The Hustler [Alex Gaskarth]

Chapter Fifteen- The Lie

     I awoke much later that evening to the sound of someone knocking on the door.
     "I've got it!" Connor said sleepily, rushing from the sofa in the "living room" segment of my suite. I wandered sleepily out of my room to the kitchenette to grab a Vitamin Water. Partway through rummaging in the fridge for it, Connor yelled.
     "Hey, Airie? I think this one's for you. It's some guy."
     "Some guy, huh?" I called back, finally grabbing the bottle of pink liquid.
     "Yup!"
     "Does he have a na- Alex!" I cried, almost dropping the bottle. His smile lit up, and he pushed past Connor to pull me into his arms for a kiss.
     When I pulled away, he was breathing hard and smiling. "Hey, pretty."
     "What are you doing here? I thought you were spending Thanksgiving with your parents!"
     "We have Thanksgiving dinner at one. Mom likes to have it early, for some crazy reason. Anyways, I thought I would make the drive up here and tell you how fantastic and amazing all your work was."
     "Thanks," I grinned. "Do you want to come in?"
     "Sure."
     Connor had since disappeared, taking his overnight bag with him. I guessed he had gone to freshen up in the bathroom so I could spend some time with Alex. Speaking of Alex, the unshaven auburn-haired singer flopped down on the black leather sofa and let out an exhausted sigh.
     "Um... so, Connor and I were going to go out for dinner a couple of blocks from here in an hour. Are you coming with?" I asked uncomfortably. Alex wasn't supposed to be there; it was supposed to be my time with my best friend, who I hadn't seen in almost four months. Also, although Connor was fantastic at keeping secrets, he didn't exactly seem that keen on keeping this one.
     "Actually, I kind of just thought we could... hang out. You and me. I forgot about Connor."
     He must have noticed the look on my face, because he backpedaled furiously. "But you two should go together. I'm actually a little tired and really full from Thanksgiving lunch. I'll just go back to my room and crash for a while. We can hang out when you get back."
     Oh, thank God.
     "Are you sure?" I asked, just to be polite. I really had no intentions to take him with us, not that he wouldn't have been good company. It was just way too close to mixing business with pleasure for me.
     "Yeah. You said you guys don't get to see each other that much, and who am I to stop you from hanging out with your friends? Go. Have fun." He pecked me on the lips and smiled. The rough feeling of his stubble almost made my laugh. Almost.
     "Okay." I kissed him one more time, then stood up from the sofa. Just as I was about to let him out, I had an idea.
     "Hey, listen. What if I cash in my plane ticket tomorrow, and then we can drive all the way to Baltimore. We'll spend so much time together, you'll get sick of me."
     "Not gonna happen," Alex winked. "I'll never get sick of you."
     "You think that now, but after four to six hours in the car, you will be. And then I get to say I freaking told you so, and you have to buy me Cinnabon."
     "You're on. And when I don't get sick of you, you have to buy me Cinnabon, and I get a kiss."
     "Fair deal. Have a good nap, 'Lex," I smiled, letting him kiss my forehead and pull me close. It still alarmed me slightly whenever he did stuff like that- I was nowhere near as much of a touchy-feely person as him. He always seemed to sense what was and was not pushing invisible boundaries, one thing that was absolutely fantastic about him.
     "I will. Have fun with Connor. But not too much fun, 'cause I might have to kick his ass." He joked. "Bye, babe."
     "Bye."
 
     "OOH, ALEX!" I heard a loud, shrieking impression of my voice coming from the kitchen area. "LET'S HAVE CAR SEX ON THE WAY HOME!"
     I stuck my head in to see Connor, wearing only his boxers and sipping at a bottled root beer, standing in the middle of the kitchen, and laughed.
     "Go put some clothes on, you pig. And quit being a douche!"
     "Sure thing, babe," Connor winked, sticking his tongue out at me.
     "Ugh. Don't ever call me that again. It's weird enough when Alex does, and he's my boyfriend." I took the bottle of rootbeer from his hand and drank deeply.
     "Hey! That's mine!" He snatched it back. "You have Vitamin Water. And he's not your real boyfriend, Air."
     "He's as close as I can technically get right now. I can't go out with another guy while I'm seeing him, because like, what if he happens to be there, or what if someone he knows happens to be there and sees me? This job isn't as easy as you seem to think it is, Con." I was getting annoyed, and I was decently positive that he knew it, but no one likes to push me like Connor.
     "You're allowed to go out for dinner with me." He pointed out. "Or should we hide out in here. No, wait, what if your boyfriend walks in?"
     "Okay, what is with this bullshit!?" Connor looked surprised that I was calling him out on it. "Seriously. Before, you were on my side! You thought this was fine. I make money, and I get to hang out with some pretty cool guys for a change, instead of loser thirty and forty-year-olds who have no lives and are trying to convince their high school enemies or parents that they're not gay or losers!"
     Connor looked at me pityingly, and pulled me into his bare chest for a warm hug. "I'm sorry, Air. I just... sometimes, I forget how hard everything is for you. I still see you as the girl across the street that I was crazy about in high school."
     "I still wish I were that kid, sometimes," I admitted. "Ugh. I miss having a definite future. As much as high school sucked, it was way better knowing that I had AP Writer's at nine-forty every morning."
     "Do you ever what would have happened if...?"
     "What, if I said I would marry you and keep that baby?"
     "Yeah." He looked ashamed, just like my parents did when they found out. They wanted me to leave high school at the end of the first semester, not tell anyone, and my mother could pretend to be pregnant again, so that when I had the baby, she could say it was hers, and life could go on in the Thorne household as usual.
     "I used to. But I think everything that was meant to happen, happened. You proposed because you thought I was pregnant, not because you actually wanted to be married. I could never have ruined your life like that. It would have been completely unfair for me to take away your opportunity to meet some girl that you might actually want to be married to. And the baby... well, that happened, anyways, so you would have been stuck with me, even though there was no baby." I took a deep, ragged breath, and tried to hold back the tears threatening to spill over my lids.
     "I guess. But being married to you wouldn't be so bad. I'd get to spend every day with my best friend. Isn't that what all the old married people say made their marriage last?"
     "Maybe all the old people thought they were pregnant, too."
     He laughed. "Maybe. Enough with all this sad shit. This is Thanksgiving, we're supposed to be talking about things we're thankful for. Like being safe, and me doing pretty good in med school, and chocolate, and not being dead yet."
     "Oh, yeah, I sure am glad that I'm not dead yet. I'm glad that I didn't have to kill any engineers or interns for this project, and I'm glad I'm in one of the coolest cities in the world with my best friend." I smiled, and pulled away from his grasp. "I'm going to go shower and get ready."
     "Yup. Hurry up. We've only got an hour before the reservation time. And it's not like you need to impress anybody. I've seen you look like shit before."
 
     Dinner with Connor was refreshingly different. Everything Connor did was refreshingly different, though. He had his own way of looking at things, and he wasn't really afraid of sharing, despite what amount of trouble it might bring. We talked about the weirdest of things, and he still had an opinion. The topic of my job at Brillault was something we avoided, and so was any discussion of my parents, who I later found out he'd seen when he stopped in Baltimore before coming to New York.
     Eventually, dinner ended, and I had to get back to Alex. Connor said he'd be back at the hotel later; he wanted to wander around the city for the while and pick something up for his roommate, who apparently, had never left California in his life.
     Alex was more than happy to see me back, although that could have had something to do with the giant cream puff I brought back from dessert. Apparently, being full doesn't apply to puffed pastries. To be fair, he did share.
     We stayed up most of the night just hanging out, watching movies, talking, and (Alex's favorite part of the evening) making out. I finally left his room at three in the morning, only to find Connor had evicted me from my bed , and I had to sleep on the sofa. Luckily, Alex was more than willing to share his bed when I finally got sick of being uncomfortable while my man-whore friend slept with his one-night stand in my plushy, comfy bed.
     "'Night, 'Lex. You're a lifesaver."
     He pulled me into his chest, and put his lips next to my ear. "Night, night, sleep tight, don't let the monsters bite. But if they do, squeeze them tight, and they won't come back tomorrow night."


     I didn't see him again until the ninth of December, four days before his birthday. The tour had finished on the fifth, but right after, they had to go to California to do some business for two days, and then, on Saturday, the day after they got back from Cali, Lucy invited me to come to set to be an extra on an independent film. So Sunday it was. Alex called early that morning to remind me of our date, and to inform me that I should dress up.
     Of course, Lucy was only more than happy to take this as an excuse to drag me out to the mall. Hour after hour, dress after dress, I got more and more annoyed. But Lucy got more and more excited every time we walked into a new store. Finally, I let her drag me into one of her favorite high-end boutiques, and after three dresses, we finally found one she deemed 'acceptable'. In my personal opinion, it was way too short for winter, but apparently, even though I was the one buying and wearing it, my personal opinion didn't matter.
     Once Lucy picked out shoes and accessories to go with the overpriced mummy-esque-looking dress, she treated me to a Starbucks. I really wish we hadn't gone for the Starbucks. It would have made my life a lot easier that afternoon.
     While we were waiting for our drinks, a squeaky little teenaged girl skipped up and started trying to talk to me. At first, I thought I might know her, but it became apparent I didn't when she started squeaking about Alex singing to me in the middle of that very mall.
     Lucy, of course, snapped to attention when she heard her crush's name mentioned, and I inwardly groaned. I really didn't want to get into that stuff with her at that point in time. She was already annoyed with me for supposedly not catching on to Connor's supposed undying love for me, and the fact that I told her I wasn't spending a hundred bucks on a necklace she thought would be to die for with my new dress.
     "Ohmigosh! I know you! You're the girl in that video! You're the girl that Alex Gaskarth was singing to!" The raven-haired girl was squeaking.
     "Wha-what?" I asked. "Where?"
     "Downstairs. In the middle of the mall!"
     I shot Lucy a well-I-wonder-what-this-kid's-snorting look, and laughed. "Yeah, totally. It was definitely me that Alex Gaskarth was singing to."
     "Ohmigosh, I KNEW it! Are you dating him? Is he a good kisser? Do you get to go to all their concerts?"
     "Oh, definitely." I hoped my sarcastic tone was getting to Lucy. If I was lucky, it might throw her off. If it didn't, I was going to have to murder Alex, then this kid, and then wait for Lucy to kill me. "We do everything together."
     I thought Squeaky was going to explode, she was so excited. "What's your name? Can I get a picture with you?"
     "Bellatrix," I deadpanned. If this somehow got back to Alex, he would probably kill himself laughing. As it was, Lucy was biting her bottom lip, trying not to laugh. "And I really don't want to do pictures today... I kind of look like crap. Sorry."
     "Oh. Okay." She looked disappointed.
     "Hey, maybe you could give me your Twitter name, and I could get Alex to message you."
     "Ohmigosh, you would do that!? I love you!" She hugged me with a little too much vigor, and I had to fight back the urge to peel her off me.
     "Yeah, sure. Just, uh... got a pen, Lu?”
     She pulled on out of her purse, and Squeaky snatched a napkin out of a nearby dispenser.

     When the girl was gone, Lucy looked at me in disbelief. “Airie! You have no way of getting Alex Motherfreaking GASKARTH to message that kid!”
     “Sure I do. Didn’t you have a spazz attack a few weeks ago because he followed you back, or something? Can’t you send him private messages?” I pouted and gave her the best puppy dog eyes I could.
     “No,” she said quickly, catching onto my plan. “I am not DM-ing Alex Gaskarth the name of some random kid who thinks you’re his girlfriend so he can follow her. Do you even realize how rare it is that he follows a fan? He has half a million followers, and he only follows like, a hundred and fifty people.”

     Actually, I was aware of it. I was aware because she explained this the night he followed her. Coincidentally, it was also the night that I mentioned her Twitter name to him, and he thought it would be funny to follow her, just so she could drive me up the wall. Alex liked pushing boundaries.

     “Okay, fine, whatever. Break that poor little girl’s heart. Watch as her life becomes a downward spiral of drugs, alcohol, and addiction, all because she couldn’t talk to Alex so he could tell her not to do it. And then, when all of her hair falls out from the meth, and you see her panhandling on a street corner, you can just drive on past in your little silver convertible, knowing that you could have saved her life, but you didn’t, because you were too selfi-”
     “Okay, alright! I’ll do it. But please, stop with that mental image. It’s too sad and disturbing for me. Especially since I know that you look like Alex’s new girlfriend. We should exploit this. We could go to one of their concerts, and you could give her name and say I’m your friend, and then I’ll meet Alex, and we’ll fall madly in love, while scenes of our future relationship play out in a short, slow-mo sequence.” She laughed.
     “Yeah, okay, whatever. Just... relationships don’t work out like that. Don’t forget, he has a girlfriend.”
     Lucy looked annoyed. “How do you know?”
     “What? That he has a girlfriend, or that relationships don’t work out like that?”
     “Both.”
     “You, and Fangirl McSqueakyVoice back over there just said he had a girlfriend. And they just don’t. If relationships worked out like that, then the world would be a much different place. Love at first sight isn’t real. Maybe lust is, but love can be reduced down to a series of chemicals in your brain, most of which have to do with scent. So really, you would have to be within smelling distance of the other person.”
     She shook her head in annoyance, and held the door open. Outside, the definite chill of December hit me like a slap in the face for lying to not only my best friend, but also Squeaky. Then again, I was way more honest with Squeaky than I was with Lucy, despite my sarcastic tone.
     I did my best to push that thought out of my head, as Lucy popped the trunk on her car, so I could toss my stuff inside. After all,  it’s not like Lucy would ever find out that I was lying to her, right?