In my top ten bad ideas, bringing Lexi along to our vandalism shenanigans probably made the list.
It was one thing to bring her along to hang out with Josh and a whole other thing to have her being an accessory to a crime, albeit a benign one in my mind.
Still, I was pretty sure her father wouldn't like me that much if he knew where I was taking his daughter right now.
And Josh definitely wasn't helping with my worries. "Can she run fast?"
"Yeah," I answered.
"Enough to keep up with us?"
This really shouldn't make me smile. "When she's angry I think she can almost outrun me."
Josh looked back at Lexi, "Well I hope for your sake that you get pretty pissed off when you have a hungry Rottweiler on your tail."
That had only happened one time. He should keep this to himself. He shouldn't worry my Pumpkin.
"Because there's a chance that I'll have hungry Rottweiler running after me?" Lexi asked, looking a little panicky.
Josh and I both laughed, thinking about the unfortunate mishap. It was pure luck that Josh had been carrying a roast beef sandwich in his bag, and we were able to distract the dog with it.
"You have to be prepared for every scenario. Hungry Rottweiler. Pissed off ninety-year-old lady with a shot gun. Cops with low blood sugar. Kids on speed that think we have Meth to sell them. Terminators out to kill us," Josh enumerated. Only the Terminator bit wasn't real.
And apparently that's the only thing that Lexi cared about.
"Terminator fan?" she asked.
I was pretty sure I had heard her ranting about Terminator at the lunch table at school a couple of times.
She was talking to the right person now.
"Hasta la vista, yeah! Look," Josh beamed happy to have someone mention Terminator. Josh turned on the light inside the car and showed her his Terminator tattoo.
"Oh my god! That's got to be one of the most awesome thing ever," Lexi replied, just as enthusiastically.
I rolled my eyes at them, but they weren't paying attention to me.
"Right? One of my artist friends did it for me. It continues on my shoulder blade too," he explained.
When you didn't know what his tattoo was, you could be fooled for half a second that he was actually wounded on his shoulder. It looked like his skin was torn.
"But you know you won't fool a Terminator with that right?" Lexi told him.
"Yeah, I'm aware of that," Josh admitted.
"Good thing they aren't running everywhere just yet," I pointed out, chuckling at them.
It was cute though, that they had something in common. After all, I did want them to get along.
Josh shook his head at me, not having it. "Please. Ever taken a good look at Angelina Jolie? Her facial bone structure just screams endo-skeleton. Who knows, maybe she is a cyborg working for Skynet. After all, she had some work done. Yeah, that's definitely a new theory of mine, Angelina Jolie is a Terminator."
"I'm with him on that one," Lexi agreed, nodding her head.
I had never thought I'd hear Lexi Grayson one day say that she was agreeing with my crazy best friend Josh.
It was kind of awesome.
But also, they were both being little idiots, so I stuck my tongue out at Lexi through the rear-view mirror. "You two shouldn't hang together too much."
"Please, you're the one being boring," Josh reprimanded me.
And Lexi popped her head between the two front seats and stared right at me saying, "actually I think I'm going to start hanging out with Josh," and then looked at Josh, "can I trade Blake for you?"
Oh no, no. None of that.
Josh had a condescending smirk. "Of course you can. Who wouldn't? I'm so much more fun than Blake."
"Sorry, you can't do that. I have dibs on you woman," I warned Lexi with a smirk of my own, and pushed her head to the back seat. She should sit properly. Accidents happened so quickly.
Lexi, of course, reacted the way she usually did and punched me on the shoulder. "Oh please!"
"Again, sorry but it's just the way things worked. You can't get out of it. I called dibs on you, you're all mine now," I told her, looking at her through the rear-view mirror.
I thought she'd make a grimace at me, or flip me off, or punch me again. But instead, she smiled back.
She smiled.
She smiled?
Did she want to distract me to make me drive off the road?
I'd called her mine and she didn't object.
What the hell was going on this evening? Nothing made sense.
"Okay, none of this while I'm here please, we're forgetting the main purpose of this," Josh said, snapping me out of it.
"Which is?" Lexi asked.
"Find a muthaeffing huge sign that we could do some nice damage on. Something not too high or hard though since you're a newbie," Josh replied.
I caught Lexi rolling her eyes. "And why have I accepted this again?"
"You haven't. We dragged you," I reminded her.
A very stupid thing to have done, might I had.
"That's what I'll tell the cops with low blood sugar when they arrest us," Lexi said, chuckling.
"Won't work with the Rottweiler's though," Josh pointed out.
Only meat could save your ass in a Rottweiler's stand off.
No one said anything for a few seconds, so of course Josh jumped on that opportunity. "I wouldn't want to be the girl in the middle, or the one at the end. The Asian dude in front as it easy. But yeah, definitely not stuck in the middle. And I wouldn't want to go for a walk outside, keep a little dignity yeah know?"
Again? He really needed to drop this.
"Huh... what is he talking about?" Lexi asked me.
"Human Centipede," I sadly replied, sighing.
So, that just fueled Josh. I really wished she hadn't asked anything.
"One hundred percent medically accurate," Josh all but shouted, "How effing creepier can things get? Sewing people up to make them Siamese twins, connecting their digestive system, from the asshole of one through the mouth of the other," he added, a little too enthusiastically.
"Ew! Ew, ew, ew!" Lexi whined, hiding her face in her hands.
She was reacting that way with just an explanation. I'd actually seen the movie. She should count herself lucky.
"And you ain't even seen it," Josh said with a creepy grin.
"You're disgusting," Lexi replied.
It did not faze Josh. Very little did. "Want another freaky movie to watch?"
"No thanks," Lexi replied automatically.
It was the right answer, but that wasn't going to stop Josh. "Splice! Now that's one hell of a movie. Genetic schnitzel. They mix human genes with animals. Scorpion is probably in the batch because the thing has a stinger! It sorta looks human, a chick, of course, why am I sure it's a dude's idea? I'll have to google it. Point being, it's a couple that made her/it, hot by the way, and the thing grows and it falls in love with the dude the dude bangs the genetic modified scorpion slash human slash grasshopper. That's corrupting the samples right there. Then, his girlfriend walks on them. Typical. But that's not even the worse. The thing changes sex. And then it rapes the girl. Can it get more fucked up? Yes! The thing impregnated the girl. Yes, you effing heard me. Talk about two scientists being screwed by their experiment. Can it get more effing awe-some!"
Yeah, awesome definitely wasn't the word I would use to describe either of these two movies.
Any movie Josh watched, really.
"Josh, you are sick and I am never watching this movie," Lexi said, shaking her head at him.
"Well, you should, for personal culture and all," Josh said.
It wasn't for personal culture at all, and for his personal entertainment really.
"Don't worry Pumpkin, I won't let the mean man force you to watch Splice. Or Human Centipede. Or Lesbian Vampire Killers."
"Or its sequel Gay Werewolf Killers," Josh found important to add.
"There's not going to be a sequel," I replied, rolling my eyes.
"There is," Josh shot back.
"Not. There is not, is what you were supposed to say."
"I'm kicking you out of the car if you keep being such a party pooper," Josh whined.
"I'm driving and it's my car," I reminded him.
"No those aren't suitable reasons," Josh said, shaking his head.
Lexi interrupted our bickering, "boys stop arguing. I'm not watching your perverted movies, simple as that."
Wise choice.
"Well, you're the one missing out. But don't worry, we'll make you watch them. You'll actually enjoy them," Josh said and then started to laugh like a maniac.
My friend was definitely deranged.
I wanted to remind him that no means no, but then my eyes fell on a big sign, since I'd been looking out for them.
The man that I'd seen with Lexi's mother was smiling at us on it.
I stopped the car abruptly.
"What the hell," Josh said, hands on the dashboard in front of him to stop himself.
I ignored Josh, and pointed at the sign, "Lexi, look at that sign."
"Is that..." I started to say, not sure if I should continue.
I didn't want to hurt her. But this was... well, someone who was breaking up her family.
Vandalism would make total sense now.
"Yeah," Lexi replied faintly, the mood shifting automatically in the car.
"Wait, wait, wait! I'm lost here? Who the hell is this guy?" Josh asked.
Lexi took a second to answer. "That's my mother's boyfriend," she said faintly.
Josh knew the gist of her situation, Tyler had talked about it the other night, so Josh was definitely on board right away. "Well hell, we got ourselves a sign to corrupt."
"No. I don't. It wouldn't. There's no point. And I don't care about this anymore. I don't wanna be bitter," she replied, looking out the window at the dark sky.
I felt bad. Maybe I shouldn't have shown it to her.
I was so focused on my own problems sometimes, that I forgot about Lexi's own. Her whole life didn't center around me and my unrequited feelings for her.
She'd been in a good mood lately, and she wasn't showing how her mother leaving was affecting her, but of course it still did.
I wanted to hug her suddenly. Not for myself, but to comfort her.
Lexi often tried showing a strong front. I wanted her to be able to open up with me, the way I was trying to open up with her.
I wanted her to trust me, the way I was trusting her.
Not because I wanted her as my girlfriend, but because I at least wanted her as my friend.
Being her friend was more than anything I could have hoped for before.
We were all still all silent in the car.
So, of course Josh couldn't have that. "Pathology is a good movie too."
Lexi smiled. I sighed in discouragement.
I looked at her through the rear-view mirror again.
She tilted her head a little, smiling at me and nodded, like she was letting me know everything was alright.
Yes, now that we were in each other's lives, everything would be alright.
______________
Happy Monday my little Pumpkins!
Sorry if this chapter might be a little shorter than usual. I'm pretty sure I cut it there cuz that was what made more sense if I didn't want it to end up being like twenty pages. And also, sometimes I get to a certain point and I write a certain sentence and I think "aaaah, yes, that's a nice place to stop it,) so that's basically what happened here.
If you want to read something else, go give Tenth Knot some love. ;P (yes I will never shut up about this story until everyone reads it! hahaha)
Alrighty. I have to go to bed now. I didn't answer many comments last week because I was so exhausted, so I'll try to do it this week! I've been falling asleep at the foot of my bed with the lights on like an exhausted idiot, like 5 times a week lately. It's gotten to a point where Eve says she'll start taking away one photocards every night I don't go to sleep like a normal person. Potentially burn them. Apparently the only way to train me is fear based. XD
I love you guys! See you all next week! <3