Ash’s POV
The Monday after our gathering at the lake, I was immediately pulled away from Alex as soon as we entered the school building hand in hand. Harper and Lianne were dragging me further and further from Alex as he was being lead somewhere by Rian and Jack. We both pouted at each other until we were both turned around. I didn’t know where this was going, but I could tell that it wasn’t anything too bad, but that didn’t mean all of it was good. Harper eventually let me go when we were around the corner, in another hallway with lockers, with an evil smirk on her face.

“So, how was it?” She nudged me with her arm, giving me a wink.

I frowned at her, rubbing my own arm as if it would get rid of her awkward touch, “how was what?”

“Friday night!” She exclaimed, not making it any less vague for me, but she thought I knew exactly what she meant.

“It was good…?” I mumbled with a questioning tone, guessing she meant hanging out with everybody. I didn’t understand where she was coming from. She was there as well, why would she want to know how it was? There was no way she had managed to get drunk by drinking two beers, especially drunk enough to forget everything. Was I missing something?

“I knew it!” She giggled giddily, letting out a small squeal of excitement. “You have to tell me everything!”

My eyebrows were still furrowed as my eyes went wide, trying to figure out why this would make her so excited. Lianne was just shaking her head, patting Harper on her shoulder to see if she would calm down, even if it were just slightly. Random students looked in our direction as they walked past with their books, also wanting to know what the noise was about.

Before I could find it out myself, however, Jack and Rian came back with Alex, Jack pouting as if he had just heard some bad news.

“You guys are no fun,” he muttered and stomped his foot, letting go of Alex’s collar, which he was holding to drag him along once again. However, when he saw how harper was acting, his pout turned into pursed lips. “Wait… something tells me something else had been said here.”

“You told them we had sex?” Alex looked at me with shock, his mouth just slightly ajar.

“Wait, what?!” I shouted just a bit too loud, throwing my hand up in frustration. “I am so confused right now!”

“I basically asked if you and Alex had sex, and you basically confirmed it,” Harper answered in a matter-of-fact tone, like nothing was going to tell her that it didn’t happen.

“You never asked anything like that,” I shook my head, ready to show that she was wrong on every level, “and I never said anything like that happened!”

“Well, you said it was fun!”

“No, I gave you a generalized answer because I had no idea what you were talking about.”

“It didn’t sound like that.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“I don’t know what you were imagining,” Lianne interjected, acting as my witness, “but it did sound like she was pretty confused. You were hearing what you wanted to hear.”

“You guys are no fun!” Harper now pouted, stomping her foot just like Jack did, crossing her arms to make it even more dramatic.

“I was worried for a second there,” Alex sighed in relief with a chuckle, putting his hand to his heart, “I thought I missed a milestone in our relationship.”

“Shut up,” I grumbled and hit his chest.

----

Harper, Lianne and I were all sat in the living room, three glasses on the coffee table, as we were talking about anything we could think of. The boys were at Rian’s, practising their asses off since they had a show to play straight after the Christmas break. Of course they could have met up everyday during the vacation and practise those songs, but that would only work if they actually all were at home. You see, Alex and I were going to Germany to visit my family while his parents went to England. I was so excited to finally see my brothers and dad again. It had nearly been five months since I last saw them. What better time to visit them than during Christmas?

Alex and I had already gone out to buy a couple of small gifts for my brothers. It was mainly just American candy that you couldn’t buy in Europe unless it was imported and pretty expensive. I was basically just going to bring a suitcase full of sweets for them. My dad was going to hate me for promoting and encouraging them to get sugar rushes. Seriously, they wouldn’t eat small amount at a time. Those boxes would be empty before Alex and I would leave to go back home.

Little did Alex know that I had been saving up for a surprise. Instead of getting him a lame gift for his birthday and one for Christmas, I decided to combine them together and spend the money on one thing.

Anyway, back to the events in the living room. Harper was going on and on about this new guy she was seeing. She wasn’t like Alex and Jack (or at least what Alex used to be like), she didn’t sleep with one guy and then move on. It just happened that she wasn’t that good at keeping relationships for a long time. They just always ended after a couple of weeks, the longest she ever had was when she was 16 and it was only two months long.

“Hey, Harper, how about we do not talk about Bryce, or Bruce, or Brian, or whatever his name was again,” Lianne suggested, moving out of her sitting position and stretching out, “let’s do something else, something I can also participate in. You guys both have boyfriends, but I’m still a single pringle.”

“I’d help you out, but I don’t know any girls who are either bisexual or lesbian,” Harper scratched her head, not liking the fact that she couldn’t play matchmaker, “I assume you’re still only going for girls?”

“Well, yeah,” Lianne shrugged and sat back down before shifting uncomfortably, “But, I mean… Maybe… No, nevermind.”

“You can’t do that! You either spill it, or not say anything at all.”

I reached out to grab my glass of water while watching the scene develop in front of me. These two could go on and on, acting like a paranoid married couple. I was actually surprised they never drunkenly hooked up.

“Ok, well, I’m 100% sure I don’t like him that way,” Lianne sighed, running a hand through her hair in frustration, her cheeks burning a light shade of red, “but I think I slept with Jack on the night of your party.”

I spit out my drink, spraying the water all over myself and the couch. My eyes were wide and I immediately felt bad for Jack. Lianne probably didn’t even know how bad this was. She probably just thought it was the two-friends-have-sex-and-now-it’s-awkward problem, but actually it was much more than that. Jack still had feeling for her and was trying to get over it, but something like this wouldn’t help that at all.

“Oh god,” Harper whispered in a panicked tone, making me wonder if she knew as well, for all I knew I was the only one who knew Jack’s secret, “that’s why he… oh god. Lianne, I’m pretty sure you slept with him.”

“Fuck,” she groaned and rubbed her eyes, “but, I don’t remember anything, and Jack never brought it up. So, it’s probably all fine. There’s nothing to worry about… right?”

“Umm, let’s watch a movie,” I suggested, standing up to turn on the TV.

“Guys…?”

“Yeah, a movie sounds good.” Harper smiled, acting like nothing had happened “Let’s watch some stupid chick flick so I can rant about how stupid all the characters are. The ending always manages to touch my heart, but their action beforehand make me want to punch a wall.”

Lianne stayed quiet while we were in the process of choosing which movie to watch. We tried to get her to participate, but she was obviously busy with something else. Harper and I both shared a look, and I knew we were thinking the same thing, we couldn’t tell Lianne how bad this actually was, how badly it actually could have affected Jack. I just hoped watching this movie would take our minds off of it.

Eventually, we put on a DVD, the startup menu showing on the screen, cheesy music coming out of the speakers. We were about to hit play, when the front door suddenly shut. I could immediately tell it wasn’t Isobel or Peter, since they would have shouted a hello or at least make their presence known. The only other person this could be was Alex or somebody breaking in. But when the familiar figure of my boyfriend walked into the living room, a smile immediately spread across my face.

“Hey, guys,” Alex waved, taking a quick glance at the TV and raising an eyebrow.

“Hey, you gonna join us?” Harper turned around at a weird angle to look at him. “We were just about to watch this shitty movie.”

“I don’t know…” he squinted his eyes and shook his head, “it seems like you guys are doing just fine just having a girl’s evening.”

“Awe, come on, don’t tell me you are going to leave your girlfriend all alone on the cold empty couch. You can’t use the homework excuse, because I know you never do it, Gaskarth.”

“Ugh, fine, but only because I’m too afraid you’ll hurt me,” he gave in and sat down in the corner of the couch, getting comfortable before pulling me into his lap.

“Hey, Alex?” Lianne suddenly said out of nowhere, “Do you know if I slept with Jack?”

“Umm…” he seemed uncomfortable, but unlike Harper and I, he wasn’t going to ignore it or bend around the bush. After rubbing the back of his neck, he told her the truth, “yeah, he, umm, kinda freaked out about it.”

“Oh…. shit.”

Notes

Just a super short shitty filler chapter. To make up for it, I'll tell you the next chapter is three times as long as this one.
Also, just so you aren't too disappointed later on, I'm making the Jack x Lianne things seem a bit too dramatic that I originally intended to... I'm not going to go deep into that anymore.