Destined To Explode

It’s almost nine pm when the car pulls up outside Alex’s house. I quickly hand the cab driver my money and a tip, eager to be inside of the place that feels more like home than the one I technically live in.

I don’t knock, I don’t see the point, plus I don’t think that my feet would wait for someone to answer so instead, I burst in, dropping my bag in the hall, grinning when Alex pokes his head around the door of the lounge, his eyes widening as he sees me, obviously surprised at my early arrival home.

I don’t give him much time to respond to my sudden presence as I sprint towards the tall boy and throw not only my arms but also my legs around him, laughing as I pretty much knock the breath from him.

“Fucking hell, Poppy.” He groans, one arm circling my back while the other hoists my thigh higher on his waist, slipping it to rest under my backside, keeping me in place. “It’s only Wednesday, Baby.”

“I know.” I cuddle my face into his neck while he carries me through to the lounge, sitting down so that I’m straddling his waist, his hands keeping me balanced as they splay across my back. “I wanted to be back here so I sorted everything and managed to get myself a plane ticket this afternoon.”

He grins, leaning forward and pressing our lips together in a gentle kiss, pulling back to smile at me again, nuzzling his nose against my cheek so that he can whisper in my ear. “If Rian wasn’t home right -”

“Well, Rian is home right now so you can finish that sentence some other time.” Rian guffaws as he enters from the kitchen, raising his glass in my direction. “Good trip, Pops?”

“For the time that I was there, it was fine.” I smile, the touch of Alex’s hand smoothing over the little bit of exposed skin on my back alerting me to the fact that he knows that I’m not telling the whole truth. “You had a good few days, Ri?”

“A moping Alex, an ill Jack and no Zack to keep me sane? It’s been a joyous time.”

“Jack’s sick?” I pout, purposely ignoring my pouting boyfriend. “I better go and see him tomorrow then. Deliver some Goldfish crackers and watch Lilo and Stitch with him.”

“Just because he’s ill doesn’t mean that he’ll want to watch Lilo and fucking Stitch. Stop trying to force that film on us, Pops.”

I whine, flicking Alex’s ear as I deflate from my moment of happiness. “It’s such a pretty film. How about The Little Mermaid? Reckon he’ll watch that one with me?”

“How about you just skip all of this trouble and just come and see me?” He grins. “I’ll take you out to lunch.”

“I can definitely find something better to do than that, Lex.”

“Ooh, burn!” Rian laughs, shaking his head. “I think that I’ll leave you two in your little lovers tiff and go call Cass! See ya, Pops.”

“Night, Ri.” I smile, turning back to Alex once the drummer has left the room, finding my boyfriend glaring playfully at me. “What?”

“Are you ever going to let me take you out on a date? Or is this relationship -”

“This ‘relationship’ has been going on for three days, Al. And I have been seven hundred miles away for all but an hour of those.”

I hate to be so brutally honest with him but as much as it felt like we had been together a lot longer what with things happening before Christmas, but only after New Year’s had things actually started to go forward and officially Monday was the start of ‘us’.

“Normal relationships start with dates and then things get a little more serious. We’re already pretty backwards what with us fucking when we were eighteen and only getting together now.”

“Lex!”

Alex is laughing at me as I hide my face, knowing that my cheeks will be flushed with pink at his words, his hands tugging at my wrists as I continue to shake my head, moving my legs away so that I’m not resting on his lap anymore.

“I didn’t know that you embarrassed so easily.” Alex smirks as I glare towards him. “Come on, Poppy. Dinner tomorrow? Nothing exuberant, just something simple.”

I gaze up at him, still hunched over, my hands no longer pressing into my face but still in close proximity as I study the boy, the boy who is throwing everything that I expect from a relationship out of the window and into the wind, whipping my beliefs into a frenzy in my head and it’s only when I feel his warm hand cover mine that I notice my nails have been dragging and digging into my arm.

“Sorry.” I can’t decide if I’m apologising for my actions, or my silence, or my sheer anxiety at the mention of doing something that’s considered normal for two people apparently dating.

“You don’t have to be nervous about going on a date with me, Pops. Just think of it as grabbing a bite to eat with a friend, if that helps at all.”

“It’s nothing like that, Lex. I promise. It’s just been sort of a long time since things were normal in this area of my life, it’s going to take some getting used to.”

“Well, I’ll wine and dine you until you start to love it and then I’ll probably be bankrupt, so it’ll be Ramen noodles in my Mom’s basement. That sound good?”

“Perfect.”

* * * *

It had been a long morning, having not left Alex and Rian’s until gone one am and then being up again at seven to get ready for the day and to be at the local storage unit place in time to meet the guys who had moved my stuff down here, even though I trusted them to put things away right and not steal anything, it was kind of a common courtesy to accompany them while they did it, despite it being their job.

It took barely twenty minutes for them to move stuff from the van and into the space, chatting along as I helped move the smaller stuff, like lamps and the lighter boxes that Marky had packed in my absence.

After a quick trip to Starbucks and to grab a box of Goldfish, I drive to Jack’s knowing that in his sickness, he’ll be locked away in the basement either watching crappy films or playing some ridiculous game from our childhood seeing as he seems to regress back to being an eight year old when he’s sick, probably wanting his Mother’s sympathy.

I pop my head into the lounge when I walk in, making sure that Joyce knows that I’m here and she immediately points me in the direction of the basement, telling me to take a few more bottles of water down for the sick boy who had been hidden away for the past couple of days.

The room’s pretty dark when I step down onto the floor and I shake my head as I spot Jack curled up under a ton of blankets left over from New Year’s Day, head only just poking over the top as he squints in my direction. “Poppy?”

“Well, someone’s wallowing in their own self-pity, huh?” I smirk, walking around to sit on the makeshift bed next to him, kicking my heels across the room with ease. “Jacky sick?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He groans, burying his head into his pillow. “At least it’s before tour, huh?”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want you moping around a bus, would we?” I smile at him. “I brought Goldfish and Starbucks, so how about you sit up and watch something with me.”

“Harry Potter?”

“We’ll have a marathon.”

A few hours later and Jack is back to being asleep, snoring slightly as he curls into a tight ball on the other end of the fold out couch, half drank coffee now cold on the floor by him, my own drained along with a half bag of Goldfish. I decide that I’m not getting anything done just watching my cousin sleep through the film that he had picked, instead picking up my stuff and leaving a message with Joyce to tell Jack to ring me if he wants me back around at any point.

I’m just pulling up to the curb outside of my Mother’s house when my phone rings, Alex’s name, number and face filling the screen as I turn the car off, rolling my eyes as I answer, a fond smile already forming on my lips.

“Can I help you, Mr Gaskarth?”

“Well, Ms Zicarelli, I was wondering if you had considered that date any further?”

“You can pick me up at eight.”

Notes