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Smooth Criminal

twenty-nine.

After what had felt like an entire century, the final bell rang on a particularly bright December afternoon, freeing all of the students kept prison in Dulaney High School. I waited for Parker out in the parking lot so that he could take me home and I could do my daily chores before running away and working the last minute concert Matt had managed to squeeze in for the guys.
“How was your day?” My brother asked in an annoyingly sweet sing-song voice as we entered the car. I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly as he drove towards the house, cranking Boston through the speakers of the car. “No pop-punk, ‘I hate my hometown, kill me now’ music today?” Parker joked, earning an eye roll and slap to the shoulder from me.
“Can I not listen to other things?” I asked him with attitude dripping from every word. Parker stared at me awkwardly from his peripherals while I crossed my arms over my chest and stared out the window, unable to shake the unnerving feeling of annoyance bubbling through my veins. I had absolutely no reason to be in a mood, and yet here I was, picking a fight with Parker for absolutely no reason other than the fact that the sound of his voice was really grinding my gears. We rode the rest of the way home in an awkward silence; Parker, too afraid to say anything in fear of me snapping at him, and me, too prideful to apologize for my random outbursts. I bolted out of the vehicle and went straight to slaving away at making the living room spotless as ever before the car was even in park.
Mom usually knew when I had plans to go hang out with Amanda on weekends by the way that I cleaned when I got home from school. I would do a half-ass job, not bothering to make things as clean as I knew my father would want them to be if I wasn’t doing anything that night and knew I’d be able to just mosey on downstairs when called to correct my poor cleaning habits. But when I had plans, I went above and beyond - cleaning my portion of the house and then some, making sure our house was practically sparkling by the time I was through assaulting it with a rag and chemicals.
“What are you ladies up to tonight?” My mother asked as she descended from the staircase while I scrubbed mercilessly at the coffee table.
“Not a whole lot. Just hanging out with some friends. Probably going to get pizza and binge watch crappy horror movies.” I dug my nail into a particularly rough spot on the glass surface, scraping the nasty bump away with the flick of my finger. “Is that okay with you?” I stopped for just a moment to smile up at my mom who was leaning against the open space on the wall right next to the couch.
“If your father knew it was just more than you and Amanda, he’d kill the both of us,” Mom stated through a heavy sigh. I chewed on my bottom lip, my smile faltering slightly. “But he’s working tonight and I’m the cool parent, so I suppose that’s alright with me.” I felt my body sigh in relief, my tense muscles visibly relaxing at the words.
“You are definitely the cool parent,” I agreed with her, taking a small break to walk over to her and wrap my arms tightly around her torso. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Kiddo.” She placed a small kiss on my temple, her arms holding onto me tightly. “Once you’re done with the coffee table, you can stop cleaning. I have nothing important to do with my evening, so I’ll finish it at some point before your father comes home tomorrow.”
I kissed the woman’s cheek and squeezed her tightly once more before going off to finish scrubbing the damned table. How could this thing be so fucking dirty? I clean it, like, every other day.
Once I had finally won the war with the coffee table stains, I skipped up the stairs and threw myself into the shower, quickly lathering myself as fast as humanly possible. It was almost four thirty and Amanda was coming to get me around five fifteen. I had forty-five minutes to get ready.
Securely wrapping a towel around my body, I exited the bathroom and padded down to my bedroom, frantically throwing clothes around in search of something to wear. After fifteen minutes of unsuccessful squandering, I lazily threw on a pair of black skinny jeans and a gray, long-sleeved shirt. It looked about as characterless as I felt.
My bones protested in lazy shouts as I dragged myself to the vanity by my desk, where all of my makeup was carelessly and messily sprawled about. Seeing as how I was too tired to touch my face this morning, my skin was already clear and I had a clean slate to work with. I applied a light layer of foundation, knowing that by the time the night was over, a good portion of this would be sweated off. The liquid felt annoyingly sticky and hot against my face, but I kept my inner complaints to myself and finished off my makeup with the bare-minimum - foundation, thin winged eyeliner, mascara, and a darker shade of red lipstick to make it looked like I cared a little bit. I had a solid fifteen minutes to finish getting ready by the time I was done abusing my face, but my body still felt tired so I decided against doing anything extravagant with my hair. I pulled my hair into a low braid and threw an old, black baseball cap with the Converse logo plastered in the center of it, pulling the braid through the opening in the back of the cap. For the remaining ten minutes I had to wait for my best friend to arrive, I laid in my bed and rested my eyes for a second.
I woke up fifteen minutes later to Parker jumping on top of me.
“What the hell?” I screamed, my heart pounding in my chest from the abrupt wake up call.
“Amanda’s been here for, like, ten minutes, waiting on you.” Parker sat himself up, sitting beside me. I rolled my eyes at him and pushed myself up from the bed that was reluctant to let me go. I hastily grabbed my camera from the charging cord in the corner of my room and placed it gently into my backpack before throwing on my red Chuck Taylor’s.
“I love you!” Parker yelled after me as I left him alone in my bedroom, rushing to Amanda’s car since I knew we were probably going to be late at this point; we still had to pick up dinner for everyone.
“You look cute,” Amanda gushed as I strapped myself in with the seatbelt. I smiled weakly at her in thanks. “You also look fucking exhausted. What’s wrong?”
“I have no fucking idea,” I sighed, fidgeting with the bill of my hat. “I think I’m about to start my period. I’m cramping super bad and I’m PMSing like a bitch.”
“Ew,” Amanda visibly shuddered. “I have some ibuprofen in my purse. Take some; you’ll feel a lot better.”
I glanced gratefully at her, reaching for her bag near my feet. “You’re a life saver,” I tell her before popping three of the mahogany pills into my mouth and taking a sip from the water bottle taking residence in her cup holder. “Can we get McDonald’s?” I ask her eagerly. “I’ve been having some serious cravings for some chicken nuggets.”
Amanda laughed at me as she took the next left turn into the McDonald’s across the street from the venue.
“Are you PMSing or pregnant?” My friend threw her head back in laughter. I jokingly slapped her shoulder, letting out a laugh of my own.
“Very funny,” I said dryly. “Alex and I aren’t that stupid. We’re always protected.” I smile widely at Amanda as she shakes her head. I texted the guys, informing them of who was catering to our meal for the evening and demanding their orders within the next sixty seconds or else they’d all starve.
“Wow, you sure do know how to sweet talk the guys,” Amanda said sarcastically as I handed my phone off to her so she could read the orders off to the person working the drive-thru.

By the time the pair of us arrived at the venue, All Time Low had approximately five minutes to down their food and ten minutes to be ready to go on stage.
“We would have been here earlier, but Aunt Flow is preparing to destroy Stella from the inside out,” Amanda shrugged as we entered the room we were using as a dressing room for the evening. As soon as the door opened, four starving teenage boys swarmed around us, their hands grabbing at the bags of food we had in tow. “I love you,” Alex smiled down at me, planting a tender kiss on my temple before walking away to scarf down the Big Mac he had requested. I scurried over to a quiet corner of the room and sat down on the floor, crossing my legs over each other, and pulled my camera out of my bag to prep it for the right settings I would need for the evening.
“So don’t tell the boys,” Matt began in a hushed whisper, sitting himself down next to me. “But there are a few guys from Hopeless out there.” I averted my gaze from the camera and stared up the manager with a raised eyebrow. “They’re actually the reason I had pull this shindig together. They want to see how well the boys vibe on stage.” I nodded my head with a smile so massive, I thought my lips might fall off.
“So if this goes well, and they like the demo we sent in last week, they’re a sure shot for being signed,” I stated more-so than asked. Matt nodded his head with a confident smirk. My eyes wandered over to Alex, his eyes closed as he mentally prepared himself to go out on stage, unknowing of how huge this particular show was for him and the guys. “That’s amazing, Matt.”
“Alright, boys.” Matt stood up from his crouch beside me, clapping his hands loudly and rubbing them together. “It’s showtime!”
I grabbed one of the laminated passes hanging up on the wall, throwing the lanyard around my neck and struggling to keep up with the long strides of the group of overgrown teenage boys with mutant legs the size of colossal trees. I pushed my way through the sides of the curtains, capturing photographs of the boys all doing their individual thing as they shook off their pre-show nerves. Alex opened his eyes and peered up at me with a small, confident smile through his shaggy bangs, his head still lowered. I snapped the picture, butterflies flying through my stomach at the sight of the beautiful human I was grateful to call my boyfriend.
“C’mere, gorgeous,” Alex muttered under his breath, reaching out and grabbing my waist to pull me securely into his body. Our lips collided and my body sparked with enough electricity to wake me up entirely. The beaten down, drowsy feeling I had been fighting off all day had vanished. I kissed back, snapping a picture at the last second before he pulled himself away to go out on stage. “I love you,” he mouthed to me before the curtains rose and the screaming began. I smiled widely to myself, basking in the glowing feeling Alex’s love always left me with.
“Baltimore!” Alex shouted into the microphone. He was met with a deafening wave of screams. “We are All Time Low. Let’s do this.”
The band jumped into The Party Scene immediately after the words left his lips and the venue roared to life, leaving me utterly breathless at the experience.

When the set came to a close, all four boys ran off the stage looking more confident than ever.
“Holy fuck!” Jack screamed, sprinting at Amanda to pick her up and spin her around in a massive bear hug.
“Best. Show. Ever.” Zack shook his moppy hair out before slipping out of the strap of his bass and handing it off to Flyzik. “I’m serious. That crowd was amazing.”
I smiled widely at Alex as he walked up to me, sweat dripping from his face.
“How’d we do?” he asked, his breathing coming out in hard, labored pants.
“That was absolutely incredible, babe.” I placed a firm kiss on my boyfriend’s lips and allowed my body to relax into his embrace.
“Amazing show, gentlemen.”
Everyone’s heads snapped in the direction of voice and I knew exactly who the man standing before all of us was without even thinking. He was one of Hopeless’ reps.
“I was very pleased with the production and the energy put forth for tonight’s show. Hopeless would be very pleased to sign a group of talented young men such as yourselves.”
I glanced up at Alex to see his face, and smiled as his face glazed over with a dumbfounded appearance. The identity of the man finally registered with him and Alex immediately straightened himself up, extending a hand out to the man, the other still wrapped securely around my tiny body.
“Alexander Gaskarth,” he properly introduced himself. The man gladly took Alex’s hand and gave it a firm shake, the other boys taking turns to follow Alex’s suit. “Gimme just a minute, babe.” Alex kissed the top of my head before releasing me. I walked over to Amanda, the two of us standing off to the side as the band and Matt discussed something briefly with the Hopeless rep. A few minutes later, the group dispersed, grins plastered on every single face who was apart of the conversation.
“What’s up?” I asked Alex, wrapping an arm around his torso as we began walking back to the dressing room.
“You’ll see, my love. You will see.”
“So my mom is out of town,” Amanda piped up as we all grabbed our bags. “Surprise, surprise.”
“Sleepover?” Zack suggested, a small smile tugging at his lips as he cast a questioning glance at everyone in the room. We all nodded in agreement.
“Cool,” Amanda grinned widely, a look of solace flashing over her face for a brief moment. She really hated being left alone, but she would never admit that out loud. So the rest of us did the best we could to make her feel safe and loved and came over whenever we could when we knew her mother was gone.
“See you guys at the house,” she chirped happily, hooking her arm with mine as we made our journey to her car.
“I’m gonna make a pit stop real fast,” Jack called out before hopping into Rian’s car.
“You? You mean me?” Rian stated with an eyeroll. “I’m the one driving, idiot. And sure, because I love you, I will be willing to make a pit stop.”
I giggled as the two bickered, climbing into the passenger seat of Amanda’s car.
I loved my people, no matter how dysfunctional we may seem to be.

Notes

Comments

This was one of my absolute favorite stories. I am very curious to know if you are going to continue with this? Because I have to know what happens next.

BreaClift. BreaClift.
6/14/21

I want to know if there is going to be sequel to this story?

BreaClift. BreaClift.
3/26/19

I don't remember anything. I need to restart this. Damn, all I remember is loving this. Only more reason to read it all again.

Haha, keepin' it real. :) No worries, the only one that was kind of concerning was the Blink-180 because I think that's the first time I've ever seen that. XD But I figured it was a typo.
:)

Nanook Nanook
1/4/19

@Daydreamers her big reveal will be in the last chapter ;) hang tight.

katybear18 katybear18
1/4/19