[All Time Low/Complicated] How You Like Me Now

[Scarlet Rose Harris]

Scarlet put her hair up into a ponytail as she walked through the doors of Taboo, looking to her side to see Mandi before she offered her a small smile. ‘ So everyone is showing up… because he got dumped?” Mandi asked out of confusion. “ Apparently. I was supposed to have dinner with him tonight after I ditched you with Hunter, but I guess he had a change of plans,” Scarlet said before she yawned, making her way over to the elevator. ‘ Gee thanks’ Mandi said sarcastically before she stepped inside. ‘It’ll be good to see the boys anyways, I haven’t seen them in a while’. Scarlet gave a small nod. Sometimes she forgot that Mandi knew them because of Riley, and the fact that her and Mandi had been best friends in high school – which had led to her hanging out with Logan quite a bit. “ Dude how the hell did you never hook up with Renner?” she asked as the doors closed. ‘ Who says we didn’t’ Mandi asked as she leaned against the handrail inside the elevator. “ Fair enough,” Scarlet said, shrugging her shoulder slightly. Once the elevator doors opened she looked down both sides of the hallway, trying to remember where the lounge was since Collin had texted her that’s where they were. She stepped inside and smiled, seeing so many people there already. “ Definitely not my daddy’s party,” she said under her breath, glad to just be gone from his stupid as banquet that Mandi had attended with her. “ Shaney!” she said happily, making her way over to him as he was telling Blake that it was like old times, “ Well NOW it is” she said since she was here, too. Scarlet wrapped her arm through Shane’s, pulling him towards the bar since he was making a comment about getting himself and Claire a drink, where he paused to make a comment to Collin. “Wow you look rough for a break up” she said sarcastically, giving him a wink before she leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “ Come on, “ she said to Shane, lowering her hand down to his forearm to pull him towards the bar.

[Mandi Lynn Collins]

Mandi stepped inside the lounge, watching everyone for a moment before she pulled her arms back, letting her jacket slip off of her shoulders. Out of everyone she had been friends with in high school, Scarlet, Logan, Ryan, Chad, Riley’s friends.. she pretty much partied the least. She showed up in nice clothes, did her cheerleading, but she also kept her nose to the books, studied hard. She knew she wanted to go to law school someday, and she knew it would take a lot to get herself there. She wanted to do it on her own and not with the help of what her last name was, which is why when she applied to colleges she made sure to do it under a different name. Scarlet had already abandoned her, left her to her own devices so Mandi puffed out her cheeks, taking her phone out of her clutch where she texted Hunter what she was doing. He could come, he could stay home. Whatever. When Mandi looked up, she stood on her toes until she spotted Logan and smiled. She kept her eyes locked on him, moving through the large group of people that had apparently gotten themselves there in this massive lounge. “ Logan!” she yelled out over the music before she stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around him tightly. He was family to her. All of Riley’s friends were. But Logan was the kind of guy you could count on to be there if you ever needed anything. “ Dance with me?” she asked before she lifted her eyebrows and smiled, she looked over at Blake, who hadn’t liked her or Scarlet at all in highschool. She understood why Blake didn’t like Scarlet, and she sort of could understand herself. Scarlet’s best friend, guilty by association.

[Zack Derrick Grant]

Zack made a confused expression as he looked up at the screen, trying to understand Joel’s video. “ Cars?” he asked. One word question used to express his confusion in why automobiles were a primary focus for a song about being someone’s boyfriend. He shook his head, deciding it wasn’t worth trying to figure out before he headed over to the bar and got himself and Natalie another drink. He stopped, grabbing a water for himself and chugged it back quickly before he set his way on finding Natalie again. He smiled as he watched her, being talked to by Jack. She was the most beautiful girl in the world in his opinion, like a real life princess. Just the way she smiled gave him the most unsettling butterflies. Zack interrupted them by holding the drink out to Natalie and giving a small jerk of his head to Jack, signaling for him to beat it. Zack lowered himself onto the couch, sitting down before he lifted his cup to his lips and took a drink. “ Collin is going to make me a girl,” he said as he gave a sigh, having heard what Collin was saying to Shane earlier before he turned to look at Natalie. “ You have to still love me,” he said before smiling at her impishly, offering a small blush to his cheeks as he leaned over and kissed her.

[Alex John Harrison]

Alex took the smoke away from his lips and continued to dance all his lonesome along to the music. Damn they had some good artists here at Taboo. He hummed along to the music before he looked up seeing Cody and gave a small head nod. He really wished that guy would just sign with Taboo already. He was friends with Taboo artists, chummy as hell with Logan. He had heard him using the studios here in New York to do some recording and was sending it back to the west coast. Might as well just make it fucking official bro. Alex licked his lips, a small idea coming to his mind. Well if no one else was going to get the train moving on that one then he sort of thought he knew a way to get it on Logan’s mind. Alex bolted out of the lounge, running to his studio where he grabbed a bunch of sound equipment and microphones. When he came back he saw literally about six people in pizza delivery uniforms and slowed down. “ Someone order a pizza?” he asked the first guy who turned to look at him. ‘Actually someone ordered about five hundred dollars worth of pizza… and breadsticks, and cinnamon bites. “ he said and Alex made a slight face, “ Whose getting the bill on that one?” he asked, trying to open the door for them since their hands were full – but so were his. ‘Riley Collins already paid for it. He called in for the order’ they said as they filed in to start setting everything down in the kitchen area. Shane was probably in high heaven right now. Alex licked his lips, setting all of his stuff down by the music before he started hooking up wires. Computer, speakers, lights, microphones. He was crawling on the floor, hitting peoples legs to get them to move. About five minutes later everything was finished and he switched the flips to turn the microphone on. “ Sup bitches?” he asked before he laughed quietly and made his way over to the computer. “ Alright I uh.. we’ve got a little special performance for you guys,” he said before he pulled up an instrumental track for ‘Moves Like Jagger’. He played the first ten seconds of the song, the whistling, on a loop as he looked out into the crowd, spotting Cody as he waited for him to come up and start singing. Alex brought the microphone back to his lips and added quickly, “ Blake I’m sorry that someone else is stealing the attention for a few minutes but I swear no one has forgotten that it’s a Parker world,” he said, giving her a wink, “ We have to play shitty music too so we all know just how great you are,” he said, smirking before he handed the microphone out to Cody who was coming on stage with a beer in his hand.

[Cody Jensen Cavanaugh]

Cody ran his hand over the top of his hair. Hell, if everyone had thrown a party like this for him when his cold hearted bitch of an ex had dumped him then he might have gotten over it sooner. “ Jesus you Taboo kids do not hold back,” he said to Renner while he laughed and shook his head. If you were going to do something, do it well he supposed. He turned his head, hearing the opening to his track and narrowed his eyebrows before he heard Alex’s voice come across the room and shook his head. He let him talk for a little bit before he made his way up to where he was. “ I see how it is,” he said, taking the microphone away from Alex, “ Take the non-taboo kid and make him dance like a monkey,” he said with mock disapproval before he brought his beer to his lips and finished it. “ Alright but just because Collin got his heart shit on. Rosie get your fine ass up here,” he said, turning away from the microphone and rubbing his finger against the edge of his nose. He set the microphone down, going over to have a quick word with Alex who was manning the feedback of the music. Rosie had dated his best friend in the entire world, and it seemed like they were still friends. That was one break up that didn’t need a party considering how close it seemed Tyson and Rosie still were. Cody laughed, patting his hand against Alex’s back before he reached his arm back and tore his shirt off, throwing it down to the side. Some people performed better shirtless, he was one of them. It just felt more natural. Besides his tattoos were like a second shirt anyways. He curled his finger towards himself as he spotted Rosie coming up towards him and slid towards her as he started singing so that Alex would quit playing the intro on a loop, “ Ohh.. oh. Just shoot for the stars, if it feels right aiming for my heart if you feel like take me away, make it okay. I swear I’ll behave. “ he said as he took her by the hand and did a spin to twirl her around. Cody took a step away from her to let her dance as he leaned forward and sang into the microphone.

[Tyson Jay Ritter]

Tyson had found Rosie in the craziness that was the ‘lounge party’. He laughed to himself, suddenly realizing as he looked at Logan, “ Dude what if some people are trying to work?” he asked before he decided fuck it, he didn’t care. He looked over again, “ I guess the only one we would be scared of is Blake,” he said before he licked his lips. He widened his eyes as the pizza made its way in. Solid. A lot of them would be happy to see that. He looked over his shoulder to try and find his best friend to figure out if he was hungry, but he stopped, hearing Moves Like Jagger starting to play. He saw Cody who apparently was hearing it just now as well and gave a small laugh. Well played, Alex. “ Rosie you wanna da-“ he started off, but Cody was already calling Rosie up to the stage. He gave a small nod and then tilted his head towards Cody. “ Go have fun,” he said, placing his hand on her lower back and gave her a quick kiss. He looked over at Collin and lifted his beer towards him. That had to suck, having a shitty break up. Tyson had two “relationships” and he was still cool as hell with both of them. Once Cody started singing, Tyson looked over his shoulder and spotted a blonde that he had seen around the label. He knew she was an artist, but he never heard anything from her. “ Hey you look hot, let’s dance” he said nonchalantly, like it was the most normal thing in the world to meet someone and just comment on their looks. “ Tyson Ritter by the way… All-American Rejects,” he said, tilting his head back and finished off his beer before he tossed the glass bottle towards the trash in the kitchen and grabbed Ellie’s hand, pulling her to go dance with him.

[Joel Carter Foster]

Joel was still staring down at his phone, debating with himself over whether or not he should call Ryan. He took in a deep breath, sliding his phone back into his back pocket. Do not call, Ryan. He needed to learn to grow up and handle things on his own. So he was scared, fine. But there was no reason to be scared tonight . Mostly everyone he cared about was in this room, and he was home. Time to relax and just enjoy being able to see them for a while. He made his way back towards the group, grabbing a slice of pizza and biting into half of it before he made his way back to Logan. He turned over his shoulder hearing as Cody started singing Moves Like Jagger. Rosie was already up on stage and Joel looked through the crowd quickly. Dani was with Jake. Natalie was with Zack. Ellie was being danced with by Tyson. He swallowed his pizza as he spotted Claire and did a double take. Shane had said something about her being a decent singer. “ Hey!” he called out, running over to her quickly before he picked her up off the couch. “ Need to borrow you,” he said before he carried her up by Cody and dropped her off, yelling into her ear over the music, “ Sing the female part, you got this” he said before clapping his hand against her shoulder. Everyone knew that this was Ethan’s favorite song – and now that he thought about it, if Ethan knew that he was missing a performance by Maroon 5, he would probably cry. So who better to sing along than his sister? And the best friend of the girl who broke up with Collin. She was blonde like Addison.. she probably knew the words. Right? Joel smiled at her satisfactorily as Cody looked over, still singing but gave Joel a head nod, clearly understanding what Claire’s purpose up there next to him was. Joel pulled his pants up at the side by his belt loops before he went back through the crowd to find himself his girlfriend.

[Collin Scott Reynolds]

Collin was sitting back in the couch, right arm on the armrest, left arm spread out and holding his beer. His expression probably looked like he had just seen a ghost, and here he was still trying to figure out.. what.. just .. happened. He looked up slowly as he heard Shane speaking to him and blinked his eyes. “ She did,” he said, nodding slowly before he looked at Logan. “ What.. was that?” he said before he shook his head, “ It’s like something great is about to happen or.. something great is about to happen” he said, still talking like it was all a mystery and he just couldn’t seem to figure the damn thing out. She’d left him incapable of function. Scarlet had leaned down and given him a kiss before dragging Shane away with her, but he still just sat there, motionless. He had no idea how long he was sitting there before he heard what sounded like live singing. “ Maroon 5 is performing at my..”break up “ party.” he said to himself, blinking at the party that was happening before him. How exactly had he gotten to this point in his life? “….Awesome” he said quietly, deciding that it sure as hell was. He stood up, with the intent that he would ask Ellie to dance with him. But it seemed like Tyson had already found her. So instead he tossed his empty beer into the trash and started to make himself a new drink completely.

[Shane Alexander Madden]

Shane looked up when he saw Scarlet, grinning at her, “Scarlet!!” This really was like old times, just like when they were kids. The only person they were missing was Ryan. Which was partially depressing, but he was off having a dandy old time on tour. Plus Madeline was with him visiting, so chances were, he was having an awesome time. Shane stood up, letting her wrap her arm through his and they headed over to the drink table. “Scarlet, have you seen my girlfriend today?” he asked pointing back at Claire on the couch. “Smokin’. Hot.” He grinned, shaking his head and poured himself and Claire drinks, “People keep asking me, ‘how did you get in your situation?’” he said drunkenly, shrugging, “Well come on, look at her. We know how we got in this situation.” Shane stopped in his tracks, looking at all of the pizza that was just brought in. Well, he did have the munchies pretty bad. ”Hey where’d all that come from?” he asked and then they told him it came from Riley Collins. ”Oh god. Scarlet, I could kiss him. Come on,” Shane walked over and flung one of the boxes open taking out two slices, one for himself which he promptly took a bite and shoved the other in Scarlet’s mouth, laughing when she moved away. ”Scarlet, I have the munchies so bad…” he chuckled. Cody had started singing and Shane nodded in approval, watching when Joel made Claire go up there. ”Ha , see? I told you, I told everyone she was a good singer, just wait.” This was exactly what Shane loved about the group of them. Any given amount of them could throw an impromptu party and get along with each other like no big deal, and it never failed that more of them would just show up anyways. It was like white on rice. One person yelled party and the rest of them came running.

[Logan Chase Renner]

Logan poured Blake mixed drink with ginger ale stirring it up and walked back over to Blake, handing her the cup and leaned down to kiss her, smiling. He looked up when he saw Scarlet and Mandi come in, waving at them and then noticed that Cody was going to sing. Logan looked at Alex, shaking his head. Leave it to him to get the performances going. They couldn’t all hang out without doing it. But that was fine. Logan turned around when Mandi took his arm, asking him to dance with her. Sure, why the hell not. If he’d counted all the times he’d danced with Mandi over the years he might realize that he was actually friends with her and not just ‘Riley’s younger sister’. Logan took his drink and followed her, dancing and took her hand, letting her spin around. Somehow Claire had been put on stage by Joel and she was looking at him like, ‘what the hell man?” But Logan knew Shane had already mentioned before that Claire sang decently. That always put Logan in a funny situation because he tended to want to sign everyone in the world when he was drunk. It was all about expanding the family that he loved so much. He just loved that they had this tight knit group that was this supportive of each other. Cody was practically family. Logan thought to himself, why wasn’t Cody just on the label? What the hell, right? Logan yelled during an instrumental part, ”Hey remind me later to adopt you into the family!” Logan gave him a thumbs up. And come to think of it, Claire really was a good singer. Well, Shane did have an excellent. Logan pointed at Claire, ”You too!”

[Natalie Paige St.John]

She just laughed when Zack came back from getting drinks and told Jack to beat it. They were always telling Jack to beat it, he was always everywhere anyways. Natalie took the drink from his hands, taking a sip and nodded, smiling when he mentioned being made into a girl. ”I think your band mates will enjoy that.” Natalie looked over at everyone dancing and enjoying Cody’s performance, smiling at the way Shane was smiling at Claire. That was cute. Natalie looked back at Zack, smiling at him, ”Well I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Natalie leaned over when he kissed her, biting he lip after she pulled away. Every time Zack kissed her it was like a treat because she’d had to wait so long until he would. And every time it left her just wanting to pounce on him. Frustrating. She did however, take his face in her hands, kissing him again more deeply and then pulled away, looking aback up at the stage area where they’d just finished singing. Claire was pouting because Logan was trying to sign her, which was funny, but Shane had gone over and scooped her back up, carrying her back to the couch. Natalie was glad to see they were still happy. She wanted to be that happy. She was that happy. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought about it, loving Zack. And sometimes she wanted to tell him so bad, but she didn’t want to him to freak out. She would wait, but for how long, she didn’t know. She feared one day she’d just say it and he’d be left looking at her like she had just pulled a quarter out of her nose or something.

[Claire Jayne Madden]

Claire frowned as Joel put her up next to Cody and quickly turned to walk away but there was Alex, shaking his head as he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her back around. ‘ We’re all friends here’ here he said before he shoved a second microphone into Claire’s hands. She took in a deep breath and sighed. She definitely didn’t have the powerhouse effect that the girl on this song hand, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do well at it. She turned her back to everyone, trying to picture herself singing in the shower as she started off singing it. But Cody was quickly standing in front of her, laughing as he turned her around to face everyone again and was wrapping his arm around her lazily. When her part was finished and he went back to singing, she tried to walk away but he just pulled her back in with is arm around her shoulders. Talk about trapped. Claire pouted out her bottom lip, looking for Shane before she handed the microphone off to Alex who took it away from her. She widened her eyes during the instrumental part when Logan was talking about signing Cody and then turned his attention to her. Not long after the song had ended and Claire instantly brought her hands up, walking over to the edge of the makeshift stage and waited until Shane was near her where she leaned down so he could pick her up, “ Baby!” she said as she held onto him tightly with her arms around his neck and shoulders as he carried her away.

[Blake Emma Renner]

Blake watched as Scarlet took Shane away, narrowing her eyebrows slightly as she watched their behavior around one another. How could someone she despised so entirely much be so chummy with everyone else in her life. She gave a small sigh, but looked up and smiled as Logan offered her the ginger ale she had asked for. “ Thank you,” she said after he kissed her. She watched as Cody started singing and then cursed under her breath. Logan was drinking. This was going to cost him some money. Yup, right on cue. Blake nodded as Logan yelled out to Cody and Claire both about signing them. “Honey,…” she said, shaking her head as she approached him. “ Let’s think about signing people when we’re sober, yeah?” she said before she stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. She looked over her shoulder at Shane who had picked Claire up off of the stage and taken her back to the couch. Seriously how proud could one man be of the girl he was dating? It was strange that it was coming from Shane, but at the same time it was completely adorable. They were good for each other. ‘ Hey, do you mind if I steal Logan for a second?” she heard someone ask and looked over to see Dani. Blake nodded, “ Sure, he’s all yours,” she said before kissing Logan quickly and left to go see Shane.

[Dani Marie Cooper]

Dani brought her hands to the side of her mouth and cheered as Cody started singing and Joel drug Claire up there to sing the female vocals. She knew that Claire could sing , but that was just because she would sing when all the girls were hanging out. Dani smiled as she watched them, turning to see what Shane thought and of course he was grinning like it was the first time he ever saw her. Frikkin’ charming. She brought her cup to her lips, narrowing her eyes as she watched Logan being talked to by Blake. Maybe he had a moment or two he could spare, because ever since she had talked to him about her dad some really weird stuff was going on and she sure as hell wanted to get to the bottom of it. “ I’ll be right back,” she said to Jake, leaving his side again as she went over to Logan, “ Hey can I borrow him for a second?” she asked Blake and then smiled as she walked away. Dani licked her lips as she tried to think of how to best express this. She pulled Logan away where it was a little quieter so they could have some more privacy. “ So.. after I talked to you about … well, whats going on. How involved have you gotten? Because some…really…really weird stuff is going on,” she said with a confused expression. “ The doorman keeps saying that stuff is getting delivered when Jake is home, but I haven’t seen anything. And I haven’t asked Jake about it yet…” she said, bringing her hand up to the back of her neck where she held it.