fools x tony stonem [completed]

forty three

Around 7 o'clock in the evening, my phone started buzzing with a call from an unknown number. I was eating take-out pizza with Mini on the living room couch, and I answered the call with a mouth full of cheese and pepperoni.

"Hello?" I muffle.

"Freya, this is Effy. I got your number from my brother."

My eyebrows quirk in confusion. "Hey Effy, is everything alright?"

"Yeah," she answers duly. "Do you want to come over?"

"What?" Is my initial reaction. "Did Tony put you up to this?"

"No," Effy says. "He's gone camping, and I need help with something. Desperately need help."

Despite her pleading words, from the tone of her voice she couldn't even seem to be bothered. I could just picture her, talking into the phone as she picked nonchalantly at her cuticles.

"With what?"

"It's top secret," she says, avoiding the question. "And they're listening through our phones." I don't get to respond before she ends the phone call, leaving me to roll my eyes. Effy was so much like her older brother that it scared me sometimes.

"I'll be back Mini," I sigh, standing from my spot on the couch and grabbing my jacket hanging on the coat rack by the front door. I was in my pajamas, plaid blue and white bottoms with an oversized t-shirt but I couldn't be bothered to change. I wouldn't be at the Stonem's for long, anyway.

"Lock the door behind me," I call to Mini as I slip out the front door, but I doubt she heard, too invested in the show on television as she scarfed down her second slice of pizza.

I pull up the number Effy had called me from, texting her a quick text that I was on my way. I didn't know why Effy had chosen to call me out of everyone, but then again, I remember Tony telling me once briefly that Effy didn't really have friends. Not because she couldn't make any, Tony told me, but because she just didn't like people.

I arrive at the Stonem house a quarter after 7, and knock my fist against the front door. I only have to wait a few seconds before it opens.

Effy doesn't say anything when she sees me, just looks at me with a tilted smile that both her and Tony seemed to share. Effy was a girl of few words anyway.

She steps aside, allowing me to enter their house. I follow her into the living room.

"So what's this problem you have that's so top secret?"

"I'll go get it," she informs me. "Wait right here."

I can hear all the jewelry she wears clang together as she bounds up the stairs. I take a seat on their couch, nearly sitting on an ash tray that sat out of place on their couch cushion. The whole house actually, seemed to be out of place and messy compared to the last time I was here. It definitely needed a deep cleaning.

I didn't realize their was anyone else home beside Effy, so when I heard the fridge slam from inside the kitchen, I leaned over on the couch, peaking through the archway that separated the two room.

Tony see's me the exact same time I see him, both of our eyes going wide and Tony nearly choking on the milk that he drank from the jug.

"Tony?" I question as he wipes milk from his chin. "I thought you went camping? What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here? You're the one in my house, what are you doing here?" He repeats my question, not sounding angry at all, just surprised.

"Effy invited me over," I explain myself, not wanting to get the wrong idea and thinking I was here for him. "She said she needed help with something."

Speaking of Effy, she comes back down the stairs, placing a big feathery earring in each ear lobe.

"I'm going out, Tony," she tells her brother, peaking her head into the living room. "Keep the door unlocked for me."

I look at her with furrowed brows and a frown on my lips. I've been set up!

"Bye Freya," she waves her fingers at me, a satisfied look on her made up face before she disappears. I listen as the front door shuts behind her.

"I can guarantee you, that I knew nothing of this," Tony clarifies, but I couldn't be so sure. I knew enough to know that Tony was a schemer, and it seemed to wipe off on his little sister.

"I liked it better when she didn't talk," I say regarding Effy, still in disbelief about this whole ordeal.

"You and I both," Tony agrees with me.

There was a lot of silence between us after that, as I twiddled my thumbs and Tony sipped his milk in the archway separating the two rooms. It wasn't a comfortable silence though, it was the kind of silence that told you there were so many things that needed to be said, but you were so scared, that you decided to say nothing at all. That's how it felt for me, anyway.

"Why didn't you go camping?" I ask after a little while, just wanting anything to fill the silence.

"Honestly," He begins. "Because Chris told me you weren't going. What about you?"

"Honestly," I begin. "Because I heard you tell Chris you were going."

Our answers were polar opposites, and I could see that mine definitely hurt him from how his eyebrows scrunch together.

"Do you not like me or something?" He asks, offended. "I know me confessing my feelings for you was kinda big, but I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. If you don't feel the same about me, just tell me now so I can spare myself the heart break."

"I like you, Tony," I confess to him, and finally out loud to myself. "I'll always like you, I'm just... confused."

He doesn't say anything, just listens.

"I waited months for you to tell me what you did last week, but now... it's just bad timing. I just need time, to think about what I want. To think about what's best for me."

"Time," he repeats me. "Well I can wait."

***

I left Tony's house shortly after our discussion, with somewhat a sense of clarity. I knew what he wants, and he knew what I wanted. I didn't know what I wanted yet, but I did know that I just needed time to contemplate it all. But I knew I couldn't wait forever.

When I woke up that morning, I went downstairs to join my mum and Mini for breakfast. There was a bulky envelope waiting for me on the kitchen table.

"It doesn't say who it's from," my mum tells me as she sips her coffee, her eyes reading over the pages of a magazine.

"What if it's a bomb?" Mini suggests, shoveling eggs in her mouth.

"It's not a bomb," I'm quick to turn down that idea, ripping the top of the envelope open. Inside, there's a watch, a familiar watch that I always remembered Tony wearing, but now he's given it to me, along with a note that reads, you said you needed time. tony xx.

I smile.