After a long night at the bar Eva tried to drag out closing up because she dreaded going home to her empty house.
“Hey slow poke!” Roxy yelled to her, “I wanna get home some time this century.”
“I don’t.” Eva said to herself as she finished up the register. Tim was wiping down the bar and heard her. He stopped for a minute to make sure he heard what she said.
Eva stepped it up a little and all too soon they were locking the door to the bar. Eva sighed and turned to walk home again when Tim picked her up from behind.
“Hey what are you doing?” She yelled.
“Kidnapping you.”
“What!?!?!” She screamed and Tim put her into his jeep and shut the door. "Timothy!” She yelled as her ran around and hopped in the driver’s side. “What are you doing?”
“I told you. I’m kidnapping you, taking you back to my apartment to watch old kung fu movies and eat really buttery popcorn and skittles.” Eva laughed out loud, those were her three favorite things.
“Okay,” she said throwing her hands up in the air, “kidnap away!” Tim smiled and started up the car. He had the best collection of old kung fu movies and the comfiest couch. It was exactly what she needed to get her mind off of JC for a while. Tim made the best popcorn too. They watched movies well into the morning, stuffed themselves full of popcorn and skittles, and fell asleep on his couch.
“There he goes.” Joey said as they watched him.
“Has he said anything to you about Eva, Justin?” Lance asked and Justin shrugged his shoulders.
“He’s talked to me about as much as he's talked to you guys. I've never seen him like this over some girl.”
“I know, did you see him yesterday when he thought he lost that letter he’s always carrying around? He flipped out tearing up everything until he found it.” Lance said.
“I know it’s crazy. We have to do something about it. I don’t think I can stand him like this on tour.” Chris said.
“What are we going to do, go call up Eva and demand that she talk to Jace?” Joey asked.
“No, but we can make him call her.” Chris said.
“Ahh.” The rest of the boys said in unison.
They walked over to JC who was just hanging up his phone.
“Who was that?” Justin asked him.
“No one.” JC sighed sadly.
“Okay here’s the deal. We’ve been noticing that you’ve been acting down and we’ve concluded that it has to do with Eva. So,” Lance took his phone and held it out, “call her right now.”
“Come on guys, I can’t.” JC protested.
“You call her or we will.” Chris said crossing his arms.
“Okay, okay.” JC surrendered. He picked up his phone and slowly dialed her number. It rang a few times before someone picked up.
“Hello?” a male voice answered.
“Hello? Eva?” JC sad surprised to hear the male voice.
“Oh Eva’s sleeping. Do you want me to wake her?”
“Who is this?”
"Tim, is this JC?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey hold on.” JC heard Tim in the background.
“Hey Eva, wake up sweetie.” He lightly tapped her face and she quietly stirred.
“Hmm?” She said not even opening her eyes.
“Eva, the phone’s for you.”
“Oh,” She said sleepily, “tell them I’ll call them back.” Eva rolled over and cuddled herself back into the Tim and the couch.
“JC?”
“Yeah?” JC said.
“Um, Eva said that she’ll call you later, you want me to leave a message?”
“No that’s okay. Thanks bye.”
“Bye.” JC hung up the phone. The boys stared at him, JC was confused, what was Eva doing with Tim? Why did he answer her phone?
“So?” Chris asked.
“What?”
“Well what happened?”
“Um, she’s sleeping and she’s going to call me back.”
“Okay then was that so hard?” Their manager called them back to rehearsal. JC was completely lost in his thoughts about Eva and Tim. It sounded like they had just woken up from a long night. Why was she asleep right next to him? Being lost in his thoughts caused him to forget his steps and he kept getting yelled at.
That night JC was in his room on his bed. He was reading Eva’s letter. There was a knock on his door and Joey poked his head in.
“Hey Jace?” JC sighed and put the letter down.
“Yeah?”
“Can I talk to you?”
“Sure I guess.” He sat up in the bed as Joey came in. He sat sown on the bed.
“JC, we’re really worried about you.”
“Why, I’m fine.”
“No you’re not. Ever since you’ve come back from vacation you’ve been mopey and you jump every time your phone rings. You barely talk to any of us anymore. We just want to help you. So can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“I didn’t mean not to talk to you guys, I've just been preoccupied. That’s all.”
“With Eva?” Joey asked. JC hung his head and nodded. Joey noticed the pictures by his bed and picked them up.
“This is Eva? Little Eva?” Joey said surprised. JC nodded,
“Yeah that’s her.” The boys hadn’t seen her for at least two years when she had visited JC while on tour.
“Wow, she’s really grown up in the past two years. She’s absolutely beautiful.”
“Yeah, she is.” JC replied taking the pictures from Joey. “She’s the most amazing woman. She’s smart and insightful. She always has the right thing to say.”
“So what happened between you two?”
“I don’t know, it was so great and then it stopped.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand? I don’t understand. It’s just really complicated I guess.”
“Well try to explain it to me and maybe you’ll understand it better.”
“Okay, well, I told her how I felt and she told me that she felt the same way. That’s when we had our first date and it was amazing! It was the best date I've ever been on. But then I asked her to come on tour with me.”
“And?”
“She said that she couldn’t, she didn’t want to uproot herself from the home that she had just settled into. Plus she just started this night club and it was unfair for her to dump it on her friends and leave.”
“Well that’s a reasonable excuse.”
“I know it was, so we kind of let it see where it would go.”
“Huh?”
“We basically didn’t say we would and we didn’t say we wouldn’t and it turned into the best week of my life. You know that feeling when you’ve finished a puzzle and all the pieces fit together just right and everything is perfect?”
“Yeah.”
“Well it was like that but only five hundred times better. Everything was sickenly perfect.”
“Well?”
“Well, that’s when I had to leave and come back. She wouldn’t date me while I was away because she doesn’t do long distance relationships, especially while we were on tour.”
“Looks like she knows you pretty well.”
“That’s you, not me. Really just looking at other women that way makes me sick.”
“Amazing how powerful love can be, huh?”
“I hate it. If love was supposed to be amazing, why do I feel so crappy?”
“I don’t know, so how did you guys leave your relationship?”
“That’s the complicated part. We left it as though nothing happened. It was like the last week was a dream, but now she’s not talking to me because she needed some space. She’s trying to figure out things for herself. She said that she would call me when she had. I guess that’s why I've been so wrapped up in my phone.” JC hung his head.
“Well, this gives you time to figure out thing for yourself.”
“I know what I want and I want Eva in my life, even if it’s just as a friend. I just can’t handle not being able to talk to her at all. God I miss her.”
“I can see that, but I’m sure that if she feels the same way about you, she’ll call.”
“Yeah, I guess. I just wish she would call soon.”
“She will, don’t worry JC, she will."