Nick Lucas was not in a good place. There were four girls, all seventh graders, in the backseat of his car. And he kept swerving on the road, but it is kind of hard to stay straight on the highway when four pre-teens are practically screaming the lyrics to every single song on HOT 99.5. How he got in this position? The usual.
His girlfriend.
Amy Russo was probably the most demanding girl on the planet. Gosh, every single time she said something it came out like a commandment. Nick kept promising himself he would break up with her, but he just couldn't. It was way too hard. He kept thinking, maybe there's a good side to her, I just need to dig it out, but so far, no luck on that excavation.
"Hey, Nick?" One of the girls asked, tapping him repeatedly on the shoulder.
"Yes, Emma," Nick said through gritted teeth, his fingers itching to change the radio station. He wasn't in a "Circus" kind of mood that day.
Emma looked back and forth from each of her friends and started giggling. "Is it true you're single? Jessica wants to know,"
Nick furrowed his brows. Jessica…? Right, the one with the neon colored braces and the disgusting habit of sucking her thumb. He didn't know how that will work out, but whatever.
"OMG, Emma!" Jessica cried, smacking Emma with the back of her hand. Emma shrugged.
"What? You said you wanted to know!" Emma got close to Nick, invading his personal space by about a mile. "So, are you?"
"Am I what?" Nick asked, playing dumb.
"Sing—" Emma's sentence was interrupted by familiar piano notes on the radio.
"OH EM GEE!" Candace cried, throwing her cell phone onto the floor of the car. "This is, like, our SONG!"
Nick rolled his eyes. Here comes the singing. The rather out of tune singing, he might add.
Jessica rolled the volume knob all the way up before starting to "sing" "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton.
"Makin' my way downtown, walking fast, faces pass, and I'm homebound," Jessica sang. Candace illustrated the verse by tapping the seat.
"Staring blankly ahead, just making my way, making my way through the crowd," Leah practically screamed.
As Nick turned onto the exit towards Amy's house, where he was dropping off the girls, he started nodding along. This song was pretty catchy. Pretty catchy, Nick? Nick thought, laughing to himself at the irony. He had played that song on repeat on his iPod for the whole of 5th, 6th, and 7th grade.
"And I need you," Emma's head popped up by Nick, making him swerve on the road again in surprise.
"Jesus," Nick cursed under his breath.
"And I miss you," Candace cried.
"And I wonder…" Jessica pointed at Nick to continue. Nick blinked.
"If I could fall into the sky," Leah picked up where Nick refused to sing and motioned for him to continue.
How could he explain to these girls that he didn't feel like screeching the words to a song obviously meant for a girl to sing? Um, like, yeah, so I, like, totally don't want to sing right now…Nick accidentally laughed out loud at his inside joke.
"Um, what's so funny?" Emma's nose crinkled.
"Yeah, you just totally interrupted our song," Leah whined, reaching over to turn down the volume.
"Nothing," Nick blurted quickly, turning onto Amy's street. "Almost there, guys,"
"Aww," Candace whined. "I don't want to be there,"
Well, you're going, so suck it up, princess, Nick thought, smirking to himself.
"We had soo much fun with you," Emma nodded.
"Really?" Nick asked. It wasn't fun for him. They had to stop at three malls on the way there. Three! It was like a slow stabbing. Let's go shopping for bras! OMG, let's go to Victoria's Secret! He cringed at the thought.
"Yah, really," Leah nodded. "Amy would never let us listen to what we wanted to, or—"
"—go to the mall unless she needed something," Candace rolled her eyes. "Sometimes she wouldn't even let us sing along,"
Nick started to doubt Amy. This was not exactly the type of girl he thought she was. Suddenly, he stopped the car, turned on around and went up the opposite direction from Amy's street.
"Nick, what are you doing?" Jessica cried. "Amy's house is that way!"
"I know," Nick smirked. "Hey, who wants to go to my house?"
"MEEEEEEE!"