AUTHOR'S NOTE: I’m going to warn you right now, this chapter is odd. Read at your own expense. And the only reason it’s divided into two parts is because I couldn’t give up the two different parts of the story, and the names that go along with them.

b.i.p.

CHAPTER EIGHT PART I: Chuck

School the next day would be utter torture but I still needed to face today.

Duke saw Seth off the premises. I watched from the comfort of my room, with Danny sitting on the sill beside me.

After he left through the gates, Ari and Cass joined us and I had to relay the horrific details of last night back to them. When Ari didn’t look surprised at my Secret Admirer being Seth, the other two verbally bashed her for the moment, and I could catch a breath.

I didn’t want to, but of course I was thinking about the kiss. Both the one on the lake court from all those years ago and the one from only 3 hours ago.

How could he like me? I couldn’t possibly like him. It just made me feel sick, thinking of him that way. Having absolutely no experience in this arena, I did my best at trying to imagine Seth the way he saw me. It didn’t work. A black-haired boy’s face kept popping into my vision.

“Piss off, Duke,” I growled, my face feeling hot and annoyed.

Apparently my sentiment distracted the others and I was forcefully thrown back into the story of my not-so-secret admirer, Seth Andrews.

There came a point in my tale, where I couldn’t talk anymore. I didn’t want to describe the kiss last night to them. It was something I was still coming to terms with, still in a state of shock and still hoping that none of this had never happened.

I told them all of that, and apparently, that was something normal.

Normal. I laughed internally at the word. If this was my first crack at being normal, the most I got from it was a fresh feeling of numbness.

XXX

So, Monday morning I woke up as usual. Kamryn ducked in, bright and early, to chuck a cup of…something over my head – water for her was just too kind. I was glad I’d decided to take a shower. She sneered at me and I blew her a kiss before thinking about it, and that was that.

There was toast waiting on the sink, peanut butter melting over the crusts and onto the plate. I vaguely registered the smell, but didn’t feel the need for food. Instead, I yanked the fridge doors open, grabbed all the carrots in there (armfuls, I’m telling you) and dumped them in a plastic bag to give to the next poor person I drove past.

At the last minute, I sculled a glass of orange juice and pinched the toast before I missed my opportunity.

The poor people were in hiding today, and I really didn’t think this carrot thing through properly. Instead of giving them to the poor, I sought out the person who had ruined my favorite vegetable.

I found him at my locker. “Seth, before I tell you to fuck off, here.” I shoved my plastic bag of carrots into his startled arms. Duke joined me then and it was a “get the fuck off of my property” moment.

I gave my best friend the biggest hug I’ve ever given him, probably equal to my Paul hugs, which are pretty damn huge.

He looked startled but then his hugged me back and I felt a tiny bit better.

Normally, we don’t to the contact thing, but I wasn’t in the right place.

“I still want to be his friend,” I whispered into Duke’s ear.

My voice sounded helpless. I hated myself right at that moment and that was what got me back to normal.

I shrugged out of the hug because, of course, I was totally and incomprehensibly sane at that moment. And the hugging thing, it didn’t work for me anymore.

“Alright, boo, I’m making some resolutions right here and now,” I told Duke. “This Seth thing, it’s not going to destroy me. It’s nothing compared to what I’ve been through. So, if it’s okay with the rest of the group, I’m cutting him loose. He can still hang. But he’s not my friend, as far as I’m concerned, I never knew him, and he never kissed me, not even once.”

Duke was nodding at me. I almost expected him to take notes.

“You’re supposed to reason with me, or egg me on,” I pointed out wryly.

“If this is how you need to work through something, I’m not going to stop you. I like you better when you’re not a complete mess.” He pinched my cheek and I slapped his hand away.

“Now, now, boy, control yourself. Nooo touchy! Now, unto French…”

XXX

Lunch, I must say, was weird. So he sat with us, and ate with us, and sometimes he even talked, but no one paid him any attention. I felt guilty and pleased at the same time. I hadn’t told them to be like this to them, and neither had Duke, but it was like a perfected version of the cold shoulder. It was so good, in fact, that I felt bad because I had not intended to destroy him. He hadn’t done anything worth being destroyed for.

So after he left, I gave them a talking to.

“Guys, I know you love me, and I know he did something really… Well, whatever. He was acting on his emotions, and he just made a few mistakes. And you don’t need to be horrible to him for it. You were supposed to be his friends!

“And you’re my friends, and I want you to not be soulless little creatures like my sister’s hangers on.”

XXX

“So, I’m really sorry Ainsley, but I forgot to give you your birthday present for a reason,” Duke was saying over the phone. I was following him in my red Mini over to his house after school.

“Oh yeah, and what would that be?” I asked, disbelieving. I was going over to hang out for a bit, but also, he was having issues with translating some dead French author’s biography into English. And anyway, I really needed his help with my physics homework. Collaboration is the way to do it, kids. You never go wrong.

“No really, I promise,” he insisted. We turned onto his street and I rolled my eyes at his massive mansion. It was such an obnoxious slab of architecture that I wanted to spit on it, just to bring it down a notch or four hundred.

“Did your parents hesitate at all over spending this much money on something this egregious?” I wondered aloud.

“Mom spent more on clothes alone, you know?” Duke replied. He pulled up in front of the big double doors.

“I know,” I sighed, parking behind him. I shut my phone, cutting the call off, and exited the car. “So, my present, boy. Where is it?” I demanded in a joking sense.

“Right this way, ma’am,” Duke said, extending an arm towards the double door and bowing very low at the same time.

I laughed “Come on.” I grabbed him by the ear and pulled him along behind me for a moment before letting go.

One of the oak doors swung open slowly and imperiously. The butler Adam watched us with bored, half-closed eyes as held the door open. He was middle-aged and plain-looking. The Macintoshes didn’t force their employees into hideous tuxes and maid outfits of black dresses and white lace crud, so Adam was wearing neatly pressed jeans and button down shirt.

I waved at Adam as we walked by. I get a kick out of waving at people who I know won’t wave back no matter how long they’ve known me.

“Okay, come here,” Duke said, grabbing both my shoulders and wheeling me through the first couple of halls. We took a flight of stairs down and then, we were going up again. It took us five minutes to get to the back of the house. Outside, he let go of my shoulders, wrapped one arm across my collar bone and use the other hand to cover my eyes.

I pursed my lips and walked when he said to, turned which way he said and stopped when were must’ve done at least a mile of walking.

“Stay there for a bit, and keep your eyes shut,” he ordered. I sat on the ground, cross-legged, and listened to his footfalls on the grass. The wind rippled through the grass and the cold bit at my arms. I curled my legs up towards my torso and crossed my arms stubbornly. This cold was not worth it.

Then I heard his returning footsteps and apparently a panting sound. Wait, were there…two pairs of feet? Three even. Better not be a horse with, I decided.

“You can open them now,” he said.

All I saw was black hair- No. Black fur and a bright pink tongue coming right for me.

“Oh no you didn’t,” I yelled as the dog tackled me.

We wrestled, the dog and I, for a bit. I could feel Duke watching me but I was having too much fun with the dog to care.

“I love you so much,” I told him as we walked back towards his house.

“Thanks, boo, I love you too,” Duke said, smiling.

“Not you, dolt, this one here. Chuck.”

“Chuck?”

“Chuck. He is most definitely Chuck.”

XXX

PART II: Of Horror Flicks with Unlikely Chicks

So, yup, my fan-fucking-tastic status as Mr. Popularity’s best-fucking-friend gives me the fucking privilege of a superbly motivating social life, i.e.: I’M GOING TO THE MOVIES, BITCHES!!!

Oh yeah, I’m incredibly excited about it as well.

NOT.

Usually, I like going to the movies with just me and Duke and the boys or Danny and Cass and Ari, but today it’s everyone who thinks they have the closest smidgen of something going for them, which is where Duke’s dare comes in. ‘Course, I haven’t told anyone about that yet (except for Paul right after everyone left that stupid birthday party. God, that was a bust).

Anyway, the dare. Cue flashback:

I was minding my own business, nursing my ice-pack-covered fist in the valley between my thighs and torso, when Duke walked over. I smiled up at him, grateful for his support after the whole I-just-punched-the-evil-party-crashing-jock-in-the-nose thing. The boy stooped down to say “I figured out your dare” just quietly enough that only I could hear him.

He lent against the wall and then slid down it to sit next to me while I felt my heart wrench itself down a couple of kilometers. All my blood followed it and you could safely say my face was paler than snow.

“Ah- uh huh-” I stuttered.

Duke reached one hand over to my jaw line and pulled my ear close to his lips. I could feel his breath tickling the sensitive patch of skin below my lobe as he whispered my year-long fate.

And it wasn’t the dare itself that nearly made me to faint. It was the fluttering in my stomach and my increased heart rate. When you tell me where the fuck that came from, I’ll give the next Nobel Prize because it sure as hell had nothing to do with nerves.

“You have to wear girly stuff, like something pink, every day until Christmas. Including every major event I chose, from the Winter Dance to some random little occasion like pizza at Mario’s, a trip to the movies, or the next house party someone throws.”

XXX

Don’t you just love how he slung the movies example in the middle of it all? Oh the irony.

So yes, here I am being pampered by my Millie’s Department Store employee discount and my two best girlfriends. Kill me now.

“Okay, you can be all smartarsey about it and wear pink studs in your ears, like you have been all week…” Danny said, staring into space. Cassie was being tormented by her way-too-glam-for-her-age mom (a single conversation is antagonizing enough to one’s sanity) a couple of yards away and couldn’t help with my own torturing for the moment.

I flicked through the nearest rack and pulled out a hideous pink turtleneck sweater. “Why did we start the dare thing, Danny?” I whined. “Why did I start something that would lead to my best friend using this one color against me?”

“Temporary fit of insanity?” she supplied absently.

I sat on an ugly poof and flipped miserably through my selection of pink clothing choices for a few moments, right up until Danny’s head snapped and she looked incredibly pleased with herself. “I’ve got it,” she exclaimed, just to clarify the fact that she’d had, potentially, one of the worst ideas in the history of worst ideas.

XXX

“Ugh!”

“Oh, stop fidgeting. Your skin will just go red and then you’ll look like Santa Claus,” Danny laughed and slapped hands with Cassie while she was driving. “Get me, cracking jokes left right and center.”

“Shuddup,” I said haughtily from the backseat, crossing my arms and looking out the window.

XXX

Duke was standing outside the cinema with Jamie and the others, moodily selecting songs from his iPod and then switching them after 10 seconds of intro. He was getting impatient. He knew Ainsley was always late, and Danny and Cass never really had much of a positive effect on that either, but he wanted to see how the dare would turn out.

“Whoa,” Jamie breathed. There was a collective echo of much the same sentiment. Then an expectant silence.

Duke responded defensively, feeling the tension. “What?” He looked up and felt his jaw hit the ground. “Okay, whoa.”

Vince elbowed Jamie repeatedly as though he kept forgetting that he’d already elbowed him, still staring.

“Ow, ow, OW! What?”

Vince grinned from ear to ear. “Dude, I know you think Kamryn is hot and all, but this time you’re on to something.”

“Hey, Kamryn is hot,” Jamie protested three-quarter-heartedly.

The boys realized that Duke was still staring, and not in the normal, Duke-checking-out-another-chick way. They exchanged knowing looks and shuffled away from him ever so slightly.

He continued to stare, drinking it all in. Her ensemble was really simple; red shorts, tight white top, and a little black mini-jacket. The knee-high socks were kinda weird, but in a good way. But no matter how odd the socks were, her clothes showed off her boobs and her long tanned legs. Definite plus side.

Duke remembered back to the days when her mother would force her into dresses with pink flowers on them. He’d always thought she’d looked wonderful, no matter what she thought of the horror of dresses. But now that she was halfway closer to dressing like the rest of the female race, the effect was just amazing.

XXX

I hadn’t seen them see me. I didn’t see their shock; they managed to clean it from their faces before I even noticed they were there. I was busy.

“Oh, hey! Hey!” Cassie got really excited and ran over to them. I was concentrating on not scratching my butt in public because that would show even more skin than I was already showing. In other words, I was concentrating really hard.

“Hey babe.” Vince slid his arm around my shoulders and leered at me. I guess he was trying to look sexually appealing but I think he failed.

“Nice try, kiddo, but I’m kinda concentrating right now.” I pushed him away gently but firmly.

“Couldn’t have hurt,” he said through his teeth, openly staring as I walked in front of him.

I really wanted to be like, “Okay, what the hell is the big deal? I wear shorts every day. Where’s the difference now?” But even I knew this was different to every other day of my life, except for that photographic proof on my desk from a million years ago, when my mom was still alive.

I sauntered over to Duke, and trailed my fingers playfully across his shoulder and down his arm. “Girly enough for you, Dukey-poo?” I was vaguely conscious that our strictly platonic relationship had never reach proportions this epidemic before, but taking it all in stride just the same.

Duke’s face was carefully blank. He sniffed like the spoilt brat he was, “It’ll do for today, but you know Jamie’s Halloween gig is coming up next week. I’m expecting more than red shorts, Anus. And where’s my pink?”

Finally, he asks.

“Well, pink earrings enough for you, bub?” I gestured at a gigantic pink Swarovski crystal stud in my ear lobe.

He pretended to consider. “Nah, I’m afraid it doesn’t quite cut it.”

“Good thing we had that backup plan,” I heard Cassie mutter to Danny.

Though it was for our three pairs of ears alone, Jamie looked interested. “What backup plan?”

“Fine, you can see the pink!” I said, turning around and pulling the waistband of my shorts back for a split second.

“Nup,” Duke drawled, “didn’t catch that. Why are you hiding it anyway?” He pawed at my neck with one hand, and for a second I felt his breath tickle the back of the ear I had so recently gestured at. I fought the urge to shiver, then tried not to drop to the ground in convulsions caused by the possibility of Duke making me shiver. Then his entire presence was gone and I remembered what I’d been doing before I’d gotten so distracted.

“Ugh!” I rolled my eyes and hooked my thumbs in the waistband, flipping it down so he could see the top of my lacy pink underwear. Totally out of character, I know. But I work in the lingerie department, people, employee discount. I’m a cheap-ass through and through despite my expendable…expenses. And Dan and Cass had promised free coffees for a month if I pulled this off, and I like coffee. A lot. “Because it’s pink, you dolt!”

“So what? Pink’s just a color.” He seemed like he was going to go on, but instead I felt him look even closer and I covered up quick smart, turning around and tapping him on the cheek sharply.

“Yeah, well, you know me. That’s why you chose it. Because I hate- Neigh, I loathe it.” Some best friend he was turning out to be – fifteen years after bonding in a sandpit and I still hadn’t come to my senses and dropped his sorry arse.

I stomped off to the ticket box and called over my shoulder “I’m so picking the movie.”

My eyes trailed over the board, searching for some payback. After deep consideration, I grinned a maniacal sneer of vengeance – one I’ve been practicing in the mirror and has proven really successful at giving people the willies – and laughed evilly – something I’ve never needed to practice, listen to my Dad after a few drinks and you’ll get my drift.

Jamie came up behind me. “If I didn’t know better, I’d be scared, but you’re not brightest cookie in the tin, so I’m not.” I elbowed him. “Much,” he muttered reluctantly.

“Don’t worry, Jay, this wasn’t your dare. You didn’t humiliate me, so I’m not making you pay for it.”

“Ooh, sounds ominous,” Duke drawled, coming up behind me. I could just feel his lecherous little eyes raking through my shorts and seeing my freaking underwear in his head. This was the worst idea I’d ever had. Scratch that, I didn’t come up with it. This was the worst idea I’d ever complied to. I formulated a plan for revenge in my head that started with Duke and ended with Duke but included a lot of evil things to Danny and Cassie in between.

“‘Ominous’ this, barbarian,” I snapped, pulling out my Visa card. “One ticket to Disturbia.” I waved the card in the fourteen-year-old cinema kid’s pimply face somewhat annoyingly.

“And that was supposed to be scary,” Jamie muttered disbelievingly as he bought his and my sister’s tickets.

I watched Duke carefully as he scoffed and purchased his own ticket. He seemed confident. I knew better.

You know how boys are supposed to be all tough and stuff, and go completely nuts after horror, thriller, slasher – all of the ‘ers – movies? Well, Duke, not so much. He likes the warm fuzzies like Legally Blonde, where the only violence is girls bitch-slapping each other. Watching him writhe while Shia Labouef saved the world one evil, plotting, murdering neighbor at a time would be like the perfect prelude to ultimate vengeance.

We traipsed in, me still trying not to scratch, or fidget still. I made sure to be seated next to Duke so I could watch him squirm (me squirming along for totally different reasons of course).

For the duration of the previews Danny, Cass, Vince and Jamie staged a pop corn war that Grant had to break up with the help of Ari, who’d turned up late and was immediately drenched in soda by one of the more daring of soldiers. Usually I would’ve been all in with, like, a gun that shot Jaffas or something. (Jaffas have to be my all-time favorite movie theater snack.) Come to think of it, if you got shot by a jaffa, you’d be more bruised than, say, a paintball. Oh well, I can still peg them at someone. But, as I was saying, I was having too much fun being evil, and too much interest in Duke’s reaction to this really not-so-scary movie. And if I wasn’t silently drowning in mirth I was busy not itching or fidgeting.

So, anyway, Grant broke it up, and he went off with Ari to the toilets to fix her up, as well she could be fixed.

The lights went dim and the curtains on either side of the über big screen pulled back so that the whole picture fit. I relaxed a little, and Duke pulled up the arm between our two chairs because we both hate having chair arms between us. For the first part, he tried to look calm, but his eyes were shut tight whenever the movie had a night scene and the picture was a little darker. And when Ronnie calls Shia even though Shia thinks he’s been captured by the evil neighbor, Duke was tripping out so bad he grabbed my hand.

And I’ll admit that maybe I was starting to feel a little bad for the guy. I mean, who was I to torture the kid? It wasn’t his birthday dare or anything.

As soon as we saw that Ron was in his cupboard (Okay, other than movie magic, how the hell could he have done that in real life? Seriously,) he let go of my hand, like it was rotten fish or something, and I found myself wondering how that could possibly wound me (emotionally, of course).

I had to shake those feelings off because they were definitely not a good sign. I looked around, trying to distract myself, and realized that Grant and Ari still hadn’t returned from the bathroom.

I had some matchmaker-esque thoughts about that, and considered taking some of Disturbia’s plot into my revenge on Danny and Cassie for the next little while. We were just up to the part where Shia’s “Mom” goes over to the bad guy’s house and everything that happens becomes really suspicious, and there you go, my hand has another hand around it.

As the movie gets progressively evil and dark and un-Duke-ish, the boy beside me is practically in hysterics – the un-funny kind. And by the point where the bad guy is getting Shia to write some sort of suicide note to the chick and then the chick shows up and, yay, fight scene… well the best way to describe this is that I have Duke’s head buried in my chest and my arms wrapped around him. Gosh, he’s such a baby. But at the time, I was pretty much ruled by guilt.

“I’m sorry, Duke,” I was whispering in his ear. “Calm down, it’s a Hollywood movie. It’ll turn out okay, I promise.” I was at the point where I had to basically dictate the movie to him because he was that freaked out. And Disturbia is, by all standards, not a particularly scary movie. But I guess this is Duke, and some things you get used to after a while.

How ironic, huh? I go in, all guns blazing for revenge, then I end up comforting the stupid sucker. Can’t I catch a break?

It ended up that I had to take Duke outside, right about the time when Shia goes into the bad guy’s house to get his mom. I sat him on a red velvet bench and went to get him a bottle of water. Upon my return, I draped an arm over his shoulders and all but forced half the bottle down his throat.

“How embarrassing..” he groaned, regret lining his words. “I’m the guy.”

“Knew that.”

He sent me a glare and continued, “I’m supposed to be comforting you – the girl.”

“Psh, as if I’d ever need comforting,” I remarked, giving him a little shake.

“Mm.”

I peered into his face, checking that he was felling okay, that the little spark was back in his eyes.

“You seem alright, and it’s been enough time. I’m betting you the funny ending bit’s gonna start rolling through in the next minute or so. You’re watching it too, you know?” I grabbed his hand and tugged him back towards the theater doors before he could prevent it and we commandeered a pair of seats in the back row to watch Shia’s revenge on the “ding-dong ditch” kids. I swear I even heard him laugh, even though he held my hand the entire time the feature was playing.

We joined to group and I grabbed my messenger bag, feeling like it had shrunk a little, and when we exited the theater, I noticed some happy-looking someones exiting the girls’ bathroom.

“That’s not Grant, is it?” I muttered into Duke’s ear.

“With…Ari?” he chuckled quietly.

“Well I’ll be,” Danny remarked breathlessly as we caught up with them.

Ari exchanged a look with Grant, and then cracked up. Grant’s face was stony, except for his eyes which held a fair approximation of amusement. That’s a Grant laugh for you. They were never going to hear the end of this. I’m making it my own personal mission.

XXX

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Aww.. I think Duke is so much younger in this chapter. Just imagine it, Ainsley, the 5’11” comforting big-ass Duke, the 6’4 ½”. Lololololol

Okay, so I divided it up because I couldn’t link them very well. I started writing with part 2 first and totally forgot about all the other things I needed to clean up with Seth and I never got a chance to introduce Chuck, although I’ve been meaning to get around to it. FYI, Chuck does play a role in the ongoing plot. I wish I hadn’t lost the gorram planning papers though.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed.

~Mackenzie