Brook

"B, are you sure you can do this?" Jenn asked me over the phone. "I will be home in an hour; I can go with you."

"I'll be fine," I said, sitting in my car outside of Alex's house. "Any later and he probably won't be home. It is his birthday after all."

"Okay," Jenn sighed. "Text me if you need me after. I'll be in class but I'll keep my phone out."

"Thanks Jenn," I said, my hands shaking as I held the phone to my ear. I tried to convince myself it was because it was freezing outside and I was sitting in the car with the heat off and not my growing nerves.

I ended the call with Jenn and took a few seconds before I worked up the guts to climb out of the car. I retrieved the gift wrapped packages from the back seat and slowly made my way to Alex's front door.

With my arms full of packages, I managed to knock at the door with my elbow. In the thirty seconds it took for him to come to the door, my brain wandered with the worst case scenarios of what could happen when he opened the door and saw me.

The two worst ones involved him slamming the door in my face and refusing to speak to me and the other had me finding another girl sitting inside waiting for him.

"Brook, hi." He said a little awkwardly when he really opened the door and saw me there. "What are you doing here?"

He should have definitely been a surprise to him that I randomly showed up at his house, especially since I'd been ignoring his calls and texts at all costs for a week.

"I know you're probably on your way out for some birthday partying but I just wanted to drop off your birthday presents."

A small smile spread over his lips. "That's really nice of you. Why don't you come inside?" he asked, holding the door open all the way for me. "You must be freezing."

I nodded slowly, adjusting the large gifts in my arms and took a few steps into the house. Immediately the dogs jumped off the couch in the living room and started circling my feet, sniffing at me and begging for my attention. I guess I didn't realize that we had sort of developed a bond over the past year.

"Let me take those from you," Alex offered, taking the heavy items from my arms.

"Thanks," I said softly, crouching down to play with the dogs while Alex placed his gifts on the kitchen table.

"You didn't have to get me anything..." he said quietly.

I stood up and shrugged. "I ordered these a long time ago. They actually only just came in the mail the other day."

He nodded. "Well... Thanks for dropping them off."

"You're welcome." I said and suddenly the awkward silence hit me like a ton of bricks. I cleared my throat and knew it was time to make a quick escape. "I should probably get going so you can head out to wherever you're going tonight..."

"I'm actually not going anywhere tonight..." Alex said with a shrug. "My birthday plans consisted of me ordering some Chinese food and crashing on the couch with the dogs. You know, since Jack and Zack are back in California at their houses. And Rian is there with Cass for the Voice finale..."

I nodded slowly. "Yeah... But what about your other friends here?"

He shrugged. "We technically already had my birthday party last week and I guess I'm not really in the mood to do much anyway." He probably didn't mean it, but that last sentence really felt like a low blow.

It was only then that I realized Alex was looking quite disheveled. He was wearing an old t-shirt with a hole in it and basketball shorts that were extremely wrinkled. His face was a little stubbly, leaving me to assume he had shaved in a while. Under his eyes were pretty dark and it looked like he hadn't been sleeping well.

It all made me sick to my stomach if I thought about why he looked like that long enough.

I took a deep breath, unsure really as to what to say next. "Well... Uh, have a good night..." I said, slowly backing away towards the door.

"Brook, wait," he said and my eyes snapped up to him.

"Yeah?"

"Would you stay and at least watch me open the gifts?" As he asked there was just the slightest glimmer of hope in his eyes. It almost broke my heart to even consider turning him down.

"Okay..." I said, slowly walking closer to him again.

"Great," he smiled and stood in front of the table. "Is there one that I'm supposed to open first?"

I nodded. "They are in order. Start with the top one," I explained, getting a little excited. I always did love to watch people open the gifts I got them. Especially when I knew they were really going the love them.

Alex carefully ripped the paper off each of the large packages and with each one revealed his smile grew larger and larger.

"Brook, these are amazing," he said, turning to me with a big smile on his face. "Thank you so much."

A few months ago he had showed me these pictures online of some artwork from this artist he really enjoyed. The artist did a really abstract painting of each Star Wars movie poster and Alex pretty much decided he couldn't live without the pieces of artwork.

It cost me almost a month’s rent to order the paintings, have them each professionally framed and shipped to my apartment. But no matter how mad I was at Alex when they finally arrived to me, I didn't want to send them back. I still really wanted him to have them.

"I know how badly you wanted them, so you're welcome."

He didn't say anything for a few moments. He was just admiring the frames. "Seriously, Brook, this is incredible. I... I don't know what to say."

I smiled. "You already said thank you, Alex, there's nothing else you're supposed to say."

He smiled a little more and watched me for a second. "Okay. But would it be incredibly inappropriate if I asked to give you a hug?"

My heart leapt into my throat at the thought of being within such close contact to him. But I didn't dare say no.

Alex took a few steps closer to me and pulled me into his arms, squeezing me as tight as ever. I wrapped my arms around his middle and breathed him in briefly. I reveled in this moment and sort of wanted it to last forever.

"Thank you, Wendy," he whispered in my ear before he loosened his grip on me.

It stung a little to hear him use the nickname he branded me with but before he let me go completely, I squeezed him just a little tighter and kissed his cheek. "Happy birthday."

We broke apart a moment later and I knew it was time for me to really get out there. I had made it through doing this without any major catastrophe and I didn't want to risk creating one with over staying my welcome.

"Well... I should probably really get going now," I said, backing towards the door again.

"Okay," Alex said, all the brief excitement in his eyes draining away quickly. "Thanks again for stopping by."

"No problem," I nodded. "H-Happy birthday." My nerves were getting the best of me.

"Brook..." he said my name so softly, I wasn't even sure he really said it.

I turned back from the door and looked up at him. "Yeah?"

"Would it be incredibly inappropriate if I asked you to stay?"

"Alex," I shook my head. "I'm sorry but I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Please?" he pouted. "It's my birthday and it really would suck to spend the night alone."

"Alex," I sighed. "I don't know..."

"It will be fine. We'll order some Chinese and I'll let you pick what movie we watch."

At this point he had taken the few steps to close the space between us and was tugging on my hands to pull me away from the door.

"Please," he said again, dramatically sticking his bottom lip out in a puppy-dog-pout.

"Fine," I caved. "But under one condition."

"Anything."

"We order pizza instead. I just had Chinese the other day."

Alex smiled. "Fine. We'll have pizza. But now I have one condition."

"And what's that?" I asked, taking off my coat and hanging it over the back of a chair at the dining room table.

"We have to make the pizza," Alex decided.

"Make the pizza?" I laughed. "We don't have-"

"Yes we do," he cut me off. "I still have dough and sauce frozen and there's cheese in the fridge."

I nodded as I followed him into the kitchen. "Alright. Let's do this."
*****
Alex

When I opened my front door on the night of my birthday, the last person I expected to see there was Brook. And the last person I expected to spend the night hanging out with was Brook. But I was beyond excited that both happened.

When I convinced her to stay and hang out, I promised myself that I wouldn't talk aboutus. I figured if we could just act like friends and get along, maybe it would lead to other things but I was not going to push the subject. I did not want to scare her away. And I was terrified of being rejected.

I took out all the ingredients for the pizza and offered Brook a glass of wine, which she happily accepted. Throughout the course of taking out the ingredients, I sort of decided that I was going to make the pizza myself only with Brook's supervision to test my skills.

While the dough and the sauce defrosted, Brook and I made very simple small talk. I could tell, that like me, she was terrified to get into a serious conversation.

"No, no, no," Brook giggled as I flattened the dough to a pan. She was holding a glass of wine in her hand. Her giggles caused the liquid to slosh around the glass.

"What now?" I asked, turning to look at her while she was perched on top of the island in the middle of the kitchen, supervising me closely.

"You have to put olive oil on the pan or it's going to stick when it bakes and the bottom will burn."

"Right," I nodded. "Duh."

She giggled again and took another sip from her wine glass. I tried not to think about the fact that she was on her second glass already and seemed to only relax around me once her buzz kicked in. But then again I was just so grateful to be spending time with her, I'd take drunk Brook over no Brook.

"Did you taste the sauce?" Brook asked, gesturing to the pot on the stove. "Sometimes when you defrost the sauce it can lose some of its flavoring."

I nodded and dipped my finger into the pot and licked the warm, red liquid. "Tastes good to me."

"Ew," she scowled though her eyes glowed with laughter.

"I'm sorry," I smirked and used a wooden spoon to stir the sauce around the pot once before I took another taste.

"Thank you," she nodded. "But now you have sauce smudged on your cheek," she said, pointing at my face.

"Oh," I laughed and wiped at my left cheek.

"No," she giggled, finishing off the remaining wine in her glass before she set it down next to her. "The other cheek."

I wiped at my face again laughing as more giggles erupted from Brook's mouth. My heart beat a little bit faster at the sound. I missed it.

"Oh my gosh," Brook sighed. "Come here."

I stood in front of her and she grasped my hand and placed it on my cheek where the sauce was. "There," she said, looking up at me and there was a weird tension in the air as our eyes met.

I blinked a few times before I broke the eye contact and searched for some kind of distraction.

"Thanks," I said, wiping the sauce from my face with my pointer finger before smearing it across Brook's cheek.

"Alex!" she squealed, shoving me away from her. "Gross!"

I laughed at her. "Oh you big baby," I rolled my eyes and leaned forward, feeling too comfortable with the situation, and licked the remaining sauce from Brook's cheek.

Girlfriend Brook probably would have giggled, pushed me away, calling me disgusting and then pull me back for a kiss.

I had no idea howex-girlfriendBrook was going to take it. I just knew that it made my stomach hurt to think of her as my ex.

"You're gross," Brook giggled, shoving me away before sliding down from the island. "You clearly did not pay enough attention during my cooking lessons. I can't sit back and just watch any longer."

Internally, I let out a huge sigh of relief. In a matter of seconds I saw an entirely different scenario play out in my head, one that ended with Brook storming out of my house.

The fact that she was still here gave me hope. Hope that we could still function in close quarters and get along.

And more importantly, hope that there was still a chance for us yet.

Notes

Story Title: Taylor Swift - Sparks Fly
Chapter Title: Fall Out Boy - I've Got A Dark Alley And A Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth.

Hmm....

And guys, if you haven't yet, please check out my other story Dirty Laundry. <3