Spoilers: Chasing Zoey.
A/N: Four conversations between four couples that take place the day after prom in the PCA lounge. Long-ish one-shot. I was testing out the narration style, sorry if you don't like it.
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A boy walked into the PCA lounge and flopped down on the couch. It was late afternoon. "Hey."
"Oh, hi," a girl replied, putting her laptop on the coffee table and turning towards him.
"How's it going?"
"Okay. How'd you sleep?"
"Fine. I was dead tired from prom and the after-party."
They were quiet. The girl fidgeted as the boy closed his eyes, his arms behind his head.
Finally the girl spoke: "You aren't regretting anything, right?" she asked cautiously.
The boy opened an eye. "Are you?"
"No."
He grinned and closed the eye. "Me either."
"Good. I was afraid…" the girl trailed off.
The boy opened both eyes and turned to face the girl. "What?"
"I don't know. It's just… we've waited a really long time for this."
"I know. But I'm glad we can finally be together. Actually together. Like in front of everyone."
"Me too."
The boy had an uncharacteristically sweet moment as he said: "You know I love you, Quinn."
"And you know I love you too, Logan. You big… dumb… guy…. face…" the girl added as some students passed by the couch.
"Quinn, we don't have to be mean to each other in front of everyone anymore, remember?"
"Oh right! Sorry… I guess it's something we'll have to get used to."
Comfortable silence ensued.
"You know… if we had just told everyone when I had wanted to-" the girl began.
The boy frowned. "What? When did you ever want to tell anyone?"
"That time… once… that one time!" The girl was indignant.
"Oh, right, sure, that one time! Now I remember!" The boy made a sarcastic face, reverting back to his usual 'charming' personality.
"Well of course you don't remember… your brain is too busy focusing on being a big jerk!"
"And your brain is too busy… doing… science stuff! Ha!" The boy pointed to her genius brain.
The girl crossed her arms over her chest. "Ooooh, nice comeback. That one really stung, Logan." She pursed her lips.
"Good… ow! Why did you just hit me?" The boy rubbed his upper arm.
"Because you're being dumb!"
"You're being dumb!"
The girl stood. "Fine!"
The boy stood. "Fine!"
"See if I ever kiss you again!" the girl shouted.
"Back atcha!" the boy responded.
The girl collected her laptop and textbook and stormed out of the lounge. The boy grabbed his backpack and stomped away.
At that moment, another boy and girl appeared at the doorway.
"Hey babe, hold on a sec, I wanna get some Blix," the boy said.
"Okay! But hurry up, the movie starts in twenty minutes… and we both know how you are about being late!" the girl said, loudly and sarcastically.
The boy grabbed the girl's hands in his own. "I promise you, I will not let us be late to this."
"Uh huh. If I had a million dollars every time you promised me we wouldn't be really late for something…"
"You'd have a million dollars," the boy replied, filling a cup with Blix. "Look, haven't I apologized enough for last night? I'm sorry we were late to prom… I couldn't help it!"
"Well, if we just hadn't gone to dinner like I'd wanted…" the girl reminded him.
The boy put his drink down on the counter and took the girl by the shoulders, staring into her eyes. "Lola, tell me you didn't have a good night, in the end."
The girl sighed, rolled her eyes, stared at the floor, dramatic as always, before she finally looked back at the boy. "Alright, alright. It ended up being a good night."
"Exactly. Plus, now we have a funny story to look back on and laugh about. Hey, babe, remember that one time our cab driver abandoned us on the highway and-"
"Vince, sweetie," the girl interrupted mock-nicely.
"Yeah?"
"Way too soon."
The boy stopped. "Sorry."
The girl checked her watch. "The movie is in approximately seventeen minutes."
"O… kay?" the boy said, grabbing his drink. "Plenty of time."
"No! We need to get a move on! I'm not gonna let you make me late for this!"
The boy frowned. "I thought you'd forgiven me!"
"Yes, I forgive you… but I don't trust you enough to know you won't do it again, and I really want to see this movie!" the girl told him.
She took his hand and dragged him out of the lounge. The boy sighed and let himself be led away.
"Hey," the leaving boy and girl said together to another girl and boy just entering.
"Hey," they both replied, the boy hastily and distracted.
"How long until your uncle gets here?" the girl asked, standing with her arms crossed over her chest as the boy started tearing the room apart.
"One hour! Dang it, I only have one hour! He's gonna kill me!" the boy exclaimed, not stopping in his frantic search.
The girl shook her head. "I hate to say it baby, but it's kind of your own fault…"
The boy popped up from behind the couch and glared at the girl. "Not what I need right now!" he shouted, and then threw himself back on the floor to search under the furniture.
The girl watched him crawl across the floor and mutter to himself for a few minutes. Finally she went over to him and made him stand up. "Okay, okay, let's try this again. Retrace your steps."
The boy was panting. "Fine," he relented. He walked over to the door and pretended he was stepping inside. The girl followed him. "Okay, so after I changed at my dorm room, I put the keys in my pocket, and I walked over here with all of you guys," he began.
"Right, and we've already checked the prom area… and your dorm room… and the rest of the campus…" The girl added that last part under her breath. "Why did you even bring the keys with you?"
"Because I didn't want to lose them!" the boy said desperately.
"Oh," the girl replied. "That's ironic."
"So I walked in with you, and they had everything cleared for the after-party." The boy began rushing around the room. "We danced here," he said, pointing to an area, "And we took some pictures over here…" he got down on his knees to be closer to the floor, and somehow managed to still move quickly. "They had the arcade games set up over here, remember, I totally owned that Space Invaders game… man, I got like, 3,000 points. How impressive is that? I still can't believe-"
"Michael!" the girl interrupted, snapping her fingers. "Focus."
"Right," the boy said. "Then we watched that movie over here… oh, and then Chase and I came up with our new handshake over here…" He was crawling on all fours now.
The girl watched the boy for a while, trying to recall the night before. "Hey!" she said. "Remember when you tried out the new rap you'd written? Over there?"
The boy gasped and crawled as fast as possible to the area the girl was speaking of, in the corner by a potted plant. The girl followed, reached into the plant, and lifted out the missing car keys.
She smiled in a self-satisfied sort of way, dangling the keys in front of the boy. "They must have fallen out when you and Firewire started fighting over the microphone," she reminded him.
"Oh, right!" the boy said, and stood up. He grabbed the keys. "Man, I kicked that kid's butt."
The girl chuckled at the memory.
"What would I do without you, Little Lisa?" the boy asked, and he bestowed a kiss upon the girl for her efforts.
"Get murdered by your uncle for losing the keys to the car he let you borrow?"
"Exactly." The boy took the girl's hand. "Let's go get some dinner… I'll pay."
"Well I've certainly deserved a free meal," the girl joked, and they left the lounge hand-in-hand as the people who had been in there studying and hanging out thanked God the weirdo crawling on all fours was finally gone.
After a few minutes, another girl wandered into the lounge, looking around. Not finding what she was looking for, she sat down at one of the tables. She took out her cell phone and checked for any new text messages. None.
The girl began to get up, giving up, when suddenly a boy appeared by her side.
"Trying to leave before he sees you?" the boy joked.
The girl whirled around with a grin. "Actually I was wondering if he was standing me up, and if he was, I was going to go kick his butt."
"He'd be a total idiot to stand you up," the boy said sweetly.
The girl sat again in the chair she'd been occupying. "Does he have a reason as to why he's late?"
The boy smiled goofily and pulled four roses out from behind his back. "Because he wanted to get you flowers?"
The girl grinned brilliantly and took the proffered flowers. "Then he is forgive," she decided, and then she kissed the boy.
The boy sat down across from her. "They cleaned this place up pretty quick," he observed, looking around the lounge.
"We have a really good janitorial staff. Not that you'd probably remember, since you've been in England for so long…"
The boy squinted at her. "Wait, who are you?" he asked jestingly.
"Ha, ha," the girl said.
The boy and the girl smiled at each other for quite some time, caught up in the newness of the relationship they'd been waiting years for.
"I love the roses, but why four?" the girl asked.
The boy rubbed the back of his neck shyly. "Well, uh, when you first came here, remember we were supposed to go to the movies? I had gotten you a rose… and, well, I never got to give it to you. So now I am. And, there's four of them because, well… oh man, you're gonna think I'm the corniest guy ever."
"Too late," the girl sing-songed good-naturedly.
"Well, I got one for every year I've known you and loved you," he mumbled, red as a tomato.
The girl stared at him, amused. "That is corny. But very, very sweet. I love it." She put her hand over his. "And I love you, Chase."
"I swear I could never get tired hearing that," the boy told the girl, over the moon with happiness. "I never thought this, us, would ever happen."
"I'm pretty surprised too," the girl said. "I guess in the back of my mind I'd always known… I just denied it. But when James and I started dating… there was always something in the way."
"Me?" the boy asked hopefully.
"Yes you," the girl told him. "You and that bushy head of yours."
"You love my bushy head."
"Yeah, I do."
They were quiet. They could hear the other students around whispering about them.
"I feel bad about James," the boy told the girl.
"Why do you feel bad? I'm the one who broke up with him."
"I feel like I stole you from him."
"You didn't steal me from him. I had been lying to him all these months… lying to myself, too. When he told me he loved me, I realized I couldn't lie to anyone anymore about my feelings." She glanced at the boy. "I'm so glad you came back."
"I'm glad boarding schools in England get out earlier than schools in America," the boy replied.
"How long are you staying?"
"A few more days… then I have to go home."
"You know, we need to start planning our trip," the girl reminded him.
The boy grinned. "Yes, we do. Do you think we're gonna get sick of each other by the time September comes? We'll have spent all summer in Maui, and then we have all of senior year together."
The girl thought about it, then replied in all seriousness: "You know what, you're right. We shouldn't go to Hawaii together this summer."
"What?" the boy asked, suddenly incredulous. "I was joking! I was being cute and sweet and ironic!"
The girl laughed. "I was too, calm down. I don't think I could ever get sick of you, Chase."
"You say that now…"
"Well, we'll find out soon enough."
The boy nodded. "Yeah." He checked his watch, then stood and held out his hand. "So, I hear there's a great sunset around here. Wanna go watch it with me?"
The girl considered. "I think I can manage that," she said, taking his hand and standing as well.
They started walking out of the lounge.
"Thank you for coming back to me," the girl said into the side of his chest; the boy had slung an arm around her shoulders and she'd snuggled up close to him as they walked.
"No, Zo… thank you," the boy insisted, and he kissed the top of her head.
The boy and the girl were just outside the entrance when the girl halted them both. "Oh my God," she said.
"What?" the boy asked.
"I totally forgot! I was so busy being excited about you being back and being my boyfriend and all-"
"What??"
"Logan and Quinn!" the girl answered, gesturing across the quad. A boy and a girl were passionately kissing for everyone to see.
"Man, I have been gone way too long," the boy said. The girl stopped watching their two friends and shook her head.
And the girl and the boy headed off to find the perfect seats to watch the sunset.
XXX