For maybe-joleisaa (even though she hates Smitchie), because she is an amazing writer, fun to PM and I hope she enjoyed Harry Potter. (:
***
She meets him through a friend.
"Mitchie, this is Shane."
And from then on, she'll wish she never met him.
---
She knows something is wrong when, three days after she meets him, she can't stop thinking about him. She's being stupid, she tells herself. It's just a silly teenage crush. Except she isn't a teenager anymore. She's twenty-three and is meant to be successful. Except her last album didn't sell half as well as she (and the record company) hoped, so now things are looking much worse than they were five years ago when her smile reached her eyes.
"You like him, don't you?"
She should have known Caitlyn would be the first person to figure it out.
"Don't be silly, Caitlyn." She scolds, though her voice doesn't sound right. "We've only met once."
She doesn't answer the question outright.
---
They meet again four days after Caitlyn's sort-of confrontation. She's with Jason and Nate, so it's only fitting that he would find them. Apparently hiding behind the menu was not a good enough cover. He sits down without asking, and reluctantly she puts the menu down. He's smirking at her and she's not sure why but it makes her feel a little giddy. Nate doesn't notice, and Jason is too focused on the robin perched on the window ledge outside.
"Shane! How're you? Didn't expect to see you here!" Nate cries happily.
No, neither did she.
---
"A snail walks into a bar and the barman tells him there's a strict policy about having snails in the bar and so kicks him out. A year later the same snail re-enters the bar and asks the barman "What did you do that for?"
After the joke Jason almost falls off his chair from laughing so hard while Mitchie, Caitlyn, Shane and Nate stare at him blankly. Well, Nate and Caitlyn do. Shane and Mitchie are more occupied with glancing not-so-secretly at one another.
"Get it? Because snails are slow?" Jason prompts, but he's still met with blank stares.
"We get it, Jase. Did you hear that joke from Ella?" Caitlyn asks after a few seconds.
"Yeah! How did you know?"
---
"I do not like Shane Gray, I do not like Shane Gray, I do not like Shane Gray."
Damn it. She likes Shane Gray.
---
The seventh time the meet, they finally have a proper conversation.
"Hi, I'm Shane." He jokes, and she smiles even though it's not really that funny.
"I'm Mitchie. Or I was last time I checked."
He smiles because he isn't sure if she's being sarcastic.
"How'd you meet Nate?" He asks her, and she relaxes. Simple question.
"Jason and I lived next door to each other when we were little, and we've been best friends since, so when he met Nate ... so did I." Then she wonders what she should ask him because she doesn't think are you single? is appropriate.
---
They become good friends after that conversation. It's not like they're suddenly BBF's, but it's a comfortable friendship.
"I'm bored!" Mitchie complains, leaning back into the sofa.
"I spy with my little eye –" Shane starts, but he's interrupted by a laughing Mitchie.
"What are you, five?"
Like I said, it's a comfortable friendship.
---
"So, when are you going to ask Shane out?" Nate asks her one day. The question catches her off guard. She's so surprised that someone would ask her, especially that someone being Nate that she almost drops the china plate she's holding on to the floor. She looks up at him, denial on her lips, but there's no point lying anymore.
"The guy asks the girl out, Nate. Everyone knows that."
---
"So I was talking to Nate the other day." Shane says when they're on the swings at the local park. She nods, telling him to continue. "He says that the guy always asks the girl out, do you know what he means by that?"
She freezes almost instantly. He notices, of course, but doesn't mention it. Instead, he just watches her.
"Um ... no?" Her voice is high pitched and sounds like a question. She cringes awkwardly.
"Right. Well, I was thinking about it and maybe he means I should ask Caitlyn out."
She is so shocked by his statement that her hands seem to spasm, because next thing she knows she's fallen of the swing and onto the floor. She's trying to regulate her breathing when she finally looks up. Shane is on the floor laughing so hard he's gasping for breath. When he finally calms down they stand up together. She's expecting awkward silence but she forgot that Shane isn't the silent type.
"Go out with me on Friday?" He asks.
---
"Thank you thank you thank you." She says into the phone and she can hear Nate laughing at her but for once she doesn't care.
"I'm guessing this has something to do with Shane?" Her best friend questions and she nods and then remembers he can't see her.
"Yes! He asked me out! Shane, I mean." She can't slow her speech down at all; her voice box seems to be running as fast as her heart right now.
"No problem. Just make sure to dump him if he kisses you on the first date. Totally against the rules."
She's about to make a retort when she hears a shout of "Nate, there's a bluebird in the garden! Hurry up!" and Nate tells her he has to go because Jason hasn't been this excited since ... about fifteen minutes ago.
---
They go to see the 'Hangover' because he knows she's wanted to see it for weeks. It's a comedy and the two of them can't stop laughing even when it's not really a funny scene. She's pretty sure they annoyed all the other people in the cinema but for once she didn't care what other people thought of her.
They go to a restaurant near the cinema complex afterwards, and they talk about their favourite movies (The Notebook for her, The Dark Knight for him), favourite books (the Harry Potter series for them both) and their favourite colours (blue and green respectively).
The smile is finally reaching her eyes again.
---
He opens the car door for her when they reach her house and she thanks him. He even walks her to the doorstep. He doesn't kiss her. She's happy with that though, because now Nate can't joke with her about dumping him, even though they aren't really going out yet anyway.
That night, she writes two new songs. She'll show him first, and then maybe she can show the record company.
---
"Wow, this stuff is actually good!" Shane compliments her when the final guitar note hangs in the air.
"Actually good? Were you expecting it to be bad?" She jokes, though she's glowing with happiness at his compliment.
They are sitting in her room. Its three days after their first date and he'd phoned her that morning to ask if she wanted to hang out. She'd suggested he come over because it was raining, which limited their choice of outings.
"I tried very hard on those songs, I'll have you know!" She jokes again.
He silences her by grabbing the guitar from her. "My turn," he says softly. She doesn't protest, and instead watches him as he starts to play a slow chord progression.
"If it's you and me forever, if it's you and me right now, that'd be alright, be alright. We'll chase the stars to lose our shadow, Peter Pan and Wendy turned out fine, so won't you fly with me." He sings softly, and Mitchie is hanging off every word.
He sings for a few more minutes, changing songs every thirty seconds or so. When he's finished he sets the guitar carefully down.
She smiles and slowly he leans forward, capturing her lips in a kiss. It's soft and gentle, and he moves his left hand to rest on her cheek. She kisses him back instantly, lacing her fingers through his hair. With their other hands they entwine their fingers, and right now Mitchie is learning how to feel beautiful. It's their first kiss and it's perfect.
---
He asks her to be his girlfriend as soon as they break apart. She can't stop smiling and he can't either as they simply stare at each other.
"What if I say no?" She finally asks, but the sparkle in her eyes contradicts her statement. He answers her silently by kissing her again.
---
"We're invited to a party!" Jason cries, shoving the invite in to her face as soon as she enters the apartment Jason shares with Nate.
"That's great, Jason! You'll have an awesome time!" She laughs as he pulls her into a hug.
"You're invited too! And so are Shane and Nate!"
Mitchie smiles wider at this information, but before she can say another word Jason run off in search of Nate.
She picks up the invite Jason dropped and reads it to herself, her heart sinking at the words jumping out from the page:
Tess Tyler.
Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all.
---
The music is so loud she can't hear anything at all. There are people drinking and smoking and she's pretty sure that what Tess is smoking isn't a normal cigarette. She wants to go home, but she promised Jason (innocent Jason, who's she's pretty worried about right now) that she'd stay for at least two hours. People are shoving drinks at her and she has to duck to avoid the substances (it's not soda – even she knows that) being spilt all over her. She doesn't know where Shane has disappeared too. Caitlyn is dancing with Nate, both of them very drunk, and Jason is probably being lead on by Tess or one of her minions.
"Would you like a drink?" Someone asks her, and she knows it would be rude to say no, like she has the countless other people. So she drinks it. It's only one, right? It'll do no harm.
---
An hour later, Mitchie is so intoxicated she can't walk straight. She's dancing with someone who doesn't look like Shane, and she's oblivious to him as he moves forward to kiss her. At least, she didn't notice until someone's fist connects with the guy's jaw. It's Shane, who looks very pissed at the guy who's trying to make a move on his girlfriend. Mitchie starts to feel a little guilty, though if it's for her actions or for leading the guy-that-isn't-Shane on she isn't sure.
---
"I can't believe you'd be so stupid." Shane mumbles to her as they ride back home is his car. He didn't drink anything, it turns out. Unlike her.
She doesn't respond.
"You're normally so sensible."
Silence on her part.
"Reckless, immature ..., Mitchie I don't know who you turned in to tonight."
She turns to look at him and the flicker in his eyes makes her heart break all over again. She doesn't know why she does it, but she grabs the car handle and yanks the door open. She doesn't hesitate, but instead steps out onto the busy road. Cars are roaring past and she starts running. She'll blame it on him, if anybody asks.
"Are you crazy?" He yells after her, but she pretends not to hear.
She doesn't want to know the answer to that question.
---
"Mitchie I'm –"
She slams the door in his (pretty, pretty) face.
---
Three weeks, two days and fifteen hours later, Caitlyn Geller decides something has to be done. Shane and Mitchie haven't talked since Shane's failed attempt at an apology, and seeing two of her best friends depressed does not make her feel too great.
So, in a somewhat cliché move, she sets her friends up.
She phones Shane while Mitchie is with her, and pretends its Nate. She even greets him by saying 'Hi, Nate!'
"Um, Caitlyn, this is Shane."
But she didn't respond to him. Instead, she passes the phone to Mitchie.
"Nate wants to talk to you." She told her friend, before distancing herself slightly.
"Hello?" Mitchie spoke into the phone, confused. She hadn't spoken to Nate for a while because of her argument with Shane.
Caitlyn watched for a few seconds, and when she was satisfied that neither of her friends would hang up the phone, she left them alone.
---
I'm sorry turns out to be one of the hardest things to say. When Mitchie forgives Shane and vice versa, neither want to be the first to apologize. Shane because he's never wrong, and Mitchie because she doesn't know how.
It's three days after their phone call and Mitchie agrees to meet up with Shane in the same cafe she met him in all those weeks ago. She arrives first and sits at a table near the front with her head down, feeling awkward. He's late (by seven minutes), and when he slides in to the seat opposite her she can't help but blush. She thought he had stood her up. She wanted him to stand her up so they wouldn't have to talk again after their fight.
"Hello." He says slowly, and she smiles weakly in return.
It's silent, as she predicted, and when the waiter comes over to take their order she just asks for water. He asks for coffee, and she isn't sure if he did this to annoy her or not because she remembers telling him that she hated the smell.
"I'm ... I missed you." She finally says, and when she meets his eyes, he replies with a nod.
"Me too."
They both smile, and this time the smile reaches their eyes.
---
It's strange being in the cafe without Nate and Jason, but as she sits there with Shane she realizes it's something she could get used to.
fin.