bliss 🖤 imagines

2. fool for you 🖤 brad renfro

(Another request for my dearest Tay! I had so much fun with this one.

Feel free to drop me another request!)

To any random passerby, the group of people huddled by the raging bonfire would probably seem like just another group of poor, shoddily-supervised hick kids. Given the part of town you were in, this would likely elicit nothing more than an instinctual eyeroll. You were in a trailer park in Knoxville, for crying out loud; poor, shoddily-supervised hick kids made up most of the youth population.

In this particular case, however, those hypothetically-judgemental passersby would be wrong.

The fact of the matter was that you were middle-class, shoddily-supervised hick adults.

Hell, even then, you were an honorary hick.

That wasn't to say that, despite the occasional jab in jest, Brad and his friends didn't make you feel right at home.

Between the comfortable chatter and the abundant supply of (very cheap) alcohol, you found yourself enjoying the evening quite a bit.

Despite all of the less-than-savory things that Brad had told you in the past, (and most of then were probably true,) it was easy for you to believe in the moment that the park had its charm. Maybe it was how refreshingly quaint and humble it all seemed after having spent so much time in LA, where everything is built on the premise of often-tacky grandeur.

Or maybe it was just how genuinely happy Brad looked right then.

You found yourself staring at him shamelessly as he laughed at a joke you hadn't really heard, his lovely face illuminated by the firelight. You found yourself grinning at how youthful he seemed, between that boyish grin on his freckled face and the positive energy he seemed to exude these days, still rather foreign to you. It was almost like when you had first met, all those tears ago; back when he was just a hyper, sort-of-ratty kid.

A damn Disney star, you remembered, chuckling to yourself quietly.

"Something funny?"

You startled out of your reverie, only to find Brad grinning down at you.

You shook your head, feeling your face start to heat up for reasons other than the fire. "Nothing much," you said. "I just remembered... something that happened earlier."

He laughed. "Now, that's awfully vague, isn't it?" he asked. "Care to share the details?" He paused for a moment, the sly smile slowly melting from his face. Finally, he shook his head. "Well, damn, -- scratch that." That smile reappeared, somehow seeming ten times more mischievous than it was before, if that was even possible. "I don't know how much I want these fools to know about our private business."

You rolled your eyes, your blush intensifying. "Oh my God," you whined, swatting at him noncommittally. "You are the actual worst."

The cocky grin never left his face. "Oh, darlin', we both know you don't believe that."

"Of course I don't," you replied, just before a shiver crept up your spine. It was chilly for early spring, all of the nice warmth that the sunlight offered vanishing as soon as dusk fell. "But that's only the case if you keep me warm."

"And we both know that won't be a problem." Without thinking about it, he lifted his sweater over his head, eliciting a few teasing cheers and whistles from the group around you, every member of which having grown increasingly intoxicated as the evening progressed.

"Yeah, baby!" slurred a heavily-accented voice. "Take it off!"

"Aw, come on, Jesse." Now simply clad in a beat-up white T-shirt, Brad tossed the sweater into your lap before playfully addressing his cousin. "Don't act like you enjoy it too much. We're in Tennessee, not Alabama."