‹ Prequel: Lost in Stereo
Something's Gotta Give
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Jade's Point of View
“It’s the most wonderful time of the yeeeear!” my older brother Jack sang as he slid down the banister of the stairs in our new house.
“Jack, we just moved in! I don’t want to have to replace the bannister already!” I complained. We’d only moved in a few days ago, and had finally finished unpacking yesterday.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to start doing Christmas shit,” Jack declared, completely ignoring me. It was typical; he’d spent our entire lives not listening to me, a quarter of a century, so I wasn’t sure why I wasted my breath half the time. It didn’t matter if we were at home or I was on the road with him and the rest of All Time Low managing their tours – in his eyes, anything out of my mouth might as well be white noise.
“Oh, for the love of-” I cut myself off and slapped a hand to my face. “Please, can we just chill for one day before we have to start with that?”
“Nope, we’ve already got a roll going with the last few days, so we might as well keep it going,” he said. I was never sure where Jack got his energy from. We’d just gotten back from a short tour in Europe, moved, and unpacked all in the matter of a week.
“What do you mean, we?” I asked him. “I’m the one who did most of the unpacking! You did your bedroom and the music room, and that’s it.” Of course, that had left him with plenty of time to bother me rather than help me. To his credit, he did try a little when I was working on the kitchen, but after he dropped his third plate, I banned him from helping with anything fragile.
“I’m just saying, I think we should keep going with everything. If we take a break, we’re never gonna want to start again.” He made sense, unfortunately. But he and I both knew that he was just trying to keep me distracted.
After five, almost six years together and an engagement, I’d gotten dumped by my ex-fiancé Jay just a month and a half before our wedding. All the plans were in place, we’d bought this house together, and then with no warning, he’d ended things. When I’d asked for a reason, he didn’t really give me anything solid. Jay had only said that he felt that we were growing apart and that ending things now rather than later would be better for us both.
So we were out on most of our deposits, able to get a few of them back, and I’d had to buy Jay out of the house. Luckily Jack had stepped in to pony up the money to do so, or else I would have been up shit creek. However, I hadn’t lived with my brother full-time in the better half of a decade, and while I loved him, living and working with him was going to be trying, to say the least.
“Come on, don’t be a Scrooge,” Jack pushed. “Let’s just get the decorations up and then we’ll take a break for a few days.”
“Fine,” I relented, even though all I wanted was to sleep for a few days. We’d been back from the tour for a week and I still hadn’t seen my best friend Skye or her daughter Kendall yet, which was unusual for us. After a couple days curled up in bed, Skye’s was always my first stop.
In between putting up our tree and fighting with Jack over which decorations should go where, I texted Skye and asked her if she’d be around later on to hang out. She sent back a quick reply that Jack and I could come over for dinner if we wanted, but that her twin brother Alex wouldn’t be home since he had plans with his girlfriend.
Honestly, I was pretty impressed that Alex had managed to date the same girl for so long without cheating on her. It’d been the reason for our breakup back in high school and subsequent bad blood for several years, but after dating and breaking up one more time, we were on good terms again. We’d finally managed to make it to a place that we were able to be friends and not get into an argument every five seconds.
A big part of that came from taking over for Matt Flyzik when he stopped touring with the guys. He’d hoped to find someone to replace him who knew them as well as he did but could also manage things and keep everything organized. I’d just finished up my bachelor’s degree when he was in the process of trying to find a replacement, and though being All Time Low’s tour manager had never even been a thought in my mind, the opportunity dropped in my lap and it was hard to say no. I agreed to it on a trial basis, working one last tour with Flyzik showing me the ropes, and as it turned out, I loved it. The travelling was amazing and it fed into my type-A personality, so it also satisfied my need to organize and be in charge of things. Plus, since I already had a close relationship with the guys, the transition from Flyzik to me had been smooth. The only downside to the whole arrangement had been being away from Jay.
What’s he doing? I texted Skye back.
Some big date with Isabel, I guess, she responded. Been antsy all morning. Acting like Kendall when she needs to go to the bathroom.
I laughed out loud at that, and then she sent another message.
He’s saying he needs to talk to me now, but come over around six for dinner?
I texted her back that we’d see her then and set my phone down in the kitchen. On my way to let Jack know about the plan, I started to wonder if Alex was finally going to propose to Isabel. He’d talked to me about it a few times while we were on the road over the last year, asking questions about rings and wedding planning and if I thought marriage was a good idea. (“I’m getting married in December, so you tell me,” had been my response. Now, here I was, sad and single living in a house with my brother that I always thought I’d raise a family in with my husband.)
When I walked into the family room, Jack was busying himself with decorating the tree. I watched as he put five red filler bulbs all together and shook my head. “Jack, for the love of fuck, you have to space those out.”
“Maybe I want a burst of red on the tree, ever think of that?” he replied. “Maybe the tree is getting its period, you don’t know.”
I threw my head back and groaned. “Trees don’t get a period!”
“There’s a first time for everything,” he said, completely unbothered. He removed the red bulb in the center and added a blue one in its place. “There. Happy?”
No, but I was just going to have to accept that the tree was going to look like shit. Skye’s daughter could – and probably would – do a better job than Jack, who was now cradling several ornaments in his arms. “Whatever. We’re going to Skye and Alex’s for dinner, but Alex won’t be there, so I don’t know if you still want to come with me.”
“No, I’ll still come,” he said. “I’d like to see Skye. It’s been a while.” One of the ornaments that he was holding fell from his fingers onto the floor, but thankfully it wasn’t glass. I was just waiting for something to fall and shatter. “We should ask those guys to come over for Christmas Eve if they’re not busy.”
“That’s fine with me,” I said, heading back into the kitchen to grab a broom and pan for the inevitable broken ornaments. “I don’t know how Skye and Kellin have Christmas worked out for Kendall, but we can find out tonight.”
Just as I was making my way back into the family room, the unmistakable tinkle of broken glass on the floor made its way to my ears. I rolled my eyes as Jack yelled.
“Aw, fuck-shit!”
“It’s the most wonderful time of the yeeeear!” my older brother Jack sang as he slid down the banister of the stairs in our new house.
“Jack, we just moved in! I don’t want to have to replace the bannister already!” I complained. We’d only moved in a few days ago, and had finally finished unpacking yesterday.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to start doing Christmas shit,” Jack declared, completely ignoring me. It was typical; he’d spent our entire lives not listening to me, a quarter of a century, so I wasn’t sure why I wasted my breath half the time. It didn’t matter if we were at home or I was on the road with him and the rest of All Time Low managing their tours – in his eyes, anything out of my mouth might as well be white noise.
“Oh, for the love of-” I cut myself off and slapped a hand to my face. “Please, can we just chill for one day before we have to start with that?”
“Nope, we’ve already got a roll going with the last few days, so we might as well keep it going,” he said. I was never sure where Jack got his energy from. We’d just gotten back from a short tour in Europe, moved, and unpacked all in the matter of a week.
“What do you mean, we?” I asked him. “I’m the one who did most of the unpacking! You did your bedroom and the music room, and that’s it.” Of course, that had left him with plenty of time to bother me rather than help me. To his credit, he did try a little when I was working on the kitchen, but after he dropped his third plate, I banned him from helping with anything fragile.
“I’m just saying, I think we should keep going with everything. If we take a break, we’re never gonna want to start again.” He made sense, unfortunately. But he and I both knew that he was just trying to keep me distracted.
After five, almost six years together and an engagement, I’d gotten dumped by my ex-fiancé Jay just a month and a half before our wedding. All the plans were in place, we’d bought this house together, and then with no warning, he’d ended things. When I’d asked for a reason, he didn’t really give me anything solid. Jay had only said that he felt that we were growing apart and that ending things now rather than later would be better for us both.
So we were out on most of our deposits, able to get a few of them back, and I’d had to buy Jay out of the house. Luckily Jack had stepped in to pony up the money to do so, or else I would have been up shit creek. However, I hadn’t lived with my brother full-time in the better half of a decade, and while I loved him, living and working with him was going to be trying, to say the least.
“Come on, don’t be a Scrooge,” Jack pushed. “Let’s just get the decorations up and then we’ll take a break for a few days.”
“Fine,” I relented, even though all I wanted was to sleep for a few days. We’d been back from the tour for a week and I still hadn’t seen my best friend Skye or her daughter Kendall yet, which was unusual for us. After a couple days curled up in bed, Skye’s was always my first stop.
In between putting up our tree and fighting with Jack over which decorations should go where, I texted Skye and asked her if she’d be around later on to hang out. She sent back a quick reply that Jack and I could come over for dinner if we wanted, but that her twin brother Alex wouldn’t be home since he had plans with his girlfriend.
Honestly, I was pretty impressed that Alex had managed to date the same girl for so long without cheating on her. It’d been the reason for our breakup back in high school and subsequent bad blood for several years, but after dating and breaking up one more time, we were on good terms again. We’d finally managed to make it to a place that we were able to be friends and not get into an argument every five seconds.
A big part of that came from taking over for Matt Flyzik when he stopped touring with the guys. He’d hoped to find someone to replace him who knew them as well as he did but could also manage things and keep everything organized. I’d just finished up my bachelor’s degree when he was in the process of trying to find a replacement, and though being All Time Low’s tour manager had never even been a thought in my mind, the opportunity dropped in my lap and it was hard to say no. I agreed to it on a trial basis, working one last tour with Flyzik showing me the ropes, and as it turned out, I loved it. The travelling was amazing and it fed into my type-A personality, so it also satisfied my need to organize and be in charge of things. Plus, since I already had a close relationship with the guys, the transition from Flyzik to me had been smooth. The only downside to the whole arrangement had been being away from Jay.
What’s he doing? I texted Skye back.
Some big date with Isabel, I guess, she responded. Been antsy all morning. Acting like Kendall when she needs to go to the bathroom.
I laughed out loud at that, and then she sent another message.
He’s saying he needs to talk to me now, but come over around six for dinner?
I texted her back that we’d see her then and set my phone down in the kitchen. On my way to let Jack know about the plan, I started to wonder if Alex was finally going to propose to Isabel. He’d talked to me about it a few times while we were on the road over the last year, asking questions about rings and wedding planning and if I thought marriage was a good idea. (“I’m getting married in December, so you tell me,” had been my response. Now, here I was, sad and single living in a house with my brother that I always thought I’d raise a family in with my husband.)
When I walked into the family room, Jack was busying himself with decorating the tree. I watched as he put five red filler bulbs all together and shook my head. “Jack, for the love of fuck, you have to space those out.”
“Maybe I want a burst of red on the tree, ever think of that?” he replied. “Maybe the tree is getting its period, you don’t know.”
I threw my head back and groaned. “Trees don’t get a period!”
“There’s a first time for everything,” he said, completely unbothered. He removed the red bulb in the center and added a blue one in its place. “There. Happy?”
No, but I was just going to have to accept that the tree was going to look like shit. Skye’s daughter could – and probably would – do a better job than Jack, who was now cradling several ornaments in his arms. “Whatever. We’re going to Skye and Alex’s for dinner, but Alex won’t be there, so I don’t know if you still want to come with me.”
“No, I’ll still come,” he said. “I’d like to see Skye. It’s been a while.” One of the ornaments that he was holding fell from his fingers onto the floor, but thankfully it wasn’t glass. I was just waiting for something to fall and shatter. “We should ask those guys to come over for Christmas Eve if they’re not busy.”
“That’s fine with me,” I said, heading back into the kitchen to grab a broom and pan for the inevitable broken ornaments. “I don’t know how Skye and Kellin have Christmas worked out for Kendall, but we can find out tonight.”
Just as I was making my way back into the family room, the unmistakable tinkle of broken glass on the floor made its way to my ears. I rolled my eyes as Jack yelled.
“Aw, fuck-shit!”