Since Always (Ace x Reader)

Band Practice and a Big Surprise

He held the door for you to enter and led you to where the rest of the band was waiting for Ace to show up, they started to complain about him being late until you trailed in behind him. You went and sat down against a wall of the room while they started tuning their instruments,  setting up amps, and getting mics set up. You couldn't quite hear what they were all discussing so quietly, not that it bothered you though since you assumed they were talking about what songs to practice. Opening one of your waters you took a sip watching the band carefully when Ace turned toward you with a huge, gorgeous smile on his face.

"Well, you get to be our guinea pig today! We have a new song that we wrote but we haven't had a practice audience for it yet so guess what you get to do!" he laughed at your expression of horror at the thought.

"Don't worry so much y/n, we are a lot better than we used to be back in high school." Bree, the bassist, tries to reassure you.

A small smile betrayed your upset mood when the rest of the group also tried to reassure you of their improvement, so you agreed to be the guinea pig they wanted and listen to this new song of theirs. As they quickly practiced small parts before starting you could tell how much time and work they had put into this band since you left and it honestly made you happy, Ace always talked about wanting to start a band, but when they actually started it was god awful now though they sounded amazing and they weren't even playing together yet. All that hard work really did pay off and you couldn't be prouder of the Spades, if anyone had ever asked you'd be lying if you denied that you were probably their first and biggest fan, even when they sucked.

Finally, they were ready to start and you sat there with full attention on the group, but when Ace first started singing you could feel your heart rate pick up. His gorgeous vocals were only the start though, when the rest of the band joined in everything came together perfectly, the vocals mixed with the rock sound made you melt. Ace kept his eyes on you the entire time he sang watching your every reaction, and while it felt like this was written just for you with how he performed it you knew that could never be the case. Memories of watching him practice day in and day out while learning to cook from Thatch flooded back to you, his dedication to learning and improving his guitar skills were what gave you the desire and drive to work so hard to become a chef.

Feelings you thought you had buried a long time ago started to swell within you as you listened and you were struggling to keep them where you believed they belonged. Ace had been your first love but when he made it clear to Marco, who had been teasing him, that he would never date a tomboy like you, you told yourself that you had to hide how you felt to insure you would remain friends. It was when you started to distance yourself from him to hopefully squash those feeling that you had been introduced to Kid which was also around the time Killer had started watching out for you. Kid at the time was a much-welcomed distraction and while you do most certainly love the grumpy redhead now you could never deny that you still very much so in love with Ace too.

As the song continued you found that your head had started to bob to the beat and a smile had formed on your face something all the band members were excited to see, but Ace was elated to see you smile like that because of something he had done something he had created with you in mind. This song was one he had written for you shortly after you had left for college, he had hoped that some day he would be able to perform it for you and that you would finally understand just what he had wanted to say. The chance to tell you to keep fighting for what you wanted no matter if the world or anyone else stood against you, but he never thought he would get the chance to perform it this soon and while he would love to just confess to you right here right now that he would continue to fight for you no matter what, he knew there was still one large annoying obstacle in the way. Until Kid was out of the picture, he could never tell you about how much he loved you or how long he, himself had been fighting for what he wanted which was you.