Brook-

When the guys first started mentioning Jack's big Vegas birthday bash, I quietly began to prepare myself for the insanity I was sure to witness.

In the seven months that I've known Alex and his friends, I've heard plenty of their ridiculous party stories but I had yet to actually witness any that outrageousfirst hand. Normally, when the opportunity presented itself, I was the one getting drunk.

The first day at the Hard Rock wasn't so bad. It mostly involved everyone drinking by the pool all day and then drinking inside the casino all night. I averaged out about three drinks all day. With all the drunk lunatics around me, my boyfriend included, I figured someone had to stay sober and make sure nobody got arrested. Or died.

I was a little on edge most of that first day because there were a lot of females around. I didn't know how most of these girls knew Jack, or if they even really knew him at all. But they were everywhere and they had no problem wearing the skimpiest bikinis I'd ever seen.

At one point, Alex had been standing next to me, with Zack on the other side of him, just looking around and I heard him mumble how it was a good thing he wasn't single because he could see himself getting into a lot of trouble. I brushed it off as the alcohol talking, but it definitely bothered me a bit.

The next morning when Alex woke up, I expected him to be in full hangover mode. He seemed fine and by just before noon, he was close to drunk again and participating in a game ofnaked bowling. He desperately tried to get me to partake, but I wasn't having it. There were a few other girls, though, who somehow managed to work their way into the suite that showed no shame in stripping down to their underwear and shooting a few balls.

Even though my anxiety level was almost through the roof, I really, truly was finding a way to have a good time. It's not a normal occurrence for a high school guidance counselor from the suburbs of Maryland to say she partied in the super expensive suites at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas for two days straight, essentially for free. Aside from the army of promiscuous girls, there were quite a few awesome people I found myself surrounded by and I liked it.

On that second night, once it was time to head back to our room and get ready for dinner and Jack's actual birthday party, Alex was so beyond drunk already that I was afraid to leave him in the bathroom alone to shower.

I lied and told him the outlet near the mirror on the wall in the main area of our room stopped working, so I needed to use the bathroom to finish up curling my hair.

While I continued getting ready, I couldn't help but smile to myself as I listened to Alex sing to himself in the shower. It was something that he always did and I wasn't even sure he was aware he did it. It was one of the many little things that he did that I really loved.

By the time the water turned off, I was in the middle of applying my makeup.

"Damn, girl," I heard Alex say when he stepped out of the shower, standing on a towel, dripping wet and making no move to grab another towel to cover up.

"What?" I asked, becoming increasingly un-phased by his inappropriate nakedness.

He smiled, taking a few wet steps closer to me and I worried that he was going to slip on the bathroom's tile floor.

"You're not going to give a single girl there a chance, huh?" he asked, looking me up and down with a smirk.

I raised an eyebrow. "A chance for what?"

"To be the hottest girl in the room. Duh?" he replied with another smirk, moving closer to me with this arms open.

He wouldn’t get it if I said anything then but he had no idea how much that comment was a boost to my ever slipping confidence.

"Alex, no!" I squealed, ducking away from his hug. "You're going to get me all wet," I said, smoothing down my dress .

"Isn't that my job?" he asked with a wink.

"Okay," I rolled my eyes. "Alex, you need to get dressed," I said, trying to change the subject - because I knew where this was headed.

"Why?" he frowned. "Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"No," I laughed. "I've just seen you naked pretty much all day."

"You loved it," he decided, finally reaching for a towel that was hanging on the rack and drying himself off.

I laughed, turning back to the mirror and picking up my mascara.

"Admit it," Alex said, the towel wrapped low around his waist, as he stood behind me at the mirror.

"Admit what?" I asked, looking up at him in the mirror.

He rolled his eyes, almost as if he was frustrated with me. "Admit that you loved seeing me naked."

I bit my lip to hold back my giggles. "Yes, Alex. I love it. But do you know what I love more?"

"What's that?" he asked, grasping my hips and spinning me around so I was facing him.

"When you're naked and I'm the only one who gets to see."

He nodded slowly before a big smile spread across his face and he leaned down to kiss me quickly. "Well, with a dress like that on, I can guarantee that will happen when we get back here tonight."

I laughed. "Oh yeah?"

He nodded, kissing me again. "Yeah."

"Well for that to happen you actually have to get dressed. And we have to actually get out of here."

"Okay. Okay. I'm going," he said, pecking one last quick kiss to my lips before he exited the bathroom to find where I left his suit hanging over the closet door.
*****

The actual dinner portion of tonight was quite uneventful. It was mostly Jack's closest friends on the tour going to eat. But when we walked into the club that had been rented out for this party purpose, it was a different story. There were hundreds of people there. I think the entire Warped Tour was in attendance for this.

There were girls, again, everywhere and a few of them seemed to really enjoy the company of my boyfriend.

I knew he had a reputation to protect on this night in particular. So I held my tongue and stood in the back by the bar, keeping a close eye on Alex and his new sleazy friends.

"You're Brook, right?" A tall red head in a knee length blue dress asked, slipping into the spot next to me beside the bar.

"Yes. That's me." I nodded slowly, trying to figure out if I've met this girl before.

She smiled. "I knew it. I'm Emily," she introduced herself, extending her hand to mine. "Nice to meet you."

I gave her a shaky smile, a little creeped out that she just knew who I was.

"I'm sorry," I finally said. "How is it that you know who I was?"

"Oh," the red head chuckled. "You're Alex's girlfriend, right? I could kind of tell by the way you're watching him like a hawk."

I nodded slowly, taking a quick glance at Alex to make sure he hadn't moved. "Right..."

"I've heard a lot about you. I'm Ryan's girlfriend," she said and I raised my eyebrow. "Ryan Key. Kind of tall. Blonde. Lead singer of Yellowcard," she explained gesturing back towards where Alex was, and sure enough Ryan was in the circle Alex was the center of attention in, amongst the random girls that I was liking less and less as the night went on.

"Oh," I said quickly, relaxing a bit when I realized that Emily was normal and wasn't some creepy fan of Alex's or something.

"I'm sorry if I creeped you out. I just realized how weird that must have just looked," Emily said with a laugh.

"It's okay now that I know you're not going to skin me in a jealous rage over who my boyfriend is," I laughed.

"Hey. I still might," she smirked, her gaze moving over to Alex and before I could react she laughed. "I'm totally kidding."

"I-I knew that," I said, trying to brush off the shakiness to my voice.

"So, what are we watching?" she asked, leaning back against the bar and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Well," I started, moving to mimic her position. "You see that girl there," I pointed next to Alex, "with the piece of gold fabric that I'm assuming someone told her was a dress? She seems to really want to get into my boyfriend's pants."

Emily nodded slowly, carefully watching the scene in front of her. This girl kept touching Alex's arm and standing obnoxiously close to him while he spoke. In Alex's defense, he did keep shrugging her off. But he wasn't doing it nearly as effective as I'd like.

"Well, the funny thing is, she's already gotten into Alex's pants," Emily said and I felt my jaw drop. "I probably shouldn't have told you that, huh?"

I took a deep breath, trying to keep my cool in front of who I was assuming would become a good friend of mine. "Who is she?" I asked and immediately regretted doing so when I got my answer.

"She's Daniella."

My stomach dropped to my name at the sound of her name. Cassadee had told me about her and how Alex had never turned her down - not even when things were good with Lina. That was until the last time he saw her in LA where he repeatedly denied her and made her well aware of my existence, even though she didn't seem to care.

"I take it by the fire in your eyes right now that you've heard of her?"

I nodded slowly. "You could say that. Does she do this with a lot of them?"

Emily shook her head. She understood by them I meant other guys in bands. "Not really. She seems to only reserve it for your boyfriend."

I sighed. "Lucky guy," I mumbled to myself.

"But there are others like her," Emily said, as if it should make me feel better.

"Girls here that have slept with my boyfriend and would like to again?"

"No," Emily shook her head. "Well, actually, yes. But that's not what I meant."

I took another deep breath. "How many?"

"Not including yourself? There's probably three or four other girls here that I'm sure he slept with. And then probably a handful of others that might just be rumors and gossip."

"Malibu and Coke, please," I said, spinning around and quickly getting the bartender’s attention. If I was going to get any more information like this, I needed to loosen up a bit more.

"Look," Emily said quickly. "That's all from a really long time ago. I wouldn't worry about it."

I nodded, taking a long sip from my glass. "I'm not worried."

"You're a terrible liar."

I sighed. "I was made well aware of Alex's background with other girls. I know there was a lot of them and that's fine. I just didn't think I would ever be in a position where I would be surrounded by them."

Emily smiled. "Want to know what I would do?

"Yes."

"I've been with Ryan for about seven years now. Probably just when the band really broke out - so we've been together before the groupies really cared. But I know there are a few girls that are determined to get with him, whether they know I exist or not."

I nodded slowly as she continued.

"For the times when I'm not around and Ryan is approached, there's really nothing I can do about it. I just have to have faith in our relationship and know that he loves me and no groupie slut is worth that."

"But when it's right in front of your eyes?" I asked.

"I mark my territory."

"What do you mean?" I asked, raising my eyebrow.

"I mean, you go over there, and you plant your ass next to Alex's side and you let that bitch know the only person getting into his pants, is you."

"That works?" I asked, unsure of the whole thing, because really, I didn't do well with confrontation.

"If anything it will just piss her off," Emily said before giving me a gentle shove in the direction of Alex. I stumbled over my heels a couple of steps but regained my composure as I approached the group.

I took a deep breath and mustered up all the confidence I possibly had and shimmied my way between Alex andDaniella.

"Hey babe," I smiled up at Alex, slipping my arm around his waist and leaning up just a bit to press a light kiss to his jaw.

"Hey," he smiled back, a glassy drunk haze in his eyes.

"Having fun?" I asked lamely and realized that I was no good at this at all.

"Of course. You?"

"Uh huh. I just met Emily," I said, gesturing across the room. "She's awesome."

Ryan must have heard me mention his girlfriend because at the sound of her name he disregarded the conversation he was having with whoever he was taking to and looked over to me. "I knew you guys would hit it off," he practically beamed before he excused himself and headed over to his girlfriend.

I opened my mouth to say something when Daniella interrupted by clearing her throat - as if it was a mortal sin that she wasn't being acknowledged.

"Oh. Sorry, Brook, this is my friend Daniela," Alex introduced and I kind of threw up in my mouth a bit the way she smirked when he saidfriend.

"Nice to meet you," I faked a smile.

"And Daniella, this is my friend Brook," Alex continued and I instantly wanted to rip his head off.

"Excuse me," I said softly, dropping my arm from Alex's waist and backing away quickly.
Just before I was an arm's length away, I felt Alex's hand clamp down on my wrist.

"Wait," he said, leading me over to the side. "You okay?"

"Yup," I replied, popping the p at the end of the word.

"Good," he smiled. "You're having fun with Emily?"

"Uh huh," I crossed my arms over my chest.

"Good," he smiled again, clearly missing the part where I was considering murdering him. "You think you can hang out with her a little more?"

I tilted my head to the side. "What?"

"Look. It's just Jack's a single, 24 year old dude. And as his best friend, tonight I have to act like a single, 24 year old dude."

My eyes widened a little larger than usual. "But... You're not a single, 24 year old dude." I found it quite ridiculous that I even had to point that out to him.

"I know that," he rolled his eyes. "And I love you," he said, leaning down and kissing me quick. "Very much. But right now... I have to be there for Jack."

I uncrossed my arms over my chest and crossed them again. "I'm sorry. But how does shooing me away and talking up this girl over here help Jack?"

He rolled his eyes again, as if the whole situation was completely obvious and I was just the idiot who didn't get it.

Alex grabbed my shoulders gently and twisted my body so I was facing the other side of the room. More specifically, I was facing where Jack was sitting quite cozy with some cute little blonde, who also seemed to have left the rest of her dress at home.

"Okay..." I said slowly as I watched Jack for a second and then looked back to my boyfriend.

"He likes that girl. And she's friends with Daniella. So he asked me to keep Daniella busy so he could talk to Maggie, without Maggie feeling bad for Daniella."

I nodded slowly. "Are we in ninth grade?"

"Brook. Come on," Alex whined.

"Whatever. Have a good rest of your night," I said, spinning on my heel and a second later a long arm was wrapped around my waist and pulling me back to him. "What Alex?"

He looked down at me and smiled. And for a split second I forgot about the whole wanting to murder him thing as he leaned down and lightly pressed his lips to mine. "Love you."

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest again. "Yeah. I bet you do."

"Brook. Why are you being like this?"

I threw my arms up in frustration. And then immediately regretted it because I was drawing attention to our little spat - which I hated doing.

"Are you kidding right now? You don't know why I'm annoyed? Like, there's not one piece of the rational part of your brain that can figure it out?"

He frowned. "No."

"So you expect me to be okay that you're spending the entire night flirting with this girl who clearly wants to get into your pants?"

"Just because she might want to, doesn't mean she's actually going to, Brook," Alex said as if it made everything okay.

"Oh. Okay. So just as long as she thinks she's going to sleep with you, than everything is okay," I said and the sarcastic tone to my voice left a weird taste in my mouth.

"Exactly." Alex said with a smile.

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head before I just turned around and walked away. He was too drunk and too stupid to see how dumb he was being and I would have to wait to have this fight when he was sober.

"That didn't look like it went so well," Emily said with a bit of a wince on her face as I leaned back against the bar after ordering myself another drink.

"I am going to kill him," was all I said before bringing my glass to my lips and taking a large sip. "I could literally see myself ripping his stupid little head off his stupid little body."

Emily didn't try too hard to hide her giggles. "Come on. He's not that bad. He's just a stupid boy."

"He basically told me to go away so he could keep flirting with that girl, while Jack feels up her friend in a booth somewhere in the back."

Emily shook her head. "So he's a really stupid boy."

I sighed. "Maybe I'm just overreacting because this isn't something I'm used to being around all the time. But, is it really so awful of me to want my boyfriend to not flirt with someone he used to hook up with?"

"Of course not," Emily agreed with me. "But Alex doesn't see it as him doing something wrong to you. He only sees it as doing a favor for Jack."

I sighed again, taking a sip from my drink, my eyes landing on Alex and refusing to look away. "Does it get easier?" I asked.

I could see Emily shrug out of the corner of my eye. "It depends. Some things do. But others don't. It's hard dating someone like Ryan or Alex. Especially when you have a life of your own."

I nodded. "Tell me about it."

"But like I said before, you just have to have faith in your relationship and trust that no matter what Alex loves you."

I nodded. "I guess."

"You trust him, don't you?" she asked me.

I nodded. "I trust him. It's his little friend that I don't trust."

Emily gave me a reassuring smile. "As long as you trust him, you have nothing to worry about."
*****

Later that night, much later that night, I was beyond exhausted and still a little bit annoyed. Once Emily decided to call it a night, I figured it was time for me to head to bed too. At this point Daniella had seemed to lose a little bit of interest in Alex and backed off a bit, which made me feel a little bit better. Especially because Alex was actually allowing me to hang out with him now. I still wanted to kill him, but I put on a happy face for the party purposes.

When I decided to head up to bed, Alex was in the middle of aserious game where he was crawling across the bar stools, and the bar top and the tables to move across the room because according to him the floor was lava. And touching the floor meant not only losing his game, but, you know, burning in lava.

When I got back to the room and changed out of my dress and into my pajamas, washed the makeup off my face and brushed the curls out of my hair, it was nearly 4:30 in the morning. I didn't know how anyone was going to be able to function tomorrow for the show, but I figured they were all used to it and that was therock 'n roll way of life.

I had just nearly felt myself drifting off to sleep when the door to the room opened and I heard Alex shushing himself as he made his way through the room.

"Brooky? You awake?"

"Uh huh," I mumbled sleepily from underneath a mound of blankets.

My eyes were closed but I could tell Alex was waking over to me by the sound of his footsteps moving closer. I then felt him sit on the edge of the bed next to me and press a soft kiss to my temple.

"Hi," he smiled when I fluttered my eyes open to look up at him briefly.

"Get changed, Alex and get to bed. You need to be up in like three hours and that is not going to be pretty as it is."

"Are you mad at me?" Alex asked a few minutes later when he crawled into bed with me after changing - which probably means he just stripped down to his boxers.

"Go to sleep, Alex," I said again, ignoring his question and keeping my back to him.

"So I'll take that as a yes," he muttered as I shrugged him off when he wrapped his arm around my waist.

I didn't bother to answer. He had to be able to figure it of at this point on his own.

"Just so I know - what did I do this time?" he asked and something inside of me snapped.

I sat up quickly and stared down at Alex. "Are you serious?"

"Do I look like I'm not?" he asked, leaning up on his elbow.

I rolled my eyes and sighed loudly.

"Is this about Dani?"

I glared at him. The idea of him using a nickname for her was making my anger bubble up more than it should have.

"It's about a lot of things,” I snapped. "Do you not remember anything that happened down there?"

"I just remember you nagging a lot about a whole bunch of nothing."

I stared at him again for a few seconds before I decided I needed to remove myself from this conversation before it got worse.

"Where are you going?" Alex asked when I stood from the bed and grabbed my pillow.

I ignored his question as I walked to the other side of the room and threw the pillow down on the small couch that was in the corner.

I walked back towards the bed and quickly yanked the comforter from the mattress, leaving Alex with just the sheet.

"Really? You're that mad you don't even want to sleep next to me?" Alex asked. He seemed upset. I almost felt bad.

I made myself as comfortable as I could on the couch, underneath the heavy comforter and refused to answer Alex's question again.

Truth be told, if I didn't already know the hotel was sold out for the night, I would be trying to get myself another room.

A little while had passed and I guess Alex realized I wasn't talking to him. Or maybe be thought I had fallen asleep. Either way, I heard him shift around a bit until he got comfortable and before he allowed himself to fall asleep he whispered.

"Goodnight Brook. I love you.”

Notes

Story Title: Taylor Swift - Sparks Fly
Chapter Title: All Time Low - The Reckless and the Brave


Oh Alex...

Do you guys agree with Brook that Alex was kind of being a jerk or do you think she's over reacting?

XO