FicWad

Gerard

I sat in a booth at one of the local coffee shops, drumming my fingers to the beat of a song that’s been stuck in my head all day long. I haven’t seen Frank for a week, since our last closet encounter. I’ve been avoiding him, hoping to get the incident out of my system. Besides, what would we say if we saw each other again? The truth was that there was nothing left to say. Frank had a girlfriend. Period. We were never going to happen. I took a sip of my coffee. I haven’t really seen Ivy since then either. She’s been busy with school. Also, I’ve kind of been avoiding her too in case she decided to start asking questions about Saturday night. If she did, I would have to lie. Ivy didn’t have to know that I caved and attached myself to her brother for the better part of ten minutes.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, am I late?” Adam asked, sitting down across from me.

“No, I’ve been here… almost all afternoon.”

I was bored and wanted to talk to someone who didn’t know about me and Frank, that meant someone who wasn’t Ivy or Mikey or, of course, Frank. I had texted Adam, we had exchanged numbers after the skateboard festival on Saturday, and invited him out for coffee.

“So how have you been?” he asked.

“I’ve been good. How about you?”

“I’m always good,” he grinned. “Uh, a regular coffee please,” he told the waitress who came to take his order.

“Can I have a refill please?”

The blonde waitress nodded, not bothering to write down such a simple order, and then left to fill it.

“What’s up?” It was once again Adam who asked.

“School has started again. How is it?” I countered.

“So far it’s good. I mean, how much fun can school really be? On the bright side, I’m graduating at the end of this school year so that’s awesome. Tell me about yourself. We barely know each other. Have you lived here your whole life?”

I nodded, “I was born here.”

“And you’re…”

“Nineteen.” He motioned with his hands for me to go on. “After school I started a band with some friends. We never got around to actually recording an album, but we had some demos and we toured on those for a while, but we recently split so currently I’m jobless and living with my parents.”

“Why didn’t it work out?”

The waitress showed up with our coffees and we thanked her before continuing with our conversation.

“I wasn’t singing quite as well as I could and the instrument players weren’t the best either.”

“Then why don’t you start a new band. This time you should give it everything you have and you can find band members who actually know how to play their instruments. I’m certain you’ll be great. I’ll come watch your shows.”

I smiled at how eager he sounded. “What about you? Who are you?” It was my turn to ask him about himself.

“Me? I’m the youngest of four children. I have two older sisters and an older brother. I was that kid that was born really late like when your parents are finally ready to send their last child off to college and then surprise! There was another baby in the house. I was that baby. I’m exactly eighteen years younger than my brother. We share a birthday. It’s like our parents planned it.” He faked a shiver. “Apparently they weren’t ready to face an empty house after my brother left for college so they had me. At least I wasn’t a surprise baby. Either way I don’t mind. I love being here. Life is awesome,” he grinned.

“I’m seriously impressed with all your optimism.”

“Some people tend to find it annoying. So why have you been stuck here all afternoon?” he wanted to know, taking a sip of his coffee and quietly hissing as it burned him.

I shrugged.

“You don’t know?” He seemed to be amused. “You’re an interesting person, Gerard. I don’t know why, but you are.”

*

Ivy

I stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed my two besties having coffee together. This was an interesting turn of events. I didn’t think they would actually come this far. They barely knew each other. I smiled to myself, because it would appear that they liked each other more than I expected. On the other hand, they were only having coffee and I feared that neither of them would make the first move without a little help. Never fear though, because I would be the one to give them that little push in the right direction, nothing major, simply help the process along. Honestly, the faster the two of them got together, the faster I can stop worrying about Gerard and my brother. I knew something happened last Friday night. I was mad at Gee for not telling me and for letting things go that far. I was even more furious at my brother for doing this. What the hell was he thinking? Gerard had feelings and Frank was trampling all over them like they were nothing, because let’s face it, he had no intention of breaking up with Lisa which meant that he was going to keep leading Gee on and that wasn’t fair at all. I turned around and head back in the direction of the entrance of the coffee shop.

The smell of coffee as I stepped inside was heavenly and I noticed that the place was only a little busy. “You guys are having a party without me? I feel left out,” I joked, sitting down in the booth next to Gerard. He looked surprised to see me.

“Hello, Ivy,” Adam smiled at me. I swear a loved the kid. There was no cooler person on this earth.

“We were just about to go get ice-cream. Do you want to come?” Gee asked, already pulling out money to pay their bill. Damn, I nearly missed them then.

“Come on,” Adam said, grabbing the bill and going to give it to the cashier.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” I whispered to Gee.

“No, I haven’t,” he responded casually like he had no idea what I was talking about.

“What happened between you and my brother or should I rather not ask, because you’ve been avoiding him too.”

“Do you really want to know?” he asked, looking at me.

I shifted out of my seat and waited for him to follow. “You promised…”

“You guys ready to leave?” Adam asked, rejoining us and effectively stopping our argument dead.

Gerard smiled brightly at him and motioned for me to walk first. Chill out, Ivy. Whatever happened can’t be undone. Focus on the task at hand. As soon as we were outside, I hopped onto Adam’s back.

“To the bat cave, Alfred!”

“I see we have a Batman fan in our midst,” Gee chuckled, falling into step beside us.

“I love Batman. Adam is a lame ass Spiderman groupie.”

“I am not a groupie. I just prefer Spiderman to all the other superheroes. The movies are better.”

“You and Frank can seriously be one and the same person.”

I looked at Gerard and grinned. It was sad but true. My brother and I had pretty much the same likes and dislikes. Look at Gerard for example, we both liked him. Plus our energy levels were the same, too high. I squeezed Adam’s shoulders and he turned his head slightly to see me.

“Faster,” I quietly said with a smile.

“Your wish is my command.” Suddenly he set off at a jog and I guess it somehow turned into a race between him and Gerard. It was hardly fair, because even though Adam ran track, he had to carry me with him. We didn’t run too far though, because naturally they both had to get tired at some point or another.

“Shit, I smoke you know,” Gerard complained, gasping for breath.

Adam laughed, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Then this should be a good motivation to quit.”

“Quit running, yeah.” Gee glanced up at him from where he was still bent over double.

Adam fell down on the grass, lying spread out on his back, laughing and trying to catch his breath at the same time. Gee plopped down next to him, sitting cross-legged.

“I am not very good at anything athletic.”

“I can tell.”

“I’ll go get the ice-creams,” I told them and walked away. Things between them seemed to be going well. This might be easier than I thought. I smiled all the way to the ice-cream cart and back. It was a beautiful sunny day and my two best friends were hitting it off. Why shouldn’t I be happy? Oh, and look at the two of them subconsciously flirting with one another. It’s adorable how they made contact with each other without even realizing it. Gee’s knee was touching Adam where he was lying flat on the ground and Adam’s fingers were tapping on his knee. They clearly had a lot to talk about too, since every time I saw them together, their lips were moving and there was laughing. Neither of them could stop smiling and it made me grin gleefully.

“Here you go.” I handed Gee an ice-cream while Adam sat up in order to take his. “Beautiful day, huh?” I smiled knowingly at the two. They exchanged looks and nodded in agreement.

*

Gerard

Frank and I were sitting shoulder to shoulder on his bed, playing video games. I was totally kicking his ass too, even though my thoughts weren’t completely there. They were still in the park where I had ice-cream with Adam and Ivy. Adam was cool. He obviously looked after Ivy like a little sister. I could tell from the way they played and talked that they were really close. He was fun and I enjoyed his company. He was a smart kid and loved life. It was kind of amazing. And his eyes, those deep dark blue eyes… The corners of my lips twitched upwards. That was another thing, he had this great lopsided smile…

“Hey, where are your thoughts? I just killed you.”

I blinked and looked at Frank. “So you did. Can you do it again?”

He grinned, “You’re on.” He restarted the game and for a few seconds it was quiet expect for the sound of shooting guns coming from the television. “So have you found a job yet?”

“No, but I’m looking. I was thinking that I should try the comic book store or the record shop since clearly there isn’t much else for me here.”

“You’re too picky. You should try finding any job first and then you can look for something you actually like. At least that way you’ll have some money and not be stuck at home bored all day.” He killed me and I respawned in a different location.

“It’s not right that you’re smarter than I am,” I muttered, trying not to die again.

“I’m just awesome like that.” I could hear rather than see the smile on his face. “I’m going to conquer the world too. My band is going to be totally awesome to the point where I have girls and guys lining up to be with me. Even old ladies,” he giggled. “Don’t you think I’ll be a great cougar pet?”

I laughed, “What have you been eating?”

“Don’t you agree?”

“I think the cougars will love you.”

“Yes!” He laughed heartily.

“You’re one deranged little kid, you know that?” I grinned, putting down my controller.

He stuck his tongue out at me. “You know you love me.”

“That’s the problem.” I got up and started to put on my shoes.

“Gee, where are you going?”

“I have to go, Frank.”

He scrambled onto his knees. “Why? I thought we were having fun.”

“I promised my mom that I would make dinner,” I lied without even thinking about it.

“Is this about the love comment, because you know I was only joking, right?” I sighed deeply. Sometimes he didn’t know when to stop talking.

“What if it was, Frank? We’re just friends. Shouldn’t you be spending more time with your girlfriend than me?”

“I saw her in school today whereas I haven’t seen you in a week. You’ve been avoiding me since our encounter Saturday night.” He was also on his feet now and he looked somewhat annoyed.

“Do you blame me?” I asked him, meeting his eyes. It was always a million times easier to stand my ground when we weren’t shoved into a damn closet together.

“Look, Gee,” he started, grabbing my arm. “I’m sorry that things have to be this way. I like you, I really do, a lot, but I have a girlfriend and you know that. I don’t know what more I can do. You can’t blame me every time you get your heart broken when you know where we stand. Even though I like you, I love Lisa and that’s not going to change, at least not any time soon. I’m sorry.”

He had a point. I tended to get my hopes up every time there was even the tiniest hint of something happening between us even though I knew there was no chance. It’s not like Frank went out of his way to make me think that there was a possibility of us. The only time he actually seemed to reciprocate my feelings was when we were stuffed in a closet with the air around us being charged with whatever the hell was between us.

“You’re right,” I conceded quietly.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I have to go.” I turned and left his room, quickly greeting Ivy as I passed her in the hallway and leaving. That was definitely not the way I expected to end an overall great day. Maybe I didn’t have to. I changed direction and soon found myself ringing Adam’s doorbell.

“Gerard?” he smiled, surprised to see me.

“How about pizza?” I asked.

“I’ll just tell my mom.”

I could feel the whole thing with Frank slipping away as I waited and I knew that the day wasn’t over yet. The night still held a lot of promise.