Chapter Text
The concert goers had long left behind the Arizona amphitheater, but the afterparty for the show’s performers raged on inside Jackson Maine’s tour bus. Parked in the darkness back behind the stage with a bevy of other buses that carted his tour and the people who made it happen across the country, the singer himself stood by the counter, off to the side of the festivities, nursing a beer in his hands and keeping an entertained eye on the new woman in his life as loud music filled the small space.
Ally stood right in the middle of it all, the still-half-full beer in her own hands all but forgotten as she laughed and freed her body to the music. Jack and his band usually partied after a performance, on a bus or in someone’s hotel room; after a thousand live shows, it was more of a routine than a celebration, a way to soften the crushing blow of silence and lost adrenaline once the lights went down and the crowd stopped applauding, but everything was brand new for Ally, and she seemed electrified. Watching her, Jack wasn’t sure she was ever, as she said in the lyrics of the song that had brought her to his tour bus, going to meet the ground.
A smile teased the edges of his lips as he turned around to exchange his empty beer bottle for something stronger. The gin in the glass he poured for himself had barely touched his lips when movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Ally hopped over and wrapped her arms around his middle from behind as the alcohol slid down his throat.
“Hey,” he said, touching the arm wrapped just above his stomach.
“So how does this work?” she asked, her chin pressing into his shoulder. “Do you have to, like, stay at the party until people start to leave on their own, or…”
She trailed off, leaving her thought hanging between them. Jack turned his neck just enough to catch a glimpse of her. “I can leave,” he said. “You uncomfortable?”
“No, I’m fine,” she said.
“But you want to leave?” he asked.
“I was just thinking we could maybe go back to the room.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Come sleep with me,” she said resolutely.
Jack’s eyebrow raised at the unexpectedly forthright request, and he turned his head to look at her again. “You mean sleep like sleep, or…” Ally shot him an impish grin but said nothing, making her intentions clear. He turned around and wrapped one of his arms around her shoulders as hers tightened around his middle again. “Pretty fucking bold,” he said with a chuckle.
Ally’s face instantly changed upon his words as if all of her momentarily forgotten insecurities had rushed back in one fell swoop. “Too bold?” she asked immediately.
“Fuck no,” Jack said just as quickly. He leaned down and gave her a quick, reassuring kiss on her mouth before polishing off his drink. “Let’s get out of here.”
The hotel they’d checked into earlier was only just across the street, so Ally didn’t have to wait for Jack to call them a ride after they quietly slipped away from the party. They scurried across the empty street hand-in-hand, Jack leading the way, and walked into the hotel lobby with their arms around each other. It was late enough that nobody else was around, save for the night shift person behind the front desk, so when the elevator doors closed, they wasted no time in coming together for a heated kiss.
She wasn’t typically the type of girl to get things started in an elevator, but butterflies fluttered across her stomach on the ride up to their floor as Jack grabbed her ass and sucked on her bottom lip. She had thought she’d only get one night with him, just one night after he made her dreams come true, if only for one song, and then he came back for her and handed her both for a whole summer. They separated when the doors slid open, their hands finding each other’s again as their eyes shared a wicked gleam, but when he stopped suddenly as they turned the corner away from the elevator, Ally shot him an apprehensive look. She’d meant to watch how much he’d been drinking, partially out of curiosity towards whether the prior show had been his normal, and partially because she knew, if it was, taking care of him would fall on her now, but in the midst of the single most exhilarating night of her life, she’d failed to be as attentive as she’d hoped.
“You okay?” she asked with a nervous chuckle.
“Yeah,” he muttered. He glanced around at the doors surrounding them and asked, “Just…shit, which one is it?”
He’d been distracted when they got there, the drama with his brother getting the better of him, and Ally simply pointed towards the door to their room. She slipped out of his embrace as she pulled the hotel key out of her own pants pocket this time, and he followed behind her. When they reached their destination, Ally opened the door and turned to look at him from the doorway.
“Are you gonna pass out on me again?” she asked, her voice hardened as if she were already bracing herself for disappointment.
Jack sweetly smiled at her and said, “No, I’m not.”
“I just want to know if I’m getting my hopes up,” she said.
When she continued to shoot him a look that said she didn’t quite believe him, he took one step forward and grabbed her waist, lifting her until her face was level was his, and kicked the door shut behind them. Her back hit the door as it clicked into place, her legs fell naturally around his waist, and Jack kissed her, hard, his tongue wasting no time seeking hers. He pressed his body against hers, trapping her between his chest and the door so one of the hands holding her up could slide around to her front. His hips bucked slightly, and Ally moaned as her legs unconsciously grasped onto him a little tighter. Jack’s hand tugged her blouse from the waistband of her pants and slid up against her bare stomach as his lips found the base of her neck. He kissed a journey back up to her jawline, his hand moving over the top of her bra, and Ally’s mouth fell open as she turned her head against the door. He had barely touched her yet, and she was already on her way to ecstasy.
“I’ve gotta make it up to you,” he muttered. “You deserved better the other night.” He tilted his head and caught her attention, encouraging her to look back towards him, and he kissed her again.
Ally let out a heavy breath as they parted and curled both hands around his face, her fingers gripping the hair around his ears. “Our first time was perfect,” she whispered, and she meant it. It’d been sleepy and sexy – a slow, passionate burn leading to intimate crescendos – and while she had gone to bed that night ticked at him for leaving her to bask in the glory of their stage performance all alone, and while it was hardly the night she’d expected to have with him after their fiery first kiss, she knew she wouldn’t change anything about the morning they had shared together.
Jack’s hands curled around her ass as he pulled her away from the door and carried her to the bed. A small squeak escaped her throat when he adjusted her in his arms, and she leaned into him, throwing her arms around his neck so he could navigate the dark, unfamiliar room without further distraction. When he reached the bed, he leaned over, and she let go, gingerly falling onto her back on the mattress. Jack pulled off both of their shoes and turned the lamp beside one side of the bed onto the dimmed setting before joining her.
“Just so you know,” he said, crawling over her. Her legs came up to encircle his waist again as she reached for him. “If your dad hadn’t been right downstairs this morning, I probably would’ve started this as soon as you agreed to come here with me.”
Ally grinned again and deftly began unbuttoning his shirt. “If my dad hadn’t been right downstairs,” she promised. “I would’ve beaten you to it.”
A curse fell from Jack’s lips as he collapsed on Ally’s chest, both partners breathing heavily as they began recovering from the high they’d just shared. Ally’s hands remained tangled in his hair, her sated sigh turning into a short whine when he left her. He felt her legs relax slightly around his body, and Jack gathered enough strength to press his hands into the mattress on either side of her torso and push himself back up.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, trying to alleviate some of his weight on her.
“Not yet,” she whispered, tightening her limbs around him again.
“What?” he asked.
Ally caressed his bare back with one hand while the other teased the hair at the base of his neck. “Don’t roll over yet,” she requested, looking into his eyes.
“But I’m crushing you,” Jack said, glancing down at their bodies.
“I like it,” Ally whispered with a smile.
Jack chuckled as she blissfully slipped her eyes shut again. The amount of times they’d had sex was still fewer than the amount of fingers on one of his hands, but the one thing he already knew for sure was that the tiny woman beneath him loved being beneath him. She shivered slightly as the air around them began to feel cool against their heated skin, and, not wanting to deny her anything, he delicately lay some of his weight back down onto her body and rested his forehead against hers. A low, euphoric chuckle escaped her lips, and while that should’ve been enough of a clue that she was still feeling a little feisty, Jack still found himself surprised when she gently captured his earlobe between her teeth and ran her hand up his chest, her palm rubbing against his nipple. Her legs were still wrapped around him, knees hooked around each of his sides, and Jack could feel the heat radiating from her core.
“Shit,” he laughed, caressing the outside of one of her thighs. “Are you gonna be like this after every show?”
Ally let his ear fall from her teeth as she laughed, too. “I don’t know; that was my first one!”
He grinned at her for another moment before he cupped a hand around her face and leaned down to meet her lips. Jack kissed her slowly, and her hand stroked his back again, sending a shiver down his own spine. When he felt her begin to calm, he left her lips and began leisurely kissing down her body. The first kiss on her collarbone led to a trail of kisses down the center of her chest, over her stomach, around her hip, between her legs. He lingered there for a moment, tugging her thighs to rest against his shoulders as he settled in, his hands finding a resting place on her hips, and she abruptly reached down to grab his hair. Not sure whether that was a sign to keep going or a sign to stop, he pulled back.
“Do you like what I’m doing here?” he asked softly.
“Yeah,” she purred, matching his tone.
“You’re not too sensitive or something?” he checked.
“As long as you keep doing it that soft, I’m okay,” she promised.
Ally quietly moaned as he leaned back in, her hands leaving his hair in favor of threading her fingers through his. He kept his unspoken promise, keeping the pressure against her gentle, but even still, it only took a minute or two of his mouth on her before she started trembling again.
She let go of his hands and covered her eyes as she settled. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she said in a hushed, astonished tone.
Jack crawled back up her body and hovered over her. “What?” he asked. He touched her nose to get her to look at him, and Ally’s hands fell against her own shoulders as if she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them anymore.
“This. Anything. Fucking all of it,” she said breathlessly. “The shows. Shallow. You. I just…I can’t…I…I need a fucking drink.”
Jack laughed heartily. “Well, I can fucking get you one of those,” he said as he finally rolled off of her.
He ducked into the bathroom, quickly cleaning himself up and grabbing another towel to take back to Ally. When he returned, he found her rolled onto her stomach, stretched horizontally across the mattress. She had finally pulled her hair out of the ponytail she wore on stage, and while her hand massaged her own head, Jack’s eyes followed her dark hair over her shoulders and scanned down her body. She hadn’t bothered to pull the sheet over herself, and his gaze got stuck on the part of her lower back that curved in the most. Ally wordlessly smiled at him when she realized he’d returned, and he walked over to her. Jack handed her the towel, but before she could move, he leaned over and kissed the small of her back.
“What are you doing?” she giggled, looking over her shoulder at him.
“How are you so sexy?” he mumbled. He started at the spot he’d just kissed and smoothed his palm over the curve of her ass.
Ally raised her eyebrows at him. “What?” she asked.
“You’re just fucking sexy, that’s all,” he said, and for a moment, she stared at him like someone saying something like that to her was also on her list of things she couldn’t believe was happening.
He left her on the bed and picked his underwear off the floor, pulling them back on before grabbing his bag. He knew she didn’t have much with her yet – the stuff she hastily packed would arrive in the morning, if her father had remembered to take the boxes to Fed-Ex on time that afternoon – so when he turned back around, he held out his hand, silently offering her a t-shirt from his things. She took it without a word and pulled the well-worn, black vintage band tee over her head while Jack grabbed a bottle of gin and a single glass from the counter across the room. The shirt came halfway down her thighs, and Jack took in the view as he returned to the bed.
He slipped his legs under the covers next to where she leaned against the pillows and handed her the glass. He poured her a drink before he raised the whole bottle to his lips and took a big swig. Ally watched warily, the glass halted halfway to her own lips when she realized what he was doing, and he didn’t notice the look on her face that might’ve told him a brief wondering over what she had gotten herself into with him had just traveled across her mind.
They hadn’t gotten to talk much, their day a whirlwind of driving and spontaneous songwriting and quickly figuring out where she could come into the show at a gas station diner, so Ally swallowed half of her own drink and said, “I have a question.”
“Okay,” Jack muttered.
“Are your audiences gonna be okay with this?” she asked. “With…with me?”
“Why wouldn’t they be?” he asked.
“Because…they paid for you, you know, to see you, and now some random girl Jackson Maine found is singing half his songs,” she said, her voice diminishing as her self-doubt bubbled to the surface.
Jack leaned in close to her and whispered, “You’ve gotta fucking stop that full name thing.”
Ally breathed out a small chuckle, and when he leaned in a little further to kiss her lips, he tasted like gin and her. She pulled back and slumped over a little as she said, “You know what I mean.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said simply.
“Come on, wouldn’t you be kinda disgruntled if someone you went to see had some chick on stage half the night?” she asked.
“You’re not some chick,” he replied instantly.
“I am to them,” she pointed out.
Jack tucked the gin into his side and reached for her, coaxing her into his lap. She straddled him and curled one arm around his shoulders. He slid the corresponding arm around her waist and grabbed the bottle with his free hand.
“You’re talented,” he said, pointing the nose of the bottle at her. “And I don’t know about you, but I think we sound pretty fucking good together.”
“I love the way we sound together,” she whispered.
“They’ll love it, too,” he said confidently. He nodded towards her and asked, “What did you think of being out there all night?”
“I fucking loved it,” Ally sighed, suddenly beaming. Jack’s smile mirrored hers until she said, “I think I was a fucking mess, though.”
“No, you weren’t,” he promised.
“You kept having to turn me around!” she said with a self-deprecating chuckle.
“That was fucking cute,” he replied.
He pulled her into him as they shared a laugh, burying his chuckles into her neck, and she stayed in his lap even after that laughter eventually died down. Ally pulled the bottle from his hand and refreshed her drink, and Jack’s face sobered.
“Hey, uh…” he said seriously. He grabbed the bottle back from her and took another drink, as if he needed it for what he was about to say. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Ally asked.
“That you had to see that earlier…with my brother,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Ally said, lightly massaging his shoulder in reassurance.
“No, I just don’t want you to think I’d ever…I’d never do that to you,” he said.
Ally swallowed, the expression on her face growing serious, too. “I didn’t think that,” she said honestly.
“It’s just…” Jack muttered. He snickered and said, “It’s easy to forget we only met a few days ago.”
“I know,” she agreed, her voice soft.
“It’s not a side of me I would’ve wanted you to see while we’re still getting to know each other, that’s all,” he admitted.
“Jack…” Ally said, her lips curling into an almost-amused grin. She tenderly stroked his face with her free hand and said, “We’re about to spend a summer on a tour bus; I think we’re gonna see all kinds of sides to each other pretty fast.”
Jack looked up at her and held her gaze for a moment before he said, “Fuck, you’re right.” With a nervous laugh, he asked, “Are we ready for that?”
Ally quickly began nodding her head in the affirmative until she paused for a moment, halting her movements, and decided, “Not at all.”
Her forehead fell against his as the new couple began laughing again, and he pulled her back in.