One•Shots

rayden + levi

r ay d e n *

"What is it with you two?" Caroline, one of my best friends, asks as Levi and I glare at each other from across the cafeteria.
"What do you mean?" I ask her, tearing my eyes away from him.
"Why do you hate each other so much?"
"He's a bully. It's always been like that,"
"I just--I feel like maybe he's changed? Maybe you should try to be friends?"
I burst out laughing.
Levi Fields, the bully of the highschool, popular for being rude and mean to people.
I, on the other hand, am popular because I'm nice.
I don't see why it's so hard for him to be nice, but he just can't seem to do it.
"Anyway, aside from your school-boy feud, where are we getting ready tomorrow tonight?" Caroline asks me as Riley, my little sister, two years younger than me, and Faith, a girl in mine and Caroline's class sit down at the table.
'Tomorrow night' is homecoming.
"We could SO get ready at Rayden and I's house!!" Riley says excitedly.
"I don't understand why you girls have to get ready together," I say.
"Uhhh, you don't get out of this. You're getting ready with us, too," Faith says. Caroline nods her agreement.
"Why?"
But my question never gets answered, and I know that there is no way that I'm getting out of it.

☼

Faith, Caroline, and Riley all barge into my bedroom at 3:30.
"What are you doing?" Caroline asks me.
"What are you doing?" I ask sassily.
"Get up! We've got to get ready!"
"It's three o'clock!!"
"Yeah and we've already done our hair and nails. We've got to do our makeup and get dressed, come on!"

I desperately wish I could be saved from this insanity. We're nearly two hours into the 'getting ready process'.
"What time is it?" Caroline asks no one in particular.
Faith checks her phone. "5:35, girl, we got twenty-five minutes,"
"Twenty-five minutes until what?" I ask.
"Pictures?" Riley says as though it's obvious. "And then dinner?"
I wish the guys were here to save me.

Somehow, by 7:00 o'clock, we've managed to be at dinner. We left the house at six, took pictures until 6:45, and then ended up here, Cracker Barrel, fifteen minutes later.

☼

When we walk into the gym at 8:15, everyone turns around to look, but that's not what gets my attention. What gets my attention is that when Jared, one of Levi's friends, sees me, he elbows Levi in the rib cage; Levi turns around and his eyes fall upon me, watching me. It's strange, but I decide to put it aside. I walk over to a group of my friends.
"Remind me to never, ever let them get ready at my house again," I say to Griffin, my best friend. "That was the longest four hours of makeup and hairspray ever,"
He laughs. "Well, you're here now. Did you see the way Levi stared you down when you came in?"
"Yeah, and I'm not sure why he did, but it kind of made me uncomfortable,"
"I thought you liked him,"
"I do, Griff, but it doesn't make it any less weird when the guy who supposedly hates your guts stares you down as you walk into the homecoming dance,"
Griffin laughs again. "Oh, word on the street is, he's got somethin' planned for somebody later, a bunch of people are talking about how he's got a speech and a song planned."
"Wonder who it is," I say absent-mindedly.
"Maybe it's you,"
"Me?! You're on somethin', Griff,"
"Did you not see the way he looked at you?"
"Yes, but he was probably imagining beating me up, Griff. I can assure you, that it's not me."
"If you say so," Griffin says.
"I do, Griff," I say, ending the conversation.