Alexis
"Your taste in music is bomb," Will informs me as soon as the opening beats of Rae Sremmurd's Powerglide comes on and there's a loud cheer coming from the dance floor.
I do a dramatic hair flip, "I am the bomb."
"You kinda are," Will grins, "Blowing up shit everywhere you go."
Hunter woots and high fives him, as they swallow another swig of their beers. They both won't even let me have one drop of their beer. Yes I drank their whole drinks when I was thirsty and hyped up. Big deal.
"Ugh where's Ellie?" I groan.
"Stop acting like a petulant child." Jade chides and it hits a nerve in me.
"Stop acting like such a bitch," I say indifferently as I make a show of checking out my nails.
I hate Jade, always have, ever since she left me out in the road to die. Freshmen year, my car broke down in the middle of nowhere, in the freezing snow and when I called her to pick me up, she told she was stuck in an urgent family meeting when later I found out she was at some sorority party doing shots off of some frat boy's abs. Should have choked on his chest hair. I had to wait in the cold for three freaking hours before Ellie could come.
I was stealthy as a cat as I was walking out of my dorm room, but yet, that skunk noticed me like a predator notices a prey. She took one look at my clothes- which is fabulous by the way, she can only wish of dressing up like me- and guessed where I was going, and announced that she was coming too. Fucking Leech, sucking out all the fun from the party.
I begged Ellie to give me a reason to tell her that she can't come, but Ellie being Ellie decided that we cannot leave a fellow maiden from indulging in our happiness, so that she may have a delightful share as well. Stupid Ellie and her stupid heart of gold. And I don't even want to remember the way she deliberately dressed in a Walmart Halloween costume what happened to the girl who always wore ripped jeans and lacey tops?
The worst part? it didn't even take a minute for her to sink her leech claws on Aaron.
"You know people would like you a lot more if you ran your mouth less."
"I think her mouth runs perfectly fine," Aaron interrupts before I can show her exactly who she's talking to, "But let me take you to dance floor before you two rip out each other's faces."
Jade jumps at the idea of finally putting her skeleton hands all over Aaron and I swear I am about to explode this very second. Jade takes the lead and I let her go before I yank at Aaron's arm and dig my nails in his skin.
Aaron yelps at the pain and hisses in my face, "Save the scratching for the bedroom, blondie."
"Do not sleep with her," I say through gritted teeth.
Aaron flicks an eyebrow at me and smirks, "Watch me." He removes my hand roughly and hits me with a what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it look before he disappears towards the dance floor.
Will quietly slides the beer bottle to me before smirking and going off to chew some blonde's face off.
"Thought you didn't like him." Hunter raises an eyebrow and I take a huge gulp of the beer in front of me.
"I don't." I take another gulp, "I just hate Jade."
"Yeah don't bullshit me wildcat, I saw the way you were looking at him."
"Let's go dance." So I don't have to respond to that ridiculous statement. I pull at Hunter's arms but he pries me off.
"Not a chance, I have no interest in being the pawn in your sexual tension game."
"There's no sexual tension." I snap.
"Yeah keep telling yourself that."
"Fine stay here, I'll dance alone and let some grouchy old man touch me inappropriately," I make a motion of getting up and Hunter rolls his eyes.
"You're such a drama llama."
I wink. "I've heard that before."
"You're such a funny dancer," I shout at Hunter over the loud music.
"What do you mean?"
What I mean is, he is a hilarious dancer; his dance steps include the floss and occasionally flailing his arms a little too far and a little to carelessly. I think I might have a black eye because of all the times he smacked me in the face with his dancing.
"You're so mean, I hate you." Hunter pouts at me and does the floss simultaneously.
"No, you don't," I stick my tongue out at him, "you love me."
And he does. Hunter and I sat beside each other in the freshmen orientation and we totally hit it off, talking about conspiracy theories about Canada, which is a conversation for another day. He's my go-to friend after Ellie and I can absolutely rant to him about anything.
One time I ate his ear off by talking about how not understandable and pointless haiku is, who understands a poem in three lines and something is absolutely wrong with you if you can find a deeper meaning it. Hunter being Hunter listened to all of it, without ever passing his commentary, unlike Ellie who went off about the importance of poetry. I love Ellie, I totally do and I duly understand the role of haiku in literature but sometimes I want to rant without being judged and Hunter is perfect for that.
"You're a little minx," he narrows his eyes at me, "can you stay here without being inappropriately touched while I go the washroom?"
I nod, losing myself to Joe Jonas' voice, which is what god sounds like when he orgasms. I am moving my hips and my eyes are closed, because there is nothing else I feel at this moment – just the honey dripping voice of Joe Jonas and the light sheen of sweat on the back of my neck. Bodies are cramped up together and I am almost grinding against a girl in front of me. I mutter a sorry and she flashes me a toothy grin and we continue dancing. I don't know how long it has been since Hunter has gone but it's been a while, and so when I feel two hands gripping my waist, I don't think much about it and continue swaying.
But slowly the hands move down to my ass and I am on high alert now, it's not Hunter, he wouldn't do it, come to think of it, he wouldn't touch me either. I whip around and find a blonde guy grinning at me. His movements are tipsy and he reeks of alcohol.
"Get the hell away from me!" I shout over the music and take a few steps back.
"C'mon don't be like this." He has meaty hands and drunk Blonde is slurring at me now, "C'mon babe, we are both hot and the night is young and we should get on with it."
I would like to point out to him that no, he's not hot, he actually looks like a sleazy slimeball and is undoubtedly a creep, but I prefer not getting raped when I walk out of this club, so I refrain from it. What I do tell him instead is to fuck off. That's right, my friends, I am not very good at holding back my mouth.
I touch the front pocket of my jeans and take a breath of relief when I feel the silhouette of mace's pepper spray can. "Go away or go blind."
"Imagine the fun we could have." Meaty hands blond smirks at me and that is the end of my patience limit. Trigger warnings go off in my head and my creep-o-meter is officially ringing.
I shrug, "You asked for it." I open the can inside my pocket and fish it out to spray it at lightning speed.
I press the nozzle at the same time someone grabs meaty hands blond guy's throat so they both end up getting sprayed and release blood-curling shrieks at the same time.
"What did you do?!-"
"You stupid bitch!-"
My heroic, self-defense mission is successful because meaty hands blond guy is sprawling on the floor clutching his eyes and screaming fuck you while the security guards take him away, after I explained to them the whole fiasco.
The only minor setback? Aaron's left side of the face is burning. It's only a minor setback because his eyes and ears are totally safe, but his cheek is burning and has gone red.
The whole dance floor crowd has gone quiet and are looking at us as if we could cause bubonic plague with our words. No one comes forward to help us; whatever happened to humanity?
"I am so sorry, Aaron!" I gasp and turn his face towards me to see there are tears in his eyes and he looks about ready to cut off my arms and ship me to Siberia.
"Are you freaking crazy?!" Aaron hisses through his teeth and I find Hunter, Logan, and Ellie rushing towards us.
"I wasn't spraying you! I was protecting myself!"
"Without even looking at your surroundings? On a crowded dance floor?"
I squirm under his words, "I am sorry I was scared."
"And I ran to you as soon as I saw you were scared." He is hissing and writhing under the burn of the pepper spray and a few buckets of shame wash over me. Jesus, I'd be a terrible serial killer, guess I can strike that off from my career list.
"I am so sorry, Aaron! But you shouldn't have come here!" I have switched on every panic button inside me and my hands are shaking as Aaron puts one arm around my shoulder and we walk towards the booth.
"Are you kidding me?! I came here to save you!" he spits the words at my face and I squirm.
"I am pretty qualified to save my own self thank you very much."
"And destroy others' faces in the process." He grits out, and my heart clenches.
"I am sorry Aaron," I snuggle my nose on his chest and feel his shoulders unclenching. I am clouded by his citrus and mint smell and it's making me foggy and dizzy. It's so characteristically him; I am sure I can detect the smell from a five feet radius, while blindfolded too.
"It's okay." He mutters and gives my shoulders a light squeeze.
"What the hell happened?!" Logan screams as soon as I help slide Aaron into the booth.
"My face burns!" I can see the splotches of red on his right cheek and jaw and he yelps in pain as I make a motion of touching it.
"Don't touch it Alexis! You will kill me!"
"I am sorry, I am so sorry, I was pepper spraying the douche, not you."
"What happened?" Logan to the rescue.
Hunter goes pale at the sight of Aaron's reddened cheeks, "Is that pepper Spray?"
I nod at breakneck speed, and as Ellie for some milk since I read somewhere it helps with the pepper spray.
I repeat the whole debacle to them and their faces go from concerned to horrified to concerned again and then, at last to funny.
"The one time Aaron decides to be your knight in shining armor, but you take that away from him." Hunter is trying very hard to suppress his laughter but it goes down the drain when Logan takes the cue.
"Fuck Off man!" Aaron is clutching my hand so hard, I am pretty sure it is going to have bruises by the end of the night.
Logan looks at me like he might ship me somewhere else too. Guess I'll just book the tickets to Siberia myself, "Alexis how could you?"
"I didn't do it intentionally!" I plead, "It was an accident!"
"Is it going to be okay? Does it hurt a lot? I am so sorry Aaron, I didn't see you coming!" I wrap myself around his non-injured part but he is too busy hissing to indulge in the sorry-hug.
I am a wrecking ball right now, and every pore from my body is oozing panic. I have no idea what it's like to be pepper-sprayed. It probably feels like your skin is on fire but is it touched a flame slightly burning or is it my flesh is burning alive burning?
Ellie put me out of misery when she returns with a bowl of milk in her hand, "Here dip your face in it. It's milk I got it from the bartender."
Aaron sits at the table beside me and dips the burning side of his face in the milk and there's a sizzling sound as soon as his face hits the milk. I look up to see Hunter making calls with the hospital and Logan looking worriedly at him.
"I am sorry, Aaron." I rake my hands through his hair- which is like velvet honestly, I need to ask for his shampoo- and bend over to see his sprayed face.
"I like when you call me Aaron," he whispers slowly and then, "remove your face, I can't breathe."
"Guys, Where's Jade?" Ellie questions and I throw my head back and groan.
Laughter bubbles through Aaron's milk as Ellie and Logan dash towards the washroom. This night couldn't get any worse.
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This is the longest chapter and I am not sorry :p
If you'd like to see some sneak peeks and character aesthetics, head over to the Instagram account, angstyherondale612. Some of you were kind enough to make them and I can't stop gushing and fawning over them, they are so amazing!
Vote and comment and let me know how you like it! Also, who's a Team Aaron member now? I know I am.