In celebration of the weekend, Frank slept in until one o'clock in the afternoon. There was no reason to get up at all and he revelled in that fact. Unfortunately, though, he grew hungry and reluctantly forced his body out of bed. But that idea was pretty much useless and he dropped to the floor with a loud thud, sending a shock of pain through his knees.
He groaned, scraping his hair back from his face. Sighing, Frank got up, trudging downstairs. He stopped in front of the hall mirror when he caught sight of himself. His hair was quite literally a bird's nest and he could almost hear chirping. Bags were set dark under his eyes, which baffled him because he'd slept well and for hours.
Waving a hand dismissively at his reflection, he continued on to his true goal; food.
Frank raided the cupboards and found nothing good, so when he came across leftover pizza in the fridge, he grinned. Just as he'd taken it and settled himself in the living room on the sofa, a ringing sounded from upstairs and he cursed, throwing the slice of pizza back in to the cardboard box. "I'll be back for you." He grumbled, voice hoarse and quiet.
Once upstairs, he flopped on to his bed, pulling the laptop off his bedside table towards him as he opened it. Brendon's icon was flashing on the screen and when Frank glanced at the number in the corner, he saw he had four missed calls from him; five as the call ended. Then his icon popped up again immediately.
"What the hell can be this important?" He mumbled, finally clicking on the icon. "What?" He rested his head on his hand, giving a deadpan look to Brendon, who seemed frantic on the other side of the screen. His usually styled-to-look-effortless hair was falling over his eyes and the collar of the bomber jacket he wore was skew-whiff.
Despite the fact Brendon had interrupted his pizza feast, he was over the moon that he'd gotten a video chat request from him. They were rare these days.
"How long does it take for you to answer?" Brendon hissed, sending him daggers.
"Well, I was downstairs." Frank grumbled, rolling his eyes. He combed his fingers through his hair so he looked a bit more presentable. "Now, what's so important?"
"Me and Ryan made up."
"Really? That's great." He smiled, fighting away the gut feeling of slight jealousy and disappointment.
Brendon bit his lip anxiously, causing it to bleed. "But I don't think-it's not-he's-" he stuttered, digging his palms in to his eyes in frustration.
"Hey, calm down, what happened?" Frank asked softly, wishing he could put a hand through the screen to try to comfort him. When Brendon failed at stringing a coherent sentence together, Frank suggested, "Do you want to come 'round and talk about it?"
"I-I would, but I'm meeting Ryan soon. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."
"Oh."
"We're meeting at King's later-" King's was the open-all-night café they often visited, "-And that's great, I don't mind, I can't wait, but guess who was with him when he rang me and who's also actually gonna be there?"
"Who?" He frowned, knowing exactly whose name was going to crop up.
"Dallon."
"Dallon? Why? I didn't think-"
"I don't know!" Brendon was close to panicking now. "Do you think Ryan knows it was him who I kissed? Do you think Dallon told him?"
Frank looked away, furrowing his brow. "I thought you already told him you kissed?"
"I said I kissed a guy. I never told him who it was. And now that guy is gonna be there and I don't think anything good can come of this." Taking a deep breath, he paused, hoping for his best friend to come up with some glorious solution.
"I think you should try to calm down, don't bring up anything related to your slip-up and generally play it safe. I mean, you are glad you're going to see him, so make sure he knows that." Frank offered a small smile, knowing his advice wasn't the best, but it seemed to make Brendon relax a little as a ghost of a smile plastered itself across his face too.
"Yeah," Brendon breathed. "I am glad I'm gonna see him."
"You'll be fine, I promise."
Just then, startling them both, Brendon's phone rang and his face dropped.
"It's him." Brendon took a deep breath. "I gotta go, wish me luck."
"Good luck."
–
"Mikes!"
Gerard's voice was so loud through the phone that even Ray heard it from across the room.
"Hey, Gee." Mikey collapsed on to the sofa, gazing around the flat at his and Ray's success. Finally, after weeks of searching, they'd found an affordable apartment –granted ,it was rather small. They were moving in together to follow their aspirations of pursuing music as a career and New York seemed the place to start.
Although Mikey's parents had given him many lectures on how he was too young to be living by himself in a crowded city, they were immensely proud of him as they were unsure that he could pull it off. But he had, with lots of assistance from Ray. After all, it was his dream as well, and, he too, was leaving behind an uncertain but supporting family.
Thankfully, both of their parents had chipped in with costs. To Mikey's disappointment, the money he had saved up from working extra shifts at the department store hadn't been enough –even when he added it to the money Ray had saved up.
"How's it going?" Gerard asked curiously, dying to know what he'd been missing these past few weeks.
As he was about to answer, Mikey heard a different voice float in over the phone. It didn't sound particularly happy.
"It's Mikey." He heard Gerard whisper, then his voice grew steadily louder as he tried to explain. "I can't-I'm-Mikey's my brother and he hasn't called in ages . . . I won't." A long pause. "Later. I promise." Gerard's tone was suddenly weak.
"Who was that?" Mikey questioned, furrowing his brow. He always had to worry about and look out for his brother because he knew Gerard wouldn't do it himself. When Gerard didn't answer, Mikey pressed on, in a softer tone. "Who was it, Gee?"
Through the phone, Mikey heard a sigh. "That was Bert."
"You're still with him?"
"Of course." Gerard said defensively. He quickly changed the subject. "So how's New York? Have you found any jobs?"
Ray joined his best friend on the sofa. "No, but we got a place." He was too ecstatic to not tell someone about it. He hadn't had a chance to call his mother yet. His phone was plugged in and he was itching for it to finish charging.
"Hiya, Ray." Gerard added, recognising his voice.
"Hey, Gerard, how's it going? You're a teacher now, aren't you?"
"I'm trying to be." He sighed, defeatedly.
"Is it not going well?" Mikey frowned.
"Yeah," he dragged the word out. "But there's so much planning and marking and some of the students are noisy as hell. It's starting to feel like I'm back in high school, explaining a long presentation that never seems to end."
"You are the teacher. You did sign up for this."
"I know, I know." Mikey could practically hear Gerard rolling his eyes at him. "Anyway, tell me what you've got planned. You're in New York; you've always wanted to go there."
That was true. And now that Mikey had made it here, he was bouncing off the walls, although he kept a straight face. "We haven't had a lot of time to explore 'cause we've been busy with moving and stuff, but I don't want to do anything major yet-"
"To my disappointment." Ray interjected.
"-I want to get to know this place first." Mikey finished, sending a side glare at Ray for interrupting him.
Ray put his hands up defensively. "I just wanted to see Times Square, like a proper tourist."
"You're not tourists though, are you?" Gerard said.
Reality hit them both like a brick and the smiles fell from their faces.
"God, we aren't." Mikey breathed, running his fingers through his hair. Unknowingly, he let go of his phone and Ray had to lean forwards to catch it.
"Shocked?" Ray chuckled, making sure he didn't press a wrong button on the screen. "You still there, Gerard?"
"Yes." He paused and it went quiet for a moment, then they heard two voices on the other end of the line. They waited for a couple of minutes until Gerard spoke up again. "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to go."
"That's okay. You'll have to visit us sometime." Mikey nodded, even though his brother couldn't see him.
"I will. Bye, Mikes." He rushed, hanging up abruptly.
"What-what shall we do for dinner?" Mikey coughed, switching his phone off and chucking it on a cushion.
"Take out." Ray answered simply. "We've earned it."
Mikey gave a small smile as Ray ruffled his hair.
[Published 18 June 2019]
[Last edited 18 November 2019]