FicWad

As the movie progressed, Meg found the task of keeping her eyes open becoming more and more difficult. Pete looked over at the sleep-warrior, and nudged her with his foot.


"What?" She mouthed. He smiled at her.


"No sleep." She shook her head. "What do I have to do to keep you awake, little one?" She made a face.


"I'm not little." She wrote on the notepad that had been sitting on her end table. He laughed as he read, then, he was struck by an idea.


"Let's play truth." A confused expression made its way across the face of Meg.


"What's truth?" She wrote. Pete read.


"'Truth' is a rendition of the classic game, minus the dare. You simply take turns asking questions, and no matter how personal it is, you have to answer to win. If you don't answer on your turn, and if I do on my next question following your back-down, I win. Get it?" She shook her head.

"Just...ask questions and answer them honestly, and if you can't, you lose. Get it now?" She smiled, and nodded.


"You go first." She handed him the note pad. Pete rolled his eyes, and began scanning his brain for questions.


He knew better than to be treading this territory with her. Every game of 'truth' he'd ever played had only gotten him into trouble...especially if the game was played with a member of the opposite sex. But this time, he was sitting there playing the game with the almost-girlfriend of his best friend. That would be motivation enough to play it safe...right?


"First kiss?" She smiled, and jotted down her answer...honestly.


"I was seventeen. (I know. I took long enough.) His name was Josh, and we were "meant to be together." Then he cheated on me. It was a waste of a kiss." He read, and looked up at her, slightly nodding.



"Your turn." Meg stomped her foot on the couch cushion. She hadn't spent anytime thinking about what she was going to ask Pete. She pressed the end of the pen to her lips, and stared down at the pad of paper, deep in thought. This was harder than she'd guessed it would be. After a couple of minutes had gone by, she came up with, what she thought to be, the greatest question.


"Ever been arrested?" He laughed.


"Is this the best you've got?" She took the notebook back.


"Well, I thought it was at least semi-hard. I mean, think about it. I really don't know you that well, and you'd be admitting to a kind-of-stranger that you'd been in jail. Don't you think that would make me uncomfortable, and consequently make the question hard to answer?" Meg handed him the notebook, and he laugh upon reading her words.


"Well, you make an excellent point. One that I really hadn't thought of...because I've never been arrested." She smiled, and stuck the end of the pen to her lips, once again.


"Your turn." She mouthed. He smiled, prepared to conquer.



"Virgin?" She became wide-eyed. Kind of a huge question. Meg grabbed the notebook that was still in Pete's hands, and wrote.


"No. and I don't have to explain." She handed it back to him, and he laughed.



"I didn't ask you to."



"I would've just opted for losing if you had." He laughed again, and she took the notebook, ready to write her next question.



With Pete at one end of the leather couch, and Meg at the other, their closeness was unavoidable. Only when Pete moved his sleeping leg out from under one of the cushions did Meg notice just how close it really was.


He touched her. Not "touched" per se, but his leg brushed against her outer thigh, and she felt it. Her face got hot, and she tried her hardest to focus on a mind-blowing, game-winning question, but all she could think about was Pete. His closeness. This wasn't right. She had Patrick. Patrick was on his way over there. Right now.....


He was with Mal. She could talk the ear off of Rosie O' Donnel. He was probably stranded at Ipsento with her, nowhere near the apartment building they both resided in.


She shook her head. How far away they were didn't matter. She was smart enough to know that Pete respected the feelings of his best friend. Nothing was going to happen.


Pete watched her as she focused on the pad of paper. The red spread across her pale cheeks, and he smiled, knowing that it was the brush of his leg that had caused that. A little window of hope opened slightly in his head, but then, it shut fast. Maybe she was that way with everyone not female. Maybe the presence of men just, caused her to be as shy as ever. Pete was Pete, the best friend of the boyfriend. The blushing meant nothing, and he sighed, resigning himself to the fact.


Question. Question. Her mind was blank. The only thing her body was responding to was her emotions, and they weren't telling her to behave rationally. Meg closed her eyes, counted to ten, and looked back down at the notepad.


"How many sexual partners have you had?" She wrote. Bingo. Can you say "victory"?


Pete took the notebook from Meg's hand, and read. His heart stopped. Brave. She was very, very brave.


He couldn't answer that. No way. He didn't exactly know why, but somehow he felt as though Meg would...think less of him or something. Whether she did or not, it just wasn't a question he felt comfortable answering, but if he was going down, she was going down too. He handed the notebook back in her direction, shaking his head.



"There are things I just can't tell you. You'll think I'm shit, and for some reason, that really bothers me, Meg. The thought of you thinking less of me than you already may bothers the shit out of me. But," He paused and looked at her. "If I'm a loser, I'm going to see to it that you are too. I'm just not okay with being a loser by myself." She smiled.


"You've got nothing." She wrote after stealing the notepad out of Pete's hands.


He looked at her. Whatever was going on in the stars right now that was making him do this, was going to have to wait until later to be a concern of his, because right now, he was there. With her. No one else. The girl who had made him smile from day uno. She had quite a bit removed from her, not by her own choice, and he had what she didn't, but you'd never know. She was strong, and she was appreciative. She lit up everything when she smiled, and for now, he was going to have to accept the fact that there was only one option left for him.


He looked at Meg, eyes revealing curiosity, and smiled.


"How do you feel about me?" She looked up. This was truth. She didn't want to lose, but she wasn't sure winning was worth it anymore.


She looked down at her notepad. What sort of response was appropriate? Patrick was gone. Mal wasn't there. No one would ever have to know. She could tell him now, and who knew if her answer today would be the same a week from now. Maybe, what she was about to write, was simply the product of being caught up in a moment, alone, with a guy who was making her question her world after barely a month.


"Actions speak louder than words." She wrote, and he read, confused. One he'd read then statement made by Meg a couple of times, he looked up, questioning her intentions.


"What?" His answer came in the form of her lips meeting his.


Pete was certainly surprised at first, but after the shock had come and gone, and relaxed into the kiss, feeling every sense heightened, ever hair on end.


This was the kind of kiss most only get to read about, and he was sharing it with the kind of girl he'd really only ever dreamed about...


Too bad it was dream of his best friend's too.