"Hey!" Ryan heard a man yell from outside the garage, in the parking lot. He stopped working and turned to see who it was. Ryan's stomach filled to the brim with butterflies at the sight. Bam raised his hand above his head, keeping it still. 'Oh God–' Ryan thought, 'he's here– with his friends too, shit.' A feeling of dread stuffed itself into his stomach as well, and neither it nor the butterflies were going well with his lunch. 'Okay, play it cool, man, just... Just do that.' Ryan waved back, and gave an approaching Bam and co. a smile.
"Yo, Ryan, what's up, man?" Bam came up to Ryan and put out his hand to shake, and brought him in for a one-armed hug. Ryan was a bit confused at first, Bam treating him more like they had been friends for a while rather than keeping things the way they were– an auto-shop guy and a customer. Well, at least it would be easier for Ryan to keep things that way for the moment his heart'll break when he finds out that Bam's got a girlfriend or a fiancé or something like that.
"Nothing, nothing. How are things with you?"
"Great. How's the car look?"
"Brand new." Ryan chuckled. "Like nothing ever happened to it." Walking Bam and his friends over to the Hummer, Ryan started again. "Yeah, I actually just finished giving it a final wash before lunch."
"It looks great." One of Bam's friends commented.
"Oh, right, yeah– Ryan, these are my friends, Raab Himself," Bam pointed to the guy who just commented on the car, "Rake Yohn," pointing to the man with long, virtually unkempt wavy hair, "and Tim Glomb," and pointed to the short haired man with a big smile on his face.
"Hey." Ryan greeted them with a smile.
"I've got the money, if uh, if there's anything else that I need to do– or, um–" Bam stuttered.
"Oh yeah, just come over to the office, and we'll finish things up."
"Sure, yeah." One of Bam's friends– Raab– grabbed Bam's arm and pulled him in, whispered something in his ear, and started laughing as Bam's face started turning red.
"Dude– I swear to God–" Bam punched Raab in the arm, "stop giving me crap about this, ya ass!" Bam then strolled over to Ryan, his face still beet red, and continue walking on into the office. "I'm sorry about my friends, man. They're all idiots." Bam said as Ryan sat down in the desk chair to better access the one and only form that he needs to get for Bam at the bottom of the cabinet.
"Don't worry, they're not causing me any trouble."
"Yeah, but they're causing me trouble." Bam let out a laugh. "Normally I'm the one causing trouble with them."
"Really?" Ryan asked in almost disbelief as he sat up and slid the form over to Bam.
"Yeah." Bam grabbed a nearby pen and started scribbling in his name next to the X at the bottom of the paper.
"What do you do?" Bam looked up at Ryan as he finished writing. Ryan felt his heart skip a beat as he met his pool blue eyes.
"Oh, well my older brother is in this band called CKY, and we just run around filming ourselves doing stupid things to help fill in time between music videos for some of the DVDs."
"Like what kinda stuff?" Ryan couldn't help the big smile forming on his face, and the interest growing inside him. Bam took a few seconds to think.
"Uh... We've," Bam started laughing to himself, "we've pushed each other into curbs using shopping carts, we've jumped off of roofs and bridges with umbrellas, and we've umm..." Bam couldn't help but let out another laugh, "Fallen off of roofs into bushes... Just dumb stuff. Really dumb stuff. Mainly for shits and giggles, you know?" At this point, Ryan was looking at him almost dumbfounded, but with a smile still stuck to his face.
"That's just..." Ryan blurted out the only word that came to mind and giggled, "crazy."
"I know, but it's fun, man. There's like, nothing else to do where we live, so it's pretty much our form of entertainment."
"I see your point." That was God's honest truth. Usually on Sundays, the one and only day a week he doesn't work, he's just sitting around his apartment watching stupid TV shows and drinking like a fish in order to forget the hellhole he works in.
"Well," Bam got a tone in his voice like he wanted to make a cheap deal, "maybe– I mean, if you're interested– you can come by my place one day and join us." He ended his sentence with a smile like the Cheshire Cat. Now it was Ryan's turn to take a moment to think.
"Sure. What do I have to lose?" Bam laughed.
"Great. Here, let me give you my address. Should I give you my number too, or do you still have it?" Ryan wanted to admit to Bam that he had practically memorized his number by this point, but he kept his admission inside his chest.
"You know, I might've thrown it away... Maybe you should write it down, just in case."
As he finished writing, Ryan stood up from the chair and moved himself next to Bam. He could feel his palms getting sweaty again, and wished he could better control his nerves.
"Here you go." Bam said with a smile, placing the slip of paper into Ryan's hand.
"Thanks." Ryan replied. Walking with Bam out the office door that led out into the garage, they were greeted with the sight and sound of Bam's friends huddled in a circle, laughing.
"By the way, what day works best for you?" Bam asked as they approached the group.
"Sundays are my only day off from this Godforsaken place, so if you're alright with that, I mean–"
"Yeah, no, Sunday's fine. Just call before you come over. I'll give directions."
"Alright, see you then, Bam." As Bam opened the driver's side door and was about to slide himself in, he gave Ryan a wave.
"See ya!" As soon as the engine turned over, Ryan could see Bam's friends practically jumping around in the car like monkeys, yelling and laughing, and as they drove out of the parking lot, loud heavy metal came blasting from the speakers inside the car. Looking down at the note in his hand, Ryan couldn't help but smile.
"Dunn!" He heard Tony bark at him from the office door behind him, mouth filled with a bite of the half–eaten hero sandwich he was holding, "I'm not fucking paying you to stand around and grin like an idiot! Get the hell back to work, now!"