This is an old fic of mine. My first DC fic but I'm reposting it because it got all deleted in the ezboard crash. I'm working on the sequel right now.
A Time So Simple
"Drue, stop it."
"Jo, I'm not doing anything."
"You're looking at me."
"So now I can't look at you?" His voice was incredulous.
"You can look at me, just not like that."
"Not like what?"
"Like that."
"I just won't look at you."
She nodded, and looked back down at her book. "Good."
"Or maybe I will." He said teasingly.
"Drue, leave her alone." Jen piped in.
"Jen, I'm not doing anything to her."
"You're looking at her like that." Jen told him, looking down at her book.
"Like what?" Drue asked confused.
"Like that." Jack told Drue, looking up from the binder he was scribbling in, growing annoyed with his friends.
Drue chuckled and shook his head, looking over at the quiet blonde beside him. "What's wrong?" He asked knowingly.
"We are here to study, you know?" Joey told him, a crooked smile on her lips.
"I hate studying." He told her. "So I'm bugging the hell out of all of you."
"Well, bug the hell out of us, leave Audrey alone." Joey said pointedly.
"I just wanted to know what was wrong." He shrugged his shoulders and glanced over at Audrey with concern.
"She just doesn't feel good." Joey defended, looking towards Audrey who wasn't studying but who was fiddling with her fingers.
"She has a mouth." Charlie told Joey, his eyes now focused on the quiet blonde. "Audrey, what's up."
"Nothing's up." Jen told them tiredly. "She just doesn't want to talk."
"I take it she told you what was wrong." Jack cocked his head to the side as he stared at Jen.
"She told Joey too." Charlie noticed. "They always tell each other everything before they tell us."
"You're lucky we tell you anything." Joey told Charlie, her eyes narrowed.
"Well then," Drue started, "tell us. What's up with Audrey?"
Joey looked at Audrey and waited until she got a nod of approval before turning to look at Jack, Charlie, and then Drue. "CJ wants to move to the next level." She knew the reaction she was about to get out of the three guys, that was the other reason she didn't want to tell them.
"What?" Jack's brows furrowed, proving he was angry.
"Doesn't he know we'll kill him?" Charlie asked honestly.
Drue closed his book and calmly cracked his knuckles. "I can fix that."
"No fighting." Joey put her hand on his big fist. "Listen, Drue. There's more to the story. Audrey think she's ready to move to the next level."
"But she's not." Charlie raised up from laying beside Joey on the bed.
"She's only been dating that creep for two months. And she's only sixteen, she has all the time in the world."
"And, he used to date you." Jack told Joey with his eyes narrowed. "I mean, how could he date two best friends?"
"Audrey knows that I don't mind." Joey told Jack, who was sitting next to Drue. "And CJ sure as hell doesn't mind."
"And anyway," Jen added, "she's sure she loves him."
"Loves him? He's a walking dick." Drue said, glancing at Jen and then Joey. "She can't love him."
"I dated the guy for three months, he can be the opposite of a walking dick sometimes." She tried to defend, looking at Drue who was directly across from her.
"A sitting dick?" Jack said with a small smile.
"A laying dick." Charlie added, looking at Jack who sat across from him and laughing.
"The opposite of walk is run, isn't it?" Jen asked curiously.
"I think it's stand." Drue told her with a thoughtful look.
"It doesn't matter. What matters is that she's ready." Joey told her best friends.
"If she's ready, then why the long face?" Jack asked.
"Because she's scared." Jen reached across from her and rubbed Audrey's knee. "She's scared but she's sure. She wants to do this."
"You do?" Charlie asked Audrey.
"She does." Joey answered.
"Let her answer." Drue told Joey softly, letting her know that their was no hostility or rudeness in the way he said it.
Everyone turned to look at Audrey, who just pushed her hair behind her ear and looked up at her best friends. "I'm going home." She got up from her seat on the opposite side of Drue from Jack.
Jen looked over at Joey, who sat in the middle of her and Charlie, and gave her a sympathetic look for some reason. "We're going to go, too."
"You guys want us to walk you?" Jack asked, standing up and stretching out his stiff limbs.
"No, we're okay." Joey told him. She stuffed her books in her bag and looked back at the three growing boys. "We'll talk to you guys later."
"Alright, bye." Charlie said to the three of them.
"See ya." Jack waved.
"Bye." Drue called. "And Joey, sorry for…looking at you like that."
She rolled her eyes and laughed. "Whatever."
"Does that mean you forgive me?" He asked playfully.
"No." She chuckled and walked out the door behind Audrey and Jen.
xxxxx
Joey walked through her door, the sound of the baby crying made her roll her eyes. "Bess, I'm home." She announced.
"Hey, Jo, come here."
Still holding her backpack on her shoulder, she marched down the hall to the babies room until she found Bessie changing Alex's diaper. "Yeah. What's up?"
"I need you to go to the store for me. I forgot a whole lot of stuff and Dad is coming home for his birthday and I wanted to make a whole big dinner for him."
"Don't expect me to jump for glee at the exciting news." Her voice was bitter as she turned on her heel and walked out of the room containing the wailing baby to her own.
After the baby simmered down, she heard Bessie's footsteps coming to her room and then her door burst open. "You act like he did something so terrible to you." Bessie immediately yelled at her sister.
Joey looked up with a look of confusion. "Bessie, he cheated on our mother while she was on her deathbed, sold drugs from our home, and got hauled off to prison, leaving us on our own. That seems pretty damn terrible if you ask me." Joey could tell she hit a nerve when she brought up her mother.
They never did that.
"Jo, he didn't mean anything by that." Bessie said lowly, her voice way quieter than it was before.
"He didn't mean anything?" She asked incredulously. "That's nice that you believe in him, Bessie. It's really nice that you love him that way. Because me, I hate him."
"You shut up, Joey. Don't speak of your father that way." Bessie said sternly, pointing her finger at her little sister.
"He's not my father." She almost yelled. "Bodie has been more of a father to me than he has."
The shrill ringing of the phone broke the heated gaze that they held. Joey rolled her eyes before reaching on the nightstand next to her bed and grabbing the cordless. She pressed the button and put it to her ear.
"H'lo?"
"Joey, guess what?"
Inwardly smiling at the voice of her best friend, she sighed on the outside.
"Drue, not right now okay?"
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Joey, am I going to have to come over and beat it out of you?"
"You can come over and beat it out of Bessie." She said hopefully, her smile stubbornly creeping to her lips.
Mumbling something about finishing it later, Bessie left the room, slamming the door behind her.
"You and Bessie have a fight?" He asked concernedly after hearing the door slam.
She heard dishes clinking and guessed he was doing the dishes. His mother had probably bitched at him because he never did dishes. "Yeah. Dad's coming over for his birthday and she wants me to help out."
"Whoa." He cut off the water. "Why's he coming there for his birthday? His flavor of the week decided he wasn't worth the dollar she spent on his gift?"
She chuckled. "I guess so." Knowing that if they didn't get off the subject melancholy would soon join their conversation, she sighed. "Anyway, you said 'guess what'? What were you talking about?"
"Well," he smiled, "I want you to double date with me and this girl and her brother."
"This girl?" Joey grinned. "What's her name, how old is she, and what drugs is she on?"
"Ha ha." He rolled his eyes. "I met her at the store a couple of hours ago.
Her brother is a jerk, but she's cool, so I wanted you to go with me because you seem to know how to handle jerks."
"Look at who my best friends are. How could I not know how to handle them?" She laid back on her bed.
"Did you just call Audrey and Jen jerks? I'm telling." He laughed.
She chuckled. "You know very well that I was speaking of the three buffoons that are lucky enough to have Audrey, Jen and I as best friends."
"Enough with the bashing." He told her with feigned seriousness.
"So, what's her name, how old is she?"
"Her name is Gretchen. She's uh, a couple of years older than us." He mumbled the last part.
"How older? Drue, I hope she isn't old, old." Joey grimaced at the thought. Drue had dated some old women in his time.
"She's just twenty-one."
Joey sighed. That wasn't really old compared to what he used to date, but still. "Drue, what happened to dating high school girls?"
"Well, she used to be in high school, that has to count for something." He joked.
"Drue, she's old enough to buy liquor." It wasn't a good excuse, but she needed to say something.
"I am too. Just not legally." He chuckled when he heard her frustrated grunt. "Jo look, it's not like I'm planning on dating her forever. She was hot, and you know how I am about hot girls."
"She can go to jail for this." Joey told him.
"Are you coming? Yes or no." He ignored her.
"She can get into a club. Legally."
"Friday night, I'll pick you up around eight." He told her, a growing smile on his face.
"Morgan Kennedy has a crush on you. She's a nice young woman. You should give her a try." She revealed the secret of the redhead that sat next to her in fifth period. She'd told Morgan she wouldn't tell, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
"Thanks Jo, I love you."
She sighed in defeat. "Love you too."
And they hung up.
