I guess it makes me sound English...?"

"Kinda like Johnny Depp," Alex deduced.

"Yeah, I guess so," Cara laughed lightly. "So come on, enough about me. What about you? What makes Alex from All Time Low, – " she overdramatised the band's name, making him snicker quietly. "– special? What makes him tick?"

"I swallowed an obnoxiously loud alarm clock when I was a child."