A/N: The perilous love affair? Gonna take a while to get to it.
"We should do something."
"We are doing something; we're painting our nails." Sometimes Alyssa's inability to display humor was amusing; this was not one of those times.
"Something interesting. Something that will leave a lasting impression."
"We are not blowing anything up."
"Geez, Ally, I never said we were. Paranoid much?" That earned me a droll look in reply. Either she was upset with me for insulting her, or she was amused because she'd just made a joke that I totally didn't get. With Alyssa, it was kind of hard to tell.
"I just think we need to get out there, explore the world while we still can."
A faint furrow between her brows made it clear that Alyssa and I weren't following the same train of thought, which wasn't surprising. Her train follows the line from Point A to Point B. Mine was always torn between pit-stops and de-railings.
"You want to ditch school?"
"No! God no. My brothers would kill me and Dad might actually fly home from Tokyo." I fought a shudder at the thought. It wasn't that I didn't love my father it was just that he was one of those people who were easier to love from a distance. It'd taken a couple of years and most of my childhood for us to figure out that Tokyo was just about far enough.
"No," I repeated, calmer, more rationally. "I was thinking something more along the lines of organized chaos."
"Oxymorons?" Alyssa hazarded, screwing the top back on the nail polish she was finished using. It was called Big Money, a dark shade of green that didn't particularly look good on her, but that was Alyssa for you. "You must be serious."
As a heart attack.
School had been in session now for about two weeks and already I was bored. Things here just weren't challenging enough for me and it was making my brain itch and my fingers twitch.
I wanted an adventure, a great-big hurrah that could use up some of this pent-up energy that seemed to hover around me like an annoyingly itchy sweater.
Next year was Senior Year. I'd have college applications and internships and career counseling, not to mention mentoring and all the other countless things Spencer liked to throw at it's departing seniors to bury them in scholarship. Judging by the already harried looks of this years seniors, next year wasn't going to be much by way of fun.
So I was going to get in my last hurrah's this year and Alyssa was going to help me because my rationale was logical in its appeal.
"We need a schedule."
"Huh?" Lost in my own thoughts, I came back to reality to find Alyssa pulling a pen and notebook off of her desk. Carefully uncapping the pen, heeding her newly painted nails, she tilted her head back and stared serenely up at me from the floor.
"Continue."
I knew it was normally my position to be the odd one in our relationship, but there were moments when Alyssa truly creeped me out and this was rapidly turning into one of them.
Or maybe it was the fumes.
It was cold outside and we hadn't bothered to open any windows, so the inside of our room had me seeing spots…sparkly, dancing, multicolored spots.
"Okay," shaking my head I turned my thoughts back to the matter at hand. Which was…what, exactly?
"So, what are we going to do?"
"Organized Chaos," Alyssa reminded me gently, pen poised over paper as she patiently waited for my immaculate conception of a brainstorm.
"Right." There was a pause, a long beat of solid silence while Alyssa waited for my ingenious idea and I waited to have one.
"Anything?"
It was two days later and we were sitting in a History of Modern Art class.
I was taking the class because I was genuinely interested in expanding my social awareness of artistic endeavors. Alyssa was taking it because colleges liked it when students came to them with a well-rounded resume.
Pretty much everybody else was taking it because it simply involved looking at pictures for two hours a day.
Which was why I wasn't surprised to see Reid Garwin drooling on the desktop two rows in front of me, fast asleep, with Tyler sprawled out next to him, flipping through a paperback novel.
"I'm working on it."
And while I was waiting for inspiration to strike, I was going to enjoy some good quality Tyler watching.
"It's been a week and you haven't caused any trouble. What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," I frowned as Kate slid into the seat next to me. It was lunchtime and I was enjoying some nice macaroni salad with pickles and chocolate milk.
Across from me, Alyssa was steadily flipping through a law textbook and spooning soup into her mouth, while Zac watched with fascination as I garbled the contents of my meal together and proceeded to eat it.
"She's thinking," Alyssa supplied, flipping another page.
"About what?" Kate looked worried now, with just cause. The last time she'd been aware of my 'thinking' there'd been some trouble concerning the location of the Dean of Students vehicle and a horse named Toyota that had apparently taken it's place.
"Things," I answered vaguely. "School."
For whatever delusional reason, that seemed to make her relax. I looked up to find Alyssa and Zac exchanging a knowing look.
It wasn't my fault Kate was one of those people who only heard what she wanted to.
Though, honestly, she should know better by now.
"I have no idea what we're going to do." I collapsed onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling with a worn sigh.
I didn't know what was going on; normally, trouble followed me around like a yappy little dog on a short-leash. It was my familial nickname, after all.
But you know what they say, when you go looking for trouble…it completely avoids you.
"Damnit."
I didn't have to look to know that Alyssa was arching an eyebrow from her desk in the corner.
"Maybe you need to relax, take a nap."
I grunted at that.
"Or maybe we should go to Nicky's."
I perked up at that.
Nicky's. Beer, fooseball, and pool tables. And best of all, trouble.
I really missed Trouble.
"Angela! Angel! Over here!" Kate had a voice that carried really well and a smile that lit up her face and drew attention from everybody in her immediate vicinity.
Next to her, her boyfriend Pogue wrapped a protective arm over her shoulders and glared menacingly at the more persistent on lookers.
"Very intimidating," I assured him needlessly as we approached.
"I give it a ten," Zac agreed from where he was sprawled next to Kate looking absolutely exhausted.
"Bad day at work?" Alyssa questioned, quietly settling herself next to him.
"Oven exploded," was his grunted reply.
"No blowing things up," Alyssa reminded me quietly as I visibly perked.
"Again, not exactly the Unabomber over here."
"You blew up the chem lab last year." Reid's breath was warm across my neck, raising the small hairs there as I twisted to glare at him, ignoring his proximity to huff at him.
"I did not. I was cleared of any blame."
"Whatever you say, sweetheart."
Reid had the most annoying smirk, one that practically screamed his superiority over the rest of us mere mortals.
"And it wasn't even a big explosion," I snapped myself out of Reid's orbit with that statement, frowning over at Alyssa as the blonde took the seat across from me.
"Property damage was less than five thousand dollars," Alyssa agreed calmly.
"Exactly."
"Whatever," Reid lifted his fingers in a half wave of disinterest as he turned his attention towards the bar.
"Where's Caleb?" I asked Zac. Zac was a default friend for all of the Sons except Caleb, so it didn't really make sense for him to be sitting here unless Caleb was nearby.
"Over at the bar with Tyler getting our food."
"Tyler's here?" I straightened with that knowledge. Kate narrowed her eyes at me in blatant warning.
Across from me, Reid tapped his fingers on the table and smirked.
"He's meeting Shirley," Kate informed me purposely.
"Here?" Zac arched an eyebrow as he surveyed our surroundings.
Nicky's was a step above a dive bar, but not exactly a bible thumpers paradise.
"He invited her and she accepted. And we're going to be nice to her, aren't we, Angel?"
"What? Why are you asking me? I'm nice." Alyssa snorted and Zac grinned. I frowned at the two of them.
"I am," I insisted, actually feeling a little hurt by their apparent lack of faith in my sensitivity.
"How nice?" Reid practically purred across from me. He was watching me, blue eyes dancing with mischief, fingers giving up on tapping and now stroking the table in an almost sensuous manner.
"Not that nice," I informed him tartly.
"Too bad," he breathed out on a disappointed sigh, his gaze dropping from my face to stare wistfully at my bustline.
"Reid," Caleb appeared – like magic – and slapped the younger boy across the head.
"Ow! What? I wasn't doing anything!"
"You were being a perv," Kate informed him tartly. He stared at her, visibly confused as he rubbed the back of his head.
"Yeah? So? I'm a teenage boy!"
"Please don't extend your bad manners to the rest of our gender," Tyler stated dryly as he slid into the seat next to his best friend. I let out a small sigh of pleasure, earning myself a suspicious look from Tyler and a knowing smirk from Reid. "I'd like to still be able to get laid while I'm young."
Pogue snorted at that one, grunting more out of surprise than pain when Kate elbowed him in the stomach.
"What? It was funny!"
"It was sick," Kate snapped. "And demeaning."
"To who? Reid? Honey, I don't think he cares."
Kate's angry reply was cut off by Shirley's arrival.
"Tyler?" Her timid voice was barely audible above the hustle and bustle of the busy bar.
"Shirley! Hey!" Getting to his feet – ever the gentlemen – Tyler offered his girlfriend a chaste kiss across the cheek before pulling out the seat next to him for her to sit in.
"How'd your meeting with Rob go?" He asked her, cheerfully ignoring the rest of us as he casually swung an arm over the back of her chair.
Shirley's eyes dropped to the table top as her face turned red under our collective scrutiny.
"Fine," she replied with a mumble, hands carefully folded together on top of the table.
"We still on for tonight?" A head bob.
Apparently shy-little Shirley was intimidated by our collective powers of staring.
"Anything?" Alyssa asked, her tone oddly pained, which I could totally understand. Being in the presence of such glaring sweetness was having an effect on me, too.
"Notta." I replied with an annoyed sigh.
"What?" Zac asked, peering between the two of us. "What's going on?"
"Angel's have an attack of sanity," Kate supplied, reaching over and grabbing a fry from the basket in the middle of the table.
"No shit?" Reid cocked his head to the side as he stared at me.
"Yeah," I agreed, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back with a frustrated grunt. "It totally blows. How can you people stand it?"
Caleb choked on the pop he'd been drinking, sputtering slightly as he stared at me.
"Excuse me?"
"Being sane," I supplied helpfully. "How you can live like this?"
I waved my hand around the bar aimlessly. Caleb followed the general direction of my hand sweep before turning his attention back towards me with a single arched eyebrow.
"What's wrong with this?" He mocked me.
I peered around me.
Aaron Abbott was at the pool table in the corner, hustling some poor schmuck from the community college, his best friend Brody acting as his own personal cheering section while his girlfriend Kyra made cow eyes at Nicky's newest bartender.
Over by the jukebox, a pixie haired girl and a mullet clad boy were dry humping against the wall, not even the shadows being able to completely hide the motions for their bodies.
Two tables away from us two supremely intoxicated middle aged truckers were singing an off-key version of 'Annie Get Your Gun'…or maybe 'Free Bird.'
And all around me people were laughing and chatting and generally having a great time.
It was sickening to be around.
"Sanity!" I answered Caleb with a disgusted snort, slapping my hands down on the table. "It's boring!"
"This is nice," Tyler defended Nicky's for the whole lot, surprising everybody with his claim, myself included.
Aside from the other Sons, I would consider myself one of the foremost experts in the inner workings of Tyler Simms deep, dark thoughts.
But the idea that Tyler would settle for this ho-hum mundrum?
Not really surprising, actually.
Which was definitely part of the reason behind the whole fantasy/reality rationale.
"I know what could make it better," Reid spoke to the table at large, but his eyes were still fixated on me, a hungry gleam in their depths.
"What?" I snapped, glaring at him with narrowed eyes. In this particular moment, he was feeling more and more like a snake in the grass. The second I took my eyes off of him, my bra was going to disappear, I just knew it.
And it wouldn't be the first time, either. I swear, the boy had to have magic hands or something, because every girl whose ever 'dated' him had waxed wonders about his ability to do away with their underthings in five milliseconds or less.
"A party," he spoke the word simply enough, but there was a twist to the end of the word that made it almost sound like he was whispering naughty things at me.
"Angel," Alyssa warned me, a slight furrow in her brows as she frowned at Reid.
"Where?" I asked, ignoring the warning. I needed trouble – craved it like a drug – and right now I was a junkie in serious withdrawal.
"Come with me."
Placing my hand in his was the dumbest thing I've ever done.
Five hours later, with a splitting headache in clothes that belonged to a hooker and shoes I'd found in a dumpster, I stumbled my way back into the Spencer building sore, bruised, battered, and completely hungover.
"I think I had alcohol poisoning," I promptly informed Alyssa as soon as she opened out door.
"You smell like a frat party," was her reply.
"I feel like a frat party. I've been molested, assaulted, inebriated, and a participant in seven brawls in the past five hours, two of which occurred in County lock-up."
Alyssa's jaw actually dropped, providing me with a beautiful memory I would love and cherish for the remainder of my days starting tomorrow. Today, I just wanted to sleep.
And possibly vomit once more, just for safety's sake.
"You were arrested?"
I nodded grimly.
"Twice. The first time they let us off with a warning, but the second they brought us in for."
I moved around the room, grabbing supplies and disappearing into our small bathroom to change out of my hobo chic and into a terry-clothe robe I was going to have to burn.
And it was a nice robe too, perfectly fluffy…
I patted the lapel sadly before turning to find Alyssa staring at me from the bathroom doorway, her face pale.
"You have a tattoo."
"What?"
I remembered a lot of things about tonight. I remembered the first party Reid had taken me to. I remember taking a puff of something called Doobie's Mega-Mix which, in retrospect, had probably been the second worst idea of the evening.
I remembered my first beer, my first mixed drink (a blow job), a drunken grope-fest with Brad Pitts body double, Reid, a bar where somebody handed me a bottle of Tequila with the instruction to 'go nuts', and Willie, a six foot five grizzlied trucker who had tucked me under his arm for about a half an hour and crooned show tunes in my ear.
I vaguely remembered the first bar fight, had snippets of the second, and had completely blocked out the third, fourth, and fifth.
I remembered getting arrested, promising the officer I would go straight home, and promptly wandering back into the same bar as I'd just emerged from.
The second arrest I remembered watching Reid slip right out the door as the officer put the cuffs on me.
I remembered the two fights in lock-up, mostly because I'd been forcibly removed from completely dominating a hooker who'd had the nerve to declare Caleb Danvers to be a complete pussy.
The second fight had segued from the first after a discussion had ensued as to which Son was the hottest. I think I might have thrown the first punch when somebody had suggested that Reid – the rat bastard – won that honor, hands down.
And I remembered getting released, finding my shoes, wondering about my clothes, and wandering back here.
At no point in time did I remember a tattoo.
"Where?"
"Your ass." Alyssa was still in a state of shock which – given the givens – wasn't all that surprising. Still, the color had yet to return to her face and I was curious about the why until I saw the tattoo and after that I pretty much didn't give a shit anymore.
"I'm going to kill him."
"Reid Garwin!" I screamed my war cry as I banged into Reid Garwin's dormroom, towel clutched in my hand like a weapon, still reeking of stale bear, sweat, and blood and clad only in my soon-to-be-burned terry cloth robe. "I'm going to fucking kill you!"
A familiar head of tawny locks yawned at me as he poked his face out from under the covers and grinned.
"Sweetheart, if you wanted some, all you had to do was ask."
Words escaped me; there was nothing in the English language or any other language that could accurately sum up the amount of pent up rage and hostility I had towards this boy. It was so bad that – in about five seconds – my head was going to just explode unless I did something.
So I rolled up the towel – still damp from my shower prior to heading out to Nicky's – and snapped it on the bare leg poking out from under the comforter.
"What the fuck - ?" Reid yelped at the contact, jerking upright to glare at me.
"Are you fucking nuts?"
"Look whose talking! You let me get arrested you asshole!"
His smirk reappeared.
"You said you wanted trouble."
"Not the kind that shows up on my record!" I screeched in reply.
"Then you shouldn't have gotten arrested."
A sound emerged from my throat – a half-howl, half-screech that had the hair rising at the nape of my neck. If this was one of those sitcoms, this would be the point where the steam machine was working overtime to produce enough boiling rage to gush out of my facial orfices.
Just grow me a tail and grab me a pitch fork cause I was mad-as-hell.
"Jesus," Reid scowled, rubbing at his ears. "Relax, would ya? I can get them to expunge your record in the morning, no sweat."
Dial down the steam a bit, but there were still serious matters to consider.
"Thank you," I managed to get out rather stiffly. "But that still leaves one problem."
"Really? And what's that?" Reid was starting to slide back into sleep-deprived grumpiness, his amusement at my shenanigans rapidly fading as his eyelids started to droop.
"This." And I opened my robe wide and turned around for him to see.
Watching Reid Garwins jaw drop in dumb shock was my second precious moment of the day.
"Is this a bad time?"
Tyler walking in on it…not so great. Though the look on his face...
"Well?" Alyssa was waiting for me back in our dorm room, patiently sitting on her bed Indian style. "Is he still alive?"
"For now," I snapped back, running my towel through my wet hair. "But that could change."
"And the tattoo?"
"Henna," I replied, grumpy and tired. "It'll wash off in two weeks."
"That's good."
And it was. Great even, because if I had to pay to get Reid's name lasered off of my ass, there would have been some serious hell to pay. And quite possibly psychological scarring.
"Do you feel better now?"
Strangely…
"Yes."
"Okay." Alyssa was quiet as she waited for me to continue.
"I have a plan."
"Organized Chaos?" Alyssa's tone was hopeful; she hid it well, but she was just as addicted to the insanity as I was.
I smiled at her as I crawled into bed.
"Better."
Oh, yes, I thought as I rolled over in bed and closed my eyes. Trouble, how I have missed thee.
A/N: Review! Review! Review! I love me some reviews and the more reviews I get, the more likely I am to stay up and continue this story that I seem to be only able to write at one o'clock in the morning.
I'm warning you now, though: I need a lot of reviews to keep me motivated. A lot of reviews…