Something's Gotta Give - Original Verison

Jade's Point of View

“All right, please explain to me why there is a hundred and fifteen dollar charge on my card for Burger King,” I said to Jack about half an hour before the party. After I’d handled my end of the preparations, I’d given Jack my card to go pick up the keg and pay for it and when I’d checked my account on my phone, I’d found one of the stupidest charges in the universe. If anyone else had borrowed my card, I’d think this was a mistake, but knowing Jack, he probably had some completely dumb reason for the outlandish expense.

“I was helping with food,” Jack insisted.

“Jack, I gave you a list.” I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. Jack had barely been home twenty-six hours and I was already three thousand percent done with him. “There were two things on it. I asked you to get the keg and I asked you to get booze. Where on that list did you see food written down?”

“At the very bottom because I added it,” he answered. “I made an executive decision, and I decided we definitely needed chicken fries in order for this to be a kickass party.”

It took everything in me to not allow my mouth to fall open. “Let me get this straight; you used my card to buy one hundred and fifteen dollars’ worth of chicken fries?” He nodded. “Jack, that’s absolutely fucking insane! That’s like over three hundred chicken fries.”

“I mean, I could probably eat those all on my own honestly,” he said, completely missing the point.

“No one wants lukewarm chicken fries!” I yelled at him. “I already have food sitting in the warmer, I don’t have room to put those in too!”

“Cold chicken fries are better than no chicken fries,” he continued to press.

I just held up my hand to stop him from speaking and slowly shook my head. “You’re unbelievable. I can just feel my blood pressure rising. I need to go sit in my room and count to ten. Minutes.”

I gave him a huge eye roll and walked upstairs to my room to finish getting dressed and putting my makeup on. I threw on a lacey tank top and low-rise jeans and let my hair fall in waves. Not that I thought Jay would be there in any capacity, but just in case he’d changed his mind, I wanted to look hot. He could eat his fucking heart out.

Within about an hour and a half, the party was in full swing. Jack was trying to get people to do keg stands and Matt Flyzik was watching this happen with a look of horror on his face – even though he didn’t tour with the boys anymore, he couldn’t quite shake the mothering instinct. I was in the middle of having a conversation with Rian when I saw Skye walk in with Alex and Zack. Skye looked beautiful of course, Zack had a permanent smirk plastered on his face and Alex looked…not well.

I excused myself from my conversation with Rian and went over to say hi to them. I gave Skye and Zack hugs and kind of paused awkwardly before giving Alex a small one too. It’d been two years since we’d broken up the last time and even though we were friendly, we weren’t exactly friends, save for the last few months when we’d started talking on and off again. I’d gone out to see the boys while they shot the Something’s Gotta Give video (and somehow had gotten thrown into filming when the actress that was supposed to shoot Alex canceled on them last minute) and since then, Alex and I had texted occasionally, mostly to send each other stupid pictures and videos, but that had been about it.

I pointed the boys off towards Jack at the keg and told them to help themselves to whatever was out and then motioned for Skye to follow me upstairs. I pulled her into my room so we’d have somewhere quiet to talk since the music was thumping downstairs. I sat her down on the edge of my bed and sat next to her, crossing my legs. “Okay, so what was up this morning? And what’s wrong with you, because you look like you swallowed a sock or something.”

“Let’s just start with Alex,” Skye said and took a deep breath before launching into her story. “Okay, so obviously you know that Alex has been dating Isabel.”

“Of course.” I’d met Isabel only a handful of times, the first occasion being Elizabeth’s birth. Isabel was nice enough, but there was always something about her that just kind of vaguely rubbed me the wrong way, though I’d kept that to myself.

“Well, Alex came home yesterday and after dinner, he showed me this ring box,” she continued. “He said he was going over to see Isabel and he was gonna ask her to marry him.”

“So what, did she say no? Is that why he looks so wrecked?” I asked.

Skye playfully slapped my knee. “I’m telling the story Jade, just let me finish.”

“Okay, okay, sorry,” I knocked my shoulder against hers. “Continue.”

“Well, he didn’t come home until really late last night and when he came in, he was like crying a little bit, like he just finished bawling his eyes out,” Skye went on. “So I asked him what happened and he said that Isabel was cheating on him. I guess he caught them together or something, but I don’t know. He won’t talk about it.”

“Holy shit, she cheated on him?” The idea of karmic retribution quickly crossed my mind, but I shook the thought away. For just a split second, I got the slightest sick satisfaction that now Alex knew how it felt to be cheated on, the same thing he’d done to me years ago. But mostly I just felt really bad. As much as I’d hated the guy’s guts over the years, I would’ve never really wished that kind of betrayal on him – I knew from firsthand experience just how much that really hurt. “Do you know who with?”

“Like I said, he won’t talk about it.” Skye shook her head. “He spent the entire day locked in his room with the lights off and the curtains closed. He’s taking it really hard.”

I frowned. “Poor guy.”

“I know,” Skye agreed. “I wish I could do something to help him.” She side-eyed me. “Maybe you could be nice to him tonight? Like don’t tease him too much.”

“I won’t.” I put my hand up. “Scout’s honor. As long as you tell me what’s up with you right now, because you’re kind of really freaking me out. There’s only one guy that puts that look on your face.”

“Zack,” Skye confirmed. She shook her head. “I really don’t want to get into it tonight. It’s been a bad day between Kellin leaving and Zack showing up at the house.”

“I thought Kellin wasn’t leaving for a few days,” I said.

“Surprise.” She shrugged half-heartedly. “Everything got pushed up.” She stood up and smoothed her dress out. “Whatever. I’m not worrying about it tonight. Tonight we’re all going to have fun.”

I stood up and joined her. “Goddamn right.” I gave her a quick hug and then let go. “Just…when you wanna talk, let me know. I’m here.”

“Thanks,” she said with a half-hearted smile. We joined everyone back downstairs. The crowd had grown a decent amount since we’d gone upstairs and returned. There were quite a few people that I didn’t know and someone was doing terribly at the karaoke set up in the family room. I glanced over to see Rian attempting some Blink-182 song and then directed my attention to the kitchen. Skye and I got closer to see what kind of chaos was happening over there. Jack sat at the breakfast bar with a crowd of people in a circle around him, chanting and encouraging him. I couldn’t get close enough to see exactly what was happening, so I let Skye investigate. I spotted Alex standing back from the crowd with his arms crossed, looking mostly miserable but partially amused.

I sidled up to him and bumped my shoulder against his in an attempt to be friendly. “Hey there, stranger.” He uttered what barely passed as a greeting and I nodded towards the swarm around the breakfast bar. “So what’s going on over there anyway?”

“Vinny challenged Jack to eat as many cold chicken fries as he possibly can,” he explained, his voice steady. “I’m told he has three hundred to work with.”

“What’s he on?” I asked, frowning. Jack was probably going to be drunk puking all night now. I would have to kill him if he stained anything.

“Last count was thirty-four,” Alex replied. “He’s starting to slow down, though.”

“Funny,” I said. “He was just bragging before everyone got here that he could eat all of them.”

“Jack’s full of shit,” Alex half-laughed, a smile slipping through.

“Holy shit, Alex Gaskarth, was that a smile?” I asked him teasingly. I then realized that that was probably the wrong thing to say; I had no idea if I was supposed to know about his breakup with Isabel or not, and I was probably not helping by bringing it up.

He scoffed and glanced down at his shoes. “So Skye told you, huh?”

“Yeah.” I winced. “Sorry. About what I just said and about Isabel. That really sucks.”

“Yeah, well, karma’s a bitch.” He tried to shrug like he didn’t care. “I suppose I deserved it. The universe was just luring me into a false sense of security so it could knock me flat on my ass.”

“Well, if you need to talk, I’m here for you,” I offered.

He looked at me like I was crazy. “Yeah. Right. I’m gonna talk to my ex-girlfriend who I cheated on about getting cheated on by my other ex-girlfriend. Sounds reasonable. I’m sure Jay would love that.”

“It’s not really his problem,” I told him. “He’s not in the picture anymore. We broke up.”

“I see.” Alex said and pointed towards the foyer. “Then why’s he standing in your house?”