A Story to Tell Your Friends

Forty-Three.

“Marky!” I screamed as my brother entered the house. I saw his face drop at my loud, over-excited greeting. “Where ya been?” I sing-songed, irritating him yet more.
“I don’t know, but I’m going back,” he replied.
“Boo,” I responded. “Didn’t you miss me?”
“No.” I rolled my eyes at his response, turning on my heel and walking back into the kitchen with him following me.
“Mom, your least favourite child is here,” I told her, throwing myself into one of the bar stools.
“That’s not news, you got here last night,” Marky replied, giving our mother a hug before sitting on the stool furthest from me.
“At least she loves me,” I snapped.
“Only because no one else will.”
“Enough,” she scolded, pointing her spatula at us as I opened my mouth to bite back once more. “It’s nice you’re here, Mark. Pancakes?”
“Please,” he smiled widely at her. I rolled my eyes at him, all but ready to tell him he was a kiss ass, but knowing I’d only succeed in annoying my mother more. “How’s the asshole Rockstar?”
“Asleep,” I responded, opening my phone and beginning to scroll through my twitter feed. “And he’s not an asshole, butt munch.”
“Seems like an asshole,” he shrugged.
“And you seem like a nice guy. We can’t judge by appearances, can we?” I looked over at my mother before asking, “why are you allowing him to call my boyfriend an asshole repeatedly and I get shouted at for the word dick?”
“Because I’m ignoring you both, now eat.” She placed the pancakes in front of Marky and myself and we began to eat. Jack was still showering (despite my telling Marky he was asleep), so I had no qualms about stuffing my face in the least attractive way possible. I was home, so I really had to. Besides, it was also Christmas. I had every possible excuse to eat as much as I could over the next week or so.
“Morning Jack,” my mom smiled as he entered the room, the first warning I had of his entrance. “Are you wanting any breakfast?”
"Please,” he replied. I quickly swallowed my latest mouthful as he sat next to me, pushing my coffee cup toward him. He took it gratefully, flashing a smile at me before taking a drink.
"Butthole, this is my boyfriend. Jack, this is my butthole brother,” I introduced, ignoring the look of annoyance my mom was shooting me and eating some more of my breakfast (though in a less disgusting way than before) in order to keep myself out of the conversation.
“Nice to meet you,” Jack grinned. Marky grunted, something along the lines of ‘nice to meet you too’ and I glared at him. I knew he was going to be an asshole, but this was stupid.
“Mom, your son has forgotten all the manners you taught him,” I told her, still pointedly glaring at Marky.
“Maybe don’t ambush me then,” he snapped back.
"No ambushing, dickwad. I brought my boyfriend to meet my parents. Nothing to do with you.”
“Yeah, I just got left out of the loop.”
“Mark!” I smiled smugly as my mother snapped at Marky. “Be nice for once in your life.”
“All I’m saying, is maybe someone should have told me this wasn’t a family Christmas.”
“It is a family Christmas. Jack is family. Fuck off.” My smile turned patronising as I spoke, trying to get my brother to back down without making Jack too much more uncomfortable. As it was, he was trying not look at any of us as he sipped on my coffee. He didn’t know Marky enough to tell if he was joking or not, but he could tell I was at the very least telling my brother off. He huffed, standing up and stalking off toward the living room. I scowled, following after him.
“What?” He snapped when he saw me.
“Do you realise that when I met Jack’s family, his sister fucking hugged me like I was part of her family?”
“And?” He scoffed, turning the TV on to attempt to ignore me.
“So, could you be fucking normal for once in your life? Quit being an asshole.”
“I don’t like him,” he shrugged.
“You don’t know him.”
“I’ve heard enough.”
“And, what? You think I’m falling for some asshole’s lines? Like I’m that fucking stupid?” He didn’t respond, turning the channel on the TV instead. That was it. He’d heard all he wanted to from someone or other, about Jack screwing around on girls and messing about like guys in bands tended to do, and, somehow, I was just another victim to him. And he thought I was that stupid? “Hey, don’t ignore me. Do you think I’m that fucking stupid?”
“Well, obviously.”
“You’re unbelievable.” I turned on my heel, grabbing my coat as I stormed out of the house. Whether he thought he was protecting me or not, he’d basically called me an idiot. I didn’t appreciate it. Sure, I went into this thing with Jack without knowing all that much about him, but wasn’t that true of most relationships? Everyone was a stranger to you at some point. Jack loved me, I didn’t need anyone to try and pick holes in my relationship. If we’d gotten over all the bullshit we’d both pulled so far, I’m pretty sure we’d gotten through the worst of it.
“Clara!” I stopped halfway down the block, kicking at the ground as I heard Jack’s voice. This was not how I had planned on this morning going. Even my parents had agreed that forewarning Marky would have been a bad idea, so I had no idea how this had gotten to be such a shit show. “Are you okay?” He asked, catching up with me and pulling me into a hug.
“Why can’t I just have a normal family?” I huffed.
“Because then you might have been normal, and where’s the fun in that?” He chuckled. I smiled a little, though it didn’t last long.
“I just wanted everyone to love you,” I sighed. “Your siblings liked me. Why couldn’t he just be normal and give you a chance?”
“Brothers are weird,” he shrugged. “You should have seen how weird Joe used to get about May and her relationships. It would have been great if it had all gone smoothly, but we can’t have everything.” I pouted, trying not to accept his logic. I knew he was being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole, but that didn’t mean I had to allow it. I stuck my hand in my coat pocket, feeling my debit card in there and knowing my phone was in the pocket of my jeans, thankful something was going a little right for once.
“Let’s go out for the day,” I said, pulling out of the hug Jack had had me in since he’d caught up with me.
“We can’t just avoid your family.”
“I’m not. I know my brother. Let’s go out, have some fun, forget about his jackass tendencies and let him cool off. It’s a win-win, we have a good day and he realises he’s an asshole before we get back.”
“Okay, but how are you planning on getting anywhere?”
“Shortcuts, cutie,” I smiled. He chuckled, returning my smile as I linked my hand with his and began to show him the back alley route to the local mall. I had a feeling that it would be manic in the toy stores and fragrance stands and pretty dead everywhere else.
“I hate to admit it, but you were absolutely right,” Jack told me, a handful of hours later as we sat and ate lunch. I put my glass down, looking around briefly and noticing that I had been decidedly right and there were only a couple of other occupied tables in the restaurant.
“I know my audience,” I laughed. Washington was great but I’d lived here, in this specific neighbourhood for the majority of my life and hadn’t had a single Christmas anywhere else. I knew this area, at this time of year, like the back of my hand so of course I was damn right. “I’d prefer to be at home drinking hot chocolate and helping my mom prep for tomorrow but sometimes we have brothers that are assholes.” I scowled into my drink as I remembered but the annoyance was less sharp considering the time that had passed. No one had contacted me yet, but that was the norm. Marky would be almost decidedly ignore me until I returned home and our parents would give him an earful and leave him to sort his own mess out. The best I would get would be a text from my mom asking me to pick up something she needed. We weren’t great with our feelings.
“So, what’s his beef?” I choked briefly at his words.
“His beef? What is this, 2008?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he laughed. “My question stands.”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Like, everyone keeps on at me about how you have a reputation and I don’t even know what they’re going on about. Mark seems to have heard all the rumours and decided I’m... I don’t know, another one of those girls, I guess. At this point, I’m just annoyed he doesn’t trust my judgement, you know?” Jack frowned as I let out my words bitterly.
“When we were younger, Alex and me fucked about... a lot,” he told me slowly. “We’d go on tour and Alex would fall out with Lisa and then we’d party and, you know, there were girls, lots of them. Alex, obviously, calmed down and settled in and I... hung out with younger guys, who didn’t want to settle in just yet, and carried on. Word about that kind of shit gets around, especially when people care about what you do. Your brother probably didn’t have to do much digging.” I paused, seeing how annoyed he looked with himself. I’m assuming he hurt people and he was ashamed of that, but this kind of shit happens. It didn’t happen to me.
“But that isn’t me, that’s other girls who I assume didn’t last much past the night.”
“You’re way too okay with this,” he chuckled. “It’s why you love me and it hasn’t happened in the last six months, so I don’t care.” He chuckled briefly, pressing a quick kiss to my lips.
“Okay, now the mystery is solved, when are we going back to your parents’ house?” “Ugh, never,” I groaned.
“Marky is such a little bitch I just can’t even.”
“Clara?” I heard a somewhat shrill voice say from behind Jack. I looked up, finding Kayla stood there, her arms laden with her last minute purchases and a large grin on her face.
“Oh, my god, Kayla!” I shrieked, standing up swiftly and pulling her into a hug. She had been away with her family on a long vacation in Florida when Tammy and I had moved, so it had been about nine months since I’d seen her.
“How did I not know you were home? Two days ago you were in Baltimore with your rock star and all his friends.”
"We took a detour,” I laughed.
“’We’?” She looked at me for a second, before looking behind me and really looking at the back of Jack’s head as he played on his phone. “Oh, my god. Holy shit. Seriously?” “Calm down,” I warned her. “I know all your fantasies start with running into him out of the blue, but please remember he’s just your friend’s boyfriend. Calm yourself.” She bit her lip, obviously still excited and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Tammy was way less crazy. “Be calm now and we’ll stay for New Year’s,” I bargained with her.
“New Year’s? I thought you’d have some crazy celeb party to be at?”
“No,” I snorted. “Alex hangs with his family, Tammy is probably going out with Chris and we’d end up in some bar and then roll home eating take out at like 3am. It’s not pretty and it’s way cheaper to do here.”
“Look at you, referring to Alex Gaskarth so casually.”
“Kayla...” I allowed a small warning tone into my voice and she rolled her eyes.
“Okay, fine, whatever. I’ll be calm.” I hardly believed her, but I would take her at her word. Until she proved me wrong, I would trust her. I turned around, leading her a little closer to Jack, though knowing he’d already heard everything, despite how much he was trying to pretend he didn’t.
“Babe, I want you to meet someone,” I told him. He looked up from his phone and I couldn’t help but notice the vague concern in his eyes, though I couldn’t blame him, even Tammy had warned him about Kayla. I resisted the urge to text her immediately with what was happening. “This is Kayla. Kayla, this is Jack, as if you didn’t already know.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” he grinned, hardly showing his apprehension. “Tammy talks about you all the time.”
“All absolutely terrible things,” I told her, sitting back down in my seat. “She really gave off the right vibe when she described you.”
“You think you’re so damn funny, Parsons,” she sneered jokingly. “It’s nice to meet you too, Jack. Your girlfriend and her best friend are way meaner about everyone else because they’re in love with each other, so don’t worry about anything she told you.”
“Wrong audience, Kay. Jack’s been not-so-secretly in love with his best friend for a decade. Jalex is real.”
“Jalex is not real, Clara. Stop telling everyone it is before people take you seriously.” I snorted at Jack’s reply but kept my mouth shut.
“As ladylike as ever, Clara..”
“I don’t have time for ladylike, you know this.”
“Unfortunately,” she laughed. “But I also don’t have time for you. I really gotta get back and wrap these before my mom realises I hadn’t bought her anything. See you later!” I waved her off, smiling but still a little relieved she’d gone. If there had ever been a friend who I was concerned wouldn’t respect the personal space of Jack (or any of the rest of the guys in the band, for that matter), it was Kayla. I’d love to say she was likely to have calmed down in the last year but she’d only been getting worse since the age of fifteen.
“Your friends freak me out,” Jack told me finally. “You set Tammy up to be crazy and she was fine. I expected Kayla to be the same.”
“I had an actual story as part of my warning for Kayla, don’t pin your underestimating on me,” I laughed. “But she’s not that bad when she’s calm. I don’t remotely think she expected to see you. If we stay over the New Year, she should be way calmer.”
“That’s a big if, cutie,” he chuckled.
“Yeah, I suppose we have to see if Marky stops being an asshole yet,” I shrugged. I sighed as I remembered the situation, realising I really had to head back soon. “Okay, new plan: let’s go get way too much chocolate and then we’ll go see if assface has snapped out of his mood.”
“Genius.”
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I'm having major technical difficulties right now in that I'm writing all of this on my tablet and things aren't going fantastically. Sorry, but there will be more delays!