“Alex get up! I’ve let you sleep long enough.” came Denise’s voice at his bedroom door.
“But mooom I don’t want to” came his whiney reply.
“Alex if you don’t get up right now we’re going to be late to Nick’s house for his BBQ!”
“That’s not till much later though! It’s 5 AM for crying out loud!”
“It is 8 o’clock in the morning and we’re supposed to be there at one! Don’t forget it’s a 4 hour drive Alex.”
“Shit! I didn’t adjust my watch!”
“Serves you right now get up! And watch your mouth!”
A few minutes later Alex got up sighing and went to take a shower.
Denise smiled as she heard the water turn on. She knew what Nick was planning and couldn’t wait to see his face. “At least the shower should wake him up” she said to herself chuckling.
After his shower he stood inside of his walk-in closet with a towel wrapped around his waist trying to decide on what to wear. He stood there for nearly 20 minutes pondering over his entire wardrobe. He finally decided to just wear a pair of jeans, a black Woodstock t-shirt, and of course a baseball hat.
He bounded down the stairs just before 10.
“I was ready to send in a search party to go look for you.” Denise teased. “It took you 2 hours to get ready”
“Well it takes time to make me look this good.” he said spinning around.
“Alex that is not the type of thing you should say in front of your mother.” she said highly amused at her son’s goofy behavior. “Now let’s go before we are late.”
“Only if you insist.”
“And I do. Car now.” she said pointing the way.
They both got in the car and were soon on their way to Nick’s. Denise was in the driver’s seat and Alex was sitting in the passenger’s seat staring at the scenery.
He noticed that they were coming up to the intersection where the accident he caused happened. He started become really nervous and not quite sure if he could ever drive through it again. It seemed to bring back all of his past demons that he desperately wanted to forget so he could move on.
Denise looked over at her son noticing that he was fidgeting. The closer she looked the more she saw how anxious he looked and the little tiny droplets of sweat that were forming on his face.
“Alex are you alright?” she asked concern filling her voice.
“Yea mom I’m fine. It’s just…I’m not ready to face where it all happened yet.” he said.
“Honey I have to go this way to get to the freeway. You know no matter what the entrance is over here.”
“I know…I’m just scared.”
“Scared of what?”
By this point she had pulled the car over in front of a nearby house.
“That it’ll happen again. That I won’t manage to stay sober.”
“I’ll be here every step of the way to help you and make sure you do. The guys will do the exact same thing.”
“I’m still scared though. It doesn’t help that every day I think about the girl that I hit. I don’t even know how she is doing or anything. It’d make me feel better if she were alright and if I could help her out in any way. I know it won’t change what happened but…”
“I know dear. That’s very generous of you. While you’re on tour I’ll see if I can at least see how she’s doing.”
Sighing he said, “Well let’s go or Kevin will send out the search party for us.”
“Ok” she said giving him a smile and a pat on the shoulder.
With that they were once again on their way to Nick’s house.
~ 4 hours later ~
They arrived at Nick’s house 15 minutes after 2 o’clock. For the most part the drive to Tampa was fairly quiet except for the radio that Alex had turned on 20 minutes into their ride.
It took 10 minutes to find a place to park their car. Alex noticed that there were an unusual amount of cars here. When he visited before there were never that many, even when all of the guys were there hanging out. He brushed it off and joined his mother in front of Nick’s door. It was unusually quiet. ‘Maybe Nick was right. Maybe I really am the life of the party’ he thought to himself.
Denise rang the doorbell. Nick came and answered a minute later.
“J how are you man? It’s good to see you!” he said enveloping him into a hug. “Hi Denise.” he said also giving her a hug.
“Hi Nick” said Denise before she headed off towards his enormous backyard.
“Hey man. I’m doing pretty good. How ‘bout yourself?” said Alex.
“I’m doing good. Well let’s go see what everyone else is up to.”
“Yea it’s pretty quiet round here.”
“I told ya you’re the life of the party!” Nick said enthusiastically.
Nick led him towards the backyard. Nick went out first then Alex.
“SURPRISE!”
When Alex looked up he not only saw all of his band mates, but their ENTIRE crew for the Black & Blue Tour.
“We figured that we’d welcome you back in style and have a huge party to celebrate 2 things.” said Kevin giving him hug.
“You being sober, and us going back on tour in 2 days” Brian smiled also giving him a hug.
The party went on till midnight. Everyone caught up with each other, and congratulated AJ on being sober. Many also told him that they were very proud of him. Out of respect for AJ Nick made sure that there were no alcoholic beverages. So they sugared it up with soda, LOTS of soda.
They all laughed and cried and various stories, and at Nick and Brian for acting like complete goofballs (or in other words idiots hehe).
Now what’s a party without cake?? Their tour manager Lenny surprised everyone and bought a huge cake for everyone to share.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Woot! I was on a roll tonight! 2 chapters in one night!!!
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
