I Wanna Be Yours (Arctic Monkeys Fanfiction) UPDATED VERSION

28 | Tick Tock

"I want to talk to you guys," Nick said abruptly.

Alex and I were on the practice room's couch and I had been tracing circles on his palm. I dropped it when I saw Nick. He took us outside the practice room and shut the door so nobody could hear us.

"I think I know what's going on," he whispered. His eyes seemed wider, more awake.

Alex cleared his throat. "Yeah, we were waiting in the practice room for Collin to show."

"Obviously. What I mean is that I think I know what's going on between you two." When there was no response back, Nick continued, crossing his arms. "How long have you not been faking this?"

Whoop, there it is. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Alex gave me a look and then sighed. "Please don't tell Collin."

"I won't, but you two should be more careful," Nick said. "It was just the little things that clued me on. Like Alex, you can't stop staring. Leah, you're always fidgeting with something around him. Like what you were doing a second ago. And you're abnormally close—remember you're not supposed to be in a relationship in private property."

I understood what Alex meant when he thought Nick was always lecturing him, but I did find it useful. It was something I respected in Nick. I took and breath and a step away from Alex to start, and stopped fidgeting with the hem of my jeans. "Better?"

"Much. Also congratulations," he whispered, giving us a thumbs up.

"Congratulations?" Collin sauntered up beside us with a stained coffee mug in his hand, finally showing up to practice. Great timing. "What's the occasion?"

We all kind of stopped for a second. It was Alex who first spoke. "He was just being sarcastic. I told him that I could finally play the Lydian scale on guitar."

"Uh, don't know what that means, but congrats?" Collin patted Alex on the shoulder and walked into practice room.

My heart restarted. Nick coughed. "What, you can play the scale now?"

Alex laughed. "That was just a lie. I still mess up on it."

We spent a lot of the week in October in the practice room until the last concert. It wasn't that big, so I was allowed to stay in the crowd to watch. Alex and I tried our best not to act like we were together in front of everybody, which became increasingly harder—especially knowing that every single day we were one day closer to having to break up. We tried not to focus on that as time ticked after the concert, but it weighed down my shoulders, and I finally understood what Alex meant when he said we were going to be hurt. This relationship couldn't end well, and they weren't going to be staying in California much longer.

My mom had a passion for Halloween—it was her favorite holiday. We would always dress up and celebrate as I was a child and she'd let me have a sip of her wine, and I would pretend to get drunk, and she'd play along with the biggest smile on her face. It had come to be my favorite holiday as well, but I couldn't celebrate it with her this year; it was tomorrow.

The band was getting ready for a meet-and-greet that I wasn't invited to, so I was in my sweats, sitting on the chair in the corner of their hotel room while they got ready. We'd meet up after. "Do you guys ever hand out candy, or is it always Halloween parties and booze?"

Matt shook his head. "Not always booze, L. Sometimes cocaine."

Alex laughed and my stomach flipped, like usual. Jamie mumbled something while brushing his teeth.

"I'm serious," I laughed. "It's been a tradition for me to always hand out candy. I'm a little sad I won't get to do that this year."

Alex nodded. "Let's do it, then. I've never done it so it should be fun."

"Never?" Nobody in the room looked as surprised as me.

"I did that door to door thing, but I grew bored, and by the time I moved out people already started to recognize who I was—so no, I've never handed out candy."

"Why didn't you wear a costume?"

"Even with the costume, I was still recognized."

"Then you're terrible at dressing up." I grinned. "We'll fix that this year."

"Well," Matt coughed, "The rest of us had amazing costumes as a kid. Jamie always dressed up as an animal. Nick was Freddy Krueger almost every year. Me, I had so many costumes, but my favorite was going as Jack Sparrow."

I could totally picture that. "You would've been so cute!"

Matt scoffed. "I'm still cute."