Chapter 5

"Who are you going to make the godfather, when you two have a kid," I asked my best friend, grinning while looking at him, while he was still staring at the door where Daphnee had just walked out.

He scoffed, like he was offended. "I'm not having a kid with her. I'm not even gonna be seeing her again."

I nodded, "Uh huh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure."

Josh glared at my condescending tone. It made me laugh.

"He says that now and next week he starts listening to the Beatles," Fred said, dropping food for Josh in front of him, before sitting down with us.

There were no customers right now, and he'd be able to see anyone before coming in.

"And he genuinely ENJOYS it," I added.

Josh gagged before taking a bite from his burger. "How can you say something so horrifying?"

"I really don't get how he can hate the Beatles so much? Like, I understand they're not your favourite band, but to hate everything they've ever put out? There must be one song you find decent," Fred said, looking at me.

Josh sighed, exasperated, slapping his hands on the table. "They're not special, none of their songs are special, but people are trying to convince everyone they are. They're a boyband for godsakes, not fucking Mozart. Their songs are two minutes long, and fucking repetitive. They're not special. They're an ugly ass Gucci purse, but just because it's Gucci everyone has convincing themselves the purse is cute. The purse is a fucking trainwreck, okay?"

I snorted, looking back at Fred and ignoring Josh and his tantrum. "Honestly, how can someone hate the Beatles so much? It's... fucking weird."

"Yeah, did you listen to a Beatles song when something tragic happened to you?" Fred asked him.

Josh kinda just stared at him for a sec. I though he was trying to come up with an epic comeback, but then he just said, "Rolling Stones. Rolling Stones forever."

Wait? Was Fred on to something? Josh had never told me about anything about that, but he'd also been keeping secrets from me about Jayden, so maybe there was a lot more he was keeping from me.

It was so strange, the one person that was like an open book, sometimes a little too open, about traumatising things I absolutely did not need to know, was... probably the person keeping the most from me.

"They're not mutually exclusive, you know? You can love both," I pointed out.

Josh shook his head, before eating a fry. "No, I love one and hate the other."

Fred smirked. "How sad. Josh will now hate the Rolling Stones because he's gotta love the Beatles if he wants to play doctor with Daphnee again."

"I shall never forsake the Rolling Stones," Josh announced ceremoniously.

"So, what do you have to do then, to get your clothes back? Because Daphnee said you knew what you had to do," I asked.

"Call the cops is what I will do," Josh mumbled, annoyed as he ate more food, "That's theft and that's illegal."

It was kind of hilarious to me somehow.

"Should we call MTV or some other station and tell them we got excellent candidates for a new reality show?" I asked Fred.

"Ah, yes, and then him and Snooki can do ads together," Fred replied.

Josh was not amused. He started to look around like he was looking for someone. "Where's Tyler? Shouldn't he be here? That way he can be on my side and this can be a fair fight"

I snorted. "Tyler would be on my side."

"I've kissed Tyler, he'd be on my side."

"Who haven't you kissed?" Fred asked, laughing.

Josh grinned. "You, my sweet Fred."

Fred rolled his eyes. "Keep your lips to yourself. But also, the fuck you kissed Tyler?"

"We had a point to prove," Josh simply answered.

"Which was?" Fred asked, making rolling motions with his hands, like get-on-with-the-program-dude-and-spill.

"He's not gay for me."

"But you are gay for him?" Fred asked with a raised eyebrow.

Josh made a face. "Nah, his skin is not soft enough and his voice does nothing to me."

"This is turning into a very strange conversation," I pointed out while eating my cheeseburger.

"Why? Oh? Blake, darling, don't tell me you're jealous when I talk about all my suitors?" Josh asked in a sing song voice.

Maybe if I punched him, he'd change his tone. "I will end you Joshua, don't test me."

"Fred, darling, please hold Drake while I punch him."

I gapped at him. He grinned back.

And then all hell broke loose.

When I finally got home, it was considerably later than I had anticipated.

I was exhausted, but happy about my night with my friends, as ridiculous as it had been. I texted Lexi, not sure I would get a response. Can I call you? Are you up?

Seconds later, the phone was ringing in my hand, so I picked up the call. "Hey," I answered.

"Hey," Lexi replied.

"How was your night?" I asked.

"Forget about me, how was yours? Had fun with the guys?"

"I asked first."

"It was fine," she answered softly.

"Did you end up hanging out with Alex and Daphnee?"

Lexi took a second before answering, like she wasn't sure what to tell me. "Alex had a date with his boyfriend, and Daphnee had other plans, so I ended up on my own."

"Wait, really?"

My voice must have sounded off, because my girlfriend automatically said, "Oh, don't worry, it was fine. I put on music and drew a little. I kinda wanted to watch Terminator since we talked about it, but Dad and Tyler were already watching TV so I didn't want to bother them."

Fuck. My heart was kinda hurting now.

"Do you think I'm still allowed to sleep over at your house if we don't commit fornication?"

"I guess so, why?"

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes," I just replied.

"No, wait Blake, it's fine we got school tomorrow."

I ignored her and just added, "make it ten," before hanging up.

Less than fifteen minutes later, I was at her front door.

Lexi opened it, looking a little alarmed.

"Sorry, that was twelve minutes," I told her as a greeting.

She chuckled, shaking her head. "You're insane."

All the lights were turned off, and it looked like everyone had gone to sleep, which made sense because it was kind of in the middle of the night.

So, not to wake anyone up, Lexi grabbed my hand and dragged me back to her room.

Once the door was closed behind me, I said softly, "sorry, I should have brought you along tonight, you should have come with us."

"It's really alright, I like being alone," she replied, and went into my open arms, hugging me back.

I pressed my cheek on top of her hand, squeezing her against me. "Do you really like it, or are you just so used to it that you've conditioned yourself into accepting it?"

Lexi backed up her head a bit to look back up at me. "Are you my therapist?" she asked with a smile.

I smiled back, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "You couldn't afford me."

She chuckled. "I'm sure."

"But honestly, I'm sorry about tonight," I repeated, brushing a hand through her hair.

"You got nothing to apologize for. We don't always need to hang out. We can do our own things too. I like being quiet in my room and drawing."

And suddenly, it was like all the drawings she'd shown me for my birthday made so much more sense. Of course, I felt like I could see her loneliness on the pages. She probably drew them in moments like she'd just experience today.

And my heart was breaking even more for her.

It was still wild for me to realize how well I thought I knew my Pumpkin, without knowing this big loneliness she felt.

Maybe I hadn't noticed it because Lexi wasn't seeing it either. It had become something so natural in her life, that it wasn't something note worthy for her anymore.

I looked back in her eyes, smiling at her, cupping the side of her face with one of my hands. "I know you can take care of yourself. You've been doing it all your life. You take care of everyone around you, but it's okay to have people take care of you too. You were looking forward to hanging out with your friends tonight. I know it. I saw it in your eyes. So, you're allowed to be sad. And you're allowed to be a little annoyed with your friends right now. And you're allowed to call me even when I'm out with friends and tell me you wanna hang out too."

"You think I would have had an exciting night with Fred the Vegetable?" she asked teasingly.

She was trying to lighten up the mood, because of what I had just said. That was okay. We could talk more about all of this later, when she would be ready.

So, I gapped at her in faux consternation. "Fred is not a vegetable. How can you not know about... wait, what am I even saying, it's you, of course you don't know," I said, rolling my eyes.

She gave me a little elbow shove. "Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"

I tilted my head a bit, looking back at her. I was still hugging her. I wasn't about to let her go just yet. But I should probably tell her this. She might as well know. "Fred works in the evening to help his mom pay the bills. And he takes care of his little sister too. So, he gets very little sleep. That's why he naps in class."

Lexi's eyes widened. "Oh."

She looked completely surprised and a little ashamed even.

"Yeah, oh."

"I didn't know that. I didn't even know he had a little sister," she trailed.

I smiled. "How can you not know that when I literally babysit her?"

She narrowed her eyes like that was the weirdest thing I'd just said. "Seriously?"

"You hung out with the twin's sisters? How can you not know about Fred's?" I asked.

Pumpkin shrugged a shoulder. "I don't really hang out with Fred, you know?"

"It's fine, don't make that face," I brushing a thumb on her cheek, while cupping her jaw, "you can't know everything. I'm definitely not here to make you feel bad."

"But know I feel like an idiot for calling him a vegetable," she admitted, hiding her eyes behind her hand.

I kissed the top of her head. "Fred has a kind heart. I am sure he will forgive you."

"How did you two even become friends?" she asked, looking back in my eyes.

"When I started to play football. Coach wanted me to play receiver. I had the shape for it, but I was shit a catching the ball. Fred would stay later with me after practice to help me get better. He's the one that figured out I'd be a better running back."

"I didn't know that," she said softly.

I smiled back at her. "That's the beauty of dating me, my Pumpkin, now you'll get to know everything about me. And I can know everything about you."

Lexi chuckled. "So, we're playing twenty questions until one of us falls asleep?"

"I'm in."

_______________

Happy Monday my little Pumpkins! :D

So? How are y'all liking Little Bitch so far? Do you like the tone and the pace? Anything you'd like to see happening? I'm in planning mode tomorrow, for like what I want to write this year (my Wattpad birthday is on August 30th, so usually I'm in schedule mode for the year around that time, and this year, I have plans I actually want to follow through 8D) Anyway yeah, please do share your thoughts, as I always see room for improvement. :D

I just came back from my parents' land. We were chopping wood for the winter and clearing stuff. I actually mostly played babysitter because my sister brought her two kids along. I made my nephew play lightsaber fight we me with branches. I made him do lightsaber sounds and hummed the Imperial March. I'm corrupting him young. MOUHAHAHAHA. Anyway, it was super fun because it was my brother, my sister and me at one point, we were packing the firewood in the shed, something we used to do together when we were little kids too, and something we hadn't done all together in years, and it was pretty nice. I felt nostalgic for a second. 

Anyway, tomorrow I am off. I want to do a lot of writing. I want to do a lot of planning. I was re-reading one specific story of mine yesterday and thinking I reaaaally needed to upload a new chapter. I need to upload a LOT of stories. So that's my goal for the next couple of weeks. MORE WRITING. :P

And if I want to achieve that, I need to go to sleep now. XD

Thanks for reading this chapter! I love you guys! See you all next week! <3