Dirty Laundry
1
2015
There were very few times in his life where Alex Gaskarth was nervous going into a meeting with his band, their manager and representative from their label. Sure, there were times where they went into these meetings to discuss extremely important things that would seriously affect the state and the future of All Time Low. However, in those meetings, he was always able to find a way to undermine his nerves with excitement.
This time was different. This meeting in particular was to finalize plans for All Time Low’s summer Future Hearts tour. But that wasn’t what made Alex nervous. What Alex was nervous about was what he was going to ask his bandmates during this meeting.
Alex was going to ask Jack, Rian and Zack for their permission for Alex to invite his girlfriend, Riley, to join them on the road for most of the tour. Normally, it had never been an issue for any of the guys to bring any of their significant others on the road. However, Riley was a little different than any girlfriend any of the guys had before. Yes, she was an amazing person and yes, she got along perfectly with all the guys, but the thing that made her different from the rest was the fact that she had an eight year old daughter, Summer.
Alex and Riley had been together for a little over three years and at this point in their relationship, Alex just couldn’t stand the idea of another entire tour where he’d have to leave Riley and Summer behind in California. He knew that the guys loved Riley and Summer but he just didn’t know how the guys would feel about having an eight year old on the bus since the bus was where a good portion of their crazy behavior went down.
Alex hadn’t even brought up the idea of Riley and Summer joining him on the road to Riley yet. He knew convincing her that it was a good idea was not going to be easy, but it would be slightly easier if he could promise her all the guys were on board.
The only other time Alex could remember being this nervous, and only nervous, before a band meeting was when he decided to tell his friends that he was dating a girl with a child. At that point Summer was only four years old. Needless to say, that was a challenging conversation.
2012
All Time Low were in the middle of a pretty important meeting. They had decided to officially and completely cut ties with Interscope Records. It had been an incredibly amazing and humbling experience for them as a band to be signed to and release music through a major record label but unfortunately it just didn’t look like it was going to work out in the long run.
While his sole focus should have been on what this all meant for the future of All Time Low, as they were technically currently an unsigned band, Alex could not stop thinking about the fact that he had been keeping a quite large secret from his bandmates and best friends for months now.
They knew that he had been dating this girl named Riley. They all had met her briefly a few times but none of them had really had the time to get to know her, which had sort of been Alex’s plan for the time being.
Jack, Rian and Zack all knew Alex really liked Riley but what they had failed to learn was just how much Alex liked her and the fact that she had a four year old daughter named Summer.
“Alex, what do you think about that?” Keith, the band’s manager asked. He had a sort of irritated scowl on his face, which Alex immediately took to mean that he had been caught spacing out.
“About what?” Alex replied, blinking. He figured it was best to not even pretend like he had been paying attention.
“About the Louisiana Purchase,” Jack scoffed. “What the hell do you think he was talking about?”
While all four members of All Time Low were struggling in their own ways with the uncertainty of the band’s future, Jack Barakat seemed to be taking it the hardest.
“I’m sorry,” Alex muttered, keeping his focus on his hands that rested atop of the large table in the conference room that was in same building Keith had his office.
“What’s up, dude?” Rian Dawson asked. His approach was a bit more calming than Jack’s had been. “You seem a bit distracted by something else.”
Alex sighed and stretched his arms above his head. “Well, that’s probably because I am distracted by something else.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “What on earth could be more important than the future of our band?”
“Nothing.” Alex said flatly, shooting a glare at his best friend.
“It sure doesn’t look that way,” Jack muttered under his breath, looking away from Alex’s glare.
“You know what, Jack-” Alex started but was interrupted by a rare appearance from a very vocal Zack Merrick.
“Guys, stop bickering,” He almost shouted, waving his arms in the air from his seat across from Jack and Alex. “Alex, is the something that has you so distracted something you’d like to talk about right now? Or can you just push it to the back of your mind for now so we can carry on with this meeting?”
Alex sighed again. It was now or never. He had decided when he walked into this meeting that he was going to come clean about his secret. He just needed to find the courage to get the words out.
He didn’t even know why he was keeping this secret. So what he was dating a girl with a kid? Big deal, right?
Except for a guy like Alex, it was a pretty big deal. He never had a real relationship before. Being the lead singer of a largely successful international band probably had a hand in that.
The constant touring and recording and flying around from city to city and country to country certainly made it hard to meet girls and develop long, meaningful connections with them.
Certainly Alex had no trouble meeting girls in general. At almost any given moment of his life he was surrounded by more girls than he could have asked for but none of those girls really stuck around long.
Yeah, he had girlfriends over the years and sure, he cared about the girls, but never the way he was sure he was supposed to. His relationships were always somewhat open ended, whether the girl he was with knew that or not could be up for debate.
The only girl he was ever truly in love with was the one who broke up with him after a year and a half, stating she just couldn’t take the long distance and if Alex was going to continue on his quest as a touring musician, she was going to have to let him go. They never had the most stable relationship. They were both never one-hundred-percent faithful to each other. And yet, to have that relationship end was difficult for Alex. He was twenty-one at the time and the idea of choosing between love and relationships and music and the band just seemed preposterous.
The choice was easy to make but that didn’t mean it was easy to go through with.
So now at twenty-four years old, after years of being branded something of a player, for Alex to suddenly be in a serious relationship with girl who had a young child, was going to sound nothing short of crazy to his friends.
Alex shook his head, pulling himself from his thoughts again and placed his hands back atop the table. "Um… Well, actually, if you all wouldn’t mind taking a break from all this, there is something that I’d like to tell you.”
“Awesome” Jack huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and slumping back in his chair. “I’d love to find out why you’ve been acting like such a little bitch.”
“Jack, stop,” Rian hissed, turning his attention to Alex, much like Zack had done as well. “Go on, Alex.”
“Uh,” Keith raised his hand from the head of the table, earning four pairs of eyes to suddenly be on him. “Should I leave you guys the room?”
Now there were four pairs of eyes on Alex and he shook his head. Keith had been like a father figure to them, having known the band since they were sixteen and seventeen years old. There was no reason he shouldn’t be around for this conversation. Alex actually would welcome his more mature and grown-up input. Plus, he was going to find out eventually.
“No,” Alex said, turning back to Keith. “You can stay. You need to hear this just as much as the rest of them.”
“Okay,” Keith nodded, leaning back in his chair.
The room was silent for a few extra-long moments as Alex tried to gather his thoughts.
This is crazy, he thought to himself, knowing full well that he was building this whole thing up in his head to be a much bigger deal than necessary.
“Are you dying?” Jack asked, finally breaking the silence that was growing uncomfortable.
“What? No, of course not,” Alex said quickly. “It’s nothing like that.”
“Then what the hell is it?” Zack asked, growing slightly annoyed with how Alex was leading them all on.
“It’s about Riley.” Alex finally stated.
Keith sighed loudly and Zack muttered a shit under his breath.
“You got her pregnant!” Rian practically shrieked, completely abandoning the calming approach he displayed moments earlier.
“No,” Alex shook his head hard and fast, even though Rian’s prediction wasn’t that far off. “I did not get Riley pregnant.”
“Okay,” Rian said slowly, trying to maintain a sense of calm once again. “Then what about Riley?”
Here goes nothing, Alex thought to himself again, taking a big, shaking gulp of air into his lungs before he spoke again.
“Riley has a daughter.”
Four, blinking pairs of eyes stared in Alex’s direction for another uncomfortably long bout of silence. They were each taking the time to process the information in their heads before making any comment that may come out the wrong way.
“That’s it?” Keith was the first to speak up.
Alex nodded. His eyes were back to giving their undivided attention to the tops of his hands as he could not bear to see the reaction to his confession of his friends’ faces.
“What do you mean that’s it?” Jack interjected. “What the hell does he know about kids? Are you sure it’s not yours?”
“She’s four. I only met Riley this year. You do the math, dick,” Alex snapped.
“Okay, okay,” Keith spoke up again quickly to prevent another bout of bickering between Alex and Jack. “I meant that’s it in the sense that this isn’t that big of a deal.”
“I don’t know,” Jack shrugged. “I think it’s a pretty big deal. But I guess now it makes sense why you never bring Riley around. Your dates must consist more of going to the playground and Chuck E. Cheese instead of bars and parties.”
Alex sighed. This was what he was afraid of.
“I have a question,” Zack spoke up, raising his hand slightly to get everyone’s attention.
Alex nodded for him to continue.
“Why didn’t you tell us right away? I kind of agree with Keith. This isn’t exactly an earth-shattering confession.”
“I’m not sure,” Alex shrugged. “I was afraid of how you’d react,” he said, glancing at Jack. “I didn’t want you guys to judge Riley for it. I didn’t want you guys to judge me for dating her…”
Rian let out a laugh that grabbed everyone’s attention. “When did we ever give you the impression that we’d be judgmental over something like this?”
Alex shrugged again. “Never, I guess…”
“Exactly,” Rian said.
There was silence again.
“I’m okay with it,” Zack spoke up.
“Really?” Alex snapped his head up in Zack’s direction.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t be. Riley seems like a great person. Clearly, the fact that she’s been around after so many months means that you really care about her. And the fact that you’re dealing with her having a kid, means that you really, really care about her.”
“I’m okay with it, too,” Keith spoke up. “As long as you’re happy, I have nothing else to say about it.”
Alex slowly felt some weight lifting from his shoulders.
“Are you happy?” Rian asked.
“I am,” Alex nodded. “I really am.”
“Okay, that’s great that you’re happy, but, I’ll ask again. What the hell do you know about kids?” Jack asked.
“At first, nothing but after getting to know Summer a bit, I’m slowly getting the hang of it.” Alex answered. “Look, believe me, I know how crazy it looks for a guy like me to be dating someone with a kid. I get it. It was hard for me to process at first too but it wasn’t worth losing Riley over.”
“Wait, so she didn’t tell you that she had a kid right away?” Jack pried.
“No, she didn’t,” Alex confessed, waving Jack off before he could ask another handful of questions about that. It was a long story that he wasn’t willing to get into at the time.
“Like these guys,” Rian said, pointing towards Keith and Zack, “I’m cool with it. As long as you’re happy and aware of what you’ve gotten yourself into, it’s really none of my business.”
“Thank you,” Alex said softly.
“How can you say that it’s none of your business!” Jack exclaimed. “Of course it’s our business. Don’t you realize what strain this is going to be on the band?”
“Jack…” Rian tried.
“We might as well just break-up now. First, it will start with you not wanting to come out with us to bars and stuff and before you know it, you’ll be all I don’t think we should tour that much next year; I want to be home more with my girlfriend and her kid…”
Alex sighed, realizing that Jack was sort of projecting his worries for the future of the band on his relationship with Riley. It was hard to get mad at him because Alex now understood where his outbursts were coming from.
“Jack, that’s not going to happen,” Alex tried to assure him. “All Time Low still remains my number one priority but that doesn’t mean I should put things on hold in my personal life. I think I’m at a point in my life where I am able to do both.”
“But what if you can’t?” Jack asked, getting a little more serious now than angry.
“I’ve been doing it so far,” Alex shrugged.
“I don’t know, man,” Jack sighed. “This is a bit heavy for me right now.”
Alex nodded. “I understand. I don’t need your blessing just yet. I just hope that eventually you can come around to it.”
“I’ll try,” Jack nodded.
“We’ll be fine, Jack,” Rian tried assuring him this time. “This really isn’t a big deal.”
“He’s right,” Keith agreed. “There’s plenty of musicians out there who manage to have successful careers while having families. Nothing has to change here just because Alex is dating a girl with a four year old.”
Jack nodded and Alex muttered a thank you again.
“So, can we get back to discussing re-signing with Hopeless now, or what?” Zack asked with a chuckle.
“Wait,” Alex looked up, gazing between his bandmates and manager. “Hopeless wants us back?”
The guys all laughed and Keith nodded.
“That’s what I was saying when you completely zoned out.”
Alex felt his cheeks heat up in a slight blush. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “But I do think it’s perfect.”
While his confession of Riley and Summer went over much better than he expected it to, Alex tried to give Keith his undivided attention as he went over the terms Hopeless were offering for All Time Low to re-sign with them. Alex loved the idea of going back to Hopeless; it was like going back to their roots and it was definitely fitting with the type of music they had already started to make.
Deep down, Alex was still slightly bothered that Jack hadn’t given him his full blessing but he was confident that he would come around eventually.
In fact, about three days after that meeting, Alex was sitting in a frozen yogurt shop with Riley and Summer, learning in full detail from Summer exactly what had happened on the latest episode of "Dog with a Blog" when a text message popped up on his phone screen.
Jack Barakat: #blessed
Alex chuckled to himself knowing he now had the full blessing from his best friend.
***
There were very few times in his life where Alex Gaskarth was nervous going into a meeting with his band, their manager and representative from their label. Sure, there were times where they went into these meetings to discuss extremely important things that would seriously affect the state and the future of All Time Low. However, in those meetings, he was always able to find a way to undermine his nerves with excitement.
This time was different. This meeting in particular was to finalize plans for All Time Low’s summer Future Hearts tour. But that wasn’t what made Alex nervous. What Alex was nervous about was what he was going to ask his bandmates during this meeting.
Alex was going to ask Jack, Rian and Zack for their permission for Alex to invite his girlfriend, Riley, to join them on the road for most of the tour. Normally, it had never been an issue for any of the guys to bring any of their significant others on the road. However, Riley was a little different than any girlfriend any of the guys had before. Yes, she was an amazing person and yes, she got along perfectly with all the guys, but the thing that made her different from the rest was the fact that she had an eight year old daughter, Summer.
Alex and Riley had been together for a little over three years and at this point in their relationship, Alex just couldn’t stand the idea of another entire tour where he’d have to leave Riley and Summer behind in California. He knew that the guys loved Riley and Summer but he just didn’t know how the guys would feel about having an eight year old on the bus since the bus was where a good portion of their crazy behavior went down.
Alex hadn’t even brought up the idea of Riley and Summer joining him on the road to Riley yet. He knew convincing her that it was a good idea was not going to be easy, but it would be slightly easier if he could promise her all the guys were on board.
The only other time Alex could remember being this nervous, and only nervous, before a band meeting was when he decided to tell his friends that he was dating a girl with a child. At that point Summer was only four years old. Needless to say, that was a challenging conversation.
2012
All Time Low were in the middle of a pretty important meeting. They had decided to officially and completely cut ties with Interscope Records. It had been an incredibly amazing and humbling experience for them as a band to be signed to and release music through a major record label but unfortunately it just didn’t look like it was going to work out in the long run.
While his sole focus should have been on what this all meant for the future of All Time Low, as they were technically currently an unsigned band, Alex could not stop thinking about the fact that he had been keeping a quite large secret from his bandmates and best friends for months now.
They knew that he had been dating this girl named Riley. They all had met her briefly a few times but none of them had really had the time to get to know her, which had sort of been Alex’s plan for the time being.
Jack, Rian and Zack all knew Alex really liked Riley but what they had failed to learn was just how much Alex liked her and the fact that she had a four year old daughter named Summer.
“Alex, what do you think about that?” Keith, the band’s manager asked. He had a sort of irritated scowl on his face, which Alex immediately took to mean that he had been caught spacing out.
“About what?” Alex replied, blinking. He figured it was best to not even pretend like he had been paying attention.
“About the Louisiana Purchase,” Jack scoffed. “What the hell do you think he was talking about?”
While all four members of All Time Low were struggling in their own ways with the uncertainty of the band’s future, Jack Barakat seemed to be taking it the hardest.
“I’m sorry,” Alex muttered, keeping his focus on his hands that rested atop of the large table in the conference room that was in same building Keith had his office.
“What’s up, dude?” Rian Dawson asked. His approach was a bit more calming than Jack’s had been. “You seem a bit distracted by something else.”
Alex sighed and stretched his arms above his head. “Well, that’s probably because I am distracted by something else.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “What on earth could be more important than the future of our band?”
“Nothing.” Alex said flatly, shooting a glare at his best friend.
“It sure doesn’t look that way,” Jack muttered under his breath, looking away from Alex’s glare.
“You know what, Jack-” Alex started but was interrupted by a rare appearance from a very vocal Zack Merrick.
“Guys, stop bickering,” He almost shouted, waving his arms in the air from his seat across from Jack and Alex. “Alex, is the something that has you so distracted something you’d like to talk about right now? Or can you just push it to the back of your mind for now so we can carry on with this meeting?”
Alex sighed again. It was now or never. He had decided when he walked into this meeting that he was going to come clean about his secret. He just needed to find the courage to get the words out.
He didn’t even know why he was keeping this secret. So what he was dating a girl with a kid? Big deal, right?
Except for a guy like Alex, it was a pretty big deal. He never had a real relationship before. Being the lead singer of a largely successful international band probably had a hand in that.
The constant touring and recording and flying around from city to city and country to country certainly made it hard to meet girls and develop long, meaningful connections with them.
Certainly Alex had no trouble meeting girls in general. At almost any given moment of his life he was surrounded by more girls than he could have asked for but none of those girls really stuck around long.
Yeah, he had girlfriends over the years and sure, he cared about the girls, but never the way he was sure he was supposed to. His relationships were always somewhat open ended, whether the girl he was with knew that or not could be up for debate.
The only girl he was ever truly in love with was the one who broke up with him after a year and a half, stating she just couldn’t take the long distance and if Alex was going to continue on his quest as a touring musician, she was going to have to let him go. They never had the most stable relationship. They were both never one-hundred-percent faithful to each other. And yet, to have that relationship end was difficult for Alex. He was twenty-one at the time and the idea of choosing between love and relationships and music and the band just seemed preposterous.
The choice was easy to make but that didn’t mean it was easy to go through with.
So now at twenty-four years old, after years of being branded something of a player, for Alex to suddenly be in a serious relationship with girl who had a young child, was going to sound nothing short of crazy to his friends.
Alex shook his head, pulling himself from his thoughts again and placed his hands back atop the table. "Um… Well, actually, if you all wouldn’t mind taking a break from all this, there is something that I’d like to tell you.”
“Awesome” Jack huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and slumping back in his chair. “I’d love to find out why you’ve been acting like such a little bitch.”
“Jack, stop,” Rian hissed, turning his attention to Alex, much like Zack had done as well. “Go on, Alex.”
“Uh,” Keith raised his hand from the head of the table, earning four pairs of eyes to suddenly be on him. “Should I leave you guys the room?”
Now there were four pairs of eyes on Alex and he shook his head. Keith had been like a father figure to them, having known the band since they were sixteen and seventeen years old. There was no reason he shouldn’t be around for this conversation. Alex actually would welcome his more mature and grown-up input. Plus, he was going to find out eventually.
“No,” Alex said, turning back to Keith. “You can stay. You need to hear this just as much as the rest of them.”
“Okay,” Keith nodded, leaning back in his chair.
The room was silent for a few extra-long moments as Alex tried to gather his thoughts.
This is crazy, he thought to himself, knowing full well that he was building this whole thing up in his head to be a much bigger deal than necessary.
“Are you dying?” Jack asked, finally breaking the silence that was growing uncomfortable.
“What? No, of course not,” Alex said quickly. “It’s nothing like that.”
“Then what the hell is it?” Zack asked, growing slightly annoyed with how Alex was leading them all on.
“It’s about Riley.” Alex finally stated.
Keith sighed loudly and Zack muttered a shit under his breath.
“You got her pregnant!” Rian practically shrieked, completely abandoning the calming approach he displayed moments earlier.
“No,” Alex shook his head hard and fast, even though Rian’s prediction wasn’t that far off. “I did not get Riley pregnant.”
“Okay,” Rian said slowly, trying to maintain a sense of calm once again. “Then what about Riley?”
Here goes nothing, Alex thought to himself again, taking a big, shaking gulp of air into his lungs before he spoke again.
“Riley has a daughter.”
Four, blinking pairs of eyes stared in Alex’s direction for another uncomfortably long bout of silence. They were each taking the time to process the information in their heads before making any comment that may come out the wrong way.
“That’s it?” Keith was the first to speak up.
Alex nodded. His eyes were back to giving their undivided attention to the tops of his hands as he could not bear to see the reaction to his confession of his friends’ faces.
“What do you mean that’s it?” Jack interjected. “What the hell does he know about kids? Are you sure it’s not yours?”
“She’s four. I only met Riley this year. You do the math, dick,” Alex snapped.
“Okay, okay,” Keith spoke up again quickly to prevent another bout of bickering between Alex and Jack. “I meant that’s it in the sense that this isn’t that big of a deal.”
“I don’t know,” Jack shrugged. “I think it’s a pretty big deal. But I guess now it makes sense why you never bring Riley around. Your dates must consist more of going to the playground and Chuck E. Cheese instead of bars and parties.”
Alex sighed. This was what he was afraid of.
“I have a question,” Zack spoke up, raising his hand slightly to get everyone’s attention.
Alex nodded for him to continue.
“Why didn’t you tell us right away? I kind of agree with Keith. This isn’t exactly an earth-shattering confession.”
“I’m not sure,” Alex shrugged. “I was afraid of how you’d react,” he said, glancing at Jack. “I didn’t want you guys to judge Riley for it. I didn’t want you guys to judge me for dating her…”
Rian let out a laugh that grabbed everyone’s attention. “When did we ever give you the impression that we’d be judgmental over something like this?”
Alex shrugged again. “Never, I guess…”
“Exactly,” Rian said.
There was silence again.
“I’m okay with it,” Zack spoke up.
“Really?” Alex snapped his head up in Zack’s direction.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t be. Riley seems like a great person. Clearly, the fact that she’s been around after so many months means that you really care about her. And the fact that you’re dealing with her having a kid, means that you really, really care about her.”
“I’m okay with it, too,” Keith spoke up. “As long as you’re happy, I have nothing else to say about it.”
Alex slowly felt some weight lifting from his shoulders.
“Are you happy?” Rian asked.
“I am,” Alex nodded. “I really am.”
“Okay, that’s great that you’re happy, but, I’ll ask again. What the hell do you know about kids?” Jack asked.
“At first, nothing but after getting to know Summer a bit, I’m slowly getting the hang of it.” Alex answered. “Look, believe me, I know how crazy it looks for a guy like me to be dating someone with a kid. I get it. It was hard for me to process at first too but it wasn’t worth losing Riley over.”
“Wait, so she didn’t tell you that she had a kid right away?” Jack pried.
“No, she didn’t,” Alex confessed, waving Jack off before he could ask another handful of questions about that. It was a long story that he wasn’t willing to get into at the time.
“Like these guys,” Rian said, pointing towards Keith and Zack, “I’m cool with it. As long as you’re happy and aware of what you’ve gotten yourself into, it’s really none of my business.”
“Thank you,” Alex said softly.
“How can you say that it’s none of your business!” Jack exclaimed. “Of course it’s our business. Don’t you realize what strain this is going to be on the band?”
“Jack…” Rian tried.
“We might as well just break-up now. First, it will start with you not wanting to come out with us to bars and stuff and before you know it, you’ll be all I don’t think we should tour that much next year; I want to be home more with my girlfriend and her kid…”
Alex sighed, realizing that Jack was sort of projecting his worries for the future of the band on his relationship with Riley. It was hard to get mad at him because Alex now understood where his outbursts were coming from.
“Jack, that’s not going to happen,” Alex tried to assure him. “All Time Low still remains my number one priority but that doesn’t mean I should put things on hold in my personal life. I think I’m at a point in my life where I am able to do both.”
“But what if you can’t?” Jack asked, getting a little more serious now than angry.
“I’ve been doing it so far,” Alex shrugged.
“I don’t know, man,” Jack sighed. “This is a bit heavy for me right now.”
Alex nodded. “I understand. I don’t need your blessing just yet. I just hope that eventually you can come around to it.”
“I’ll try,” Jack nodded.
“We’ll be fine, Jack,” Rian tried assuring him this time. “This really isn’t a big deal.”
“He’s right,” Keith agreed. “There’s plenty of musicians out there who manage to have successful careers while having families. Nothing has to change here just because Alex is dating a girl with a four year old.”
Jack nodded and Alex muttered a thank you again.
“So, can we get back to discussing re-signing with Hopeless now, or what?” Zack asked with a chuckle.
“Wait,” Alex looked up, gazing between his bandmates and manager. “Hopeless wants us back?”
The guys all laughed and Keith nodded.
“That’s what I was saying when you completely zoned out.”
Alex felt his cheeks heat up in a slight blush. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “But I do think it’s perfect.”
While his confession of Riley and Summer went over much better than he expected it to, Alex tried to give Keith his undivided attention as he went over the terms Hopeless were offering for All Time Low to re-sign with them. Alex loved the idea of going back to Hopeless; it was like going back to their roots and it was definitely fitting with the type of music they had already started to make.
Deep down, Alex was still slightly bothered that Jack hadn’t given him his full blessing but he was confident that he would come around eventually.
In fact, about three days after that meeting, Alex was sitting in a frozen yogurt shop with Riley and Summer, learning in full detail from Summer exactly what had happened on the latest episode of "Dog with a Blog" when a text message popped up on his phone screen.
Jack Barakat: #blessed
Alex chuckled to himself knowing he now had the full blessing from his best friend.
***
Notes
Story Title: All Time Low - Dirty Laundry
It's hereeee! Anyone who has been reading my other story Sparks Fly may know I've been mentioning starting up a new story for a little while now. After Dirty Laundry was released I found my inspiration to start writing it. I know I'm losing some creativity points in titling the story Dirty Laundry as a few other story in that name have already popped up, and I apologize for that but the title and the song as a whole sort of weirdly play into the plot of the story.
Let me know what you guys think so far... I think a lot of the format is going to be similar to this in bouncing back from the present time and flashbacks. Let me know what do you think about that too. I'm kind of excited about this story so I hope you guys like it!
Xoxo
If you could come back and update, that'd be great <3
1/23/19