FicWad

I opened the door to the record store downtown. The smell of weed and insents fills my nose as the guy sitting behind the wood counter looks up at me for a moment before hiding his face beneathe his sunglasses again. Huh.

I pick through records that sit along the shelves. Jimmy Eat World, The Smiths, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers... Drop Nineteens. Just what I was looking for.

"You like them?" A boy with big brown eyes, short brown hair and a very defined jaw asks.

"Oh uh," I hesitate. Who is this guy and why's he asking me about my musical preferences anyway? "yeah. I love them."

He scoffs and goes back to picking through records beside me and holds up an album. He references toward the record in his hand."You like them?"

"Dunno them." I say dryly.

He frowns "They're called Blink One Eighty Two. My favorite band, I think. Probably."

"Yeah, I've never heard of them."

"Well, they're really good. You should give them a listen." He looks up toward the entrance of the store and his expression goes flat. I follow his gaze. A tall, very thin boy enters the shop making the bells on the door ring, a girl following behind him hand in hand.

"Brendon!" The tall boy calls out. Brendon smiles at the boy as he approaches, the girl practically hanging off him.

"Ryan," Brendon says dryly. "Whats up."

"Just checking out the new Blink album. Taking Keltie around the town for the day. Probably headed to a party later," He trails off as the girl hanging off him giggles wildly and snuggles into his arm.

"Oh cool me, too. I'm here with," He looks at me and puts his arm around my shoulder. "Chelsea. We're going to a club later, probably." He says so matter a factually as clears his throat and stares at Ryan ever-so-convincingly. Horrible liar, the boy is.

"Oh I've never met Chelsea before. Hello, I'm Ryan." He holds his hand out to me. I take it.

I laugh before answering. "Nice to meet you, but-" Brendon pinches my arm and shoots me a pleading look. Oh, fuck it. I just laugh it off and keep shaking his hand.

Ryan looks at me questioningly and releases my hand. "This is my girlfriend, Keltie." he motions toward her.

I shake her hand. "You look familiar." I say. She laughs.

"I'm a rockette, maybe you've seen me on the TV." She smiles proudly.

"Brendon!" We all turn and face the doorway where Pete stands. His smile falls as his gaze lands on me. I shrug Brendon's arm off my shoulder and smile at him half-heartedly.

"Pete." Brendon answers. A silence lands on all of us as Pete stares at me.

"What time is it, Ryan?" Keltie breaks it.

Ryan looks at the gold rolex that rests on his bony wrist. "Oh, its time to go."


Keltie leans over and kisses Brendon, Pete, and me on the cheek. "Nice meeting you, Chelsea!" she says before linking arms with Ryan and rushing out of the store.

Pete faces me. "Who is Chelsea?" Brendon appears guilty and looks at me for an answer. He doesn't have to pretend anymore as Ryan's gone, but he clearly still doesn't know my actual name.

"Chelsea just left." I say with a smirk. Brendon gives me a smile that screams 'thank you' and breaths a sigh of relief.

Pete shrugs. "Well, what are you doing here anyway?"

"I just came to get some coffee and check out this place." I say, Pete is expressionless.

"Me too," he breathes. "How do you know Brendon?"

"We just met, actually." Brendon chimes in. He sounds nervous, like he's been caught. And supposedly we have been. Pete nods and shoots me a look before turning his heal and walking out of the store. I watch him leave for a moment before following him out. Brendon calls out a confused bye before his voice fades away behind the door.

"Pete!" I yell. He's across the street now, entering a taxi. He stares at me for a moment before rolling his eyes and getting into the little yellow car that takes the beautiful red nosed boy away from me. He looked so cold, maybe I could've helped...

"Hi, I uh-" Brendon appears behind me looking out of breath.

"What," I spit at him. He frowns, looking confused and defeated. I unfurrow my eyebrows and say simply "what do you want?"

"I just never caught your name."

"Oh. My name is Alissa." I reach out and shake his hand.

"Your hands are cold. Do you," He looks hesitant like he's trying not to scare me off. "want to get coffee with me? There's this place just a few blocks down I know of, they have really good cappa-" I quickly cut him off. Not interested. Just met the guy and he's already showed me off as his girlfriend and now asked me out? No. No way.

I put my fingers to my temples for a moment before looking back up at him and kindly saying, "No, thank you. Not today." I turn to walk away but he grabs my shoulder and turns me back around, he's laughing. I don't get it.

"Oh, I'm not asking you out. I'm gay."

He looks worried. I feel my eyes widen, I'm legitimately surprised and calm myself for a moment. "Yeah. Yeah, coffee sounds okay." He smiles and offers his arm. We link arms and walk down the street to the quaint little coffee shop, like a little hole in the wall. Surprisingly, the coffee's good and so is the conversation. Brendon's real nice, his features are sharp, in contrast to Ryan's who he was apparently trying to make jealous. Brendon is a faggot that's for sure, but in the closet still. I wouldn't have been able to tell unless he'd told me. Apparently only his friend Spencer knows, but he likes the Ryan boy. Not sure if Ryan likes him back, but I don't know. I could see it happening. All of a sudden Pete is brought up.

"So er, how do you know Pete?" He looks interested, like he's cut into something filled with a long story or juicy gossip. Sorry I'll have to be the one to burst that bubble for him.

"We're neighbors." He shakes his head and doesn't say anything else which prompts me to reluctantly continue, "Well, I'm staying with my aunt... long story. Anyway, his mom and my aunt are friends and we kinda met through them. Hung out a few times, nothing serious. I like him though. I think he likes me, I hope."

He wiggles his eyebrows. "Did you guys kiss yet?" We laugh.

"Nope. Almost, once." I trail off and he quickly cuts in.

"What happened?!"

"It wasn't a big deal, we just were hanging out with some of his friends or whatever after we went sledding somewhere around here and it almost happened," He watches intently as I tell this dumb story, "but this guy Patrick walked in and it was kind of awkward I guess, but I don't think he noticed. Or cared."

Crimson stains his cheeks. "Huh. Sorry if I well, ya know. Messed anything up. I'll tell him I was just being dumb or something." he quickly apologizes.

"I guess, yeah. That might be helpful haha."

He smiles and his eyebrows raise. "Almost forgot, there's a party tonight! If you want to come. There will be drinks and drugs and everything. Here's the address," He starts scribbling it down on a napkin and moves it across the table to me. "wear something nice, Pete will be there and Patrick and some other cool people."

I would almost think this guy was hitting on me if I didn't know any better, but whatever. A friend, I could use.

"Maybe I will."



*


"Should I stay or should I go?!" I yell along as The Clash blares through my speakers, meaning dripping off of every word. My aunt is upstairs probably knitting or some shit, and honestly I don't really care much if she notices.

I smooth down the sides of my tight dress and feel like an idiot. Why am I showing up at this party? I won't even know anyone except Pete and God knows he's not all too happy with me today.

"Sweetie?" I barely hear through the music. I run over and turn the volume down. My aunt stands in the door way smiling. "Don't you look darling," She walks over to me and hugs me. "where do you think you're going?" She says sweetly.

"Just to my friend Brendon's house."

"And how did you meet this Brendon boy?" She quirks her eyebrow.

"I uh- he's Pete's friend." She frowns and I watch as her brows knit together but I grab my car keys off the night stand before walking out the door of my room and onto the front porch steps, my heels clacking on the cement beneath my shoes. I hear her calling out worried goodbyes and have a good times, but I don't think about it.



Joe is sitting on the couch next to me, a beer in hand, mumbling something about Star Wars. As if I care, I'm mostly here to just say hello to Brendon and have a few drinks. Maybe even to see Pete, but I won't let my mind believe it. I nicely excuse myself and stumble upstairs, I can feel the alcohol kicking in. It's been too long since I've had anything to drink, my body isn't used to it. It's been an hour since I got here and I've not seen Pete anywhere. I stumble into the bathroom and-

"Jesus!" He spits at me. I laugh and close the door behind me as he pulls up his zipper and faces me. He crosses his arms and leans on the counter with a quirked brow. "What do you want?" He says flatly.

I forgot what I came in here for. His eyes look especially brown and pretty tonight like that cappuccino I sipped on earlier. I want to melt into his arms. He's wearing a dark red and white plaid button up that reveals a strip of skin where his hip bones are sticking out that I'd like to grab a hold of. "Well, if that's all you have to say," He starts leaving, but I grab his upper arm and he twists around and looks into my eyes for a moment before pushing me up against the counter and pressing his lips fervently against mine. My fingers twist into his hair, probably fucking it up, but he doesn't seem to care. I spread my legs on the counter and he pushes against me, and I can feel his half- interested dick poking into my thigh.

I laugh against his lips and he pulls away and looks at me, catching his breath. His eyes sparkle as he looks at me like a confused little boy with red, full lips. God he's fucking cute. I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and pull him back into me and let my tongue dance around his lips. His finds mine, and we french for a moment. He cups my breasts outside of my dress and I can now feel his fully interested dick poking into my panties.

A knock on the door. I push Pete back and stare at Brendon as he stares back at us, his jaw open wide. The moment he realizes it he closes it. "Sorry," he rushes out and then fastwalks away from the hall.

I catch my breath for a moment before looking to Pete. He looks back at me and frowns. His brows knit together before he walks out of the bathroom and down the stairs. I frantically fix my skirt as I run after him, calling his name. People are staring at me as I pass them. Hell if I care.

"Pete," I breathe out when we finally reach the front of the house, away from all the people.

"What, Alissa? What do you want?!" He spits at me venomously before continuing his angry walk away from me and toward the street.

I stare at him for a moment before following after him and calmly asking, "Why are you so angry with me?" His lips are still red and swollen from our fervent makeout just seemingly a few moments before this.

He scoffs and turns to me when we reach the street. "What's even going on between you two, Alissa? I saw the way he looked at you! And the other day at the record store, what the fuck was that?!" His eyes are filled with hurt as he stares at me in disbelief before turning to the road and hailing down the big yellow taxi that approaches us.

"I can explain! It's not like that," I move my hand to reach for his arm but he's walking away from me and opening the door to the taxi. I try to follow after, but he slams the door in my face and the big yellow taxi takes my boy away from me again.

I've recently come to despise taxis.





Hours later, everything's hazy as I take another shot of some kind of concoction that burns down my throat. Ryan and Brendon are standing with me in the kitchen, also taking shots and looking as fucked up as I also feel. Ryan brings a joint to his mouth and his cheeks hollow around it. I watch Brendon stare intently at Ryan like he has this whole night, not ripping his eyes off of him for anything. Ryan seems relatively oblivious, but seems responsive.

I snatch the joint from Ryan's hands an shakily inhale the smoke. I really, truely don't need anything else to get me any more intoxicated than I already am, but I'm hoping more bud will calm me down and rake some edge off the hangover I can practically already feel engulfing me.

"What time is it?" I mumble as I breathe out smoke.

"One A.M., when do you need to be home?"

I shrug. "Dunno." I mumble flatly and hand the joint back to Ryan before turning to walk out of the kitchen, but suddenly everything's shaky and my ankles buckle.

Everything's gone a bit darker and the room's spinning. I find myself laying on the linoleum floor of someone's kitchen as people begin to crowd around me. I feel Brendon shaking my arm and the beat of the speakers radiating base and drums through my thrumming body and I can barely make out someone mumbling my name before everything does go black.