Show Me What I'm Looking For

“Good morning,” I yawned as I sat up in bed. Ali had turned on the TV and was watching Sunday morning cartoons. She looked up at me when I spoke and smiled.

“Hello,” she responded, pressing her lips to mine.

“When did you wake up?” I asked just as came closer to me and laid her head on my chest.

“Like an hour ago, but I was scared to open the door and run into your mom—”

“Since when are you afraid of my madre?” She laughed.

“No, I love your mom, but we were in your bed together last night, John. No matter how cool she is, she’s going to be pissed,” she explained. I then pushed the covers away and stood up.

“Okay, wait here and I’ll go check what’s going on,” I rolled my eyes and delicately opened the door to my room. As I tip-toed toward the kitchen, I noticed a note on the counter by the toaster. Everyone had probably gone out, so I grabbed it and began reading.

“John,
Your mother and I along with Aunt Josie and your brothers have gone out for the day. Your mother left some bagels in the fridge for you… and Ali. Don’t think we didn’t notice. We’ll talk about that later. Love, Dad.”

I set the not back down and opened the fridge door. As I scanned through the shelves, I felt Ali wrap her arms around my chest and lay her head on my back.

“What do you want to eat?” I asked as I turned around to face her.

“Well the note said that there are bagels in the fridge.”

“You read it?” I said as I put two bagels in the toaster. She nodded and got the cream cheese out of the fridge and set it on the table. We then sat down and started eating.

“What are you putting on your bagel?” She looked and me in disgust.

“Jalapeno cream cheese, what’s wrong with that?” I laughed.

“It looks so gross. It’s like, green,” She added as she put a healthy layer of plain cream cheese on her bagel.

“Don’t judge me,” I laughed as she leaned in for a kiss. Suddenly, my phone started vibrating in my pajama pocket. I reached in and answered.

“Hello?”

“Dude, where the hell are you?” Jared yelled out at me. Ali had started putting the dishes in the dishwasher and cleaned up.

“What do you mean?”

“We are recording today and a bunch of people are here to meet us from Fearless so get your ass here. Oh, and call Garrett because no one can get a hold of him,” he asked me. I hung up and put my phone back in my pocket.

“What’s wrong?” Ali asked, leaning over the counter.

“We have to get to the studio in like 10 minutes. Get dressed and call Anny, maybe she knows where Garrett is,” I asked as I went to the bathroom for a quick shower.

Ali’s point of view

As John hopped in the shower, I quickly dialed Anny’s number. The first two times, her phone was off, but the third time, it actually rang.

“Hello?” I heard her say as if she just woke up.

“Anny? Where are you? Where’s Garrett? He has to be at the studio in like 15 minutes and no one can reach him,” I explained.

“Ali? I’m at Garrett’s house right now… We just woke up—”

“Anais Melissa Cruces, you did not!”

“Alicia Marie D’Angelo, we did not, where do we need to be in 15 minutes?” she asked.

“At the studio, hurry up! Bye,” I hung up and went to change. Luckily, I had left some clothes here in case of emergencies like this. The O’Callaghan residence had become my second home. I grabbed a t-shirt and jeans and slipped on the shoes that went with my dress from last night’s winter formal.

“Are you ready to go?” John asked as he stepped out of the bathroom, his hair still wet.

“Yeah, Anny was sleeping over at Garrett’s house so I told them to meet us at the studio,” I explained as he grabbed his keys and my hand and dragged me out the door as if I was a five year old. We hopped into his car and drove off.

After 15 minutes, we slowly pulled up to the studio and parked. We then got out and started walking just as Anny and Garrett arrived and took the parking spot next to us. All four of us burst through the door and headed to our usual room. On one sofa, Jared, Kennedy and Pat were all awkward and quiet while on the other sofa, 3 people I’d never met before were sitting and drinking a Starbucks coffee. As soon as he saw us, Pat jumped up and came over to hug Garrett who refused this public display of affection, as he always does.

“What took you guys so long?” Kennedy asked.

“We literally woke up 20 minutes ago Kenny, don’t push it,” Garrett explained.

“So, who are these people?” Anny asked rather straight-forwardly. The guy in the middle was probably in his mid-twenties and was on the phone as he wrote something down in his agenda while the little blond girl on his left was looking John up and down and the girl on his right was reading Nylon Magazine.

“Oh right. Anny, Ali; this is our producer Matt and that little blond girl, well her name is Amber, she’s another aspiring singer and the other girl on the right is Allison, she works for the label,” Jared explained as we both waved at them.

“Oh my God, like I totally love your hair color!” Amber said to me as she began playing my hair.

“Thanks I guess. May I ask why you’re here exactly?” I asked rather bluntly. She had ‘slut’ written all over her.

“Oh um, I’m singing a duet with John. I’m so excited you have no idea! I’ve wanted to meet him for the longest time now. He has the most amazing eyes. I wonder if he’s single,” she explained. I was about to rip her head out right there.

Just as I was about to calmly explain to her to back the fuck off John, he snuck up behind me, wrapped his arms around me and kissed my neck. “I’m going to go set up, love you,” he said just as he was about to run off. Her jaw dropped.

“Oh John, you’re actually going to be singing with me,” she said, obviously flirting.

“Oh, you’re Amy right?”

“Amber and yeah, we are recording together for the next couple of weeks,” she said as she practically licked her lips in front of him.

“Oh sorry, well you should come with us then,” he said as she followed close behind.

“You should keep an eye on her,” I heard a voice say behind me. Anny had gone to sit with Garrett already, so I turned around and noticed that it was Allison.

“What makes you say that?”

“Let’s just say that Amber gets what she wants no matter how she gets it and right now she wants your boyfriend,” she warned me.

“Oh please, John would never fall for that. She is seriously one of the stupidest girls I’ve met,” I smirked at the idea of Amber and John.

“You’ve got that right. When I first met her, she asked me how to spell orange.”

“Oh my God, that’s hilarious. I’m Ali by the way,” I replied.

“Allison, nice to meet you. We should probably go in now.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said as we both went in. The studio was on the left. Behind the glass, John was belting out a song as Amber sat patiently on a sofa, starring at me as if I had personally killed her entire family.

After multiple hours of playing hang man with Allison and Anny on the whiteboard hanging on the wall, we had run out of ways to keep busy. Pat was recording his drum tracks, John was going over lyrics with Amber, Garrett and Jared were practicing and tuning their instruments and Kenny was being extra needy today.

“I’m tired,” I complained as I rubbed my eyelids out of my head.

“I know, I’m tired too,” Anny added.

“I’m dieing of hunger. You girls want to go grab something to eat and bring it back for everyone?” Allison suggested.

“Yeah, let’s get some McDonald’s,” Anny said, her mouth practically watering.

“Hold on, I’ll go ask John for his keys.” I then leaped off the sofa and walked to the small table he was set up on.

“Babe, can you lend me the car? We’re going to get food for everyone,” I explained, wrapping my arms around his back.

“Yeah, be careful though.” He then handed me the keys and kept talking to Amber about a song.

“Shall we get going?” Anny asked as we all walked through the door and to the car. Once we were done at the drive-thru, we drove back to the studio. Everyone has taken a break from whatever they were doing and hanging out on the couches. Amber was clinging to John like never before. He looked both interested and uncomfortable at the same time.

“Food is here!” Pat jumped up as everyone swarmed to us.

“Ali, did you get me the apple slices instead of fries?” Pat demanded as he went through his baggy.

“Yes Patrick, the lady at the counter even gave me caramel dipping sauce for them,” I said as I made my way to get some napkins.

“Oups, sorry,” Amber said as she bumped into me, causing me to drop my pack of napkins.

“Right,” I smirked and bent down to pick everything up.

“Listen, I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but I’m kind of a big deal around here and what I want, I get. So back off.” She was clearly talking about John.

“Listen Amber, I’m going to try to use small words so you understand me okay? I don’t give two shits who you are or what you want, but you better stay away from John because he doesn’t like you okay? He barely knows your name, hun. Ah well, sucks to be you,” I said, walking away. She then grabbed my arm, forcing me to stay.

“You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“Besides some blond Barbie doll that can barely make up a sentence? No, I don’t. Enlighten me with your intelligence.”

“You see, my daddy owns Fearless Records. So, I just might decide that these boys aren’t good enough to record and bam, bye-bye record contract and everything they worked so hard for,” she smiled. I basically wanted to rip her head off her shoulders more than ever. She was asking me to leave John alone or have them loose their record label.

“Bye Ali,” she then walked away and went to talk to John, what a surprise. My blood was boiling. I wanted to curl up in his arms and just cry every tear in my body.

“John, can you take me home? I’m not feeling well,” I asked as he ate his hamburger.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just want to go home and sleep it off. Can you take me?” I asked again as he wrapped his arms around me, a single tear running down my cheek which I made sure to wipe away before he could even see it.

“I can’t leave now, we still have to go over some stuff,” he explained. “Kenny, can you take her home?”

“Yeah sure, it’s no problem,” Kennedy added as he got his keys.

“Thanks man. Baby, call me as soon as you get home, alright?” He said as he leaned in for a kiss. I gave him a kick peck on the lips, said bye to everyone and followed Kennedy out. We got into his car and drove off. Tears were building up in my eyes, I could barely see.

“Ali, what’s wrong? You’re tearing up,” he said as he reached into the back seat and pulled out a box of Kleenex. I couldn’t hold it in anymore and within seconds, I broke into tears.

“Ali, you’re scaring me now. What’s wrong? Want me to call someone? Anny? John? Your mom?”

“She’s going to take him from me,” I yelled out, between sobs.

“Who’s going to take who away?”

“Amber. She’s going to take John from me. She said that if I don’t ‘obey’, she’s going to tell her dad to get rid of your record contract,” I tried to explain.

“Ali, come on now. John loves you so much. You can’t actually believe that he’s going to forget you that easily. Come on Ali. Don’t cry. I’ll talk to him about this—”

“No! You can’t say anything. You’re the only one that’s going to know. Promise me Kenny,” I said as he pulled into my driveway.

“Alright, alright. Anyways, you’re home. Goodnight. Don’t forget to call John,” he reminded me as he unlocked the door.

“Thanks Kennedy, goodnight.” I then stepped out of the car and walked to my front door. My mom was asleep on the sofa and my dad wasn’t anywhere to be found. I put a blanket over my mother and started heading towards the stairs.

“Goodnight sweetheart,” my mom said to me as I walked to the staircase. I wiped away a tear and smiled. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Come sit with me.” I walked over to her and laid my head on her shoulder.

“Nothing mom, everything is fine,” I tried to cover up.

“Alicia, I think I know you better than you know yourself, so tell me what’s wrong right now. What happened with John?”

“Why do you assume it’s about John?”

“So it is about him. What happened?” She said as she petted my hair.

“Nothing mom, it’s not important. Where’s dad anyways?”

“He left on a business trip this morning,” she explained. The business trips were becoming a weekly thing these past few months.

“I’m sorry for not coming home last night.”

“No Ali, I’m sorry for not telling you earlier. You deserved to know before anyone. It was always just me and you growing up and I completely understand how you feel now that there’s another baby in the picture.” I hadn’t had a talk like this with my mom in a while. I missed her.

“It’s just a little weird, but as long as your happy mommy. Anyways, I’m going to bed, goodnight,” she kissed my forehead like she did when I was little and I walked to the staircase.

“Oh and Ali, whatever happened, talk to him. There’s nothing worse for a relationship than the lack of communication,” she explained. She was right. I smiled and walked up to my room were I undressed and slipped on my pajamas. Once I was in my bed, I checked my phone. 2 missed calls and 3 text messages all from John, so I decided to call him back.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me,” I spoke into the phone.

“Baby, what happened before?” He asked, worried.

“Nothing, just a headache. Anyways, are you still at the studio with… Amber?”

“No, but I just dropped her off at her house.”

“You drove her home?”

“Yeah, is that a bad thing?” He asked. My voice was becoming shaky again and I could feel the tears building up once again.

“God John, couldn’t someone else drive her?” I flustered.

“Ali, it’s like, 11 o’clock. Either I drove her or she had to take the bus. What’s wrong with you?”

“Can’t you see? John, she wants you so bad and every time you do something like this, she thinks you want her back,” I explained.

“Do you seriously think that? Come on Ali. Do you really think that I’m stupid enough to fall for her? Don’t you trust me at all?” I could now sense in his voice that he was getting angry or at least irritated.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that—”

“That what? You’re jealous, aren’t you? You better get over yourself, Ali. Look, I got to go. Talk to you later,” he said and before I could even respond, he hung up. He never hung up on me, ever. This was our first official fight. People always say that it’s healthy for couples to fight, but nonetheless, I cried myself to sleep.