━━━━━━ ꕥ ━━━━━━
chapter two: once in a lifetime fuck(up)
a/n:
gwen is such a bitch I want her to marry me.
tw(s) -- mentions of sex, mentions of intoxication, descriptions of hangover symptoms, strange family dynamics, and more sexual tension
━━━━━━ ꕥ ━━━━━━
While Gwendolyn Banks will argue that it is biologically impossible for her to be anything but perfect, she will admit that, sometimes, she makes the occasional mistake.
She had a whole plan for how the morning before Eden Hall's first day was supposed to go. Gwen was going to wake up earlier than normal, get ready, and then, like the matriarchal head of household she is, make a huge breakfast for her brothers and their father. She'd make eggs and bacon for Jake, who's on some weird low-carb diet for his lacrosse captain, and chocolate chip pancakes for Adam, whom she wants to start his day with his favorite thing, and both orange juice and black coffee for Phillip, whose doctor called to complain about his vitamin c intake. She'd been smart enough to allow time for any potential problems, everything between Jake's stubbornness and Phillip's potential hangover.
She hadn't been smart enough, however, to prepare for the party Miranda Sommers would throw the night before. Or, rather, the nameless boy in her bed that she took home from said party.
Waking up, she feels crappy enough (and doesn't have enough of a recollection of last night) to freak out.
She's hungover. Hungover in a way that tells her she had more tequila last night than she thought. Gwen can feel it with such intensity, the scratch of thirst in the back of her throat and a heavy ache in every limb. With everything in the house quiet, it's all she can focus on: the sensation that her head might explode with every movement. The first minutes of being awake consist of her writhing in her self-hatred and shutting her eyes to the rest of the world in hopes that things will just stop hurting.
Her alarm goes off, then, and cuts through the silence, spiking her blood pressure up through the roof and making her brain throb.
That's when she notices him. And there, in nearly six feet worth of brown hair and lean muscle, lies one of said (very rare) mistakes.
It's a delayed reaction. A hesitation where, after her attempt to reach out and silence her alarm gets foiled by the feeling of another person's skin, Gwen sits up and stares down at the naked boy in her bed as if all the answers to her unasked questions are written in his only vaguely familiar face. (Perhaps, subconsciously, she thought that the boy lying next to her was one of her boys for just a moment. Maybe a glimpse of brown hair tricked her into thinking he was someone else.) Who is he? Where does he go to school?
The night starts to come back to her in small flashes —— the ghost of lips on her throat, and an overwhelming feeling of dissatisfaction flooding her system.
Oh. She thinks with a wince. Oh, Gwen, you dumb bitch.
It isn't until he cracks open an incredibly blue eye that Gwen gets the good sense to cover up with the sheet. She shuffles away from him and curls her knees to her chest as he stretches languidly. Her nose wrinkles up at that, a spike of irrational, territorial anger shooting through her at the sight of this boy so comfortable in her bed.
"Good morning." He says a little too cheery for her liking, his voice cracking from sleep. He sits up, too, and the blanket falls from his chest.
Gwen's eyes don't dare to glance away from his face. "Morning."
Her face tingles under the intensity of his gaze. He tucks his bottom lip between his teeth as he scrutinizes her features and lets his eyebrows draw together.
"Are you sick?"
"I'm not sick." Gwen insists stubbornly. The words alone almost make her gag. "I just had a little too much to drink last night." Which, incidentally, might be the last thing the boy she just slept with wants to hear. "I'm told I have a low tolerance."
She's not sure if the echo of Rick's voice telling her she's had enough and if the blurry image of Scott taking her drink from her are a memory or a product of an overactive imagination.
Her partner of the night sighs and dares to reach across the space she's put between them to touch her forehead. Gwen flinches back from him and stares at him as if he's insane —— which he might very well be, as far as she and hookup culture are concerned.
"I don't know, Gwen. You're really burning up—— "
"It's called hangover fever." She pushes his hand away from her face and clenches her jaw. "Alcohol can trigger the body's immune response and the body reacts accordingly. I'm a big girl. I'll take an aspirin and get on with my day."
The boy cocks an eyebrow.
God, if she could go back in time and stop this from happening, she would.
"I don't recall you being so surly last night."
It's her turn to raise an eyebrow. Surly?
"Oh?" Venom drops from her every word. "You mean you didn't get a good assessment of my character when you were between my legs? Such a shame."
He leans over the side of the bed to grab for something, covering himself. "You're a bitch." He comes back up with his shirt in hand. "And you look like shit."
"And they say chivalry is dead."
Everything within Gwen wants to remind him that he was the one lucky enough to find himself in her bed last night and that he couldn't even perform properly. But it's too early to argue with a man of all people over his shortcomings. So she keeps her mouth shut, silver tongue kept behind a cage of perfect teeth, and smiles a strained smile, her cheeks bulging slightly with all the words she's keeping to herself.
The idiot keeps talking. "You, erm, didn't seem to enjoy yourself last night..."
"You mean you couldn't make me cum?"
(Okay, perhaps, she does have some faults. She will also acknowledge that, on top of making mistakes, she can be a vicious bitch.)
(Doesn't he deserve it, though?)
He finally pulls his shirt over his head and laughs this breathless, sarcastic laugh, a half-smile on his face as it emerges through the neck hole. The twinge of blush gives him away, though. He's embarrassed.
Good. As he should be.
"Yeah. I guess you could put it that way. That's never happened to me before."
(It happens to Gwen all too frequently.)
"I would apologize," Gwen rubs the heels of her palms into her eyes, "but I think that's a failure on your part, uh..."
Cold panic washes over her, her eyebrows pinching together as her sentence stops short.
Oh, Gwen, you dumb, dumb bitch.
"You can't remember my name, can you?" He sounds amused. What she wouldn't give to wipe that smile off his face.
"Pft. Of course, I can!" Her voice is too high-pitched to be normal. "Chad?" He crosses his arms over his chest and she winces. "Brad?"
"Brody." He fills in for her.
"Brody?" Gwen says, disbelief written in her features and lacing her words. Disbelief in the fact that his parents really named him Brody? Or in the fact that she slept with someone named Brody?
He doesn't look like a Brody. She could've sworn his name was Chad.
"Yeah, Brody." He repeats it again as if it's supposed to mean something to her. As though he's meant to mean more to her than this once-in-a-lifetime mistake. "You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd feel used right about now."
"Why feel used when you didn't even fulfill your intended purpose?"
With his back turned to her as he searches for his pants, she grabs the Eden Hall warriors sweatshirt (that she definitely forgot to return to the person who loaned it to her) and she lets it hang over her frame as she gets herself some pajama pants from her dresser.
Brody doesn't react to the comment on his sex skills. "I don't suppose a goodbye kiss is in my future?"
Gwen's eye twitches. She supposes there is something romantic in that —— the nobody she slept with lingering in her bed, telling her that she looks like something that crawled out of hell, and then asking her to kiss him. Silently, she fixes a glare that only the co-captain of a high school cheerleading team could manage on him and mulls over just how she got into this situation. Dumb was never quite her type.
Brunet, sure. Blue eyes, definitely. But dumb?
"I'll take that as a no."
So what had happened last night to make her stumble into bed with him? Blearily, she can remember getting frustrated with Rick (Mindy had been floating about and he wasn't telling her to go away) and then dancing with Brody, but most of the in-between is still a blur.
Was being pissed at her friend enough of a reason?
"Yeah." Standing for a few minutes has made the world spin. "That's a no. I'll show you to the door."
It's more than he deserves. For the bitch comment alone he should have to walk the walk of shame by himself. But she'd rather not give him liberty to look through the family's things, and she doesn't need him stumbling into one of her brothers.
Jake would never, ever let it go.
He pauses. "You really are sick."
"Shut up." Gwen sniffs and grabs his arm, half to support herself and half to drag him along.
"If I get sick—— "
"Brody."
He does, finally, manage to keep his mouth shut after that.
Gwen shuts the front door on him so fast that it might have hit him. Outside of his scathing gaze, she really feels it in her bones —— she leans back on the wood and closes her eyes on the spinning world. For a moment, she's gripped with the worst nausea she's ever faced in her life, a nausea so bad that she almost makes the promise to never drink again.
She stands there silently wishing she'd just die and doesn't open her eyes until she hears a creak. Adam, halfway down the stairs, rubs his nose and squints at his sister through the morning haze.
"Adam, hey." Gwen brings a closed fist up to her lips to suppress another gag. "Why're you up, kiddo?"
(As if this situation wasn't mortifying enough.)
"I heard you moving around. Didn't want you to leave for an early cheer practice or something before I got to say bye." He lifts his shoulders in a shrug.
The blonde manages a smile at that.
"You would've seen me at school."
"Yeah, but what if you didn't want to talk to me?"
"I always want to talk to you."
Adam shyly smiles back.
"I'm gonna make breakfast, okay?" Despite her screaming muscles, Gwen pushes off the door. "Why don't you go upstairs and get ready?"
Her littlest brother gives her a nod and a thumbs up before disappearing up the stairs.
Gwen takes a deep breath and winces.
Okay, she isn't sick.
She isn't sick... but she might barf.
━━━━━━ ꕥ ━━━━━━
"What the hell are you wearing?" Gwen pauses after the words fall so effortlessly past her lips. Her (still slightly shaky) hand freezes in the motion of flipping a pancake and her eyebrows pinch together.
Adam, once again standing in front of her but this time in a sweater vest and khaki shorts, frowns.
"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"
Before she can even try to undo her error, Jake butts in from his seat at the table. "Everything."
She turns to the sixteen-year-old with exasperation written into her features.
"Jake——"
"Jacob, be nice to your brother." Phillip comes to his daughter's aid without even looking up from his newspaper.
"So Gwen just gets to say whatever she wants and gets away with it, but when I do it, I get in trouble?"
"Yes. She's the eldest."
"How's that fair? She's only a year and a half older than me."
"Well, when you start making meals for the family and take internships for college, and act like a responsible adult for a change, I'll start treating you like you're a responsible adult."
Taking the cooked pancake off the pan and turning off the heat, Gwen turns back to Adam so she doesn't have to involve herself in the bickering behind her. (The two aspirin she took can only do so much miracle work.)
"I'm sorry. You look fine —— c'mere."
She meets him halfway and fidgets with his collar for a moment before it hits her.
Adam grew over the summer. He grew so much that Gwen had to reach up ever so slightly to reach his neck. And she thought she was prepared for it, because Jake easily outgrew her two summers ago, but Jake is her brother more than he's her baby.
Adam, who was only three years old when their mother died and left her in charge, is her baby.
He senses the shift in her emotion. "Gwen?"
"I'm fine." She sniffs and tries to smile as the corners of her lips try to pull down. "You just got big on me, that's all."
Her little brother flushes as she murmurs about shoving him in the dryer to shrink him.
"Gwen." He says her name again, this time whining, and starts to squirm as she hugs him tightly and presses three kisses in rapid succession to the side of his head. "Dad, tell Gwen I'm not a little kid anymore and that she needs to leave me alone."
Gwen releases him and looks up at him with pursed lips. Big kids don't tattle.
"No can do, son." Phillip shrugs unhelpfully.
When Adam sets a scandalized gaze on him, he smiles and bites into a piece of toast.
"Yeah, dude, you're going to have to realize that we're nice to Gwen because being nice to Gwen benefits us." Jake tacks on, leaning back in his chair and eyeing their little brother. "At school, she's at the top of the food chain and makes sure kids leave us alone. At home, she's dad's favorite ——" (Their father smacks him on the arm) "—— because she's the only one who cooks or does laundry."
"Or you could just be nice to me because I'm your sister." Gwen says flatly, taking the plate of pancakes to the table.
Jake bites a piece of bacon in her general direction. "Where's the fun in that?"
She pretends to scratch her nose with her middle finger so Phillip doesn't notice her flipping him off.
"Sit, Adam. Eat."
Gwen cleans up after herself as Adam sits and starts to eat with the rest of them. The mere thought of eating right now gives her the wrong kind of goosebumps, so she's content with having fed them and not having made too much of a mess.
"Do you need a ride today, Gwen?"
"Nope." Wiping her hands with a towel, she smiles softly at her father. "Rick's taking me. Thank you, though."
Phillip nods.
Jake leans toward Adam. "Ooo, did you hear that, Adam? Rick's taking her."
Adam rolls his eyes but is amused. He isn't known for his ability to hide his emotions.
"Say, Gwen, who was that guy——"
Gwen (who had no idea that Adam saw her with Brody) makes a sharp gesture by her throat to tell her brother to stop there but it's already too late. Jake's face alights with mischief and she sighs, defeated.
"You brought a guy home?"
"Drop it."
"Who was he?" Jake turns back to Adam. "Did you see who he was?"
Adam shrinks slightly in his seat and shakes his head.
"Jake, he was nobody. Drop it."
"So you don't deny you brought a guy home? Man, I can't believe you actually had sex——"
"I've had sex before dipshit—— "
"As riveting as this conversation is." Phillip raises his voice over his children's. "Your father would really appreciate not hearing it."
"Sorry." They both say at the same time, then turn back to each other with a glare.
Gwen could've kept it up all day. She could have glared at him and glared at him. He would be the first to back down because, like he said, being nice to Gwen has its benefits (though, because he's her brother and she loves him, he'd get the benefits anyway.) But the sound of a familiar car honking outside their house draws her attention away from him
"That's my ride." She informs them, putting her hands on the back of Adam's seat. "Does either of you need a ride? How are you getting to school?"
Adam tilts his head back to look at her. "The team's coming to get me."
Gwen nods. "Alright tell them I say hi." She kisses the top of his head when he looks down at his plate and he doesn't complain this time. "Remember you have to show up early, okay? The assembly is for you."
He nods and grumbles something incoherent around a mouthful of food.
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"How are you getting to school, Jake?"
"Oh, uh, James is coming to pick me up, I think."
Gwen must make a face, then, because Jake frowns.
"What?"
"Nothing... just drive safe, okay?"
He nods and tries to duck away when she leans down to kiss his head, but resigns himself to his fate.
"You be safe, too, Gwen." Phillip squeezes her arm as she leans down to kiss his cheek. "And tell that boy to stop honking, would you? Gentlemen don't honk. Pimps honk."
A perturbed laugh falls past Gwen's lips but she nods anyway. "Alright, Dad. I love you guys. See you later."
The cacophony of 'love you's and 'see you later's follow her as she, bag in hand, walks out the door.
Rick's T-Bird sits, purring with life, at the bottom of her driveway. He takes his new sunglasses off to get a better look at her and flashes a dazzling, toothy grin. Scott slides across the backseat to lean over the door in her direction.
He gives her a glance over and whistles. "Full cheer uniform already? What have we done to be so lucky?"
"Shut up." She squints in the sunlight, her head throbbing. "Stop honking. It's loud and you're pissing my dad off."
"Oh, somebody's hungover." Rick taunts as Gwen tosses her bag into the backseat and gets in.
When she flips him off he gives her his sunglasses.
Gwen likes driving with Scott more than she likes driving with Rick. Something about Scott's ancient pickup and the idea that he fixed it up with his own hands satisfies something inside of her. Still, as Rick goes a few miles over the speed limit, the wind whips through her hair and a feeling buzzes through her. A feeling slightly stronger than the overwhelming feeling of hot garbage that haunts her bones.
They wait a few minutes before speaking to her again, and Rick's the one who breaks the silence.
"I told you to stop while you were ahead." He hums in this sing-song, I told you so tone.
(Ah, so it wasn't a figment of her imagination.)
"I know." She huffs, putting her feet up on the dashboard in an attempt to get more comfortable. "You don't get to gloat."
"Get your feet off the dash—— "
"Actually, I think it does entitle us to gloat."
Gwen glances up at Scott through the rearview mirror.
"Don't look at me like that, Gwen, you dropped a drink on me. I'm going to gloat all I want."
"I'm very sorry but that——"
"Get your feet off the dash." Rick repeats himself a little louder, punctuating his demand with a quick slap to the inside of Gwen's exposed thigh. "I just got this shit cleaned."
The silver ring that adorns one of his fingers bites into her flesh and leaves a lasting sting. (The tug behind her navel goes ignored.) She flinches away from his hand and sucks a sharp breath between her teeth, but does immediately pull her feet down like he told her to.
Fixing a glare on him, she rubs the area. "Ow! That hurt, you dick."
He glances off the road for a second. "Aw, did Winnie get a boo-boo?" His voice drips with faux sympathy and derision in equal measure. "Do you want me to kiss it all better?"
"You wish."
Rick puts his hand on Gwen's thigh again, but this time he's gentle. His middle finger traces circles on the red spot he created.
"Are you two done?"
She turns over her shoulder to look at Scott, Rick's hand still on her thigh. All words die on her tongue, however, when she sees it —— the purple spot on his collarbone, the size of a quarter.
Gwen, for whatever reason, narrows her eyes. "Do you have a hickey?"
He pauses. (She misses the glance the two boys exchange around her in the rearview.)
"Do you?"
Instinctively, even if she knows that she does not have a hickey, Gwen rubs at her neck. That catches both of their attention.
"Holy shit."
"Who'd you sleep with?" Rick's question brings her attention back up to the front seat.
Fuck hockey and the skills you develop from it.
"Nobody." She blurts out, not entirely understanding how she's in the hot seat now. "Scott slept with somebody, too."
"Yeah, but I know who Scott took home—— "
"It's nobody. I barely even know his name."
"How do you barely know someone's name?"
"I only know his first name, Scott."
"You were drunk." Rick's voice has taken a serious lilt that she doesn't like.
Gwen groans. She knows she was drunk. "So was he. We were equally drunk. He shouldn't have been allowed to drive."
"You got into the car with a drunk driver?" Scott snorts. "I thought you were smarter than that."
"Shut the fuck up."
He raises an eyebrow and leans forward. She feels a slight spike of panic because he isn't wearing a seatbelt. "Wanna say that again?"
"You aren't my fathers, and you aren't my boyfriends. You don't get to have commentary on this." She can't hold Scott's gaze for too long without shrinking away. "You have both slept with some of the most god-awful girls, and I've never given you any grief."
Rick opens his mouth to remind her that she gave him a whole lot of grief about Mindy but decides against it. He instead settles for something else.
"Well... was he any good?"
━━━━━━ ꕥ ━━━━━━
Rick gets a parking spot right outside of the auditorium building and exits the car as soon as he's pulled the keys out of the ignition. It takes Gwen a little longer to do so, her muscles screaming in protest of her every movement, but when she does, she bends at the waist in front of the right side mirror to see how much damage the wind did to her makeup.
It's then, as she's reapplying her smudged lip gloss, that Rick leans to her level.
"I didn't really hurt you, did I?" Rick's breath fans across her neck as he whispers in her ear.
Eyes still trained on her reflection in the mirror, Gwen shakes her head. She wipes the corner of her lip where some of the gloss dribbled. "I'm okay. I was just messing with you."
He nods and takes the sunglasses as she hands them back to him. Scott slides out of the car and into a standing position behind her.
"Hey, asshole!" The goalie calls out as she stands up, drawing both of their attention over his shoulder. "A girl in a skirt bending over isn't an invitation to be a creep! Make yourself scarce, kid, before I make your life hell."
The boy he's yelling at, who can't be older than a sophomore, runs off, red in the face and shrunk down in his mortification. Gwen shakes her head as Scott swivels on his heel and loops an arm around her shoulder.
"My hero."
"You know it." He winks.
Rick continues to look behind them, in the direction of the sophomore, until they've passed him and she reaches out to startle him from his apparent daze.
"Jeremy Anderson." He hums thoughtfully, wetting his lips with his tongue as he turns to face them. "He's on the chess team."
"No, Rick."
"What?"
"Leave him alone."
"He was being a creep."
"And he learned his lesson."
People part for them as they make their way inside. The assembly looks to be ready to happen —— Buckley stands up on the stage with the board of alumni, Rick's father included, and most, if not all of, the student body has settled into seats.
"I'm not too sure about that."
"Don't act like either of you is innocent. I have caught you both looking at my ass multiple times."
Scott blanches slightly but remains calm while Rick sputters over sounds. "Well, you've got a cute ass."
The comment earns him a jab to the side.
"So we're not allowed to harass the kid who was being a creep, and we aren't allowed to know who you slept with —— what are we allowed to do?"
They come to a stop where Cole has secured his teammates space. "Hm." She twists out from underneath his arm and takes her bag from his hands. "You can copy all of my calculus homework for the whole year if you behave yourselves during this assembly."
Before Scott can even process the terms of the agreement, Rick, who's finally recovered from her accusation, shrugs.
"That sounds good to me."
"Rick, no——"
"Awesome. I'll see you two in like twenty?"
"Damnit."
"Remember what we talked about." She walks backward a few steps before turning. A few of the new ducks from the Junior Goodwill Games sit in front of the Varsity boys and Gwen waves at Dwayne. "Hey."
"H-Hey!" He waves back, then cringes in on himself.
A laugh bubbles through her regardless.
Further down toward the stage, Gwen finds her (and Mindy's) cheerleaders. Altogether, they take up two collective rows and fill the crowd with a huge chunk of red. Alexa Dean, the only person she'd really consider a friend outside of Rick and Scott, has saved her a seat next to her.
It just also happens to be a seat next to Mindy, too.
"Hey, Lex. How've you been?"
"I've been good. How about you?"
Mindy interrupts their conversation by clearing her throat. Gwen rolls her eyes and the both of them turn to acknowledge the other blonde, Alexa leaning around Gwen with slightly narrowed eyes.
"Hello, Mindy. Slept with anybody you shouldn't have lately?"
Mindy smiles in a way that Gwen is sure that she's meant to be intimidating. "Hey, Gwen. Have you slept with anyone lately?"
Alexa scoffs from the other side of Gwen.
"Mhm. Sure did. Didn't you hear? Your dad's pretty loud when he calls me baby."
Mindy narrows her eyes to slits. Gwen just responds with a sarcastic smile and returns to her conversation with Alexa.
"Are you alright? She's such a cunt."
"I'm fine." She shrugs. She and Mindy have been at each other's throats since they were fourteen. "She doesn't bother me."
(Well, Mindy does bother Gwen. She bothers her a whole lot. Gwen just hasn't been able to figure out why yet.)
"Are you sure you're alright? You were pretty hammered last night."
Gwen winces at the reminder. "Yeah, I'm sure. Made a few mistakes, but it's nothing that medicine and rest can't fix."
To that, Alexa snorts.
"Oh, I'm sure. I turn around for five seconds and Lanie's telling me you left with Brody Cargill. That's one big mistake."
Brody Cargill? Where do I know that name?
"You know his name?"
Alexa's face wrinkles up. "Yeah. Of course, I do. He's the captain of the Golden Garden wolverines, remember? He and Rick got into that big fight last year because they almost beat the warriors by cheating?"
Very suddenly, Gwen's blood pressure bottoms out and all the color drains from her face.
"Oh."
"Yeah. Oh... Gwen?——"
Alexa doesn't get to finish her question. Buckley takes his place by the podium and taps the microphone for their attention, and all conversation in the room goes quiet.
Gwen wishes now more than ever that she was never born.
━━━━━━ ꕥ ━━━━━━
a/n:
me introducing the 'rival love interest' (brody's barely there for anything other than jealousy) in the second chapter in the funniest way possible? more likely than you'd think. (also, gee, a brown haired, blue eyed, hockey captain... I really wonder why gwen slept with him? 🤔)
I realize it's physically impossible for gwen, rick, and scott to all be 18 already unless they were left back once. you're not gonna mention it, I'm not gonna mention it —— kay? (if you have to, imagine they all got left back in pre-k or something.)
comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and I cannot stress how much they motivate me to continue! thank you