We've Got Unfinished Business

Kellin's birthday was today and we were all going out to eat tonight to celebrate. He was also going to bring Vic and introduce him as his boyfriend. I was happy that he could be happy with Vic and stop sneaking around with him.

We still had five hours before the dinner at seven so my mom, Avery, Aubrey and I were sitting in the living room. Ever since Angie moved into a dorm on campus Avery had been spending more time with us. He even spent a few nights here. I was just waiting for my mom to tell me that he was moving in or that we were going to move in with him.

The doorbell rang and my mom got up to answer it. I thought it was Kellin and his mom coming to spend time with us before his party.

"Hello." My mom said using the polite voice she used around strangers.

"Hi, Joyce is it?" The lady asked. Her voice and accent sounded way too familiar.

"Yes hi, you are?"

"My name is Isobel Gaskarth." She said and I quickly stood up. I went to the door with Aubrey in my hands and she smiled at me. "It's nice to see you again, Jack."

"Um hi Mrs. Gaskarth." I said, shocked. "Mom t-this is Alex's mom."

"Oh. Are you here to beg me not to turn your son into the cops?" My mom asked dropping the nice act.

"No I won't need to do any begging seeing as your son tricked him into thinking he was way older." Isobel said smugly. "I'm just here to meet my granddaughter and help you come up with a visitation schedule."

"Excuse me?" My mom said. "A visitation schedule? What are you talking about?"

"Aubrey is Alex's daughter too. He has just as much right to see her as your son does."

"I figured he wasn’t much of a family man seeing as he left Jack in the middle of the night and cheated on him."

"That was a misunderstanding and I'll admit my Alex isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean him or me and his father shouldn't be allowed to see his daughter."

"Isobel?" We heard Avery say. He walked to the door to see what all of the commotion was about.

"Dr. Adams what are you doing here?" Isobel asked.

"Joyce and I are dating." He told her.

"How do you two know each other?" My mom asked.

"I was her son's Doctor. I didn't know you guys were talking about that Alex." He chuckled.

"Yeah it was that Alex." I mumbled.

"Can I hold her?" Isobel asked, staring down at Aubrey.

"Yeah of course." I handed her Aubrey and we moved to finally let her in the house.

"She looks so much like Alex did when he was a baby." Isobel said and my mom rolled her eyes.

“Where is Alex?" I asked, hoping he wasn’t outside or anything.

"He's at home. He would have come with me but he was afraid the police would be called." Isobel said more to my mom.

"Look I know I seem like the bad guy because I threatened your son, but I was only doing what was necessary to protect mine."

"I understand that, but I think we can be more civil. All I ask is that Alex be allowed to see her and bring her to see us a few times out of the month when he's in town." Isobel said.

"Okay fine." My mom agreed which caught me off guard. I thought she would never say yes to this.

"Thank you." She said. She kissed Aubrey on the forehead. "You're such a cute baby! I'm going to spoil you to death! Yes I am!" She exclaimed and tickled Aubrey's sides, making Aubrey giggled "I should get going, I have to tell Alex the good news." She handed Aubrey back to me along with a letter she pulled out of her purse. "It was nice meeting you all!"

"Nice meeting you too, Isobel." My mom told her, in a fake voice.

I walked her to the front door and closed it behind her. My mom sighed and fell back onto the couch. Avery rubbed her shoulders to relax her.

I looked down at the envelope which had my name in Alex's hand writing. I rolled my eyes and walked to the trash can. Aubrey pulled it away from me before I could make it there. I shrugged and let her have it, she was probably going to end up pulling it apart anyways.

It was sweet of Isobel to come over and do this for her son, but I still wanted nothing to do with Alex. He lied to me, I bet he didn't really intend to end things with Lisa. He probably just told me that so he could have sex with me one last time, which I’ll admit is kind of flattering.

I took Aubrey upstairs to play with her toys and to give my mom a rest. I sat her down on the floor with her toys and she tossed the letter to the side. I attempted to pick it up and throw it away, but she whined when I tried touching it.

"Jeez it's like you know it's from him." I mumbled and sat it down.

I sat on the floor next to Aubrey and called Kellin. He didn't answer so I sat my phone down and watched Aubrey. She crawled to her shape sorting cube then she sat in front of it. I chuckled as I watched her pick up the circle and try to stick it in the square slot.

"You'll get it one day, mamas." I told her.

She continued to play with that toy for a few minutes. I noticed that she wasn't paying attention to that letter any more. I slowly pick it up without her noticing. I looked at it again and debated on whether or not I should throw it away. It was wet in some spots where Aubrey chewed on it.

"Do you have to chew on everything?" I asked and she looked up. She saw the envelope in my hand and whined as she crawled over to me. I sighed and placed her in my lap. "How about I read it to you since you're so intrigued by it."

I opened the envelope and pulled the paper out.

"It says 'dear Jack, I love you. I know you might not believe me right now, but I love you so much. And I love Aubrey just as much. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me, even better than starting All Time Low. Just please read this entire note of me explaining myself. I understand if you still hate me afterwards, but I just want you to understand why I did what I did. That night that I left you and Aubrey I got a text message from Lisa saying that if I didn't meet up with her she would tell everyone about you and Aubrey. When I went to her I was desperate to do anything to keep her from ruining your lives. So I lied and told her the wedding was back on and slept with her to keep her quiet for the night. I know it sounds dumb and my reasoning is completely idiotic, but at the time I panicked. I thought I was doing a good thing to keep both of you safe from harmful media and some of our vicious fans. I never meant to hurt you or Aubrey. You two are my world and it's killing me to be away from you both. I don't think I can say sorry enough, but I'm so fuc-' whoops Aubrey he said a bad word. It says 'I'm so freaking sorry for all the pain I've cause you. I love you and Aubrey. I just hope you both can find it in your hearts to forgive me. Love, Alex."

Inside of the envelope was a picture he took of himself with Aubrey and me sleeping at the hotel. I smiled as I stared at the photo. It was cute and made me tear up.

I sat the note and picture aside as I thought about everything he told me. He didn't use me, he was trying to protect us. It was a bad way to do it but he had good intent.

I picked up my phone next and unblocked his number. I opened up a new text message to send to him.

To Alex:
Aubrey says she's going to need a lot more than a note for you to make this up to her.

Not even a full minute later he replied.

To Jack:
I'm on it.

I expected him to text and call me begging for forgiveness. I guess he was going to take what I said literally. I sat my phone back down and shrugged.

"I think there's going to be more gifts coming." I told Aubrey.

I stayed in her room going between playing with her and her toys and on my phone for the next hour. The doorbell rang for the second time today. I was half way down the stairs with Aubrey when my mom opened the door. It was Zack and Rian holding multiple gifts in their arms for Aubrey.

"Hi ma'am we have a delivery for Aubrielle Barakat." Zack told her.

"Oh my god.” I groaned. They both chuckled and began bringing gifts in one at a time. They brought in a vase full of pink roses, a giant teddy bear, an ‘I'm sorry’ balloon and a basket filled with Aubrey’s favorite baby food and puff snacks. Zack and Rian told us good-bye before going back to Rian’s car.

"Alex bought all of this for Aubrey?" My mom asked, in shock.

"Yeah. He really wants her to forgive him." I joked.

Avery helped me carry her gifts up to Aubrey’s room, then I called Alex. He quickly answered his phone.

"Does she like her gifts? I couldn’t remember if she liked the strawberry-banana puffs, but I can buy more if I got the wrong one." He said.

"Yeah you got the right one. I’m feeding it to her as we speak. But you really didn’t have to do this, Alex. I was kidding." I told him.

"Yeah I did, I needed to show her that I was sorry somehow. Now I need to do the same for you."

"No I get it. Your letter told me how sorry you were and . . . well I forgive you."

"You do?!" He asked.

"Yeah I know you thought you were protecting us, but you don't have to. I'd rather be hated and still with you than loved without you. So if Lisa threatens you again then let her, I'll take the blame for everything. I'll let everyone know that I tricked you into think that I was older than I am."

"I wouldn't let you." He said. We were quiet on the phone for a minute. "I love you." He said breaking the silence.

"I love you too." I smiled down at my fingers. It felt great to be able to tell him that again.

"When can I see you two again?"

"Well we're free tomorrow night."

"Awesome, I’ll come pick you both up at seven tomorrow night."

"Okay we’ll see you then. Bye Alex." I told him.

"Bye, Jack. Give Aubrey a kiss for me." He said and I chuckled.

We hung up and I thought of a way to tell my mom that I was going out to dinner with Alex tomorrow. She and Kellin were both going to fight me about this.

***

"Everyone this is Vic . . . my boyfriend." Kellin announced when Vic arrived. He looked so nervous until his mom smiled and stuck her hand out for Vic.

"It's nice to meet you Vic. I'm Kellin's mom, you can call me Lisa."

"It's nice to meet you too, Lisa." Vic said politely.

"How long have you two been dating?" She asked and Vic looked to Kellin to answer.

"We literally started dating today. Isn't that funny?" Kellin joked. His mom rolled her eyes at him and dropped the subject.

"Nice save." I said sarcastically.

"She didn't ask any more questions so I did get kind of lucky."

"Sure." I chuckled.

"Jack, Alex seemed so much happier when he came over early. He told me the good news." Vic told me.

"What good news?" Kellin asked and I sighed.

Vic answered for me, "Alex said Jack forgave him and they're going to give their relationship a second try."

Kellin glared at me and I tried to explain why I forgave Alex. "Kellin he apologized and it was just one big misunderstanding."

"Oh so he didn't have sex with Lisa?" He grimaced at having to say the name she shared with his mom.

"No he did, bu-"

"No, no buts. He cheated on you."

"But he only did it because Lisa tricked him into sleeping with her. She said she would tell everyone about Aubrey and me if he didn't. Plus he feels really bad about it. I couldn't not forgive him." I told him.

"I think it was okay for Jack to forgive him for this." Vic said.

"Well of course you do.” He said to Vic. “I just feel like you keep having to make excuses for the bad things he's doing. He keeps messing up." He told me.

"I know, but he's not doing it on purpose he's just making dumb mistakes guys make." I shrugged.

"Fine I guess forgiving him for this won't hurt. He's still on my bad side." He said.

"Practically everyone is on your bad side. I'm probably on your bad side." Vic joked, making me chuckle and Kellin hit his arm.

I was happy to have Kellin's approval, now all I needed was my mom’s.

Notes