Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

Jack let loose his grasp on Alex quickly, backing up just in time for Alex to face his mother as he said, "Sorry, mom,"

While Jack was snickering to the side, trying his hardest not to burst out laughing at the stunned expressions on both Alex and his mother's faces, Alex hopped off of the counter slowly.

"Um, don't sit on the counter, hon," Isobel pointed out, and Alex nodded. He found it interesting how she could talk to him about sex without any problems, but when she simply saw her son kissing his boyfriend, she was quite shocked. "I'm not bothered," Isobel confirmed, not wanting to plant any ideas in either boy's heads that would make them want to hide, "But maybe keep that for upstairs, if you know people are down here."

"Yes, mum," Alex responded, catching Jack's eye. They both knew it was a reasonable request, and were surprised it was only the first time they had been walked in on. "What was it you were asking?"

"I was going to ask if you've finished preparing everything," Alex's mother explained, "But it looks like you've done so. Your father and I are going out for dinner now, but we'll be back soon."

"Okay," Alex hugged his mother goodbye, and Jack waved to her.

Marissa was the first to arrive, knocking on the door a couple minutes before five o'clock. Jack ran to open the door, greeting the girl before being pushed aside by Alex, who started off with a cheery, "Hey, Marissa!"

"Happy birthday, again!" Marissa laughed, giving Alex a quick hug before stepping inside.

"There's food basically everywhere in the kitchen," Alex offered, "And drinks in the fridge."

"Thanks," Marissa nodded, "So, what're we actually going to do?"

Alex could only shrug in response, so Jack decided to answer for him. "We don't have anything planned, really. Movies, maybe? Games? I don't know,"

Natasha arrived exactly at five o'clock, followed by Zack and Rian shortly after, and Sam just several minutes late. Remembering to be a good host, Alex offered each person food and drinks, laughing and shaking his head no when Rian asked if those were the only drinks they had.

"No alcohol? Really?" Rian chuckled, and Alex laughed again, shrugging his shoulders.

"My parents are coming back soon," Alex explained, and everyone nodded.

"Alex also doesn't really drink," Jack added, patting Alex on the back with a cheeky smile.

"Nobody really drinks at parties compared to you sometimes," Sam interjected, which effectively made Jack pout, and everyone else laugh.

"Whatever," Jack rolled his eyes playfully, "Let's do something."

"Hey," Alex spoke up, "I have an idea."

The basement to Alex's house was quite tiny, but it was large enough to hold something that Alex's father seemed to not be able to live without. Growing up, Peter's family had had a pool table, and when he finally moved out, he was able to find one just for himself. That was the one Alex grew up playing with, but they had to leave it back in England. Not many days after arriving, though, Alex's father was already on the job of finding, buying, and building another one in their basement. He never played it much, so Alex figured he just liked the look or the presence of it. Alex, on the other hand, used to treat it like a giant green table, or a bed, or a hiding place, until one day, when he was about seven, his father finally decided to teach him how to play for real.

Leading his friends down stairs, Alex watched as everybody's eyes darted around curiously. Since the basement was mostly empty, no one had been down there yet, not even Jack.

"I call playing first!" Jack shouted, running over to the pool table.

"Alex should go first, too, since it's his party," Natasha suggested, and Alex walked over to her, smiling and leaning his head on her shoulder.

"Nah, you go, Tash. It's here all the time for me to play." Alex said, and Natasha thanked him, before joining Jack. Neither person really knew what they were doing, so Alex had to instruct them a fair bit. After Jack and Natasha came Alex and Rian, and then Sam and Marissa. They decided whoever won would play Zack, and Marissa ended up winning. As she began to play against her new competitor, Alex walked over to where Jack was sitting on a sofa against the far wall by himself, while everybody else was standing around the pool table. Zack had been sitting with Jack prior to his game, but now he seemed too lonely, and Alex took it upon himself to take care of that.

"Hey," Alex said, dropping himself down next to Jack.

Jack put his arm around Alex's waist, pulling his boyfriend into his chest before saying quietly into his ear, "Look at them,"

"What about them?" Alex asked, confused as to what exactly Jack meant. Jack shushed him, though, and directed Alex's attention back to Marissa and Zack.

"They're cute together, no?" Jack hinted, and he felt Alex giggle, the blond's back moving against his chest.

"Maybe," Alex pondered, "I think I can see it."

"We should try to set them up," Jack suggested, running his other hand through Alex's hair lightly as they watched their friends fumble around with the pool set and giggle along with each other.

"If you think it'd work," Alex shrugged, "They're both nice people."

"Oh, it'd totally work," Jack nodded, "We'll give it some time, though. We just need to do more stuff like this,"

Alex hummed in agreement, turning around to press a kiss to Jack's lips, before standing up and offering Jack his hand. Together they walked back over to their group of friends, engaging themselves in the game of pool that was going on.

About an hour later, almost all of the group began to complain about hunger. Alex ran upstairs to order a pizza, and soon everyone else followed, occupying themselves with chips and what not.

"Do you guys want to watch a movie after the pizza comes?" Alex asked, and everyone said yes. Various suggestions were thrown out from here and there, and Alex was having trouble settling on a movie.

"How about Shrek?" Sam laughed, "It's almost Christmas, so we can watch that one."

"That works," Alex laughed along in agreement, as did everyone else. Once the decision was made, Alex went to work finding the movie, while Jack answered the door when the pizza came. Alex joined his friends at the kitchen table when he was finishing setting up the T.V., accepting Jack's offer of using his lap as a seat, since all the chairs were taken. Jack ate his pizza carefully, trying to keep it away from Alex as best as he could, and giving his boyfriend a pout to exemplify how he felt about the situation.

"I'm fine," Alex kissed Jack's forehead softly, "I'm used to it. Besides, I'm not hungry, anyway."

"It's still not fair," Jack pointed out. It was time for cake next, and Alex distributed the cake his mother had baked, glad he at least got a taste of that. After eating and washing their hands, which resulted from Alex's meek instruction and the entire group's assurance that it was actually perfectly understandable, everybody headed over to the living room. Alex started the movie, making his way back to the couches and squeezing himself between Jack and Marissa. Jack drew lines on his arm throughout the movie, and it made him sleepy, but he did not want to sleep. The night was barely over, and we wanted to have tons more fun with his friends.

When the movie was over, the group naturally formed into a circle, and circle-type games obviously pursued. They made their way through truth or dare, before finally settling on never have I ever. It was quite interesting to see what type of things people came up with, as some were quite innocent, while others were right to the point. Jack seemed to get singled out a lot, losing the game by a landslide as a result of multiple sexually oriented questions. Alex, on the other hand, lied about a couple of those, but only a small few. The only other person that knew he was lying was Jack, and he knew it was absolutely none of his business to out Alex and force him to explain his private life to their entire group. They were all friends, of course, but some people just could not share some things, no matter how close they were with everybody.

At this point, Alex's guests began to trickle back home, until it was just him and Jack left, as usual. Only then did he realize the small pile of presents his friends left him. Upon opening them, he discovered he had received a couple gift cards, a sweater he had wanted, a new video game, and a couple of CD's. Alex offered Jack a ride home from his parents a little while later, since they had gotten home just a little while ago. Jack accepted, so they went up to Alex's room.

"That was nice," Alex commented, flopping down onto his bed.

"Definitely," Jack yawned, following Alex's actions. They discussed the party a bit more, as well as their theory about Marissa and Zack, before dozing off. When Mrs. Gaskarth went upstairs to offer Jack a ride home, she found him cuddling her son on his bed, and she decided she could call Jack's mom and leave them be. It was Alex's birthday, after all.

Notes

hey guys!! i feel like tuesday updates are a thing now (even though it's wednesday already like everywhere else) even though i always say it'll be wednesday. i just get a bit excited when the week starts and i get to post :^)

it's also my birthday and i'm still taking time to do this today because i love you all <333

leave me comments! let me know what you think. also, if anyone has any ideas for this story (ik it's mine and since it's mine that means i can ask for help lmao) let me know, because after around chapter 50 i'm not exactly sure where i'm going...

thanks to Alltimegab for commenting, and thank you all for reading!