Out of Step

xiv. spanish? sexy?

(I'm thinking I should just put trigger warnings for the rest of the book. Just to be safe, you know? Anyway.)

Alana bit her check, slowly heading into the band locker room to put her instrument away. She wasn't really paying attention – and didn't feel a need to since most of the other band members had left a while ago.

"Hey, you coming?" Someone said from behind her, touching her shoulder and she jumped away, her heart racing as she whirled around with wide eyes to see Eli and Arista, the latter of the two staring at her with a raised eyebrow.

"You alright?" Arista asked. When Alana nodded, her eyes wandered behind her friend, searching the locker room for something – or someone. "You the only one?"

"Yeah. I think everyone else left already," she said, absentmindedly making her way over to her case. "I just have a meeting, so I was taking my time. That's all."

"A meeting?" Eli asked, pursing her lips. Almost everything that Alana was a part of, Eli was also a part of, so she wondered if she had forgotten something. "I don't –"

"It's for Spanish," Alana quickly explained and Arista, who had now given up looking for whatever it was she was looking for, looked at Alana with interest.

"Spanish? That's sexy." Arista wiggled her eyebrows and Alana rolled her eyes.

"I'm getting tutored. It's not that sexy."

"It is if it's by Owen," Arista said, and Alana had to wonder if Laila had suddenly entered the room. "Or really any cute guy. Or cute girl. Really, anything could be sexy when it's in a foreign language."

"Right. I'll see you guys tomorrow." She was still moving slowly, not sure she actually wanted to go to today's 'tutoring' session.

"We can wait for you," Eli offered. "At least walk out of the band room with you."

"No, no." Alana shook her head, leaning back on her heels. "I'm going to the opposite side of the school, and I know you all want to get home. I'll be fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

They left soon after that with promises of seeing her tomorrow and, despite numerous stalling, soon she was making her way to the other side of the school where Emmett should be waiting for her right outside the library.

She found him and Petunia sitting in the grass near the door, Petunia giggling with a hand on his arm and him holding a cigarette.

"Your prude's here," Petunia said, nudging him as Alana shuffled her feet nearby.

Emmett rolled his eyes and, while Alana would like to believe it was at Petunia's comment, she had the feeling it was because Alana was standing there waiting for him to notice her like a dork.

"You ready?" He asked, standing up. Petunia pouted as Alana nodded and followed him to his motorcycle.

"Where are we going?" She asked, taking the helmet he thrust at her.

"My place."

"Your place?" She chewed on her bottom lip. They had run by his place a handful of times but hadn't stayed very long any of those times.

"Yeah. My mom's out of town for tonight," he said, and Alana already regretted getting on his bike.

"Is she?"

He didn't respond, and she didn't say anything else as he kicked his motorcycle up and they took off. Instead, she focused on gripping him and not falling off, until she felt him slow down and the bike turn.

"You know," she began as she handed the helmet back to him. He didn't look at her only started towards the front door. She cleared her throat, trying to gain back some of the confidence she had suddenly lost. "It kind of hurts when your friends talk that way."

"I'm sure your friends say a lot worse about me." They entered the darken house and he turned on some of the lights as they made their way through the halls.

"It also kind of hurts when you don't like try to defend me to your friends or anything like that."

"Well maybe if you weren't such a baby, you wouldn't need to be defended."

"It just bothers me that –"

"It's fine babe," he said, his tone suddenly changing and becoming more soothing as they entered his room. She blinked at the sudden change. "If you're talking about Tunia earlier, she didn't mean anything by it."

"Um.... Are you sure?" She said, uncertain as he moved closer to her. "Because I don't think she really likes me. In fact, I kind of think she might hate me."

"Does it matter if she does? She's not the one you're with, now is she?" Emmett said, his voice low as he leaned down to kiss her.

She put a hand on his chest, a sad attempt to stop him. "Well no, but I just think that even if she hates me she shou –"

He kissed her hard, biting at her bottom lip roughly and she pushed him away.

"I wasn't done talking."

"But I was."

He kissed her again, this time pushing her down onto the bed and reaching for her shirt. And just like before, she pushed him away, this time shrinking back as she did so.

"What's the matter now, bitch?"

"I just think maybe we should like go on a real date or something?" She said, trying to sound nonchalant as she shrugged. "I mean, we've never really actually gone on a date or anything."

He sat back and stared at her. "Do you not like what we have going here?"

"Well no," she said, before quickly adding, "I'm not even completely sure what we have going. We're just spending most of our time together.... Well, you know."

"Yeah, and I like it that way." He frowned down at her. "You know, if you don't like it then you can just leave. But good luck finding anyone else."

He stood up and began to walk out of the room and, before she could stop herself, she was reaching for his arm.

"No. Emmett, I didn't mean it like at," she said, not completely sure why she was apologizing. "I'm sorry. You're right, we have a good thing and I shouldn't have done anything that would have ruined our thing."

He only grunted in agreement before leaning back down to finish what he had been doing.

08.02.2020 Hello everyone! I'm a chapter and a half away from having this fully written and ready for a full overhaul and editor. So close! Anyway, enjoy chapter 14 (which is exactly halfway through the book actually). I'm onto watching Scooby-Doo and writing the rest of chapter 27 and all of chapter 28. 

Leave a vote and let me know what you think of this chapter (and all the others too lol)!!!