The Good Life

*Jack*

Izzy and Alan's kids were upstairs while Alan and I were downstairs in the living room with Alex, who was watching some movie on Netflix. Everything was finally getting back to semi-normal until we heard pounding on the door and shouting. Alex jumped up first, running to the door to see who it was and Alan and I followed slowly behind him. The closer we got to the door the more evident it became of whose voice it was.

"I know he's in there! You guys are harboring a whore!" Austin yelled through the door. He sounded completely drunk.

"Alex don't open the door." I whispered. The last thing we needed was to add a yelling drunk guy to the mix.

"I'm not." He told me.

"Fucking let me in!!" Austin yelled, banging on the door even harder, scaring Alan and me.

"How does he know I'm here?" Alan questioned.

"Your car is outside." Alex whispered.

"I fucking swear to God if you don't let me in I'm calling the cops and telling them you kidnapped my kids." Austin yelled.

"Austin go home." Alex finally said through the door.

"Alex let me in." He slurred mocking Alex's tone.

"How about I come out and we can talk?" Alex tried.

"No I want to talk to the whore you're hiding in your house."

"What's going on?" Izzy asked walking halfway down the stairs.

"It’s nothing babe, go back up and check on Taylor and Ian." I told her. She looked at me not believing me but quickly ran when she heard more banging and yelling from Austin.

"This is getting out of hand. I'm calling Oli and Rian. Maybe they can help calm him down" Alex said, pulling out his phone.

"I'll stay out here as long as it takes." Austin yelled.

"Hey Austin it's Jack." I started. I wanted to distract him while Alex was on the phone.

"Hey Jack." He said, catching me off guard since he didn’t yell.

"What exactly do you want us to do?" I asked.

"I just want my kids, Jack." He sounded sad.

"They're not going anywhere with you! You're drunk!" Alan yelled at him making things worse.

"It's better than them being with a cheating bitch!" Austin shouted banging on the door again.

"Austin calm down we'll try to work something out." I said.

"Well let me in the fucking house so we can talk." He banged harder. I looked to Alex who was telling Oli to call Rian for him so he could come back and help us with Austin. He walked back over to us and tried to reason with Austin again.

"Were not letting you in until you calm down." Alex told him.

"Okay okay I'm calm." Austin said. We all looked at each other and shook our heads.

"You're faking it, buddy." Alex said and the banging continued.

"Let me in the fucking house. Let me in the fucking house. Let me in the fucking house. Let me in. . . ." He chanted over and over again.

"Dad stop it! You're scaring me!" Taylor screamed running downstairs. Austin quickly stopped.

"No no I'm sorry Tay." He told her in the calmest voice he could use and still be heard through the door. "Let me in I want to see my daughter." He said on the verge of tears. Hearing him sound broken made me reach for the door lock without thinking about it.

"Jack no!" Alan yelled me and pushed my hand before I could unlock it.

"He has the right to see his kids, Alan." I said.

"Not when he's drunk off his ass." Alan said.

"It doesn't feel right to keep them away from him. They're his kids too."

"Do you think I'm getting some kind of sick pleasure from this? I hate keeping the kids away from him too, but I'm not letting him around them when he's acting like this." Izzy came down stairs in the mist of this to pull Taylor back up with her.

"I'm like this because of you, Alan." Austin yelled. "Because you had to go and fuck some other guy. We are married! Does that mean nothing to you?"

"I-I don't want to talk about this right now." Alan stammered.

"We'll never have to talk about again once we sign the divorce papers." As soon as that left Austin's mouth Alan burst into tears.

"Austin what the hell are you doing?" I heard Oli ask as he approached our door.

"Oli, thank God you’re here. Tell them to let me in." Austin pleaded.

"Or I can take you home and we can come back once you've calmed down a little." Oli said.

"No I'm not going anywhere without my fucking kids!" Austin kicked the door.

"Hey! If you kick my fucking door in I'm going to break your legs!" Alex threatened making Oli die laughing.

"Austin come on seriously go get in the damn car." Oli told him.

"No." Austin said.

"Stop being difficult and get in the car." Alex yelled.

"Why don't you come out here and make me, Gaskarth." Austin yelled trying to get a rise out of Alex and it worked.

"I'll come out there and kick your ass that's what I'll do." Alex yelled.

"Come. Fucking. Do. It." Austin taunted kicking the door with every word.

Before I or Alan could stop him, Alex was pulling the door open his hands already in fist.

Austin ran in running straight past Alex to get to Alan. He grabbed Alan pushed him against the wall.

"Where are my kids?" He yelled while shaking Alan.

I, Alex, and Oli ran trying to pull him off of Alan. Even with all three of us it was hard to try to get him off. I grabbed Austin's arm trying to pull him away but he pushed me down making me fall into the large vase that was sitting on the floor for decoration. It made a loud noise and it cracked but I was too busy to care about that now. I tried to get up and tell Alex not to worry I wasn't hurt, ignoring the pain going down my left arm, but it was too late. I could see the fire in his eyes as he jumped for Austin. Oli was already prepared and jumped in front of Alex. He grabbed Alex before he could touch Austin which made him angrier.

"Alex, look at me baby I'm fine." I said trying to calm him down.

"Oli let me go!" He yelled completely ignoring me and trying to get to Austin.

Austin was still yelling at Alan and holding him against the wall not paying us any attention. I don't think he even notice he pushed me.

"Hey hey hey! What’s going on?" Rian yelled as he ran in the house with Cass close on his heels.
"Cass go check on the kids upstairs. Rian help Oli with Alex." I demanded.

"Jack you're bleeding!" Cass panicked running over to me to look at my arm. Rian went over to help Oli with Alex. I didn't even notice the blood sliding down my arm it was on parts of my shirt and had dropped on some parts of the floor.

"Alex, dude chill." Rian told him. "Look at me! Use your words tell me what happened."

"He pushed Jack!" Was all Alex yelled.

"Oli take Alex to their bedroom until he calms down." Rian told him and Oli struggled but ultimately got Alex moving towards our bedroom.

"Let's go clean this up. I'll go check on the kids afterwards." Cass pulled me to the kitchen and I saw Rian go to talk to Austin and try to release the death grip he had on Alan.

When we got into the kitchen I tried to get a better look at the gigantic cut in my arm, but there was too much blood for me to see anything. I didn't notice before because of all the adrenaline running in my body, but this thing hurt like hell. I know the vase cracked but I didn't think it was enough to dig into my skin. I just hope I don't need stitches.

"This is just too much." I sighed.

"I know but everything will be fine with time." She said. "Do you have a first aid kit?"
"It's in my room."

It wasn’t long before she was jogging back to me with the first aid kit in her hand. "How's everything going in there with Alex and Oli?" I asked.

"Uhh it's going to be a little while before Alex is calmed down." She chuckled. She grabbed my arm and cleaned up the blood around the gash. "This is really deep, Jack. I think you may need stitches."

"Noooooo." I whined. This was just going to make things worse than they needed to be.

"Yeah I gotta take you to the hospital. Come on." She grabbed Rian's keys off the counter.

"Take my car so Rian isn't stranded here. And do you think we can leave without telling Alex because this is only going to make him angrier. I'd rather tell him tonight when everything isn't so hectic." I begged.

"Yeah I think that would be best." She smiled.

"Thanks."

We walked pass Austin, Alan, and Rian as we walked towards the door. Austin was sitting on the floor crying with his head in his hands and Rian was calmly talking to him and Alan. Rian looked up at us mouthing ‘Is everything okay’. Cass mouthed back to him ‘Not really, we’re going to the hospital’ pointing to my arm and he sighed and nodded.

***

We were in the waiting room for a few minutes until a nurse came out and called my name. Cass and I followed the nurse to room number seven and I sat on the hospital bed while Cass sat in a chair right next to the bed.

"Hi Mr. Gaskarth, my name is Tonya. I need to examine the cut on your arm to make sure it's deep enough for stitches." The nurse told me and I nodded my head. I wasn't in the talkative mood since my arm was burning so badly.

Tonya carefully moved my arm to examine it. After a few seconds of looking she said, "Yeah I'm going to get a doctor in here to stitch this right up for you."

"Thank you." I forced myself to smile. She smiled back at us and left the room.

"The doctor will numb it so you won't feel the pain anymore." Cass said to comfort me.

"Thank God." I cried.

A few minutes passed before I asked, "How do you think things are going back at my house?"

"Um maybe Oli is still trying to convince Alex not to kill Austin and Rian is probably still trying to calm down them down." She said.

"Great." I said sarcastically, turning to lay down on the hospital bed completely. "Well actually this is great. I'd rather Alex still be there preoccupied with that then he to find out Austin seriously did hurt me. I mean he's going to find out once I get home with thread in my arm, but I'm sure he won't be as angry as he is now. Right?" I looked to Cass for reassurance.

"No! We both know Alex is going to flip shit about this regardless of when he finds out about it. And he's going to be angry that you hid this from him." She laughed making me laugh too because she was right.

"I just don't want their friendship to end over this." I said.

"Yeah but once they both calm down and Austin sobers up they'll be able to have an adult conversation about what happened and go from there." She said. "I'm going to go to the bathroom, I'll be right back." She left closing the door behind her.

The doctor still didn't come while Cass was gone and I was starting to become impatient. That's the only thing I hate about hospitals; all the waiting.

My phone started to ring and I looked down to see that Alex was calling me. I stared at it until it stopped ringing. Seconds later Cass's phone started ringing. I looked over to the bedside table that it was sitting on to see 'Asshole Gaskarth" flashing on the screen with Alex's picture. I guess she wasn't over the argument they had yesterday.

Cass came back into the room a few seconds after her phone had stopped ringing. "Why do you look so frightened?" She asked chuckling.

"Alex just called both of us." I answered.

"He can’t possibly know that were here" She said and I agreed. But a text message I received from Alex proved that we were both wrong.

To Jack:
You're going to need more than stitches when I get to that hospital.

I showed it to Cass confused as to how he could know we were at the hospital. She shrugged just as confused as I was until realization hit her.

"Fucking Rian." She said. I looked at her to explain and she laughed. "We didn't tell him not to tell Alex. . ."

Notes

Enjoy!