Jack and I were holding hands as we left the elevator. After our shower, we had put back on our clothes and decided to go out and find a pharmacy to make sure our small mistake wouldn’t change our lives forever. I couldn’t be mad at Jack, and he couldn’t be mad at me, we both got ourselves in this situation. It was an honest mistake that we made together out of habit.

We went down the hallway to find Alex and Rian in the lobby with two drinks. They were sitting on the couches we were sitting on before, just having a nice conversation. All Jack and I wanted to do was tell Rian it was cool for him to go back up to the room, but Alex spotted us first.

“I heard there was some pretty raunchy stuff happening in your room,” he smirked, picking up his drink and bringing it up to his lips before adding a wink.

Jack jokingly hit Alex on the head to get him to shut up. I felt like I was supposed to get embarrassed, like my cheeks were supposed to flare up in a rosy colour. It was exactly what would have happened just months ago. But I couldn’t care less. Why would I care? Rian already saw worse, everybody knew this was bound to happen, and quite frankly Jack and I were at least getting some.

“I’m sorry, guys,” Rian apologised again, looking up at us. At least he could still make eye contact with both me and Jack. That made it even less horrible. “I honestly thought I had been gone for long enough.”

I wanted to accept his apology, to tell him it was okay. But, Alex had to butt in again to make another comment. “You must have been going at it. Were you on, like, your twentieth round?”

“No…” Jack shook his head and rocked back and forth on his feet as he had one hand in his back pocket and was staring out in the distance. “That was all… one… go…”

I could tell that he was absolutely exhausted. But who could blame him? I definitely couldn’t. Honestly, I was surprised that I wasn’t as tired as he was. Then again, I had been sleeping much better, especially when I was sharing a bunk with Jack. Obviously, it would have been much nicer to have the space in our own respective bunks on our own buses. But I honestly didn’t sleep great when I was by myself. I blamed it on the fact that my anxiety dropped when he was around, so it couldn’t keep me up all night.

“Oh, shit.” Alex let out a chuckle, probably more amazed by the fact that Jack just answered. “You guys okay? Do you need some advice?”

I squinted my eyes at him. What was he trying to say? He totally thought Jack and I didn’t know what we could do to make sex any good. He was being too smug. It was just his humour, Jack cracked the same jokes. But really? Jack and I had a whole list of things we wanted to try out. Things weren’t going to get boring for a long time.

“No,” I scoffed. Now, I was getting defensive. What was up with me? I was supposed to be embarrassed. “The new antidepressants I’m taking suck. I’ve got all the side effects, but none of the perks.”

“Oh! Thank fuck!” Jack suddenly sighed in relief, putting his right hand to his chest. “I thought it was me!”

I frowned at him. “Why would it be you?”

“I don’t know. I already thought it didn’t make sense. I’m fucking amazing.” He switched his mood to confident in a split second.

“Alright, I’m out of here.” I shook my head and started towards the exit. To be fair, Jack was allowed to be a little proud at himself. He did manage to get me to orgasm while my medication was doing everything to hold it back.

Jack started following me. Although standing around talking about our sex life was great, it wasn’t our original plan. I wanted to make sure we weren’t going to have a baby. I didn’t need that in my life right now, everything was hectic enough as it was.

“Wait,” Alex stopped us before we could even get further than just a few steps, “where are you guys going?”

“Into town,” Jack shrugged. “Stock up on some stuff, I don’t know.”

“Mind if I join? I need to get some stuff myself.”

And so Alex joined us on our search for Plan B. Well, he didn’t know that that was our mission, but he was there with us. We walked all the way to take in the sights of the place as well. It was my first time in Europe other than at an airport, so I wanted to actually see it as well. I was out nearly every day to take a look around. Just because we had a hotel room, didn’t mean I was going to hide out in bed the entire time. But, I overestimated just how much I was going to enjoy it that particular day.

We were standing on a bridge, looking out over a small river. Alex stood at the fence, taking more than a few photos with his phone. It was quite pretty, Jack took a few as well. This was a perfect place for me to snap a few more as well. Usually, I would have jumped at the chance, especially in a beautiful old city. But something else was on my mind.

Jack came back to me when Alex decided to take a few last selfies. I leaned towards him and whispered, “your cum is literally dripping out of me right now.”

He had to hold back a laugh and slipped my hand into his. “That is strangely hot.”

“No, no it’s not.” I shook my head and shuffled a little. “It’s uncomfortable and disgusting.”

“Hey! It’s not that disgusting.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, it doesn’t feel great. You’ve jizzed your pants before, you know the feeling.”

“Hmm… I see…” He nodded as if I had just said something very intellectual that changed his mind.

“I mean, it could technically be my period as well, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t.” I decided to start walking again, or at least wait at the other side of the bridge to hint to Alex that I wanted to go.

“Wait, when are you supposed to get it?” Jack frowned, thinking back to the last few weeks.

“I dunno. Haven’t had it since I stopped taking birth control,” I shrugged, our fingers still intertwined as he followed me.

Jack froze up. He kept walking, but his facial features showed a hint of fear. “Umm, what?”

“Calm down, it’s normal. It usually doesn’t come back until a few months later.” We finally reached the other side of the river and Alex was still taking his sweet time.

“Oh, okay. Well, let’s find you a bathroom.” He also looked back at Alex, but he didn’t leave him be. Instead, he yelled out. “Yo, Alex! Want to get some coffee?”

Alex’s head shot in our direction and he finally noticed that we had left him already. He came jogging up to us, stuffing his phone in his pocket. “I’m good, actually. But if you want to…”

“I’ve got to pee,” I said bluntly so he couldn’t suddenly convince us we didn’t need coffee. It was a complete lie, but I was definitely going to run to the bathroom as soon as we got somewhere.

“Alrighty then,” Alex clapped his hands together, “coffee sounds great!”

There was an amazing urgency from everybody to find a place right after that. Eventually we just settled on a Starbucks, like the uncultured tourists we were. We just knew that that place actually had a bathroom. When Alex and Jack went up to the counter to order, I rushed to the bathroom. It was exactly what I initially thought it was, and it was a mess to clean up.

When I came out of the bathroom, I saw Jack and Alex waiting for me outside already. Alex had probably managed to convince Jack to let us walk around while drinking coffee, even though Jack knew exactly what predicament I was in. But he was just so excited to see all these places, I could hardly be a buzzkill.

“Hey,” I said to let them know I was back.

“I got you your amazing refreshing black coffee, m’lady,” Jack told me proudly as if he had remembered a very difficult order I told him years ago.

He held out the styrofoam cup for me to take. But something must have gone wrong. Either it got a bit too hot for him to hold, or it slipped out of his hand, but he definitely let go before I could take a hold of it. It bumped again my arm, sending the contents spilling over my shirt and onto the floor. Luckily, it hadn’t seeped through the fabric enough to give me any bad burns.

“Ouch…” I took a deep breath in and pulled my shirt off my stomach so the hot liquid wouldn’t be in contact with my skin for too long.

“Awe, shit,” Jack groaned and held out his arms as if he had just been covered by it. But he didn’t even have a splash on his shoe.

My eyes closed, almost not wanting to deal with the fact that I was wearing a ruined white shirt now. “I’m having some major deja-vu.”

When I opened my eyes again, I was looking directly at Jack. He knew exactly what I was referring to. Even though it was almost exactly two years ago, neither of us was just going to forget that.

“Only you don’t have any photos for me to ruin…” Jack pointed out.

“You do owe me a shirt, though, you ruined this one,” I responded. This white t-shirt was going to be stained forever. It wasn’t necessarily an expensive or special shirt, but it was one less thing I could wear.

“Hell, no, I don’t. You’ve stolen too many of my shirts already.” He gave me a slightly annoyed look. It was true. I’d happily wear anything on his side of the closet. Of course, I’d put them back, but we practically shared all of his stuff by now.

Alex looked at us weirdly, not really understanding what we were talking about. I was sure that Jack had told him about the day he met me, especially since he had asked me out eventually even though I never knew he meant it as a date. But, back then, nobody believed Jack that I actually existed, so maybe the story didn’t stick. Afterall, the way we met seemed like it was stolen from a cliché romance movie.

“I’ll go get you another coffee,” Jack eventually said despite just shutting me down on the shirt topic.

“No, I’m good,” I stopped him before he could walk around me to go back inside. “I’ll survive.” Afterall, I just wanted to use the bathroom, I didn’t need caffeine.

“I didn’t burn you, did I?”

“Nope, I’m fine there as well. I’m just going to…” I zipped up my bomber jacket until I had hidden the coffee stains that covered my stomach. “There we go. Now, I won’t look like an idiot.”

After Jack made sure multiple times that I didn’t want him to get me another coffee, we continued our adventure in this city. Finding a drug store was just a bit more difficult than expected. We found clothing stores, we found more places to get coffee, and we even found a grocery store. Alex wanted to go in that grocery store at first to see if he could pick up some shampoo, but Jack quickly told him that we’d better find a drug store for that. We couldn’t get what we needed in the grocery store, and we wouldn’t be able to use the excuse that one of us needed some soap or something.

We turned a corner on the shopping street, and right there was a shop that looked exactly like what we needed.

“Thank fuck, a drug store,” Jack sighed in relief and started dragging me with him.

“Eager much?” Alex laughed, following us.

He didn’t know just how glad Jack was, though. Since we had gone so long without finding a single one, he was afraid we weren’t going to get to one before shops would start closing. I was a little more hopeful than him, but the nerves did definitely start settling in for me as well. Of course, I would have found a way to get to one the next day, but it would have been so much better to get it done now.

Both Jack and Alex picked up a basket and we split up in our own directions. Alex went straight to the aisle with shower gel and shampoo while Jack and I went to the aisle that had all the over the counter drugs. It took a while to find what was what because everything was in a language that I didn’t understand, but I recognised the packaging.

I crouched down since all the boxes were at the bottom of the display and Jack just stood awkwardly next to me, not even bending over a little to take a look himself. There were multiple boxes of Plan B, all with a different price point, but I didn’t know which one to take. I picked a few up to read the back, happy to see some English there. After comparing them, I just decided on one. It wasn’t the most expensive one, but it also wasn’t the cheapest.

I dropped it into the basket and stood back up.

“Got it?” Jack asked nonetheless.

“Yeah,” I confirmed and tried to remember if I had to buy something else. “Do you still need something?”

He nodded and started to walk out of the aisle. “I’ve got to get deodorant.”

We went to go get exactly that, but Jack stopped randomly in front of me. I almost walked into him. When I looked to see what had gotten him distracted, it all made sense. Well, sort of made sense. He was checking out the condoms, which was just so ironic.

“Do we even need those?” I laughed. Throughout the whole trip, we only got to sleep at a hotel once.

“I only have, like, two left,” he shrugged and chose a box to show to me. “You cool with these?”

I glanced at them, but was still confused. “Yeah, sure, but when are we even going to use them?”

“I dunno, I don’t plan that out.” He threw them in the basket. “But there’re supply closets, bathrooms, my bunk…”

“Alright…” I chuckled with uncertainty. “Like we’ve ever done that before.”

“Hey, we’re spending an entire tour together, I’m not going to go abstinent just because we’re surrounded by other people. You look fucking hot when you come off stage.”

“Okay, but if another person walks in on us again, I’m not doing it again,” I warned. However, Jack just picked up another box and added it to the other one. “Two boxes?! What kind of expectations do you have?!”

He brushed me off and even took a bottle of lube before continuing to what he originally needed. “Just trust me.”

“I certainly don’t right now.” We walked past Alex who gave me a very suspicious look.

“Variation, if one breaks when we put it on, and otherwise we’ll just use them after tour!” He tried to reason.

“We still have some at home, though.” I didn’t know why I was so set on disagreeing with him. It couldn’t hurt. But that feeling of being uncomfortable was coming back. What was the cashier going to think about all the shit we were buying?

“Isle, it’s just condoms,” Jack said as we got to the deodorant.

“Alright, fine. I just think you’ve got unrealistic expectations.”

“No, I don’t.” He easily chose the one he wanted this time. “You know I won’t force you to do anything. It’s just good to have them in my bunk and in my bag.”

“Huh, okay, now you’re making sense.”

“Thank you.”

We got to the till and started putting everything on the counter. Coincidentally, Alex decided to go and pay at the same time. He didn’t even try to hide that he was checking out what we were getting. Of course, his eyes landed on the Plan B.

“Oh, damn, Jack you really are out of it today,” he nudged.

“Umm, it takes two,” I quickly corrected. Sure, I was a complete mess when things were going down and I never expected Jack to enter me again, but it was also my responsibility. I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should, especially since we had built up the habit of not needing condoms anymore.

Alex looked like he was about to counter with something, but eventually he just gave a single nod.

The cashier told us the total in English, having heard us speak and making my cheeks heat up a little. I went to grab my wallet to pay since I was standing in front of Jack and he had paid for coffee. But before I knew it, Jack had pulled out some Euros and was paying yet again. We didn’t really care who paid for what anymore, but I still felt a little bad. The Plan B was the most expensive thing we bought.

But, like I said before, it did take two to get in this situation.

Notes

I feel like I've forgotten to update a few times. I'm now six chapters ahead, usually I'm four chapters ahead. What happened?