I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing and groaned.
When I opened my eyes I realised I wasn’t in Jack’s bunk, or in a tour bus, and Jack wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
I sat up on the comfy and squared bed and looked around.
The room had white walls covered in posters of bands and had two big windows with light grey curtains, next to the bed there was a dark brown nightstand with three drawers and to my right there was a big wooden closet which matched the nightstand. The floor was barely visible; there were clothes scattered around the floor and an open suitcase in front of the door. I also noticed the bed had some tiny poles and how it smeled like Jack. I also noticed I was only in my underwear.
I crawled to the sound of my phone and found it in the right pocket of my jeans, which were on the floor next to me, and answered without looking at the contact.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Good evening sleepyhead” Oriol.
“Evening? It’s morning” I groaned.
“Oh, sorry, I forgot. Where are you?” he asked.
“In Baltimore with Jack, you kind of woke me up, ass” I smiled a bit with my eyes closed.
“Well, sorry but I’m not sorry” he chuckled, “I called to ask you about Stella”
“What about her?” my eyes shot open.
“I was wondering if you gave us permission to let some kids ride her or you prefered us to ride her only” Oh, that. In the centre they often asked whether you wanted other kids to ride your horse whilst you were away or you prefered them to be ridden by an instructor.
“Put her in some classes” I answered, “Let her socialize a bit, just tell whoever rides her to use their legs more than the whip”
“Don’t worry, I will” he chuckled, “She really gets heated up with the whip”
“She does” I agreed, last time someone used a whip with her she bucked the girl off (luckily she was one of those preppy girls and I didn’t really mind), “That’s all you wanted to tell me?” I asked.
“Of course not!” he laughed, “How are you and Jack doing?” I heard him smirk.
“Awesome, I finally told him about my eating issues. Well, more or less” I explained him about Alex finding out and what happened last night.
“Well, good to know you’re doing so well” he said happily.
“Thanks, Ori. Now, enough talking about me, how about you?” I smirked.
“Well, let’s just say there’s a new girl at the centre... around my age”
“Ooh, tell me about it” I urged.
He told me about this brunette called Laura. She had green eyes and tanned skin and was a few centimetres shorter than Ori. He said she was funny and intelligent, she didn’t know a lot about horses but he told me he’d give her extra classes or something like that. Oriol seemed excited when he talked about her and that made me happy. His last relationship wasn’t catastrophic, but it wasn’t a simple break up either and he deserved someone who made him happy.
After talking about this girl, we talked a bit more and he explained me about this new andalusian mare and how close she and Stella were getting, and we hung up. Then I heard the front door unlock and then close, followed by hurried footsteps approaching me.
It triggered something in my mind and for a second, I thought about that night in Bristol, when Mikel beat me up and I had to run away again, and froze, but then I realised I wasn’t in Bristol, or England, or Europe, in that sense, and that I was at Jack’s house, and relaxed.
The bedroom door opened and Jack walked in with a huge smile on his lips. He was wearing his black boner T-shirt and took off his jeans and his shoes.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were up” he climbed on the bed and kissed me.
“I got a call from Oriol, I haven’t been awake that long, though” I kissed him back.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed your morning voice” he smirked when we pulled away from our kiss.
I smirked back and looked at him in the eyes. His eyes sparkled whilst he looked at me closely, making small butterflies fill my stomach. “So… breakfast?” I smiled softly.
He smiled back and after I grabbed one of his shirts he had on the floor, he put his arms around my waist and pulled me up. I wrapped my legs around him and put my arms around his neck. He carried me down the stairs to the kitchen and sat me on the counter, but I didn’t let go.
“No” I pouted, “Don’t go”
“Babe, I’ll be right here” I unwrapped an arm from his neck, keeping the other one tight and he brought his hand to mine and rubbed soft circles with his thumb on mine, the ones that had the K and Q hearts.
I looked at them and smiled.
“My koala Queen” he whisered in my ear, following my eyes, making me blush.
When my arms and legs weren’t holding him tightly, he pulled away and walked to make me some cereals.
“Why am I a koala, now?” I chuckled.
“Because you hold on to me like a koala” he pecked my lips with a bowl and the milk in his hands, “A very cute one, by the way” he smirked and pured the milk on my cereal and grabbed a spoon from a drawer, and handed me my breakfast.
“Thankyou, my King” I pecked his lips and started to eat my cereal.
It was making me a bit uncomfortable eating in front of Jack after telling him about my guidelines, but I ignored it.
“Where did you go this morning?” I asked.
“Grocery shopping, I hope you don’t mind”
“No, no, it’s fine” I smiled at him, finishing my cereals. I turned to the sink and put water in the bowl. Then I turned to Jack, who wrapped his arms around my waist and put my arms around his neck, pulling us closer, and kissed him with a small smile.
“You’re so beautiful” he whispered in my ear.
“Look at yourself” I smiled teasingly.
He just chuckled and buried his face in my neck when the door rang.
“Who may that be?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Let’s find out” Jack’s smiled fell a bit but his eyes sparkled, eyeing me up and down before throwing me over his shoulder.
“Jack!” I shouted.
He laughed walking to the door and opened the door. I couldn’t see who it was and felt Jack pull me down.
“Hey, mom” he smiled.
I turned around to face a short woman with dirty blonde shoulder length hair, she and Jack looked alike.
Nooo, that’s because she’s his mother, maybe?
I mentally rolled my eyes, shut up brain.
“Jacky! I heard you came back from tour and drove to your house to bring you Olivia back” she pointed the dog next to her.
“Thanks, ma!” Jack hugged her, “Please come in” he picked Olivia up and turned to me, “Mom, I want to present you to María, my girlfriend, María this is my mom” he presented us whilst we walked to the open living room which was connected to the kitchen. Jack sat on the couch and watched us.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms Barakat” I smiled and did my greeting thing, which Joyce seemed to approve on and actually kissed my cheeks back, first one to respond like that.
“Call me Joyce, my dear” she gave me a motherly smile sitting down on the sofa, her smile was something I wasn’t very familiar of due to my lack of family contact, and made me smile back instantly. I felt Jack’s smile on me.
I nodded with a smile before Joyce turned to Jack, “You’ve got a yourself a beautiful and nice girlfriend, Jack” Jack grinned, “It was about damn time” they chuckled.
“It was worth the wait” he put an arm behind my back and placed it on my hip, and pulled me closer, putting Olivia down.
“And how long have you been together?” she smirked.
“Well, we started a year ago…” Jack murmured, Joyce’s eyes widening.
“Oh!” she clapped her hands together, “Wait, you’re María, that girl he didn’t stop talking about?” she turned to me, I raised my eyebrows and turned to Jack.
“You talked about me to your parents?” I asked, Jack turned his head to not meet my gaze and blushed.
“Well, more than talked, he cried over you” I turned to Joyce with a questioning look and felt Jack’s soft stare on me, probably studying my reaction.
“I regretted treating you like I did the day we-” he mumbled.
“Jack, it wasn’t your fault, how could you know, in the first place?” I turned to him with a small smile, “And we’re not going over this again” I stuck up my index finger.
“So, tell me about it” Joyce chimed in, “What happened?”
Jack and I exchanged look before I gave him an encouraging look so he would explain.
“I’ll give you a more detailed explanation another day, but I kind of discovered she had an abusive relationship with that guy that called me” Joyce’s expression fell, and I looked away, looking at Olivia, who was also staring at me, “I decided to go back to Barcelona to be with her when I heard she had a terrible accident and went to see her” Jack continued, “And in the hospital we kind of made things up again” he added with a smirk creeping on his face.
“When he says ‘we kind of made things up again’ he really means that he took that chance to have sex” I chuckled.
“Jack-“ Joyce looked at Jack with a playful expression.
“It was her fault!” he pointed at me, “Her nurse came in and said she couldn’t shower her, so María had the option of getting help from another nurse or from myself, and she chose me! Now, what was I supposed to do?” he tried to contain his laughter.
“And that’s why you’ll forever be my little horny boy” Joyce laughed and turned to me, “You guys should come home another time, then I could show you some of Jack’s photo albums” she smirked.
“I’d love to” I smirked back.
“No, please! Mom, don’t!” Jack begged. It was cute seeing him like this.
“It’s like she hasn’t seen your tiny dick already!” Joyce snapped back with a chuckle.
Now I understood why Jack was… well, Jack. As the minutes passed by, I noticed how open and friendly/motherly Joyce was.
“Well, I’m afraid I’ll have to go” she frowned and stood up. Jack and I stood up as well and lead her to the front door, she turned to me after saying goodbye to Jack, “It was nice to finally meet you” she hugged me tightly, like I was part of the family already, and I hugged her back and kissed her cheeks. When we pulled away I smiled at her.
“My pleasure” I smiled.
“You guys can come over if you want to for dinner” she offered, “Then my husband could meet you aswell, and I could show you the albums” she added with a wink.
“Mom, quit embarassing me” Jack blushed next to me and I wraped an arm around his waist, pulling him closer to me.
“Baby, it’s my job to embarrass you” she chuckled, “You guys could come over for dinner!” she exclaimed.
“Can we go, pleeeeeease?” I pouted, turning to Jack.
“Alright, fine. We’ll come” I pecked his lips and smiled at Joyce.
“Thankyou thankyou thankyou” I hugged him tighter and felt his arm snake behind me.
“Well, I’ll see you two tonight, then” Joyce smiled and waved off when she was in her car, about to drive off.
“Bye!” I waved her off and turned to Jack, who was red in embarassment.
“That was so embarassing” he almost whispered, walking to the living room and sitting down on the couch.
I sat on his lap facing him, almost straddling him, and smirked.
“It wasn’t! It was actually cute how much you were blushing” I chuckled softly.
“You’re such a…” he shook his head with a smirk and kissed me, cupping my face with his hands.
I leaned down and kissed him back, the kiss becoming heated by the second.
“Shall we continue this upstairs?” Jack panted in a husky voice.
I nodded quickly and pressed my lips against his once again, but before he could lift me up, Olivia barked at us.
“I think she wants our attention first” I giggled and turned to Olivia, who kept looking at Jack and I.
“Olive!” Jack leaned down and she started to lick his face, he lifted her up and placed her on my lap, “Say hi to María” he smiled.
Olivia kept looking at me and I petted her, she soon jumped and started to lick my face as well.
When she stopped, she curled on my lap facing Jack and placed her head on my knee, I giggled.
“I think she likes you” Jack hugged my side.
“Yep” I smiled at myself.
“Have you ever had a dog?” he asked me, smiling like an idiot.
“Yeah, actually when I was adopted there was a beagle in my house, her name was Elma and she was the best dog ever” I noticed how my eyes started to water, “She died from cancer and having both her back legs fucked up, when I was fourteen” Jack hugged me tighter and kissed my temple.
“That sucks. How old was she?” he asked softly.
“Almost seventeen. I mean, I knew she was going to day any day because the chemo didn’t affect her anymore and she was old, but it still hurt me” I trailed off.
“Well, if she lived that long that means she was good taken care of” he gave me a soft smile.
“Hell yeah” I smiled at the memory. The thing is, Elma didn’t bite me once, and you have to considder I cut her hair, pulled her ears and tail, stole her food, I even painted her and applied ‘eyeshadow’ on her once, but she didn’t show me her teeth once.
“That is her rose, right?” he said pointing at my left rose, which had her name under it. I nodded.
“I also had a jack russell” I cleared my voice, “She was the first dog I had as an actual puppy and she was awesome” I felt Jack’s smile on me “She had anxiety because she was taken away from her mother and siblings too early, and woke me up at 4am because she heard the neighbours arrive, but still” I chuckled at the end, “Sorry if I’m just talking too much” I looked at Jack.
“No, no, it’s beautiful seeing you talk about your dogs like that” he shook his head, “Your eyes sparkle when you talk about them” he smiled and pecked the tip of my nose, "And how can a dog have anxiety?” he asked, curious.
“Well, she cried a whole lot and sometimes she stopped dead on her tracks when we went for a walk, and started crying and barking and wouldn’t move, and if you touched her, she’d just cry harder” I explained, “Plus, when I told the vet, she explained it was possible, so I guess I have to believe that” I smiled.
“Hmm… What was her name?"
“Sock” I smiled.
“You named a dog Sock?” he chuckled.
“Yep, ‘cause I had a thing of replying ‘Pues ok’, which is an ironic way of saying ‘alright’ and when they gave us Sock, my brother made a short version of it, so I could remember it better”
“You spanish people are weird” he chuckled and buried his face in my neck.
“Says an american-slash-lebanese” I scoffed.
“Hey” he chuckled, “At least our leader doesn’t go shooting elephants when he can’t stand on his own feet” he laughed.
I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came out, he had a point; king Juan Carlos tripped over his own foot all the time but still went hunting elephants. Go figure.
“Alright, you have a point there” I chuckled, “How do you even know?” I raised an eyebrow.
“When I stayed at your house, I occasionally saw the news” he shrugged, “Your country is fucked up”
“And the politicians are asses” I agreed.
“Luckily we have Obama, and Obama is awesome” he smiled against my skin.
“Couldn’t agree more” I giggled and he played with my hair.
We stayed in a comfortable silence for a bit and I felt Olivia move a bit on my lap, changing her position.
“Hey, Mari” Jack broke the silence.
“Yes, Jacky?”
“I love you” he looked up at me and I saw him blush.
“I love you too” I smiled and leaned down to kiss him, he sat up a bit and cupped my face with his hands.

---

“This was his first bath at home” Joyce pointed at a photo.
I giggled and examined the photo closely. Awww, Jack’s baby nose was adorably big, like now, but with him being a baby at that time, it looked three times cuter.
“Mom!” Jack pouted as he walked into the living room.
Joyce smirked at his son and turned to me, pointing another photo.
“This was in the small party his grandparents organized after his birth” she smiled at the memory.
“Mom!” Jack protested and I saw him blushing, his face turning a deep scarlett colour.
“Shut up, Jacky!” I giggled, “You were so damn cute” I grinned.
“You say it like I wasn’t cute anymore” he pouted.
“That’s because you aren’t” I smiled at him. He put a hand on his chest and opened his mouth, “You’re not cute, you’re handsome” I chuckled as he walked to me furiously but with a smirk on his face. He tickled my sides and wrapped his body around mine so I wouldn’t kick anyone, when he stopped, I panted, “And so damn sexy” he smirked and kissed my cheek. I smiled and turned to Joyce, who was smiling at us with a big grin.
“I totally ship Mack” she smirked at us. My jaw dropped with a smile and Jack cut off what I was about to say.
“You know about that ship name?” he raised an eyebrow playfully.
“Darling, it’s all over the Internet” she with a hint of sass in her tone.
I giggled and Jack put a hand around my waist and kissed my temple.
“She caught us” he said in dramatic voice.
Joyce and I bursted out laughing and we turned to the album again.
Soon, Jack’s father came from work and we started to have dinner, Joyce attempted to do a gazpacho, a typical spanish dinner which consisted on a mixture of vegetables in a tomato soup (which, by the way, had a few calories and lots of vitamins) also, it reminded me of the gazpacho my grandmother did to me when I was younger. It was delicious. Normally I wouldn’t dare to try anything spanish in a foreign country because it just wasn’t the same, but I had to admit Joyce nailed it.
“The dinner was delicious, Joyce, thankyou” I hugged her when we were leaving.
“Thanks to you” she smiled, “Come anytime, so we can look at more albums together” she chuckled.
“Mom!” he pouted, “Stop embarrassing me!”
“But if I don’t embarrass you, then who will?” she laughed and hugged him.
“Mhm” Jack mutered, hugging her back, “Thanks for the dinner, ma” he smiled.
“You’re welcome, Jacky” she pulled away from the hug and smiled at him.
Bassam walked to us and after saying goodbye and everything, we headed back to Jack’s house.

---

I sat on the couch and buried my face in a pillow.
“You tired, babe?” Jack sat next to me and placed a hand on my waist, sending faint tickles where his hands rested.
“No, it’s just…” I stopped.
“Just what?” he turned me around and leaned down to look at me in the eye.
“My legs hurt” I whined.
“Wanna watch something on Netflix?” he caressed my cheek.
“What’s Netflix?” I asked, a bit sleepy.
He just laughed and pulled me to his side.
“You have so much to learn, babe” I buried my face in his chest and he started to choose a film. I opened my eyes a bit and saw him biting his lip, staring at the screen.
“What’s up, Jacky?” I looked up.
“Can we watch Home Alone?” he pouted, “It’s been so long and-“
“It’s fine, Jacky” I smiled at him.
“Yes!” he kissed me and soon, Home Alone started playing.
Jack wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me to his side throughout the whole film. It was fun to watch Jack mouth every single dialogue in the entire film, his eyes glued to the screen. He looked like a little kid.
I fell asleep in his arms, my head on his chest, and hearing the sound of his heartbeat.

Notes

Sorry I haven't been that active lately, I've been a bit busy and hadn't had time to write as much as I liked to.
BTW The thing of the dogs, I meantioned my dogs, because they're awesome and Elma was priceless :3
What are you thinking about it so far?
Please comment, it really keeps me going and all comments are appreciated, even if I don't reply (I've been lacking of time and I can only upload some chapters and that's it). So... yeah...
Please comment! ;)

Title credit: Lovestruck by Blood On The Dance Floor.