I'm strong
But I break
I'm stubborn
And I make plenty of mistakes
Yeah I'm hard
And life with me is never easy

Jack didn’t come home that night.

Normally, I’d be worried, but he did tell me he’d probably spend the night at Alex’s, after, you know, having the night of his life hanging with Paramore while I was stuck at home, sulking with Zero and binge watching Netflix while actively cursing his name.

Stupid Jack and his stupid, totally not fair fight tactics.

I awoke to an empty bed, naturally moving my arm over in hopes that he’d snuck in while I’d been passed out in our bed, but when all my touch came in contact with was cold cotton sheets, I sleepily grumbled under my breath. Though he told me not to wait up, I still stayed up well past midnight, just in case he came to his senses and realized he was overreacting to this whole tour thing.

Then again, this was Jack. I loved him, but we all knew he could be a fucking idiot.

I guess this time was no exception.

I checked my phone, hoping to get an apology voice mail or maybe a text saying he’d be home soon. But as I pressed my phone on, my mouth fell into an annoyed frown as two text messages popped up from Jack.

sent at 3:02 AM
Done with the show. I’m at Alex’s now. Just texting you so you know I didn’t die or anything.

sent at 3:05 AM
BTW he says he wants me to do this writing session with some friends at 2. I’ll be back late, maybe.

Well at least he was keeping me informed, I guess...but normally his texts were much more personal. Loving. Not...dull, like I was his mom and I’d asked what his plans were.

I bit my lower lip, thinking of the best way to respond. Obviously angry? Yeah, that wouldn’t work. It’d only show he’s winning, and I wasn’t about to admit that.

I opened up the text window to type out a reply, staring at the empty white box with pursed lips and determination.

Well I’ve got plans too. Might go to the bar with Jo--

...That was a lie. I couldn’t fathom a night out when Jack was so pissed off at me.
I pressed the backspace firmly, erasing my previous message.

Don’t worry, I won’t wait up.

No, not that either. Sounds too bitchy, and I was not ready, or awake enough, to play that card. So again, I erased my message.

I glanced over towards Zero, who had been staring at me from the corner of the bed, his designated spot where he’d normally wait to cuddle with Jack in the mornings that he was there. But since his male master was nowhere to be found, his bright brown eyes were giving me begging, expectant eyes as if he were saying, “Well, SOMEONE’S going to cuddle with me, woman...”

“Oh, come over here, bud,” I waved him over closer to where I was, the dog almost instantly jumping up from his spot in the corner of the mattress and moving next to my side, happily plopping down and rolling over so his back was pressed against my leg.

I smirked, flipping over to the camera mode on my phone to take a picture of the dog’s current position and considered sending it to Jack as it was adorable. I shook my head as I took the picture, mentally leaving a note to show it to him after this mess was all over.

I turned my attention back to my messages, and as I reopened the app, I caught a glance of the date. April 5th. It was the first day back in the studio for Midnight, so I’d be plenty busy most of the day. I wouldn’t even have time to focus on this stupid fight of ours. Quickly, I typed out a note to Jack.

Studio day today with the band. I’ll be out until late too.

I stared at the message, my fingers itching to add an ‘I love you’, but my thumbs wouldn’t let me, freezing after the first letter. I couldn’t show my weakness. I was strong, and I had to hold my ground with this fight. That being said, I couldn’t help but add a more civil note. One that looked civil, anyway.

Hope you had fun at the show.

I hoped he was miserable.

Zero whimpered against me, nudging his nose against my arm like I wasn’t giving him enough attention. I rolled my eyes, automatically moving my hand up and down the dog’s fur to pet him, smirking as I watched his stub of a tail wag happily away.

I hypnotically pet Zero for a few solid minutes before placing my phone back down onto the dresser, figuring that if Jack was going to respond, it wouldn’t be until at least noon, considering he texted me so late and probably was well on his way to being hungover. Even if he did text me or god forbid, call me, he would be far from in a talking mood. I tiredly let my head fall back against my pillow as I gave a heavy sigh.

This was going to be a long fucking day.

~*~

I could feel Jo’s steel stare, burning into me as I tried my best to focus on the bass track Sam was currently laying down on the other side of the glass panel in the recording booth. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. Spinning around in my chair, I threw a hand up. “What?”

She tilted her head innocently, as if pondering. “I think I’m gonna punch Jack in the balls.” She stated, her voice matter-of-fact.

My eyes widened. “You’re what now?”

Jo just shrugged, probably feeling like she was just standing up for me despite her wish of violence on my man’s privates. “You said it yourself, he’s being a dick, so he clearly deserves a good ball-punching--”

“He is being a dick, but I’m not going to go that low below the belt, Jo!” I shook my head.

“We’re in a fight, that’s it, and I’d rather not harm Jack like that, you know, given that he’ll be the father of my future children and all.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that, anyway? That fight of yours? ” Jo asked, pulling up her own chair so she sat directly across from me, ignoring the precise instrumentation going on with our producer and Sam for the first track Jo’d written for our new album. It was a doozy, for sure, and I was both excited and nervous to put down the vocals, given that the song, per Jo’s explanation, was about oral sex. What a way to start a record.

“I told him about the tour in the summer with Fall Out Boy and he got pissed.” I sighed, finding it weird that Jo even cared to talk about this with me. Normally she was far from the touchy feely type, but lately over the past month or so she’d eased up, overall becoming more of an open person than she’d been in the past, even amongst her friends. Something was going on with her. I just couldn’t quite place my finger on it.

“Pissed?” Jo scrunched up her thin, delicate nose. “When you told us you scored us a spot on tour with fucking Fall Out Boy, we all wanted to scream, we were so happy. Fall Out Boy. Why would Jack be mad about an opportunity like that?”

I could think of a few reasons...

“Maybe because we’d already agreed we’d do Warped together, and he specifically shot down other tours because of me? Or maybe because I agreed to do the tour without talking to anyone else first? Not to mention, we’ll be a part for almost three months straight and then when we’re done touring, it’s two weeks and then BAM!” I clapped my hands dramatically. “Wedding. Take your pick.”

“So?” She shook her head. “You’re a grown ass woman. Just because you’re marr--” She froze, glancing out of the corner of her eye towards the rest of our band mates, who had no clue that Jack and I had already tied the knot. Quickly, she corrected herself, “Going to be married, doesn’t mean he has to be involved with every decision you make. It’s your career, not his and besides, if you turned down that offer you can bet your ass I’d be begging to beat you up right now instead of him.”

“See, that’s what I told him!” I shook my head, internally grateful that at least Jo was seeing my side in this. “But he said I’d made a commitment to Warped and we had all these plans--” I cut myself off. “Plans change, you know? I didn’t know that Fall Out Boy would be making an album, much less touring! I couldn’t say no to this.”

“And now Jack’s being a big baby because you’re leaving him for three months?”

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t say he’s being a baby, exactly. Just...he knows how to push my buttons and I think he’s trying to get me to break with all this ignoring crap and seeing Paramore without me but I won’t fall for it, Jo.”

Jo cocked an eyebrow at my determined tone. “Fall for what, exactly?”

I winced slightly, knowing that to anyone other than me and Jack, our fight must’ve looked insane. Turning an argument into a game? Who does that? I bowed my head so my hair covered a majority of my face, keeping my gaze low as I softly admitted, “We kinda made this deal before he stormed out where whoever admits they’re wrong first loses and gets to pick the wedding venue.”

Her dark eyes widened, shocked at what I’d agreed to. “You what?” Jo’s jaw dropped.
Not answering the question directly, I hesitantly added, “We really need to pick a place, Jo, and I figured it would at least make things interesting--”

“Fuck yeah, it does.” Jo chuckled, shaking her head at me. “Chris, you do realize you gave Jack--Jack Barakat--an opportunity to pick anywhere in the world to get married. Just watch, you guys’ll get married in front of something stupid, like...I don’t know, Chuck-E-Cheese or something like that.”

I rolled my eyes. Jack was childish at times--okay a lot of the time, but I never could picture him stooping that low. “He wouldn’t do that.” I admit, there was a hint of uncertainty in my voice.

Jo just chuckled. “Whatever...” She paused for a beat. “At least you’re winning this fight, right? I mean, he’s got a right to be mad, sure, but Fall Out Boy.” She elongated the bands name as if it was the most obvious reason in the world. “You should seriously win just for that.”

I tilted my head slightly in a hesitant waver. “Unfortunately, Jack’s been playing dirty. You know he saw Paramore last night, right?”

“I saw the instagram posts, yeah.” She nodded, her eyes widening as a lightbulb went off. “Wait, he didn’t take you with him?”

No, he did not.

To Jo, I explained, “He knows I’ve been wanting to see-slash-meet Paramore for, I don’t know, forever, and when Alex invites us to go on one of the few nights we don’t have any set plans, what does he do? He tells Alex I can’t come.”

Jo looked disgusted. Like me, no one gets in the way between her and the music. “That bastard.”

“I think he’s teasing me with all those pictures on Instagram, too. Did you see the one with him, Alex and Hayley in the dressing room, just hanging out? I should’ve been there, Jo!”

Jo thought for a second, licking her dark stained lips. “I’ve got an idea on how you can get back at him.”

My eyebrow shot up, intrigued. “Oh, and how’s that?”

She bobbed her head a few times towards the recording booth where Sam was nearly finished with his track. “This song. It’s perfect, Chris. We’ll just amp up the already sexy song and make you sound completely irresistible to him.”

The song? Really? I wasn’t so convinced this would level out the playing field, given that Jack had heard the kind of songs I’d recorded for Midnight plenty of times in the past, and this song, though a bit more blunt with the whole sex vibe, was not unique.

Still, for Jo’s sake I decided to play along. I listened to her direction carefully, going through each line as I waited for my turn in the recording booth. When it finally was time, I knew each inflection, each breath. I was going to nail this shit.

“Damn, girl.” Landon chuckled as I wrapped up my first run through of the song. “That was smokin’ hot!”

I smirked. Exactly what I was hoping for.

I recorded the vocal track a few more times, playing around with my ‘sexy’ voice as I thought of new ways to elevate the naughty tone of the song.

Always on my side, Jo was thinking of this too and, after the third take, she pressed the button just below the microphone that connected straight into the recording booth, her voice going into my headphones. “Hey, great job, but I still think it’s missing something in the beginning. There needs to be something that leads into the track, to let people know exactly what this song is about.”

“The song is about oral sex.” Mark frowned. “And the lyrics already pretty obviously say that--”

“But before the lyrics come in.” Jo pressed on. “Like...I don’t know...what if you moan or something?”

My cheeks instantly blushed. “Like a moan moan?”

She nodded, completely serious. “It would get the listeners attention, would it not?” At the word ‘listeners’ she even dared to wink, making it plain as day exactly who she meant by that.

I took a breath, knowing this was going to be all kinds of embarrassing, revenge on Jack or not. “I...I guess I could try...”

“Great.” Jo smiled, nudging our producer lightly. “Okay. Whenever you’re ready, dude.”

Greg, the producer just shook his head, laughing at the way Jo had pretty much taken over this recording session. “When I start the recording, Chris, just play around with some sounds. We’ll add them to the track later and see how it sounds.”

I nodded, my heart pounding as I couldn’t believe I was actually going to do this.

“Alright in three...two...”

~*~

I actually did it.

For the real track I think it was unanimously decided that the moans of pleasure wouldn’t be provided by me, but a ‘professional’ aka taken from a porno so I wouldn’t have to live with the knowledge that all of our fans knew what I sounded like in that sort of setting.

The track I was bringing home, however, was all me.

As I walked into our apartment just after four, I was surprised to see Jack was already home, sipping on some coffee as his eyes focused on something on his iPad.

I shut the door softly, my hazel-grey eyes zeroed in on the man in front of me. “I’m home...” I announced out of habit and frowned when he barely glanced up.

Placing my bag on the coffee table, I raised a brow as I took a few tentative steps closer to Jack’s seated figure in the dining area. “I saw the pictures from last night. Looks like you had a lot of fun.”

‘Without me’ I wanted to add, but bit my tongue.

He just nodded, and upon closer inspection I noticed he had been resting a few fingers lazily against his temple, making me realize I probably wasn’t so far off with assuming he was suffering a hangover after the previous night out.

Still playing the silent card, huh? Hungover or not, that was going to change soon, bub. “I had fun at the studio today.” I began, plopping myself down in the chair next to him, causing him to flinch at my forwardness.

“Sally, I’m really not in the mood to talk--”

“Then just listen.” I shot back, smirking to myself as I knew I now had the upper hand. “I recorded something extra special for you. I want you to listen to it and then, when it’s all over I’m going to go to the bedroom and...well the next part is up to you.”

Despite probably feeling like his head was going to fall off, Jack’s dark eyes were glued to me, momentarily forgetting that he was angry at me in the first place. I felt a bit bad, knowing I was playing the whole sex card to get my way, but it was the only one I could think of to get Jack to at least stop ignoring me. I watched as he visibly gulped. “I-it is?” He licked his thin lips, gaze slowly falling down my body in obvious arousal. I inwardly laughed at this. I hadn’t even started my plan and he was already like putty in my hands.

To Jack though, I just nodded confidently, dropping the USB stick with the demo in front of him, the plastic hitting the wooden dining table with a soft clunk. “I’ll be waiting.” I winked, not even waiting for him to press play before I spun on my heels and made my way to our bedroom. Keeping my gaze towards the ground, I shut the door behind me, feeling my heart almost fall out of my chest.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I stripped off my top and jeans, leaving me in a lacy lingerie set that I knew Jack couldn’t resist. All it would take was one look at me like this and he would be all mine.

I took a shaky breath, stepping over my discarded clothes and towards the king sized bed in the center of the bedroom. I quickly sat on the mattress, going through a few poses of how I wanted Jack to find me once he was finished with the song. Should I be on my side, on my stomach? God, why was this so difficult?

Ears on high alert, I could vaguely hear the demo playing on the other side of the door, only making my heart beat faster.

I swallowed hard, eyes wide as it sunk in what I had actually done, the nerves within me making me uneasy to say the least. Jack could react one of two ways; the first, more pleasant way would be for him to say ‘screw it’ and forget this whole fight ever happened and proceed to screw me with the aforementioned promise of the best make up sex ever.

The second, and the more I thought about it, more likely of the two ways this could go down was for Jack to get pissed off--well, more pissed off I should say--that I would play around with him like that to get my way.

Dammit. I shouldn’tve listened to Jo. I should’ve just waited for Jack to cool down a bit and try talking to him like a civil, mature adult but instead I listened to my single friend with a history of fucked up relationships as if she was some expert or something.

I am such an idiot.

“Shit.” I hissed to myself, bending down gather my shirt and jeans before he was finished. I mean, what was I thinking? I couldn’t do this--hell, I shouldn’t do this. Jack was being an asshole, sure, but to tease him like that in order to get my way was just...cruel. I wasn’t going to do that to him. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” I repeated, struggling to get my jeans on as I bounced up and down a few times in hopes of shimmying into the fabric quickly.

It was as I was cursing my choice in wearing skinny jeans on this day that the bedroom door swung open to reveal Jack, slack jawed and eyes staring right at me.

I froze in my motion of buttoning my jeans, trying desperately to read his face. Was he angry? Turned on? Maybe both? “Um...” I began, carefully finishing getting my jeans properly on before taking a cautious step forward. “Look, about all of this--”

“Are you seriously playing the sex card?” He asked me bluntly, his chocolate brown eyes motioning towards my still shirtless figure. “Because I’ve gotta tell you, that’s so not fair.”

Despite having second thoughts, I couldn’t help but ask, “Did you like the song?”

He huffed a laugh. “Did I like--” He stopped himself, pressing a hand to his mouth as he tried to recompose his thoughts. “Of course I liked it. You always sound sexy, but this...” He let out a low breath. “It was fucking hot and you know it. But it was also fucking cruel because now you’re standing here, half naked and probably planning on using sex as a way to get me to admit that I was the one in the wrong--”

“Like how it was cruel to go off to a show and hang out with someone you know I’ve been dying to meet?” I found myself snapping back, cheeks flush as I tried to ignore the fact that I’d been caught red handed.

Jack scoffed. “That’s nowhere near the same thing--”

I angrily snatched my shirt off the floor and held it close to my stomach as I shook my head. “Well I wasn’t going to go through with it, if you must know.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay. So that’s why I walked in on you undressing?”

“I changed my mind, Jack! I was getting my clothes back on.”

“Sure you did.”

“I’m not lying!” I felt my voice grow louder, truly angry at how childish Jack had been acting the past few days. “And maybe the only reason I came up with this stupid plan of mine was to get you to talk to me, alright?”

He froze at this, staring at me with furrowed brows. “...you wanted to talk to me so you figured fucking was the best solution?”

The heat on my cheeks grew as I admitted, mumbling, “It wasn’t that well thought out of a plan, alright?”

“And I was talking to you.” Jack countered carefully. “I haven’t been ignoring you.”

I gave a light, sarcastic laugh. “Oh, really? Jack since you stormed out last night the extent of our communication as been four lousy text messages. Four!” I shook my head, adding as an afterthought. “By the way, I didn’t appreciate you tagging me in all those pictures from the show last night. Because if I wasn’t angry about you going without me, I sure as hell am now.”

“Hey, don’t try to turn this around and make me look like the bad guy here. You were the one about to use sex to your advantage--”

“Again, I wasn’t going to go through with it--”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does, because I realized it was too mean and I--”

“It was pretty damn mean. You know I can’t resist your boobs!” He gestured to my chest, which I’d yet to properly cover.

Oh, did I know. I raised the shirt I’d been holding so it covered my cleavage as I began carefully and logically, “Look, maybe we need to rethink this whole making a game out of our fight thing. I was thinking too much about winning and almost made you hate me--”

“I’m mad. I don’t hate you.” Jack corrected. “There’s a difference.”

“And even though I was the one who fucked up this time, you’re not totally in the clear either.” I added for emphasis. “I’m still pretty pissed, too.”

He nodded. “Fair enough.”

“So I propose a new plan. We ditch the game. When it’s all over we’ll decide together where we’re going to get married but for now, we’re going to do this the old fashioned way and have this fight as long as it takes for us to find a middle ground, alright?”

Jack thought about this carefully. “...we’ll still have the best make up sex ever, right?”

“Damn right we will.” I smirked, glad that angry or not, we were finally getting somewhere. I finally took the shirt I’d been holding and put it back on so as to not distract Jack from the argument at hand. “Now. Let me have it. Yell at me for all the shit you’re pissed off at me for. I can take it.”

He smirked, a hint of the normal, happy husband I loved creeping out from under the otherwise hardened exterior. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you...”

Notes

Long chapter for today's update. Figured it was long overdue :)

Opening lyrics are from "Maybe" by Kelly Clarkson.

Don't forget to comment and stuff. I love you guys so much <3