FicWad

‘Uh uh.’ Abbey shook her head as she stared, terror in her eyes, at the towering form of metal before her. ‘You know how I feel about roller coasters. Why would you bring me here?!’
‘Think of it as therapy; confronting your fears and what not.’ Mikey grinned at her mischievously.
Mikey had not mentioned where he was taking her as he pushed his car onwards, but she had known as soon as she got in the car that she wanted to get out of it. His expression had unnerved her.
‘Can’t we just go and get cotton candy and go to the petting zoo or something?’
Mikey sighed. ‘Tell you what, kid. If you get on this roller coaster with me, I will buy you enough cotton candy to get you to Jabba the Hutt size, and I’ll buy you a motherfucking goat.’
‘I don’t think they sell the goats, Mikey,’ Abbey muttered confusedly as he yanked her towards the carnival ride.

~

Abbey’s fingers were still trembling as she reached out to stroke the mane of a Shetland pony. Mikey laughed softly as he stuffed a handful of cotton candy in his mouth. ‘I’m gonna have bruises for weeks, you know.’ Abbey continued to pat the pony determinedly, although Mikey could see she was being less gentle about it, her strokes becoming vigorous.
‘You shouldn’t have forced me onto that ride, and you wouldn’t have said bruises.’
‘Yeah, well, there was no need to grab my leg every time we went down a slope, Abs. I didn’t realise you had such tight grip.’ She felt herself blushing, but shrugged anyway, as if to say he deserved his bruises.

Abbey straightened up and pointed to her open mouth, in which he shovelled a dollop of the spun sugar. ‘You know, most men would get the wrong idea about that kind of gesture; you’re lucky I’m a gentleman,’ he said deviously. ‘If I wasn’t you’d be getting a mouthful of something a little less sweet.’ He added.
Abbey punched him in the arm. ‘You’re disgusting. You make me want to vomit.’
‘Well, on that note,’ Mikey retorted brightly. ‘Let’s get lunch.’

~

‘You could find sushi in space, couldn’t you? After several years of course, but you’d find it.’ Abbey questioned snidely as they sat down twenty minutes later with their respectively lunches. Twenty, because Mikey had insisted on relying on his keen sense of smell to find sushi, rather than simply looking at the map. ‘Hey, I got my sushi, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, but I could have had sex, gone through my gestation period and given birth in the time it took you to do so,’ Abbey retorted.
‘That’s silly.’ Mikey scrunched up his face. ‘Clearly you haven’t been doing it with the right dudes, because my average time far exceeds twenty minutes.’
‘Mikey,’ Abbey threw a French fry in her mouth. ‘I’ve seen your penis at work, okay? I’ve had the Mikey Way experience.’ She threw in jazz hands with the statement for good measure.
‘And what did you think?’ He winked at her. Abbey tried to disguise her embarrassment by remaining silent. The truth was, Mikey had been phenomenal in bed, but she didn’t much feel like delving into that conversation with his girlfriend, Jamie, in mind. Thus, she settled for starting on her veggie burger. Mikey’s eyes narrowed as he watched her avoid the question. They lapsed into silence momentarily as they ate.

‘So, you stayed at my brother’s last night?’ Mikey asked in a would-be-casual voice as he took a sip of his Red Bull.
‘Yeah,’ Abbey replied shortly as she mimicked him by swallowing down some Mountain Dew.
‘Why?’ Abbey looked up to see that Mikey had stopped moving to observe her answer.
‘Uh, well, last night, I needed a friend and Gerard was there.’
‘Uh huh.’ Mikey nodded, his expression unreadable. ‘And you drank last night, right?’
‘I didn’t get drunk,’ Abbey lied, avoiding his eyes.
‘Yeah, I believe that.’ Mikey replied, sarcasm thick on his tongue. Abbey stared at her hands in her lap, watching them twist uncomfortably.

‘So what happened between you two?’ He questioned reproachfully.
Abbey looked up at him disbelievingly as she began to fully grasp the meaning of the question.
‘Nothing,’ she replied softly.
‘So you’re just gonna lie to me about everything?’
‘Mikey –’
‘He’s my brother Abbey, you can’t do that.’
‘Nothing –’
‘He’s too old for you anyway; you and I already have a four year gap between us –’
‘Mikey, nothing happened!’ Abbey burst out loudly. Several people turned to stare at the two of them.
‘Do you honestly think that about me? That I’m an easy drunk or something? Yes, I drank too much last night, I admit it, but please do not accuse me of things I didn’t do!’
‘We had sex for the first time when you were drunk,’ Mikey muttered.

Abbey stared incredulously at him. ‘In case you don’t remember, Michael, you were just as wasted as I was. And I didn’t have sex with you because I was drunk, I did it because I had really liked you for a very long time, I just needed some liquid courage to tell you that.’
Mikey remained stiff and unmoving, frowning at his California roll. ‘I just thought –’
Abbey cut him off abruptly. ‘Why do you even care what I do anyway? Or who, for that matter?’
Mikey looked up at her. He looked for a moment as though he were going to say something, but as quickly as his mouth opened, it was closed once again. They sat in silence for a few minutes.
Suddenly, Mikey rose from his seat. ‘Come on, I’ll take you home.’

~

Mikey didn’t linger at the door. He merely nodded at Frank, who said he would see him at band practise the next day, and shut the door with a snap behind him.
‘What’s up his butt?’ Frank grinned as Abbey dropped her bag at the front door.
‘Any messages for me?’ Abbey ignored his question as she walked towards the kitchen, also failing to acknowledge Hairy McLairy licking her feet.
Frank frowned. ‘Let me rephrase. What’s up your butt?’ Abbey turned to stare at Frank. ‘You aren’t going to even make fun of me for the chick I went home with last night? I didn’t realize how truly huge her nose was until I woke up with it in my face this morning.’
‘Just tired.’ Abbey replied lamely, entering her room. Frank made to follow her but the door shut in his face.

Abbey knew that Frank wanted to know what was wrong, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him, mostly due to the fact that she was not entirely sure what the problem was. Why did Mikey care if something had happened between her and Gerard? Why did he even think that something would happen in the first place? Did he really think so lowly of her that it would not surprise him if she were to sleep with her ex-boyfriend’s brother? So many questions, and yet Abbey was sure Mikey would not be the one to give her the answers. That left only one other person to ask.