The Bucket List // Alex Turner

PART 4: The Bucket List

Summer in Sheffield wasn't what Y/N had expected. Not the weather, that was exactly as disappointing as she'd imagined. What surprised her was how quickly the days began to blur together in the best possible way, punctuated by moments that felt like scenes from a movie she never thought she'd star in.

It all started with a crumpled piece of paper and four boys sprawled across Y/N's bedroom floor. They'd already claimed the space as an extension of Jamie's garage, another refuge where creativity and teenage schemes could flourish unimpeded.

"What we need," Matt announced, sitting up suddenly from where he'd been staring at the ceiling, "is a proper fucking plan."

"For what?" Andy asked without looking up from the bass tabs he was studying with that intense concentration he reserved for music and absolutely nothing else.

"Summer." Matt said, as if it were obvious. "We've only got two months left before school starts again, and I refuse to waste them just hanging about in Jamie's shitty garage every day."

"What's wrong with my garage?" Jamie protested.

"Nothing." Matt assured him. "But there's a whole city out there, mate. Adventures waiting to happen. Girls to meet. Trouble to find."

Alex, who had been quietly scribbling in his notebook beside Y/N's desk, looked up with interest. "What kind of adventures?"

And that was how the Bucket List was born, a collaborative effort that began with Matt's outlandish suggestions ("Break into the zoo and ride the fucking elephants"), tempered by Andy's pragmatism ("We'll definitely get arrested and probably trampled"), expanded by Jamie's local knowledge ("There's this abandoned building my cousin told me about... apparently the security guard's blind in one eye"), elevated by Alex's poetic musings ("Experience a perfect Sheffield sunset from the highest point while completely pissed"), and punctuated throughout by Y/N's half-amused, half-concerned commentary ("You all know I'm only half-British, right? The American part isn't built for prison, and my dad would actually murder me").

By the time Y/N's dad knocked on the door to ask if they were staying for dinner, they had filled one side of the paper with a summer manifesto that balanced on the precarious edge between ambitious and completely mental.

"This," Matt declared, holding the list aloft like a sacred text, "is how we make this summer legendary."

Y/N glanced at Alex, expecting him to make some sarcastic remark about Matt's dramatics. Instead, she found him watching her with that intense look that always made her feel like she'd missed a step on the stairs.

"Legendary." he echoed softly, still looking at her. "I like the sound of that."

The first item they crossed off the list was Alex's "On Top of Sheffield". It came to Matt on a rare, perfectly sunny day in July. They'd been cooped up in Jamie's garage for three consecutive rainy days, and he had declared they needed "vitamin D before they all developed rickets or some shit."

"My parents are out till tonight." Matt announced. "And I happen to know how to access the roof."

"The roof?" Y/N repeated skeptically. "As in, the thing that's supposed to keep rain out, not hold idiots up?"

"Best view in Sheffield." Alex confirmed with a grin.

An hour later, Y/N found herself carefully navigating the slope of Matt's roof, a lukewarm beer in one hand while the other clutched at worn shingles that felt like they might give way at any moment.

"I'm pretty sure this violates about twelve safety regulations." she called out to the boys, who had already made themselves comfortable on the flattest section like they did this every weekend.