A/N: Now this is a long one guys, it took me longer to edit than I thought, so sorry about that :P
And quick note, I changed the names of Kirstie's dogs because that is the name of "Bella's" dogs in my class version of this, and there was a whole conversation out of it that I wanted to keep... so yeah, no Olaf and Pascal I'm sorry.
And as usual if something has really confused you in the story, ask, because with this one there might be something I mentioned in the class version edits that hasn't been mentioned in the previous chapters, if that even makes sense.
How about I just let you guys read the story :)
Chapter 11
T@mickey.240: "My mom got my little sis to take a pic with @KirstieMaldonado #wishiwentwiththefam"
T@ktmfan01: "ARE YOU KIDDING!?! @mickey.240"
T@mickey.240: "I'll post it on insta @ktmfan01 apparently Avi Kaplan was there too :O #kavi"
###
I@mickey248: ...photo of Kirstie with a young girl... "Check it out! @KirstieMaldonado and my little sister!!!"
I@AviK_no1FAN: "No way! She's got a bottle of beer in her hand! #boozyKirstie"
I@beckalucas002: "I know right @AviK_no1FAN totally unprofessional @KirstieMaldonado #boozyKirstie"
TRENDING - #boozyKirstie
"Did you see, Mitch?" Kirstie speaks into her phone. "It wasn't even my bottle, I was holding it for Avi!"
"But that was your vomit honey, and that was you devouring those ribs. There were more bones than Kirstie."
"That's deceptive, I ended up giving three of those to Avi."
"I particularly like the photo of him blocking the pap while you spewed. Hashtag heroic, should I start the trend now? Or should I wait till the next date?"
Kirstie can hear the smirk in his voice. "Quit it. It's not a big deal if we go out. Besides help me! I need to fix this mess Mitchy!"
"Fiiiine. Tweet about the food you had, it was so good you ate too much, hashtag oops. Done."
"No, not done, there's no way it can be that simple."
"It is though, a simple tweet'll fix everything. As long as you don't mention Avi, that'd make him hate you then you'd have a new problem. Don't even mention his restaurant, totally didn't see that coming though, he cooks! One date babe and I already know you gotta lock that one down."
"Quit going off topic! Do you really think that tweet will work?"
"Positive. Now I gotta go, I'll see that tweet later thanks, byeee."
He hangs up before Kirstie gets a chance to say bye herself.
T@KirstieMaldonado: "Had some barbeque last night that was so good, too good actually #atetoomuch #oops"
Kirstie tweets it then moves on to scrolling through Instagram. She has already been on there a few times today, so many people are sending the pictures of her to her, and it's starting to get ridiculous.
Kirstie is used to having a lot of notifications, and she doesn't want to turn them off because she likes seeing her fans comments on her pictures. It just seems like none of them were positive today, probably because she hadn't posted them herself.
She notices a few of the people that are saying the worse kind of stuff seem to have handles that represented Avi in some way, not that this had anything to do with him. Except the one picture, and that it was his restaurant, and that she was out with him, but that isn't the problem. The problem is that people are jumping already, it's one picture of him shielding Kirstie from the camera while she was throwing up, it doesn't mean anything, he was just being a decent human being. And for that Kirstie is grateful.
The notification number is rising rapidly. This isn't anything new though, she'd had times like this before, mostly around the Scott Hoying stuff, then there is that time her and Mitch went out drinking. That one was particularly bad, the boozyKirstie hashtag had stuck around for several weeks. Her publicist Candice still has nightmares about it. And now boozyKirstie is back and Candice is going to kill her.
She decides she better call Candice before she calls her.
Candice answers almost immediately.
"It was not my bottle."
"Really?"
"Yeah, but I didn't tweet that cause I knew they wouldn't believe me. So I just covered the vomiting thing, do you think it worked?"
"It probably did, but I'm more concerned about you holding the bottle over the five year old's shoulder!"
"She was more like eight."
"Not the point Kirstie, that is the problem photo from my point of view. You ate too much food, no big deal, you went on a date, also not a big deal. The throwing up could be a bit more but only because it looks like you threw up from drinking too much."
"Are you serious? No way, the ribs pic covered that, and my tweet."
"Kirstie, one tweet is not always enough. But we could spin this, get the guy to tweet about it, joke about it, you ate too much food and threw up haha."
Kirstie sighs, "Candice do you know who that guy is?"
"No."
"But you assume he's famous?"
"Yes, as long as I've known you you've only dated famous guys."
"He's Avi Kaplan, famous yes, Twitter no."
"What do you mean Twitter no?"
"Avi doesn't do social media, or cameras, that pic was a total fluke."
"What about the first one with him?"
"What?"
"With the fan at a restaurant, but not the restaurant in question."
"Oh the fan he was rude to, so we had to take a pic with her so she didn't say anything about it."
"What do you mean rude? We don't want you involved with that."
"Long story short it was my fault so we're not mad at him about it."
"Whatever. Let's focus on the main issue, alcohol with an eight year old."
"It wasn't mine!"
"Kirstie!"
###
Avi's on the couch, his phone to his ear.
"Who are you talking to?" Esther hovers over him.
"No one," Avi sighs, "She's not answering."
"Who? Kirstie?" she hisses.
"Yes, who else would it be?" he gets up and grabs his helmet, keys and wallet too.
"Where are you going?"
"To see Kirstie."
"What if she doesn't want to see you again? Maybe that's why she's not answering your calls."
"We both said we wanted to go out again, so why would she avoid me now? She could have been honest when I brought it up if she didn't want to go out with me. But she said she wants to, you don't always know everything Esther." He opens the front door, "Oh wait can you pass me my jacket?"
"The leather one?"
"Yeah, cause I'll wear a winter coat on my bike," he laughs.
"She's not good Avi."
"You only don't like her because I do."
"No, but last ni-," he closes the door on Esther before she can finish her sentence.
Avi pulls up at Kirstie's front gate. He presses the buzzer on the key pad and waits.
Kirstie just about jumps out of her skin when the buzzer goes off, then Tyrion and Sansa start barking like mad. She rushes through to one of the guest bedrooms to look out onto the driveway, the two dogs hot on her heels.
Peering through the blinds, she can't help but smile at the sight of the motorbike behind the gate.
She runs back through the house to the control pad near the front door to open the gate. Kirstie opens the front door to Avi walking his bike up the short driveway. She keeps the door closed just enough so that Tyrion and Sansa couldn't get past her.
Avi takes off his helmet as he reaches the front door, "Hey," he smiles.
"I didn't know your hair was so long, I've never seen it out before," she replies.
"And I didn't know you looked so good without make-up, I assumed you did, but now I'm sure. Can I come in?"
Her hands shoot up to her face, she has forgotten all about her make-up, she hadn't expected a visitor. She isn't dressed properly either, suddenly self-conscious of her over-sized t-shirt, her gym shorts and her messy hair. "Yeah I guess," she says shyly. "Just let me shut the gate." She closes the door on him and he stares at it in surprise.
The door opens completely this time and two large Huskies bound out to meet him.
"Hold this," Avi holds out his helmet for Kirstie to take.
"They won't hurt it," Kirstie chuckles and watches in surprise as Avi crouches down pulling Sansa into his arms, petting her. He reaches around for Tyrion who is usually a little more reserved, but seems to like Avi just fine.
"I'm very glad to see you're a dog person," she grins.
"Well cat people suck," he jokes. "The orangey one is Sansa right?"
"How'd you know her name?"
"I read your blog, remember?" He stands up with the dogs still brushing around his legs.
"Right."
"Yeah I love Game of Thrones too. Have you read the books?" he asks.
She shakes her head, "Just watched the show."
"Well I recommend the books too. And I'm just gonna say, I'm slightly disappointed that Tyrion is a regular sized Husky," he chuckles.
She shrugs, "Just named them after my faves."
"Daenerys," he smiles.
"What?"
"My favourite."
"Oh, well she does have a lot of nude scenes," she crosses her arms over her chest.
"No-no, well yeah she does, but that's not why I like her. Kirstie she's the Mother of Dragons," he pauses. "I love dragons."
"Yeah I remember you mentioning something about your dragon beard," she smiles, reaching up to stroke his beard. "This isn't weird is it?"
"Surprisingly no, no it's not."
"Good," she drops her hand. "Now don't take this the wrong way, but what are you doing here?"
"You weren't answering my calls, so I came to check on you even though Esther said I shouldn't. I don't really know why she said that and I didn't stick around to find out."
"Of course," Kirstie mutters. It occurs to her that Avi might not have seen what was going on with her on social media at the moment. She didn't even have to tell him about it if she didn't want to, he'd only find out if his sister told him.
"I didn't catch that," he says, snapping Kirstie from her thoughts.
She hesitates, "Don't worry about it." What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. "I am happy to see you though. I was a little worried the car thing might have sunk in overnight and that you'd never want to talk to me again."
Avi smiles, "Nah, I like talking to you too much for a little vomit to throw me off."
Kirstie feels her face heating up and turns away.
"I sent it to get cleaned anyways; it'll be as good as new in no time."
"No, I said I'd get that done, how much? I'll pay you back." Kirstie points over her shoulder in the general direction of her bedroom where she kept her purse.
Avi shakes his head, "Stop worrying about it, it's not a big deal so we are no longer going to be talking about it, ever."
"But-"
"Nope. No more."
Kirstie sighs, not knowing what to talk about with him now, she hates awkward silence. "Would you maybe like something to drink?" she asks slowly.
"Nah, not at the moment," he replies.
"Okay," she looks away from him again.
"Let's do something," Avi says.
"Like what?"
"I don't know we could watch a movie?
"Why?"
"Because I want to hang out with you Kirstie." He doesn't know why she has to ask so many questions, why can't they just hang out.
"Would that make this the date?" she gestures between them, "Will we not get to go out and do something?"
"We could go out and do something, or not, whatever you want. I'm really confused Kirstie."
"You don't need to be confused. I know we only went out last night, but it wasn't a date, well it wasn't organised as a date. But none the less we could still go out and do something today, like a date?"
"I'd rather stay inside, away from cameras you know? Not saying no to a date, just could we do something here?"
"Like what? My place is so boring!" Kirstie complains.
"I can literally see the pool through the glass door, not that I want to go in because I don't, but just saying this place is better than mine. Mostly because my sister's not here," he adds quietly.
"Why is it so bad if your sister is there?" She puts his helmet aside and walks into the lounge, with Avi close behind.
"Because she's always on my back about everything, she always wants to know everything. She always does everything for me, like if I tried to live on my own I don't think I could. She treats me like a kid sometimes... sorry I shouldn't really be dumping this on you," he sighs.
"I don't mind. You can tell me anything, I'll listen," she gives him a small smile. "Now I don't know if this is my place to say, but don't let her treat you like a child, you're 26-"
"27," he interrupts.
"What no," she shakes her head.
"Yeah Kirst, I think I know how old I am."
"When did you turn 27?"She asks.
"Actually only last week."
"You're kidding? How did I not know that? Happy belated Birthday I guess. Did you do anything fun?"
He shrugs, "I had dinner with my family and Kevin, nothing major, but it was nice I always like spending time with my parents, even if Esther was there too. I mean don't get me wrong, I love my sister, but all she does makes it difficult sometimes," he says getting back to their previous conversation.
"I was gonna say you're old enough to do things for yourself and she should know that, you need to tell her that, but do it nicely so that she doesn't get hurt."
Kirstie can't believe she hadn't known it was his birthday, they haven't really known each other all that long but she feels like she should have known. She would have bought a present or they could have gotten a drink or something, they had fun writing the song together and they were friends last week. She doesn't know what they are right now but it seems to be going in the right direction.
"Let's have a birthday drink," she blurts out.
"Sure, what have you got?"
"What do you like? Oh just come through to the kitchen," she walks off, he follows her through into the large and spacious kitchen.
The kitchen looks brand-new, as though she hardly uses it, and from what Avi remembers of her blog that is pretty accurate, Kirstie doesn't cook.
"Take a seat," she gestures at the breakfast bar.
Avi watches her walk to the cupboards, she almost has a jump in her step and it makes him wonder if she always did and he's never noticed in the small time they have spent together, or if the high-heels she normally wore restricted her?
"So I don't have beer because I actually don't like it, just a future note for when we go out next, just buy me something that sounds fruity."
"Got it. Not actually much a beer guy myself, just went with it because it's simple and we wouldn't have to fuss around," he nods.
"Happy to have that one sorted," she smiles. "I bet you're a whiskey kind of guy."
Avi smiles, "Lucky guess."
"Too bad I don't have any then," she laughs.
"That's really cruel Kirstie," he points at her.
"Sorry, I do have rum, do you like that?"
He nods, "Rum's fine, it's not whiskey though," he jokes.
"Shut-up, I'll make sure I have some for next time okay." Kirstie takes the bottle down off the shelf and collects two glasses from a cupboard, she pours his first.
He goes to take a sip but she stops, "No way I have to sing Happy Birthday!"
"Don't you dare."
"Happy Birthday," she starts and Avi jumps up from his seat, placing his glass back on the bench. He covers her mouth with his hand but she still continues to sing.
"Please stop," he asks, but she doesn't. Before she can sing dear Avi, he drops his hand and in a moment decides to lean in and press his lips to hers.
"Why'd you do that?" she asks.
"To shut you up," he replies.
"So not because you actually wanted to kiss me?"
"That too."
Kirstie bites her lip, "So you wouldn't object if we did that again?"
"Absolutely not."
A/N: Soooooo??
Hannah :)