Brandon stumbled back drunkenly towards her room, laughing and trying to kiss Billie at the same time. She walked him backwards down the hall towards the entrance to her room, and he caught her wrists, dipping his head down again and capturing her lips in a mind-numbing kiss.
He tripped on her rug and then ran into her lamp, knocking it over with a clatter before is rolled across the ground. Billie giggled before hooking an arm around his neck and kissing him again. She fumbled with the button of his pants as he tugged on the waistband of her skirt, yanking her closer to him. As she tried to tug them down, Brandon lost his balance. He tumbled back and landed on her bed with a grunt, bringing her down on top of him.
"Shit..." Brandon said, chuckling lightly when they landed haphazardly, their motions somewhat lagging from the alcohol coursing through their veins.
Billie straddled him and settled on his groin, bending down and sucking on his neck as she pulled him up and ripped his shirt off of over his head, and pushing him back down, eliciting a groan from him. She ground against him as he gripped her hips, sighing at the intense heat she felt from his arousal pressing against her.
She sat up and tugged her top up and over her head, snorting slightly when her hair got caught in the tangled shirt. Her lack of coordination made it really hard to figure out how to get it off, but when she finally succeeded, she tossed it carelessly behind her and set her hands on his chest, rolled her hips slowly forward against him. She glanced down at Brandon, who had fallen silent and was watching her in wonder, his gaze holding something that made Billie's pulse quicken.
"You're beautiful..." he murmured, looking up at her in amazement.
Billie could feel her face flush at his unwavering gaze. He was making her feel like she was laid entirely bare before him.
"Brandon..."
He rolled them over, hovering above her, his thumb softly caressing her waist. Brandon lowered his head and kissed her slowly, and Billie almost whimpered, taken aback by how tender and sweet it was. He pulled away and cradled her face in his hand. Billie met his gaze, her breath catching when his eyes took on that expression that always scared Billie whenever she would see it. That look of longing like she was his whole world.
"Billie..." he said, watching her seriously, "I like-"
And Billie quickly placed a finger against his lips, a bit frightened by the words that she was sure were about to escape his mouth. Because whatever he was about to say, she was sure, wasn't going to be true when he woke up. When they were no longer in their drunken haze and his mind was no longer clouded by lust, he would regret his words. And she didn't want to hear or see that regret.
"Shhh..." she breathed out, hooking her legs around his waist, "Just kiss me..."
Brandon searched her eyes for a moment before finally nodding.
He kissed her again, slow and deep and intoxicating. Billie slid her arms up around his neck, losing herself in his warmth.
_______________________________
Billie closed her locker shut after grabbing her sketchbook and stuffing inside her notebooks and textbooks for classes. It had been a while since she worked on any school work. She planned to take these several after school hours to walk on her art projects that were due next semester. She hadn't worked on them at all because of what had been happening in her life. Prince sauntered up to her on his way to the school doors.
"So. How was the appointment yesterday? Everything good?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Who's asking? You or Que?"
Prince put his hands up, grinning sheepishly. "Okay, so it's Brandon. But only because you won't let him come to your appointments."
Brandon had insisted on coming with her, but Billie had refused to let him. She honestly didn't know if she would feel comfortable with him in the room as they went through the ultrasound. She just felt weird about anyone being in there overall since each visit got her so emotional. The only person Billie ever allowed to come with her was Drew.
"Tell him everything is fine."
"Aight I will. Are you gaining any weight yet?"
Billie looked at him in annoyance. "I'm not telling you and even if I do you won't be the first to know."
"You know, a lot of the fat that you gain from your pregnancy goes to your ass" he smirked rubbing his hands together and licking his lips.
"Okay. Ezra, we're done here."
He laughed out loud, and she playfully slapped his arm.
A couple of girls walked by the two of them, leaning into each other and whispering as they stared before starting to giggle. Billie rolled her eyes. It's been a few weeks since the Prom vomit disaster. Prince hadn't been wrong. By now, rumours of pregnancy had completely circulated, and it was pretty much the only thing students would talk about. Pretty much everyone thought she was pregnant. Which honestly, was true. So it didn't bother her that much. There were some people who would whisper in the hallways as she walked by and a couple would throw her vengefully disgusted looks, but she would ignore them. Drew would glare back on occasion, but Billie had told her it wasn't worth it. But for the most part, people were tame or just didn't care. She wasn't the first girl to have gotten pregnant at their high school. She was the first one who hadn't gotten an abortion, but pregnancies weren't totally uncommon.
"Goodbye Prince." she said as they arrived at the art room.
"Bye Bil" he said walking on his way.
She opened the room and walked over to her station towards the back. There was one other senior in the room who waved at her as she was cleaning off her brushed and palette.
"Have you started your end of the semester project?" Ciara asked, taking out an earphone temporarily. "It's due by the end of next week."
"Shit.." Billie groaned. "I forgot we usually have one of those."
"It's okay" She responded, "Ms. Redmond told us all the week you missed school. I think it was homecoming week?"
"Yeah." Billie flipped over the tarp on her half-finished piece and revealed her canvas. "What's the project? Are there any specific parameters for the pieces?"
"It's to draw someone we care about. It's pretty easy. No restrictions to size. Oil pastel only." Ciara put away her supplies and flipped her tarp back over her dried painting before gathering her stuff. "She knows most of us have senioritis so she didn't really want to assign anything to intense. And also because we're still focusing on our project pieces.
Right that and her songs, and about a million other things that were due soon. She was really wondering how she was going to get so pregnant and have finals and deal with it.
"Thanks. I would have been so screwed." Billie said gratefully, pulling a stool over to her easel. "I'll start on it today."
Ciara smiled as she left the room. "Good luck Billie."
Billie picked up her palette and squirted blue to continue with the base layer of her background for the sunset. She would figure out who to paint after she got some of this done."
_______________________________
Billie carefully smudged the last bit of orange and purple with her sponge, before sitting back to scrutinize her work. It was really coming along nicely. She'd made it with the predominant colour being blue and had thrown some orange and yellow to really get that sunset feel, but she'd been worried it would be overdone. The rest of the piece (once she figured out what it would be) wasn't supposed to be overtaken by the background, but from what it looked like, it didn't seem like it would be a problem.
With a pleased sigh and smile, she checked the clock behind her. It was almost seven. She'd been there for a pretty long time and hadn't realised how time had flown.
"I guess now I should work on the project"
She walked over to the window to get some fresh air. She pulled up the blinds and pushed open the window, taking a deep breath. She heard a whistle blowing and looked down at the basketball team doing fitness training on the field. The art room faced the back of their high school in the direction of their back field.
Her eyes found Brandon, and she leaned against the window sill, a small smile on her face as she watched him train. They were running laps and he just did it with such ease. If that were Billie especially in her state, she would be sweating like a pig and not being able to breath.
He was honestly just so cute, and she felt stupid for basically having become one of his "fangirls" now, but she couldn't deny that she felt like squealing every time he looked at her or held her hand or leaned over to whisper playfully in her ear during bio. Her crush on him was pretty intense, but there was no way she would ever tell him though. It was one thing for her to tie him down because of a baby, but it was another thing to burden him with her feelings.
Brandon was one of her best friends. She hadn't scared him away with her pregnancy, but she sure as hell wasn't going to let him get scared away by the fact that she had feelings for him. Besides, she'd already ended anything that might have been lingering between them. He probably felt nothing but friendship for her. And she wasn't going to jeopardize that. She could hold her feelings to herself.
But seeing him had given her inspiration, and she rushed back to her station and grabbed her sketchbook, mentally recalling Brandon's form and the lines of his body as he usually threw the basketball. She quickly sketched out what she intended to put to the canvas. Under normal circumstances, she would have been embarrassed drawing out the guy she had a crush on, but he wasn't going to be seeing this piece, so this would be her little secret. When she was satisfied with the sketch, she tore it out of the book and grabbed a new canvas from the box. She tacked onto the canvas and then stuck it in her in-progress cubby hole.
Technically, she knew she should have started on it at that day, but it was getting late and she was pretty hungry, if her grumbling stomach was any indication. It wouldn't do to stay the entire evening without getting something in her stomach. And even though Sarah and Derek hadn't imposed a curfew upon her, Billie knew they would get anxious if she was out pretty late, so she made an effort to try to come home by a certain time on days she stayed to paint or record her songs for music.
Billie cleaned up her station and the mess she made, scrubbing paint off of her brushed and meitculously washing her hands to get it off of her hands. Once she had made sure everything was cleaned up and her piece and all the materials she used were stored in their proper places, she shut the window and the blinds, grabbed her bag, and left the art room.
Her stomach growled in distress once again, and Billie rounded over toward the gym to stop by the vending machine. She would grab a snack to last for the walk home. It was the reason Drew had given her a bunch of money before she left the day before. Normally, Drew would buy Billie snacks that she would keep stored in her bag and walk home with her, but Drew was checking out UCLA with Derek that weekend, so she wasn't available. Occasionally, Brandon would join them to study for their upcoming exams, though he wasn't available that day either.
(Derek had finally come to terms with Brandon's involvement and gotten over the fact that she was pregnant. But Brandon was still wary coming to Drew's and only generally came over when Derek wasn't home. And even then, he kept one eye firmly on the door at all times.)
She spotted the vending machine-how could she not? It was obnoxiously decorated with red holiday streamers and snowman stickers-and quickly browsed the contents before settling on a pack of powdery donuts calling her name. And luckily, she had a whole brown bag in her back pack filled with mini ketchup packets she had been storing for snacking emergencies. She slipped the dollar into the machine and pushed the button for the pack. It tumbled out of it's ring and fell to the bottom. Billie crouched to pick it up and grab her change and then she heard footsteps behind her.
"Oh wow...You really have gained weight."
"So the rumours have been true. Little Miss Street Trash really is a knocked up little bitch"
Billie turned around with an eyebrow raised. She knew she'd put on some weight since Prom, and she had a small baby bump even though she was only in her second trimester. But Dr. Torres said it was normal because she was so petite. But she was definitely not anywhere near a balloon.
It was two annoying girls, watching her with dirty looks. They looked like freshman, maybe sophomores, and Billie could just see the immaturity radiating off of them in waves. Man, she really hoped she wasn't like that when she was early high school. She sighed and opened her pack of donuts before rummaging in her bag and pulling out a packet of ketchup.
"What, you jealous?" Billie snorted, already having expected some verbal abuse for her pregnancy like this eventually. Kids at her school were ridiculous. She was actually pretty surprised it had taken this long for someone to pounce.
"Look at you. You're so annoying" One of the girls spat.
"Okay. I don't really have time for this." Billie said, opening the ketchup and smearing some on a donut before popping it in her mouth, "So why don't you tell me what's really bothering you, and we can get this whole 'I hate Billie' party out of the way.
"I'm talking about the way you cling to Brandon like a tick. Let him live his life and stop dragging him down the take care of your sorry pregnant ass"
Billie felt pinpricks of irritation. Although she wasn't particularly bothered by the pettiness of the students, if there was one thing that annoyed her, it was people acting as if she wasn't good enough to be Brandon's friend. It was, unfortunately, territory that came with being his friend and usually it didn't irritate her, but every once in a while there were moments when it really pissed her off.
Brandon had wanted to reveal he was the dad so everyone would stop harassing her, since people generally listened to Brandon, but she'd firmly told him no and that she didn't want people to know he was the father. He'd gotten a little irritated with that, but it wasn't because she didn't want Brandon to be the father. As morbid as it sounded, if she could have gotten pregnant at seventeen with anyone, she would have always picked Brandon Adams. She wanted no one to know because Brandon had a reputation as a responsible leader at their school. She didn't want to jeopardize that.
"I suppose now you're going to threaten me to stay away from him and then if I don't comply, you'll gather your crony of girls and jump me after school one day?" Billie said with a smirk, licking her fingers of the delicious sugary powder. The ketchup added a really nice salty touch. "But you won't actually go through with it because you're too scared Brandon will be mad at you."
One girl's eyes narrowed. "You think we're afraid to kick your ass? I don't care if Brandon hates us, I just want you gone."
There was a sound of a door opening and closing and then Selena Jackson came out from around the corner, her heels clicking briskly on the tiles of the school. The girls fell quiet for a few moments, watching as Selena walked by them. For a second, her gaze connected with Billie's, but she continued right on by without an expression, ignoring the fact that Billie was very obviously getting harrased. Figured. Why the hell would Selena care? She'd never been Billie's friend.
Nothing had ever really happened between Billie and Selena. But Selena was the queen bee of the school and Billie was. Well Billie. And there had always been underlying tension between the two of them. Especially when Billie would mock her perkiness in class.
"Really? So what are you going to do? Frame me for theft so I get suspended? Or what, bring a razor to school?" Billie popped another ketchup covered donut in her mouth. "You're so generic."
"No. But my mom's on the school board" One of the girls sneered. "And she donates a lot of money to this school. I can convince her to get the board of trustees to kick you out. After all, a pregnant student roaming the halls of our school can't be good for our school image."
And Billie's eyes narrowed, her irritation mounting. She had the really bad urge to attack the two of them. She may be pregnant but she was not incapable of beating some ass if she needed to.
"And I'm sure you haven't done anything for this school that would make them want to keep you"
"And you think all of that and getting me kicked out will make Brandon stop talking to me?"
Joke was on them. He was the father of her baby.
"No, but at least we won't have to watch your disgusting clinging to him."
These girls were really starting to piss her off. What was it with people and acting like crazy nuts whenever Brandon was involved? And were they completely empty headed? Did they just choose not to see the fact that Brandon approached her. The fact that he asked her to Prom. The fact that he sought her out in the halls after his classes? They were mutual friends. It wasn't like she had brainwashed him to hang out with her.
"You both need to get a life" Billie said around a mouthful of donut.
"And you need to get away from Brandon" The other retorted.
"Is there a problem here?"
And Billie swung her head around in shock because standing at the end of the hall was Brandon in his workout clothes, looking sweaty and out of breath. His red and blue hair was all over the place and it looked like he raced over as soon as possible.
"Brandon!" one of them tittered, "There's no problem at all."
"So why are you cornering Billie?" he asked, an eyebrow raised in annoyance. Billie could hear the irritation in his voice.
"We weren't. We were having a friendly chat."
"Billie?" he addressed her.
Billie averted her gaze, starting at the half eaten packet of donuts in her hand. This was her problem, not his.
"It's nothing, Kane"
His face dropped, and he stalked over to them, his expression pretty unhappy. He stepped in between Billie and the two girls.
"You know, I've been really patient with all you giving Billie dirty looks and treating her like she'd less than a human being since Prom."
"Brandon, we weren't doing anything. Just knocking her down a peg"
It was clearly the wrong thing to say. His expression turned cold.
"Knocking her down a peg?" he scoffed mirthlessly, "You girls will stop at nothing to make you feel better about yourselves."
They blinked, stupefied and a little put off by his words.
"You better tell all your friends to leave Billie the hell alone." Brandon said, his tone low and dangerous. "Because that's my kid in her. And I swear if anyone hurts her, I will hunt you down."
The two girls both gasped and their eyes widened not only at what he had just revealed but also because of the little threat he'd thrown in there. They turned on their heels and scampered off away from the two of them. Brandon watched them go before he turned around and faced Billie, concern in his gaze. It was almost a complete 10 from before that Billie grew surprised with how easily he was able to switch of his anger on and off.
"Did they hurt you?" Brandon asked softly.
"You didn't have to go that far." Billie rolled her eyes, sticking the pack of donuts in her bag for later. "They were just being annoying."
"Yes I did! I don't know why I didn't just tell everyone from the start. It would have saved you the trouble"
"It's not like I'm bothered by it. It's not that big of a deal."
"Billie" He said in exasperation. "It's a big deal to me, okay? They have no idea what you're dealing with and it's not right. You don't deserve any harassment."
"But you just made things worse for yourself. You know everyone's going to know that you're the father now?"
"I don't care. They should have known since they found out about your pregnancy. They wouldn't have messed with you if they knew."
Billie sighed and ran her hand through her hair in exasperation. "Look, they honestly wouldn't have done anything. Those girls are all bark and no bite. Why are you so fucked up over this?"
"Dammit, Billie, I was scared! I thought you'd been hurt."
"I'm fine, as you can clearly see."
"I know. And I'm glad"
And Brandon pulled her into a hug, wrapping his arms tightly around her, his head pressed against her hair. Billie was a little shocked by the sudden act and blinked for a few seconds, looking at the wall over his shoulder. He was so warm. Then she smiled and rested her head against his shoulder, honestly so glad he was around because she didn't know how she would have gotten through this pregnancy on her own.
"Brandon, you smell like sweat..." she muttered, reaching up around his back and loosely holding onto him.
"I've been at practice all afternoon. What do you expect?"
They stayed in that embrace for a few moments, Billie just letting him hold her and trying to keep her blush down. Finally, he let go of her, looking relieved.
"How did you know what was going on?" Billie asked.
"Selena told me you were in trouble."
And that's when Billie finally noticed the girl leaning against the lockers at the end of the hall, pretending to text and politely giving them privacy during their moment.
"Selena? You brought Brandon?"
Selena nodded, walking over to the pair. "Saw them harassing you."
Billie's eyebrows skipped. That was unexpected.
"Thanks."
"You're dealing with a lot with this pregnancy. Those bitches were making it worse." Selena said with a nonchalant wave of her head. "I knew he'd be the best one to get rid of them."
"That's...really nice of you. Why?"
Selena leaned over, whispered quietly in Billie's ear. "I had a pregnancy scare last year. It was literally the worst week of my life waiting for my period. I know it doesn't even begin to compare to what you're going through, but I totally get how intense it is. And you're keeping your baby. That's got to be stressful."
Selena backed away and pulled out a sticky note, scribbling on it quickly with a pen.
"Here's my number. Let me know if you need anything, Billie."
She turned on her heels and clicked away before Billie could respond, and Billie stood there, staring after her with a dumbfounded expression on her face and the sticky note in her hand. It was almost hard to believe that Selena had just been nice to her.
"That was so weird..." Billie muttered.
"Yeah, I know" Brandon said, "Hey. I'm walking you home. Let me shower and change real fast."
"What about training?"
"Coach let me go. It was almost over anyway."
"Okay..." She didn't see why not. Walking with Brandon would infinitely be more pleasant than walking by herself. "Where's your stuff?"
"Locker room. C'mon."
She followed him down the hall towards the locker room.