Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

"What're you doing?"

"Nothing," Alex answered, finishing up a text and sliding his phone into his pocket. Jack's eyes followed it there.

"Really?" He asked, his eyes burning holes into Alex's jeans.

"Yes. Come on," Alex replied, taking Jack's hand as they weaved around people in the hallway. They were silent until they got outside, when Jack spoke.

"I bet it was Max."

Alex turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow.

"It was, wasn't it?" Jack bit his lip. Alex thought he looked kind of angry. Not full blown yet, more of a pre-angry. Like he was trying not to let it show. Alex could tell.

"Does it matter?"

"No," Jack sighed, slouching, almost as if he had been deflated. "I guess not."

Alex felt kind of bad. "Yeah, it was him." He searched Jack's eyes, and he saw worry. Not a panic kind of worry, but a constant one. One that becomes tiring. "Why?"

"Just wondering," Jack shrugged, starting again toward a shady spot on the grass he had eyes out. Alex followed behind. He liked walking beside Jack and holding his hand, but he also quite enjoyed staying behind and watching Jack move, sometimes. Alex thought he was like a sculpture of some sort. He realized he did not voice this nearly enough. Deciding to change the subject, Alex asked Jack a question.

"Have you spoken to Chloe lately?"

"No," Jack shook his head, "Only a couple of times in class. Her friends won't leave me alone, though. Not so much Sam, who's apparently joined that group, or Chloe, but the rest of them."

"How come?" Alex hummed, sitting down next to Jack.

"I don't know. It seems like they're trying to get me interested in her, or something. It's kind of gross." Jack grimaced.

"Because you already told her no?" Alex asked, and Jack nodded. "Oh. Maybe she didn't tell her friends that?"

"Maybe," Jack agreed, "But maybe not. She's been there a couple times while they were saying things. Like I said, she's fine, but it if it deliberate, it's sad."

Alex nodded. Now, he could feel his phone burning a hole into his leg. He tried for a second to convince himself Jack had stared at it for a tad too long, but he knew it was the contents within the phone that were making him feel so unsettling.

When Alex got home after school, he pulled out his phone. It was constantly going off on his way there, but he avoided looking at it. Jack had walked him home. He had several more texts from Max, and he sighed when he opened them. Nothing about the texts were blatantly wrong, which is why Alex was having a hard time deciding if it was wrong on his part to hide it from Jack. Max's language was certainly different from when they met, though. He was much friendlier, almost flirty. Alex thought maybe he was just like that. Besides, he was not acting the same way in response, so did it matter? He did not think so, but Alex was still curious as to why he was not telling Jack. His boyfriend's questioning was sort of justified. Making him jump as he put his phone down on the counter to go find a snack, Alex's phone rang. He checked who it was, and decided to answer.

"'Sup," Alex greeted his friend, mouth full of the apple he had grabbed from the fridge seconds prior.

"Your accent even makes slang sound cute," Max commented, "What're you doing?"

Okay, no. That was definitely not what Alex was going for. "Uh, nothing, you?"

"Same," Max replied, "Do you want to hang out?"

He did. "I just got home," Alex groaned, laughing at the same time, "I'm tired."

"I can come over then," Max offered. "Not that I'm inviting myself over or anything, but, like-"

"Yeah," Alex cut him off, "Sure."

As Alex waited for Max to arrive, he sat in the livingroom of his empty house. Since it was Friday, he and Jack had decided to spend their day doing homework separately, so they could spend the rest of the weekend together. For some reason, Alex felt as if he was lying to Jack, even if he did do his work later on in the night. Making a split decision to save his conscience, Alex texted Max and told him to bring over any homework he had. Alex had work to do for his third block Spanish class, and Max was in the same one, so he was bound to have something to do. Alex also had a couple of things he wanted to work on for his fourth period art class, which was turning out to be quite fun. Other than that, he had nothing else, as he could usually do his chemistry homework in his free second period.

Alex was opening the door for Max not long later, and after offering him something to eat, the two took a seat at the kitchen table.

"So, what'd you do today?" Max asked, as he and Alex actually worked on their homework.

"Nothing," Alex shrugged, adding, "I walked home with Jack." Max had not done anything else Alex considered weird since the first thing he had said on the phone, which was relieving, because Alex really did like his company. Maybe one day he could ask Max about what was going on, because it would definitely be way too awkward to bring it up anytime soon. Heck, maybe Alex would be bringing up something that does not even exist. That thought made things a lot easier to handle. Yeah, maybe he was just being dumb.

"Do you have any plans for the summer?" Max asked randomly a couple minutes later.

"I think so, yeah," Alex nodded, "I might be going to Europe with the school organized trip, if I can get my mom to say yes. Speaking of that, I should ask her soon. I keep flaking out."

"Sounds fun," Max hummed, as Alex checked the time.

"Hey," he said, "My mom's going to be home soon, and I need to talk to her."

"Alright," Max smiled, "I should get going, anyway."

Several seconds after Max disappeared, Isobel was pulling up in the driveway. As stood at the door waiting for his mother, he decided to ask her about the trip to Europe. He opened his mouth once she reached the door.

"Mom, can I go to France in the summer?"

That was the sentence that started it all. For the next week or so, Alex's household was chaos. He, his mother, and his father were constantly bickering, everyone chipping in their own two cents at any possible point. Obviously, everybody's main concern was Alex's safety, but they all had different opinion on what that meant. For Peter, it meant Alex not go at all, for Isobel, it meant she would come along, and for Alex, it meant his parents should just trust him to do something on his own. Isobel had talked on the phone with Jack's mom a couple times throughout the week, which seemed to help Alex's cause. Now, along with Jack, Marissa, Natasha, Zack, Rian, and a few other kids in their grade would be coming along. It seemed so unlikely that things would work out so well, but they only got better. Right before it was time to complete signing up, a stop in England was added at the beginning of the trip. This swayed Alex's parent's decision even more, as it was not a foreign country to Alex like France was. It was not long until, after much debating, they decided to allow Alex to go by himself. Alex's mother was convinced first, and she got His father on board once Alex took them to talk to the teachers that would be joining them. Once Alex and his friends had officially signed up for the trip, spring break had arrived, and summer did not feel much further away.

"Can you believe we have two weeks to do this for as long as we want?" Jack asked Alex, as they lay side by side in the grass. They had ventured off to a park further out in the city on a sunny afternoon, choosing one that had a small lake and plenty of wildlife creatures and plants. It was a nice change from their usual park with a playground, as it was much quieter, as well.

"I know, right?" Alex sighed in agreement, looking over at Jack. "When summer comes, it'll be even better."

"I don't even want to talk about that," Jack grinned, "I'll pass out. Partially from excitement, but also because I think I've been in the sun for far too long. This is nice, but I wish there was grass under the trees and not dirt." Turning his head to Alex and squinting in the sunlight, Jack smiled, leaning in to leave a kiss on Alex's nose.

"We should go, then." Alex decided. "You know what? It's only, like, one. We still have all day. Let's go to the pool."

Notes

hi!! it's like 2 am and i have to be up for work soon, but i don't want to put off posting this any longer :^) i finished another chapter recently, but i still have lots of things to write. i think i'll be able to get a hang of it soon, but if anyone has some tips about getting back into writing let me know!!

also let me know if you liked this chapter! at this point of the story idrk where i'm taking it, but i have some sort of an idea. thank you all for reading! and thank you to Alltimegabi and SophieGaskarth for commenting on the last chapter.