The Good Life

*Alex*

Jack, Izzy, and I were sitting in the living room watching The Princess and the Frog since it was now Izzy’s favorite Disney movie. She was cuddling Jack making me jealous because I had to lay by myself on another part of the couch. She felt better than she did yesterday so she did make it to school earlier today. I didn't really know what to do when it was her time of the month Jack would always handle those types of things. After all he did say he would if we had a girl. I would just watch from afar and occasionally comfort her if she asked me to.

I still felt kind of uneasy about that guy sending Jack flowers. I know it wasn’t Jack’s fault or anything, I just didn’t like that he had to spend any amount of time working with him in another country. Jack and I have been married for almost fifteen years, if he wanted to cheat on me he would have done it already so I’m not afraid of that happening. I’m afraid that guy will try to force Jack to do things with him or drug him or something. That was probably an extreme way of thinking, but it was possible. He had just met Jack that day he sent him flowers so he did move fast and showed he had strong feelings for him. I didn’t want to keep bringing it up and bothering Jack about this so I was going to leave it alone for now and call and text him while he was gone to keep checking on him. I also might ask David to keep an eye on that Tyler guy when he’s with Jack.

“Papa look! I have check mark next to my name on Twitter now!” Izzy exclaimed holding her phone up to Jack’s face.

“That’s because you have Barakat in your last name. They had to verify that you were really my daughter and not some imposter.” Jack told her.

“How do you know it’s not because she has Gaskarth in her last name?” I asked laughing.

“The only reason you’re verified is because you’re married to me.” Jack told me smugly and I flipped him off.

“I don’t care why, I’m just so happy to actually be verified!” Izzy said. “But I only have two-thousand followers though and most of mine are probably people from school. Papa you have . . . one-point-two million.”

“I guess I win.” Jack said making Izzy glare at him.

“I want to be Twitter famous.” She complained.

“You have to do something to get noticed.” Jack told her.

“Like what?” She asked.

“Uhhh You can come model for my advertisements!” Jack said and she perked up.

“Really?!?”

“Yeah, you can do a photoshoot in some items from the summer collection next year and it’ll be on magazines, billboards, and however else we advertise.” He said.

“I should get into shape!” She gasped.

“In shape? You’re fine! Don’t start becoming self-conscious of your weight before you can even get to the modeling part.” I told her.

“But look at this!” She whined as she pulled her shirt up and pulled at her stomach. She was just pulling at her skin, the girl had the fastest metabolism in the world like Jack and I did. I sure she was just doing the thing almost all people her age did; overreact about her weight.

“All I see is a healthy stomach.” Jack said, poking her stomach.

“Stop that tickles!” She laughed and tried to pull his hands away from her.

"Oh! Alex, I don't have to go to London until a week after New Year’s. So we can still go spend all of Christmas and New Years with my mother." Jack told me.

"Do I have to stay here with him?" Izzy whined and I put my hand over my heart.

"Ouch! Why don’t you want to stay with me?" I asked her and she laughed.

"Because we're probably going to eat pizza and Oreos every day and you're going to be unfair and bossy without Papa here." She said and now it was my turn to laugh.

"I can cook! I just never have to because your father is practically a stay at home dad. And I'm sure I'll be my normal bossy self, nothing you're not used to." I said.

"I'm not a stay at home dad! Izzy you can call me if he's being unfair or 'too bossy'." Jack said.

"You can't do anything about it all the way from London." I taunted.

"I can send Cassadee over here." He said slyly.

"Oh god please don't, we'd probably murder each other at this point." I groaned.

"Both of you should be over that by now." Jack said rolling his eyes.

“I’m over it. I don’t hold grudges.” I told him.

“Oh is that right? Then why are you still mad at Austin?” He asked.

“Okay that’s different! He hurt you I can’t help but to still be angry about that. Even you should be angry about it.” I said.

“It was an accident.”

“It was an accident in the fact that he was trying to hurt Alan not you, but had he not gotten that drunk and came over none of that would have happened.” I said.

“If Alan hadn’t of cheated none of that would have happened either, so are you mad at Alan too?” He asked.

“Eh I’m more disappointed in Alan than I am angry.” I said truthfully.

“Well but I’m not going hold that against Austin. I sure he feels bad enough since he moved out of their house. Cass told me he’s staying with her and Rian while he looks for his own place now.” He said. I already knew all of this because I talked to Rian on the phone yesterday.

"So what's going to happen for Thanksgiving? Like will Uncle Alan just come with Taylor and Ian and Uncle Austin just had to fend for himself because I don't think that's fair." Izzy said.

"Austin is not allowed back in this house." I said quickly.

"Alex come on. It’s a holiday you shouldn’t be like that." Jack said.

"Alan can come with the kids but Austin can't." I said stubbornly.

"But Uncle Alan is the one who cheated it's not fair that he gets to come and Uncle Austin can't." Izzy said.

"He cheated on Austin, not the whole family." I said and Jack scoffed at me. I get that that sounded a little insensitive.

"It looks like we're choosing sides if we don't at least invite Austin." Jack said.

"Alright you can invite him but he's just going to get stopped at the door." I warned, making Izzy laugh.

"Daddy that's so childish." She chuckled.

"That's not childish, he's invited he just can't come in." I said.

"Then what is the point of inviting him?" Jack asked.

"So it doesn't ‘look like we're choosing sides.'" I used his words and imitated his voice.

"There are not enough words in the world for me to explain how much I can't stand you." Jack laughed.

"I know. But it's already going to be awkward enough with Alan there since everyone knows what he did. I just think we should try to keep this dinner as normal as possible and if we invite Austin it's going to be far from normal with me fighting him the entire time."

"You’re an idiot.” Jack laughed. “Should we not invite Alan then?"

"Aw but what about Taylor and Ian? They shouldn't be punished for their parents’ wrong doings." Izzy said.

"Okay well Taylor and Ian are invited then but their parents aren't." I said and Jack glared at me. "What?" I asked him.

"Soooo you're going to call Alan and tell him to drop Ian and Taylor off for Thanksgiving dinner and then you’re going to tell him he's not allowed to stay?" He asked sarcastically and I laughed at the tone he was using.

"What do you guys want from me? Every idea I come up with keeps getting shot down." I complained jokingly.

"That's because you're not taking this seriously." Izzy giggled.

"I've done nothing but take this seriously, it's you two that are turning everything I say into a joke." I said.

"How about I call Alan and ask him if he feels comfortable eating dinner with everyone?" Jack suggested.

"Yeah that sounds good, but would you call Uncle Austin too?" Izzy asked him.

"Hmm I don't know. I feel really weird about reaching out to him, but like you said it does feel unfair to invite Alan and not Austin. Has Austin tried calling you, Alex?" Jack asked.

"I don't know." I shrugged my shoulders.

"What do you mean you don't know?" He sighed.

"I blocked his number." I admitted.

"How old are you?" Jack asked and Izzy burst into laughter.

"Hey don't make fun of me! I have nothing to say to him and there's nothing he had to say to me." I said.

"I'll get Rian to talk to him." He pulled out his phone to text Rian.

We spent another hour bickering over what to put on our thanksgiving shopping list. May came over in the mist of this just to visit us.

“Why are you here?” Jack asked May as she walked into the living room.

“I came to visit the Gaskarth’s.” She smiled ignoring her brother’s rudeness. "Look at the baby cuddled into her father!" May gushed at Izzy. She went over to pinch her cheeks.

"Stop I'm not a baby!" Izzy whined.

"You'll always be my baby girl." Jack said while kissing her on the forehead.

"What happened to your arm?" May asked her brother and grabbed his arm to get a better look.

"It's a long story." Jack brushed it off but May wasn't going to take that as an answer.

"Jack Bassam! What happened to your arm?!?" She asked more sternly.

"Okay mom. Austin was drunk and accidentally pushed me down and I fell into one of those vases in the foyer." He told her.

"That's a very watered down version of the story." I mumbled but they still heard me.

"It's the short version." He said.

"Do I need to go pay Austin a visit?" She said threateningly.

"No I already took care of that." I said proudly making Jack sigh.

"Where's my nephew and brother-in-law?" Jack changed the subject.

"At home being lazy as always. They're watching some WWE special on tonight." She said and took a seat next to me. "And I wanted to get out of the house."

"Well we're just making Thanksgiving plans so you can help with that." Jack said.

"Who's all coming?" She asked.

"The same old people. Us of course, and you, Danny, and Evan. Cassadee and Rian, Oli and Hannah-“

“Ooo I can I sit next to Oli?” May said. Her crush on him was sickening.

“I find it absolutely disgusting that you have a crush on Oli.” I said and she laughed.

“It’s not a crush . . . I just think he looks good.” She defended.

“Oli is a good looking guy, Alex.” Jack added making me scoff. I think he said it just to make me jealous.

“I never would have guessed you would leave me for Oli.” I said dramatically.

“Oh my God you are so dramatic! No one said anything about leaving you.” He laughed.

“He’s just like Danny! I told him how one of the male teachers helped me set up my classrooms and he went into complete jealous mode.” May said.

“We can’t help it.” I chuckled and they both rolled their eyes at me.

“Back to the list. Um maybe Alan and his two kids. And I'm going to invite our neighbors from across the street hopefully there won't be a problem with that." Jack said, looking between Izzy and me.

"Papa, I’m over Vic and all of that stuff now." Izzy confidently.

“No problem here then.” I confirmed.

"Okay so that's seventeen people I think." He said.

"What about Grandpa?" Izzy asked.

"I asked him and he said him and Tina are making their own dinner. He invited us but I told him we were just going to eat here instead. We can go over the day after to eat leftovers with him." I said. It didn’t really bother me not to spend holidays with my Dad since I can see him any normal day of the week.

"Well we should cook enough food for thirty people so there’ll be enough leftovers for everyone." May said.

"Good idea, and we should go grocery shopping this weekend so we're not fighting people for turkeys at the last minute." Jack laughed.

In my (lazy) opinion it was too early for us to be doing this since we had two weeks left, but of course Jack hates waiting ‘til the last minute to plan things.

Notes

I used to have an image for Izzy in my head, but now for some reason all I see is Kylie Jenner. I don't know what's wrong with me lol she's not even Brazilian.