FLASHBACKS ➳ JACK GILINSKY

Chapter 21 - Marry Me

MY NEW STORY IS OUT!!! GO ON MY PROFILE AND CHECK IT OUT PLEASE!! IT'LL MEAN A LOT, BUT ANYWAYS, HERE'S THE CHAPTER!!

//21//

"Hey Adam," I said walking into the studio.

"Hey," he replied. "Let's wait for Jack to come in, and then we'll get started."

"Right," I mumbled awkwardly. I still wasn't ready to see Jack after everything.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, sensing my sudden change in mood. He didn't even need me to answer his question, because he read the vibe from me, and nodded understandingly. "You guys sure or something," he smiled.

"What do you mean?" I asked him curiously, quirking an eyebrow at him.

"I will explain once Jack gets in here," he answered.

Before I got the chance to ask him why Jack has to be here for him to answer my question, Jack walked through the door.

Adam clapped his hands together. "Great. You're here now, and we can get started." He sat on a chair, motioning for both Jack and I to sit on the chairs opposite of him. "Your last performance was phenomenal," We both smiled at that, proud at ourselves. "but it's still not enough for you guys to win the whole thing," he stated, resulting our smiles turning upside down. "It's obvious you guys are still cold towards each other. Look at you two," he laughed, "you guys are like 5 feet away from each other. If you guys can't get along, you guys can't work together. You need to at least be friends."

"We can just pretend to get along!" I argued. "No one will know!"

"Everyone knows," Adam said calmly. "You guys haven't been talking, which means you guys haven't put up a video for the fans in about two weeks. Unlike everyone else, who has been putting up videos every week."

"We can just get together for that and be friendly. After that, we can go back to hating each other. I don't see how that's not going to work," I argued again.

"And then what? What happens afterwards? Will you guys pretend to be friends for the rest of your life? How long until the paparazzi catch onto it, and release a story? How long until your fans believe some rumor they made up?"

"I just - "

"Instead of rehearsing today," Adam announced, "you guys will go out and enjoy some time together."

"What?" Jack finally spoke up. "That's useless. Why are we even going to do that?"

"So you guys can learn to like each other, at least be on speaking terms."

"We're wasting a day when we can be practicing for the competition. Elena won't even try. She's going to ruin everything," Jack scoffed.

"I think you're the one who ruined it first," I countered.

"I don't care what happened between you two. Just - just go out and learn to get along."

He basically shooed us out of the studio, and before we knew it, we were both standing outside the contestant's mansion for the first time in a month. We were immediately attacked by the paparazzi, and I shied away from their accusing questions.

"Are you guys back together?"

"Did you guys really break up, because Elena cheated?"

Jack stiffened at the question as we tried to get past them. I was getting lost in the midst of the commotion, and frankly, I was terrified.

"Did you guys break up, because Jack cheated?"