Disclaimer: You probably could have guessed on your own, but I do NOT own Jonas. :]

I've never cheated on a girl. I've been called a lot of things over the course of my teenage years…and the rest of my life. Girl-crazy. King Hormone. Ladies' Man. And even Player. Now, while some…okay, all of the first three may be very true, I, Joe Lucas, am most certainly not a player. I'll be the first to admit that I may be more than a little fond of the opposite sex, but, come on, who isn't? And, okay, okay, maybe I've had more girlfriends in the past four years than I can count on two hands, but I also happen to have at least some sort of sense of self-control. Hard to believe, but true; I am a one-woman man. Well, at least I always used to be.

I've never been in love. I've been pretty deeply 'in like' more than a few times, but I've never quite made it to love. Again, hard to believe considering that I'm told countless times every day how perfect of a couple my girlfriend and I make. And most of the time, I have to agree. When it comes to girlfriends, I've always thought Stella was pretty perfect myself. Perfect eyes, perfect hair, perfect skin. But I don't love her. Sure, I've had an insane crush on her since the second I met her & have been scheming to win her over since the 3rd grade, but the longer I'm with her, the more I feel the indecisive teenage boy in me taking over. You know how sometimes you build up such crazy huge expectations for something in your mind that in real life it's impossible for it to be as insanely awesome as you thought it would be? Exactly.
Sure she's pretty perfect, but we fight a lot…a lot, constantly…same difference. Usually it's over the dumb tiny stuff. What movie do you wanna see? Chinese or Italian? I know, it's dumb. And I know I shouldn't let it get in the way of what seems like a really great thing, but I just can't help feeling like if it was meant to be it wouldn't be this hard, you know? But then again, maybe it's supposed to be frustrating and something you have to work at…I guess I wouldn't know though, I've never been in love. Until now.

I've never been super close with Macy Misa. I've always known who she was; Stella's best friend, multi-athlete extraordinaire, and JONAS super-fan, who has managed to go from super-spastic, to completely normal around my brothers and me. I've always smiled at her in the hallways and struck up friendly conversations with her whenever we've ended up next to each other in the lunch line, but until these past few months I've never gotten into anything super deep with her; just the normal, friendly, 'how was math class?' type of stuff. Then, Stella and I had our first big fight. I don't even remember what it was about now, but I'd be willing to bet it was probably something totally stupid. What I do remember is both of us screaming until our voices couldn't take it anymore, and me storming out somewhere around, "You're such a jerk, why am I even with you?"

Then I wandered. Random turns down random streets. Sounds super safe, right? I didn't want to go home. Home would either be empty, which would give me time to sit and think and feel even more terrible about what had just happened, or it would be overrun by my brothers, who would, no doubt, tell me that I was in fact being a jerk and to go apologize, which was the last thing I wanted to do. So I walked and racked my already spinning brain for somewhere to go.

When she first came to mind, I wasn't even sure I knew where she lived, let alone how to get there on foot. So for a while I pushed her to the back of my mind, trying to come up with another option. But soon enough I remembered picking her up for our "date", which had been carefully crafted to make Stella jealous. Ten minutes and a few wrong turns later, I was knocking on Macy's front door. It seems weird to go to my girlfriend's best friend after I'd just had a blowout with my girlfriend, I know, but she might just be the one person who knows Stella better than I do, and that's just what I needed. She seemed sort of surprised when she opened the door, but she gave me a sympathetic smile and invited me in when she saw my face, (which I hadn't seen myself, but I'm guessing didn't give off the impression that I was having a too terribly wonderful night). I expected a little bit of a freak-out, but to my pleasant surprise there was none; she was calm and cool-headed, asking me what was wrong and what she could do to help. I don't know what it was about her, but it kind of seemed like she wouldn't mind listening to me complain like a 14 year old girl, and about ten seconds later I was spilling my guts on her sofa, both of us sitting Indian-style, facing one another. Now, I assume that you're assuming I only told her about the immediate Stella situation, but you're wrong. I told her about everything; how I've had a mega-crush on Stella for years, my inner-indecisive teenage boy, my insanely high, unreachable expectations, and my doubts about whether we could ever really work without having to kill ourselves over it, and the more secrets I let out, the more I wanted to. I just kept talking, fully aware of the fact that I was telling her things that I normally wouldn't want to tell her, but I couldn't stop. And she looked like she didn't mind. She nodded her head that she understood to my frequent asking of "you know what I mean?", laughed at the funny parts, of which there were very few, and scowled at the sucky parts, of which there were plenty. She just listened, and the more skeletons I let out of my closet, the more I began to realize that she was really good at listening. After I'd let her in on practically all the disappointments I'd ever experienced in my life, I glanced at the clock. 12:47. It was nearly one in the morning and I wasn't positive, but I was fairly sure it had been somewhere around 9:15 when I left Stella's. Macy must have been dying to kick me out.

"Where are your parents?" I asked, realizing I hadn't seen anyone else the entire time I'd been there.

"Boca." She replied. I raised my eyebrows and she laughed. "Second honeymoon. I'm here by myself, but they have my big brother calling 3 times a day to make sure I haven't killed over without them." She rolled her eyes and smiled.

"I didn't know you had a brother."

"Yeah, Drew." She replied. "He's goes to college about half an hour from here, so if I need him, he can be here pretty quick."

I had never heard of this 'Drew' character before. I guess I'd always just assumed she was an only child. Why? I have no idea, I just did. But maybe I didn't. Maybe I'd never even considered whether or not she had siblings. Maybe I'd never even considered it important to consider whether or not she had siblings. Or anything else about her life. And it was at that exact moment that I realized I knew absolutely nothing about her. She probably knew everything there is to know about me, being my biggest fan of all time and all, but the interest hadn't been reciprocated. She had just sat and listened to me whine about my life for the past 4 hours, and I'd never even made an effort to get to know her. I had to be the biggest jerk alive. So over the next 3 months, in between my "vent-about-Stella" sessions, I asked questions other than "you know what I mean?"

Her brother's name is Drew, and he's 22, and going to school to be a sportscaster, go figure. Her favorite color is purple, her favorite book is 'Pride & Prejudice', and she loves Chinese food. Her favorite movie is 'Mary Poppins', and she always cries at the end of 'The Sound of Music'. She can't eat much Italian because she's allergic to marinara sauce, but she loves fettuccine alfredo. She's never eaten sushi because it "looks disgusting", which I told her was a crime, but she eventually caved under the pressure of me bringing her box after box and tried some. She then spent about an hour puking her guts up, (after which I spent about two hours apologizing). She's never been on a roller coaster because it turns out that Horace Mantis' star athlete is scared to death of heights, a secret that she has promised will cause me to be denounced as her friend if ever shared with anyone. She didn't take swimming lessons until she was 12 and cried every day of the week-long class, another friendship ruining secret, if spilled. Her favorite sport is volleyball, she's scared of stray cats, I had to laugh at that one, and she wants to be a history teacher. Have you had enough yet?

I've never been in love. Until now. She always gave me understanding nods when I was complaining about Stella and always seemed to know exactly how to calm the both of us down. She was the middle man, conveying Stella & I's messages back and forth to each other when we were too mad to talk face to face. She never cut me off when I rambled on and on about my life, but waited patiently until I asked for her to speak. And then she would just give a wise-beyond-her-years answer like it was the simplest thing in the world. She had like, eternal patience for me. She always seemed to understand and she just…made me happy. We started hanging out on the weekends and studying for our chemistry class together, and she even helped me pick out Stella's birthday present. Our occasional lunch line conversations turned into daily lunch table conversations…and hallway conversations, and class conversations, and text conversations. She went from random semi-friend to one of my very best friends in practically no time at all. And I got happier, and happier.

Now, for those of you who still haven't caught on, I'll fill you in. Somehow, somewhere along the way, by complete and total accident, I swear I didn't mean to…I fell completely and totally, head over heels, sappy chick flick in love with Macy Misa. My girlfriend's best friend.

Did you like it? You should be a doll & review then. :D