A Story to Tell Your Friends

“Stop being a pain in the ass and let me talk to my wife, Clara,” Alex demanded, holding his hand out for his phone. I scowled, listening to Lisa laughing at me from the other end of the phone.
“Stop being a pain in the ass and let me speak to your wife, Alex,” I shot back, still holding the phone to my ear. Jack and the others were behind Alex laughing at us. Alex had handed me the phone for a moment or two when I’d asked to confirm something with Lisa. However, instead of giving him the phone back, I had continued to speak to her about nothing in particular, while Alex grew steadily more frustrated with me. I was debating how far I could push it before he really became annoyed at me.
“Can’t you just annoy Jack for five minutes while I finish my conversation?” He groaned, still holding his hand out for the phone.
“Can’t you just annoy Jack for five minutes while I finish my conversation?”
“You’re being a pain in the ass again.” I laughed at him, finally realising maybe he did want to speak to Lisa for a reason. Or even, just for the same reason as Jack had wanted me here tonight: just because.
“Okay, Lisa. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to let you speak to your husband now. Try not to hate me too much.” Alex let out a sigh of relief as Lisa said goodbye and I handed the phone back to him. He immediately put the phone back to his ear and left the room, the rest of the guys laughing at him as he left.
“I love it when you annoy other people more than you annoy me,” Jack told me, slinging his arm around my shoulder. I grinned up at him, slipping my arm around his waist and allowing him to lead me back to the sofa’s we’d been sat on before Alex had tried to leap on me for his phone back.
“What time is it?” I asked quickly, trying to remember how long I’d been here.
“Um, about 6:30,” Mark replied. My eyes widened and I thought about when the doors opened. I scowled at Jack.
“You were supposed to tell me before doors so I could actually get out on time.” Jack grinned meekly at me from his place on the sofa in front of me.
“I know, but I sorta didn’t want you to go.” I continued to glare at him and he sighed lightly. “Okay, fine. I’ll walk you out.” I grinned brightly and turned to the rest of the guys to bid them farewell. “Are you sure you don’t wanna just hang out with me backstage?” Jack pouted as we finally reached the doors that led into the main arena.
“I would love to, but I think we both realised yesterday that the best place for me was with the rest of the crowd,” I chuckled.
“It looks busy. You’d have a better view with me,” he grinned cheesily. I laughed again, leaning up and kissing him softly.
“You have no idea how good I am for getting to the front of any crowd.” Jack scowled a little when he realised my mind was made up.
“Fine. I’ll see you after the show.” He leaned down, placing a kiss on my lips also before allowing me to leave. “Be careful!” he shouted after me as I let the door close behind me. I laughed to myself, making a beeline for the doors that allowed me straight into the main room. Considering he didn’t even take care of himself half the time, he was surprisingly protective. I eyed the crowd that had already formed in front of the stage before making my way over and starting my attempt to get to the front.
“Okay, so we’ve got this cheesy friend, who likes to do cheesy things,” Mark started, a few hours later. They were a good way through their set and I was enjoying myself just as much as I had anticipated I would. The guys had been incredible, however, I’d still been pushing my way forward when they’d come on. It felt as if Jack had left me by the doors and ran straight onto stage. Thankfully, tonight did not consist of any embarrassing jokes at my expense.
“Well, it’s not all that cheesy. We were gonna play this song anyway,” Matt interrupted. “But, I agree, he is cheesy and he does like to do cheesy things.”
“Right,” Mark nodded. “So, anyway. This cheesy friend, has asked us to dedicate this next song to his girlfriend. Frankly, we told him we’d swap it out for She’s Out of Her Mind, because, you know, she’s bat shit crazy, but he told us this one was better.” Mark pulled a face, looking thoroughly disgusted. I laughed lightly, knowing my reaction last night probably solidified the idea in their head that I was a basket case. “Apparently, this is how he feels around her every day, so I do feel sorry for him. Clara, this is First Date, and apparently it’s for you.” I laughed again, cheering with everyone else when the song started. They were right, Jack was being a cheese ball. I shuddered at the thought of yesterday, singing to each other backstage and all the things we’d gone on to discuss. I couldn’t begin to explain how happy I was right now.
“So, speaking of our cheesy friend,” Matt said as the song finished. I saw Jack strolling out onto the stage, standing next to Mark and grinning broadly. “He’s gonna say a few things while we take a breather.”
“Thanks guys. Good to know I’m doing something productive,” Jack laughed, quickly scanning the crowd.
“All in a day’s work,” Mark told him. Jack continued to smile, but ran his hands through his hair nervously as he did so. Mark and Matt took a step back, grabbing their drinks as they did so.
“So, I’m sorry to interrupt, and I know I’m ruining everyone’s night, but I’ve got some things to say to someone out there tonight,” Jack started. “I know what you’re thinking, ‘why don’t you just say it to her face and get off the stage?’ and I would. But I don’t think I’d be able to do this if I had to look her in the eye and say it. She really doesn’t understand that sometimes I have trouble breathing in front of her.” Jack laughed, running his hands through his hair. My stomach flipped as I stared up at him. I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, and I could feel the nerves welling in the pit of my stomach. “Shit, I mean, Alex is the guy with all the good lines. I’m the idiot who plays guitar badly next to him. Okay, okay, I’m gonna start from the beginning, maybe it’ll help all of you understand.
“So, there’s this girl. I met her in the middle of Walmart, while both of us were arguing with someone we knew about inappropriately childish beach towels. I mean, that was a brilliant first impression: she was almost begging her friend to allow her to get a beach towel with Rapunzel and Flynn Rider’s face on it. I know what you’re thinking, we’re not childhood sweethearts: the girl was 24 when this happened. It was great and just like me. She’s pretty damn near perfect, so I drag her into my argument, just to get a chance to speak to her. But, she makes a joke and walks off. I think I’ll never see her again.
“Two days later, I’m walking through down the corridor at my label’s building and Alex, well, he outright shouts at this girl walking by us in the opposite direction. Guess what? It’s her. She works at my label. I can’t fucking speak. Everyone is making jokes about me to her and she has absolutely no idea I’ve been talking about her for two days, so I just keep my mouth shut. The next day, I run to the label at night, hoping I’ve missed her because she must know I’m an idiot by now. I’m waiting for Alex to pick me up and she literally walks straight into me. I’m already thinking this has got to be fucking fate. I deliberately avoid her working hours, and she still manages to surprise me. I convince her to go out with me and the guys for a drink. She actually fucking agrees. Can you believe that? I couldn’t.
“From there, for three whole weeks, I have no idea what I did. I mean, this girl gives me her number and holy fuck, she actually fucking likes me. She smiles when she sees me and I can see her eyes lighting up every time I surprise her just showing up out of nowhere. Of course, I have this tour coming up – which is fucking brilliant, by the way guys – so I have to leave for a month. She’s panicking, thinking I’m going to forget her, and shit, it just breaks my heart watching her think I could ever leave her. I almost fucking didn’t leave her. I almost called the band and outright refused because she was just so fucking adorable and I didn’t want to not see her for a month.
“But then, a week later, she tells me she doesn’t care what I do; that we’re not together, so what does it matter who we sleep with while I’m out of town? I felt fucking sick. I figured she’d been messing me around, that she’d only put up with me for the last month because I was a dude in a band she used to like and I had a reputation for screwing girls around. I was so pissed at myself. I mean, by this point, I was infatuated with this girl, and she just didn’t care.
“I wanted to go out and do exactly what she told me she didn’t care if I did. But every girl I spoke to, I just told them about this girl back home who’d blown me away. I couldn’t do it. It was her or it was no one. I didn’t speak to her for weeks, ignoring her every time she tried to speak to me. I couldn’t speak to her again and be reminded that she didn’t care about me. She was going out, enjoying herself with her friends, and she didn’t seem upset that I wasn’t talking to her. But then I got home, and suddenly I was sleeping within ten minutes of her.” Jack paused, running his hands through his hair again. I was enthralled. I still didn’t know where he was going with this, but I was hanging on his every word.
“Have you ever run into someone you love, after a couple of weeks, somewhere you never expected to see them? She was celebrating her birthday in my fucking bar, because this girl is so fucking brilliant that my bar was the one place she really enjoyed in this whole city. I saw her and I expected her to look just as perfect as she did when I’d left, but she didn’t. She wasn’t the girl I’d left in the weeks before; she was just a fucking shell and she was so angry at me. She didn’t want to speak to me, she didn’t want to look at me, I’m surprised she even stayed in the same room as me.
“I found her outside, later that night, crying and in the worst state I’d ever seen her. She couldn’t stand she was so drunk, but I wasn’t much better. She threw so many accusations my way, said so many things that hurt, but she said something that made it all better: she loved me. This girl, this perfect fucking human, she loved me, and I’d screwed it all up. So, I spent the next few weeks trying to make it up to her. She didn’t let me off easy, believe me. I spoke to everyone we knew and did everything they told me to. I even spoke to her best friend, who more than hated me at this point, just to know what I needed to do. I went back to the guy she’d known two months ago. I annoyed her for days, texting her the most inane shit I could imagine and barely even getting a response.
“I mean, fuck, I invited her to last night’s show, knowing for a fact she was more than willing to jump Mark’s bones, just because I knew it would make her smile. Everyone told me I was crazy letting her meet the guys, but the look on her face, it was fucking worth it.
“She actually forgave me. But, of course, I’m still a coward. My fans are calling me out for going out with ‘a stick’, and all I see when I look at her is the mess I made her into when I left. She tells me it was her fault, not mine. But have you ever known you’ve been the reason for someone being so upset they didn’t eat or sleep for fucking weeks? I mean, I fucking ruined her. She was happy before she met me; she was gorgeous, she was funny, she was smart, and I was the dick who upset her, but she fucking forgave me for it.” Jack tugged at his hair, scowling to himself. Mark nudged him lightly, shooting a reassuring smile his way. I felt sick, watching Jack beat himself up over everything that had happened. I had forgiven him, absolutely, and I knew my issues were my own. I never wanted him to feel like he was to blame.
“Okay, I’m going off on a tangent. There was a point to this, I swear. Do you know, she forgave me, and I haven’t even told her I love her? Like I said, I’m a coward and I still can’t speak around her some days. She’s incredible, and I’m an asshole in a band; what does she even see in me? Okay, I’d better fucking do this before I chicken out and waste everyone’s time. Clara, where the fuck are you?” Once again, Mark nudged Jack, pointing at me to their left. I felt a few people turn their heads to see who was being pointed at, but I ignored them, grinning up at the man in front of me. “Holy shit, you don’t mess about.” I laughed, noting that I had indeed elbowed my way to the front as best I could and was currently pressed against the barrier. “Okay, okay. I know this is getting fairly redundant, but I really wanted you to know, I’m in love with you and I have been since the day we met. And you deserve so much more than me, but I wanted to make this special instead of blurting it out in my dump of a fucking bedroom or some shitty back alley. I love you, baby, and, I promise, I’ll never leave you again.”
I felt tears pouring from my eyes as he finally turned to look me in the eyes fully. He’d still avoided looking at me as best he could until he stopped speaking and, now that he was finally staring at me, I was bawling my eyes out. I wanted nothing more than to climb over the barrier and throw myself at him, but I was so pressed in I couldn’t move. Jack looked at me for a few seconds before laughing to himself, realising my predicament. He handed his microphone back to Mark, before jumping down from the stage. I reached my arms out for him as he drew closer, grabbing him as soon as he got close enough, dragging him close to me and pressing a kiss to his lips.
“What the fuck are you crying for?” He laughed, pulling away from me and wiping the tears from my face. I laughed back stupidly.
“You love me,” I responded, still trying to process it. “I mean, holy fuck, I love you, but you actually love me.” He laughed again, pressing another kiss to my lips.
“You’re fucking perfect, of course I love you.” I grinned up at him and he rested his forehead on my own.
“Well, there you go. Apparently, Jack loves Clara and Clara loves Jack,” Mark shouted from the stage, smiling down at us. “You two have made me sick for months, I’m glad it’s fucking over with now.”