dancing with our hands tied | conrad fisher

sixteen

"Hey, mom, Sadie and I are gonna head into town. If that's okay with you," Conrad informed Susannah... and everyone else in the kitchen.

"Can I come with? I don't wanna be stuck doing nothing," Belly asked. "I- uh.." Conrad and I looked at each other trying to come up with an excuse. On a normal occasion, I would love for Belly to come with us. But it wasn't a normal occasion. We weren't going on a date, but we sorta were? We've done this kind of thing all the time, but this time, we were under different circumstances.

"Uh.. we're gonna go escort.. shopping..?" Conrad replied.

"Escort shopping," Belly furrowed her eyebrows. She didn't look mad nor sad, she just wanted to know what we were actually doing. "Don't worry, Bells. I have a half day, so I'll be home early," Jeremiah smiled at her.

"Have fun escort shopping!" Susannah waved. She definitely knew we were lying.

"Escort shopping was the best thing that you could come up with?" I laughed, slapping his arm. "What? It's not like you were gonna say anything," he grinned.

Conrad wasn't completely lying when he told Belly that we were going "escort shopping." I made him try on suits to see if we wanted to buy a new one. He didn't end up buying an entirely new suit, just a new white button up. After that, he dragged me inside of a local dress shop to try on prom dresses. "It's for when we go to each other's prom," he consistently said.

"Conrad. All of these dresses are too showy for me. Not to mention, way out of my current budget," I said, showing him one of the dresses I tried on. The dresses were either way too poofy, had scratchy sequins or sparkles, or had a deep v-neck.

"Fair enough, but if I bought something, so do you."

The next store we went to was a cute boutique, much more my style. Plus, I bought something here already when I hung out with Shayla. There were a lot of cute items that I made Conrad carry, while I continued shopping. Then, it came to the part that I absolutely dreaded, picking one or two items from my collection.

"What about this?" Conrad pointed out a dainty sun necklace that he clearly snuck into the pile. It was an adorable necklace though, I couldn't say no.

"Yes, I love it. Now, I need to pick out another thing."

"Nope. Pick two more out. I'm paying for this," he declared. We went back and forth, arguing about who would pay for it. Before I could stop him, he already handed the cashier his card. I ended up picking two shirts: a seamless plunging tank top and a seamless cropped v-neck shirt. I, very gladly, paid for the two shirts.

"Happy late birthday," he handed me the bag consisted of the necklace that he just bought. "Aw! The necklace was for me? I thought it was for one of your girls," I joked.

I forced Conrad to go into a few more stores with me, before we went out to eat. His pick, and he chose a café. It was a good place, had amazing sandwiches. I remember my mom and Susannah used to take all of the kids here. We also went here when it was Susannah's first summer cancer free. It was her celebratory lunch with all of us together.

We snuck back into the house to set down our bags, because we quickly discovered that our moms were stoned. All of the food was out on the counters, and they were making their rounds going through each snack.

"Do we go down there, or do we leave Jeremiah and Belly to fend for themselves?" Conrad asked. We were at the bottom of the stairs, so we could really do anything.

"Hey, what do you think of this text?" We heard my mom say.

"Oh my God. The guy you hooked up with last night was Cleveland Castillo?" Belly, then, replied.

"It wasn't planned. One thing led to another, and we ended up having sеx in my car," my mom blabbered off.

"Oh my God. Let's go back upstairs," I ran up as quietly as I could. "I'm gonna barf," I joked, once we were in my room. We both had the same idea to immediately lay down, since we flopped onto my bed at the same time.

"Do you even know if your clothes fit?" Conrad randomly asked. "Are you trying to get me to change in front of you or what?" I mocked. "Fuck off, nevermind then," he covered his face with a pillow.

"Tsk, tsk. I always thought you were smooth," I shook my head. "Are you done now?" His voice was muffled from the pillow.

"Yeah," I climbed on top of him, grabbing the pillow from him. He sat up, pulling me closer. Our faces were inches apart, yet we stayed frozen. I put my hands behind his neck, leaning into the kiss. Soon enough, one of his hands was on my waist, while the other was on my thigh.

Things were quickly escalating, until Belly barged into my room. Somehow, neither of us could hear her coming up the stairs. Conrad and I leaped apart from each other, but it didn't do us any good, as she already saw us.

"Oh my God!" Belly stood there, completely stunned. "What, what happened?" Jeremiah rushed to her side. Great.. there's two of them.

"What the fuck?" Jeremiah said. They were now stood side-by-side, with their arms crossed.

"Are you guys hooking up? And for how long.." Belly pried. Just like this morning, Conrad and I looked at each other, trying to come up with something to say.

"No. We're just. Uh-" I couldn't come up with the right words to describe us. "What she said," Conrad nodded. "Just don't tell anyone, yet," he pleaded.

"What were you even coming into my room for?" I questioned my younger sister. "I was gonna borrow some clothes," she answered. I successfully changed the subject.

"Cool, take what you want." This was one of the rare times that I let her borrow my clothes. "We're not gonna tell anyone. Just don't do it in the house," Jeremiah scrunched his nose in disgust.

It took Belly ages to figure out what she wanted to borrow. But soon enough, she did, leaving us alone again.

"I can't believe that just happened," I rolled off the bed onto the floor. "That was not my best moment," he said.

Jeremiah and Belly went somewhere and the moms were out, so Conrad and I went downstairs, knowing that we wouldn't run into anyone. It wasn't awkward between us afterwards. We cracked jokes about it. We just wanted to seem as normal as possible so that no one would suspect anything when they got home.

AUTHOR'S NOTE !!

hihihi!! i'm going on vacation, so this will probably be my last chapter for the next few days-a week :))