FicWad

Persistent ringing of her cell phone echoed off of the widows of her nearly silent car as Kaelin carefully attempting to back out of the parking spot that she hadn't calculated or estimated as well as she had thought.

"Yes, dear?" She chirped into the phone, sighing heavily at the numerous ignorant drivers she would be forced to encounter in the six block drive back to her apartment.

"When are you coming home?" The chipper voice of her roommate Adrian filtered through the earpiece.

"I'm leaving work now, why?" Kaelin sighed, silently cursing the amount of stop signs that were placed around campus.

"I was just wondering" Adrian piped from the other end of their conversation, "You have something here for you, I found it at the door. I'll see you when you get home."

Kaelin tossed her cell phone back into her bag as she sped up to pass through a changing yellow light, hoping to avoid an over agonizing wait in traffic; after the day of class and work that she had just endured, all she wanted to do was go home, kick off her shoes and waste away for a while. Busting through the front door of her apartment in a frustrated huff just minutes later, Kaelin did just that, kicking off her shoes immediately, hanging her keys on the hook next to the door and dropping her bags to the floor.

"Hello sunshine" Adrian beamed from her seat on the couch as Kaelin huffed past to her bedroom, barely noticing the unfamiliar bags on the floor or the excess pair of shoes that she almost tripped over on her way in. Removing her work shirt immediately and shuffling to the closet to quickly change her clothes, Kaelin stopped dead in her tracks on her trek to her desk when she finally noticed the sleeping mass of a person in her bed, her mouth dropping open slightly before she ran back out to the living room. Kaelin stared down at Adrian with wide-eyes, before throwing a mini-fit, quietly shrieking with excitement and happily stopping her feet.

"He flew in from Los Angeles this afternoon; a taxi was dropping him off outside when I was walking back from class." Adrian explained with a smile before Kaelin let out another quite shriek of excitement, the smile on her face only growing wider. "I was going to wake him when I called you, but he looks so peaceful."

Kaelin inhaled sharply, attempting to regain her composure, "I can't believe this."

"Well you're boyfriend is a rock star, you should probably be the first person to believe in all things insane." Adrian laughed.

"Dude!" Adrian's best friend Natalie busted through the front door now, being immediately hushed by the inhabitants of the apartment as she stopped in the doorway, peering curiously into the bedroom before stating the obvious, "That guy from Fall Out Boy is sleeping in your bed."

Kaelin nodded with a smile before shuffling back into her bedroom, taking a seat in the desk chair near her bed and taking in the site before her, smiling happily to herself. Digging through her absently discarded purse on the floor, she pulled out her cell phone to snap a picture of her peacefully sleeping significant other before inhaling sharply and climbing into bed with him.

Gently resting her head on the pillow next to him, Kaelin couldn't stop smiling as she quietly laid there just watching him sleep before gently running her fingertips down his arm. Patrick stirred lightly before his eyes slowly opened to see a smiling Kaelin lying next to him. Smiling warmly, Patrick immediately leaned forward and gently placed his lips to hers, sending shiver through Kaelin's entire body, a shiver she expected their first kiss to bring.

"Hi" Patrick breathed sleepily once their lips parted.

"Hi"

"I had few days off, so I thought I would come and visit you."

"I missed you" Kaelin confessed as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her body closer to him, breathing in deeply to take in the smell of her, the smell of her room, taking in every detail of the moment.

"I missed you too" Was his genuine response as they laid in the content silence of each others embrace before Natalie appeared in the door way, shaking her head in disbelief.

"How does this happen? What alternate universe have I fallen in to?"

"So what does a normal Friday night for you usually consist of?" Patrick inquired sometime later that evening as he spun at the desk chair positioned at the kitchen table, watching Kaelin wash the last of the dinner dishes.

"Honestly?" She raised an eyebrow, Patrick nodding. "Well tonight, I would probably go over to my friend Jeremy's apartment for a game of Apongalypse, which is basically an enormous 300 cup game of beer pong. I would spend the night slightly buzzed, reminiscing about the things we did in high school and mingling with people I only half enjoy the company of. Eventually I would stumble back home to my most likely high roommate, where we would complain about school and watch infomercials until we were too bored to continue to stay awake."

"Hmmm" Was the only response to her explanation.

"But if you condone underage drinking and the use of illegal drugs, that really wouldn't be your sort of fun."

Patrick shook his head, "Do I have to drink?"

"No, no one has to drink, most of the time I try not to, but sometimes I give in."

"Well then, I want to go" Patrick nodded with a smile as Kaelin switched off the faucet and snatched the dish towel to dry her hands, "I want to go, with you. I want to do whatever it is that you would do if I weren't here."

"Are you sure?" Kaelin inquired wearily as Patrick rose from his seat to meet her in the middle of the kitchen, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, "I mean, I think that everyone would be cool with you, but there's always someone who is drunk and stupid making a fool of themselves."

Patrick laughed now, "I'm sure I can handle it."

"Alright then, we'll go and check it out and we'll come back when you get bored, deal?" Kaelin settled before shuffling to her room to change after Patrick offered her a happy nod.

Clutching Patrick's hands not much later into the night as they made their way through Kaelin's apartment complex, she sighed heavily to herself; she wasn't nervous about bringing Patrick around her friends, she was just nervous of her friends around Patrick and bringing Patrick around Jeremy. Adjusting the hat adorning his head with his left hand, Patrick ran his right thumb over Kaelin's knuckles in a calming manner and offered her a warm smile, taking note of the nervous look in her eyes.

"Kaelin!" A high pitched voice shrieked the moment Kaelin walked through the door, a petite girl rushing in her directions not moments later.

"I love you, I want your babies!" Kaelin shrieked just as excitedly as she embraced the shrieking girl in an enthusiastic hug and catching up on the last few days of their lives, chatting momentarily about work, school and mutual friends.

"Who's your friend?" Deanna eyed Patrick now with a suspiciously raising eyebrow.

"Boyfriend" Kaelin smiled happily, "Deanna this is Patrick, Patrick this is Deanna."

"Nice catch" Deanna complimented, graciously shaking Patrick's hand before heading off in search of her boyfriend.

"Steve, this is Patrick" Kaelin introduced him to the next strange face that he encountered as their made their way through the apartment, "he lives here."

"You're that guy, from that band my girlfriend listens to." Steve nodded, happily shaking Patrick's hand and eyeing Kaelin with a smile.

"Can we not make a big deal about that tonight?" Kaelin requested with a smile.

"No problem, my lady" Steve smiled before nodding towards the stair well leading to the basement, "But Jer isn't going to be ecstatic, he's downstairs. And if you want in, you've got to get in line, Landon is making you throw down keys to sub in, his rules have become ridiculous." Nodding in agreement, Kaelin inhaled nervously as she led her awkwardly quiet boyfriend to the continuation of the party in the basement.

"Isn't it nice to see your face here" Landon mocked as Kaelin made her way down the stairs, hovering near the beer pong table, waving to and hugging familiar faces and strangers in the vicinity.

"What is with subbing out with keys? What happened to team rotation? You are unbelievably lame." Kaelin laughed, observing the ongoing competition and trying to ignore the questioning glare Jeremy was sending her way.

"What is with guy from band being in our basement?" Jeremy snapped rudely now, his complete attention now falling on the man standing behind his best friend.

"Jeremy, Landon, Patrick. Patrick ... this is Jeremy and Landon." Kaelin introduced with a smile.

"Dude, I love your band!" A drunken Randy exclaimed, stumbling along the table now, offering an enthusiastic high five which Patrick graciously returned with a laugh.

"Why is he here?" Jeremy glared, attempting to seem concentrated on the shot he then completely missed.

"Visiting me" Kaelin chirped, ushering Patrick to take a seat on the open chair near the end of the table.

"You're not going to play? You're mostly almost always clutch ... sometimes, sort of ... that one time." Landon laughed as he sank a land mine on the other side of the table, cursing himself, "Well fuck me."

"No I'm not and no thank you." Kaelin joked, taking a seat on the arm of the chair Patrick was now seated in. Laughing loudly in her thoughts, watching Jeremy shoot daggers with his eyes as Patrick rested his left hand comfortably on her hip, striking up a conversation with the last of the apartment inhabitants.

Not but an hour later Kaelin found her tolerance for childish antics dropping considerably as she watched Jeremy obnoxiously gather by-standers for a group shot.

"Let's dedicate this one to Kaelin, for doing us the favor of brining a celebrity to the party!" Jeremy spat sarcastically, downing his shot immediately before slamming the glass down on the counter and stumbling back down the stairs.

"You do know he's doing it because he's jealous, correct?" Jessica, a close acquaintance of Kaelin commented quietly, Kaelin nodded slowly in understanding. "You come to a party with a rock star and pay less attention to him that you ever have before ..."

"To be fair, he's mostly been ignoring me!" Kaelin interrupted.

"Regardless, you're happy without him and that's not easy for him to deal with." Jessica explained with a warm smile before excusing herself from the conversation to attend to her stumbling drunk boyfriend.

Sometime later, Jeremy happened to stumble upon his drum set, as he always seemed to do when drinking, banging away obnoxiously before Kaelin would appear to take his sticks away with an understanding smile and a beer to distract him. "Someone plays the drums?" Patrick inquired as the resounding crash of symbols and a snare echoed throughout the apartment.

"Jeremy does" Kaelin sighed before graciously excusing herself from the group conversation and descending the stairs to the basement once again. The drum beat to an All-American Rejects song ran through her ears as she shuffled through the heated game of beer pong that was still underway to the drum kit in the corner.

"This one is for you!" Jeremy exclaimed pointing the drum stick at her before breaking into the opening drum beat of 'Dance, Dance'.

"Stop it!" Kaelin pleaded harshly, snatching the drum sticks right from his hands.

"Way to be a bitch!" Jeremy spat, before forcefully knocking over a symbol standing and storming away.

"Way to act like a child just because I'm not paying attention to you!" Kaelin retorted harshly, adamantly following him up the stairs.

"Way to bring a stranger to my party and then completely ignore me!" Jeremy protested, yanking open the refrigerator door and pulling out a fresh bottle of beer. "How did you pull that off anyway? What the fuck could someone like him want with someone like you?"

"Seriously dude, lay off. You need to calm down." Jeremy's roommate Steve commented, insisting that Kaelin ignore him and his entire rant, a suggestion that Kaelin agreed upon by simply walking away from the problem until Jeremy caught a tight grasp on her forearm, violently pulling her back to him.

"Do not walk away from me!" He warned, gripping her arm tighter now, Patrick excusing himself from conversation to attend to the ruckus surrounding Kaelin.

"Seriously man, leave her alone." Another one of their mutual and respectively drunk friends got involved now, everyone attempting to get Jeremy's drunken temper under control.

"What's going on?" Patrick inquired, nervously eyeing Jeremy's hand on Kaelin's arm.

"Stay out of it Mr. TRL!" Was the response that Patrick's question received, causing a quite chuckle to slip past Patrick's lips; Kaelin fighting her hardest to hold back a smile, a smile that quickly faded when in an instant Patrick was on the floor on the other side of the coffee table. Jeremy has swung and when missing the target of Patrick's face, insisting instead of shoving him completely over the coffee table in the middle of the room.

"You're lucky I don't throw your sorry ass out of your own house!" Steve warned harshly as he and Landon threw Jeremy to the ground, strings of obscenities ringing through the room as Kaelin rushed to help Patrick up.

"Are you okay?"

Rubbing his elbow to comfort the pain shooting up his left arm, Patrick nodded. Several more rounds of obscenities were shouted throughout the room before Jeremy stormed off to his bedroom, slamming the door in a rage of fury.

"Way to act like a child!" Steve called up the stairs, "Why don't you slam the door some more?" And Jeremy did just that, slamming the door twice more.

"Keep doing it man, at least I'm not a jackass." Steve commented again, shaking his head in disappointment.

"At least I'm not an idiot!" Jeremy shot back before slamming the door once again.

"At least I'm not a drunk!"

"At least I'm not a loser!"

"At least my GPA is higher!" Steve shouted one last remarked before giving up and walking away with both amusement and disappointment on his face.

Kaelin couldn't believe the scene that had played out before her, all on account of her. Shaking her head in disappointment and disbelief, she apologized to all inhabitants of the house, bidding farewell to the guests of the party before heading home.

"So" Patrick broke the awkward silence as they walked back to her apartment, "What was that about?"

Attempting to sniffle back the tears that were stinging her eyes now, Kaelin explained lightly, "We're friends. For a while, we were a little more than friends, but he wouldn't make it serious, so I moved on and he can't handle that and I'm sorry that had to happen."

Patrick pursed his lips together, nodding in understanding as a tear slipped down Kaelin's cheek and she apologized once more; apologies were all she had to offer now. For a moment she had found a moment of happiness, but her past of course, had to find a way to make a mess of it all. Dropping her eyes to the ground as they made their way back through the apartment complex, Kaelin furiously wiped away at the tears that had slipped through.

"Don't worry about it" Patrick assured, taking her hand and squeezing it tight, adding a laugh, "Now I know what I missed out on by not going to college. Somehow, I think I may have made a better choice."