Chapter 2 – Jumping Hurdles
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"What are you guys doing?"
Luke didn't startle because he was unflappable, but there was a chance Reggie might have flailed a little, catching the side of Luke's face with his pickle spear and that might have made Luke flinch, but that was only to avoid getting pickle juice in his eye. That stuff stung.
"Nothing!" Reggie urged, trying to melt into Luke's side as they looked upon the unimpressed visage of one Julie Molina. "We're um- doing poetry."
"Don't you have class right now?" Luke asked, reclining back against the sun-warmed stone of the fieldhouse. There was no way Julie had stumbled upon them by accident, not when they'd gone out of the way to find as distant and obscure a hiding place for lunch as possible.
"I did," Julie allowed. "But since Alex told Flynn about your little extra credit assignment, which I know for a fact is something neither of you would ever volunteer to do-"
"We totally could, though," Luke protested, feeling his bottom lip pull low in a pout.
"I knew an investigation was in order." One more judging look, and then she settled herself on the ground cross-legged, letting her elbows rest on her knees and setting her chin on the fold of her hands. "So since I'm the one with the class closest to the field house, here I am."
"Who narked on us?" Luke asked, trying to buy them some time because Reggie and lying went about as hand-in-hand as Bobby and tutus.
Like, it just wasn't a thing.
"Nick did," Julie deadpanned. Oh, right – he had lacrosse or whatever during B lunch. They were on the field now. "In a heartbeat. Now again, what are you doing?"
"We um- can't tell you," Reggie said, brandishing his half-eaten pickle spear like a sort of sword. "But it's super important."
"So important you're ditching the rest of your band?" Julie prompted. "They're worried about you."
"It's been two weeks," Luke said, and even that wasn't accurate. It was Friday now, it had almost been two weeks. "And we're not ditching them."
"We're being responsible," Reggie added.
Julie flashed the bassist a look that said he didn't want to try her, and to Reggie's credit, he didn't wilt under it like he normally would have. "We all know the extra-credit thing is made up. I'm pretty sure even Alex and Bobby know that. What are you even playing at?"
Luke shoved his hand over Reggie's mouth, and he felt the bassist's shoulders slump in relief. "Stuff that's super important," he insisted. "You wouldn't get it."
"Does that mean it's one of your stupid plans?" Julie asked.
"Our plans aren't stupid," Luke said, maybe feeling a tiny, itty bitty bit defensive. Everyone else always said that, said he and Reggie were the dumb ones, but they were right this time. "Now go away, we're not going to burn down the world if left to our own devices for like, five minutes."
Immediately, Julie's expression softened, though Luke tried not to allow himself to be wooed by it. "I didn't mean it like that, guys," she said. "I'm sorry. We all know you mean well, but sometimes you can be… a little chaotic. Alex and Bobby are just worried about that, is all."
"Well, they shouldn't be," Luke said, Reggie nodding beside him. "We're fine. And they're fine. Everything is fine."
Reggie tugged Luke's fingers down, freeing his mouth. "Poetry is also fine."
"Sure it is," Julie drawled, standing with a roll of her eyes. "Whenever you guys want to talk about whatever this is, let me know."
"There's nothing to talk about!" Luke called to her retreating form, both he and Reggie watching her until she disappeared around the bend.
Only then did he slump back against the wall.
"We need to find another lunch hiding spot, don't we?" Reggie asked quietly.
"Probably three, just to be safe," Luke decided. "We can rotate between them."
"Like secret agents!" Reggie cheered.
"Yeah, just like that," Luke said, wondering what else the others had said about them. "Hey um- want to skip straight to dessert?"
"As though you had to ask," Reggie chirped, eagerly tearing into his own bag of oreo minis.
When all else failed, at least Reggie thought his ideas were good.
-:-:-:-:-:-
"Do you really think this will work?" Reggie whispered when he and Luke tried to instigate Plan: We Are Desperate.
"Um- maybe?" Luke said, wincing at the uncertainty in his voice.
He'd had high hopes for most of the other plans they'd arranged together – even going so far as to rope Bobby's grandma into things – who did stuff like letting Bobby and Alex eat dinner up in his room during their weekly study session where they reviewed smart people stuff. She'd confirmed that the food had been eaten, but Luke and Reggie had no way of knowing if the others had figured out the date side of things. They'd gone through great efforts to get Alex and Bobby to share the loveseat (it even had the name love in its title) during movie night at Julie's place, even when it forced him and Reggie to share a beanbag. The guys had lunch together by themselves every day – all the classic, couple-y stuff was being achieved.
Bottom line – Luke had been confident in most of their plans and still nothing had come from them, so this one – well, he didn't know if it'd work at all, but at this point, he wasn't sure what else they could try.
"Maybe?" Reggie echoed while Luke finished tampering with the bathroom lock. Luke had already promised Pops that they'd fix it as soon as they were done, and he was pretty sure Bobby's grandpa had indulged them purely on the basis of believing pranks would help build Bobby's character or something. Luke wasn't sure, he'd let Reggie do most of the talking. Reggie was great at charming people. "Lucas, we need a definitely here."
"Well, I don't know," Luke huffed, adjusting one last screw before the two of them scurried out of the bathroom, Luke hiding away Pops' toolbox that Bobby had forbidden them from touching so very long ago. Naturally, that had caused Luke to keep very good tabs on it. The candle thing he could respect because he'd almost singed his eyebrows off that one time, but Luke could be a handyman if he wanted to, he just maybe needed a bit more direction than none at all. "It works in movies?"
"I wish Alex and Bobby were in a movie," Reggie muttered, following Luke back towards their instruments. They were the ones early for rehearsal again – Bobby and Alex too busy being responsible while Luke and Reggie were too busy avoiding their own homes – same as usual. "If they were, then they could read the script and fall in love in under an hour."
"There's a thought," Luke said, furrowing his brows together in consideration. "Maybe we could like, make some kind of subliminal messages. You know, like a recording to play when they're asleep? We could hide it in a mix tape-"
"Maybe that's a little too extreme," Reggie hazarded, and if Reggie thought it was too much, Luke went ahead and abandoned that train of thought altogether.
Practice went well like it always did – because they were super talented megastars in the making, and you only had amazing practices when you were super talented megastars in the making. Alex and Bobby seemed a bit more talkative than usual though – they'd been that way for the past few days, trying to drag Luke and Reggie into conversations when they were supposed to be working, but eventually they took a time out.
"You guys going to study your nerd stuff?" Luke asked when Alex started digging through his backpack for his notebook.
"It's science, Luke," Alex sighed, aiming an exasperated look at Bobby who was no help to him, because Bobby thought Luke was hilarious. "We just need to check in with our experiment real quick and then we can get back to practicing."
Reggie perked up when he recognized his cue. "I'll go see if Gran has any snacks!"
He jogged out of the garage before anyone could say anything, Alex and Bobby watching his retreating form with twin looks of amusement. Like, they got so into it that Luke had to clear his throat to get them back on track.
"Nerd time?" he prompted while he absently strummed his guitar, pretending to write down a new melody while he was really just waiting for them to leave already.
"It's just science," Alex reminded him, and then the two were off, Bobby pausing to ruffle Luke's hair that Luke pretended to hate but Bobby knew he loved it, which was why he did it in the first place. That was just how their relationship worked.
Luke waited for them to disappear into the bathroom, listened for the door to shut before he abandoned his guitar and phone. Reggie's phone was already conveniently off because it had 'died'.
With that, Luke left the garage to join Reggie in the kitchen, offering the bassist a high five to confirm their success. Luke didn't understand the details of whatever experiment Alex and Bobby had set up in the garage's bathroom, but he did know that it gave their bandmates an excuse to gossip in the bathroom for like, fifteen minutes every other rehearsal. Because of this, Luke and Reggie decided this provided the perfect opportunity for the whole 'locked in a closet' trope. They'd passed on locking the guys in an actual closet because one, they weren't clever enough to make that happen and two, they didn't want to freak Alex out, so they figured the single, high window of the garage bathroom would provide enough comfortable ambiance for Alex and Bobby to bond in and maybe like, start making out or something. Luke didn't know – at some point, they needed to figure this out for themselves.
"Gran says we can help her bake cookies if we follow all her directions," Reggie whispered in excitement, doing a muted sort of happy dance in place that involved a lot of shimmying.
Luke didn't blame him; Gran's cookies were the shit.
"We are at your command," Luke vowed solemnly, washing his hands and putting on an apron as directed before they launched into the familiar art of baking cookies.
It was a lovely distraction from the fact that Bobby and Alex were definitely becoming boyfriends outside, and while Luke was maybe a little sad for the operation to come to an end, he was happy that two of his best bros were finally getting their romance on.
At least, he was happy until a very irritated Alex burst into the kitchen, his cheeks flushed and chest heaving.
"Why don't you have your phone?" Alex hissed, his eyes narrowed in frustration. It was a good thing Gran had left Luke and Reggie to watch the timers, otherwise she might have had a thing or two to say about Alex's manners. "The bathroom lock got jammed. Bobby and I have been stuck in there for half an hour and neither of you have your phones!"
"Um- I must have dropped mine on the couch," Luke offered dumbly, taking in Alex's disheveled appearance. "How'd you get out?"
"I had to climb through the window," Alex snapped. "And now I'm going to go free Bobby myself."
With that, he deftly turned on his heel, abandoning the kitchen with a frustrated huff.
"He stopped to yell at us before he got Bobby out?" Reggie asked in the confused silence that followed. "Man, he doesn't get this romance thing at all."
"Tell me about it," Luke sighed, letting his head thunk against the kitchen counter in mild despair.
These guys.
"I really thought the window would be too small for him," Reggie said. "I thought- oh, I get it now, he had to take his clothes off."
Luke snapped his head up to look at Reggie, because Alex hadn't just been annoyed, he'd been embarrassed, and-
"We missed it?" he asked, and man, the hits would not stop coming today. "…maybe Bobby helped him out of his clothes."
"Here's to hoping," Reggie offered quietly, the two of them managing the weakest of consolatory fist bumps.
This would be going a lot easier if Alex and Bobby had like, a romantic bone in their bodies.
-:-:-:-:-:-
Luke was at the end of his rope. They'd missed three Saturday movies, bounced on who even knew how many post-practice hangout sessions, more or less forced Alex and Bobby to dance with each other at least five times, and still, Alex and Bobby were not dating.
"This is getting crazy," Reggie said, eyes wide with amazement while he and Luke tried to have a frank planning meeting at what had now become their section of the park. "I honestly think they might not know what love is."
"Which is insane," Luke gushed, trying to wrap his mind around it. "They're like, the most affectionate, loving individuals I know. They have heaps of love. Mountains of it."
"Hey, you won't get an argument from me," Reggie said, letting his fingers spread wide in a show of surrender save for his thumbs, which stayed safely curled around the chains of his swing. "They are obviously love and adoration central, they just don't seem to know how to apply it to each other in like, a romantic way."
"Maybe they're scared?" Luke offered. "Of being rejected?"
"Or maybe they just don't know how," Reggie countered. "Like, they're so used to a band/family kind of love that they don't know how to redirect into like, romance love, so when we're not there, they just keep on doing what they normally do but they feel more restless because like – they're not messes and they know how to take care of themselves." He made a vague gesture with his hand. "It gives them less to do."
"You're not a mess," Luke said, urging as much gravity into his voice as possible. Like, he was pretty sure he was a mess – at least, that was the impression his parents left him with a lot of the time – but Reggie was great and Luke refused to hear otherwise.
"I mean…" Reggie's face got all pinched, his foot turning so he could dig his toe into the grass. "I'm a tiny bit of a mess."
"No, you're not," Luke urged. "And if you keep saying that, I'm gonna tell Alex and he's gonna go all mama bear on you."
"What about papa bear?" Reggie asked, immediately distracted.
"That's obviously Bobby," Luke said, waving him off. "Bottom line, you're smokin' awesome, and Alex and Bobby don't know how to romance." Luke sighed. "Man, if there was someone in our friend group that was actually in a relationship, maybe we could set them up on a double date and like – you know, they're smart, they could follow the example." Luke sighed again. He'd been hoping it would make him feel better, but it didn't. Way to lie, movies. "Too bad that's not an option."
"Or is it?" Reggie said, doing that weird thing with his eyebrows that meant he'd come up with a good – or at least patently unique – solution. "Lucas, my dude, my man, my main fellah – we are two dudes."
Luke waited for Reggie to elaborate on this, nodding because yeah, obviously, and after a moment of very expectant waiting, Reggie realized he wasn't going to say anything.
The bassist gave a small pout. "We could date," he explained, making Luke perk up. "Like – you know – we'll pretend. It'll be like dancing at our gigs, except with romance!"
"That… could work," Luke said, turning the idea over in his mind. He didn't hate it. "Dude, that's genius! What better way to make them see each other in a romantic light than for them to see their best bros dating? They could totally follow our lead!"
"Our fake lead," Reggie said with a wink. "They'll see us – two best buds who decided to romance and realize 'hey, we're best buds, we could romance' and bing, bang, boom, they are dating."
"Cue our amicable breakup, and all is well with the world," Luke said, holding his hand out so he and Reggie could shake on it. "That's really brilliant."
"Thank you," Reggie said, ducking his head like it would hide the bashful flush spilling across his features, a small grin tugging at his lips. "So um… how do we go about fake dating?"
"I dunno man, I've never dated anyone," Luke said, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. "I guess we do what we normally do, but like, with more pet names. And we'll probably have to kiss."
"Huh, you're right," Reggie said, narrowing his eyes in thought. He pursed his lips like he was warming up or something, aiming a considering look in Luke's direction. "Would you be okay with that?"
"Sure, you're a good-looking dude."
"I am?" Reggie perked up.
"Yeah," Luke said, and he didn't mind boosting Reggie up with compliments because one, they were true, and two, the look of genuine joy on Reggie's features always made him feel all warm inside. "You're a super stud. Would um- you be okay with kissing me?"
"Would I- Luke, if I'm a super stud, you're like, a mega stud," Reggie gushed. "King stud. Emperor of studs."
"Come off it," Luke laughed, giving Reggie's shoulder a light shove.
"No, seriously," Reggie said. "It'd be an honor to kiss a presidential stud such as yourself."
"The honor would be mine, um- jedi stud," Luke said. "Megasonic Admiral Stud."
"We are two very impressive studs here," Reggie said, eyes wide at the thought of it.
It was an expression Luke had seen him wear many times before, but this was the first time he'd seen Reggie adopt it and think 'I get to kiss that', and that warm feeling that built in his chest when he complimented Reggie seemed to multiply into un unfathomable, rumbling mess.
"So," Luke spoke up, trying to distract himself from his sudden unease. "We should uh- practice. You know. So we're believable."
"Right, right, you're right," Reggie agreed in a babble. "So uh- how do we do this?"
"Sort of like this, I think," Luke said, and then he just sort of went for it, cupping Reggie's cheek before he leaned forward, and maybe he had to work a little to keep his balance, but when Reggie melted into him-
He was pretty sure he was going to enjoy this fake dating thing.
-:-:-:-:-:-
They went back and forth on how to break the news to the others. Reggie thought updating their relationship status on Facebook would be the most effective way to spread the information, but Luke thought the guys deserved to know about their fake relationship before anyone else. That left them with the task of having to break the news to them specifically, which they muddled over for a while before Luke decided he'd just kiss Reggie during rehearsal and that would be that. Like, actions spoke louder than words, right?
He'd kiss Reggie and then Alex would be like 'Hey, that's new' and Luke would be like 'Because we're dating' and then he'd wag his brows at Reggie and Reggie would giggle (they'd already practiced that) and then they'd somehow ask the others on a double date and it would all be well and fine and good.
Luke was feeling pretty solid about this plan up until the point where he kissed Reggie, because about a second later, Alex started yelling at them.
Luke was so genuinely surprised by this turn of events that he didn't immediately respond, Reggie going all tense and wide eyed beside him.
"Are you kidding me?!" Alex snapped, throwing his sticks angrily to the side – and he must have been super pissed because Alex was always mindful of his drumsticks no matter how many sets of them he had. "You guys have been blowing us off for weeks-"
"We have not been blowing you off," Luke interrupted, his chest feeling a bit tight as he angled himself more in front of Reggie, the bassist seeming frozen in place.
"You kind of have," Bobby pointed out, trying to be a neutral party the same as always, but even then there was no hiding the disappointment in his tone, which was about just as devastating as Alex's anger.
"Do you guys even have an extra credit assignment?!" Alex continued. "Or did you just want more time to- to canoodle with each other?"
"We haven't been- Alex, we haven't done that," Luke said, wondering where this had all gone wrong. "We told you-"
"You're such a fucking ass, Luke," Alex hissed, Bobby wincing beside him. "Always thinking with your damn dick. Fuck our friendship, right? It's way more exciting to experiment with Reggie. Well fuck, if you prefer to spend time with each other so much instead of us, you could have just fucking said so instead of blowing us off all the damn time."
"We haven't- Alex, none of that stuff is true," Luke said, feeling hopelessly confused.
"Yeah?" Alex challenged. "You gonna tell me you and Reggie haven't been racing off after practice to go on dates at the park? Willie saw you there, and Carrie caught you at the movies after all the times you bailed on us."
Luke and Reggie had only gone so they could stay culturally up-to-date – Alex and Bobby finally going on their movie date after the third time he and Reggie had ducked out, but no one was supposed to know about it.
For once, Luke felt himself at a loss for words, the singer trying desperately to get a handle on the situation that had spiraled so greatly out of his control.
"I can't- I can't do this right now," Alex said, running a distracted hand through his hair. "You and your stupid ass, awful plans. You guys are fucking idiots. Just-"
He turned on his heel in one swift motion and marched into the backyard before any of them could stop him. Luke hated the look on his face, the way his eyes had gotten all red because he was upset, Alex was upset and he'd done that to him which was like, the exact opposite of everything Luke wanted to achieve. He found himself taking a step forward on reflex, but Bobby held his hand out, the rhythm guitarist still wearing that patently disappointed expression.
"He needs some space right now," Bobby said, his voice soft in a way that meant he was forcing it, that he was making a distinct effort to keep his anger in check. "Maybe you guys should head out."
"I…" Luke's tongue felt thick and clumsy and belatedly, he registered the way Reggie was trembling behind him, the bassist curling a shaking hand into the back of Luke's shirt. "I- okay, we'll um- bye."
It was a relief when Bobby left, and Luke sort of packed up their stuff on autopilot, somehow managing to get his bike and Reggie to their distant corner of the park before the bassist broke down.
"He said we're stupid," Reggie croaked, tears streaming down his face as he tried to stifle his cries with the palms of his hands. "H-He thinks we- he-"
"It's okay, Reg," Luke said, hugging the bassist close. They'd abandoned the swings for once in favor of a bench and for that, Luke was grateful, if only because it allowed him to hug Reggie closer. "He just needs to calm down. Bobby will take care of him."
"He hates us," Reggie sobbed. "I just- I wanted-"
"I know," Luke soothed. "I wanted it too." He tried to think of a bright side to overtake the growing feeling of despair that threatened to crash over him. "Hey um- they say adversity brings people together, right? Maybe they'll bond over how um- awful we are, or-"
Reggie sobbed again, and Luke quickly shut up, sticking to babbling random, soothing nonsense while the bassist cried his heart out, Luke letting him fall apart enough for the both of them.
'Stupid ass, awful plans' kept ringing in his head over and over. 'Always thinking with your damn dick'. Luke hadn't known that was what Alex really thought of him. Like, yeah, Luke flirted a lot, but that was just his job as the band's front man. He did it to get more hype and build up a following. He was supposed to be flirtatious, that didn't mean he ever took any of it seriously. He wasn't actually trying to get together with a million girls or whatever, that was just part of the rockstar persona.
But Alex- he thought that was real, and more than that, he thought that Luke and Reggie were like, greedy, horny assholes or whatever, but more than that, he thought they were stupid.
And the others had reported back to them. They did that – they kept an eye on Luke and Reggie because it was so easy for the two of them to fall into paths of chaos. Alex probably asked Flynn and Julie and everyone else to look after them in case they needed babysitting or something. It sort of made Luke reevaluate everything he thought he'd known about their relationship, and by the time they got company, he'd fallen into a state of numb detachment.
"Hey," Julie said, because of course it was Julie who caught them at their lowest, the singer having the decency to at least look sympathetic while she settled in on Luke's free side. "Bobby texted me."
"Of course he did," Luke said, and he didn't know if he felt bitter or just tired. With Reggie sniffling against his shoulder, he was pretty sure he was just mad. Or depressed. He didn't know.
Julie sighed. "Don't be like that," she said, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder. "Bobby cares about you – they both do. Just- you did a kind of shitty thing-"
"But we didn't," Luke interrupted, because he finally had that much together. "We didn't start dating until like, yesterday, but Alex yelled at us like we'd been going out for months."
There was a moment where Julie obviously didn't know how to take this, and it was so rare to see her caught off guard that Luke tried to savor it. "You guys just started dating?"
"Yeah," Luke pressed, because at least that much was true. "And we wouldn't keep that kind of shit from the guys. It's kind of shitty that they think we would, but we didn't."
"Then why have you been avoiding them?" Julie asked.
Luke almost, almost told her why, but if he did then she'd tell the others, and all their hard work would be for nothing. Reggie getting yelled at and breaking down in the park would have all been for nothing and granted, Alex wasn't his favorite person right now, but that didn't mean Luke didn't want him to have nice things.
"It's none of your business," he huffed, hugging Reggie closer. "And it's none of their business either."
"Guys…" Julie sighed, the way she did when she despaired for their hijinks, for their dumb plans. "You've got to give them something."
"We don't have to give them shit," Luke decided. Like, fuck that. Alex made Reggie cry. He'd assumed Luke cared more about his hormones than he did the band, which would never be true. Now that Luke actually thought about it, he was more furious than anything else – mad at Alex for assuming, it was like the blond had been waiting to jump on them. "They're the ones being giant dickheads. If anyone deserves an apology, it's us."
"Um- maybe she's right," Reggie sniffed, wiping uselessly at his cheeks while he straightened up. "We have canceled on them a lot."
"For a good reason, though," Luke said. "It's not our fault they haven't figured that out yet."
"Well, maybe it was all- maybe it's all just dumb," Reggie said, shuddering at the last word. "It's stupid like all the other stuff we do."
Julie sighed, but Luke just turned so he could hold onto Reggie better. "It's not," he urged, afraid that he maybe sounded desperate. But he'd felt it, he'd seen it. Alex and Bobby had amazing chemistry and Reggie had agreed. They couldn't be wrong. "It's not stupid. We're not stupid."
"You're not," Julie agreed. "You're just… excitable. You have a unique point of view that isn't always the way things are exactly."
"In other words, we're stupid," Reggie deadpanned, sounding defeated. "Whatever." With that he got up, grabbing his backpack and his guitar case before shouldering both in rough, clumsy motions.
"Hey," Luke said, scrambling to follow after him. "Where are you going?"
"Somewhere where I can't bother Alex with my stupid," Reggie huffed, his voice sounding all tight.
"Hey, no- baby," Luke said, belatedly remembering the dating thing that had set all this off. "Just- come back to my house. We can watch Star Wars again."
"Do you think that will make them madder?" Reggie sniffed, not looking at Luke when he got beside him.
He could feel Julie lingering behind them – keeping an eye in case they decided to do something unique and not the way things were exactly or whatever.
"Who gives a shit what they think right now?" Luke decided. "You're my number one, sugar bear, and I um- want to cuddle with you."
Reggie considered this for a moment, his lower lip seeming to wobble. "You don't mind? Um- stud?"
Luke managed a small grin. "Not at all, pumpkin pie." He offered Reggie his arm. "Look, we'll just give Alex some time to cool off and apologize to us. Everything will be fine."
"You really think he'll apologize?" Reggie asked, sending a hopeful look over his shoulder to Julie.
The strained smile they received in return wasn't all that comforting.
"I'll see what I can do," she said, and maybe she'd have more luck since she was Julie and she was naturally good at everything. "Keep your phones on hand."
"We will," Luke said, and then his focus was back to Reggie.
Fake or not, Reggie was his number one bro right now, so Luke needed to do everything he could not to screw up the one last positive relationship he had left. He'd focus on that rather than the stuff Alex had said, rather than Bobby's disappointed expression, because those were dumb and stupid and Luke and Reggie hadn't done anything to earn them. There was that one saying- no pain, no gain. And like, Luke knew that was geared more towards working out rather than romance, but he felt it was still applicable. Alex and Bobby just needed a little pain before they got to that beautiful, beautiful gain.
In the end, they'd be thanking Luke – but for now, he'd settle for an apology.
-:-:-:-:-:-
Endnotes:
They're just- they're so damn stupid. I love their dumb idiot faces so much.
We don't need to go into details about what Bobby and Alex's bathroom experiment might be. I think at the end of the day, none of us really want to know, lol.
Poor Alex is just totally at his wits end. He shouldn't have blown up at them like that, but his anxiety had been building for weeks now, which was what led to that little breakdown. The reasoning for all this is better explained in the last chapter, but for now he's just frustrated. Also, Bobby actually gets to like, be present in a more substantial sense in the next chapter too, instead of just being an object that is worked around, I promise ;)
Until next time