“Rachel, chin up. You need to radiate confidence. You are the sun!” Ruth instructed me, pointing her figure up to the ceiling. I stood shakily in my ten-thousand inch tall heels and negative ten-thousand inch dress, quivering like a leaf.
“What does that make me? Chopped liver? This is my show, my performance, my stage! I’m the sun!” William crossed his arms over his chest grumpily.
“Yeah, son of a bitch,” Johnny snorted. He reclined in the lounge, looking entirely at ease.
I shot him Johnny glare that could shrivel puppies. Though I had to suppress a laugh at his statement. William just sulked even more.
Johnny slapped a hand over his mouth, mumbling a quiet, “Oops.”
My glare relented, and my eyes focused on Ruth in front of me. “William, stop pouting. She’s just as important as you are!”
You tell him, Ruth!
William grumbled in response, obviously not enjoying that I was in the spotlight. Believe me; I’d rather him be center stage, if anyone. He had incredible stage presence and I definitely didn’t. Not that I’d ever tell him that.
“Let me see that million-watt smile!” Ruth snapped her fingers, trying to regain my attention one-hundred percent.
She did wonders on my self-assurance.
I grinned cheekily, causing her to roll her eyes. “O.K., so this next performance is going to be extremely fast paced, you two,” Ruth’s eyes narrowed down toward me and then shifted to William. “You’re going to be sweating bullets. That I can tell you.”
“Would that be different than any other performance?” William raised an eyebrow challengingly.
“Actually, yes. Because you’re both going to be moving around the stage rapidly. Thanks to Rachel, we have that seasonal performance idea. What’s the next holiday? Does anyone have a guess? Hmm?”
“Halloween,” William announced in a bored tone.
“Wilbur’s so smart,” Johnny commented from the darkness he was bathed in.
“I’m going to kill that kid,” William promised Ruth.
“We need him for the show, William. No killing is allowed,” she said as she rolled her eyes.
Johnny stepped out from the darkness, making seeing him an easier undertaking. He stuck his tongue out childishly at William, wiggling his fingers by his ears.
“See? See what I have to put up with?” William exhaled and threw his hands out towards Johnny. “Imbecile.”
“Enough, you two!” I threw both of my hands up into the air. “As amusing as this is, I don’t want to have an awful performance. We should start rehearsing,” I reasoned.
“Thank you, Rachel. Always the sensible one,” Ruth smiled appreciatively at me.
“And always the suck up,” William added, grinning like a cat from across the room.
“Shut your trap,” I wrinkled my nose at him as I said this.
William stuck his tongue out at me.
“Do you see this?” I demanded, pointing at him. I glared at him, and then glanced at Ruth’s disbelieving face. “What?” I asked her.
“You’re all the same. The maturity levels of a toddler,” she sighed pitifully. She sunk down onto a chair, placing her head in her hands.
“I’m not the one sticking my tongue out!” I defended, throwing my hands on my hips.
“She’s being an ass to me,” William replied innocently.
“Stop swearing!” I practically wailed. “It’s not necessary! I can get by fine without using a cuss word in every sentence!”
“Fine,” William growled. “You don’t like swearing? I’ll stop.”
“Really?” I couldn’t mask the surprise in my voice.
“Yes,” he nodded. “But I do know some sign language you’d love.”
With those words, he flipped me off.
~* *~
After the grueling rehearsal, we all decided to lounge at my house. I was surprised that William agreed, but then again, he I realized he probably had some conniving plans up his sleeve.
“Don’t break anything, O.K.?” I warned them seriously before I allowed them through the front door.
William brushed past me, bringing a shiver down my arm. Cold seemed to radiate around his body, like a freezer. “Are you sick, Will?” I asked him.
He honestly looked confused, “No, why?”
We all walked into my home, kicking off our shoes by the door. I bounded over to the living room and flung myself in the recliner, leaving them the loveseat.
“I don’t know, you’re always just cold,” I babbled, realizing I should’ve kept my mouth shut. He could get offended from that, and honestly, that was the last thing I wanted.
“He’s a vampire,” Johnny answered, as if that was the only logical conclusion. He shrugged off his sweatshirt and draped it over the side of the couch. He took a seat on the floor, sprawling out like a dead man.
“No, I have a circulation problem,” William shrugged nonchalantly. He sagged against the loveseat directly across from me. “Nothing big.”
“That can’t be healthy,” I responded with a frown. I leaned forward and held out my hands expectantly. He looked down at them with an eyebrow raised, but made no attempt to move. “Give me your hands,” I ordered.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he replied smoothly.
“Yeah, your disease will rub off on her, huh Will?” Johnny giggled like a school-girl on the living room floor.
William glared at his friend and shoved his hands out for me to inspect.
I put his palms on mine, ignoring the small electric shock that had developed. His hands were tan, fingers long and elegant, the nails clipped down short like a typical boy. I inspected his hands, shaking my head when I did so.
Hmm, usually with circulation problems, your hands turned red.
“Done?” William asked in an annoyed tone. He yanked his hands away, even though I hadn’t responded.
“I guess so,” I shrugged, trying to act like his irritation didn’t bother me.
There was an uncomfortable silence for just a moment. Quickly, I recovered. “What do you guys want to eat?”
“Food,” Johnny and William responded simultaneously.
I blinked at them, un-amused.
“Uh, how about pizza? I’m not an expensive date,” Johnny winked.
William shifted uncomfortably, agreeing in a low voice. He twiddled his thumbs, making me already feel like an awful host.
“We just got here, Wilbur! You can’t be bored already!” Johnny shouted at him.
William shrugged.
Johnny pestered William again, most likely driving William to the edge. “He’s in a bad mood,” he stage-whispered to me.
I rolled my eyes, spinning around to go get the telephone. I already decided on pepperoni, and too bad for them if they didn’t want any toppings.
~* *~
“You have to lift your arms more, Will, like this!” Johnny shouted, doing a demonstration. Not a very good one, to be honest.
“No,” I intervened, smiling slightly. I lifted my arms the proper way, nodding smugly at them. “This is how you lift your arms. That’d be why my score is six thousand and you two are still in the tens digits,” I giggled.
“Why are we playing this stupid game?” William demanded, though the twitch in his lips suggested a smile.
We’d been playing ‘Just Dance’ on my Wii system for about an hour. My muscles were already aching from the fast-paced songs we had to dance to, but that was fine. I had the satisfaction of beating both of them.
“Because it’s fun,” Johnny answered for me.
William did another fist pump as that dance move came up onto the screen. He spun in a circle and started doing a quickly paced jig. And it was actually spot on. He was gaining points in thousand point increments, gaining ‘PERFECT’ bonus points. His eyebrows kneaded together in concentration as he continued to dance.
I hadn’t realized that Johnny and I had stopped dancing to watch him. He honestly seemed so into the game. When he did another spin, he finally realized that we weren’t dancing anymore and glared.
“Is that a camera?” William glared icily at Johnny.
Johnny shoved something in his pants pocket slowly, deliberately. “No…”
William glanced at me for a quick second, and walked directly out of the room. Two seconds later, he reappeared with a Nerf gun. He shot Johnny directly in the face with one of the Styrofoam bullets. “Where did you…?” I trailed off, staring at the gun in his hands.
William held a hand up, silencing me. “I have my ways.”
Rather ominous, if you ask me. I couldn’t remember him bringing any Nerf guns into the house, but then again, I must not have paid good enough attention.
William tossed me one. “Shoot him, I’ll give you ten bucks.”
“You can’t bribe me!” I replied, laughing.
“Fifteen,” he challenged.
“Deal,” I relented with a smile, clutching onto the gun with anxious fingers. Johnny looks over at us in disbelief, staring at us with his mouth wide open. He was surprised, to say the least.
“Rachel, you’d betray me for fifteen dollars?” he pouted, though I could hear the humor underlying his words.
I winked, surprising myself.
William smiled, happy that I was going along with his plans.
“What? I don’t get one?” Johnny cried in further disbelief, “That’s not fair!”
“You can protect yourself with your camera,” William glared playfully. It gave me enough time to see the close friendship they had, despite their quarrels.
“Ready?” William addressed me.
I nodded, biting back a smile.
William shot his gun at Johnny, while I directed bullets at William’s face.
William’s eyes snapped up to mine, shocked. “I thought you were on my side!”
“You thought wrong,” I smiled happily and shot another bullet, “That was for swearing.”
I reloaded the Nerf gun and shots the bullet again. “And that’s for flipping me off.”
Johnny burst into loud guffaws, ripped William’s gun out of his hands, and be both ran out of the room with our “weapons”. It was hard to imagine days without these guys, temporarily filling the empty slot in my heart reserved for James.
~
Unedited. Like all of my chapters, lol. SOMEDAY I'll go back and check. :)
Let me know what you think. This was more of a fun chapter because, hey, lets face it, Johnny is the life of the party. It's hard to write a boring chapter with him. Drama is yet to come and so you should prepare yourselves!
Comment, vote, fan! <3 Love you guys and thanks for reading!