(READ THE AUTHORS NOTE AT END PLEASE)
Rule #19: Suit & Tie
“You what?”
Audrey pushed her bangs to the side, playing with her food. Clearly both our appetites were gone. “You heard me. And that’s all I can say.”
“Does Ink know?” My mind felt sluggish, it’s processing was as slow as a snail.
“I didn’t ask.”
She quieted down then, and I knew that was all she was revealing for today. I finished my leftover chicken bite by bite, thinking over what Audrey had just said. Clearly this was what the whole ‘make Adam lose his V-card’ craze had stemmed from. And also why Cody and her had ended it those few years ago. But some of it didn’t make sense. Sighing, I switched my mind’s frequency to another station.
“What are you thinking about?” Audrey asked as the sky turned completely dark. Only the full moon right over our heads along with the stars gave the little light we had.
“Just thinking about the new Call of Duty game. Ghosts. Man, it’s going to be awesome.”
“Ah, I, uh, I see.” Audrey wasn’t what you’d call a ‘gamer chick’, no matter how many times I had tried convincing her otherwise.
The unspoken topic still hung in the air, and I felt the sudden urge to drive over to Cody’s. “So, we should get going. It’s quite late, and we have early classes tomorrow,” I murmured. The thought saddened me, both because duh, class and also because I wanted to stay a bit longer.
I could tell Audrey wanted the same, and she smiled wistfully in the moonlight. “Alright.” Helping me fold the comforter and pack away the pillows and food, we headed back inside the warmth of the truck.
Audrey fell asleep on the way home, and I steadily cruised the roads until we reached the apartment building. It was past midnight. “Hey, Audrey, wake up.”
She mumbled something in her sleep, crouching into a fetus position in the front seat. Sighing, I stuffed the bag of empty dishes back into the car and slid my arms underneath Audrey, lifting her up and out carefully.
Putting her over my back, I avoided the judgmental stares from the one or two people still awake and stepped into the elevator.
Once I managed to get Audrey into bed, I tiptoed to my room and shut the door, one hand already dialing Cody’s number.
“Yellow?” His voice was groggy.
“Dude, I need you to tell me what happened after Audrey took your virginity.”
“Wait, what?” he spluttered out.
“C’mon, hurry up!”
Cody was wide awake now. “Man, I’m meeting up with Audrey and May tomorrow anyways, just tag along and I’ll tell you. But for god’s sake just let me sleep!”
I groaned, but surrendered. “Fine, you win. Goodnight.”
He just growled out something indecipherable and clicked the phone shut, leaving me with the dial tone.
Finding a way to get to sleep that night seemed almost impossible, and I tossed and turned, thinking of different scenarios in my head which would cause Audrey to not be with me wholeheartedly. What had he done to her?
That night, the image of Audrey’s hair glinting in the sunset put me to sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Wait, let me just ask this again - you actually want to go?”
I shrugged noncommittally. “Sure, why not?”
“Um, maybe because you hate shopping?”
“I’ll just be bored home alone,” I whined.
Audrey stared at me in disbelief. “Are you sure this isn’t because you’re being all over-protective of my being around Cody?”
“To be honest, I hadn’t even thought of that.” Lies.
“And… it’s also not a new thing where your fondness of me has led to you stalking me everywhere?”
“Oh, please. I have much better things to do with my time.” More lies.
Audrey still looked unsure, but she still stepped aside from the doorway to let me grab my jacket. “Fine, but I don’t want any complaints. And you’re not allowed to see my dress.”
I raised an eyebrow as I hopped on one foot, pulling a boot on. “Dress? For what?”
Throwing her hands up in the air, she laughed aloud. “Gosh, I give up. First you’re begging me to let you come along for shopping of all things, and now you have no idea what we’re even shopping for. What am I going to do with you, Adam?”
I gave her my most charming smile. “Kissing me doesn’t sound like such a bad option,” I offered, waggling my eyebrows.
She leaned over, surprising me for a second, before her head turned and she pecked my cheek. “There,” she said, moving back with an impish grin.
I sighed exaggeratedly. “I guess I’ll have to live with that for now.”
She winked, putting on her white earmuffs. “You bet. And by the way, we’re going shopping for the Winter Wonderland Ball. I don’t think we’ll find time before exams and it’s right afterwards, so yeah.”
“The what ball?” I asked as we made our way into the hall, Audrey locking the door behind us.
Now she was seriously giving me an ‘are you stupid?’ look. “Adam, if you don’t know what the Winter Wonderland Ball is, I might have to kill you.” Her voice and expression both were somber.
“Oh yeah, I might have heard of it,” I said, recalling a bunch of students mentioning something like that at college today.
“Might have heard of it? Adam-” She cut herself off, breathing deeply. “Adam.” Giving me a sarcastically sweet smile, she continued. “It is only the most amazing dance of the year.”
I still didn’t see what the big deal was. “Okay, well, it’s just a dance. So?”
She groaned, massaging her forehead as we entered the lobby. “People remember these dances for the rest of their lives. It is not ‘just a dance’.”
Realizing my attempts at making any sense of this was futile, I quickly nodded, letting her know I got it. “Right. Winter Wonderland Ball. Most important thing ever.”
“Yes, precisely.” And then she was off daydreaming, probably fantasizing about the dress she was going to get.
Dress. Hey, that reminded me of… “Wait, why can’t I see your dress?”
That captured her attention pretty quickly. “It’s bad luck. Like the groom can’t see the bride in her wedding dress type thing. I want to surprise you.”
The analogy cheered me up infinitely. “Huh. But you already have so many clothes… why do you need another dress?”
I narrowly dodged a whack on my head. That seemed answer enough, and I smiled sheepishly. “So… we’re going together?” I asked slyly, quickly changing the subject as we strolled out of the building.
Audrey flushed (or was it just the cold?), looking down at her boot-clad feet. “I-I just, I-”
I interrupted her adorable stuttering. “It’s cool, Auds. I just wanted the chance to ask you myself, you know?”
She nodded, linking her arm with mine. “You still can, you know? And you better make it awesome because you have to compare with all those YouTube videos where the guys asks the girl to a dance.” She was half-serious, and I laughed nervously.
“Sure, sure. Sheesh, all you demanding women,” I groaned in mock annoyance.
She pinched my side, knitting her eyebrows together evilly. “All you women? There better only be me.”
“Always.”
She scrutinized me, a small quirk to her upper lip. “This isn’t some way for me to let you come with us, right?”
“Absolutely not,” I gasped in mock horror, putting a hand to my chest. Rolling her eyes, she lightly shove me in the chest and turned to unlock the door.
“Fine, whatever. Let’s go, May and Cody are probably getting anxious.”
Not more than I am.
“What was that?” Audrey turned mid-way.
“Ah, nothing.” I gave her a lopsided smile and followed her out, closing the door.
“Do you want me to drive?” Audrey asked excitedly, waving her license in the air.
I bit back a ‘no’, sighing and nodding. she let out a squeal and grabbed Lana’s keys out of my hand, inside the front seat in a flash. Well, good. At least that part was speedy enough.
Surprisingly, it didn’t take her long to get us to the dreaded Forever 21 (I had a hunch it had a little something to do with the words ‘practice’ and ‘May’). I didn’t even know that place had dresses fit for a formal-slash-informal event.
She yanked me inside excitedly, making me almost slip on the black ice. Seeing May’s ponytail and Cody’s dark Bieber-cut from afar, she halted and frowned at me. “Wait. I can’t take you any farther.”
I gaped at her. “You literally just drove me here to leave me at the entrance of the mall?”
“Well, I can’t exactly take you inside with me, now can I?”
Grumbling, I agreed. Stupid dress rule thing. “Alright, go ahead.”
She winked at me before bounding off to go meet up and complete their trio, leaving me behind. Now what?
I still had to talk to Cody. I could see him eyeing me from under his bangs. They entered the store and I huffed, trying to make it seem like I wasn’t just loitering around.
“Dude, hey!”
Jay’s loud voice broke through my wall of boredom. I spun to see him running over to where I was leaning against a side phone booth. “Jay, what’s up?”
He was wearing his blue and grey uniform for work, walkie-talkie on his hip. “Just the usual. Saw you hanging around alone. Where’s Audrey? Did she drag you out here?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
I shook my head, stretching. “Nah. I wanted to come along. I have to talk to Cody.”
He nodded. “I saw him around with May after she finished her shift. But then why are you here alone?”
“They’re gone dress shopping, and I can’t intrude because I can’t see Audrey’s dress. Bridegroom or something like that.”
Jay laughed out loud. “Well, do you have your tux ready?”
Staring at him, I pushed myself off the wall of the booth. “What tux?”
His eyebrow arched higher. “Dude. For the Ball. You are going, right? So you have a tux?”
“Uh, nope.” I scratched my neck sheepishly grinning at him.
He passed a hand over his face before shaking his head and turning, beckoning for me to follow him. “You did pick out a color for you two, right?”
“A color?” I followed him past the various brightly-lit and multi-colored stores. Something from Prom nagged at the back of my mind. Everyone coupled up in different colors. Oh god, it was horrid. Like the Kool-Aid man decided to vomit over everyone and couldn’t decide what color to spew.
Okay, maybe wrong analogy. Anyways, back to the point… “Uh, not really. I don’t even know what color she’ll be wearing.” Dammit, no phone either. I left it charging at home.
Jay stopped in front of an Armani’s. “Whoa, what? Dude, no, you have to know the colour.”
I squinted at all the expensive suits racked up in the store, not even noticing as Jay opened the glass and shoved me in before following. “I know, but she never told me. And where are you taking me?”
Jay looked at me. “Hunting hippos.”
“Real funny.”
“I know, right.”
“Shut up.”
“We’re here to get you a suit. We can get your tie later.”
Before I could protest, Jay called the glamorous employee at the counter and shoved me in a stall. I have a bad experience with stalls. I’m pretty sure Jay knew that.
The two guys kept throwing suit over suit over to me until I was drowning in them. Sighing, I waited for the tuxedo avalanche to stop. “Guys, this is way over my budget.”
“Oh, right. I forgot to tell you that May said to get a suit for you. So this is me doing that.”
I stilled. Was this some sort of apology? Looking down at the pile of clothing, I backed away a step.
“She normally does something like that for all her employees as a Christmas present.”
Oh, that’s okay then. And really, exams started tomorrow. No way was I going to find time to get a suit afterwards. Quickly pulling suit after suit on and checking the sizes out, I finally decided on a simple black shirt and black pants. It was laid back, cheap and I wouldn’t have to struggle with the combined heat of a hormone-filled hall along with a blazer.
Stepping out of the change room wearing my normal clothes, I handed the discarded outfits back to the Glam Guy (seriously, his nametag said that). “Jay, tell May I said thanks, but no thanks. I think I’ll be fine with these.”
Jay skeptically examined the two pieces of clothing. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.” Pulling out my wallet. I paid for the stuff and grabbed the bag. For such a large price, the bag was quite light. Jay walked with me as I pushed open the door and went back into the bustling centre of the mall. Audrey’s red hair peeked out over a high-backed chair in a Pizza Hut over in the food court. After saying goodbye to Jay, I headed over there.
Cody had disappeared, so I gave the girls a faux smile and slid into a seat. Information would have to wait.
For now, I have to discover what color tie I’m going to wear.
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has it really been 8 days since I uploaded ohmygoodness I’m so sorry my lovelies </3
And I present to you a sucky chapter. Ermghhh. Alright, couple of notes:
- I FREAKING FINISHED NANO that’s partially why I didn’t update, bc un i needed a break, and deux this chapter was the one I was writing when I crossed 5Ok and I over-exerted myself to the point where I was vomiting over a toilet bowl at 3am to finish this and after that I was just nauseous whenever I read this again
yeah I know TMI, moving on~
- I know I said 5 chapters, but really there’s only 3 more after this.
- Sequel. there shall be one. this will be a trilogy ;) More info coming soon! Plus, I’m planning a stand-alone novel to be released on New year’s as a gift for y’all, and I’m also co-writing what will become the next NYTimes bestseller oh yeah i went there
- Title change. The Guy Rules is book one of A&A. Also, I didn’t separate their names because it was symbolic to me, like you can’t separate them, you know?
- Trailers have been added. First on the very first part of this book which will represent the entire series and second to this chapter which is for TGR itself :)
- I think I want Audrey to remain as Emma Stone. Also, Cast pictures have been added to the first couple of chapters can i jsut swoon over Adam pls
- House of Hades and Frozen. if anyone wants to freak out with me, please do so.
Vote, comment, and follow ^^
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@ChristineC10
Story: Down the Wishing Well
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