FicWad

It was the early afternoon and the sun’s rays were at their brightest. Rayne was deliberately walking quickly to get out of the harsh sunlight. She walked down the street trying her best to keep in the shade as she headed to her destination, the local tattoo parlour. As she neared the parlour she braced herself for the heat inside. She knew it would be stuffy and hot since the tattoo artists said that heat helped their work. She couldn’t quite work out that logic. Why would sweat help while you were making a piece of art?
She opened the door to the tattoo parlour and walked in trying to act like it was refreshing going into the studio. But she just couldn’t bring herself to smile or fake some sort of happiness. It was too uncomfortable.
She was about to leave and come back another day when it was colder, but then she noticed someone else waiting to have part of their skin turned into a work of art. He was glancing at a magazine, a tabloid one. He seemed to be disgusted with the whole magazine in general. She knew why. It was because he was in it. She had read it the other day as she was waiting in line at the supermarket. It was some scandalous story about how the man sitting in front of her had ripped off lyrics from some obscure band. Rayne knew it was all false accusations. He wouldn’t have even known the band, besides she knew he was an excellent lyricist. He was Pete Wentz after all.
Rayne had loved Fall Out Boy for some time now and part of her wanted to walk up to Pete and ask for an autograph and photo. The whole lot a fan would ask for. But instead she took a breath and went and sat next to him. She decided that she wanted to keep the fan part of her away and to just act pleasant to him. She wanted him to know that she knew who he was but she decided not to jump all over him or anything like that. He was after all just like everyone else, except he was in a famous rock band and everyone knew his face from a glance. As she sat next to him he looked around at her and smiled.
“I’m Pete,” he said. Rayne tried to suppress a laugh. She knew his whole name off by heart and here he was saying his name to her. It was vaguely amusing.
“It’s okay. I know your name. I’m Rayne,” she said back, “Nice to meet you Pete.”
“You too. I had to introduce myself. How rude would I be not saying my name?” Pete grinned while throwing the tabloid magazine onto a table.
“Rubbish?” Rayne asked.
“Absolutely. All lies.”
Rayne nodded. “I read that one the other day. They were pretty harsh on you.”
“I get used to it…but it can still hurt.”
Rayne looked into his eyes, she could see a hint of pain in them. She felt sorry for him. He looked away with a slightly embarrassed look on his face. Perhaps, Rayne realised, he didn’t want her to have seen the pain. But she had now. She wanted to help but knew to drop the subject. She glanced over at the tattoo an artist was drawing on a man. It was a really ugly tattoo. Rayne didn’t like it at all. She had always been known to say something before thinking and before she knew it she said to Pete about its ugliness really loudly. He agreed with her also a little too loudly. This left them with a glaring tattoo artist and client staring at them. They made excuses to leave and quickly exited the building. They had obviously offended the artist and client. Rayne and Pete took one look at each other and cracked it. They instantly knew they were like each other. Always to quick to speak with consequences to follow. Rayne stopped laughing for a breath. She didn’t have anything to lose and she didn’t want to have to leave Pete so she said something else without thinking, “Do you want to have a coffee with me?” She asked Pete.
He smiled, “Sure, why not?”

*

They had got their coffees from the counter and were now heading towards a table in the corner of the coffee shop. Pete led the way and Rayne knew exactly why he was heading for that one table. He wanted to be inconspicuous. They sat down and Rayne watched Pete down his coffee extremely quickly.
“Thirsty?” She asked.
“I’m used to not sleeping due to touring and I use coffee to stay awake. I down it pretty quickly these days.”
Rayne smiled and then began to sip her coffee at a slow pace.
“So what tattoo were you going to get?” Pete asked.
Rayne described what tattoo she was going to get and asked him the same question. This then turned into a whole conversation and they spent several hours just simply chatting about everything. They were getting on really well when Pete checked his watch, “I’m sorry. I have to go.”
Rayne tried to not look disappointed.
She watched him as he grabbed a pen and a napkin. What was he doing? She wondered. He scribbled something down and handed it to her.
“My number,” he stated.
Rayne took a deep breath; Pete Wentz had just given her his number. It was hard to believe.
“Thanks,” she managed to whisper to him.
“That’s okay. Promise you’ll give me a call? Otherwise I’m going to have to stalk you.”
“Are you forgetting who’s the celebrity here? I should be stalking you!” Rayne said. Pete grinned at her and then exited the building.
Rayne got up and ordered a strong coffee. She needed it.

*

Later on in the afternoon, Rayne rang Pete’s number. He had told her to ring him so why not now? It wasn’t too soon was it? Wouldn’t it show that she wanted to see him again anyway? Finally Pete answered.
”Hello?” He said.
“Hey, it’s Rayne.” She replied.
”You rang!” Rayne could pick up a tone of excitement in his voice. Surely that was a good sign.
“I rang.” She said back trying to hold back her excitement.
“So you want to catch up again?”
Rayne sort of did a jump after he said this. Fortunately he wasn’t able to see her. But he did hear a thump.
“What was that?” He asked, “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Rayne sat down, “I’d love to catch up with you again.”
“I heard there’s a good movie in the cinemas.”
“Sounds good.”
They organised to catch up the next night to see the movie and just before Rayne was going to say goodbye Pete said something that made her heart skip a beat.
“I don’t know if I made it clear. But I thought of this as a…date. Are you okay with that?”
“Absolutely.”
They said their goodbyes and hung up. Both were smiling as they put their phones down.

*

The next afternoon Rayne was getting ready for her date with Pete. She was still finding it hard to believe that she was going to go out with him. She brushed her red hair into a nice style and applied a little bit of makeup, especially to her eyes. They were a nice shade of green and she liked to bring the colour out. She slipped on a light green coloured dress, which seemed to match her eyes perfectly and then finally she decided she looked nice. She was ready to go.
It only took a few minutes to drive to the cinemas and being overly conscious she had arrived far to early. The funny thing was so had Pete. He was already standing at the cinema doors. She decided to go up to him instead of waiting until when she was supposed to be there. As she approached him, she noticed he looked her up and down.
“Wow.” He said quietly. Rayne didn’t know if she had been meant to hear what he had said. He looked good also so she said that he looked handsome. For some reason she suddenly wasn’t afraid of saying something like that. She thought it was quite right to have said it.
“We’re both early,” Pete said after acknowledging her compliment.
“We are.” Rayne laughed slightly
“Well should we go in anyway? We can go and sit in the cinema and talk for a bit.”
“Okay…let’s do that.” Rayne liked the idea of being alone with Pete in the darkness of the cinema. Maybe Pete wanted them to be alone too? Was that why he had decided they do that?
They went into the cinema foyer and bought the movie tickets and then went into where they were screening the movie. They chose chairs at the back of the theatre and they talked for a while. People began coming into the theatre and finally they had to stop talking when the movie started.
It was a dramatic film that they were watching and through most of it Rayne was sitting in her chair all tensed up. She didn’t know what was going to happen next and it was killing her nerves. Pete asked her if she was alright and she was slightly embarrassed he had noticed her tenseness. Finally there was a calmer scene in which Rayne relaxed. That was until she saw Pete’s hand near hers. She wondered if he was going to take her hand in his. She stole a quick glance at Pete and smiled signalling she’d like him to take her hand and he did just that. He gently put his hand on hers. Rayne couldn’t help but like the comforting feeling of having his warm hand on hers.

*

At the end of the movie which both of them decided they liked (even though Rayne had been tense for half of it), Pete and Rayne exited the cinema. He walked her to her car but Rayne was reluctant to get in. She wanted to stay with Pete. Pete seemed to want to be in her company too because he asked her back to his house. She followed his car in hers until they reached his house. They got out of their cars and walked towards the front door with Pete leading the way. Suddenly he stopped and Rayne wondered what was wrong. He turned around to her and looked her in the eyes, “The thing is,” Pete said quietly, “There’s something I have to do before we go inside. You’re here for coffee but maybe there is something else you’d like to do?”
Rayne looked a bit puzzled at Pete. What was he talking about?
Pete continued, “If I do this thing it might change what we want to do or even it could make things worse.”
He still wasn’t making any sense to Rayne, “Ah, Pete,” She said, “Can you just do whatever it is…your ramblings are confusing me.”
“Sorry,” Pete apologised, “I’m just nervous.”
“Why?” Rayne asked,
“Because of this.” Pete leant forward and kissed Rayne sweetly on the lips. He pulled away seemingly waiting for a response from Rayne. She gave him one; she put her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. Pete returned the kiss and they made their way into his house and then to his bedroom where they found themselves for the night.