A Spotlight Summer (Jack Gilinsky)

Chapter Ten

A/N: We reached 1,000 reads!!! I love you all so much. Now, as promised...

Jack POV

There’s a reason I haven’t got involved with anyone since Sara—there is a reason why I just wanted this summer to pass by with nothing distracting happening. I need to be ready to leave when the time comes. And now every time I try to do something productive I find myself thinking of Kelsey and her terrible fishing skills and how good her lips tasted on mine and now I can’t do fucking anything. Johnson is coming over in ten minutes to go through the different ideas we both have for our upcoming tour, and my sheet is completely blank. I don’t want to have a stupid meeting with Johnson—I want to be with Kelsey.

Which isn’t a good thing. I mean, Kelsey… Kelsey is a good thing but she’s also a very very bad thing. I shouldn’t have let myself take her on a date. What was I thinking? I can’t afford any distractions. Maybe if she hadn’t wandered into my bar two days ago. Maybe if I hadn’t gotten to know her. Because even though I know she’s a bad decision, I have no intention of ending whatever it is we have.         

My doorbell ringing knocked me out of my deep thought and I ran to go let Johnson in.

“Bro where were you yesterday? You completely dropped off the grid. Sam and I were trying to get a hold of you all afternoon. He thinks he might have a big idea for the tour and I think it sounds awesome.” Johnson told me. Johnson walked up my stairs and headed toward my bedroom all the way in the back of my house. Now that my sisters were away at college, my house was always quiet and empty. I stayed downstairs to go get us some food in the kitchen and eventually met Johnson in my room where he had already opened his laptop and looked deep in thought.

He looked up when I walked in and I threw him a can of soda and sat in my computer chair because he already felt comfortable enough to claim my entire bed. This is pretty much how it always is.

“Ok, so Sam was thinking that every night, we should take a girl on stage and do this sort of ‘speed dating’ thing where we will each come out and answer questions that she asks us and at the end she will pick which one of us she wants to ‘date.’” Johnson explained.

“Alright, yeah that sounds good. A fan that doesn’t have VIP though. If we already met them that day, I don’t think they should be chosen to go on stage.” I added.

“Sounds good. Ok, so we have to go over how and when we’re going to tell everyone that we’re going on tour. Like how we’re going to release the big news, how we’re going to publicize, you know that sort of thing. Because I think…” I missed basically everything Johnson was saying because my stupid brain kept flashing back to Kelsey. I shouldn’t be this attached. I’ve haven’t even known her for a week. Why does my brain feel like it needs to drift to her doe brown eyes and her long legs every second of the day? This never happened with Sara. I didn’t gain the courage to ask her out for over a month. So what has changed?

Well, Kelsey for one is fucking ten times better than Sara.

“Jack? Jack? Seriously dude. We need to get this shit done! Stop zoning out.” Johnson yelled at me. I snapped back to reality and apologized.

Johnson was about to continue on with his speech when he suddenly stopped. He looked at me for a couple seconds and then began shaking his head.

“What?” I inquired.

“Where were you yesterday?”

I tried to come up with a lie, but this was Johnson. I couldn’t lie to him. “I took Kelsey to the lake.” Johnson showed no reaction, as if he already knew what my answer would be. I should have figured. The kid has been with me every second of my life since kindergarten. He would know when my mind was on a girl.

“Damn it Jack.” Johnson answered. When I didn’t say anything, he continued, “I thought you hated her? I thought she was a ‘stuck up bitch.’”

I felt a strange urge of protectiveness surge up but I pushed it away. After all, Johnson was just repeating the same words I had said to him at one point.

“Well, she’s not. I don’t know, after the elevator I kind of wanted to get to know her more.”

“Elevator?” Johnson asked. Shit. I never told him about the elevator.

“After we were at Betty’s I went over to her hotel to apologize for being a douche and we got stuck in an elevator and… look bro, I can’t explain it to you ok. Hell, I’ve been trying to explain it to myself all day and I’ve come up with nothing. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to her.”

“Maybe you’re so drawn to her because she’s hot.” Once again, I suppressed a twinge of anger at someone else calling Kelsey hot.

“There have been a lot of girls that are hot here Johnson. Most of the girls in our senior class are hot. It’s not that.” I struggled to convey what I was thinking to Johnson for the first time in my life. Always, I have been able to share my exact thoughts and emotions with him, without being afraid of what he might say or think, because he was just Johnson. He was my best friend. So why am I finding it so difficult now?

“I know I told you at the bar that you needed to get over Sara, and I stand by that. I like that you have moved on from that skank. But Kelsey? She’s from fucking New York City man. She knows things so much bigger and better than Omaha. How do you know that she isn’t just doing whatever it is you guys are doing because she’s bored? It’s not like she has anything to do here. You’re telling me that when it comes time for her to leave this shithole and go back to the most famous city in the world that she will even give it a second thought? You think she will even give you a second thought?” Johnson ranted. I didn’t give him a reply because I couldn’t think of one. Was he right?

“I’m not trying to say she doesn’t like you Jack. All I’m saying is that you seem a little too into her after three days. And I know you think there’s something wrong with that. There’s a reason you can’t figure it out in your head. There’s a reason you didn’t tell me about the elevator or the date yesterday. It’s because you know that this whole thing is exactly what you don’t need right now. A random hookup? Sure. I would support that. Hell, I would find you a girl myself. But why are you allowing yourself to get wrapped up with a girl who is relationship material when you’re just going to have to say goodbye to her when summer is over? I don’t know Jack, I just don’t see the point to this whole thing. It’s all so… sudden.”

 Johnson was right. Of course he was. He’s always right. Every fucking test, every question, he’s always right. Why didn’t I think to confine in him earlier? He would have stopped me from going on the date yesterday. He would have stopped me from kissing Kelsey.

How could I have been so stupid? My assumptions about her the first time I saw her was right. She was just bored, looking for someone to entertain her, only that someone was me, not Nash.

“Jack, I’m not saying she doesn’t like you. And I’m not saying it’s wrong for you to like her back. All I’m saying is, is a summer fling really worth it? Is it really what you want right now? Is it really want you need right now?”

“All right, all right. I get it Johnson you can stop with the Dr. Phil shit. No it is not what I need right now. What I need right now is for us to come up with tour ideas so we can make this show the best fucking show around. I don’t want to talk about Kelsey anymore.” Johnson lifted his hands in an ‘I surrender’ gesture and he went back to looking at something on his laptop.

I didn’t want to talk about Kelsey anymore.

I didn’t want to think about Kelsey anymore.

I didn’t want to see Kelsey anymore.

But fuck, I still wanted to kiss her.