Painting Flowers (A Jack Barakat fanfic)

Chapter 4

*Rian's POV*

Zack and I hop off the bus and head down the street to my place, which isn't too far from the drop off.

"So," I say to Zack. "What do you think of Alex's cousin? The new girl?" I ask Zack, who's breaking sticks and dropping them as we walk. He shrugs. "She's alright. Nice accent." He says throwing the final broken twig aside and looking at me properly. "But what do you think Jack wanted with Stacey?" he asks me. I shrug. I honestly have no idea why he'd go for a girl like her. But then again, Stacey leads to trouble and there's nothing that could ever keep Jack from trouble.

As we walk up the steps to my house, I reach for my keys and my phone rings. It's Jack. I answer and toss Zack my keys.

"Hey retard." I greet him, watching Zack try to open the door.

"Hey moron." he replies. "Listen, I can't make it today."

"WHAT?!" I shout into the phone, making Zack jump and drop my keys. "You promised! We need you to practice that riff!"

"I know! I would come if I could but my mum won't drop me off! I'm really sorry dude. Tell Alex for me."

"Whatever. Also, Stacey was looking for you? apparently you owe her for last Friday." I say, snatching the keys off Zack and unlocking the door.

"Stacey? Oh right. Yeah I'll probably be at school tomorrow. See you."

"Whatever bye buttface."

"Bye spastic."

I hang up and lead Zack to my room. "Jack's not coming." I inform him. Zack looks at me with a look of disbelief. "Are you kidding me?" he says. I shake my head, throwing my bag down behind the door. "I wish I was." I say as I sit down next to him. Zack sighs in frustration and I don't blame him. "Lets get this straight; this gig is next weekend and we haven't got this one song down because nobody can play the lead guitar riff except Jack?!" Zack says. I nod and sigh. He's got it all pretty much figured out in one sentence. "Basically. I'll text Alex." I say, picking up my phone again, writing him a text along the lines of, 'Jack's being a princess not coming to rehearsals today.' and with that, I toss my phone next to Zack. I sigh and look at him. "What do you wanna do 'till Alex shows up?" I ask. He shrugs and looks over my shoulder at the PlayStation and my TV.

I look at it and move to the edge of the bed to set it up, when I hear my phone ring. I turn around and Zack reads the caller ID as he goes to throw it to me. "It's Alex." he says. I wave my hand in the air and turn back around to continue setting up he console. "You talk to him." I say. Zack picks up and puts Alex on speaker. "Hello?" He says. I listen to the conversation as I set up the game and controllers.

"Hello- Zack?"

"Yeah Rian's busy right now. Did you get the text?"

"Yeah but I'm not really concerned about that right now! Have you-"

"Seriously? this gig is in a week and haven't had one chance to practice this song properly, and you're not concerned AT ALL?"

"Not when I've lost my little cousin on the way home! No Zack, not right now."

"Ohh... how'd you lose her?"

"I was on the phone and I mustn't have been paying attention and I looked up and she was gone! If I go home without Kat, my mum will KILL me!"

"Oh..."

"Have you seen her?"

"No, sorry. Rian?"

"What?" I say looking over my shoulder for a moment.

"You seen her? Alex's cousin?"

"No, sorry man."

Alex sighs from his end. "It's fine. I'll talk to you guys later."

"Bye Alex."

Alex hangs up and I toss Zack a controller. "Poor Alex." he says. I crawl over and sit next to him and we start the game. "Well he isn't the brightest. You shouldn't be surprised." I say. "But it's not like him to lose someone like his cousin. I mean, if it was like the time he lost Jack in the mall then that'd be different. Jack's not a relative. And-" Zack cuts me off, as he speaks with a smirk across his face. "Who wouldn't wanna lose Jack?" He says. I laugh and shake my head, continuing to speak. "Seriously though, Jack probably didn't help when we found him 'indistinctly' looking at a lingerie shop window." Zack laughs at the memory.

We continue to play for hours, until it's 7:00, which is when our rehearsals end, and Alex has not showed up. Zack calls his mum to pick him up and we begin to wonder; maybe Alex lost Kat and went home without her, so he's grounded or something. Whatever happened, we're both hoping everything's okay. But I guess we have no choice but to wait until tomorrow to find out what happened, when we'll hopefully see Alex at school. And hopefully Jack.