Dance In The Rain

~1~ Off The Beaten Path

"It was fine."

Holden nods as he takes a drink of the Pepsi that he brought with him, and hands me and Tate each straws for ours.

"I'm going to get off at 8 tonight. You guys can either hang here until then, or you can go home after we eat and I'll catch up with you."

"Can I go to Micah's after this?" Tate asks as he
blows the end of his straw, making the paper it was in fling into my face and get stuck in my hair.

Both guys laugh as I try to get it out, and I ball it up and throw it back at him once it finally gets free from my mane.

"No, Tate. Not tonight."

"...Because I'm grounded?"

"For the love of....you're not grounded."

"Ok fine. Why don't you explain it then, because I'm not understanding you and your fancy adult-hood logic."

Holden rolls his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Ok, I'll explain it again. Because apparently the thirty other times I've told you have been for nothing. I'm tired of you not doing your homework. Every single time you do not turn in homework, you will go nowhere the following day. You didn't turn in your math assignment yesterday, so you're going no where today."

"So I can go somewhere tomorrow?"

"Since there's no homework to turn in on a Saturday, yes."

"It's grounded, Holden." Tate snips.

"Fine!" Holden exclaims as he throws his hands up in defeat. "Fine. You want to call it grounded; that's what we'll call it."

"You're annoying," Tate growls as Quinn comes over and sets our food in front of us. She puts down the pizza and then sits next to me in the booth.

"Man it's been busy," she groans as she winks at me and takes a long drink of her tea.

Holden grins as he takes a piece of their pepperoni and green pepper pizza, and blows on it slightly before he takes a huge bite.

"Damn I'm hungry," he says around a mouthful of cheese, and Quinn chuckles.

"Me too."

They start scarfing down their food, and Tate and I watch them in amusement. They goof around with each other after a few pieces of pizza, and then Tate and Quinn start goofing off by seeing how far they can flick green peppers across the table.

After a few more minutes, Tate smirks and looks at me. "No, Jules."

"No what?" Holden asks, turning away from a napkin he was about to throw at Quinn and looks at Tate.

Tate shrugs and shakes his head. "Nothing. I was just answering a question she asked me earlier. And the answer is no."

~*~

We finish eating and head home, with Holden warning Tate that he had better be at home when he gets back.

"It would sure be nice to just flip him off and do whatever I want," Tate mutters as we start walking down the path toward our house. We decide to go a different way today, because there's some trees we both really like off the main path, in the forest.

"Why?"

Tate chuckles and kicks up some sand. "I haven't gotten spanked in months. I've been almost perfect, and it's getting boring."

".....So what's your point?"

"My point is that I'm tired of being perfect...But I have soccer practice on Monday and I don't feel like having a sore ass."

"Well, you're a pain in mine," I smirk as I nudge him playfully.

He starts to laugh, when suddenly he chokes on his breath and his eyes go wide.

"What?!?" I ask in panic as I follow his stare...I swear if there's a spider.

And then I see it.

A female with deep red hair, completely naked. She's off the path, in the trees, laying face down with leaves and dirt covering a lot of her.

And it's obvious by her bloody, mangled body that she isn't alive.

And that someone did this to her.