Team Spencer: If You Love Something, Let it Go
Cupcakes, Proposals, and Anonymous Representatives


What happens if you’ve fallen in love—and then something better comes along? Hear me out, and picture this: you’re walking along and you meet this person. They’re amazing in all these fantastic ways but they’ve got flaws, just like anyone else. Then, as your life goes on, you meet another person, the proprietor of everything you loved about the first, and with fewer flaws, and an ability to make you feel truly safe. Sort of like a new and improved version of your lover, except not at all because you can’t bring yourself for even a moment to compare the two. They’re nothing alike and yet both so dear to the very same part of your heart. Would you give up the first for the second?

So, basically, have you ever wanted to tell your heart to just shut the fuck up?

Eight sentences from me and you’re already starting to wonder.

I have wanted that before. I do, actually, on a fairly regular basis, and let me tell you, sometimes I feel as though I should be descending into the pits of hell at any moment for feeling the way I do. Other times, I just tell my mind to shut up instead, and find my way to the nearest bar to find a girl who’s willing to screw me into the floor.

So, what exactly is wrong with me?

Good question: quite a bit actually. See, I’m in love with one of my best friends. And, no, it’s not in that movie-scripted, we-all-love-each-other-so-let’s-fuck-like-rabbits way. Instead, said best friend is a very, very nice…guy.

And so, you sit there and feel indignant because you are not prejudiced against one man loving another and why don’t I go to a gay bar to find a man to screw me into the floor, anyway? But, you still haven’t got the whole story so I’d really appreciate it if you, along with my damned heart, would just shut the fuck up and take a seat, please and thank you.

Trust me, never before these past few weeks has my life seemed quite so messed up and beautiful and miserable and intense and surreal. We’ve just come off of a pretty successful Australian Summer tour and there is no doubt in my mind that we all need this break desperately.

So, why am I spending a good part of it in Las Vegas instead of Chicago?

And don’t you want to see what will happen next?

I sure would, what with this wedding proposal and all, but first, let’s go back to when things starting falling simultaneously in and out of place.

*

“Nrrgh,” I grumble into the phone, keeping my eyes tightly closed because this is just a ridiculous time for anyone to be calling me.

“Jon?” I open my eyes, glancing around the hotel room I’m staying in while visiting Las Vegas for a good portion of this break between tours.

“Spencer?”

“Um, yeah, Jon listen, can I come over?” he asks, and I can’t help but groan when I look over to the bedside table and see that the clock’s harsh, red numbers read 2:47 AM.

“Spence, do you know what time it is?” I sit up, rubbing my eyes and rolling my neck to loosen the stiffness.

I hear an odd sound on the other line, almost like a whimper before he quickly apologizes, “You’re right. Never mind— I didn’t mean to bother you or anything.”

Before I can think, my mouth produces sound of its own accord, “No, Spencer, you aren’t bothering me. Come on over, okay?” He’s quiet for a moment on the other end.

“Yeah, okay.” Another sniffle. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” I assure, shaking the last remnants of sleep away and pulling back the heavy comforter to get out of bed.

In those few minutes before I hear a light rap on the door, I stare at my ruffled reflection in the ornate mirror hanging over the mahogany desk and repeat to myself the fact that I would not have simply hung up the phone had the caller been anyone other than my blue-eyed bandmate. Because, I would not have. I love Brendon, Ryan, and Spencer equally, of course.

It seems as though I’ve lost myself in my thoughts once again because before I know it, I hear a sharp, strong knock on the door. I pad over to the door in a thin, white, cotton t-shirt and light blue boxers, having not bothered to change at three o’clock in the morning.

Through the peephole, I can see Spencer shifting his weight from foot to foot outside the door and I pull the door open, gesturing for him to come inside. When he concedes, I finally properly see his red eyes and nose. He stares at me for a moment, and I don’t know if I imagined his eyes running down my body or not, before he offers a watery grin, heading for the armchair next to the bed.

“Hey,” I grab his wrist to still his movement, and for a moment I swear he stops breathing, though maybe that was just me. Nonetheless, he turns to me, keeping his eyes on the ugly, dull-looking carpet beneath our feet. “What’s going on? What happened?”

“I—” He pauses, glancing momentarily at my hand, still grasping his wrist. I pull back immediately, and his eyes meet mine, an unrecognizable look woven within them. He continues, “It’s Haley. We’ve never fought like that before. I can’t believe we even said some of that stuff to each other…I mean, I love her so much, but…”

At that moment, I wholeheartedly believe that the sinking feeling in my chest is only out of empathy for Spencer. Sort of.

“Look, this stuff happens, okay? It’ll all blow over before you know it,” I assure, taking a step towards him to pull him into a caring embrace. When we pull back after a moment, I’m sure to look him in the eye as I say, “Everyone fights with the people they care about the most.”

Our eyes meet again, and I try not to shiver at our proximity. I can tell he’s trying to figure out whether or not I’m referring to Cassie, since he is the only one who knows that my girlfriend and I haven’t been getting along very well recently. Behind Spencer, I can see the two beds in the room, and for the first time, I’m slightly thankful that the person who made his reservations at this hotel was rather dim and gave me a room with two beds.

“Do you want to just hang out here tonight? Let the air clear, you know,” I offer.

Spencer nods slowly, another grin, slightly less downtrodden, making its way across his face, and I can’t help but return the smile. No one ever can when Spencer smiles; it’s part of his magic.

It’s part of his magic?

Fuck.

I can’t believe I even just thought that. For the love of God, what’s happening to me?

*

“No, Cassie, that’s not what I—” I begin, only to be cut off…again.

She goes off for another minute about everything in the world that she can think of that I may have done wrong. Surprisingly, not one of them is her suspicion that I’m lusting after my drummer. That one doesn’t make the top ten, apparently.

“Cassie, I—” I pull the phone away from my ear slightly, attempting protect at least the last shreds of my hearing.

“Cassie! For God’s sake, will you just shut the fuck up?!” I yell. There is stunned silence for a moment from the other end and I wonder if, maybe, I had taken it too far.

“Shove it, Jon.” And with that, I hear a perfunctory click and I know that she has finally hung up. Through all of the emotional turmoil I’ve been feeling lately, I can’t help but feel my vision blur because I’m just so frustrated. With everything: my relationship with Cassie, my non-relationship with Spencer, and most of all, myself.

It takes about thirty seconds after I look up from my hands and see my rental car’s keys sitting on the desk to put on shoes and get the hell out of there.

*

“Jon?” Spencer questions, just like the night he had fought with Haley, only now we’re face to face on Spencer’s front step and it’s my nerves that are frayed.

I look up at him through my wet eyelashes, trying not to breakdown in front of his entire neighborhood. Without another word, he pulls me into a tight embrace, threading his fingers through my hair. I nestle my face into the crook of his neck almost involuntarily and inhale his sugary scent, smiling a little at the inference that Spencer must have been baking.

He pulls his face back to look at me, eyes probing, “Is this about Cassie?”

I pause. What do I say to that? Yes, but I only picked a fight with her because I think I might be pushing her away. Because of you, you know. Oh, yes. That would go over very well.

“Yeah,” I punctuate this with a small nod, whether to convince myself or him, I couldn’t really tell you.

“Well, come on in then,” he gestures loosely into the foyer and then smiles slowly as he continues, “because I am making the most fantastic cookies you will ever have the pleasure of devouring.”

I can’t help but smirk as I return his cockiness with, “Devouring? Getting a little ahead of yourself there? They can’t be that good.” A look of amused horror passes over his features.

“Ahead of myself? Jonathan Walker, take that back!” I only shrug noncommittally in response, already feeling my spirits lift at the prospects of a rainy afternoon in the kitchen with Spencer.

He grabs my hand to pull me inside and with the force of the motion, he propels me into him. To steady the both of us, he wraps him arms around me and takes a step back to balance himself. It’s one of those times when I really appreciate his height, until I look up and realize his lips are about three inches from my own.

For a second, neither of us moves, eyes locked on each other’s. I can feel his heartbeat through the thin fabric of his paisley-print oxford and it’s reverberating through my body. Quite frankly, he should just not look at me like that or I swear I won’t be responsible for my actions.

A timer’s ding! jolts us out of…whatever the fuck had just happened. I can’t decide whether to curse the stupid thing for shattering our moment, or just feel relieved. If something had happened, nothing good would’ve come out of it.

What was I expecting, anyway? A proclamation of love? Stuff like that doesn’t happen in real life. Instead, I just follow my bandmate to see his kitchen in all of its glory, stainless steel and all. I hop onto the island counter and situate myself while Spencer removes a batch of his specialty from the oven built into the wall. They really do look fantastic.

With a smirk, he holds out a plateful of the treats and I grab one. Turning away to put the final batch in the oven, he promises, “If those don’t make you orgasm, nothing will.”

I choke.

*

I pull up in front of Ryan’s new place, rental car gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. Getting out of the driver’s seat, I pull a six-pack from the back and set off up the path to Ryan’s front door. Unlike at Spencer’s house, this is complicated and winding, much like Ryan himself.

When I’m about five feet from the door, I hear shouting. I can’t imagine anything happening at one of our usual band meetings that might result in yelling like this. It’s nasty and scathing and something only Spencer and Ryan could pull off, I’m sure.

Sure enough, a moment later, Spencer comes bursting out of the house, face red and hair wild. Ryan looks after him, furious and heartbroken, apologetic and stubborn, all at once. When he looks my way however, he only looks tired and worn.

“Band meeting’s cancelled, Jon,” Ryan says. After a beat, which I use to try to comprehend the situation, he adds, “Sorry.”

I can only nod as I just turn and make my way back to my car. Spencer’s car is just in front of mine and he looks as though he’s going to murder something. I walk towards him, and I can see that his hands are shaking so violently that he can’t get the key in the door.

“Spence, breathe,” I order, grasping his hands with my own warm ones in an attempt to still the trembling. God damn me now, because how the hell am I going to let go of his hands after this? He does as I say and the splotchiness on his face subsides slightly.

“Come to the hotel with me tonight, okay?” It takes me a moment to realize how that statement sounded and I flush. “I mean, not like that, you know? Just, to hang out and stuff. I’ve got a six-pack with our names on it.” I don’t know how strong my argument is, though, since I’m sort of clinging to his hands in an attempt to convince him to spend the night in my hotel room again.

He chuckles, shooting a pointed glance down at our hands, and my mind finally decides to kick in. I drop the connection as though I’ve burned myself and tell myself I must be imagining things when a fleeting look of hurt haunts those eyes.

“Come on, please?” I say and Spencer hesitates. He’s thinking it through and I’ve never wished more than now to be able to read thoughts, to be able to see if maybe, he feels a fraction of the feelings I have for him towards me.

Finally, after what feels like the longest fifteen seconds I have ever had to endure, he grins and nods, “Alright, I’ll meet you there, okay?”

I smile. “Sure.” I take his keys from him and place them in the door.

It was not another excuse to feel his skin against mine.

*

I pull up to the hotel doors and throw my keys to the valet before waiting on the curb for Spencer to pull up. Not more than a minute later, my wish is granted and a slightly calmer-looking Spencer Smith extracts himself from his fancy, little car and makes his way toward me.

We share a small, rather secretive smile and make our way through the chic lobby up to my room.

Once inside, Spencer takes a deep breath and toes off his white loafers, collapsing on one of the beds. I laugh at the gesture of comfort; the first time he’d been here in the middle of the night, he’d seemed so unsure of himself here. Now, it was as though he was living with me. It warmed my heart a little to see that he could be so comfortable around me.

Okay, it warmed my heart a lot. And that thought probably warmed my face.

Pulling off my own shoes, I stand between the two beds, trying to decide whether to sit on the bed with Spencer, which I usually sleep in, or occupy the other bed as to give him space. He solves my dilemma for me, however, when he makes grabby hands in my direction. The gesture makes me laugh again.

“I like your laugh, Jon,” he whispers when I lay down next to him, “a lot.” I turn from staring at the ceiling to face him, only to see that he’s looking right back at me and our faces are way too close, again.

With a shuddering breath, I reply, “Thanks.” We’re quiet for a moment, looking each other in the eye and I am trying to convey everything I’m feeling right now because I feel like I might burst pretty soon if I don’t.

“Spence—”

“Jon—” We laugh but I stay quiet to let him finish and he turns to look up at the ceiling again before muttering, “he said he hated me.”

“Oh man, you know it’s just Ryan being Ryan. He’ll pull his head out of his ass soon and–”

“I know. It doesn’t stop me from hurting though, to know that he doesn’t mean it,” he cuts me off, sighing. At this very moment, he looks so dejected, I can’t think about anything but how much I want to kiss it all away. But, then I mentally slap myself, hard, because I have a girlfriend and supposedly straight men with girlfriends do not want to kiss away their male best friend’s problem. It’s pretty generally frowned upon in society.

And then Spencer curls all six feet of himself into my side and this time, I sigh, because like hell am I going to stop thinking about him like this.

“You know, Jon? Sometimes, I wonder what I’d do without you,” he says simply while we lay on my hotel bed in extremely close contact and I look anywhere but at his face.

In a bout of Ryan-esque cynicism, I allow myself the stray thought: You’d probably be spending the night with Haley wiping away yours tears, instead.

*

Spencer calls a few days later to tell me that things have been going great with Haley.

Well, okay, that’s not all he called to tell me, but it was all I heard. After that, I was a bit…preoccupied.

Nonetheless, I figured I’d better attempt to patch things up with Cassie; no point losing two good things in my life to other people, right? Because I realized something, I really do love Cassie. Just maybe not like that. Still, everyone has always said we compliment each other, so maybe I can settle for that.

Fucking symbiosis or something.

I glance away from the TV screen in the hotel room, which is quickly becoming nearly as messy as my apartment since I’ve spent more time than I’d care to share lounging around with the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hanging off of the door handle. I wonder what the cleaning staff must think is going on in this room. Would they barge in one day, thinking I might be dead or something? Or, maybe stick a few condoms under the door. That’d entertain me plenty.

My phone rings on the table next to the armchair I’m occupying. Glancing at the screen, I raise an eyebrow. It’s Cassie. Usually, I’m the one to call first, apologize profusely, and work my way back into her good graces. It’s almost like a formula, Apology + Groveling = Happy Cassie. Happy Jon is irrelevant in that equation.

Flipping open the device, I put it to my ear and breathe out a cautious hello.

“Jon, I’m lonely.” She sounds close to tears and I should be ecstatic, this is an easy way onto her good side again. But I’m not. Instead, I’m just annoyed.

“What do you want me to do about that?” I say, before internally cringing, because even to myself, I sound mean.

A pause. “Excuse me?” she scoffs. For a moment, I consider taking it back, blaming my remark on a migraine and succumbing to hours of phone sex, but then I realize that I’m tired and all I want right now is a hot shower, a nice dinner, and sleep.

“What, Cassie?” I’m resigned and really not in the mood, ready to bow out of this conversation if I even sense for a moment that it’ll go steeply downhill like the last ten times we’ve talked since I came to Las Vegas.

“I call you, after you so rudely cut me off the other day, to talk and you ask me what I want?” she hisses. She’s pissed, I can tell, and I’m already through with this conversation. Things didn’t used to be like this. I don’t know when it started to turn sour, but right now all I feel is this absurd exhaustion, convincing me that my eyelids weigh a thousand pounds each.

Before I know it, I’ve drifted off to the incessant lullaby of the shrill rambling making its way out of my cell phone.

*

In a particularly sullen mood the next morning after yet another argument with Cassie, I glance at the screen of my jingling cell phone, only to see that it’s Spencer calling. For about five seconds, I struggle with a decision: should I answer or not? As much as I hate to admit it, he was as much an issue in last night’s fight as Dylan and Clover were because, yes, I do remember Cassie saying something about them as I closed my eyes and began to tune her out the previous evening. In the end, I can’t help it. Call it curiosity, and tell me curiosity killed the cat, and I might just throw The Tell-Tale Heart in your face and still answer Spencer’s calls.

In contrast to my poor mood, Spencer sounds thrilled.

“Jon, I’ve got the greatest news! Will you meet me at that tiny coffee shop we found the other day in fifteen minutes?” I stick my face in my pillow and groan because I’m only human and I just can’t take this much happiness this early in the morning when my life is starting to just plain suck.

But it’s Spencer, so I put on a Happy Jon voice and let him know I’ll get there before him, by way of trying to pull off the banter we usually share.

He laughs and tells me he’s already waiting for our order, and he got my favorite drink for me. For some reason, that makes me want to cry but nonetheless I ignore that urge.

“Thanks, I’ll be there soon.”

*

“Hey!” Spencer greets as I walk into the little, family-owned Summerlin coffee shop.

“Hey, how are you?” I ask as I sit down across from him at the table he chose by the front window. Pulling what I assume is my coffee towards me, I take a sip and it’s good.

He smiles widely, “I’m very good. How about you?”

I look at him for a moment, before letting out a hesitant, “I’m doing okay.” It comes out more as a question, however, and he looks as though he’s trying to read my mind or something.

“Just okay?”

Yes, just okay.

“No, really, I’m fine. Great, in fact!” Fake smile, check!

He looks as though he’s about to protest but I stop him, “So, you had good news?” At this, he seems to be temporarily distracted.

“Jon!” he exclaims. “I’m getting married!”

Shut. Up. I think my stomach just fell all the way through to the molten core of the Earth.

“Wow…” I trail off. His smile fades slightly in confusion.

“Wow? I mean, I thought you’d be excited. You know, marriage?” His tone is incredulous but I can’t see his face since I refuse to look at his face and have instead started looking at everything from my supremely interesting coffee cup to the supremely interesting trash can not too far away.

“I am!” It’s a hollow remark, though, and we both know it. I know it’s better for everyone if I just suck it up and smile, but I never was one for acting. I took an acting class my freshman year, and I was the only one to fail.

“Jon, this is really big for me. I just wanted to ask you if you would like to be one of my groomsmen.” He’s put off by my…un-orthodox reaction to his proposal of marital bliss. To be honest, I would be too, I think.

“So, you two are going to announce your engagement soon, huh?” I choke out.

Quietly, he replies, “No, Pete doesn’t think it’s a good idea. But we can tell everyone that we, personally, want to know about the plans.”

He wants me to know that he’s getting married.

Okay, unrequited love is nowhere near as romantic as everyone makes it seem. It’s painful and miserable and–

“Jon?” Spencer says, snapping me out of my self-hating little mind-rant and I’m more than a little thankful for that, for him. And then I remember why I wanted ranting in my head.

“Look, I’ve got to go, Spencer. Uhh, I forgot to feed Dylan and Clover so I’m going to go do that. I’ll call you later, okay?” With that, I get up, throw my supremely interesting coffee cup into the supremely interesting trash can and make my supreme way out the door.

The last thing I hear him say before the door closes is, “Jon, you left your cats in Chicago with Cassie, remember?”

And I remember.

And I feel very, very stupid.

*

Please, please, please let me get his voicemail. If there is truly a merciful God in the sky, you won’t make me talk to him in any form other than a message right now, especially since it’s 3 AM and I’m not very coherent but I really can’t get any sleep so—

“Hey.” My heart stops. “It’s Spencer. I’m not here right now.” I can breathe again. “I know you miss me, so tell me how much after the beep.”

Beeeeeep.

“Uh, Spencer? Hi, it’s uh Jon? No, I mean it is Jon. I think. I mean I’m sure.”

Deep breaths, Jon.

“So, anyway, I wanted to say that I definitely want to be there for you when you get married. Like, I want to be your groomsman and all, so…yeah. Okay, I’m going to get some sleep now.”

Sigh.

“Bye, Spence.” I don’t know quite what I mean by saying goodbye, but even in my sleep-deprived state, my mind is hollering at me that there is a reason. Maybe I’ll figure it out after some sleep.

I get absolutely no sleep that night.

*

So, here we are now.

Do you understand it all a little bit better? Life’s never black and white like they show in any good romance.

It’s been a month since we left Australia to come back to the states. It has been two weeks since I agreed to be a groomsman at Spencer and Haley’s wedding. Tonight, I sit in my hotel room feeling sorry for myself. Tomorrow, I meet with Spencer and the rest of his groomsmen to get ready for this godforsaken wedding.

Does anyone else think they’re rushing into this? I mean, really, who plans and executes a wedding in three weeks?

A rockstar, that’s who.

Sigh. From here on in, we are in this together, okay?

*

I wake up and I’ve figured out why I thought it was a good idea to end my message to Spencer with a goodbye two weeks ago. It hit me a bit like a train when he called to make plans for today to get all of his groomsmen together.

Namely, Ryan, Brendon, and I.

I need to stop this. I need to let go. It’s not a joke anymore. This is no novel. No one can guarantee a happy ending but so much could go to hell if I act on my crazy desires.

So, today I make it my business to call Cassie and attempt to smooth things over with my tail between my legs. I’d like her to stay with me while she’s in Vegas for the wedding. Maybe that’s all I need to rekindle some sort of flame.

I stare at the phone in my hand for a moment before I hold down the number three until CALLING… CASSIE flashes across the screen.

“Hello?” She’s still angry; I can tell. But not as much, which is good.

“Cass? I, uh, I wanted to know if you wanted to stay with me when you come into town for the wedding?” I am ready to start groveling any moment now.

“Wow, I didn’t know you even wanted to deal with me, Jon,” She says sarcastically, but I can tell she’s also softening towards me. Maybe I won’t have to grovel…

“Look, Cassie, I’m sorry. I’ve been having a rough couple of weeks.” Insert nervous laughter here. “I think I’ve been alone too long.”

I hear her snort. “My God, Jon. The things you do to me…Yes, I’d like to stay with you when I fly in.”

Just like that, it’s over.

“Great!” And I could probably stand to turn the enthusiasm down a notch, but I won’t. “When are you coming? I’ll pick you up.”

She lets me know that she’ll be flying in tonight, after the groomsmen meeting and I agree to meet her at the gate. Maybe I can’t yet convince myself I’m in love with her, but I’m still excited to see my best friend again.

*

“I’m looking for Spencer Smith,” I tell the young hostess at Spencer’s favorite Vegas restaurant, a Japanese place called Sea Stone.

She motions behind her to a private room in which I can see a glimpse of Brendon’s hair and Ryan’s scarf, which today includes more colors than the Crayola factory, before rattling off in Japanese what could either be orders to take our drinks or a nasty jibe at the scarf.

I walk past her nonetheless and raise my hand by way of greeting as I take a seat, offering the widest smile I can in present company.

“Jon, man, how’s it going?” Brendon greets with a wide smile. I almost want to slap him, but I refrain because it’s Brendon and I’d like to think I’m not a horrible person.

“Fine—good—” I finally settle for a weak, “well. It’s going well.”

“Yeah? Cassie still mad at you?” I can feel a migraine coming on and never before have I wanted more to emulate one of those teenage girls who watches chick flicks all day with a big bowl of ice cream and a stuffed animal instead of being here right now.

I sigh, “No. She’s coming in tonight.” And, as though gauging for a reaction, I look Spencer in the eye and say, “She’s staying with me. We worked things out.” I look back to Brendon after a split second in which my imagination may just have a cruel sense of humor because I swear I see his face fall slightly.

But then again, I am a 23-year-old guy with a long-time girlfriend who just can’t seem to get over my band’s male drummer who happens to be getting married very soon. So, who am I to talk, really?

Ryan is staring at me, eyes narrowed slightly, and the look on his face is making me worry. It’s like he knows. I wonder if Spencer told him anything.

The meal passes rather uneventfully. Spencer goes through some of the finer points of the wedding. He tells us what time we’ll meet at his house on the morning of the wedding and that he’s renting matching tuxedos for each of us.

There is absolutely no difference between the looks he gives me and those he gives Brendon.

None at all.

*

“Jon Walker, what is going on with Spencer?” Ryan is speaking with his no-nonsense voice he’s perfected over the years and, I’m man enough to admit it, I’m mildly afraid.

“What are you talking about? We just saw him this morning and he was fine,” I say, because he was and I can’t imagine what Ryan is going on about.

He huffs, “He was not fine, Jon. He called me an hour ago to tell me he’s rethinking this whole wedding thing. Why is he rethinking the wedding?”

“Maybe he’s just getting cold feet like half of the men that get married in this world. How the hell am I supposed to know?” I ask, but I’m really wishing Ryan hadn’t told me that Spencer was rethinking the wedding. The seeds of hope blooming within me are overshadowed by the dread I’m feeling because it’s only going to happen again. I’m going to be crushed again. And this time is only going to be worse than before.

“Do you think I’m really so naïve?” he questions and I sigh.

“Dammit, Ryan, what do you want from me?”

“Tell me what’s going on between you two! I mean, I’m sure I can piece it together from his unwillingness to go through with this wedding and those damn puppy eyes you keep shooting him when you think no one’s looking.” Puppy eyes? I do not do puppy eyes.

I roll over to lie on my back, staring at the off-white ceiling for a minute before beginning to tell Ryan about the events of the last few weeks.

“So, basically, you’re in love with Spencer.” Well, when you put it like that…

“Yeah—yeah, I think I am,” I choke out.

“You think? This is not one of those situations where you can just think that something may or may not be true. There’s a lot of people’s happiness and wellbeing riding on what’s happening between you and Spencer so I would decide one way or another—”

I cut Ryan off, “I’m love with Spencer, okay? I don’t think it was ever really a question. But I can’t do a damn thing about it without ruining everything.”

“Well,” Ryan sighs, “you’re definitely making it difficult for everyone to lead normal, happy lives. Although, none of us are really very normal and I doubt it would make you happy to pretend. When it comes down to it, Spencer’s my best friend and if what makes him happy isn’t the most conventional of things, than I don’t really give a fuck because he deserves it anyway. Plus, I don’t like it when you’re like this either.”

“Look, Ryan, there’s nothing we can do about any of this so let’s just drop it.” I plead. There’s silence on the other end for a few moments.

“Jon…” His voice is soft, like he understands my motives behind changing the subject but can’t think of anything to say about it.

“That’s enough, Ryan. We’ve got a wedding to get ready for.” The realization hits me full force and it’s hard to breathe. “Good night.”

I hang up, turn off my phone, and slip beneath the covers, pulling them up to my chin and trying desperately not to cry.

*

Knock, knock, knock.

Who in the world thinks now is an appropriate time to bang on my hotel room door? I glance out of the window to see the darkening Las Vegas skyline and realize just how pathetic I have become.

Eight in the evening and Cassie is out with Haley pick out china patterns or something while I sit here watching crappy, old sitcom reruns.

The gallon of Ben & Jerry’s on the bedside table isn’t really helping my self-esteem much either.

More urgently, I hear knocking on the door again. Dragging myself out of the bed, I quickly pull a pair of dirty jeans and a black, cotton t-shirt on before attempting to flatten my hair.

I pad quietly to the door and don’t even bother to look and see who’s knocking; I just swing the door open.

Spencer is standing in the doorway, hand raised, as if he was preparing to knock a third time. We stare at each other for a moment, and in my mind I’m running through a cursory list of possible reasons for why he might be here right now. Did I forget we were supposed to do something for the wedding today? I know I’m acting like a real girl but—

“Hi Jon,” he greets with a shy smile.

“Uh, hi,” I say, returning the smile slowly, still confused as to what’s going on.

“Ryan said he talked to you?” My eyes widen at his statement.

“Ryan? What? He told you what I said?” There is slight panic lacing each word I emit because Ryan cannot be so stupid.

Spencer looks at me questioningly, because if there’s anyone who can pick up on how I’m feeling, it’s him. “No,” he says slowly, “but he said I should pull my head out of my ass and talk to you.” It takes everything I have within me not to raise my hands in thanks to whatever higher power resides around us.

It’s around this time that I remember we’re still standing in the doorway and my mother did teach me a thing or two about manners, “You wanna come in?”

“Sure.” He takes a few steps around me and damn this hotel for creating a floor plan where Spencer had to walk ridiculously close to me to enter the room.

I see him eyeing the ice cream and the muted television and tell him, “Oh, Cassie left the room like this, sorry.”

He just looks at me, “Seven hours ago when she met up with Haley and the rest of the bridesmaids?”

Sheepishly, I look down at the floor, and then up at him again through my eyelashes, trying to read his body language. I still haven’t figured out why he’s here.

“God, Jon, don’t look like that.” It almost sounds like he’s pleading and I snap my head up in a mixture of shock and confusion.

“Like what?”

“All sexy and innocent like that. It’s not fair.” I feel as though my eyes might just bug out of my head because what?

He breathes deeply and walks over to the sliding glass doors that lead out to the balcony, staring out at the quickly descending sun. I follow him and rest my hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s go outside and talk, okay?” I slide the door open and step through. He follows, avoiding my probing gaze. In a few steps, we’re both leaning against the railing watching the sunset bloom. On any other night, without all of the questions that are flying through my head right now, I’m sure I would be completely content because this is quiet and peaceful and just nice.

“So…you were saying something about me, or us, or uh…” I can’t think of a single coherent sentence on the subject, simply because I am so brilliantly lost right now.

“Yeah…” he trails off and then finally looks at me. “Everything is so fucked up right now, Jon, you know? It keeps hitting me that there’s this wedding coming up and it’s mine. I should be excited but I’m not. I’m just dreading it, and that’s not right. I tried to convince myself it was just cold feet but it’s not, is it?”

I’m thrown off by the question and I meet his drilling gaze. Then, he’s moving towards me and every kind of siren or alarm I’ve ever heard is going off in my head because this shouldn’t be happening right now, or ever, really.

His lips meet mine and a warm hand trails up my torso slowly to cup my chin. It seems as though my body thinks now is a good time to completely disregard my mind because my lips are moving against his and my hands are curling into the hem of his thin sweater. Spencer’s free hand makes its way to the small of my back and I involuntarily shiver and press even closer to him.

He pulls back for a moment and just looks at me before nestle his head into my neck and just wrapping his arms around me. I return the gesture and the way we’re standing, I can say over his shoulder into the hotel room and straight into Cassie’s eyes.

I pull back in alarm and slam into the balcony railing, wincing. Spencer looks confused until he follows my gaze and sees Cassie standing on the other side of the glass partition. Haley is standing a few feet behind her, both of them looking disbelieving and hurt and this is bad. This is not how any of this should have happened. We should have all gone on with our cookie-cutter lives and we would have, had not Ryan just kept that goddamn mouth of his shut.

But now I’ve felt Spencer lips and arms and touched him intimately and never wanted to let go. Could I go back now?

Could any one of the four of us?

*

The next morning, I walk into the hotel room after breakfast to find Cassie’s suitcase gone, along with everything she had brought with her. The constant struggle I’m feeling between euphoria that Spencer is no longer getting married and depression because we hurt two great people horribly in order to be happy is showing no sign of letting up.

By early afternoon, I’ve already received calls from my every member of my family who apparently heard from Cassie’s family that something had gone seriously wrong between the two of us. Again and again, I made sure that each of them knew that Cassie and I wouldn’t be getting back together.

All in all, it was a rough day. When you watch a movie where the protagonist gets the guy, there’s a reason they call that the end. No one wants to bother showing what happens afterwards. It’s not just a shotgun wedding and a sweet happily ever after. Throw in celebrity status and you’ve got quite a mess to clean up.

Finally, I manage to get my mother off of the phone and I breathe deeply, knowing that now that my entire family has taken the time to lecture me, my phone should actually remain silent for a while.

No such luck. Within ten minutes, my phone rings again and I open it without glancing at the screen.

“What?” I bite out.

“Geez, I’m not appreciating the hostility.” When I hear Ryan’s deep monotone over the line, I both sigh in relief that my mother isn’t calling again, and feel my pulse quicken since Ryan is the idiot who’s responsible for the onslaught of Jon-why-are-you-so-stupid comments I’ve been getting all day.

“Sorry, I thought you were my mother again, calling to throw another variation on what she’s been saying all day my way.”

“And what’s she been saying?” he asks.

“Jon, you’re an idiot for letting Cassie go was how she started this morning. Ten minutes ago, she started wondering how I was going to give her any grandkids like this.” Ryan begins to laugh, and really, this is not very funny so I have no idea why he thinks so.

“Did you let her know that, unless you adopt, she’s going to have to depend on your brothers for grandchildren?” Ryan says with a chuckle. Oh God, I hadn’t even thought about that, but now I’m trying not to let my mind stray to adopting children with Spencer because that’s really getting ahead of myself.

“No, Ryan, I didn’t think today would be the best time to tell my mother Cassie and I split up because of Spencer. I’d like to think I have just a little bit of common sense.”

“Ah, well, too bad, it would’ve been an interesting story to hear.” I scoff. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay. You are, aren’t you?”

I let out the breath I feel like I’ve been holding since I came to Las Vegas, “I will be.”

“Okay, man,” he begins. “You know everything’s going to turn out alright in the end, right?”

“Mm, yeah I know. Later, Ryan,” I say by way of a goodbye.

When Spencer calls just as I’m getting ready to get in bed, just to wish me a good night, the emotional baggage I’ve been bearing all day is lifted and I actually get a decent night’s sleep for the first time in a while.

*

Two weeks later, Spencer is sitting cross-legged on his bed next to me, playing with the fingers of my free hand while I press the speed dial on my sidekick to reach Pete.

Before I can get a word out, I hear, “It’s already been taken care of.”

“Uh, what?” I question.

“An anonymous label representative will leak the fact that you two have both broken up with your long-time girlfriends when you leave for the Rockband tour,” He clarifies, and then he repeats slowly, “It’s already been taken care of.”

“Oh.” I mutter, astonished. Well, that was easy. This is why I love Pete Wentz.

“Yeah, so you and Spencer just keep whatever it is that you two do together quiet and everyone’s a happy camper,” He finishes.

“Yes, sir.” I laugh

“And don’t call me sir.”

“Yes, si—I mean, Pete,” I laugh harder, mostly in relief.

“Bye, man, I’ll see you soon.” I hear a click that lets me know the call’s been ended and I explain to Spencer what Pete had said.

“Did he tell you that this ‘anonymous label representative’ is going to give a reason for the splits with Cassie and Haley?” he asks.

“Hmm…no, I don’t think so.” Spencer chuckles and it takes me a second to understand but when I do, I’m clutching side with laughter because anyone who’s ever wondered about the details of our relationship is going to have a field day come October.

He continues to draw with the pad of his index finger on my hand, then my wrist, my arm, and his hand finally comes to rest on my bare chest.

“Am I a bad person for feeling relieved that this whole fiasco is finally coming to an end?” he wonders aloud.

I lay my hand over his, which is lying over my heart. “Nah, it just means you’re human.”

He looks at me, smirking, “You know what else I am?”

I raise an eyebrow and he answers his own question, “Horny.” Before I know it, his hand is trailing down the thin line of hair leading down below the waistband of my pajama pants and dipping down into my boxers.

“Spence—” I begin. “Ohhh…fuck.”

*

“We’ve shut down Livejournal, Jon!” Spencer gasps out, laughing while sitting in-between my legs with his laptop on his lap so that I can feel his amusement reverberating through my body.

I turn from the tour bus’s TV to the computer screen. “What?”

“It seems once it leaked that we both broke up with our girlfriends around the same time, one of those slash-writing communities went into a frenzy with all sorts of posts about us. I guess it shut down their servers or something,” he explained. I do believe what I did next could only be described as a guffaw.

I guffawed because, well, how could I not? Those damn girls knew about us being together before we did. I can only wonder what would…or will happen when they find out it wasn’t all fiction.

“Smart girls,” I whisper throatily into his ear. He turns to me, a glint in his eye.

“Jon?”

“Yeah, babe?” His lips curl up into a smirk.

“You know that thing we did last night?” He’s attempting to look innocent and failing miserably.

I raise an eyebrow, “When Ryan threatened to spray us with Zack’s can of Mase if we didn’t quiet down?”

“Yes, that.”

“What about it?” I question.

“I think we should do it again. Like, right now,” he says, getting up and grabbing my hand to pull me to him.

I chuckle, “Aren’t you afraid of Ryan coming in with the pepper spray?”

“As scary as that sounds, absolutely not. It’s Ryan. He wouldn’t spray me with that stuff.” He’s dragging me to the bunks now and I can’t really say I’m putting up much of a fight.

Then I stop and refuse to move for a moment, “He wouldn’t spray you. But Ryan wouldn’t hesitate to give me a mouthful of that shit.”

Stepping close, he leans in and whispers in my ear, “What’s life without a little risk?” The question sends shivers down my back as I stare into his light blue eyes.

And then we’re moving twice as quickly to our originally intended destination because he’s exactly right. We wouldn’t be here if not for a risk or two.

I think I finally understand why it’s so important to let go of those that we love the most.

When they come back to you, they’re yours.

Forever.

*

The next show we play in Chicago, I swear I see Cassie out in the crowd and maybe…

Maybe everything really does turn out okay in the end.

*

AN: Wow, this has been a long time coming and a lot of me was put into it this summer so I hope you all enjoyed it!

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