A/N: Chapter might contain some suggestive words, but no worries, nothing explicit. Anything else would be all your own imagination. ;)
Many thanks to eclipsed flower and bornfreeonekiss for beta help.
I do not own Austin & Ally.
Day Three
"How could you?!"
Trish creased her forehead in confusion at Dez's outburst once she opened her door.
"How could you have a pillow fight by yourself without me?!"
Trish looked behind her; down feathers littered the entire room. Oh right, she had destroyed quite a bit of her house's pillow supply last night. She would have to make a trip down to Moon's Mattress Kingdom before her parents returned.
"Just a little…refurbishing, while my parents are gone."
"Oh! How lovely! Maybe I can get in on all the action. How do you feel about plastic?" Dez asked in all seriousness as he entered the house.
"Plastic?"
"You know, plastic bags! Imagine. Plastic bags everywhere! You will never need to scramble for another trash bag again!" Dez said, smiling as if he had just thought of a million-dollar idea.
Trish wasn't sure how to respond, "Uh…I'll…think…about it?"
Trish then noticed Dez's luggage.
"What are you planning to do? Move in here permanently? It's just one night right?" Trish asked.
"Don't be silly," laughed Dez as he dragged an entire trolley piled with luggage behind him. "These contain my necessities."
The way Dez said "necessities" made Trish a little afraid of seeing what were in the bags.
"Riight…anyway, you're making dinner tonight," said Trish.
"What? Why?"
"Because you owe me rent?"
"I'm paying you!"
"Yeah, for my friendship. Not for staying here," scoffed Trish as Dez huffed and pouted at her. He was so cute when he did that sometimes. Wait what? Ewww, she did not just think that. Ugh.
As Dez somehow manoeuvred his pile up the stairs to Trish's guest room, Trish went back into her room to continue thinking about the "Operation Date Night with Dez" that she had discussed with Ally over the phone last night.
And if anyone was wondering, Ally was the one that dubbed the operation name, not her.
-Last night-
"Hey, Ally," Trish said unenthusiastically into the phone once Ally had picked up.
"Trish! So how's it going? Cooking up some romance?" Ally replied very enthusiastically. "And don't roll your eyes now."
Trish raised her brows and looked at her phone, wondering if she was that predictable.
"And yes, I knew you were going to roll your eyes," added Ally smugly.
Trish rolled her eyes anyway, "Whatever. And no, there is no romance. C'mon it's Dez!" She stressed his name as if it would make her point across to Ally. She swore that her best friend was so oblivious sometimes. I mean, just look at her situation with Austin!
"Mm-hmm," Ally sounded unconvinced.
Trish sighed in exasperation, "You know, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. It's weird to try and attract someone I dislike."
"You do not dislike him. You guys are best friends! Well. Sort of."
"That's a debatable point."
Ally was silent for a moment.
"Anyway…," Trish began. "Dez is going to stay over at my house tomorrow night. AND THAT'S BECAUSE," she quickly explained the entire situation before Ally fangirled with all her 'I love Love' comments.
Well, that didn't stop her best friend from fangirling anyway.
After about 10 whole minutes of Ally gushing about how much she loved Love, she added seriously, "Although this is all wonderful, I would like to say that we probably shouldn't live together if you guys get married and this whole Operation Date Night with Dez is successful."
"What on earth? Where the heck did that even come from?" Trish said, clearly taken aback, and she wondered if her friend had officially gone mental.
"Ally, I don't actually want Dez to fall in love with me," said Trish, the tone in her voice extremely serious.
Ally smiled to herself, knowing that her best friend actually cared about Dez's feelings even though she said otherwise.
"Well, then why don't you just hang out with him as friends for the next couple of days?" Ally suggested. "Just like when you guys were hanging out to participate in Zalien contests and more."
Trish pondered over it for a while. "Well…I guess that could work?" she questioned hesitantly.
"Just hang out with him until the 10 days are up. Then tell Megan that the mission failed. We'll figure something out for the article part."
"Thanks Ally, you always know what to do," Trish thanked her friend, feeling a wave of relief wash over her.
"And if along the way, the both of you fall irrevocably in love with each other, then all the more better!"
And there went the relief.
"Bye Ally. Go to bed and dream about your Austin," Trish hung up before Ally could even protest.
-Back in the present-
"TRISH CAN I PUT SOME OF MY STUFF IN THE BATHROOM?" Dez's loud voice distracted Trish from her thoughts.
"WHAT KIND OF STUFF?" Trish shouted back through her door.
"JUST SOME BATHROOM AND HYGIENE PRODUCTS! I GOTTA KEEP MYSELF MANLY!"
"THAT WORD DOESN'T REALLY APPLY TO YOU!"
"THAT'S JUST MEAN! AND WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING AT ME?!"
"YOU STARTED IT!"
"NO I DIDN'T!"
"WHATEVER! JUST STOP SHOUTING!"
"OKAY!"
There was finally peaceful silence. Before…
"SO CAN I PUT MY STUFF IN THE BATHROOM?"
Trish sighed in exasperation.
After settling the hygiene product issue – finally! – with Dez, (the whole thing kind of happened through much shouting through closed doors), Trish managed to take a short nap after instructing Dez to have dinner ready by six.
What she didn't expect was to wake up to a pleasant aroma of baked cheese.
She wandered sleepily down to the kitchen and peeked in. Dez was facing away, his back turned to her as he fiddled with the oven. A glance around the kitchen caused Trish to gape. The horrifying mess of peppers, crumbs, flour, eggshells and unidentifiable grits littered the entire kitchen counters and floor. Some were even staining the refrigerator and walls.
Just then, Dez turned around and spotted the gaping curly-haired girl peeking in. "Oh, hey Trish! You are just in time for Dez's World Famous Trish's House Dinner!"
"In time? In time to see you make a huge mess is what I am!" exclaimed Trish.
"No, I just told you! Time for Dez's World Famous Trish's House Dinner!"
Trish was rendered speechless, so she looked at Dez and his huge smile and glanced at the rest of the kitchen.
Then back at him.
Then back at the kitchen.
"You-" "Now, just sit down and enjoy your dinner!" Dez interrupted as he guided Trish to the dining room and sat her down.
"You-"
"I'll be right back with dinner!"
Trish could only glare in the direction of Dez as he sauntered off cheerily.
"TE-DUH!" Dez announced as placed a large pizza in the middle of the table.
Trish glanced at the almost-delicious looking dish in front of her.
"Mushrooms?" she deadpanned.
"Uh, yeah! You know I just turned vegan! And besides, I love mushrooms! I wasn't going to cook meat or ugh, pepperoni," Dez made a face.
Trish fumed for a moment at his insult of her favourite pizza topping before she realised something. She looked up at him suspiciously.
"What?" he asked.
"Did you make the pizza from scratch?"
"Duh! It's not called Dez's World Famous-"
"Yeah yeah yeah, whatever. So you made the pizza dough from flour?"
"Yes?"
"What else did you use to make the dough?"
"Well, there was water, eggs, a smidge of baking soda, more water, then…" he trailed off looking at Trish's expression.
"Eggs?"
"Yeah…?"
"I thought you couldn't eat eggs because you were vegan?"
"Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh, I'm going to go clean up the kitchen!" Dez stuttered nervously before he tried to rush off.
"Wait a minute!" Trish grabbed his arm before he could escape, and as Dez tried to shake her off in a panic, he lost his footing and fell.
He managed to catch himself, his hands on Trish's chair and the corner of the table, but what caused the pause in ruckus was that Dez's face had ended up merely centimetres away from Trish's.
Trish had backed up a little in her seat when Dez had fallen, and Dez was cornering her with his arms and was currently leaning slightly into her.
Her startled eyes stared back into his nervous blue ones as she felt her breath stop.
Dez glanced briefly at her lips, before staring back into her eyes. Somehow, he started leaning even more towards her.
Trish panicked and cleared her throat, causing Dez to startle and stand up quickly.
"Uh, um. I'm going to clean up the mess in the kitchen. You can enjoy your dinner. I can't eat eggs, so I'll make something else for myself later!" he said quickly before fleeing into the kitchen.
Trish just sat there staring into space, wondering what the heck all of that was.
Somehow, Trish had managed to eat some dinner during the time that Dez had cleaned up and disappeared back up to his room.
She shook off the previous scene as Dez just being weird as usual and decided not to ponder on it.
As she trudged upstairs, she decided to check out the bathroom to make sure Dez hadn't made a mess when he placed his items in there.
A quick glance showed her that the bathroom was as pristine as it was before. She went to the bathroom cupboard and opened it.
There was a pause as she took in the sight before her. "DEZ!" Trish yelled.
Dez was in the guest room, wondering what had just happened.
Sheesh, this whole mission thing was definitely taking a toll on him. Just three days and he was already behaving weirder than usual.
He figured that he had probably been scared out of his wits by Trish earlier on. After all, she did almost find out about the whole vegan-faking thing.
And he had only leaned into her because he was trying to get up. Yeah…he was. Wasn't he? He resolved to talk to Benji about this the next morning.
He was interrupted from his thoughts by a yell.
"DEZ!"
Oh gosh, Trish must have found his planted 'stash'.
He hesitated for a moment, thinking if he had enough in him to face the angry Latina when said girl stomped into his room, seething.
"Uh, ever heard of privacy?"
"Ever heard of shame?" Trish shot back.
"What does that even mean?"
Trish threw a box at him.
Dez caught the item, looked at what he had just caught, and his face turned so red that it matched the colour of his hair.
-flashback to earlier that day-
"Sir, may I assist you with anything?"
"Yeah, I need to buy some really embarrassing things for men!" Dez beamed at the salesgirl at the local pharmacy.
The lady looked at him confusedly, "Um, ok. Such as?"
"I don't know! I need to make a girl really uncomfortable, any recommendations?" Dez continued beaming at her.
The lady was wondering if she could suggest he just use his smile to make the girl uncomfortable and also briefly if she should call the cops on him, but she thought the better of it.
"Sure, I think I can recommend a few items…"
"Great! Just put them all in a bag and I'll take them!"
"Don't you want to know what they are, sir?"
"Nah, it's ok. Just put together the most embarrassing things you can find!"
-back in the present-
Dez figured he should have probably noted the actual items he had paid for. He had been in such a rush to stuff everything into the bathroom earlier before Trish caught him that he didn't even notice the labels on the boxes.
"Well?" Trish asked.
"I…need this?" Dez attempted to explain in a high-pitched voice as he shook the box containing a hand sanitizer. Unfortunately, that's not all it was. The box declared it to be a "Maybe You Touched Your Genitals" hand sanitizer. Why the pharmacy had this stocked and who actually bought this was a mystery to him.
Trish stared at the ginger. "O..K…I don't even want to know why you might…need it…but could you remove everything else from the bathroom?"
"Why?!"
"Because I don't like the sight of back and nose hair trimmers, fart filters, urine control clamps and large sized flavoured condoms lying among my pads and tampons!"
The duo blushed, Dez even redder if possible, at the list of items Trish had just said out loud.
"Why-" Trish wasn't sure if she wanted to know why her red-haired friend needed all those things. Then she decided that embarrassing her already embarrassed magazine target was too tiresome.
Trish let out a sigh, "Whatever. If you really need them. Leave them be." She then threw her hands up in defeat and left the room.
Dez couldn't believe it. He had thought that Trish would have kicked him out immediately after finding such hugely embarrassing stuff in her house. It was a wonder that she hadn't cut off all ties with him afterward from disgust.
He ran to catch up with her in the hallway.
"Er..." he began.
Trish glanced down at his hands; he was still holding that box of hand sanitizer.
Braving it out, he said with a red face, "I'm going to have to stay here for the rest of the week."
"No," Trish answered flatly.
"Aww, c'mon! Help a friend out! I'll make dinner!" Dez begged while waving the box around.
Trish couldn't stand his whines, and she knew she would give in if he pestered her all night. "First of all. Stop waving that thing around. Second of all…fine! But if I see another one of these sanitizers in my face, I'm tossing you out immediately!"
Dez grinned gratefully at her as she rolled her eyes and stomped back into her room.
'That's good to know,' Dez thought to himself as he looked down at the box in his hands.
-end-
A/N: I actually researched embarrassing products for men for this chapter. All I can say is… wow. The ones named in this story are actual products by the way. There were more…explicit ones but I figured the ones above were enough. XD
Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone! Enjoy the festivities!
