KissCam! Brittana Prompt
A/N – Let's all just pretend that the 100th never happened…
POV Brittany
"Nuh-uh"
"Nope"
"No"
"Not this one"
"This is ridiculous" I huffed as I placed my hands on my hips in frustration. I quit filtering and throwing clothes out of my closet for a moment and scanned the destruction that I had created all over my room. A combination of shoes and pants scatter the bedroom floor. Most of my drawers are open and a smaller one is just on the brink of falling out of the top of the tall dresser. My shower towel lays limp on the foot board and most of my blouses and shirts are in a heap on top of my unmade bed, with the exception of the one that is currently hanging off of my ceiling fan. It was ten till seven and Casey would be here any minute.
Feeling at a bit of a loss, I tilt my head back and groan. Well, I meant to groan, but it comes out sounding more like the mating call of a beluga whale.
I honestly feel so stupid, we're just going to a basketball game. Finding a shirt to wear should seriously not be this difficult. Except, it is this difficult because this isn't just some basketball game. This is a double date with my new boyfriend and my ex-girlfriend and her new girlfriend. And not only have I not met Santana's new girlfriend, but Santana also isn't exactly aware that the person I am bringing is my new boyfriend. It's not that I didn't tell her about Casey, but I think she's under the impression that Casey is a friend that is a girl. I swear I've been meaning to tell her, but I've been so scared to ruin our conversations since we've been trying to just be friends again. It's been exactly nine months and twelve days since we broke up. She won't be mad that I'm trying to move on, right? I mean nine months is a long time, and plus she has a new girlfriend now so obviously she must be over everything.
"Ugh, so why is this making my brain hurt worse than a 7-Eleven Slurpee?!" I whine out loud, pressing the heels of my palms to my head.
I guess Lord Tubbington must have finally remembered to pay the electric bill, because a light bulb suddenly turned on, literally, adding illumination from the natural light that filtered through the bedroom windows. It's amazing how much faster you can find a shirt when you can actually see everything better. I blink my eyes a few times to adjust them to the brighter lighting. Looking around the room I see LT rolled over on his back, lying on the perfect finish to my outfit. It's just a plain black tank top, but it used to be Santana's favorite.
"You're such a genius LT" I coo to him, pulling the tank from underneath him while I scratch under his chin.
"I'm glad to see you're paying the bills instead of buying ecstasy from those Chem Majors" I say to him as I pull my long locks out from the back of the tank and do final checks in the mirror. He doesn't respond, but just rolls over and closes his eyes instead, pretending like he doesn't know what I am talking about. I keep telling him that he has a problem, but I guess it's true that you can't change someone unless they want to change themselves.
I suddenly feel my left butt pocket vibrate before my Gangnam Style ringtone starts to sound off. My head naturally starts bobbing to the beat as I pull my phone from pocket to see who texted me.
Casey: outside.
I know that it's dumb, but this is one of those things that I miss about Santana, she would always come up to the actual door to get me. I used to think that's just what you do when you pick up your date, but of the few people that I have gone on dates with, I've experienced the rude awakening that people really don't do that anymore. It makes me sad. Taking a deep breath, I put my phone in my back pocket and give LT one last ear scratch on my way out the door.
I walk off of the front steps after locking the front door and see Casey sitting in his BMW, his full attention is on his phone. Aside from the fact that he's a boy, he's definitely different from Santana, but I'm still trying to get used to him. We met at one of the mixers for MIT's School of Science. He's from one of the important legacy families, whatever that means. His uncle introduced us, and he was nice at first, but then he quit doing nice things all the time and now he only does it when we are around important people. I think it's because he's Russian. I was reading somewhere that they invented the Cold War. I don't really know what that is, but I think it's like a bigger version of the cold shoulder.
"Hi!" I say sweetly as I slide into the passenger seat and lean over to give him a kiss on the cheek.
"Hi" he grumbles, he only pulls his attention away from his phone when he sees a few gray cat hairs that LT left on my shirt. "Brittany! I JUST got the car detailed. I thought we agreed you would lint roll before you got in?" he says upset before opening the center console and handing me a lint roller.
"I'm sorry" I say a little hurt, taking the lint roller from him. He doesn't say anything as he drives off towards the arena.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
We make it to arena center and battle our way through traffic until we are able to find a parking spot. I could have sworn that I had spotted Santana as we drove by front arena entrance. It most likely wasn't her, but that didn't keep my stomach from getting jittery all of a sudden. I take an extra moment to straighten out any of the invisible wrinkles from my clothes that might have snuck up on the ride over.
"This century Brittany" Casey huffs impatiently at me.
"Oh, right. Sorry"
I quickly walk over to him and attempt to link my arm in his, but he just shrugs me off instead. I try to recover from the rejection, clearing my throat as I set my shoulders back and continue to walk beside him with my gaze set straight ahead; its then that I see her, her back turned to me. She's wearing skinny jeans and what I'm guessing is a fitted white V-neck under a Knicks jersey that is being partially covered by dark, curly locks. While she has never been one to dress so casual, even to a sporting event, I know that stance and body language from a mile away. I would even bet twenty dollars that her arms are crossed in front of her and she's biting the side of her right thumb nail. She does that when she's nervous or anxious, and if she's feeling any bit about our meet up as I am then that is exactly what she is doing. A shorter girl walks up to her and rubs her hands up and down the sides of her arms as if attempting to comfort her. I'm guessing by the electric blue hair that she's Santana's girlfriend, Dani.
"She's doing it wrong" I mumble to myself.
"What?" Casey questions.
"Oh, -uh nothing I was just talking to myself" I say quickly.
"Brittany, quit mumbling to yourself, your friends are going to think you're stupid" he said shaking his head in annoyance.
"Quit being mean, you're making me sad" I say to him in hushed tones.
"I was just kidding" he scoffs, "Quit being so sensitive". Looking out of the side of my eye at him, I can't see his eyes behind the darkly tinted Ray Bans he was wearing, but I know he's rolling them at me.
We continue to weave in and around the crowd of people until we are standing right behind the couple. I'm no more than three feet behind her and just as I'm about to call her name when the faintest smell of her perfume hits my senses like a ton of bricks. My eyelids partially falter as I involuntarily take a deep inhale of a scent that I had never realized I could miss so much.
'No! Don't do that! Friends don't think those things. Quit being stupid' I slap myself mentally.
Pulling myself back to reality, I clear my throat and reach forward to tap her shoulder. She spins around quickly, her arms folded in front of her and the corner of her thumb still caught in between her front teeth. I can't help the smile that spreads across my face. I feel like I could jump with excitement of finally seeing her, but settle for small bounce on my toes instead. Her face lights up immediately.
"Hi" I greet breathlessly.
"HI!" she squeals before enveloping me in a giant panda bear hug. I wrap my arms around her shoulders to return the embrace.
"God I forgot how good her hair smells" I think to myself before forcing myself to let go. She holds me at arm's length, her eyes lingering on mine. The sound of someone clearing their throat pulls causes Santana to shake her head as her attention is pulled back to reality.
"Uh, Britt this is my girlfriend Dani" she introduces as she turns back slightly to allow Dani into our conversation.
"It's so nice to meet you Dani" I say while offering my hand forward.
"You too! Santana has told me a lot about you" she smiles genuinely while reciprocating my handshake.
"Oh that can't be good" my response causing us all to laugh together. I catch Santana's eyes stealthily wondering around at the people behind me. Quickly remembering that I had told Santana I was bringing someone with me I turn my head to locate Casey. He is still standing about three feet behind me; and at no surprise, his eyes are glued to his phone.
"Casey" I call out, but he doesn't hear me. I look back at the girls quickly, releasing a small embarrassed laugh and smile. I catch Santana zero in on him quickly, slight confusing causing her brow to furrow. I call out to him again, this time successfully catching his attention. He looks up from his phone and plants a smile on his face, his annoyed demeanor changing in less than a nano second. He slips his phone into his back pocket as he walks over to us and places his arm around my waist.
"I'm so sorry, work emails" he apologized with an exaggerated scoff and charming smile before extending his hand out towards Dani, "Hi I'm Brittany's boyfriend Casey".
"Dani, nice to meet you" She returned.
"Oh, I'm sorry I thought you were Santana" said to Dani while giving me a confused glance.
I could feel Santana's laser like stare on me during their greeting exchanges. I looked up for a quick second and in an instant I knew that she was upset about the few bits of omitted information on the 'friend' that I brought.
"Nope, that's me" she cut in, quickly averting her hard stare from me and giving Casey her signature fake smile. "Santana Lopez, hi".
"It's very nice to meet you Santana. Brittany talks about you all the time" he smiled as he offered his hand to her. She didn't move to reciprocate the gesture, opting instead to just stand there with her arms still crossed and looking at the offered appendage. I began mentally slapping myself for omitting the information. I knew that look and stance that she was holding very well. She was going to be difficult, I could feel it. Dani must have figured it out too after a few moments.
"Santana" she mumbled sternly as she gave her a subtle shove. Santana obliged, shaking his hand firmly before retracting back to its original position. Casey continued to keep face although I could tell by the small change in his stance that her grip took him by surprise. They hold each other's gaze for longer than what feels comfortable.
"Okay! Well let's go get to our seats" Dani said cheerily and she links her arm in Santana's, pulling her towards the exit. Casey grips the side of my waist before following the two girls into the arena.
We had found our seats easily enough once we entered the concourse area of the arena. Casey and Dani had taken the two outer seats, allowing Santana and I to sit in the middle and chitchat with one another. We kept the conversations going easily enough between Dani, Santana and myself. As much as I tried to include Casey in on the conversation, his responses only came in the form of grunts and one-word answers, his attention remaining on his phone. While Dani kept on a good face about it, I could tell that it was getting on Santana's last nerve. The last thing that I wanted to happen was for Santana's inner Snix to pop out.
"This was supposed to be a fun reunion, not a stressful one" I think to myself. Honestly, he was starting to even make me kind of mad.
The lights dimmed in the arena as "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea began playing over the speakers. Everyone in the stands started cheering as some stood up to dance or clap along, we were no exception. Santana starts rapping to the lyrics while Dani chimes in on the chorus to her left, and my body starts moving on its own. It felt good to just dance, no one at MIT dances. As a matter of fact, the only thing that people at MIT do is study and work. I catch sight of Casey when I spin on my heels, still dancing to the music. He's slouched in his seat with his hand covering his face as he looks away from us. I tap on his arm and gesture for him to join us when he looks up at me. I can tell he's upset and embarrassed when he mouths for me to sit down. I go to sit down, but feel a strong slim arm wrap around my waist as Santana pulls both Dani and I close to her and continue dancing. We sway and sing together until the song ends and the announcer welcomes everyone to the game. Finally taking our seats, my cheeks are sore from smiling so much. I forgot how good it feels just to be around Santana. I had gotten so used to Casey and all of the other boring MIT people that only liked me for my genius math brain. Sure they were nice to me and made me feel important, but there is a difference between feeling important and feeling wanted. She makes me feel wanted. The song ends and everyone sits down as they cheer with excitement for the opening of the game to begin.
The cheerleaders are on the floor, shaking their pompoms out in front of them as the announcer introduces each basketball player out by name. Nostalgia washes over me, remembering all of the Friday nights when Santana and I would be out cheering on our high school teams. Things were so much easier back then. Santana must be feeling it too, because I feel her lock her right pinky in my left one under the armrest. While the gesture surprises me, I subtly tilt my head where we meet each other's side glances before I give her pinky a small squeeze; she smiles before letting go. It's funny how easily we fall back into sync with each other. It feels so good to just be around her, like I'm finally waking up since the time that I have been at MIT. I look over at Casey as the thought lingers across my mind. I mean, yeah he's kind of a jerk, but even when he was nice all the time, something just felt like it was missing. In fact, something always seemed to be missing when I was with not only Casey, but everyone else that came before him too. I look back over to my left and see Santana's profile as she is shouting in Spanish at the players on the floor down below. Her full attention is on the game and still yet I feel my heart pulling towards her.
"Stop it! Friends don't think that about each other!" I shake my head.
"Britt? You okay?" she questions in concern, her full attention suddenly on me instead of the game.
"Huh? Yeah I'm good" I smile at her. She reciprocates the gesture half-heartedly before stealing a quick glare at Casey.
She hunkers down in her seat a little bit more, and leans over towards me while keeping her eyes on the game. "So Casey is your boyfriend, huh?" She asks.
"Yeah, I guess" I answer her, not really liking where this is going.
"Britt you know you could've told me that you were bringing your boyfriend. It's not a big deal you know."
Guilt washes over me again for the third time today, forcing me to look down at the loose thread from the hem of my shirt that has suddenly become super entertaining. "I just didn't want to upset you" I admit quietly to her. Her face shows no emotion, she's quiet for a few minutes as she watches the game and leans over to hear whatever it is that Dani is saying to her. My stomach is twisting in knots every minute that goes by.
"You should have said something stupid" Is all the keeps running through my head.
"Hey wanna go get some drinks with me? I'm gonna need help carrying them down" Santana turns and says to me. I just nod my head in response as I stand up to follow her out.
I look back to Casey before leaving, "Casey do you want anything from upstairs?" I ask him.
"Beer" is all he mumbles, his full attention still on the game. I so do not feel like dealing with his attitude right now. My face must have shown it too, because Santana was waiting on the stairs for me, staring daggers his way.
Luckily we make it to the concessions before the halftime buzzer sounds and half of the arena decides to grab refreshments or run to the bathroom. We stand in line, an awkward kind of silence lingering among us despite the rowdy basketball fans all around. A frown starts forming on my face as I look at the beer menu. There's so many to choose from and all Casey said he wanted was "beer". A little more specification would have been nice. I settle for having to conduct a process of elimination through a statistical mathematical equation; it's only let me down once.
"You're doing Einstein brain stuff right now huh?" Santana chuckles as she stands with her arms crossed, peering at me from the corners of her eyes.
"How did you know?" I giggle.
"You only do that little crinkle, frowny thing when you're using your genius powers" she smiles, bumping my shoulder with hers, "It's still cute". I shove my hands in my back pockets while lightly twisting my torso back and forth as I try and fight the blush that I can feel creeping over my ears, not daring to look at Santana right now. We shuffle a few steps forward as the line just barely moves, there's still a good ten people in front of us.
She clears her throat before bumping my shoulder again, "I'm sorry that you felt it would have upset me to tell me about you and Casey" she said quietly.
"No it's not you, I'm just stupid" I tell her shaking my head in self disappointment.
"Whoa, hey" she gently grabs my arms, ducking her head to look at me in concern before firmly stating, "Brittany you are not stupid". I forgot how much she hates it when I use that word against myself.
"Look I get why you didn't say anything, and it's okay. I mean yeah, it kind of caught me off guard, but then I remembered how nervous I was to tell you about me and Dani." She explains.
"You were?" I ask a little bit surprised.
"Well yeah" she laughs, "You're like one of the only people that I would care about hurting. And it feels like this whole dating other people thing is kind of a sensitive subject, you know?"
"Yeah I guess" I agree with her before she turns to look at the menu again. It makes me smile a little bit when she does that. To anyone else it would seem that she's just done with the conversation, but I know that it's actually just one of her little comfort ticks that she does when we have a serious conversation and she gets a little emotional, she has to pull away just a little bit to put up her walls again. The knots in my stomach loosen with the revelation that she's not upset with me. We shuffle a little closer to the stand as the line nudges up some more.
"Sooo Dani is nice" I say, leaning my chin on her shoulder; I swear I feel her shudder at my touch.
"Uh y-yeah she's sweet" she stutters. I stand back up with a smirk on my face. She regains her composure and turns to give me a pointed look, "I can't really say the same for Casey, I'm sorry if you really like him Britt"
"He's not that bad" I respond in my pour attempt to defend him.
"Brittany he hasn't said more than five words to you, or any of us for that matter and he pays more attention to his phone that he does to you." She says in disapproval.
I shake my head and try to excuse him, "He said it himself; he has a lot of work emails piling up".
Santana scoffs with a roll of her eyes, "That's a bullshit excuse Britt" she says unforgivingly. "You shouldn't come in second to anything, especially not to fucking work emails on a Saturday. You deserve to be treated like a princess, and all I've seen this whole time is you taking care of him and he's being less than grateful."
I go to tell her that it's not true, but am cut off by the cashier at the counter. I hadn't realized that we were already at the front of the line. We give the lady our order and move to the side of the counter to wait on our beer and pretzels.
"It's not that bad." I tell her with a shrug, resuming our previous conversation. "Yeah he's a dick most of the time, but it's just because he's Russian" I try and explain. Santana turns to give me an incredulous look.
"What? Britt, no" she shakes her head with a laugh "Being Russian doesn't make him an asshole, he just is one, and you deserve way better than that"
"Oh please Santana" I sigh rolling my eyes in aggravation.
"What? I'm just looking out for you." She tells me in disbelief.
"I know but this is the choice that I've made, so in the end why does it matter?" I question her, tension starting to wind its way into our conversation. She looks at me as if I have just said the most unbelievable thing to her. Shaking her head she pulls me off to the side, away from prying ears but close enough that she can still see when they set out our orders.
"It matters because I still care about you" she says softly as she grabs both of my hands in hers. "Don't settle for that piece of crap, wait for someone who is going to give you the world".
"Yeah well that person is kind of taken at the moment" I say looking at the ground, the words are out before I can take them back and I hear her release a sigh. This conversation escalated to a complicated status quicker than a bullet.
"Good job Brittany" I yell at myself.
"Britt, look I meant it when I told you that I would always love you the most. Nothing about that has changed, and maybe it never will." She admits and even though I know it doesn't mean anything, I can't help but feel the smallest spark of hope, "But I'm with Dani" she reasoned before looking away.
I look over to check on our order and collect my thoughts before responding. There are so many things that I could tell her right now, but that would just make things far more complicated than what they already currently are. This was just supposed to be a fun reunion and yet, here were are standing in the middle of the arena concourse, spilling our hearts out to one another. I could tell her all the million things that are currently running through my mind, but instead I just decide on telling her the truth. Taking her hands in mine, I look her in the eyes and offer the smallest smile.
"I'm so happy that you found someone who cares about you." I tell her honestly. "I can tell that she's a really great person Santana, but no one will ever be able to recreate what you and I have."
"Look, I would be lying if I said that the idea of you and me again hadn't crossed my mind, but this is just the way that things are now." disappointment laden in her tone.
Taking a deep breath, "Man we have really shitty timing, huh?" Neither one of us can help but laugh a little as our current predicament.
"Yeah" she chuckles in agreement. Silence starts to linger between us; it would be awkward if it was with anyone other than Santana.
"Hey come here" she smiles as she pulls me into a warm hug. I bury my nose in her hair and hold her close to me; who knows when I will get to do this again.
"I miss you" I whisper.
"Yeah me too" she whispers back before pulling away from our embrace. "Come on, I think our stuff is ready"
We move back to the counter to grab our stuff and walk back to our seats. We're forced to wait at the top of the stairs while the people in front and below us wedge back into their seats. My eyes scan around the general crowd when I notice that a cute looking girl about two rows down is checking me out. I don't want to be rude, so I just offer her a smile as we walk past and she says hi. A grunt of disapproval from Santana sounds behind me. I turn my head to make a remark to Santana when I see that her attention is on the girl from the second row. I'm just barely able to hear her growl a "she's not interested" to her. I pause my decent down the staircase to wait for Santana.
She turns around to continue following me and almost drops her drink in surprise to see me staring at her.
"So can you please explain to me how I'm supposed to meet new people if you go around telling everyone that I'm not interested" I mockingly chastise her. She recollects herself from being caught and flips on her attitude.
"She was gross, now move it blondie" gesturing with her cup for me to continue down the steps.
"Uh huh" I smirk turning around.
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By the time we finally got situated in our seats again, there was about ten minutes left of half time. Dani had gotten up to go use the restroom. Santana and I started a game where we would scout out attractive looking people, but most of it consisted of me picking and Santana vetoing. I know it's kind of messed up with Casey sitting right next to me and all, but it was just in good fun. I'm mostly amused at Santana's snide remarks for all the people that I pick out.
"What about that one?" I say pointing to a girl that was walking up the stairs a few sections over.
"Hell no"
"Oh come on she's not that bad" I say before taking a sip of my beer. She was maybe about five-foot-six and slender. She had on tight jeans and purple blouse.
"Britt, her face looks like a frosted cupcake" she deadpanned. "Like I bet her neck hurts from having to hold up the twenty pounds of makeup that she slathered on her face. Forget a powder brush, that bitch uses a spatula." Her remark has us both laughing before being interrupted by and angry Casey next to us.
He hadn't so much as looked at his beer since I had set it on the ground for him when we first sat down after coming back. At no surprise he was too busy doing whatever on his phone. I must have been too immersed in our game with Santana that I hadn't noticed that he finally put his phone down for five seconds.
"Brittany, what the hell is this?" He complained.
"Uhm, beer?" I answered in confusion
"This is the nastiest shit I have ever tasted" he grimaced. I start to apologize when Santana's hand gently pushes my shoulder back and she leans forward.
"Sorry that was my bad. I just picked a random one" she said with mock sincerity.
"I mean I guess it's bearable" he grumbled as slouched back into his chair and took another sip.
She gave me a small smile before leaning back. Just as I start to say thank you to her, I'm cut off again but this time by the jumbo Tron screen that hangs in the middle of the ceiling of the arena. LooneyToon characters come on screen and smooch each other queuing the song "Kiss Me" to start playing over the arena speakers. The screen switches to the Kiss Cam that pans out over the crowd in the stands and begins targeting random couples. I smile and laugh watching all the cute couples that come on. The camera changes over to someone new again and it takes me a couple of seconds to realize that the camera is on focused on us. I turn my head quickly over to Casey and see that he's on his phone again talking to someone. I nudge him to look up but he only waves me off. I bite my lip and look up at the screen again, they've added a red, blinking animated "Kiss 'Em!" tag. I look over to Santana and see her smile excitedly at the screen before turning over to look at me. Throwing caution and consequence to the wind, I lean over and capture her lips in a searing kiss. I barely register the crowd cheering as I begin to lose myself in our kiss.