FicWad

After a lot of ‘no, you can choose’, we settled for ‘Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban’. We took our seats in the saloon, talking as the commercials were playing on the screen.

“The books are so much better” I said, taking off my fingerless gloves and putting them in my lap. We’d agreed to not buy any popcorn, because neither of us actually ate them anyway, so we only bought two coca-cola’s.

“Agree”

“Ah, you’ve read them?”

“Of course!” he grinned, “And I take that as you have too?”

“Hell yeah, all my friends were too lazy, they just watched the movies with me so I got back on them by telling them what was gonna happen”

“Ooh, evil” he laughed and we went silent as the movie started. After about ten minutes, I took off my shoes and pulled up my legs under me as I’d done since I was a kid. Back then I just did it too see over the people’s head that were in front of me, but when I grew to see over them without this position, I still didn’t stop.
As I did so, I accidentally touched Gerard’s hand that was resting on the armchair and he turned his head to look at me, smiling before taking my hand fully in his. Smiling as well, and with a warm, fluttering feeling in my chest, I turned my attention to the movie.

*

“There’s just one thing I don’t get with ‘The prisoner of Azkaban’” I said when we walked out of the saloon, still holding hands, but the real surprising this here was that my hand hasn’t become sweaty. Now that’s a shocker. No, really.

“What?”

“If Sirius Black’s a wanted criminal, how could he buy Harry a broomstick? I mean, it’s not like he can just walk into a shop and buy one”

“He-“ he started, but went silent. “I actually don’t know. Maybe he ordered one”

“Or maybe Lupin helped him”

“Nah, Lupin thought he was a Deatheater…”

“Maybe he used a fake name then?”

“Let’s call J.K. Rowling and ask her” he laughed, letting go of my hand as we exited the cinema to put on his sunglasses. The sun was about to go down, so I didn’t really saw any point in wearing them. “So, do you wanna call it for the night or do you just wanna hang out in the park or something?”

“Actually” I said slowly, looking at my wristwatch. “I don’t have to be home before 11.30 and it’s only 10.45”

“Is that a yes to the park?” he asked, smiling as I nodded.

I found it really easy to talk to him; we shared the same interests. He liked music, art, comic books – all the things that I loved. Soon, we reached the park as we argued about which superhero was the best. It took me quite a few minutes until I realized that our fingers were once again linked together and when he caught me looking at it, he raised his eyebrow and twisted up his features, doing a really bad impression of Elvis Presley with his face.

“Pretty” I laughed and he giggled before taking a firmer grip around my hand, leading me off the asphalted path in the park and into the bushes. “Wh-what are you doing?” I couldn’t help but worry. I hardly knew the guy; he might me a murdered for all I know.

“I wanna show you something” he explained as he continued leading me through the bushes and I realized that we were walking on a small path which made me stop worrying. “This” he said, finally stopping before a glade with a view of a rather large pond, or maybe it’s called a lake. I looked at him, then back at the glade. It was completely isolated from the sounds from the park and a warm breeze made the leaves of the trees rustle.

“Bet you come here all the time to be alone, huh?” I asked, walking over to the water. You couldn’t exactly swim in it, it was full of green and black seaweeds that didn’t look too attractive, but farer out in the pond where the quickly fading sun was mirroring, it looked like something out of a children’s book.

“Yeah” he responded and I heard him take a few steps before he went still. I turned around, noticing that he was sitting down and looking out over the water. I joined him, sitting down next to him and decided to ask him the question that was gnawing on my inside.

“Why did you ask me out?”

“Hmm?” he asked, obviously lost in his own thoughts.

“I said, why did you ask me out? I mean, you’re sixteen… It can’t exactly look too cool to go out with a fourteen year old” I asked, cocking my head, “And how did you know I weren’t into girls?”

“Actually…” he said slowly, “I didn’t, it was a wild guess… and… It’s better you hear it from me than from Mikey… I ask a lot of guys out. Most of them aren’t gay, so they just politely turn me down and some beat me up” he grinned. “It’s hard to find someone and I don’t wanna miss the perfect guy just because I’m too scared of being ditched”

“Oh…” I said slowly, but before I could continue, he started talking.

“Don’t feel insulted though” he smiled nervously, “I had a great time with you… Better than any other first date I’ve had, actually”

“I’m not insulted, I asked, didn’t I?” I smiled, “I had a great time too”


… “Your mom can’t be the over-protective type” he said as he got up from the ground twenty minutes later. “I was supposed to be home at 11 and I’m older than you”

“No, she’s not. I have a feeling New Jersey’s about to change that” I laughed and he stretched out his hand to help me up. I took it and as I straightened up, his face came dangerously close to mine. I took a step back, giggling as his normally pale cheekbones now were slightly pink. I looked at my watch and saw it was 11.20.

“You know, you were supposed to be home 20 minutes ago”

“I know”

“So… we better get home, then?”

“I guess” he agreed, but stood still.

“And you’re not moving because…?”

“Because I wanna ask you if you wanna come over to my house tomorrow, but I’m scared my heart will break if you say no” he said dramatically and I was just gonna tell him I could come, when I suddenly remembered something my mom said a few hours earlier.

We’re going over for dinner tomorrow anyway, so I can talk to Donna about her naughty son then.

“I can’t turn you down even if I wanted to” I laughed, “Linda and I are apparently invited over for dinner at your house tomorrow”

“Ah, cool… You better pray it’s my mom who’s cooking, my dad’s terrible at it” he said as we walked back to the asphalted street in the park. The sun had gone down some minutes ago and the only thing that was enlightening our way was the streetlights since the moon’s light couldn’t break through the vault of leaves and branches above us.

“I think I’ll survive. Linda can’t even make pancakes… But she’s good at ordering pizza though”

Gerard laughed, “Your mom sounds so cool… And you don’t need to endure having a pain in the ass brother either”

“Yeah, poor you” I smirked, “But yeah, Linda’s cool… She’s more of a best friend than a mom, really. Hopefully you’ll get to meet her properly some day”

“And hopefully, you’ll avoid seeing my family all too much… They’ll get on your nerves, trust me”

“Mikey seems kinda okay though”

“Urgh, Mikey’s the worst” Gerard sighed. I recognized the houses around us and realized that we had reached our street. I felt suddenly disappointed, like I didn’t want to go home, I wanted to stay out with Gerard and talk. We stopped outside the fence of his house, seeing as his house was a few houses away from mine and we reached his first.

“So… we’re here” he said, smiling, “I really had a great time”

“So did I” I smiled back, “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yeah,” he said, leaning forward and gave me a quick hug, “Bye Frank”

“Frankie,” I corrected him, “Bye!”

He disappeared into the shadows in his garden and when I heard his front door close, I snapped out of my thoughts and went home.

… Linda was seated in the couch with a bowl of popcorn in her lap and was watching some lame comedy.

“Hey honey” she said, twisting her neck to look at me as I entered the room, the flickering lights from the tv casting distorted shadows over her face. Normally, on a Friday night, she’d be upstairs in her bedroom and reading some novel, but I had a pretty good feeling she had wanted to question me about my evening.

“Hey” I answered, watching her put the tv on mute and patting on the couch next to her.

“Come, sit down” she said, beckoning, “I wanna hear every god damn detail!”

Smiling and rolling my eyes, I took my seat next to her and as I sat, she looked at me with a blank expression. I furrowed my eyebrows and cocked my head to the side and she sighed impatiently.

“Spill!”

“Oh, right…” I said slowly, acting dumb, “So… What do you want me to tell you?”

“Everything!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms up in the air, failing to keep her patient surface. “What did you do? What did he say? Was he nice? Do you like him? Did you kiss? Where did you go? Did-“

“Linda!” I laughed and she fell silent. “I’m tired and all I really wanna do is to go to bed, so can you please pick out the most important questions and then we’ll take the rest tomorrow?”

“Fine,” she said grumpily, “What did you do?”

“We went to a movie and then to this really cool glade right next to a lake” I said, keeping it short just to annoy her. “More questions?”

“What did you talk about?”

“Geeky stuff” I said, grinning at the mere thought of when we talked about Spiderman or some other things that I knew mom would never understand.

“So…” she said slowly, “You like him?”

“He’s cool…” I said slowly, looking at a very interesting thread that was sticking out of my jeans. I felt her eyes on me and I slowly raised my head, only to notice that she was smirking teasingly. “What?”

“Frankie’s in luuhve!” she sang, laughing as I blushed. I protested weakly, but still knowing all to well that when her ‘thirteen-year-old-girl phase’ started, there was nothing I could do but run.

“G’night” I said quickly, jumping up from the couch, still with her laughing next to me. She caught my arm, but she didn’t pull me back down, she just held on to it.

“Just one more question,” she said, still giggling slightly, “Did he kiss you?”

“I just met the guy! It was our first date, not everyone’s acting like a whore on there dates, you know”

“True, true…” she giggled, letting go of my arm, “Well, I’m glad you had a good time, otherwise I’d be going alone tomorrow… Good night, sprout”
Mom seemed to look at this dinner at the Way’s house as an second date for me and Gerard, I on the other hand just saw it as an opportunity for mom to make some friends. All she does when she gets home from work is to sit alone in the couch, watching tv or reading in her room. She used to be so social, so happy, gushing with emotions and laughter. My grandma used to say that she had a red aura, which basically meant that she was crazy, but since it was my grandma that thought she could see aura’s, I think she was a tad more crazy than mom.

“You’re not wearing those pants you wore yesterday” mom pouted as I jumped down from the stairs, still having three more steps to go, but found it quicker to simply jump.

“Nah… ‘cuz if you didn’t notice, they were too small…”

“The tighter the better… And I bet Gerard thinks so too” she said, adding the last part teasingly.

“I swear to god, that if you say anything, and I mean anything embarrassing tonight in front of him, I’ll disown you as a mother”

“Oh really? And where do you think you’re going? Maybe you can live at Gerard’s house?”

“Shut up” I muttered grumpily, walking past her into the kitchen, “But seriously, please, don’t embarrass me”

“I won’t” she said, smiling as she saw my serious face, “I promise… You know I wouldn’t anyway”

I shrugged, looking out of the kitchen window. It looked more like autumn than summer at the moment. Great clouds were infecting the deep, blue sky and it was blowing hard, almost like a storm. I could see Gerard’s house from here, it lay almost across the street, only one house to the right.

“When are we leaving?” I asked, my question ringing through the silent kitchen, “Linda?” I heard the shower being turned on, so I had to rely on my memory on how much time I had left until we had to go. Since it was just past noon, I knew that I had at least four hours to get ready. What to do, what to do…

And as always when you’re bored, I ended up in front of the computer. It was the last thing we packed up since mom doesn’t think it’s necessary to have it whatsoever. I logged onto MSN, but no one interesting was in so just as I was gonna log out, Sasha logged in.

x Rawr says; FWANKIE! :D

Mr. Pansy says; SASHY! s’up?

x Rawr says; not much, missing u… u? ^.^

Mr. Pansy says; I’m nervous as hell, dude… I met this really kewl guy & Linda & I are going over for dinner… ._.

Mr. Pansy says; Linda miss you lots btw

x Rawr says; Kewl guy, ey? You making friends already, huh? Forgetting about me so soon? cries anyway, why r u so nervous? It’s just a dinner… Aw, tell her I miss her 2. XD

Mr. Pansy says; I kinda went out on a date with him & yeah… so yeah, he’s really kewl… & by kewl I mean sexy as hell… ^.^

x Rawr says; date? sexy? wtf r u talking about? O.O

Mr. Pansy says; he asked me out & I said yes & we went on a date… get it?

x Rawr says; care 2 tell us when we got gay?

Mr. Pansy says; I get the feeling ur mad… I didn’t actually know I was gay, I just went out with him, to u know try something new

x Rawr says; so ur gay?

Mr. Pansy says; yeah (:

x Rawr says; I’ve 2 go, dad needs the computer.

Her dad has his own computer…

*

“Ah, hello! Come in,” Mr. Way said as he opened the door, standing on the threshold , dressed in a white shirt, grey tie and black, ordinary pants. “I don’t think we’ve met” he added when his eyes fell on me and he stretched out his hand for me. “I’m Mikey and Gerard’s dad”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Way” I said politely, “I’m Frank”

“Call me Don” he smiled, signing for us to come in. “The boys are in the living room if you rather wanna talk to them instead of hearing us parents babble. And could you please tell Gerard that he has to come up with a believable lie to why I found a cigarette in his room…”

I nodded, returning the smile and followed the two to the kitchen just to say hello to Mrs. Way before making my way over to the living room… which was empty. A loud thud from the second floor gave away the brothers position so I walked up the stairs.

“Where did you buy this anyway?” I heard Mikey ask, his voice coming from the door that was at the end of the hall.

“Grandma bought it for me” Gerard’s voice answered, “now; give it to me before I rip your head off!”

I was now only a few steps away from the door and I started to feel slightly nervous; was I supposed to hug Gerard when I saw him? We’d only been out on one date…

“Fine… by the way, I think Frank and his mom just arrived”

“Actually, we arrived a couple of minutes ago and I didn’t get a proper greeting” I said as I pushed the already half open door up and stepped in.

They were sitting on their bed; Mikey in his with a comic book in his lap and Gerard on his, lying down with his hands behind his head as a pillow. His bed was right to the left when you entered the room so I was practically standing next to him.

“Oh, hi! We didn’t hear when you came” Gerard smiled, getting up from the bed and hugged me. Guess I didn’t have to worry… Mikey made a slight wave with his hand as to greet me and I smiled.

“Your dad said you have to come up with a believable lie to why he found a cigarette in your room.” I said, turning to Gerard who once again sat on his bed, remembering what Mr. Way had said.

“He what?!” Gerard exclaimed, “But… But I don’t smoke, how-“ he craned his neck to the right and stared at Mikey who was sitting innocently with his comic book. “Mikey?”

“Mhh?” Mikey said, looking up from his book, then realized why he had gotten his brother’s attention. “Dude, I don’t smoke and you know that! I’m sure it was Bert”

Gerard sighed, “Dammit… Dad’s gonna freak out”

“Why don’t you tell him it was this Bert guy who did it?” I asked.

“He always blames poor lil’ Bert” Mikey explained as Gerard grinned.

“He deserves it… I was grounded for a month after he had set that bench in the park on fire… He inhaled a hell of a lot of smoke and passed out so everyone just assumed that I did it”

I laughed, but stopped as Gerard was gazing at me intently; “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, shrugging, but Mikey spoke up.

“Oh come on, Gee, you can do better than that! Aren’t you gonna tell him how pretty he is when he laughs, hmm?” he asked, cocking his head in a sly look.

“No, but I can tell you how ugly you look when you’re trying to be funny” Gerard retorted as he raised his eyebrow and Mikey stuck his tongue out.

“Boys! Dinner!” Mrs. Way called from downstairs, which was quite a relief since I had started to feel stupid about just standing and leaning against the threshold like that.

“Coming!” Mikey called back, getting up from bed along with Gerard. We walked downstairs and over to the kitchen where Mrs. Way had set the table, adding two extra chairs at the ends. I sat down next to mom just to feel a little protected and with Mr. Way sitting next to me at the end of the table, Gerard opposite me.

The conversation went well, I didn’t talk too much, neither did Mikey and Gerard, it was mainly our parents who laughed and joked, trying to get us quiet ones one’s into the conversation too.

“So Frank, your mom said you’re turning fifteen this October… Must be tough having your birthday the same day as Halloween”

“Nah, not really” I said, shrugging and trying desperately to swallow the amount of food in my mouth, “It’s like getting presents from all your neighbours”

They laughed, which gave me some time to swallow in case they’d ask me something else.

“Mikey’s birthday’s on the 31 of December… and since he’s such an attention who- I mean, since he likes attention, he hates sharing his birthday with New Years Eve.” Gerard grinned teasingly, giving his mom an apologetically look for almost saying ‘whore’ at the dinner table.

“I was sevenwhen I said I hated it, Gerard… Get over it! And I’m not an attention wh- uhm, seeker”

Gerard snorted, receiving a glare from Mikey and Mrs. Way quickly started talking to mom to prevent them from arguing.

*

“Thank you so much for dinner” mom said, making a small bow and Donna laughed.

“You’re more than welcome! I’ll just clean up a bit and the rest of you can go and make yourselves comfortable in the living room” Donna said, which was instantly followed by mom who said she was more than willing to help and blah blah blah, so as they kept on talking, the rest of us moved into the living room.

“You boys can go upstairs, we’re just gonna sit and talk down here anyway” Mr. Way said, waving us off as we were about to get comfortable on the couch. Shrugging, we made our way back upstairs and into the brothers room once again, I felt slightly shy since we’d probably just sit and look awkwardly at each other once we were in there.

“We should play a game or something…” Mikey said as we entered and Gerard rolled his eyes, which Mikey wasn’t late to discover. “Got a better idea?”

“Yeah, we can sit and stare at the walls, that’s much more fun than playing games”

“Why don’t we let the guest decide, huh?”

“If I get to choose from staring at the walls or play a game, I think it’s pretty obvious what I’ll say” I said, smiling apologetically at Gerard who sighed.

“Fine, but we’ll play Monopoly, end of story”

“Yeah, you suck at that anyway” Mikey shot in before he went to get Monopoly of a shelf in their room.

“I do not! Remember last time? We played for like a week… And I won!”

“You cheated”

“Did not!”

“Did to!”

“BOYS!” Donna’s voice was heard from downstairs and the brothers went silent, calmly sitting down on the floor with their legs crossed and the game on in front of them. I copied them, smiling as they continued their fight by glaring at each other.

“You guys got worse mood swings than Linda on her worst day…” I grinned and they both looked at me, offended. “How come you’re fighting and the next minute you’re all happy and lovely around each other?”

“We’re brothers” Mikey explained as he started to set up the game field. “Anyway, let’s start… Everyone knows how to play this shit, right?”

“Dude, it’s Monopoly… He’s not a retard” Gerard laughed.

“Hey, I’ve seen your previous dates… They weren’t exactly bright”

“Can we just start playing already?” I interrupted, knowing that Mikey’s remark would probably lead to another fight. Thankfully, they obeyed and the game started and kept going without any further fights.

As it turned out, I was a retard. Although I knew how to play Monopoly, I wasn’t too good at it. Apparently, I was too greedy. I mean, if you can afford it, why not buy it? They were all careful and shit, not wanting to buy too much so I practically owned every street… But they always seemed to get away since I was too busy mourning about the lack of money that I didn’t see when they ‘walked on my street’. So yeah, I’m broke.

“I almost feel sorry for you” Gerard laughed as I once again had to give all my money to the bank.

“I’m sure you do” I murmured. I hate losing.

“Aw, I think your boyfriend’s a bit cranky…” Mikey said in a mocked baby voice and I laughed. Wait, boyfriend? Am I Gerard’s boyfriend? Already? Jeeze, I met him only a couple of days ago… Hold on, boyfriend?!

“Shut it, you’re embarrassing him”

I wouldn’t mind being his boyfriend… Especially not if it means I get to spend more time with him. But he said he date a lot of guys and you don’t call a guy you’ve been out with once your boyfriend, right? No… Dammit, I need to talk to mom about this.

“Frank?”

But if Mikey says I’m Gerard’s boyfriend… then maybe Gerard has talked about me as his boyfriend. Or maybe Mikey just said it as a joke? Maybe Gerard and I are just friends? No hold on, we were out on a date… You don’t go on dates with your friends god damn it. Why do I care anyway?

Suddenly, a hand came dangerously close to my face, waving frantically and I snapped out of my thoughts and looked around.

“Hi?” I said, giving both of them some confused looks for staring at me, “What?”

“Nothing” Mikey sighed, giving me a long look before he started to take away the game from the floor, “I give up on this, Gerard wins and everyone’s happy”

“Oh nuts, I was so close to winning” I joked and Gerard laughed.

“You owed the bank around 10 000 dollars, sugar” he smirked

It looked like Mikey was gonna comment on my new nickname but as Gerard gave him the evening’s worst deathglare, he shut up. I smiled at Gerard, who looked at me nervously as if I was gonna start laughing, and he rose from the floor, walking over to the tv.

“Anyone up for a movie? The elders are gonna talk all night if I know my mom right”

“Sure” Mikey and I said in unison and Gerard laughed.

“Movie it is… And since I’m such a gentleman, the guest gets to pick what one”

“Do you have like… ‘Terror on Elm Street’ or something like that,” I asked and they both gave me some impressed looks, “What?”

“Wow Gee, you actually find someone cool this time…” Mikey said, looking mildly surprised and then nodded, “Yeah, we got ‘Terror on Elm Street’… It’s downstairs, I’ll get it” he disappeared out the door and I looked at Gerard.

“What was that all about?”

“What?” he asked, fiddling with the remote.

“That you’d find someone cool this time”

“Oh… yeah, uhm, Mikey doesn’t really… approve of the guys that I normally date… That’s why he’s uhm, acting kinda distant with you, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, so he doesn’t like me?”

“He doesn’t know you”

“Neither do you”

“I know enough to say that you’re not a complete loser… And Mikey hates losers” he said and I smiled at the compliment, or is it a compliment when someone tells you you’re not a loser? It is… It totally is.

“Thanks, I guess”

“What are you talking about?” Mikey asked as he returned; now holding a DVD in his hand. “I heard my name be said”

“You’ll never know…” Gerard said, taking the DVD from Mikey and put it into the DVD player. “We’re sitting on your bed, Mikes”

“Hell no, I don’t want you two messing around in my bed”

“Oh believe me; we won’t mess around with you next to us”

“I don’t know about that, Gee… You’re pretty desperate when it comes to those things”

“Thanks for saying that in front of Frank, dude…”

“He’d found out eventually anyway”

They both went quiet as they realized I was staring at them. Seriously, how could they start arguing so easily?

“Next time, we’ll put you two in different rooms” I stated, realizing that when it came to hanging out with both of them at the same time, I had to take the lead. “We’ll sit on Gerard’s bed since you can see the tv better from there”

Mikey smirked victoriously at Gerard who rolled his eyes and the three of us crawled up in his bed, Gerard in the middle and me to his right. Since I was sitting in the corner with the wall as support, Gerard used my arm and shoulder as a back support, which I found quite comfortable since it felt pretty… cosy.


Ten minutes later, it wasn’t that cosy anymore. The wall behind me was hard, surprise, and my back was practically screaming and Gerard wasn’t exactly helping since he was pressing me even harder against it. I wasn’t just gonna sit there and take the pain just so he wouldn’t move away so I raised my hips up slightly, heaving myself up a bit so I could put a pillow behind my back. Gerard smiled, mouthing a ‘sorry’ as he realized he had been lying on me and I smiled back, yawning.

“Tired?” he whispered not to disturb Mikey who was really into the movie.

“A little”

“Sorry for squashing you like that”

“It’s okay… My back hurts though, so you have to return the favour” I said, smiling as he put the pillow behind my back in his lap, showing with his hand for me to lie down. I made a small bow, or it was more a nod of gratefulness since we were sitting down, and lay down with my head in his lap, my body curled up in a ball because the wall were too close for me to stretch out but it didn’t matter.

I felt Gerard’s forearm rest on the side of my chest, his hand hanging limply down over my chest. The flickering blue and green and god knows how many other colors were slowly but steadily making my eyes tired and it didn’t took me long to fall asleep.

I was awoken by a light shake, and as I opened my eyes, I saw Gerard’s mischievous ones look back at me.

“You fell asleep” he giggled as I blinked my eyes repeatedly. The pillow that I had once laid on had slid away and instead I was lying flatly on Gerard’s jean-clad thigh, my face turned to his stomach.

“Yeah, sorry… I’ve seen that movie too many times” I giggled back. “How long was I out?”

“About half an hour”

“Where’s Mikey?” I asked as I noticed that he wasn’t lying next to Gerard as he’d done before.

“He’s downstairs, trying to get dad to share some beer with him” he smirked, “That little geek’s so gonna turn out as an alcoholic”

I laughed, getting up from my lying position and stretched, making my spine snap slightly.

“Wanna go downstairs?”

“Sure” I answered; still feeling a bit tired but didn’t exactly want to go home. I had a great time, even if we weren’t doing that much. I felt comfortable with him and even more comfortable when Mikey wasn’t around. Not that I had a problem with Mikey, but it kinda felt like he thought I was just someone Gerard had picked up on the streets and then randomly asked me out. And maybe that was the case, but that didn’t mean I was a loser…

We got downstairs and found the living room empty. I looked at Gerard, who nodded his head at the backdoor, which led to the garden.


“And Frank was like ‘God, I’m so glad I’m not a girl…” and then he was nice to me for about a month- Oh, hi honey!” mom said as she saw me and Gerard, then giving me a knowing smile as Gerard snaked his arm carefully around my waist, not really holding on to me but resting his hand on my hip. So we’re on that level, ey…

“Hey… Are you gossiping about me, hmm?”

“I was just telling them how you acted when I told you what happened when girls had their periods, remember that?”

“Yep, and God will never make me forget it either…”

“I never talk to my sons about stuff like that” Mrs. Way said, eyeing Mikey who was sitting on the armrest of his father’s chair.

“That’s because we don’t wanna know” Mikey answered.

“Believe me, I didn’t wanna know about periods either” I laughed, trying to snake my arm around Gerard’s waste casually so it wouldn’t get too much attention. I failed.

“How did your date go anyway?” Mrs. Way asked, her eyes wandering from our arms that we had around each other to our faces. “You never tell me anything, honey…”

“Let’s talk about something else!” Gerard stated, but his suggestion was immediately turned by his parents.

“No, come on son, we barely know who you hang out with these days, you never talk to us! I think you owe us some details of how your evening was last night” Mr. Way said, smiling kinda evilly at Gerard. Mom gave me a warm smile as if to say that she was happy we had a better relationship than what they did and I happily returned it.

“I had a good time, okay?” Gerard said evasively, “Anyway dad, about that cigarette you found… It was Bert’s.”

“Of course it was. It’s always Bert, isn’t it?”

“Kinda” Gerard said, smiling goofily, “No, but seriously, it was, I promise…”

“He’s actually telling the truth for once, dad” Mikey piped in, “I would’ve noticed if he’d started smoking”

Mr. Way looked at both of his son’s with piercing eyes before finally nodding.

“Alright, you’re off the hook for now…”

“We should get going” mom said, rising up from her chair and looked at me, “You look pretty tired”

“He is, he fell asleep before…” Gerard said, smirking. I looked at my watch and showed it to him.

“It’s two am, you are supposed to be sleeping”

“So Gee, what were you doing to him when he was asleep?” Mikey asked, smirking almost evilly and I saw Gerard clench his teeth through his closed mouth, if that makes sense.

“Shut the fuck up, Micheal…” he said slowly, “I’m not a pervert, unlike you…”

“Boys, drop that conversation right now” Mrs. Way sighed, giving me and mom an apologetically look, “Welcome to the Way family…”

“Don’t worry about it” mom laughed, “I had a great time tonight, and I’m sure Frank had too, but we should really get going”

“It was fun having you over! We should do this again” Mrs. Way smiled

“Definitely” mom agreed as the rest of the sitting persons got up on their feet to walk us to the door.

“Come,” Gerard said to me, taking my hand and lead me inside, but instead of going to the door, he took me into the kitchen. “I refuse to say good bye to you in front of my parents” he explained.

“And why’s that?” I smirked; he made it sound like he was gonna fuck me right then and there.

“Because they’ll go all ‘aww’ on us” he muttered, well, that didn’t exactly go well with my theory…

“Can I ask you something…?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked, smiling but it faded quickly as he didn’t return it.

“I’m gonna hang out with some of my friends, sorry”

“Oh… Can I come?” I asked, but regretting it the same second it came out as he looked pretty hesitant. “I mean, I understand if you don’t want me there, it’s your friends and all, it’s just, I’m so bored just sitting on my room and all…”

Great, make him feel guilty, smartass, that’s how you want him to say you can come.

“No, it’s not that I don’t want you there!” he said quickly shaking his head slightly to make his point, “It’s just… my friends… they’re pretty special, if you know what I mean”

“Special as in… retarded?”

“No, not retarded” he laughed, “Or well, they are, but not in a serious way, ya’know… They’re just… I think they’ll freak you out, but if you think you can stand them, then of course you can come”

“Great! I love Linda and all, but having her as the only company for several days in a row will wear you out”

“Gee, mom says that the two of you should get your asses over to the door so she can go to bed” Mikey said, his head appearing in the doorway.

“Tell her we’ll be there in a sec” Gerard said, sighing as Mikey disappeared, “Sorry, my family’s not the most politest…”

“I think they’re cool” I laughed and Gerard sighed even deeper as his mother’s voice was heard from the hall. “Alright, before they kidnap us…”

He leaned forward, giving me a hug. I smiled, my head resting perfectly on his shoulder and I put my arms around him, making the hug tighter.

“I’ll see you tomorrow” I said, still caught in the hug.

“Yeah, I’ll pick you up… like last time” he giggled and as he pulled away from me, I definitely felt his lips touch my cheek. If it was on purpose or not, I don’t know, but he did. Smiling as I could finally see his face again, I allowed myself to steal a quick glance, looking deeply into his eyes before tare my eyes away to not freak him out by staring at him. We were standing close to each other, very close since we’d just shared a hug and I felt his hands search for mine, taking them in his.

“Our parents will freak out on us soon” I said, smiling kinda sadly. It felt like every time I stopped being nervous around him, the night was over and I had to go back and be alone, once again.

“Yeah” Gerard said quietly, his face only a few inches away from mine. I smiled shyly, trying in vain to avoid his eyes so he wouldn’t see my insecurity.

“Aww Gee-Gee, you can make out with him tomorrow” Mikey’s voice was heard fro the doorway again, “Seriously, come on, mom’ll beat you up if you don’t come”

Gerard gave me one last look, as if to say how sorry he was that he was a part of this family before we followed Mikey out in the hall, where the rest of the folks were waiting.

“Finally!” Mrs. Way exclaimed, “What were you doing?”

“They were-“

“Nothing” Gerard interrupted Mikey quickly.

“Alright then, come on Frank, I’ve had too much wine so you’ll have to guide me home” mom laughed and I slowly let go of Gerard’s hand.

“See you tomorrow” I told him before turning to the rest of the family, “Thanks for the dinner and… everything else”

Mrs. Way smiled at me, as well as Mr. Way and they all called their good byes before they shut the door.


“So what did you and the guys do?” mom asked as we were back at home.

“Play Monopoly… And watched a movie”

“How come you won’t give me any details anymore?” she asked, and for once, she was serious, confused.

I didn’t know why, I always told her everything, but when it came to what I did with Gerard, it felt weird to talk to her about it. As that thought hit me, I decided that that feeling was exactly what I wanted to avoid when it came to my relationship with my mom. So I told her basically… everything.


…”And tomorrow, I’m gonna go and hang out with him and his friends” I finished and she looked pleased.

“See? That wasn’t so hard” she smiled and I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t you have any motherly instinct at all about this, though?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m gonna hang out with a two years older guy… and his friends… tomorrow… all alone…”

“First of all, he really isn’t two years older than you” she said, sighing at my stupidity, “You’re turning fifteen”

“Yeah, but isn’t he turning seventeen?”

“His birthday was in April”

“Oh. So he’s just one year older?”

“Well, one and a half, but you get the point, and second of all; if he tries anything with my son, I know where he lives… and I can always force Donna to tell me where his friends live if they try to rape you” she said, laughing and I sighed.

“Fine, fine… It just feels weird not to have you worrying about me”

“I usually don’t”

“True…”

“Haven’t we had this conversation before?”

“Many times” I laughed, “So, did you have fun then?”

“Hell yeah” she smiled, “But I have to go to bed, my head’s spinning”

“Which means I have to be quiet in the morning?”

“If you don’t want me to rip your legs off…”

“You won’t even know I’m here” I promised.
The next morning, I went over to Gerard’s house, seeing as we hadn’t set any time for him to come over and pick me up, so I just thought I’d go over. I rang the doorbell and seconds later, Mikey opened.

“Hey” I said, smiling, “Is Gerard there?”

“Yup, but he’s in the shower” he said, stepping aside so I wouldn’t take his answer as that I had to go home again. “You can wait in our room”

“Thanks” I said, taking off my shoes and followed him up the stairs after saying hi to their parents.

“What are you and Gee gonna do today?” Mikey asked as he started fiddling with his cellphone, sitting on the bed and I copied him, sitting down on Gerard’s.

“Hang out with his friends”

“You sound excited about it”

“I am. I haven’t had anything to do since I moved here…”

“Well, hanging out with his friends aren’t exactly a blast”

“What do you mean?” I asked, playing with a wrinkle of the sheets in Gerard’s bed.

“Didn’t Gerard tell you about them?”

“He said they were… special” I said, smiling as I remembered I thought he meant that in a serious term.

“Oh, they’re special alright” he smirked, looking at me before turning down his head to look at his cellphone, a pose that seemed quite familiar.

“At that playground… where we met, was it your cellphone that you had in your lap?”

“Uhm, yeah”

“Why were you there anyway? Gerard said you’re not allowed to go there”

“Because” he said, waving his cellphone at me, “That’s the only place where I can get some privacy without Gerard, mom or dad asking me who I’m texting with”

“Oh” I said slowly, “So who are you texting with?”

He raised his head slowly, glaring at me as to say ‘that wasn’t funny’ and I smiled apologetically.


“Everyone who’s last name ain’t Way has to close their eyes right now” I heard Gerard’s voice call from the hall, his footsteps approaching the door in no time.

“And why’s that?” I called back.

“Because I’m half naked”

“I don’t mind”

“But I do” he laughed, “Close your eyes”

“Fine” I said, closing my eyes as I heard him walk in. A wave of a fruity smell hit me in the face when he walked passed and it took all my self-discipline not to open my eyes.


“Done” he said after a minute or so and I opened my eyes, seeing him fully dressed and his hair dripping wet. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought I was gonna pick you up”

“Changed plans” I smiled, “I was bored”

“You’re bored a lot” Gerard stated randomnly and all of a sudden, he turned around, facing Mikey, pulled his hair into a short ponytail on the back of his head and pressed the water of his hair down into Mikey’s bed.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Mikey yelled at his brother, who just laughed.

“That’s what you get for waking me up by yelling like a maniac!”

“Can’t you take a joke?”

“Apparently not” Gerard shrugged, smirking as he saw the phone in his younger brother’s hands. “Who’re you talking to?”

Mikey gave me a knowing look before glaring at Gerard.

“None of your business”

“Whatever” Gerard sighed, turning to me, “You ready?”

“Yep” I answered and after he had dried his hair, he gestured for me to walk out of the room before him.

“You know, you look good today” he said causally but a small smile played mischievously on his lips.

“No I don’t… But thanks” I actually didn’t. All I was wearing were a pair of grey sweatpants and a black t-shirt; that was all I had that didn’t smell of either sweat or some other unpleasant body odour.

He smiled, without actually showing any teeth and it created small wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, making him look both adorable and inhumanely kind.

“Yeah, you do. Now come on, we’re already late”

“Yeah, you took your time showering…”

“What makes you think I was just showering?” he grinned as we walked out of the door, his arm slipping around my waist and rested on my hipbone, just like it had done the other night when we were talking to our parents.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that” I laughed, trying to joke it away so I wouldn’t blush. Surprisingly, I succeeded. “Where are we going?”

“School”

“Come again?”

“School” he repeated.

“Uhm… why?”

“Because the guys are there”

“Uh. Okay… So they’re at school under their summer break?”

“Yep. The schoolyard’s our place… We hang out there; no one’s there now anyway so it’s the perfect”

“Ohhh” I said slowly, tilting my back a little as I realized that he wasn’t a complete moron for being at school under the summer holidays. “Great, then I can memorize where the school is so I won’t get lost and stuff when it starts…”

“Or you can go with me and Mikey to school”

“Yay, I feel social” I giggled, “Anyway, there must be something seriously odd about your friends… Mikey didn’t seem too happy when he talked about them”

“Erm, no, that’s because he met them at their worst day. Or at least at Bert’s worst day”

“Did he hurt him?”

“Who? Bert? No… Bert’s not violent” he laughed, “A bad day for Bert basically means that he acts like five year old with a Red bull”

“So he has only met your friends once?”

“No, but he has only hung out with them once… And after that he was too freaked out to do it again. See, Mikey doesn’t really have a lot of friends, so I kinda wanted him to hang out with mine, but yeah, Bert made sure that wasn’t gonna happen”


“It’s over there, right?” I asked, pointing with my free hand, the hand that currently wasn’t holding on to Gerard’s hand, at a red brick stone building that I recognized from when we were driving to our house for the first time.

“Yep” he responded, “Ergh, school starts in one and a half week… Are you nervous?”

“Pff, I’m never nervous” I smiled and he gave me a doubtful look, “Alright, I’m terrified”

“Aw, don’t worry, it’ll be fine” he mocked as we walked into the school yard, “They are sitting over there on the ground… Those lazy fuckers didn’t even bother finding some benches”

“They know you’re gay, right?” I asked quickly, not sure if he wanted me to let go of his hand.

“Of course they do… Guys!” he called and the four boys that were sitting on the ground a few metres away next to one of the huge oaks turned their heads to look at Gerard. We reached them seconds later and a guy with long, black and dirty hair had stood up. His hair was seriously long, not just for a guy; it even went passed his shoulders.

“Ah, so this is the Frank you’ve been bragging about, hm?” he asked, smirking at Gerard as he looked at me.

“I wasn’t bragging,” Gerard mumbled, glancing awkwardly at me “But yes, this is Frank”

“Frankie” I corrected him, sighing.

“Sorry; Frankie. Frankie, this is Bert”

Bert made a girlish wave, grinning manically, and Gerard sighed.

“Please, behave…”

“I always do” Bert said innocently before turning around, facing the three other persons, still sitting on the ground, “Hey nimrods, wanna meet Gee-Gee’s new boyfriend?”

“Ooh!” one of the boys that were still sitting on the ground exclaimed said, jumping up and made a leap to reach Bert, almost knocking him down in the process of flinging his arms around Bert’s neck. “We should have boyfriends too!”

“F’course Tré” Bert said, patting the boy’s back, “But we’re not gay, remember?”

“I think they’re testing you…” he mumbled, ignoring the boys’ conversation. “Anyway” he said, now talking in a normal voice, “Those two calm, lovely ones over there are Mike and Billie”

“Hey” the guy with blonde, spiked hair said, smiling as he craned his neck to look at me, “I’m Mike”

“How come you’re just sitting there?” Gerard asked Mike and Billie suspiciously after giving Tré and Bert a quick glance where they stood, whispering.

“Tired” Billie, a guy with reddish brown hair and big, green eyes groaned, leaning his head against Mike’s shoulder, who pushed him away. “Were up all night… Drinking… Erhg, hang-over”

“Ah, lucky you then” Gerard said, smiling at me, “You only have to deal with two maniacs”

“Yay…” I mocked, “I think I understand why Mikey’s so anti your friends…”

“We heard that!” Bert called, “Gee, your boyfriend’s-“

“He has a name, Berty” Gerard laughed.

“Don’t call me Berty…” Bert said, raising his fist, looking very much like a cartoon figure as he did so, then turning to look at Billie. “Yo, Bill! I dare you to climb up that tree and jump down”

Billie grinned, his so called hang-over mysteriously gone as he bounced up from the ground and climbed up in the nearest tree.

“Shit, it’s pretty high up here” he exclaimed, although he was only about two metres up.

I looked at Gerard, who rolled his eyes.

“They’re stupid, I know… It’s just the game they have. One of them comes up with an idea, any idea, and then they dare each other to do it”

“O...kay” I said, understanding more and more why Mikey didn’t like these guys. I didn’t exactly have a problem with them, but of what I’ve seen; Mikey wasn’t really the type of person who’d want to be dared to climb up in a tree just for the sake of it.

A loud thump informed me that Billie had in fact jumped and he turned to Bert.

“Happy now, bitch? I think I broke my ankle”

“But you’re standing up” Bert laughed. They kept arguing with each other and Gerard took my hand in his, leading me over to where Mike and Tré were seated on the ground and we sat down next to them.

“You okay, Gee?” Mike asked, giving Gerard a concerned look. “You look pissed off”

“I just wished they could be normal for once…” Gerard said, pointing at Bert and Billie, who were now laughing their asses off over something. Mike smiled, and then, without any warning, yelled;

“Guys! Gerard wants you to calm the fuck down so you won’t embarrass him in front of-“

“That’s enough” Gerard laughed, putting his hand over Mike’s mouth, but I had a pretty good idea of who he didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of.

“I stopped listening at ‘Gerard wants you’” Bert laughed and Gerard gave him a pleading look. “Fine, I’ll calm down. If Bill does”

“You’re the one who’s winding me up, you idiot” Billie giggled, but the both of them sat down on the ground and finally they were all calm. Maybe a bit too calm to actually be serious.

“Wow Gerard, this is so much fun…” Bert moaned, then his bored face burst out into a grin. “Gee, I dare you to-“

“You do not dare me to do anything today!”

“You cannot stop the daring” Bert said, then went silent as if the sentence had confused him before continuing, “I dare you to… uh… tell us how many guys you’ve fucked”

“Three thousand and one” Gerard smirked, “Happy?”

“Very…”

“You know what we should do?” Billie asked, and got some bored ‘no’s in response. “We should come up with something to do”

“I declare you a genius, Billie Joe” Tré smirked

“Your name’s Billie Joe?” I asked. It was the first time I’d spoken up and they all looked at me.

“Ooh, he talks!” Bert smiled.

“Shut up…”

“Ooh, he can insult people!”

“Don’t tease the newbie” Tré scolded, smacking the back of Bert’s head with his hand.

“Hey, hey, hey, you promised to calm down!” Gerard sighed.

“Yeah, but what’s the point? Isn’t it better if your boyf- Frankie gets to see our real sides, hm?”

“Not really” Gerard responded.

“Why don’t we let him choose? Frankie, do you find us scary?” Bert asked and I grinned.

“No comment”

“See? He loves us Gee-Gee!” Tré laughed, leaning forward and ruffled up my hair, but with a quick movement, I slapped his hand away.

“You know what we should do?” Billie asked again and Bert rolled his eyes.

“Come up with something to do?”

“No, I’ve already done that” Billie said evasively, fiddling with his belt, “We should just sit and hang out here all day”

“I thought that was what we were gonna do anyway” Gerard said, and that was what we did. The first half an hour was pretty tough, but as the conversation went on, I found myself getting more and more relaxed around them. Mikey couldn’t have stayed that long, because when they all calmed down, they were… calm. It didn’t take me long to find out all of their personalities as we talked and laughed, and safe to say; Bert, Billie and Tré were the weird ones. Mike and Gerard were quieter, not shy, but calmer and obviously the ones who kept the rest out of jail. Or maybe Gerard was wild too… I didn’t know yet, he might just have been calm because I was there.
You survived” Gerard stated with a smile as we were walking back home. The sun was still standing high on the sky but I knew it must be around dinner time since we spent hours on the schoolyard.

“They weren’t that bad” I shrugged.

“Dude, Bert nearly made out with you… and you’re calling them ‘not that bad’?”

“Oh, yeah thanks for saving me from that” I laughed, “But no, seriously, they’re cool”

“Great” he said, exhaling as if he was relieved. We reached our street and just as I was gonna say good bye to him, I realized it wasn’t that late and that we didn’t have to separate just yet.

“Hey, Gerard?” I asked, stopping him when we were almost outside his house. He turned to me, still with one hand linked with mine, smiling.

“Yeah?”

“I was just wondering… you know, if… uhm, if you’d like to come over to my house?”

“Like, now?”

“Yes, like know” I grinned, “what do you think?”

“I’m thinking that I should probably ask my mom first since she’s probably expecting me for dinner, but that sounds too lame so yeah, I’ll come with you” he said, smiling and I returned it, thinking of how much I liked that hoarsely, slightly nasally tone in his voice.

“Ah, Gerard! You’re home” Mr. Way said behind us as he stepped out of the front door of his house, holding a bag of trash in his left hand. “Grandma’s here, she won’t stop asking for you”

“Oh” Gerard responded and I couldn’t help feeling kinda happy when I saw his disappointed face. “Tell her I’ll be right there”

His father nodded, throwing the bag in the trashcan and went back inside, and as soon as he was gone, Gerard turned to face me.

“Sorry, I have to go”

“S’okay” I smiled, my eyes falling to look at his chest for a second since he was looking at me rather intently. “What?”

He leaned forward, tilting his head to the left and placed his lips softly against mine. It was deeper than just a simple peck, but yet not a full kiss. Since his head was cocked to the side, he nearly made me separate my lips as he pressed his own together, but before I even could ask myself whether I wanted to turn it into something deeper, he pulled away.

“Bye” he said softly, letting go of my hand and then he was gone.

I blinked a few times, trying to comprehend what just happened, and as I did, my face broke out into a smile. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the most passionate make out session ever, but hey…

As I walked home, I couldn’t help running my tongue over my lips. They weren’t wet… Had Gerard’s lips been wet? Well, apparently not. That means he didn’t prepare himself before, which also means he didn’t plan on doing it… well, what-freakin’-ever, I just got kissed.

*

Soon enough, school started. It wasn’t bad… not bad at all actually. At my old school, I hadn’t been cool nor a nerd, just simply an outsider; along with my friends. Here, I was pretty cool since I hung out with kids a grade above mine. A lot of people knew about me dating Gerard and surprisingly, they didn’t give a damn about it, which I was more than grateful for. Not that they were totally okay with it. We got our share of remarks, but it never got out of hand.

In class, I almost always sat with Mikey; he was the only one I knew, but on breaks, I hung out with Gerard and the guys. Mikey never wanted to come, although I asked him every time. Instead, he went to sit in the corridors with his back leaned to the wall, reading.

So the first week at school flew by and as Friday came, I was pretty pleased. The lessons weren’t exactly fun, but sometimes interesting, mostly because the teachers here actually seemed to like, and believe in, what they taught; something I thought was long forgotten.

“Hey” Gerard said as he sneaked up behind me as I was standing at my locker, dragging my bag out of the cramped area.

“Hey” I responded, turning around after I’d closed the door.

“So… How was your first week?” he asked, holding out his hand for me to take it, and I did. We were past that stage of not being sure of how to approach each other and were acting more and more natural.

“Fun” I shrugged, giggling as I saw his mocked, exaggerative shocked face.

“You’re hanging out with Mikey way too much, man. You’re turning into a geek!”

“Am not!” I laughed, hoisting my school bag further up on my shoulder when we exited the school. “When are they guys showing up?”

“Bert’s getting his stuff, Mike’s off in ten minutes and I heard Bill got a detention so he’ll walk home alone. Where’s Mikey?”

“Oh, he uh…” I started. Mikey said he was gonna stay and talk to our English teacher after class, but I wasn’t sure I should tell Gerard that since he really didn’t have any high thoughts about his younger brother, “I don’t know, he didn’t tell me”

“How come you’re always the first ones out?” I heard Bert call from behind us.

“Dunno” Gerard replied lamely. “Is Mike coming?”

“In a second” Bert responded and soon enough, Mike emerged out of the school. “Hey Mikes, where’s Billie?”

“He got himself a triple detention” Mike smirked, running a hand through his short hair and tilting his head back a little to let the sun warm up his face.

“Triple? Well that’s fucking amazing… Sometimes I wish he wasn’t such a rebel, he would have a lot more time hanging out with us if he’d just shut up every ones in awhile” Gerard sighed, “How did he get detention this time?”

The four of us had slowly started walking.

“Uhm… He had a wild debate with our music teacher…. and you all know that Bill has got strong opinions… so when the teacher didn’t budge, he called him a motherfucking hypocrite or something like that. I wasn’t really listening, I was laughing”

“Did he get a triple detention just because of that?” I laughed, admiring Billie’s courage.

“Nah, then the teacher said something like ‘repeat that, if you dare’ and uh, Billie dared. Three times, actually”


We reached my house, and just as I was gonna say good bye, Gerard spoke up.

“Look, no one’s home at my place and I don’t have any keys, so uhm, can I come with you?” I could clearly hear Bert and Mike making some kissing sounds were they stood behind Gerard.

I nodded, almost shyly and before Mike and Bert could make a comment, Gerard and I had waved good bye to them and taking off into my house. Well inside, I found mom sitting in the living room, curled up on the couch with Ben and Jerry ice cream in her lap, watching a movie.

“You upset or something?” I asked as Gerard and I approached her and she cocked her head to the left, looking at me.

“Nah, why?” she asked, but then realized what I was talking about “Oh, this…” she looked down at the ice cream as if she’d never seen it before, “I’m going to the gym tomorrow so I thought I deserved this”

Gerard laughed but I just sighed, shaking my head as mom grinned sheepishly, “Do we have anything to eat?”

“Ice cream” mom suggested, turning her eyes back to the tv and dug the spoon deep into the bucket of ice cream to spoon up a mouthful of it, shoving it into her mouth.

“Do we have something with less sugar?”

“Old pizza” she said, her voice evasive and I could clearly see she had lost interest in the matter.

“Want some old pizza?” I smiled sheepishly at Gerard, who responded with a ‘sure’ and we went into the kitchen. I walked up to the fridge, taking out the carton with pizza and handed it to Gerard who stood behind me, who passed it over to the table.

“So… we have Coke Zero and Diet Coke, what do you want?”

“Diet” he responded and I took out two Diet Cokes, handed them to him and he put them on the table as well. “Is your class going to the Museum this Tuesday?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Just wondering. I think the whole school’s going there”

“Ah… so you want me and Mikey to sneak away from our group to join yours?” I grinned, taking a bite from the vegetarian pizza.

“Mikey can do whatever he wants, it was you I meant”

I laughed; “Alright, I think I can manage to escape… Mrs. Torn is basically blind anyway”

*

“Wanna go up to my room?” I asked as we’d finished eating and were now kinda lost in what to say, “It’s kinda messy but since Linda’s downstairs…”

“D’you have your own room?”

“Uh, no. I share with Linda” I said, rolling my eyes at his shocked face, “I’m kidding! Come on”

He followed me up the stairs, copying me as I turned left. Mom and I had managed to pack up and make the house liveable in the month that had passed since we moved here, as well as painting the walls in my room in a deep, red colour.

“God, your room’s so much cooler than mine!” Gerard exclaimed as soon as we entered it, “And you have a guitar!”

“You play?”

“Pff, no. But guitarists are cool” he laughed, “Can I pick it up?”

“Of course not, it’s contagious”

He seemed to get the joke, because he picked it up anyway, but he didn’t position it across his stomach, instead he handed it to me.

“Play something”

“Nah… I haven’t played since I moved here so I have to tune it and shit”

“Oh” he responded, putting it down to rest against the amp and turned away from it, sitting down on the edge of my bed. I joined him, although sitting further in, leaning my back against the wall.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked, turning his head to look back at me. I nodded, making a gesture for him to come closer and he did, now sitting next to me in the same position. “Does your dad work a lot or something?”

“My dad?” I questioned, “I don’t have a dad”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. I just don’t have one”

“Everyone has one…” he said, smiling as I was stupid. His tone was making me slightly annoyed, but decided not to show it.

“Not me. There is a person that made Linda pregnant… But he’s not here, so he’s not my dad”

Gerard seemed to miss the logic behind this, since his face turned into a confused look.

“So where is he?”

“I don’t know”

“You’re not gonna explain anything to me, are you?”

“Not really” I answered shortly and the room fell silent for a moment.

“I’m sorry if-“

“No, it’s okay; I don’t mind talking about it… It’s just… It kinda reminds me about my step-father and stuff”

“What about him?”

“Now that is something I don’t wanna talk about” I said, the wound of losing Stephen still fresh. It was rather painful to talk about it to someone that hadn’t known him.

He nodded, his eyes spying my walls; “Hey, you’re into The Clash”

I could tell by his nervous voice that he was just saying it to find a new subject to talk about, but welcomed it.

“Yeah, they’re the best punk band… Or well, except for Ramones”

“Nah, Clash’s better. Clash had more variety in their songs”

“Maybe, but I like the simple lyrics in the Ramones’ songs… Now, “Hey little girl; I wanna be your boyfriend. Sweet little girl; I wanna be your boyfriend” there’s two sentences you don’t need to analyze!”

He laughed and we continued out conversation until we simply agreed that Sex Pistols are at least is the worst of the three.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked, watching his lips curl up in a smile as he nodded. I got a strong urge to peck his lips, but wouldn’t that look really… stupid? I shrugged it off.

“Sure…”

“You told me you asked a lot of guys out, remember?”

“Yeah?” he asked, cocking his head to the side slightly as his index finger started to follow the pattern of the cover of my bed. His hand occasionally drew closer to mine and I found myself get hypnotized by it.

“Uh, yeah, so uh… do you still do that?” I was kinda worried about the answer. I didn’t know anything about dating rules; hell, I didn’t care about them, but if he was dating other guys, and me, it’d just be… weird.

“Uhm, not since… not since we got a little more serious” he responded, looking at his own hand, stopping it from moving and instead placed it on top of mine.

“Serious?” I smiled, flipping my hand over so my palm was against his instead of the sheet. I hardly doubted our relationship could be classed as “serious”…

“Yeah, I mean, I can do this now” he leaned forward and I watched him close his eyes, pecking my lips quickly. It went so fast, too fast; so as he slowly pulled his head back to sit back next to me, I leaned forward, pressing my lips against his. He stopped moving backwards and after a second, the hand that was on top of mine moved away and he placed it to the right of my hip on the bed for support.

Suddenly, something wet and warm touched my bottom lip, catching me off guard and I furrowed my eyebrows before realizing it was his tongue. So what the fuck am I supposed to do now?

But obviously, I can’t just let him lick my lips… Not really sure of what was going on, I separated my lips slightly and he put more pressure against them, before I knew it, his tongue was touching mine. God, this is so weird… It felt odd, like it wasn’t even me sitting in that bed with someone else’s tongue in my mouth, more like I was watching myself instead of being myself, but yet nice. Like, soft and warm.

Still not exactly knowing what to do, I insecurely separated my lips further, also allowing my tongue to press back against his. He leaned closer, pressing my back against the wall. Since he had been sitting next to me, he was now bent twisted over me with his hands on each side of me in a quite uncomfortable position, but he made no signs of ending the kiss.

I gently craned my head down, successfully getting our lips separated without making it seem like I was uncomfortable in the situation or freaked out and he gave me a small smile, his head and eyes dropping to look at my lips for a second before pulling away completely. I smiled back, not knowing what to say or do, but frankly, I enjoyed the silence…

“Alright, awkward moment!” Gerard exclaimed with a slight tone of amusement and before I knew it, he was sitting on top of me, pinning down my arms to the bed. I raised my eyebrow, looking into his foggy hazel eyes and watching the small wrinkles appear under his eyes as he smiled.

“You killed the moment”
I jumped out of the bus after Mikey, the sun immediately hitting me and making me hot in my oversized hoodie and black jeans. I stepped aside to let the rest of my classmates come out of the bus and we all gathered in front of our teachers.

Like kindergarten all over again… My class followed our home teacher Mrs. Torn, me and Mikey walking quietly at each other’s side- a contrast to the horde of wild, laughing teenagers that surrounded us- up the big stone stairs and through a wooden door. The visit to the museum was something that Newark High did yearly, it was a way of bringing the class closer together and at the same time learn about the city’s history… with simple words; a day when you didn’t have to do anything.

“Alright ladies, please be quiet and let me talk” Mrs. Torn said over the mass of babbling youths, indicating on some noisy girls who were laughing at some unknown subject. “You will choose a supervisor from the 11th grade that you will stick to for the whole day, who will look after you and make sure you’ll be alright”

“Do they think we’re six?” I whispered to Mikey who smiled, shaking his head.

“It’s so we won’t like… break anything. They think the sophomore’s are so much more mature than us. And just so you know, I’m taking Gerard”

“Dude, that’s evil”

“Sorry, but there’s no way I’ll have Bert McCracken to look after me for a whole day” he said, smiling as he walked off to Gerard, who put an arm around Mikey’s neck. Not in a nice way though, more in a wrestling-move-kind of way. I looked at the rest of the sophomore’s; most of them were already taken. Bert had a blonde girl who was desperately trying to flirt with him, but he simply pulled up his Ipod and started lip-syncing to it, not paying her any attention. Mike and Tré were also taken, and I sighed, wondering if I could possibly share ‘supervisor’ with Mikey since I really didn’t wanna have a stranger to hang out with.

Suddenly someone’s hands were put in front of my eyes from behind. At first I though it was Gerard, but realized he had been a few metres away from me when I saw him two seconds ago. Wait… If it’s not Gerard, Bert, Tré or Mike, it’s…

“Hey Billie”

Billie laughed, removing his hands from my eyes and stepped out from behind me.

“Care to be my partner today?” he asked.

“Well, everyone else is taken…”

He gave me a sarcastic smile.

“Come on, we need to go” he said, giving me a gentle push towards the counters where one of the teachers were trying to explain that they should get a discount since we’re so many. We slipped past the marble counter like the rest had done, leaving the teacher alone to her struggle.

“Can’t we walk with the guys?” I asked, glancing at my outspreaded friends. Gerard and Mikey were looking at a painting with bored expressions, Bert still listening to his Ipod and Tré and Mike had escaped their partners and were now standing and talking menially with each other.

“What did you think? That we had to ignore the rest of our classmates? This is a day when we’re supposed to-“ he noticed my blank expression and dropped his haughty tone, responding with a low “Yes”

We started walking towards Mike and Tré since Gerard and Mikey were nowhere to be seen at the moment and Bert had stopped tormenting the blonde girl by ignoring her and were now instead flirting wildly.

“Wanna go and look at some old junk for the third time in a row?” Mike asked in an exaggeratedly hyper voice, clapping his hands together in a girlish way before his face fell and he showed his true one, which showed boredom. I was about to answer when suddenly, for the second time today, someone covered my eyes from behind and I immediately recognized Gerard’s cologne.

“Hi- Oh…” I said, starting out normal but as I felt something soft, wet, warm- I could go on- touch my neck, I let out an involuntary moan. Gerard laughed from behind and the guys in front of me stared at me, wild-eyed. Now that wasn’t embarrassing…

“Someone likes Gee-Gee’s lips…” Tré taunted and I moaned again, this time not in a sexual way, but in a way of hopelessness. They wouldn’t let this pass… I slightly turned around to face Gerard, who was smiling.

“Did you really have to do that?”

“How could I’ve known you’d be all… horny about it” he grinned, clearly satisfied with the response his neck-kissing had gotten.

“You just caught me off guard, that’s all…” I said in a weak attempt to make myself less embarrassed, turning around with my back against Gerard, who was still standing pretty close to me, with one hand on my shoulder. “Let’s show the newbie around, yeah?” They all gave me some weird looks.

“Do you really wanna look at the old crap?” Billie asked with a smirk, and I furrowed my eyebrows. We were at a museum… and we would be here the whole day, so why not just walk around?

“What are we gonna do if we don’t?”

“Same as everyone else. Just… hang out. And of course avoid the teachers” Mike explained.

“So you guys have never seen the stuff in here?” I asked, gesturing with my hand at the countless showcases made out of glass around us. I’m not a geek or anything… I don’t really care about history, but since it was free and all, I could might as well walk around for a bit. Not the whole day of course, hanging out with the guys can be a lot of fun, but since it’s only 9 in the morning and we’re gonna stay here till 3, so why not?

“F’course we have… Our first year, but after that, we’ve just… skipped it”

I looked at them, and my eyes met with Mikeys. He was standing to Gerard’s left, staring daggers at me. Of course… He didn’t want to hang out with Gerard’s friends. Mikey would much rather walk around so he could avoid them.

“But this is my first year here… so I think I deserve a quick tour” I smiled. I could see Bert was about to protest, but Gerard pushed me forward, telling them,

“What he wants goes”.

Mike and Bert moaned in unison, leaning on each other for a second before obeying, following the rest of us that had started walking. It seemed as they had been telling the truth; no one actually walked around in the museum. Kids could be seen sitting on benches that had been set up along the white, grey and golden marble walls or just simply sitting on the floor with their friends while the teachers ran around, trying to get them up on their feet.

A teacher walked by us, giving us an improving nod and then shoving a paper in Tré’s hands.

“Write your names so I know you’re here” she said in a bored voice, glaring at the kids sitting on the benches. Tré quickly wrote his name- much to the teacher’s dismay, his nickname- and passed it on to the rest of us. We wrote our names after him. I smirked as I saw Billie’s name, reminding myself to taunt him about it as soon as the teacher was gone. And oh, I did.

“You spell your name with ‘ie’?” I asked and couldn’t stop a huge grin to spread over my lips.

“Yeh, why?” he asked, looking at something that looked like a shark’s tooth in a showcase. He read the small note that was in the corner of the glass; the information about the tooth, but didn’t seem too impressed as he rolled his eyes at it.

“Nothing…” I said slyly, “But you know, that’s how girls spell it”

Although I doubted any of the guys actually understood what I meant by that, they started laughing as Billie raised his eyebrow at me.

“Huh?”

“Yeah, if it’s a boy, you spell it with a ‘y’… and if it’s a girl whose name’s Billie, you spell it with ‘ie’”

He frowned at this for a second before smiling, pumping his fist in the air.

“Then I don’t need to change my name when I turn into a transvestite!”

I laughed, not really knowing whether he was serious or not, but decided not to ask and instead pointed at a vault you could go through to get to another room.

“What’s in there?”

“War stuff”

“Well, come on then!” I said, taking Gerard’s hand and dragging in after me, knowing that the rest would follow if just Gerard came.

“Do you like war?” Gerard asked, sounding surprised and a bit disappointed.

“Depends”

“On…?”

“Which war it is” I explained absentmindedly as I scanned the pedestals that had either old helmets, clothes or weapons to bear up. “Like… World War II”

“Please tell me you didn’t like World War II”

I turned my head away from some old bullets and looked at his face; he seemed to be fairly pissed off.

“Just so you know, Bert’s Jewish” he added, his voice low and warningly and that’s when it dawned on me.

“Oh… You think I… I don’t like wars, and I’m so not on Hitler’s side, I just think it’s… interesting”

“Interesting that he slaughtered-“

“No” I interrupted him as his voice was still pretty cold, “I find it interesting because of how oblivious the rest of the world was. I’m not a Nazi!”

“Okay, fine, I just thought that was what you meant…”

“Yeah well, you didn’t let me explain” I said, shrugging and turning to watch the bullets again.

He smiled, cocking his head to the side; “You know, I was so close from beating you up”

“Sure you were…” I laughed, accepting the hand that he was now holding out as I saw it, and he dragged me into him, placing both of his arms to hang loosely around my neck.

“Mhm. No one fucks with my Berty” he said, smiling as he noticed how hypnotized I was by his lips.

“Come on, I wanna see the rest of the stuff” I said, slipping away from him and instead placed my arm around the small of his back, tangling my index finger in the belt-loop.

“Meh, fine” he sighed. I smiled; I knew how he’d enjoy just hanging out with the guys instead of walking around. Speaking of the guys… Gerard was the only one that had fulfilled his promise of showing me around, the rest of them were just sitting on the benches and talking. Mikey was sitting on the floor a couple of metres away from them, listening to what seemed to be Bert’s Ipod.

“Hey!” Gerard called at them as he saw what they were doing, “Get up, I told you we’re showing Frank around!”

“We were up, but then you two seemed to be fighting, so we sat down… You know, so we wouldn’t be in the way” Tré said, smiling innocently as that was his only intentions.

“We weren’t fighting… Anyway, get up! We can take it easy after lunch, alright?” They obeyed, all of them rising from where they sat.
Bert was the last one, moaning out some random “But my back hurts” or “I’m not wearing my walking-shoes” and Gerard shot him a deathglare.

“We really don’t have to walk around” I whispered to Gerard, “I mean, it’s just a museum…”

“Shh, I wanna torment them”

I laughed, once again putting my arm around his waist. Gerard smiled, doing the same with me and leaning towards me, tickling my ear with his nose. We walked on, the guys in front of me and Gerard, who were walking next to me. Once again, I noticed how his hips were swaying when he walked, like a bell.

“Ow… Ow… My back hurts…” Bert whimpered from where he walked in front of us and without warning, Gerard had taken a leap forward and jumped up on Bert’s back. Bert yelled out a ‘fuck!’ in surprise, but as he realized Gerard wasn’t out to kill him, he started laughing. He put his arms under Gerard’s thighs, hauling him further up on his back and Gerard laughed.

“You guys are so gay…” Mike laughed as Gerard bent down and whispered something in Bert’s ear.

“F’course we are, Gee’s a fag enough for the two of us” Bert retorted, making a clumsy twirl, almost knocking down some probably priceless items from a shelf. “Come on Frankie, spank his booty!”

I laughed and shook my head at their antics and suddenly noticed Mikey walking behind me. He was looking at Bert with a quite bored and disproving face, which I thought was pretty unnecessary… Aren’t they allowed to mess around?

“Sorry Gee-Gee, he does not want to spank your booty”

Gerard laughed, “Whatever, Berty. Get off of me or I’ll lick your ear”

“Was that supposed to be a threat?”

“Just let me down!”

Bert dropped Gerard with a sudden movement, almost sending Gerard to the floor, but after a few stumbling steps, he had regained his balance.

“You okay, Mikes?” he asked as he saw his younger brother watch some random thing in a show-case. Mikey took out on of the earphones from his ear and nodded.

“I’m just wondering what the hell this was used for…” he pointed at the show-case he’d been watching.

“Hey, did you steal my Ipod?” Bert exclaimed, looking at the Ipod in Mikey’s hand with a confused look. Mikey stared at him with a blank expression, not answering for at least three seconds as if really considering whether to answer the idiot or not.

“You gave it to me”

“Now, why would I do that?”

Since it wasn’t really up to Mikey to answer that question, he didn’t, and Bert shook his head at this.

“Anyway… Can I get it back?”

Mikey shrugged, handing the Ipod back to its rightful owner and as he had done so, he turned his back to Bert and once again looked at the show-case.

“Didn’t even say thanks…” Bert mouthed to Gerard, who pinched his cheek, grinning madly.

“He said thanks when you gave it to him… God, sometimes you’re so stupid, I just wanna kiss you”

“Erm… Boyfriend at three o’clock, Gee-Gee” Bert laughed, mentioning at me and Gerard rolled his eyes.

“I don’t fall for stupid guys anyway…”

“No, you fall for Nazi’s” Bert said, smirking at my confused look as I realized Gerard must’ve told him about what I had said before, “Oh yes, he told me…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m a Nazi…“ I said, smiling as Gerard pulled me into his arms, chest to chest.

“If you’re gonna be all cuddly, I’m gonna go and join mah’ nimrods at that bench…” Bert moaned, “Or Little Miss Sunshine over there” I just assumed that he was talking about Mikey, because all I could see at the moment was Gerard’s hair since my head was on his shoulder. “Or I’ll-“

“Shut the fuck up, Jew”

“Ooh, the Nazi’s talking. I’m so telling your mommy about that”

I laughed, but fell silent as I felt Gerard kiss my neck again. This time I’d been more prepared for it, so I did no strange noises, but it still felt god damn good. It was pretty weird how natural it all felt; after mine and Gerard’s first date, everything had just been really smooth, I didn’t even have to ask myself whether I really wanted to continue dating him or not.

His hands that had been resting on my hips had slowly worked their way to the small of my back and were now gently massaging it, his fingertips pressing into my flesh. I moved my head up a little, placing my mouth just by his ear and allowed my mouth to open up so I could breathe on it. He shuddered slightly and moved his hands even lower, but I could clearly hear the wolf whistles from Tré so I whispered a quick ‘no’ and his hands returned to my back.

“Wanna go somewhere more private?”

“It’s a museum… There is no such thing as privacy”

“Bathrooms…”

“I’m not going to the bathrooms just to make out” I whispered back, rubbing his neck with my fingers to get him to lean closer so I could kiss him. He didn’t get the message though… I wanted to experience that feeling again, that feeling of not being myself, of just forgetting about the moment and, if only for a second, escape my mind.

“We can do more than make out”

“Like what?”

His hands once again ran lower, this time almost placing themselves on my back pockets. I grabbed his upper arm and forced it up.

“How cheap do you think I am?” I smirked.

“Apparently not as cheap as I thought”

I broke away, watching him with my left eyebrow raised and with a small smile playing on my lips and he smiled.

“I’m kidding, okay?” he laughed, leaning forward and kissed my lips quickly. Small, explosive tingles were sent from my lips, shooting straight to my chest and made my heart beat so much faster than before.

“You know what, screw the museum, let’s just… talk” I said, untangling my arms from him and lead him across the big room to sit down with the rest of our small gang. Mike, Billie, Tré and Bert had seated themselves on a bench, while Mikey had once again sat himself down on the floor, even if there was space for at least one more person on the bench.

“Move” Gerard demanded, waving for Bert, who was once again listening to his Ipod, to move closer to Mike. “Bert!”

Bert slowly looked up at him, cocking his head and pulled out one of the earphones, “What are you bitchin’ about?”

“Move…”

“Oh…” he said, moving to the right, allowing Gerard to sit down, who mentioned at me to sit next to him.

“Nah, it’s okay. I’ll just join your brother on the floor”…

… Three hours later, and all we had done was to be acting high as soon as someone walked by us, or just simply laughing at the random songs that were on Bert’s Ipod. Mikey had been sitting quietly next to me on the floor, although laughing sometimes, but in that case, very quietly and carefully, as if he was worried he wasn’t allowed to laugh.

“Mike, I dare you to ask Mrs. Fenny what her home number is” Tré exclaimed as Mrs. Fenny, Gerard and Bert’s home teacher, had walked by us for the third time. “We all know she has a crush on you anyway…”

“Pff, I wish…” Mike said with a mocked dreamily face and looked as Mrs. Fenny was scolding some students for trying to break down a locked door. “I’ll do it when she walks by again”

“What happens if you won’t do the dare you’re asked to do?” I asked, not really sure if I wanted to be a part of there game if there was no other options than simply doing what you’re told.

“Oh come on, we’re not that mean” Gerard laughed, “But sure… if you’re a pussy, there are exceptions”

“And they are?”

He looked slightly surprised for a second, as if he’d been sure the pussy-comment would be enough to make me stop asking, but then smiled; “Well… If you refuse, we’re allowed to write and draw stuff in your face and you have to walk around with it for a whole day in school”

“How lame…” I laughed and Gerard shrugged, picking his nails and then adding nonchalantly;

“Bert came up with the rules”

“Watch it, or I’ll exclude you from my private party…”

“Private party?” I asked and Bert looked at Gerard.

“You didn’t tell him?”

“Dude, he won’t come anyway”

“Come where?” I asked, and Bert responded with a simple;

“My parents are gone tonight”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, so I invited you guys over… well, Gerard was supposed to tell you, but I guess he just don’t want you there”

“You’re an ass, Berty” Gerard sighed, turning to me, “I just didn’t know if you wanted to come or not”

“Yeah well, it must’ve been pretty hard to now… Since you never asked him, asswipe!” Bert exclaimed and Gerard smacked him in the back of the head, sending Bert’s head to fly forward. “Dude, seriously… I’ll exclude you!”

Gerard closed his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath and gave Bert a deathglare before he looked at me.

“So… Do you wanna come?”

“Sure. I just have to ask Linda, but sure. How long will we be there?”

“Uhm… for about,” Bert started, then counted on his fingers, “Twelve hours”

“Huh?”

“It’s a sleep-over” Gerard explained, stopping Bert from confusing me further by putting his hand over his mouth. “Mikey, are you coming?”

“A sleep-over…? With you guys?” Mikey asked, his one eyebrow rose in a perfectly shaped arch and his eyes showed nothing but dull boredom. “Nah thanks”

[A/N; How's the new layout? Good/bad?]