The Tick Tock of the Clock

I groaned looking at all the tabloids spread out across the kitchen table. All the bags were by the door for when we left in the morning. Pat and Joe were messing with a camera and camera stand while Pete scribbled in a notebook. Jack lay on the floor near them coloring quietly.

“What are you freaks doing?” I asked lightly getting all their attention as they messed around. Pat froze cards draped over his head, and around his neck and shoulders, Joe had a tri-pod stand tucked between his legs as he tried to unscrew apart of it, Pete looked up like a deer in headlights with his pen balanced between his lips, fingers ready to remove it.

Pete removed the pen from his mouth, the first of the three to move in nearly two minutes.

“We are going to make a FoE video for everyone to clear up…” He trailed off. “Fine, I’m making an FoE video, they’re just helping work the camera gear for me because I wanna put the perfect word into this video so no one can confuse them for me saying something else and get into all that crap again… or make this worse.” He muttered as Pat and Joe went back to what they were doing. Nodding I sighed lightly as Pete went back to writing. “Okay.” Pete muttered after a few more scribbles.

Quickly he crossed the room to me and began to pace lightly still scribing in the notebook quickly as his eyes darted back and forth over the page.

“Listen to this.” He muttered stopping and pointing his pen at me. Nodding I leaned back against the island counter and crossed my arms over my chest waiting for him to start. “The typical Hi everyone, how have you been, I’ve been pretty good I just need to clear up a few things,” Pete looked up at me. “Because I don’t just wanna be like. Alright, no you guys are wrong… I wanna just do it on a friendly, friend to friend level.” He muttered biting on his bottom lip looking down at his words.

“Yeah, makes you more likeable, and more believable.” I stated shifting my arms a bit as he watched me. “If you jump right into the second the video starts, and don’t lead up to it a bit people will think you’re just trying to cover up the truth it’ll make them a bit more nosey than they already are.” He pointed his pen at me and began scribbling at the top of his page quickly while nodding. “Now, give me the part where you start to explain, that’s the part that matters on how it’s worded.” I muttered lifting a hand at him. Taking several steps back Pete cleared his throat and looked up at me.

“Well, as you all know there’s been some thing floating around in the media about me, about me possibly being married and having a kid. I’d like to clear that up. I’m not married, I’m not even dating anyone at the moment,” I lifted a hand.

“What?” I asked watching a he blinked a bit startled. “What happened to Ashlee?” I asked lightly a bit concerned for his love life.

“She said we should wait till this is all cleared up because she doesn’t want to get tangle up in it, and I understand that. We still talk a lot though.” He mussed. Nodding he cleared his throat again. “Any way…” We both froze at the loud thud. Leaning over I looked at Pete as he turned around to see.

Pat lay on the ground a few cords having tangled around his legs as he messed with the camera.

“So where was I?” Pete asked looking back at his paper while I watched Pat, trying to figure out why he had the cords.

“I hope you know those cords go to the TV so you can view what you just recorded on the camera on the TV.” I stated Pat looked at them a bit confused before he sighed and began to try and untangle himself form the useless cords.

“Okay, so I was at ‘I’m not even dating anyone at the moment’ right?” Pete asked still not paying attention to Pat laying on the floor tangled in a mess of cords. Nodding Pete smiled. “So after that it’s: Ella is one of my best friends and my assistant so she goes every where with me and the kid his hers, not mine, I’m not related to the kid, but I do like him and I don’t want Ella kicking my butt if I make her kid cry. People might never see me again.” He paused looking up at me as I snorted and shook my head. “But I think everyone’s just blowing this out of proportions. I mean Ella’s been my assistant for two years, why people are suddenly taking interest in the fact that she’s there now I don’t really get. That and I don’t think taking interest in it, or her simply because of the kid now placed on her hip. I don’t even see the similarities, I mean… we have the same skin color… that’s about it.” I kept my mouth shut over the fact that they also had the same shape of eyes and nose, but I didn’t feel like making him feel bad or upsetting his groove. “Ella and I are nothing more than friends at the highest level of our relationship.”

“Freeze right there.” Pete looked up at me startled. “Say that again and listen to what you say.” I muttered pointing at him. Nodding he licked his lips.

“Ella and I are nothing more than friends at the highest level of out relation…” He sighed and glanced over his shoulder before back at his paper. “Fuck.” He whispered softly.

“How about: Ella may be working for me but we’re also friends, nothing more.” I stated he nodded crossing out the line he had and writing in his new one. “Then what comes next.”

“Well I figured I’d pick up on some other things going on in my world so it’s not just that. I’m going to talk about how the scavenger hunt is up online along with the checklist of items not yet completed by the teams and how fan’s can help out with that and how they can’t just fake one of those because a statements, the fact that we don’t want people cheating, and all that. Then I was going to go into how we’re going to be doing the DecayDance and Fueled By Ramen ball and what that was about, then I was going to go into the fact that we’re expanding Clandestine industries to more items, show them a few of my clothing drawings and ask them which ones they liked most. Finally I think I’m going to finish it off with there possibly be another Fall Out Boy tour coming up, but saying we aren’t sure yet because there’s a lot of stuff to do still that might keep us from touring despite the fact we’ve got a whole tour set up that’s down on hushedie-hush-hush side at the Uno memento.” He muttered nodding his head as I nodded before lifting my hand at him to get to work. “Sweet, thanks by the way.” He muttered

“That’s why I’m here.” I smiled at him.