Thank you so much for your reviews! I'm glad so many people liked the last chapter. I wasn't planning on putting Jerry in any more of the story, but now I want to because a few people want to see him again. And Pete, of course (because he's "good people", ask anyone). I couldn't fit them into this chapter, but you will definitely be seeing them again. Hope you all enjoy this chapter. Please review!
14 Reasons Why Not
Chapter 4: Gossip and Guitars
Macy's wakeup call came at 7 a.m., five hours before she usually woke up on a Saturday morning. It came in the form of a loudly blaring JONAS song emitting from her cell phone. She groaned. Stella's ringtone.
She flipped open her phone and grumbled, "What?"
"Macy!" Stella cried. "I just got an alert from the girls' gossip chain. How could you not tell me you're going out with Kevin?"
"Because I'm not," Macy replied, trying to clear her foggy head.
"Tessa Bartlett said that she saw it with her own eyes."
"Tessa who?"
Even over the phone, Macy could see Stella's annoyance at her ignorance. "She's only the head cheerleader, Mace."
Suddenly, the details of the previous day came flooding back to her. The cheerleader at the mall. "Wait, now I remember."
"Remember? So it's true? You're dating a JONAS? How could you forget something like that?"
"I'm not dating Kevin," Macy replied. "It's just a rumor. We were hanging out at the mall yesterday, and someone probably just assumed we were going out."
"Why would they assume that?"
"Well, we might have been…holding hands."
"What? More details, Misa!"
Macy rubbed her eyes. "Stella, I can't talk about this with you over the phone at seven in the morning."
"Right. I'm on my way over."
"Stella?"
"Yeah, Mace?"
"Could you take about five hours to get here?"
xoxoxo
Kevin was woken up by his brothers at about the same time that Macy was woken, but his wakeup call came in a slightly different form.
"Keh-vi-in!" Joe sang, jumping on Kevin's bed.
"Wake up!" Nick shouted, shaking him.
Frankie marched back and forth next to Kevin's bed, crashing together a pair of cymbals.
"Stop it!" Kevin cried. "I'm awake! I'm awake! Who's touching my face?"
Joe pinched his brother's cheek affectionately. "That'd be me. By the way, apparently after beet red comes olive green. Your eye looks disgusting."
Kevin pushed Nick and Joe off of him and sat up. "Frankie, enough with the cymbals!"
"We just got a call from Stella," Nick said. "Way to go, man."
"Dude, how could you not tell us?" Joe cried.
"Tell you what?" Kevin asked.
"As if you don't know," Joe replied.
"Even I know," Frankie put in.
"How do you know?" Nick asked Frankie.
Frankie shrugged. "I'm up pretty high in the girls' gossip chain."
"I still don't know what we're talking about," Kevin said.
"We're talking about you losing the bet," Nick replied.
"I lost the bet?" Kevin said, confused.
"Dude, if you're going out with Macy, that kind of proves you have a thing for her," Joe pointed out.
"I'm not going out with her."
All three of his brothers stared at him, shocked.
"The girls' gossip chain has never been wrong," Frankie said.
"Well now it has. I'm not going out with Macy."
"Then why would Tessa Bartlett tell Stella that you are?" Joe asked.
"She probably just thought we were. Yesterday at the mall, some guy was giving Macy grief," Kevin explained. "Well, she was actually giving him more grief than he was giving her, but he deserved it. But then he got one up on her, so I stepped in and stood up for Macy."
"Did she win?" Frankie asked, enthralled by the story.
"Oh, she won," Kevin assured them. "Let's just say that girls will steer clear of Jerry Valentine from now on."
"Jerry Valentine?" Frankie repeated. "The tennis player with a big head who tried to grab a girl's butt and then got beaten up by said girl?"
"That's the one. And said girl is Macy. Let me tell you, she is one tough girl. Don't mess with her."
"Why can't you just admit that you like her, dude?" Joe asked.
"Because I don't," Kevin replied. "Can't a guy and a girl just be good friends?"
"No," Nick replied. "They can't. Look at Joe and Stella."
Joe was about to object, when he was interrupted by his ringing cell phone.
He flipped it open. "Hey Stella. Yeah. I know. I know. Right. Okay."
"What does she want?" Nick asked.
Joe replied by grabbing Nick by the wrist. "Excuse us for a minute," he told Kevin and Frankie, dragging Nick out of the room.
Kevin watched his brothers leave the room, rolled over in his bed, and fell back asleep.
xoxoxo
At exactly noon, Macy got her second wakeup call. This time, Stella was in her room, shaking her awake.
"Get dressed," Stella instructed. "We'll talk on the way."
"The way to where?" Macy asked, rubbing her eyes.
"To the Lucas house."
Macy gasped. "We're going to their house?"
"I called an emergency meeting of JONAS," Stella explained.
"And I'm involved?"
"Well, not really. And neither is Kevin. I'm only going to talk to Joe and Nick. But I don't see why you shouldn't tag along and hang with Kevin while I talk to the others."
"Okay," Macy replied, unsure that Stella's intentions were as pure as she claimed they were. But she wasn't one to distrust her best friend.
xoxoxo
"Hi Nick. Hi Joe," Macy nervously greeted the two brothers when she and Stella arrived at the Lucas's firehouse.
"Hey Macy," Nick greeted her. "Kevin's upstairs. You can just go on up."
"Right," Macy said nervously, taking a deep breath before making her way up the stairs.
When she reached the top of the stairs, she found Kevin sitting on a stool with a guitar in front of a music stand. She smiled when she got a look at his eye. She swore that it was determined to turn every color of the rainbow before it went back to its usual color. Kevin didn't notice her standing there, and was playing a few notes at a time and then writing them down on a paper on the music stand.
"Writing a song?" Macy asked.
Kevin jumped, startled. "Macy! I didn't know you were coming here." He looked down at the sheet music he had been writing on. "Actually, it sort of wrote itself in my head over the past few days. I'm just trying to get it down on paper."
"Can you play it for me?" Macy requested.
"It's not really finished yet," Kevin replied. "But I can play you what I have so far."
"I'd love to hear it."
"Well, pull up a chair."
Macy grinned and took a seat on a stool beside Kevin. His fingers moved expertly across the strings as he played the song. It was not too fast, but not too slow and the sound wasn't hard core, but not too soft either. It was…
"Just right," Macy said aloud.
"Really?"
"It's smooth and…joyful," Macy replied. "It reminds me of…"
"A laugh?" Kevin finished.
"Exactly."
"Good. Because it was inspired by yours."
Macy looked at Kevin, wide-eyed. Kevin blushed. "I didn't mean to tell you that."
Macy stared at him in silence for a few more seconds before she realized that he was waiting for some kind of a response.
"Does it have lyrics?" she asked, finally snapping out of the trance-like state she had been in.
"Not yet," Kevin answered, glad for the change in subject. "Nick's the one with the way with words."
"But you have a good heart," Macy replied. "Anything that comes from your heart will end up being beautiful."
"That's what my mom told me when I had to write a poem in the fourth grade. But the teacher gave me a D on it."
Macy laughed. "What kind of teacher gives a ten-year-old a D on a creative assignment?"
"A mean one."
"Well, I'm sure the poem was lovely," Macy told him.
"Actually, it was pretty terrible. Even Nick laughed when he read it, and Nick's laughed, like, six times in his entire life."
"Okay, I won't argue anymore. But if you do write lyrics to this song, you'll tell me, right?"
"Of course," Kevin assured her. "You'll be the first to know."
"Good."
There was a brief moment of silence as Kevin looked from Macy to his guitar, then back at Macy. "Do you want to learn it?" he asked her.
xoxoxo
"We are so close to getting those two together," Stella told Joe and Nick.
"We know," Nick replied. "You know. I know. Joe knows. I think even Frankie knows."
"The only people who don't know it are Kevin and Macy," Joe finished.
"Which is why we have to make them realize it," Stella said.
"How?" Joe asked. "We already set them up at lunch together. We set them up at the putt-putt course. Stells, they're allegedly dating and they're still both oblivious to the whole thing."
Stella sighed. "How can two people be so obviously into each other and everyone realize it but them?"
Nick raised an eyebrow. "I don't know Stella and Joe. How can they?"
"I don't know what you're implying," Joe said, pointing a finger at his brother, "but I must remind you that we're here to discuss Kevin and Macy."
Stella put her hands on her head. "How are we supposed to think with that noise coming from upstairs?"
"Yeah, what is that?" Joe asked. "That can't be Kevin's playing."
xoxoxo
"How was that?" Macy asked.
"Not bad," Kevin answered his voice unnaturally high-pitched. "Okay, it was bad. But I know you can do better."
The two had moved down to the floor. Macy sat cross-legged with the guitar in her arms, resting on her knee. Kevin sat close behind her, his head almost resting on her shoulder, and his callused hands guiding her delicate ones across the strings.
"I'm just musically challenged," Macy concluded, hanging her head in defeat.
"No you're not," Kevin replied. "You're just trying too hard."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you remember when we went mini golfing, and my ball went over the hole every time because I kept swinging too hard?"
Macy nodded.
"Well, you're swinging too hard. You just need to relax and hit the ball a little more gently, so it can roll into the hole."
Macy smiled. "That's a great analogy."
"What analogy? I was just explaining how to play a guitar in terms you'd understand by comparing it to golf."
Macy wasn't sure whether he was serious or not, so she decided to drop it. "Should we try this again?"
"Okay. Put your fingers here," Kevin instructed, guiding her hand. "And push on the strings. Good. Now stroke."
With Kevin's right hand gently holding her wrist, Macy strummed on the guitar. Finally, a pleasant sound rang from the instrument.
"Was that good?" Macy asked, turning her head to face him.
Kevin's voice nearly got caught in his throat as he realized just how close their faces were. "You're…it was beautiful. I think…I think you have a little bit of…gold in your eyes."
Macy, too, was aware of how dangerously close their faces were. She found herself desperately hoping that they would come just a little closer. And then she found it actually happening. She wasn't sure whether she was moving toward him or he was moving toward her. Or both. But it was happening.
And then they heard three sets of footsteps stampeding up the stairs. Kevin quickly pulled his head back and released Macy's hands, to her great disappointment.
"Guys, we heard all the noise. What is going on in…?" Nick's voice trailed off as he reached the top of the stairs and took in the scene before him. Even after Kevin pulled away from Macy, they were still close.
"Woah," Joe said simply, coming to an abrupt halt behind Nick.
"Are we interrupting something?" Stella asked, stopping behind Joe.
"N-no," Kevin stammered, standing up and brushing off his legs. Macy looked slightly hurt at his answer. She certainly felt like the three were interrupting something, but if Kevin didn't think so, she wasn't going to say anything.
"Are you sure?" Joe asked. "Because this is a pretty big room. Plenty of space for the both of you without having to huddle together."
"There was nothing going on," Kevin promised them.
"Kevin was just showing me how to play," Macy stated, her emotion unreadable. Kevin wished he knew what she was thinking, because he certainly didn't know what to think himself.
"Well, we can leave you two alone if you…Ow!" Joe was interrupted by a sharp jab in the side from Stella.
Stella nodded toward Macy. Joe and Nick both looked at her to find that she was not amused by Joe's teasing. On the contrary, the girl looked positively crushed.
"Hey, I was just kidding," Joe said, quickly.
"It's okay," Macy said numbly, standing up and carefully setting Kevin's guitar back on its stand. "I have to go now."
Although she was trying to stay calm, Macy was clearly in a hurry to leave. Shoving past Nick, Joe, and Stella, she rushed down the stairs. Stella shot Joe and Nick a worried look before hurrying after her, shouting, "Macy, wait!"
"What just happened?" Joe whispered to Nick so that Kevin couldn't hear him.
Nick watched Kevin retrieve the yellow notepad and write something down on it. Kevin then dropped the notepad on the floor, picked up his guitar, and began to play loudly. Nick and Joe then walked across the room to where Kevin had dropped the list and read what he had written. "Reason # 4: She's too emotional."
"But what was she emotional about?" Joe asked quietly enough that Kevin could not hear him over his guitar.
"Isn't it obvious?" Nick replied. "We asked what was going on, and Kevin said nothing."
"So?"
"Well, apparently, Macy thought it was something."
Okay, I truly hate to leave you with an ending like this. It really kills me. But it must be done. I don't know when I'll be able to update again, but I will as soon as I possibly can. Please review, even if you hated it. But I really hope you didn't hate it.
Next Chapter: Smart Girls and Stubborn Boys