Warped Love

Chapter 3: Jealousy

We’d all been laughing and talking for a few hours. We had Cindy, the waitress, bring over the guys’ food and they were seriously stuffing their faces. Contrary to popular belief, Jaime wasn’t hyper all of the time.  “So, how do you guys know each other?” Mike said looking at me. “Well Autumn is my best friend and Jace is my- ”

“Boyfriend of three years. In fact, today is our anniversary.” Jace cut in with a smile. I brought my eyebrows together and looked at him. “Oh, well congratulations.” Vic said looking directly at Jace. Jaime, Mike, and Tony congratulated us next. Autumn looked at me from across the table and I shrugged. She looked into Jace’s eyes and he just smiled.   

 “Jace, can I speak with you for a minute?” he nodded and Tony stood up so that we could slide out of the booth. I pulled Jace away from the table and gave a quick glance back at the guys. Mike and Vic had confused expressions and Autumn was laughing with Jaime. Tony stood up from the table and walked past us into the men’s bathroom.

“So, baby, when were you going to tell me that we’ve been in an incestuous relationship for three years!?” I said flailing my arms around like a crazy person. “Well, remember that nigh-” Jace began. He stopped when I punched his left arm. “Ouch! Okay, okay! Look, we both agreed not to let the other date an asshole. These guys are famous, that is practically a red flag.” He said with worry in his eyes. I punched him again and he winced. “Are you serious!? Who said anything about dating? We just met these guys and they asked us a question.” I said. “Hayden, these guys are always on tour and finding a girl has to be hard to do. I am not going to let them use you like that. Next thing you know, you’ll be in your room crying because long-distance wasn’t working. ” he said. He grabbed my arm gently and I could see where he was coming from. “Like you said, they are famous. Most likely, we’ll just go to Warped Tour, enjoy a few songs, get a few autographs and maybe some pictures, and we’ll go home. That’s it.” Jace started nodding and apologized.

I walked back to the table and slid all the way to the wall across from Mike. He smiled at me just as Jace slid in next to me. “Sorry about that guys. Jace is my twin brother.” Vic laughed and Mike soon joined in. “We were just saying that you two looked really alike to be in a relationship.” Vic said smiling. I smiled back and held his gaze until I heard Mike clear his throat.

“So, were you guys headed to Warped?” he said adjusting himself in his seat. Jaime’s phone rang and he stood up from the table. “Hey!” He said walking away. I looked back at Mike and nodded. “Yeah, of course. We didn’t expect to meet you guys here though.” Mike nodded and I could literally see the light bulb turn on in his mind. “Why don’t you guys just hang out with us then? You were going to meet us anyway, right?” he said smiling. Everyone else started talking over one another about how much fun we’d have when Jaime danced back over to the table.

“What’s up?” Tony said. He had just returned from the bathroom and was giving Jaime a weird look. Jaime danced a little more before speaking. “Katie said that she would be at the show today. I haven’t seen her in two months.” Jaime ran his fingers through his spiky black hair. Autumn had a confused look on her face and Tony spoke up. “Katie is Jaime’s girlfriend.”

Autumn’s whole face dropped into a frown and I took a sip of my iced tea to keep from laughing. “That is the true meaning of ‘egg on your face’.” Jace said. The whole table chuckled except for Autumn and Jaime. Jaime was far too caught up in his thoughts to even recognize what we were talking about. I looked over at Jace who was staring intently at Mike. Mike, on the other hand, had his eyes glued to me and I smiled at him. I broke our eye contact just as I felt a blush coming on.

Jace nudged me in my side and whispered, “I told you so”.

~An hour later~

 After we’d finished our meals, we decided to leave and meet up after the show. The guys walked us to our car and gave us a hug before we left, well, they hugged Autumn and I. Jace preferred the “oh, so manly” approach. Once we got into the car, Jace pulled out of the driveway and headed to our hotel.

We shared a room since we were all pretty comfortable with each other. Jace went to go take a shower and Autumn sat on one of the two beds. “I just can’t believe he has a girlfriend. I thought that he would be the one, Hayden!” she said. I rolled my eyes and sat next to her. “Autumn, you fall in love too fast. I mean, you’ve only known the guy for like 5 or 6 hours. How could he possibly be ‘the one’?” I said. I didn’t mean to be so harsh, I just didn’t like the way she trusted guys so easily. Autumn put the pillow over her face and groaned. “Well, look at it this way: if it was meant to be it’ll happen.” I said standing up. I walked over to my bag and took out the outfit I was wearing for tonight. It was some black leggings and a slightly oversized white tank with a black skull. I’d be wearing my black converses and a bow tie hair clip.

I walked over to the bathroom door and banged on it. “Alright, pretty boy! Get out!” I said and walked back over to my clothes. “I don’t think I’m going, Hayden.” Autumn said while removing the pillow from her face. “Oh God, look. You can make him jealous or something. Ok? Just go hang out with Jace a little” I said wiggling my eyebrows. Autumn tried to hide her big goofy grin but I’d already seen it. I laughed to myself. I knew she liked him.  Jace came out of the bathroom with his denim skinny jeans and a Nirvana shirt.

“Hey Jace, would you mind helping Autumn out? She wants to make Jaime jealous.” I turned my back completely to Autumn and gave Jace a look. “She really likes you” I mouthed. His eyes went wide. “Oh, uh, yeah sure.” Jace smiled at her and I walked into the bathroom to shower and get changed.

By the time we were all clean and dressed it was time to go. We drove to the venue and found a park. “Are you guys ready!?!?!” Jace screamed. Autumn and I looked at each other and then the three of us screamed “YEAH!!!” We got out of the car and started walking in. We saw a large crowd approaching and ran ahead of them. We actually wanted to see the show. When we were close to the gate we saw a few tour buses. I got the guys’ attention and we ran straight past the security guards. They started gaining on us and yelling for us to ‘stop’ as if we were going to listen. I saw Mike smoking a cigarette outside of the bus and I started screaming like a maniac. “Mike!!!”

He looked up and put his hands up. “Whoa whoa whoa!” We stopped right in front of him and Mike walked around us. “It’s okay, Rob” he said to the guard as we laughed. I put my hands on my knees trying to catch my breath. The guard walked away and Mike called the guys outside. They all filed out with some type of food in their hands.

“Didn’t you guys just eat!?” I said. They shrugged and Vic wiped his mouth. “We’re guys. It’s what we do.”

I looked up at Jace and he nodded in agreement. I noticed that Autumn was practically squeezing the life out of Jace’s hands. I walked over to her. “Try to act natural Autumn.”  She noticeably relaxed and I smiled. This ought to be good.