A Story to Tell Your Friends

“Hey, Jack?” I called from his sofa, looking up from my phone and trying to find him in the room. It was about a week before Halloween and Jack had already called dibs on me for a party with his friends next week. I’d tried to act like I had nothing to wear, but I’d had an idea in my head for a while and had already started putting it together a little while before, with every intention of going out with Tammy before Jack had told me I was going with him.
“What?” His voice rang out from the bedroom and I rolled my eyes. He’d said he was going to make coffee, so I had no idea why he’d disappeared to the bedroom.
“What’s the number for the girl who dyes your hair?”
“What?” He reappeared in the room, looking at me in confusion.
“The girl who dyes your hair. What’s her number?”
“Why do you need her number?”
“Clearly, I need someone to dye my hair.”
“I thought that was your natural colour…”
“It is my natural colour, Jack. I need someone to dye it a different colour.” Jack eyed me suspiciously, but pulled his phone out of his pocket and read the number out to me. “Thanks, cutie.”
“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing to your hair?” He asked, sitting down beside me. I shook my head, grinning.”
“It’s a surprise.”
“You’re up to something again, aren’t you?”
“Aren’t I always?” Jack chuckled, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me into him. I let out a contented sigh as I cuddled further into him. I utterly adored my weekends in with him, even if we did spend half of our time on the sofa playing video games or watching god awful TV. It was nice to finally feel a little bit of normalcy in our lives.
“You’re always so sneaky,” he muttered into my hair, where he’d firmly planted his face. I felt his nose rubbing against the top of my head and smiled.
“I like seeing the look on your face when I catch you off guard.”
“You always catch me off guard.” I laughed lightly, nuzzling my face into his chest and turning back to the TV.
Okay, okay, I’m nearly there. Promise.
I huffed as I tightened my pigtails, willing the taxi to hurry up. It was finally our Halloween night out and, of course, I was running late. The taxi I’d ordered had taken half an hour to show up and now we were caught in traffic. Jack was already with his friends and I was doing my best not to glare at the cars blocking my path. For the third time, I looked down at my boots, debating how far I could get in them before I keeled over in agony. My phone buzzed with another text from Jack, telling me to let him know when I arrived so he could meet me outside.
I leaned back in the seat, letting out a sigh of relief as the cab moved a few feet forward. It was slow going, but at least I was starting to get somewhere.
It took another ten minutes of stopping and starting before we reached the club. Jack was already waiting outside for me as I quickly paid the driver and left the vehicle. I made my way over to Jack in a hurry so he wouldn’t see me before I could hear his reaction, but I needn’t have bothered: he was far too wrapped up in his phone to notice anything going on around him. I slung my foam, candy-striped baseball bat over my shoulder, posing lightly with my other hand on my hip before I cleared my throat to get his attention. He looked up briefly, before returning to his phone. I let a smirk pull at my lips as he looked back up again slowly, his eyes widening.
“Holy fuck,” he let out, his mouth staying open a little bit as he looked me over. “What is that, Clara?”
“What?” I asked, feigning innocence. “Is there something on my face?” I wiped at my face quickly, trying my best to act like I didn’t know what he was so impressed with. I mean, yeah, plenty of girls were wandering around in hot pants and ‘Daddy’s little monster’ shirts, but I’d gone all out mimicking Harley Quinn’s Arkham City costume, including the tight pleather pants and dark red under-bust corset. I knew exactly why Jack was looking at me the way he was.
“I am not okay with going inside with you looking like that,” he groaned, shoving his phone away and pulling me close to him. I laughed lightly into his chest, grinning. I was happy his with his reaction, because it had been exactly what I had been going for. I was the ‘normal’ one in this relationship. I had a normal job and nobody recognised me when I wandered around the streets. Jack, on the other hand, was in a band and could hardly walk to the store without someone recognising him, nor could he go a day without someone professing their undying love for him online. I had to get one up on him somehow, even if it was cheating by using a corset and tight clothing.
“What? Am I embarrassing you?”
“No, but I know everyone in that bar is going to be trying to take you home and that’s all I wanna do right now.” I laughed again, pulling away from him and kissing him softly, my heels allowing me to do so with little straining. “You should have told me beforehand and we could have co-ordinated our outfits.”
“And miss the look you had on your face? No way.” I looked him over quickly, seeing his outfit in full for the first time. He’d already added a couple of things to his Snapchat story, generally pictures or videos with the guys, so I’d already known he’d decided on going as Nate from Uncharted, but this was the first time I’d seen the full thing. He looked good. Jack noticed me looking him over and grinned at me.
“I chose the easiest of all your video game crushes,” he told me. “I mean, I’d love to do Geralt, but that’d take way too much time and I don’t know how to sew or paint.” He took my free hand lightly. “Come on. If we don’t go inside now, I’m calling a cab and taking you home.” I snorted, but allowed him to drag me inside with him. He openly joked about sex and masturbation to everyone he’d ever met, but this was one of the few instances that I could genuinely see how close to being serious he was. I’d been here a matter of minutes, and pretty much all he’d done that entire time was look me up and down. I’d genuinely never felt so attractive as I did with the way Jack was looking at me tonight. That’s not to say he didn’t make me feel attractive normally, but there was something about the look in his eyes tonight that made me feel unbelievably so.
Quite frankly, I’d been feeling so down on myself since August, that this was a welcome boost.
“Jack!” A dark-haired man called from the bar, waving us over. My breath caught in my throat for a second when I recognised him, realising Jack pretty much hung out with everyone I’d listened to in High School.
“Hey, Bren,” Jack grinned, letting go of my hand and wrapping his arm around my waist. “This is Clara. Clara, this is Brendon Urie.”
“I, uh, I kinda know that, Jack,” I said quietly. I hadn’t felt this uncomfortable since I’d met Blink, but at least I’d had time to prepare for that. I had no idea I’d been meeting frickin’ Brendon Urie tonight. I’d known Brian from The Summer Set and Ashton from 5 Seconds of Summer were both going to be here, and I’d already met Brian, but other than that I wasn’t expecting anyone huge.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Brendon smiled. “Jack and the guys go on and on about you.” I felt a blush creeping up my cheeks and I was beyond glad that the costume had called for some really thick white face paint. Brendon Urie knew who I was. Like, actually had heard things about me and didn’t hate me like Mark and Matt had pretended to.
I resisted the urge to text Tammy flipping out, pushing down my fan girl moment and smiling back at him.
“It’s nice to meet you, too. Jack being the dick he is didn’t bother to tell me you’d be here though, so excuse me for not being prepared to say something witty.” Brendon laughed, flashing another grin at me as Jack chuckled next to me.
“Sorry, I forget how much of a teenager you are about bands,” Jack told me. “I promise I’ll warn you next time you hang out with my friends.”
“I’d appreciate it.” The boys laughed at me again before Jack separated from me to get us some drinks.
“So, how long have you known Jack?” Brendon asked, trying to strike up a casual conversation while we were alone. Small talk or not, fifteen-year-old me wouldn’t believe me if I’d told her she was going to be hanging out in a bar with the front man of Panic! At the Disco while he attempted to make conversation with her. She’d barely even believe me if I told her she was going to be in a bar with Brendon Urie in the same room as her.
“Um, about four months. I only moved here in July and I literally met him the same day,” I chuckled. It was beyond unrealistic running into him the exact day I’d arrived, and yet somehow he’d become my constant in LA. Ignore the month he’d been gone, he was still the person I hung out with the most (excluding, of course, Tammy). It was strange to think I didn’t even know him six months ago.
“That sounds about right. That’s pretty much when he stopped Snapchatting pictures of random girls on nights out.” I snorted softly. I’d heard enough stories about Jack on nights out to know that he’d frequently had random girls milling about. I didn’t, however, know how abruptly that had stopped. “I mean, one day there was the back of some blonde girl’s head at the bar on his Snapchat, and then he didn’t stop posting pictures of you from then on. No more girls. It was pretty weird.”
“I feel like he’s paying you to talk up how great he was with me,” I chuckled. I felt a guilty flipping of my stomach at the thought of just how much of an ass I was with him, but ignored it. August was becoming a distant memory, and I was hoping to keep it that way.
“Hey, I didn’t say he was great, I said it was weird,” he laughed, holding his hands up in a jokingly defensive way. “But if you wanna get into how great Jack is, I’ve got stories upon stories to tell you.”
“I don’t need stories,” I said, seeing Jack making his way back over with his hands full of drinks for the three of us. “I see him pretty much every day, I know how great he is.” Brendon smiled at me softly as I grinned at Jack, grabbing my drink from his hands and thanking him quickly before taking a sip.
“So, what were you guys talking about?” Jack asked, slipping his free arm back around my waist and pulling me into his side a little.
“I’d tell you, but I don’t think your ego could handle it.”
“Ouch.” He pouted softly at me and I couldn’t help but laugh again. Leaning up, I pushed a small kiss to his lips as a means of apology, which he happily accepted. “Your costume is absolutely killing me, by the way,” he whispered into my ear as I made to pull away from him. I felt a mischievous grin pulling at my lips, knowing just how it was supposed to be killing him. I ignored his remark, turning back to Brendon as if nothing had happened and continuing our conversation.

Notes

I'm actually quite proud at how quickly I wrote this chapter. I used to take forever to write things, then write about five chapters in a night. I'm pacing myself better this time, I hope.
On the other hand, I've got 13,000 words due in the next 30 days for uni, so things are definitely going to slow down update wise while I'm doing that, even if I do procrastinate by writing this.
Also, has anyone been listening to SAINTE? I'm thoroughly loving the new single and I'm binging it. Ugh.