Hospital Beds and Memories

We were sitting in a car the tour manager had somehow arranged to bring us all to the event. I was pretty nervous. There were going to be a lot of people there, and I really couldn’t deal with that. So, yes, I had social anxiety, but I also just hated crowded spaces in general. It wasn’t exactly claustrophobia, because I could deal with small places, it was just the amount of people that freaked me out. But I was going to do this for Jack.

He rested his head on my shoulder and kissed my neck. “I can’t wait to show you off to everybody.”

I hummed in response, not really feeling up to meeting more people. There was no way I was ever going to be good at that shit. But just humming was going to make Jack ask me what was wrong, making me have to tell him eventually after insisting that everything is fine for a million times before that. So, just to shut him up, I also ran my fingers through his hair lightly without messing it up. He probably spent ages trying to get everything to stick up just right, and from experience I knew not to fuck that up.

“These shoes are definitely going to kill my feet,” I tapped my feet, “you might have to carry me around eventually.”

“Oh no,” Jack sat back up and shook his head, “I don’t think I can do that, you’re too heavy.”

“Shut up.” I pushed his shoulder softly. He chuckled before giving me a sloppy kiss on the cheek, only getting me sticking my tongue out as a reply. But he wasn’t happy enough with that, and pointed at his cheek until I pecked his cheek.

“Ugh, can you stop being so cute!” Lisa groaned from another seat.

I turned so I could see her better. “It’s not my fault, it’s all Jack’s doing.”

“Is not!” Jack exclaimed, this time it was his turn to push me ever so slightly.

“Is too!” I pushed him back.

“Is not!”

This was another one of our arguments that turned into play fighting. We wouldn’t try to hurt each other, and it only caused us to laugh. No harm was done. Well, until I remembered that I bruised pretty quickly. I had to stop it before Jack hit me a bit too hard and without being awkward about it. Cutting it off suddenly would be weird. So I quickly made a plan.

“Ouch!” I pouted and rubbed my arm where he had just hit me.

“Oh, shit! Sorry! Did I hurt you?” Jack freaked out and quickly stopped.

My pout turned into a grin. “I just wanted to scare you.”

Normally I would have continued to prank him, but I didn’t feel up to it now. I didn’t need him to get worried just before an award show; I could only imagine how nerve wracking something like this already was. He didn’t need more pressure, and I didn’t want to give him a heart attack, he was too important to me.

“Ireland and I are going to go through the back entrance,” Lisa told the others.

“No,” Jack whined and stuck out his bottom lip, “come with me.”

“No,” I chuckled and found his hand, “you know I don’t like cameras and I don’t want to take a risk and be around a lot of flashing lights.”

“Ok, fine. But I’m going to keep you around me all the time as soon as we get inside.”

“Even when you go to the bathroom?” I asked with a disgusted face.

“Especially then,” Jack joked as the car came to a stop. Lisa opened the door and said goodbye to Alex before stepping out.

“Ew.” I went to go as well, but Jack pulled me back to quickly give me a peck on the lips, causing me to chuckle and moan about him giving me cooties. After finally getting him to let go of me, I followed Lisa to the entrance where other people, probably friends from other bands and musicians, were also being let in. With so many people here, I could only imagine how bad it was going to be inside.

----

All the awards had been given out, but All Time Low did not win the one they had been nominated for. It was something about having the best song, but the poor guys had to compete against pop artists. Of course famous pop artists were going to win. This was basically a popularity contest. But the boys had already expected it, and were honored enough to have been nominated. Some of their friends were here as well, so that was also always a bonus. But this was definitely not for the punk/rock genre.

I didn’t know where everyone had disappeared off to, but I was basically left all alone, standing in the place where all the artists had been. People were having private and group conversations. There was laughter everywhere and a lot of noise. But I didn’t fit anywhere. Jack said he was going to be with me the entire time, but he left and I didn’t know where he went to. If only my phone wasn’t out of battery.

Suddenly a redheaded guy with quite long hair came up to me. I didn’t recognize him from anything, but he must either also be an artist or a friend of one of the artists. But he was intending on making conversation with me. I actually didn’t really want to, but I had nothing better to do. Was I just going to stand here awkwardly if I could also talk to some random guy?

“Hey,” he smiled and nodded his head.

“Hi,” I mumbled back, not sure what this guy wanted from me.

“So, you also here for the awards?” He asked me.

“Umm, not really. I came here with some friends,” I explained awkwardly and looked around, “but I really don’t know where they are.”

“I’ll keep you company ‘til they return,” he smiled with half of his mouth and held his hand out, “the name’s Alan, by the way.”

“Umm, Ireland,” I murmured and hoped my hands weren’t too sweaty when I shook his hand.

“So, Ireland, what do you do for a living?” Alan started making small talk and pushed his hair behind his ears.

Why was this always the standard question? I didn’t really have an answer for that. Well, I was supposed to get a notification about the photography job soon, but so far I hadn’t heard anything from them yet. And I probably wasn’t even going to be able to accept it, which really fucking sucked. I was relying on my parents and my brother for money; I wasn’t going to burden Jack with my problems.

“I basically spend most of my time in a hospital, so I don’t really have time for a job,” I told him. It probably sounded a lot worse than it was, but then again, I was literally dying right now and nobody here knew.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you mind me asking what’s wrong?”

“Umm--”

My rejection was cut off my arms slowly and secretly snaking around my waist. Jack’s breath was calmly tickling the exposed skin on my neck and shoulder. Goosebumps formed all over my body as he softly pressed a kiss underneath my ear. After our makeout session earlier, he knew that was exactly the spot to get me going. Slowly but surely he was torturing me.

“You said you weren’t going to leave me,” I sighed in content and I leaned into his body.

“Alex dragged me away to meet someone, I’m sorry.” He wrapped his arms tighter and he rested his chin on the bone in my shoulder.

“And you didn’t consider dragging me along?” I chuckled and put my hands over his.

“I tried, but he was too fast.”

“Did you try hard enough?”

“No…” Jack acted like a child who had just been caught doing something terrible until he noticed there was someone else here. “Hey, Alan.”

“What’s up.” Alan gave Jack a strong handshake after he pried one loose from the light grip I had on his hands. “I see you’re going for another one night stand.”

“I hope not,” Jack laughed halfheartedly.

“Really?” I contradicted, “My plan was to come here, wear a dress and high heels, sleep with you, leave and fuck you over, fly back home, trash your house and throw toilet paper everywhere, then go back to my apartment, lie to my brother, get him to come over here and fuck you up.”

“Umm…” Jack let go of me, “how did you just come up with that on the spot?”

“I told you, it’s my plan. I’ve been planning it for a while now.” I looked at my nails as if I didn’t give a fuck.

“Looks like you just got rejected,” Alan grinned.

“So this whole relationship was a lie?” Jack played along with my joke.

“Yep,” I nodded and gave him a judgemental look, “the being your friend and the whole falling in love with you thing was a total scam.”

“Well shit.”

I giggled and kissed Jack, making sure any doubts Alan had were gone. There was no way I was ever going to play Jack. I was totally in love with him, and it was pretty terrifying. Being in love with someone was basically trusting them with your heart and every secret you had. With one wrong move, the whole thing could go wrong. And with Jack and I moving faster than we thought we were, it was only bound to go wrong. But I loved him and wanted nothing else. He was basically my life vest.

“So, you guys coming to the after party?” Alan asked us after Jack and I broke apart.

“Maybe.” Jack smiled and kept one arm around my waist.

“Well, I have to go now, so I might or might not see you there.” The ginger waved goodbye and left Jack and I alone in the big crowd of people that was slowly dying down.

“So,” Jack whispered in my ear, “want to go party or not?”

I shook my head and hugged him, my eyes becoming heavy. “I’m exhausted, I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. And if we still want to do something, I still have just enough energy for that. It’s either partying with other people, or being by ourselves.”

“I think that’s a pretty obvious answer,” he smirked and lowered his hands from the place they had on my hips. “I’m very happy Alex told me not to get drunk. I can’t wait to take this dress off of you.”

It didn’t take us much longer to get out of the big arena sized venue and text Alex about us going back to the hotel. All the All Time Low guys probably knew what was going to happen.