The next couple of days I guess I was kind of getting back on my feet. Actually the Thursday of Pete's arrival marked my third sober and sexless day in a row. Shit, that sounded like some alcoholic writing. But... Instead I'd spent the evenings hanging out with Spencer and Jaime, his girlfriend, and one night Brent had come over as well. He spent most of his time keeping Brendon from doing anything stupid, though. What 'stupid' meant, nobody ever really bothered telling me, though.
Pete had sent me a text Wednesday night just as I was about to start cleaning up the boxes I'd gotten from Mom and kind of distracted me by revealing that his plane was coming in on Thursday as he'd said, but at five am. So instead of cleaning out the boxes, I went to bed early.
******
We were playing video games. Mario again, actually. Spencer and I share an obsession and apparently Pete thought it was cool enough. Brent, who was also present, didn't let us forget that he'd have preferred Halo, but grudgingly played with us anyway.
Looking around, I realised that our apartment looked even more like a disgusting bachelor joint than usual. Half-empty bags of potato chips and pizza boxes were scattered all over the floor. Cans of beers, empty and full alike and courtesy of Pete's not-fake ID, were scattered over the table and we were all dressed quite, well, casually.
It had been a good day, really. We'd hung out, watched movies, played video games. I'd taken Pete into the basement room, which belonged to our apartment and which we'd fashioned into a rehearsal studio, to play him some of our new material after his lengthy insistence. And then, obviously, more video games.
"Shit!" Pete screamed and tossed the controller away.
I turned to where Spencer was looking victoriously at the older man. "Lost again, Wentz?" I asked.
He merely huffed.
Brent laughed. "You should know better than to think you can beat either one of those two. I think they've spent close to every free moment they've had together the last ten years playing Mario."
"Not true," Spencer objected. "Close, but not true."
I gave a small laugh myself at that last comment.
"Where's Brendon?" Pete suddenly asked.
I think I choked on my laugh and I quickly stretched out my hand to grip my abandoned beer bottle and drank deeply before reaching for my cigs as well.
"Ehrm... In his apartment, I think," Brent answered, scratching the back of his head.
"Why isn't he here? He knows I'm in town, right?" Fall Out Boy's bassist gave a pout. "I want to hang out with Brendon as well."
"He knows you're here," Brent informed.
"Then why is he in his apartment?" Pete asked again.
Sometimes I found it hard to believe that man was seriously well on his way to twenty-seven. He could be so childish you won't believe it. But then I guess that in our late teens we become preoccupied with being as grown up as we possibly can and then later we realise that being a child was much cooler and allow ourselves to be immature again. Either that or Pete Wentz was bipolar.
"That's a long story," Spencer started, looking at me.
I rolled my eyes. "Call him and tell him I'm out if Pete wants him over so bad."
"Alright, I sense conflict," the man in question replied. "And we have four days before we go on tour. That's enough time for any story."
"Ryan," Brent said, looking at me. "That's for you to tell."
I nodded heavily, leaning back in my beanbag chair as I lit the cigarette, ignoring the disgusted look on Pete's face. He'd given me a good telling-off earlier for having started smoking. "Well... Brendon's gay," I started the tale.
"So?" he asked, raising his eyebrows in a confused manner. "You already knew that, right?"
Now it was my time to be shocked. I think I actually jumped a bit at it. "Huh? No."
He chuckled a bit. "Come on, it's obvious. The guy wants to be a Powerpuff Girl. Not only that, but remember when we were watching Pirates of the Caribbean?"
We all nodded.
"I guess Captain Jack Sparrow is good-looking enough, but I still don't think straight men drool over Johnny Depp in eyeliner and pirate's clothing," he told us. "Brendon did though. And then there's the checking-Ryan-out deal. Pretty damn gay." His eyes narrowed a bit. "I never thought you guys would mind, though. I mean, he's your friend, right? And from what I've seen you have nothing against Ryan."
I nearly spat out my cig. "What the hell?" I asked, staring wide-eyed into the bassist's hazel orbs.
"You're gay too, right?" he asked, suddenly sounding uncertain.
I bit back a sharp insult. "Hell no," I answered instead, sending him a sharp glare.
"Oh sorry, I just always assumed..." he trailed off a bit, slight blush going over his tan cheeks before he laughed. "I was even more sure about you than Brendon, though. Shit, then the only reason I actually have for thinking Brendon's gay is that you just told me."
I shook my head slightly, half-angry, half-amused. "Some day I'm going to kill you in your sleep, Wentz."
"You?" he asked, another chuckle escaping his lips. "You're tiny, kid."
I rolled my eyes. "I'm taller than you," I returned.
"Yeah, but you're the fucking lankiest person I know," he retorted.
"You aren't a hell of a lot bigger yourself," I answered, shaking my head. Staying mad at Pete has always been more or less impossible.
"Alright, you win. Now tell me the rest of the story."
I wasn't comfortable re-living the days where my best intentions turned into a nightmare, and for a while I contemplated just running to someplace where people weren't looking expectantly at me, running to someplace where I hadn't slept with Brendon fucking Urie and my life wasn't turned opside down. But I was a realist and I knew such a place didn't exist, so I sighed deeply before continuing the explanation.
******
"You guys aren't voiding the contract, right?" Pete asked nervously.
"Not right now, at least," Spencer answered. "I think we're all kind of hoping that time will smooth things out between Ry and Brendon. The band means too much for all of us to just let it fall apart like this."
I nodded in agreement.
"But if you and Brendon can't even be in the same room unless it's to play music, how do you expect to share a bus?" Pete asked again, worry still etched onto his features. Panic! was his little baby, and I think, in a way, that us splitting up after just one album would make him feel like a huge failure.
"We'll figure it out when we have to," I answered. "Right now we don't have to, so just call him and say that I'm going out. Then you can get to hang out with him and hear his side of the story."
"But..." Pete Wentz, the one and only, seemed for a moment at a loss of words. "I don't want to chase you out of your own home."
"I was going to go out anyway," I answered with a shrug. "I just need to change first."
"But Ryan..."
I looked at Spencer, meeting his gaze as if daring him to try and stop me.
He shook his head slightly. "You haven't been out for days. I hoped you'd stopped."
I smiled faintly, just shaking my head. I had hoped I'd stopped as well, but ripping it all up, having to relive the story in my mind in order to retell it to Pete made me so aware of the things I'd managed to push from my mind the previous days. It was the unspoken things tat posed the actual problem, the thing I'd lost without ever mentioning it to anybody, the insecurities that welled up again, everything. I couldn't just ignore it. I needed my few hours of ignorant bliss that night.
******
I sat at the bar for an hour, slowly downing whatever drinks were put in front of me and adding in the occasional smoke before my eyes finally caught sight of a girl I thought I might like.
She'd come out of one of the booths, a nervous look in her doe-like brown eyes while she'd looked around a bit before finally sitting down at the bar and finally, seeming kind of scared of what she was doing, actually, ordered what looked like a Piña Colada. She wasn't really dressed up, rather wore a simple white tank, a blue zip-up, a blue jean skirt, short without being mini, and a pair of ordinary, black low-top converse. Unlike most of my hook-ups, this girl was beautiful, and that wasn't just the alcohol speaking. From the wide eyes that were the colour of dark chocolate to the lightly wavy, near-black hair that went almost all the way to her waist, the semi-tan, smooth skin and the graceful body, which was tall for a girl and curvy without being overly so. There was something familiar about her, but I decided to dismiss it.
Instead I waited patiently for her to finish the drink, then I waved the annoyingly chipper bar-tender over and ordered her one more as well as another Rum and Coke for myself. I waited a while more until her drink was served, the bar-tender pointed at me and she turned and sent me a grateful smile before putting the straw to her lips.
I received my own drink and got off my bar stool to move to next to her. "This seat taken?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No, sit, please." She smiled awkwardly, a light blush moving over her cheeks only to vanish as quickly as it had appeared.
"Thanks," I replied before climbing onto the stool right beside hers. "Ryan," I added, holding out my hand.
She giggled lightly before shaking my hand. "I know," she replied. "I'm June."
I smiled slightly. "Then it seems summer's come early." As soon as the words left my mouth, I realised how stupid I sounded. Alright, I had possibly had one Tequila too many. "I mean, it's only May," I added, trying to save my dorky reply even as I felt a deep flush move over my whole face.
She giggled again, smiling gracefully. "You're a dork," she told me truthfully. "But a cute one."
If possible, I flushed even deeper. "Thanks, or something," I muttered, searching my buzzed mind desperately for something slightly intelligent to say. "So... what brings you here?"
The smile disappeared from her face, hiding the lone dimple. "My boyfriend broke up with me yesterday," she told me. "My friend took me out to 'cheer me up', only she disappeared when the first hot guy showed any interest."
"Oh, sorry," I commented uncomfortably. I realised I should back out. This girl had just been burnt, I shouldn't be making it worse on her. But my morals were more or less lost in the bottom of some random bottle, and it had been long since the last time I'd worried about the girls' feelings.
"Oh, come on..." the smile reappeared. "It's not your fault."
"No, no, I just..." I quickly came up with another lie to add to my repetoir. What Brendon didn't know, he couldn't hold against me. "I want to make it better or something."
Apparently that was the right thing to say. Either that or the poor girl was drunk off her mind. Whatever it was, her arms came around my neck the next second and her lips latched onto mine. Not that I'd complain.
******
It must've been two am when I exited the cab outside the apartment. I'd tried something new that night. Since she was still living with her parents and there were obviously people in my apartment, neither of these places had been a solution. Instead things had gone down in her car, and I actually got home before sunup.
I'd planned on getting some water out of the fridge, then take a shower and go to bed, but as I neared the living room I realised people were having a conversation in there. Two people to be exact. Brendon and Pete if you absolutely need all the details.
And so, once again driven by my morbid curiosity, I snuck up to the door, sat down just on the hidden side of it and listened.
I guess I should add that I've always had a knack for eaves-dropping. I seem to always be at the right place and time to hear other people's most private and important conversations and for some reason they never notice me. I suspect it's because I'm, in Pete's words, 'tiny'.
"How much do I have to worry about you guys as a band?" Pete asked seriously and I could picture his expression with the dark brows drawn together and the lips tight in concern.
Brendon sighed. "Don't worry yet," he answered. "I've lost two of my best friends, I've lost my family, I've lost touch with most of my friends from before Panic!. That band is all I have left, Pete, and I have no intention of letting that go."
I heard Pete breathe deeply in relief. "Thank God," he muttered. "But you and Ryan, how's that going to work?"
There was a long pause and I was beginning to suspect that Brendon wasn't going to answer the question although I was pretty curious about the answer as well. "I don't know," he finally admitted. "I had it under control for a while, you know, I probably would still if he hadn't made the first move."
What the hell was he talking about? Oh yeah, the whole thing with going to his apartment and letting him fuck me. I guess that counted as me making the first move. Only, as far as I could see he'd lost control a while earlier. A month, nearly precisely.
"From what I've heard, you'd already lost control a while earlier," Pete protested, voicing my thoughts.
"I'm not talking about that night when he..." He paused for a while, too angry or something still to want to think about it, I supposed. "I'm talking about what happened before that."
Huh?
"What on Earth happened before that?" Pete asked.
"Remember my nineteenth birthday?" Brendon asked.
"Yeah. Oh that party was funny as shit, I've never seen Ryan that shitfaced. I think the kid woke up hugging the toilet," Pete exclaimed, laughing loudly.
"Yeah, well. He might just have been a horny drunk, but I've always believed that people are at their most honest when they're drunk. You know, that they unbeknownst to even themselves let out feelings that they'd never admit to anyone?" I could hear the hope in Brendon's voice, the desperate wish that Pete would agree with him.
"I've no idea," the bassist admitted. "I never really thought about that too much, but I seriously don't hope painting Trick's room pink and purple is one of my deepest and most secret wishes."
I nearly burst out laughing at that, but it died out quickly again. I was about to hear something that I did NOT want to hear, yet it was as if I were paralyzed, stuck onto the floor. I was incapable of doing anything but sitting there and listening. Damn my curiosity!
"What happened with Ryan, though?" Pete asked, getting back on track.
I'd do anything for Brendon to not answer that, because as much as I didn't want to remember that night, it was all coming back to me. I'd fucking... No, I couldn't admit that to myself, I seriously couldn't.
"He came up to me..." Pause. "And KISSED me. And I'm not talking pecking here. It was full-out." Another pause. "Then he was bound for the toilet. And yes, he did fall asleep out there."
Yeah, no wonder I didn't want to remember that night. Shit, seriously. But I couldn't deny it, because I remembered it then. It had happened and I'd not only let it happen, I'd been the initiator. But, well, I WAS a horny drunk, that much should've been proven since the Brendon-incident, and perhaps I'd just been unable to find a girl. Or perhaps Brendon looked like a girl to me when I was drunk.
Right at that moment I felt uncomfortably sober, though, even with the too many drinks I'd had that night. And I didn't want to hear anymore, not Pete's reaction, nothing, so I forced myself off the floor, snuck back to the door of my room, which I smacked loudly behind me before walking back to the living room, walking through there and into the kitchen while ignoring the two the best I could.
"Hey, Ry," Pete yelled. "Had a good night?"
"Yeah, it was good," I answered as I fumbled with two bottles of water while closing the fridge. No matter how sober I felt, my motor control still refused to acknowledge the fact.
I finally re-entered the living room, and one look at Brendon's red-rimmed eyes made me want to hurt him even more than he already was, simply for dropping that bomb on me. The chick was gorgeous," I added.
Pete shook his head warningly, mouthing, 'don't'.
"Don't what?" I asked, playing stupid. "I'm fucking drunk, Pete, don't expect me to understand your subtleties."
He sighed. "What do you want all that water for?"
"The more water I get inside before going to bed, the less hung over I'll be tomorrow," I explained truthfully. That was a trick I'd learned of a couple of days after I started with the heavy drinking.
I shot Brendon another gaze, nearly choking on the hurt and sadness I saw, but as it had been the case for myself, his anger also seemed to be vanishing.
"Ryan, go to bed," Pete ordered gently, getting off the couch to give me a gentle push that nearly sent me tumbling. "But take a fucking shower first, I can still smell her on you," he added, lowly enough that Brendon wasn't supposed to have heard it.
Apparently Pete didn't know how good Bren's hearing is.
******
Upon entering my room, my gaze was caught by one of the boxes from Mom's. I'd opened it the previous night but never got further than that. Now I saw a thick notebook glaring up at me, in large letters reading 'Journal' and beneath it in a smaller, childish front, 'Private Property of G. R. Ross, seven years old.'