Be My Bad Boy

My heart skipped. I didn't know what I was feeling though – anxiety or happiness or nervousness – or a volatile cocktail of them all. I mean, all alone in a shack in the middle of nowhere with Andy Biersack? That had to be scary. What if he went nuts when we were there alone? But Jinxx had said it was only if he got disturbed in his sleep.

Still, what happened to "don't fall in love with me, Hannah"?
"Maybe we could all go to the beach. Jinxx and Angie and, well Jake and Ashley." That’d be okay. There’d be a buffer zone. There’d be no shenanigans with all those people around.
"Good idea. But I think Jinxx has a big project on at the moment. We could ask him but it wouldn’t really be fair… he might feel obligated…"

I sighed. I guess I couldn’t ask Angie to drop everything either.
We dropped by my place. Luckily, those reporters hadn't worked out where I lived yet. Because of the dodgy landlords, I had nothing in my name there. I paid rent in cash, I had no utilities connected and only had my mobile phone. I couldn't have picked a better place to live if I didn't want to be tracked down. I threw some clothes into a bag and got together some makeup and ended up back at the car in record time, just in case anyone was nosing around.

That went smoothly but then we got to Andy's place. I went in with him and waited for him to get his things together. He needed to pack his guitar and notebooks and everything he needed for songwriting. I sat on the couch and watched some daytime TV and didn't even notice Jinxx come in.
"Hey, Hannah, how's things?" he asked.
"I'm getting out of town. It's been too intense for me."
He smiled and sat on the couch beside me.
"Sounds like a plan. Anywhere in particular?"
"Yeah, heading down the coast to my uncle/managers beach house. Sounds like a good hiding spot.”
Jinxx pulled out his phone and checked his messages.

"By the way, have you heard from the record company yet?"
My heart froze. I remembered his support from this morning at the café. How he said he'd always stand by me. I should tell him the truth about the record company. I should let him know that I was destroying the band's future. But, yet again, the words wouldn't come out.

"Hey, I only called them today. Those guys must be all kinds of busy. I'll call them again tomorrow if I don't hear anything."
My voice sounded fake but Jinxx didn't seem to notice. He looked at me without making eye contact and started to say something but didn't finish. He was acting very weird.
He cleared his throat but, when I looked at him, he looked away.

I turned my focus back to the TV, to a story about a woman who became a hooker for Jesus. Was this stuff for real? To be honest, Jinxx didn’t seem as if he had any project he was working on if he could sit around watching this stuff. Maybe I should’ve told him he could get back to work.
"Hannah," he said and I turned again.

He gazed down at his phone, not at me. I waited for him to talk.
"Hannah, I need to tell you something, it's kind of hard for me…"
"Hey, ready to go?" Andy had a small bag in his hand. He called down from the landing.
Jinxx looked up at Andy and then at me. All the muscles in his body went stiff.
"What were you going to say? We have to get going before dark."
I smiled at him encouragingly but he'd stood up. His eyes flashed darkly at me, almost as if he hated me. What had happened? All the muscles in his body had stiffened and he hovered over me like he wanted to speak but then he just walked off.

Notes

Poor baby Jinxx :c