_Ok, so I know that the last chapter pretty much sucked but I'm hoping this one will make up for it? Hopefully? Here it is either way =]._
"THIS is where we're going?" I asked, looking at the structure in front of me, "It's a house. I thought you were taking me to club or something."
"Hey! Club Austin is the best club you will EVER go to. Guaranteed," Austin said, pulling me out of the back seat and onto my feet. I looked down either side of the street at the lines of cars. Expensive cars. A few that I recognized from The Rock parking lot but most of them just unknown Mercedes and BMW's that blurred together.
"Fine." I began walking toward the front of the house before Payson grabbed my arm, gently pulling me back.
"If you get too bored, I'll take you back to the Tanner's. I'm not drinking and Austin tends to get a little wild so come find me when you're ready ok?"
"Ok." Payson struck me as the mother hen type from the beginning. From the moment I had met her that morning, she always had a watchful eye on everyone she cared about, especially Austin. There was definitely something going on between the two of them and from that moment on, I made it my mission to get them together.
The door was hanging open when we got to it and Austin immediately started greeting his guests the minute we walked through it.
"Drink?" He asked, handing me a red solo cup full of beer. I accepted it, even though I never really liked the taste of beer. All I wanted to do was forget everything about this stupid situation and have some fun. There's nothing more elating to me than dancing. The minute I hit the floor, there's no stopping me until the music stops. I don't care if I have a partner or am making a total fool of myself. As long as there's music, I dance. Or in tonight's case, I dance AND drink. Stupid combo? Probably. Should I care? Probably. But did I? Nope.
"Steph, I think you should slow down." Payson said a couple hours later grabbing the sixth red solo cup from my hand and replacing it with a bottle of water.
"Why? I'm having fun! Aren't you having fun Payson?" I asked dancing toward her, laughing.
"Yes, I am. But I'm not going to have a hangover in the morning. And if you stop now, neither will you." She said, pulling me to the edge of the living room, into a room where it was quiet.
"I don't care about being hung over. I'm having fun." I grabbed my arm, and my drink away from her.
"Steph, you have to train tomorrow. Sasha is going to piss bricks if you come to the gym like this."
"I don't care. I hate him. He's pretentious and rude. I don't know how he did it, but he made me talk to him about my sister, who I never talk about. Now, he thinks he knows me, but he doesn't. No one does. Well, except for Brad and Sarah. And Dani, she knew me too. Oh, Dani was my sister!" I slurred into my cup as I downed the rest of it.
"You don't hate him. Yes, he is pretentious and a little rude, but he's a good guy. And if you gave him five minutes of your time where you were actually being nice, you might see that. And we'll be talking about your sister too. When you're sober and actually want to talk to me about it." Payson said, making me drink some water.
"Sure! I loved my sister. She died. This was hers!" I showed her the pendant on my neck but pulled on the chain too hard, breaking it.
"Shit. We'll get you a new one ok?" She said, bending over and picking it up.
"NO! That one was hers! It's irreplaceable!" I sobbed, putting my arms around Payson's neck and hugging her.
"It's ok." She said soothingly, rubbing circles on my back.
"No, it's not." I pulled away and walked back out to the party, grabbing another drink on my way, planning to get more wasted than I had originally planned.
"Wake up Sleeping Boozy!" Someone purred into my ear.
"Austin, shut up! You're just going to make it worse." A second voice whispered.
"You're both making it worse. Shut up!" I mumbled, putting a pillow over my head to muffle out the talking.
"Steph, its 9:30. You have to be at The Rock soon." Voice number two said. Sounded motherly, must be Payson, I thought to myself pulling the pillow off my head and groaning as the sunlight filled my swollen eyes.
"I hate gymnastics." I said opening one eye slowly, then the other.
"We know. You wouldn't shut up about it last night." Austin said from across the room, where I spotted him and Payson sitting at a little table, drinking what looked like coffee and sharing the Sunday paper. Payson swapped him her Lifestyle section for his Sports section without even looking up from her coffee cup. They reminded me of an old married couple. I turned over onto my back and was startled to see a startled and completely hung over looking me staring back.
"I'm sorry, why on earth do you have a mirror on your ceiling? You're even more of a perv than I thought you were" I asked Austin, attempting to sit up.
"One of my buddies who stays here a lot decorated this room. It's technically his. You passed out in here last night." He said laughing, both of them finally looking up.
"Figures that I would pick the room with the skeevy vibe radiating off of it to pass out in."
"There's Tylenol and water next to you. Take two and drink lots. Though you're doing a lot better than I thought you would be this morning." Payson said, walking over to sit next to me.
"What happened?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"Well, once you polished off your tenth cup of beer, you moved on to hard liquor. Let's just say that you got a long pretty well with Jack." Austin said, coming to sit on my other side.
"Oh God. How bad was it?"
"Not that bad. You were singing and dancing. You attempted to make out with some guy but Pay and Em pulled you away and distracted you with something shiny." I threw myself backward to lie down and immediately regretted it when the mirror above my head started spinning.
"You were the life of the party." Payson attempted weakly.
"Thanks. And now, I have to go face Sasha looking like a 50 dollar hooker. Great."
"Don't worry Steph… You look like you're worth at least a few bucks more." Austin joked, patting my leg.
"Shut up Austin, you're not helping. You can shower and stuff before we take you over there if you want. I have some clothes here you can borrow. You'll be fine." Payson said reassuringly.
"Thanks. I should probably do that. Where?" I asked, getting up slowly.
"I'll show while Austin cleans up." Payson said, shooting Austin a death glare for not even attempting to be helpful.
"So, fresh towels are here. Just leave them on the floor when you're done. Louisa will be here in a couple of hours to clean. Your jeans seem ok to wear again. I don't think mine would fit you anyway since you're so tall. Here's a clean shirt. All of my shower stuff is in there so feel free to use whatever you want. I'll wait for you in here if you want." She said as we walked in Austin's gigantic master bathroom.
"I'm sorry, are you two sleeping together? I know you're not dating so that seems like the only other option." I said looking around.
"No, we're just super close. I stay here all the time." She said laughing. I got into the shower and stripped down, tossing out the dirty clothes.
"That's so strange. How is it possible that you two aren't like, married or something? You remind me of my grandparents; all cute and stuff. And the awesome thing is, you're kids would be so talented! And super hot too!" I started the shower and started wetting my hair to wash it.
"Oh Lord. We would kill each other! We spend so much time together now that if we spent anymore, I really think one of us would be dead. We fight all the time." She said, laughing.
"That's the pent up passion and lust for each other. If you slept together, it would stop. I swear it would."
"We tried that for awhile. Just sleeping together. It didn't work out."
"What? When?" I asked, in awe that she was divulging something this big to me when she had barely known me a day.
"A few months ago. Sasha left us and I went into self destruct. He told Kaylie he was in love with her and after she got out of the hospital, she told him she just wanted to be friends and he was doing the same. So our paths crossed one night at Club Austin and we hooked up. A lot. Here, at my house with my parents in the next room, at The Rock where anyone could've walked in. And then we decided that maybe it would be better for both of our sanity to stop. To just keep it friendly. So, we've been just friends ever since. It's too risky to be more than that. There's the no dating rule and then the endless parade of Austin's skanks. Who he tells he has a girlfriend to keep them from calling him. And then there's Kaylie who would be crushed." I turned off the shower and wrapped myself and my hair in a towel before stepping out.
"Oh come on. Those are just excuses. This could end in an epic love story Pay. It could be great!" I said starting to dry off after she walked toward the bedroom.
"Yeah, it could be. But we're just not there yet. Now it would just be a string of endless drama resulting in heartbrokenness for both parties involved. And I love him too much for that." She said.
"Oh my GOD! Does he know how you feel?" I shrieked, practically decapitating my self with my towel.
"Yes, he does. And he feels the same. But we're both too invested in our gymnastics to have time for a real relationship you know? It's just too complicated right now. So we're waiting until after the Olympics."
"You have to be kidding me! Pay! It's not like Sasha is going to kick out his two best gymnasts." I said putting on the shirt and pulling the towel off of my head.
"You don't know that. He could." I walked out to find her sitting on the bed with Austin's sweatshirt crinkled in her hands, her face buried in it.
"Because being kicked out would leave you so much worse off than you are now? You're miserable! It's not like you have to go public with it either. This friendship thing the two of you have is basically like you're together anyway so just keep going the way you are just with the added smooching and 'I love you'." I said putting my hands on my hips and staring at her.
"We say we love each other all the time." She smiled.
"That's slightly pathetic." I said, walking back to the bathroom to use the extra toothbrush she had handed me. Still in the package and everything, with a little tube of toothpaste Scotch taped to it. Apparently Club Austin was also known as Hotel Austin plenty as well.
"It is. But it works for us for now. To get us to 2012." I finished brushing my teeth in silence then put my boots back on.
"Ready?" Austin asked when we walked back toward the living room a few minutes later.
"Yeah." Payson said, closing the space between then and hugging him close. He placed a kiss on her forehead and closed his eyes.
"God. Just get married already will you? Save us all the heartbreak!" I sighed and put my sweater on before grabbing my purse and digging my phone out of it.
"8 missed calls and 6 texts. I'm popular. Summer x4. Sasha x2. I'm sorry, x4 as well. Who knew he texted? Tanner house x2. Summer x2 more. OH! Sarah!" I said mostly to myself.
"Yeah, I called Summer for you last night to tell her you were staying with me so those were probably before I did." Payson said pulling her self from Austin's arms and grabbing her bag.
"Huh, yeah." I checked the voicemails from Summer, who was flipping out before Payson called her. Then one from Sasha.
"Steph, its Sasha. Summer just called me and she's freaking out. You should call her so she stops waking me up in the middle of the night. See you in the morning."
There were two texts from Sarah in my inbox that read
'Hey whore. You've been AWOL since you left. Call me!'
And, 'Hey bitch! You didn't tell me your coach was such a fox! GET SOME!'
And also two from Sasha from this morning.
'See you at 10am right? Street clothes please!'
And, 'I hope that since you're not answering me with something sarcastic that it means you're getting ready and not still sleeping correct? Give me peace of mind and answer me please.'
I hit reply and said, 'Yes, I'm awake. On my way momentarily. Please pull the leo from your ass and relax? See you soon.'
"Are you ready?" Payson asked.
"Yeah. Let's go." I said. My phone vibrated again and I looked at the text.
'Just get your cheeky ass here and stop being a pain.' I laughed and walked toward the car.
Ok, so that's chapter 4. The next chapter should be pretty awesome I hope. And up soon as well! Let me know what you think! Thanks, Alli.