CHAPTER 10
Nick Narrating
“Nick,” Brian began, “we would like to invite Haley out to dinner. All four of us will be there.”
“Okay. Can I ask why?”
“We just want to really meet her.”
“You’ve already met her!”
“We would like to get to know her better.”
“Oh. I get it. You want to make sure she’s not like Paris.”
“It’s not that. It’s just-”
“No, that’s exactly what it is. Don’t you guys trust me?” I hated when they didn’t trust me.
“Well, yes, but last time we did you ended up,”
“With Paris. Yeah, I get it. She’s gonna hate this you know. And if Kevin starts interrogating her I swear we’re walking out.”
“He won’t. I’ll make sure he doesn’t. And if he does you have my permission to walk out.”
“Fine. But AJ can’t hit on her either.”
“That I have no control over.” At that exact moment AJ walked in.
“What do you have no control over?” he asked.
“Whether or not you hit on Haley Sunday night.” Brian said.
“Hey,” AJ answered, “I cannot control the beast inside me.” If I hadn’t known he was kidding I would have done a lot more than just kinda shoving him into the wall like I did.
Haley Narrating
My phone rang at six that night. I answered it not really caring who it was.
”Hello?”
“Hi, Haley. It’s Nick.” Shit.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“Well, basically the guys don’t trust me, so on Sunday night they were wondering if you could come out to dinner with us on Sunday.”
“Uh, I guess. Where?”
“That’s the thing. We’re in Pennsylvania.” So I had to go to Pennsylvania. Okay. I could deal with that.
“Okay. I can drive down tomorrow and stay with my cousin. He won’t care. Where though?”
“Uh, I don’t know. I’ll pick you up.”
“Okay.”
“Haley?”
“Yeah?”
“Just so you know, this isn’t because of you. The guys just want to get to know you better because they don’t trust me to make good choices about stuff like this.”
“Okay. And to tell you the truth, from what I’ve heard I wouldn’t trust you either. So don’t be mad at them.”
“How did you know I was mad?”
“I just kind of assumed you were.”
“You know me pretty well don’t you?”
“I just understand people.”
“Well, I’ll tell the guys you’re coming.”
“Okay.”
“Wait. You know when I say the guys I mean like AJ, Brian, Howie, and Kevin right?”
“Really? Because I thought you meant all your boy toys.”
“Very funny.”
“I thought so.”
Nick Narrating
I waked out of the car and up to the door. I really hoped that this was the right house. I suddenly had visions of creepy naked old men answering the door. But then the door opened, and it was Haley.
“You are definitely not a creepy old man.” She looked at me funny. “Did I just say that out loud?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn.” I really have to think about the things that I say out loud and the things I just think to myself. I was bad at that.
“Ready to go?” she asked me. That probably would have been a good thing for me to say.
“Yeah.”
Brian Narrating
“Kevin,” I asked, “do you think this whole dinner is a bad idea?”
“Why?”
“What if it shows that we don’t trust Nick?”
“We don’t. Not with girls. Remember last time we trusted him he came back with,”
“Paris. I know.”
“Well, I was going to say bitchy whore on wheels, but yeah.” Then AJ walked in.
“You guys talking about Paris?”
“How did you know?” Kevin asked.
“You said bitchy whore on wheels.”
“But how did you know we meant-”
“Once again, they’re synonymous. God Kev, buy a thesaurus. Although there’s lots of names you could put under Paris. Like, club hopping slutt for instance.”
“Or,” Kevin started, “cock sucking porn star.”
“Nice. My favorite would have to be man hopping, cock sucking, skanky porn star.”
“Oh that’s good. Maybe, man hopping, cock sucking, skanky, threesome loving, porn star.”
“Yeah, I can’t top that one.” As they said that Howie walked in.
“You guys talking about Paris?” he asked.
“See Kev,” AJ said, “even D’s got the thesaurus.”
“Seriously guys,” Kevin started, “why did he stay with her that long?”
“Well,” I answered, “the first four months he did like her, and then the last three were for sex.”
“She was an animal in bed.” AJ said.
“How do you know?” Kevin asked.
“Dude, internet, sex tape, Paris Hilton. I am buying you a thesaurus for Christmas.”
“You downloaded it?”
”Didn’t you?” He was quiet after that. “Yeah that’s what I thought.”
“I deleted it though!” I loved when AJ made Kevin uncomfortable. I knew I should come to his defense, but it was more fun to just let it play out. “Didn’t you?” Oh, now it was getting interesting. Kevin turned that one right back around on AJ. That was not something you saw very often.
“Of course I deleted it.”
“No you didn’t. You suck at lying AJ. You do that thing where you like flutter your eyelashes like a little girl. Go delete it now.”
“Fine.”
AJ Narrating
I walked over to my computer and dragged the file into the recycle bin. Here’s where I was smart though. I didn’t delete it from the recycle bin. That way, after Kevin was gone I could drag it back. I know you think I’m a loser, but I don’t have a girlfriend now, so what do you want me to do? And that night vision was hot. Besides Kevin did not think I wore anything from that whole drawer of really high socks. Carter might wear those, but Carter was a dumbass.
We went outside and piled into the car we had waiting. Brian was driving. Tell me again why we didn’t have someone drive us? Oh yeah. We didn’t want to intimidate Haley. Brian started the car, but the engine just sputtered and died. He tried three more times, but the car still didn’t work. We all got out.
“What are we going to do?” I wanted to know.
“We could call a cab.” Kevin suggested.
“Does anyone have any cash?” Howie wanted to know. Of course we didn’t. Four Backstreet Boys. Between the four of us you’d think we’d be able to scrounge up enough cash for a fucking cab ride.
“What if we called one of our drivers?” Brian asked. That was actually a good idea. Leave it to Howie to whip out his phone and call everyone he knew. We stood there for a full fifteen minutes while Howie tried to get someone to come pick us up. He had no luck.
“So what do we do?” I asked. God I sounded like Nick. Whining about what we were going to do. It was kinda fun to be the whining one and not the one yelling at the whining one. Maybe I should start whining. Yeah, that’ll show Carter’s ass.
“Our reservations are in twenty minutes. What if we walk?” Kevin had the craziest ideas sometimes.
I couldn’t believe we were fucking walking. Why did we agree to this again? It was a long walk. And I had already been yelled at for whining twice. “Guys,” I said, “this sucks. Why didn’t we just cancel?”
“First of all,” Kevin said, “you sound like Nick. We cannot cancel. Haley drove all the way from Massachusetts so we could do this. So pull your head out of your ass and quit whining.” Make that three times.
“Guys,” now Howie was whining, but did he get yelled at no. Damn, it sucked to be the whiny one. I gotta hand it to Nick. Getting yelled at for whining sucks. “I have a pebble in my shoe.”
“Oh, man D. That’s terrible.” Are you serious? That’s what Kevin said to Howie when he whined, but I got told to pull my head out of my ass? That is so not fair.
“We should have just had Haley come to some restaurant closer to us.” Now Brian was complaining. And then Kevin picked up a stick. A really long stick.
“Why the hell do you have a stick?” I asked. “Are you gonna beat me with it? Is that your master plan?”
“No dumbass. It’s a walking stick.”
“A what?”
“A walking-”
“No, no. I know what you said. It just sounded so hysterical I had to hear it again. A walking stick. That is priceless. Wait until I tell Carter that you’re so old you needed a walking stick to get the mile and a half to the restaurant. That is going to provide hours of entertainment. I mean hours. It may even top the time you fell off the bike in the Anywhere for You video shoot. So, if it does, that means we’ll still be talking about it approximately nine years from now. And as soon as Baylee’s old enough to understand Rok can tell him all about when his Uncle Kevin needed a walking stick. Okay, I think I’m done now.” That was fun. “No wait. One more thing. Now I can just buy you a thesaurus and a cane for Christmas and I know you’ll be able to bash Paris just as well as I can, and I’ll never have to worry about you falling down and hurting your pretty little head.”
“You know AJ, that beating you with the stick is looking better and better. Maybe we should all get walking sticks and all beat you. How would you like that?”
“Guys calm down.” Once again Howie was trying to avoid an argument. We walked for another ten minutes before we finally got to the restaurant. My feet were killing me, and everyone had been complaining. Of course I was the only one who got yelled at.
We walked into the restaurant and had to ask the hostess where Nick and Haley were. At least Nick would look like the responsible one since we were late.
“Hey,” he said, “where have you guys been?”
“Our car wouldn’t start, and we tried everything but we couldn’t get a car-”
I cut him off. “So Kevin made us fucking walk. Hello Haley by the way.”
“Hi.” She said.
“You know,” Nick said, “you could have just called me. We could have come and gotten you.”
Damn when Carter was the only one thinking straight we were in trouble.
Author's Chapter Notes:
I know Ive updated a lot recently. I'n just really into the story.
