The J.A.C.I.E. Project (All Time Low Fanfiction | Jack Barakat)

Chapter 21

Jack and I took full advantage of the privacy we got once we were back in LA. Gone were the cramped bunks and the people constantly around. It was just us in our own beds. The first two weeks back, I spent more nights at Jack's than I did at my own place with Hazel. And even then, one third of those nights in my own room were also spent with Jack. There was just a lot of... catching up to do.

At the end of the two weeks, we had one of these nights at mine again. Jack and I were in the kitchen making breakfast – or, well, I was making breakfast while Jack was 'helping' by watching. I was wearing a shirt I had stolen from him two days prior and he was fine just walking around in his boxers.

Hazel came out of her own room in pyjamas and yawned, "morning, guys."

"Morning," I chirped back as I flipped over the pancake in the pan, "you sound like you need some coffee."

"Please," she nodded with a deep breath out. "I was up late working on my research... Don't worry, I was blasting music through my headphones."

"Jack?" I asked with a little nudge, keeping my focus on the pan.

"This, I can do." He grabbed a mug from a cupboard and skipped over to the coffee machine my dad had pulled out of storage, pressing a button to dispense a cup.

"So, what are you guys going to do today?" Hazel asked as she sat down on one of our plastic garden chairs. We had gotten a couch, but hadn't replaced the temporary dining set yet.

"I'm not sure." I shrugged and put a pancake on a plate before going to pour in a new one. I then glanced at Jack again. "Are you even free today?"

"I've got nothing on today," he responded and went to give Hazel her cup of coffee as soon as the machine finished.

I thought for another second. "It might be fun to go out and do something, though. We've just been hanging around inside doing nothing the past few days.

"That's not true."

"I came over to your's after the studio on friday, spent the night, hung around the next day, spent the night, we came here, you spent the night, and now we're here."

"I guess so... what do you want to do?"

I was about to say I wasn't sure, when an idea popped into my head. "Do you trust me to drive your car?"

He looked at me with wide eyes. "Umm."

"I don't own a car and we drove here with yours," I tried to convince him. "If it makes you feel any better, my dad always trusted me with the family car."

He kept looking at me, a whirlwind of thoughts going through his mind. I tried giving him the sweetest smile I could, batting my eyelashes. Of course he could drive as well, but I wanted to surprise him.

"Fine," he eventually gave in.

"Yay!" I cheered, the spatula going up into the air along with my hands. "Hazel, you wanna come too?"

She chuckled and put her coffee down. "I wish, but I've gotta go back down to the lab because my results aren't making sense."

I didn't even try to convince her. Sometimes I thought I was busy, but she sometimes had these incredibly insane weeks. While I had decided to go down the road of majoring in music production and songwriting with my straight As in school, she went and got into a chemistry program. There were moments she needed to herself, and I learned to respect that early on.

Jack excused himself to the bathroom, leaving just me and Hazel in the living room and kitchen as I finished making the pancakes.

"What's going on between you and Jack?" Hazel asked in a hushed tone almost as soon as the bathroom door closed.