I came home a few days before Jack did. With few, I mean two, one of those days being the day I arrived. So, although we had recorded all our demos, I was still super busy working. Since we wanted to put out the album soon, I immediately started listening to the songs and suggested things that could be changed before we even looked at them with a producer. Using my laptop, I made comments all over a document I had with the lyrics to the song. I had comments all over, some discussing the guitar, others discussing the actual lyrics, and a few about the other instruments that I had no knowledge about.

I probably should have taken some time to relax, but I so wanted to put these songs out. Like Pete had said, putting it out before Warped Tour was the best thing to do. I didn’t want people to think they found the wrong band or some shitty cover band. We needed to give these potential new fans some new content! Of course, we still had some fans from when Cam was still the lead singer, but we wanted to grow, just like all bands.

Usually, I didn’t answer phone calls from numbers that I did not recognize, but since I was now getting calls from all over the place concerning the record label and where we could record, I now always had to answer. I didn’t even think twice anymore. As soon as my phone would ring, I would answer it. The same thing obviously happened that day as well. I just felt like it was a little ironic that I was right in the middle of an important phone call right when the doorbell rang.

While I continued to listen to the man from the record label who was telling me the details about the recording, I shuffled towards the door. I just prayed that it wasn’t somebody who also needed to talk to me, because I had no way of listening to two people. However, it was exactly who I expected to be there. Jack was waiting on the other side with his luggage. I don’t know why he rang the doorbell instead of just entering with his keys, but he probably thought it would have been easier for him since he knew I was home.

I felt like an asshole when I opened the door, pointed at my phone, gestured from him to come inside, and held up a finger to tell him that I could speak right now. Of course I wanted to be excited and help him, but I couldn’t exactly get off the phone. Jack just nodded and let me go back into the house while he carried his bags in himself. He just stood there and waited in the living room while I went into the kitchen and grabbed a pen and a notepad. A few minutes later, I had written down the address of the recording studio down in New York, the times we had booked and were able to record--which happened to be in three days--and some other necessary details like who to look for. Once that was done, I could finally end the call.

I left the kitchen and ran up to Jack with a squeal, finally giving him the reaction I had wanted to give him as soon as he came home. After throwing my phone on the couch, I jumped up while he stood there ready to catch me already. He held me up as I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms circled around his neck. You already know what else was going down, our lips were locked in a heated kiss.

We weren’t even going to stall. Both of us had decided it had been way too long since we last saw each other. No, we hadn’t already planned that we were going to go right down to business as soon as he got home. Honestly, I would have at least expected that we would have said a few words to each other before this, but it turned out the way it had. It didn’t seem like anybody was complaining.

Well, that was except for my phone. It started buzzing and ringing, signaling me that somebody was spam-texting me. The only way somebody could text so fast was if they sent only one word per message. I completely ignored it as first, so did Jack, but eventually I was getting distracting and it started ruining the mood.

It wasn’t until they started calling me that Jack broke us apart and put me back on the floor much to my despise. “It seems pretty urgent. Answer it.”

“But I don’t want to,” I whined and kept my arms around his neck. I didn’t want to do anything except him right at that moment.

“Don’t worry about it, I can wait,” he told me as if he was the only one that wanted to have sex right now, as if I was only doing him a favor.

I frowned and decided his selfishness was a good enough reason for me to actually answer the phone. Little did he know that he was going to wait longer than expected. When I picked up the phone, I saw Carter’s name clearly at the top of the screen, waiting to be answered. Just seeing his name already made me want to answer it less. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Carter, because I honestly did love him like a brother, but I just knew that whatever he was calling me for, especially after so many text messages, wasn’t worth breaking Jack and I apart for. However, the fact that Jack I already did break apart, meant that I did answer it.

“Ireland, I need you to write this down!” Carter shouted down the receiver without greeting me first.

I rolled my eyes. “Hello to you too, Carter.”

“No, I need to you write this down before I forget it!” he urged, the panic sounding through his voice.

“What do you need me to--”

“I just had a good idea for one of the songs! Fucking write it down before I forget!”

“And why would I need to do that, why can’t you do it?”

“Ireland!” he screamed in desperation. “Take whatever you use to make notes and write my idea down! I can’t think and write at the same time!”

I sighed, knowing that I wasn’t going to get out of this, and went back to where my laptop was placed on the coffee table. As I opened it and logged in before sitting down on the floor, I could see the twinkle in Jack’s eyes leave. He too, by now, figured out that it was a mistake to let me answer the phone. If the laptop was pulled out and I went to sit down at it for a purpose, it was going to take a while before I left it again.

I gave Carter the sign to start telling me his idea as soon as I saw the document that was still open.

“Ok, ok, so this idea is specifically for that one song…” he started in a very hasty way, but I could tell it was going to take ages for it to come out. “The one with ‘I find it hard to believe’. So, right now it’s kind of constant with slight changes, but there’s something missing. I know I don’t play guitar or anything, but it would work so nicely if you and John and Charlie could figure something out and I could do drums that fit well with it. It would switch it up a little!”

“Look, Carter,” I interrupted, trying to speed up the process, “you’re going to have to tell me what you want to do. You’re stalling.”

“Shut up, I’m giving you context. You’re going to make me forget my idea!”

“I am? You’re the one taking ages!”

“Shh. After the second chorus, ok? Instead of repeating the more powerful chorus again straight after, we add a breakdown,” he told me as if it was the best idea he had ever had.

“Ok, but this doesn’t give me shit,” I said bluntly, resisting the urge to just close my laptop and go back to Jack without saying goodbye to Carter.

“Ugh, I know! But I have a specific idea in my head, but I can’t describe it. All these sounds are coming together!”

“And you want me to write down what is going on in your head, but you can’t describe what it is?”

“I made something out of it! I used some program on my computer to create the basis of what I’m thinking about,” he tried to convince me. “But I don’t really know what I’m doing, so it’s in the wrong key and it doesn’t sound finished.”

“And why would I need to write something down?”

“Ireland, don’t do this to me! You need to help me figure this all out.”

“Dude, my music theory is worse than yours!” I exclaimed and brought my empty hand to my forehead in frustration. “Plus, I was busy with something.”

I looked in the direction where Jack had been standing to see that he was no longer there. Even his suitcases were no longer on the floor. My guess was that he decided to go upstairs and bring his stuff up with him. At first, I thought he would come down again, but the sound I could hear coming from our bedroom just told me that he was unpacking. He never unpacked on the day he came back.

“Please!” Carter whined and begged.

“Fine,” I breathed out. If Jack was going to do other things because he thought I was working, then I was actually going to work.

Carter and I spent ages trying to do something with what indeed sounded like something somebody who had never touched an instrument before had made on some digital music program. However, I could hear that he did actually have something good in there. It was way faster than the rest of the song. Not in tempo, but just as more notes in one measure. While very different to the entire song, it did have potential. Plus, it really fit with the faster intro we had that first seemed like it was part of a different song. It was exactly what we needed.

We worked on it for so long that instead of calling, we went over to skype so we wouldn’t go over our limits. It took so long, that Jack had unpacked all his stuff, started washing all his laundry, came back downstairs, did some stuff aimlessly, made us dinner that I ate where I was working, and even did the dishes. The worst part, though, was that when Carter and I finally finished and Jack suggested we watch a movie together, I couldn’t get all these ideas out of my head. I had a completely new vision to look at all these songs with. So, before the plot even started, my laptop was back on my lap and I was typing away.

Jack eventually shuffled closer to me swiftly and started placing kisses up and down my neck, trying to bring back the mood we had started way before.

But I just clumsily pushed his head away as I tried to keep typing and groaned, “not right now.”

He, however, just came back as soon as both my hands were back on my keyboard. His actions resumed immediately, the kisses becoming ever more sensual.

“Jack,” I mumbled in concentration, and pushed him away again. My eyes quickly flickered to the TV screen to see what was making the movie so boring that he wasn’t watching it anymore. However, all I could see was the credits rolling, and it wasn’t the credits that came up first, they had been on for quite some time. It shocked me to see I had been working for another two hours without even noticing.

“Fine,” he grumbled in anger and stood up. “Guess I’ll just go to bed then.”

He left without turning off the TV and didn’t even say anything to Taco, while he usually would have. I just sat there, still flabbergasted by what I had done. This was the sign I needed that told me to stop. I saved the document and carefully closed my laptop, putting it back on the coffee table. It was only then that I realized how fried my brain was. Something in me was afraid that everything wouldn’t make sense anymore and that I had done this for nothing.

But I pushed the fear away and reached out for the remote to turn off the TV. After checking that the front door was locked, I did my rounds to turn off all the lights and went upstairs. I still couldn’t make sense of what happened. It started off as me being mad that Jack was cool with something interrupting us for a second to me working non-stop for the rest of the day and making Jack mad that I wasn’t paying attention to him. It was fucked up. I didn’t want to end things this way, we still had the promise that we wouldn’t go to bed mad at each other.

Jack was already in bed, scrolling through his phone, the screen was the only light in the room. He ignored me completely as I turned on the light so I could see where I was going. I tried to get his attention by walking to my side of the bed and putting my phone in the charger, something I normally didn’t do until the end, but he just refused to acknowledge me.

So, instead, I crawled onto the bed, got very close to him and whispered, “Jacky.”

With how quietly he was sitting there just keeping his eyes on his phone and scrolling into oblivion, I half expected him to try and jump-scare me. But nothing in his behavior changed. I huffed a little and got off the bed, standing at the end of it. There was one last thing I could try.

I slowly pulled off my shirt and when I noticed he still wasn’t looking, I said, “I guess I just wore this for no reason then.” When his eyes flickered up, I took off my pants, making sure to bend over without using my knees so that my ass would be the main focus.

I was wearing that black lingerie set that I had bought back in LA with Tay. Although I might have worn it once or twice before, I thought it would have still been a great surprise for Jack. Plus, it did show that I had fully intended on having sex with him that night, but that I had just lost track of time. It was already almost midnight, and Jack must have waited that entire time for me despite being tired from traveling and from jetlag.

“I guess you did.” Jack shrugged, not showing anything that signaled that what I had done had had any effect on him, and looked back at his phone.

“What a shame…” I wasn’t going to give up easily. I swayed my hips a little more as I threw my shirt in the laundry basket on one side of the room before doing the same while putting my pants back in the closet on the other side.

Still, nothing.

I knew that there was nothing sexy about brushing your teeth, yet I kept the bathroom door open so Jack could still see me in just my underwear. Of course, I did lean over a little more often the counter so everything looked better, but having a toothbrush with frothing toothpaste was probably one of the biggest turn-offs ever. After I had done that for two minutes and Jack still hadn’t moved, I gave up. I let out an annoyed sigh, unhooked my bra and threw it to the bedroom floor before closing the bathroom door so Jack wouldn’t have to look at me as I used the toilet.

Although there was a large chance that he was just trying to get back at me, I was still frustrated. Jack was never the one to ignore me during times like this. Yes, I know it sounded stupid. I was the one who had done something wrong this time, but really? I was trying to make it up to him. What else was I supposed to do? Say that I was sorry for working the entire time? Yes, I was sorry about not spending time with him, but this deadline was creeping up. It was quite likely that we had just found the missing piece to our music. So, was I going to try to get a reaction out of Jack again when I left the bathroom? No.

After flushing the toilet and washing my hands, I expected to open the door, still not be noticed by him, and go straight to bed. But that wasn’t what happened at all. Little did I know that there was a ‘surprise’ waiting for me. As soon as I opened the door, I saw Jack standing in front of it, waiting for me to come out. He took my face in his hands and kissed me like we had done downstairs. I pulled him closer and wrapped my arms around his neck. Just cause I didn’t feel like making another move didn’t mean I was against Jack doing it.

“You know I can’t stay mad at you when you look like that,” he mumbled against my lips as we broke apart shortly.

I smirked knowing that my plan had worked better than I thought it had before reconnecting our lips and letting us do what we had planned all along.

Notes

Just a chapter that isn't all too significant plot-wise, but necessary Jack-wise. A lot more stuff's going to happen where he's a little in the background. Maybe this is actually important... maybe it's the start of them drifting apart?