Modern Family

Dive In

Reaching easily up to the top shelf, he grabbed a box of heart healthy Cheerios and tossed them into his half full shopping cart, earning him an eye roll from Austin.

Liam and Ryan were currently in a session with a producer that Austin and Jace would be meeting with the next day, so the bassist and the lead singer had the day off. Jace had decided to spend his free time by running errands and Austin had a couple hours to kill before he had to go pick his kids up from school, so he was tagging along, being unhelpful as he watched his best friend pick up the necessary items to restock his fridge and pantry.

"You gotta expand your horizons, mate," the bassist scolded, picking out a box of Fruit Loops and adding it to the cart as well, finding Jace's lack of range when it came to breakfast food a little strange.

Shooting his friend a glare, Jace retrieved the sugary cereal from the cart and placed it back on the shelf. "No one's gonna eat it, bro. Savannah doesn't like those either."

Austin deadpanned, pulling down the sides of his gray knit beanie, the sleeve of his hoodie falling down his arm to partially reveal the sleeve of tattoos he'd amassed over the years. "Are you really trying to tell me that your teenage daughter doesn't like sugary cereal?"

Jace shrugged, resting his weight on the handle of the cart so he could continue to push it down the aisle. "It makes her too jittery before dance."

He remembered he'd once fed her frosted Poptarts before taking her to a Saturday dance lesson and she'd been bouncing off the walls the entire time. Using his forearm to steer, he directed the cart to the left, wincing at the memory of Savannah's ballet instructor scolding him when he came to pick her up and turning out of the cereal aisle into the snack aisle, Austin walking leisurely by his side, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie.

Supermarkets were Jace's favorite place to unwind. There was something so relaxing about pushing the cart slowly through the aisles and scanning his gaze over the myriad of food options and brightly colored packaging. He so often second guessed his decisions in his professional life for fear of criticism or uproar that it was nice to make a decision as simple as which kind of sliced meat to buy without worry that it would upset a few thousand people.

Things were beginning to pick back up again. They'd just finished the last of their recording for their next album, which meant final decisions about track listings and cover art were being made. Soon enough, they'd be heading out on tour again, and although Jace was ecstatic to have the opportunity to travel the world and perform to fans with his three best friends because it was only while he had a guitar in hand that he had any idea what he was doing, as it had become in the recent years, leaving home would be bittersweet. Now that Savannah was in school and so invested in ballet, he couldn't possibly take her on the road, so she spent the months that he was touring at his parents' house, receiving phone calls, text messages, and requests for video chats from her perpetually worried father every day. He didn't want his sixteen year old to have any doubts that she was always on his mind.

Sometimes he wondered how time had gone by so fast. It seemed like just yesterday that he'd been nervously pacing in his London hotel room with her spit up all over his favorite leather jacket, desperately trying to figure out why she wouldn't stop crying. Before he knew it, he would blink and she would be married with a kid of her own and that thought was terrifying.

He chewed on his lip ring as his eyes scanned over the various packaged cookie options, his brow furrowing in confusion when he heard a soft thud and looked to his right to see Austin lowering a box of Vanilla Wafers into the cart.

"I don't want those," Jace frowned, not for the first time wondering why he'd allowed his bassist best friend to come along on this shopping trip. Austin had showed up on his doorstep as he was leaving to go get his dry cleaning that morning, claiming that he had no idea what to do with his free time, so Jace had been happy to accept the company while he ran errands. Now he was starting to think that wasn't such a good idea, because although Austin was always entertaining, he was nothing short of distracting.