A/N: hey howdy ho :) first off, thank you for the overwhelming results to last chapter! Seriously, love you guys and all the reviews! I will be continuing to hold off writing the chapter until I reach a certain amount, however, because the way I see it, this story has around 90 followers—eeek! Thank you guys so much!—and your all have the ability to leave at least a one word review :) Still, hope you guys like it. (& don't think I won't update if I only get few reviews, seriously, I love you guys and all your support and I feel like I'm coming off as some sort of stuck up bitch, but I love your feedback and would love to read even more of it :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Austin and Ally, nor do I own the song included in the chapter: Pretend by Secondhand Serenade.
Song Inspiration: Give a Damn by A Rocket to the Moon, Give Me Love by Ed Sheeran, Glowing by The Script, Treasure by Bruno Mars, Gone Too Soon by Simple Plan, Pretend by Secondhand Serenade.
Dedication: this chapter has one solid dedication and sort of an appreciation shout out. First off, thank you to the one guest review that picked out my hint to which state I live in :) for those of you who don't realize, the Regents exams are only taken in New York and I believe California, not entirely sure, and I had mentioned them in the last chapter even though it made no sense. The actual dedication goes to smileysteph due to her outstanding writing pieces.
The best way he can describe the time since he first met Ally is rushed. The initial starting with her was slightly rough, not entirely sure if there was some form of chemistry between them or if it was pent up lust. Friendship meshed fast and frankly, he's considering her as a more dependable option for his favorite friend than the current forever-flaking-for-Trish red head. Honestly, he's had some disturbingly intimate conversations with the girl, and it all feels as if they had become close overnight. In reality it's been a plethora of nights, days, all of the time in the world mixed into one—but looking over it all in retrospect they formed such a close alliance insanely quick, fast enough where it seems a bit bizarre.
Then he sees her face in his mind with a fit full of laughter not only in her smile but her eyes, the rosy blush lining her cheeks and nose crinkled cutely—and not a moment of it feels bizarre in the least. She makes sense of the improbable, and perhaps that's a reason as to why he keeps getting drawn back to her.
They've been seeing each other relentlessly for the past two weeks, not only studying his calculus and her French—turns out that's the one class he is actually better in than her—but doing normal, teenage friend things as well. He drove her down to the beach after school so she could catch up on her reading while he did the same with the waves, and they had stayed late in the dunes with stars overhead and hammering in their hearts. She had him over to the boom on a Saturday night graveyard shift and he made her laugh recklessly while crashing cymbals loudly together. Basically, he knew that she was something he had been faithfully looking for when in reality he need only wait for the find.
Saying that they spent every minute out of school together recently was a bit of a white lie, he amends to his thoughts. She had given him a handful of rain checks for her drama club rehearsals and overwhelming sessions of homework. She had much more of a life outside of him, her job and extracurricular and volunteer work and apparently, she also made time to hang out with some of her other companions. His mind said typical teenager, yet somehow with her it sounded more like saint.
Still, she filed out time specifically for him, and although some of her greetings sounded halfhearted and fatigued, her smile was spread so wide at the sight of him. It was nearly sinful how much he enjoyed every last inch of her.
He sat and waited in her most adored cafe—the tiny one on the corner of an unrevealed street that barely scraped the bottom of the barrel each month, but surprisingly had a killer mocha latte, extra foam to dip his nose in just the way he prefers—and although he had his textbooks already set out, he felt as if the lovely Monday night wasn't going to be spent reviewing them.
He made a habit of showing up particularly early to any one of their meetings, knowing that she appreciated when he cared enough to not only be on time but to go above and beyond that. She herself had drilled in the routine to be ten minutes early to just about everything, and he figured that if she thought he had a similar quality to her, she might feel a bit more than appreciation.
Although, today he sat lonely with his second cup of coffee and an unanswered text message sent to her. It had been over fifteen minutes since they had scheduled to meet, and the wavering gazes to the door must have seemed a tad pathetic to any onlooker. He had assumed that he was overreacting, after all, it was most likely just a practice that ran over by a long shot. The performance is in two weeks, and managing the show must be beginning to become quite the handful—yes, that makes much more sense than her standing him up. As if someone could stand up his puppy dog eyes and floppy golden hair, not to mention his top notch body and angelic facial features.
No matter how many egotistical pep talks he internally gives himself, five seconds later he's vulnerable in her hands once more while staring longingly at the door. His sighs become increasingly frustrated and once he passes the twenty minute late mark, he's huffing out unintelligent words. If it had been any other date with any other girl, there was no doubt in his mind he would have stood and left without a hesitation. Not to mention next time he were to run into her, he would make quite a skeptical and make sure she knew it wasn't him that was at a loss.
This was Ally, however, and he couldn't care less about the amount of time he had to wait in order to see her: as long as he got a measly five minutes with her, he would be content. So he sat and twiddled with the tip of his straw some more, feigning interest in his filling notebook and pushing the worrisome concern for her to the very back of his brain.
Next thing he knew his clock read that she was a half hour late, and right as he picked up his phone to call she stumbled in through the door, welcoming bells chiming and earning the gaze of everyone in the cafe. He stood abruptly, uncertain as to why, and she turned to face him with elated eyes and his only response was a wide eyed gape.
She walked over to him, no teeth showing and yet her smile was still quite consuming on her lips. "Hey, Austin," she greets eagerly, "I wasn't sure if you had stuck around this long."
He stands in state of bewilderment, his mouth making no motion of closing for the time being. "Uh, yeah, hey. Hi. Yeah, I'm still here, I guess."
She giggles as he stutters and takes the seat across from him. She pulls her phone from her bag and then looks back to his now sitting form with an extreme amount of guilt sketched across her face. "I must be the worst. First I blew you off, like, three weeks ago, and then I barely have time to see you, and now I show up ridiculously late. God, I'm sorry."
She seems it, too, he notes. Her eyes are widened with hope for forgiveness and her body language is devoted to his attention. "Ally, really, I understand," he says, even though his mind is slightly fuming and his temper feels short.
"You're just the best," she breaths out relived before she answers her buzzing phone. His jaw sets thinking of how she couldn't find the time to answer him back, when he had been here patiently waiting and silently panicking.
He shrugs modestly and replies, "Yeah, I know I am." She answers her phone with a soft expression and he finds the momentary silence unsettling.
"So do I get any explanation as to why you're so late? Did you rescue a cat from a burning tree? Were you abducted by aliens? Has the zombie apocalypse started?"
She laughs lightly and he considers it one of his greatest accomplishments. She shakes her head brutally and gives her phone a light flip shut. "Nah, sorry to disappoint. No fascinatingly sci-fi exposition for me, or hopefully anyone today."
He chuckles in response and pauses to let her continue along her reasoning as to why she's so late.
"Alright, ready for this epic and amazing story that will totally explain why I'm so late and still very, very sorry about being so late?" She asks, baiting him along and he animatedly nods in encouragement.
"Okay, so yesterday this guy was transferred into my advanced placement music seminar class and you know, me being the best student in said class the teacher asked me to get him situated." She takes a breath and he nods once more, as if signaling that he follows her so far and wishes for her to continue on. His fists tighten and the vein in his temple pulses until it appears as if it might burst right on open at the thought of her talking cheerfully with this supposed transfer guy.
"Anyways, so we were sitting in class going over whatever composition and he said his name was Dallas, like, how perfect is that? And we were just chatting and what not until he mentions something about how he just moved here to finish up his senior year and since he's in all these college courses—basically all the ones I'm taking!" She adds brightly with a squeal, only to shake her head and have her face fall slightly.
"Of course, his classes are all at different times than mine, and, um, what was I saying? Oh! Uh, yeah, so he just moved here and was saying how he wanted to join some sort of extracurricular, but wasn't sure what would still be available considering there's only, like, three weeks left before end of year testing begins. And so I had been all smooth, because, ya know, I wanted to hang out with him more because he seemed cute and was totally funny, so I suggested that he joined drama club and how we could use an extra hand backstage."
His eyes were caught on her lips and how fast she ran over all her words. She took a well-deserved pause to catch her breath and while he gained composure of not only noticing her wondrous looking cherry lip gloss, but the developing crush that was emerging within her story. He had believed he was somewhat of a developing crush for her, and the possibility had his stomach tumbling over itself in a fit of cartwheels.
"So today in class I convinced him to stop by at practice, and it turns out that he's this amazing singer and while the actors had their break, he showed me all this scoring he had done from his last schools show. I mean, how perfect would we be? We could write together and then sing together and I can just see it now. Ally and Dallas. Wait, no, Dallas and Ally! Doesn't it just sound marvelous?"
He refrains the urge to scoff because it's completely obvious that Austin and Ally has an unbeatable ring to it. He can barely swallow he's feeling so helpless, just yesterday it had seemed clear cut that it was them who were meant to be writing. Now here she sat, only a day later, running off in a fantasy with some music seminar dweeb she's only spoken to a handful of times, and not even out of school.
"Oh! And the whole point is, he stayed through the entire rehearsal just to run around and do all my errands, and by the end he agreed to be my assistant, and so we were putting away all these props and he mentioned this great record shop downtown that had some of the show's track list on some old vinyl's. You know me, I can't resist vintage, so he drove me down and I may or may not have gone completely crazy and bought not only the set list from the show on a mint condition record, but half the store as well."
She sighs contently, obviously happy with how she had spent the afternoon. "Anyways, long story short, we were in the middle of checking out when I remembered that I had a very important prior engagement, so I made him drop me off here and before we did he asked for my number, hence why I'm texting."
He offers a rather pathetic smile in return that doesn't bother with teeth and his heart won't stop its unruly clenching. "That sounds great, Ally. Some good, classic vinyl's are always worth a little delay."
She smiles widely in response and he thinks he may even detect a bit of a blush, but the lightings poor and he's in no mood to get his hopes any higher up. "We should totally go there sometime. You'd love it, I just know you would." She pauses for a thoughtful moment. "Dallas kinda seemed, I don't know, bored. I don't think he's into music as much, but that's okay. It's hard to find people like us that are total die hards."
He internally brightens and adds a metaphoric point to Team Austin. "We really are a rare breed, aren't we?" He asks and she begins to giggle once more.
She retreats to the counter to get her coffee order and as soon as she returns to their table she's enthusiastic about jumping straight into work.
"Look, Ally, as much as I love our stress filled examination preparations, I'm thinking we only have so many more nights of high school to procrastinate all our work. I say we forget all this studying for the night, and just go do something that, I don't know, won't make us want to give up on all humanity and work at some minimum wage paying fast food restaurants for the rest of our lives."
She laughs loudly and quirks an eyebrow upwards. "That's an oddly specific premonition."
He laughs in response and swats at her hands while shrugging. "I may or may not have given it some serious thought before." They both laugh harder and he begins to shush her. "No, but, in all seriousness, let's get out of here."
He looks up to see her smiling down at a message on her phone, and just as he starts to compete for her attention she snaps her head up faster than she snaps her phone shut. Their thoughts align and she breaths out something that sounds similar to regret and temptation.
"Alright. Let's go."
His stomach becomes increasingly taut as his laughter heightens. "So we're just running around the mall, half past midnight, Ally's frantic and the goose is still trying to fly away, and the security guard can't catch up and is yelling something about how he now understands why his mother never wanted to have children."
Dez chuckles haughtily and salts his fries more, looking up to Austin for more on the story. Trish smiles widely and laughs with a bright expression, amused to hear the crazy antics her best friend had gotten into the previous night.
"Well? What happened next?" Dez baited on, the rest of their lunch table leaning forward in interest and sharing a fair amount of their own laughter as well.
Austin bites into his lukewarm slice of pizza and sips from his equally tepid bottled water before speaking. "Well, I grab Ally's hand and rush her forward, and she's tripping over her feet and in screeching 'Austin, Austin, stop, slow down! He's catching up, oh shit!' and I'm trying not to laugh, because we're about to get busted for smuggling a goose out of the Chinese diner we ate dinner at and the security guards a complete weirdo. It was a total 'what the hell' kind of moment."
He paused and continued to nibble on his lunch. Trish leaned back with more racking laughter, turning to Brooke—a pretty brunette who once harbored an extreme, slightly stalker-like crush on Austin during their middle school days, but has since matured and rationalized majorly—to share a thoughtful look in order to address the simper Austin had been proudly wearing since the moment he stepped foot on campus this morning.
She turned back to face her blonde best friend and said, "With Ally, basically every memory is 'what the hell.' I remember this one time, we were—"
"Hey, hey," he cuts in with melodramatic offense, "my story isn't over yet."
Trish sighs and gestures out a hand for him to continue on. "Get on with it, lover boy."
He prematurely rolls his eyes at the snark and barrels on intently. "So, back to what I was saying. We're just randomly running and trying to find a place to escape, and suddenly she pulls me to the right and I basically fall on top of her out of surprise, only I didn't really fall.
"I guess I put a lot of my weight on her, because she just fell backwards into this little pond set up that the mall has. I'm trying to dive and save her as soon as I realize what's going on, and so somehow we both tumbled down into this five foot deep, miniature body of water, and the goose takes off the second it gets its freedom.
"To sum up, I spent last night with one Ally Dawson on this ridiculous goose chase, literally, filled with law breaking and one in the morning swimming, while you guys were being boring and lame in your cozy little beds, fast asleep."
They all snicker in response and he sits with an overly content smirk wrapped around his lips. Dez promptly rolls his eyes and sighs.
Leaning over to Trish, the redhead discretely whispered, "At least none of us spent last night wimping out for the millionth time, stuck in the friendzone forever."
Trish giggles menacingly and Austin raises a rather scared and curious eyebrow, deciding to brush the couple off seconds later as the remaining bits of his pizza fulfills his attention once more.
Ally smiles and relaxes herself back on her bed, sighing with relief into the phone. "Trish, he's just so cute. He wants to get together and study for all our college courses, and he kept staring at me yesterday. He even called me adorable! Like, how sweet can a guy be?"
Trish nodded and continued to paint her nails, her phone resting on the table adjacent to her with speaker mode activated. "That's really great, Ally. But isn't studying sort of you and Austin's thing?"
Ally scoffs, shaking her head in disagreement. "You've got it all wrong, Trish. I tutor Austin, and we hang out. We're like, best friends now. Dallas wants to see me outside of school to study for classes that Austin isn't even in. They're totally different people, totally different situations."
Trish blows on the second coating of pink on her nails, not completely appeased with them yet. "I know, I know. I'm just saying that you can't just forget him and focus on the Dallas dude."
Ally sits up and rests her elbow on one of the several pillows adorning her daybed. "I'm not going to forget about Austin. I told you, we're really close. He even told me he wants me to be his permanent songwriter. Sort of like music partners, you know?"
"More like life partners if you ask me, sweetheart."
Ally leans back and narrows her eyes in suspicion. "Is that what this is about, Trish? You'd rather have me date Austin than Dallas?"
Trish sets down her bottle of clear polish and picks up her phone, deciding this is too important of a matter to be taken halfheartedly. "Ally, I'm not about to tell you who's better for you. I know that you know what's best for you, and I'm not, like, your manager or anything. All I know is Austin showed up to school insanely happy today, and I've never seen him that happy on school grounds, ever. Not even on Taco Tuesday. And I know during lunch, he couldn't shut up about you and your little adventure last night."
Ally secrets a soft smile and quickly resorts back to the matter at hand. "He really is fun, isn't he?"
Trish sighs and wonders if her friend has realized the dilemma she's inevitably going to face sooner or later. Considering she hasn't realized the nature of her and Austin's relationship quite yet, she supposes that it's best to postpone any complications for now.
Huffing out a tired breath, she amends, "So, tell me more about Dallas and how he smells like a summer breeze."
Ally's face transforms into a beam. "Gladly."
By the time Austin rolls up to Dez's driveway for the evening, he's expecting to be bombarded with loud cackles and broadening smiles for the rest of the weekend. He is unfortunately a bit late: maybe forty minutes late, but it's not as if he could control the traffic and how right before he left his house, his hair decided to limply flop rather than lively flip. What was he supposed to do, leave without reapplying hair gel meticulously?
He figures he'll strut in proudly and snicker something about being fashionably late, and if he has any luck, Ally just might roll her eyes and shame him with her wit. He rummages his overnight back out from the passenger side and excitedly rushes out of his car and into the house.
Dez, compared to Trish's and his own home—seeing as he's never actually been to Ally's, so he can't nominate her house in the competition—is defiantly the best fit to entertain. His basement is somewhat of a game room, a foosball, hockey, and pool table stuffed into the same space containing a flat screen television furnished with surround sound. Not to mention the mini fridge and minutiae kitchen, the dart board, and the extensive set of video games he had acquired from over the years.
The formal kitchen upstairs was stocked nonstop, his parents encouraging friends to come and eat to their hearts content. They had been major fans of entertaining, despite their insane work schedules that kept them on the clock at all times. The porch wrapped around three quarters of the house, the last left to be a more comfortable patio with a fire pit and a hot tub dug deftly into the ground. It was a rare occurrence when Austin was not spending his weekends here: at least, it was before both boys had busied themselves with the girls.
It was a paradise, the whole lot, and he figured it might be even more haven like with the three best friends he's ever had. The front door is left unlocked and judging by the lacking of light inside, he assumes that they had decided to party out back on the patio. He has no complaint and hurriedly runs to the back door, throwing his bag onto a vacant chair as he moves.
He opens the sliding glass door to reveal Trish and Dez sitting beneath the stars on the swinging outdoor furniture. A small fire flickered docilely in the pit, marshmallows and chocolate sitting on a corner table along with miscellaneous bonfire foods.
"Hey, dude," Dez greets lazily, "glad you guys could finally make it. Where's Ally?"
His head turns to the side in perplexity and his nose crinkles along with the rest of his features. "What?"
"Didn't you pick up Ally?" Trish pipes up, the same sound of dumfound in her voice. "We thought that's what was taking you guys so long."
He shakes his head and makes his way close to the pair, stealing a folding chair from the fire arrangement. "No, I didn't. I haven't seen Ally since the other night."
The three share a look and Trish quickly pulls out her phone, investigating further.
"Hang on, let me text her."
His leg begins to twitch and a flush of anxiety runs through him. Dez had gotten the RSVP from all of them just last night, and from the group text they had all shared, the timing of their get together was punctilious.
Ally had answered Trish's text at a lightning speed, and he wonders exactly what the Latina might have included in her message to get such urgent feedback. Trish's lips curl devilishly into a smirk and her eyes glint happily with mischievous.
"She's fine, guys. Dallas and her just got caught up, she'll be here within the next hour or so."
He has an urge to release a pent up sigh, but the mention of the suddenly notorious Dallas only makes his muscles stiffen more. This character had the audacity to make Ally tardy twice now, and although he knew Ally had a habit of losing track of her inhibitions—and as much as he found that one of her most endearing qualities—he did not care for how Dallas seemed to erase them single handedly in a second.
He had heard a tale or two of her past, the parties and the boys and the pressure she ebbed away with ease the moment she pulled out her ponytail. This past was in no way behind her, either, more so lessened due to his presence and what it demanded from him. He isn't to say he hasn't had his fair share of high school; he's had the cliques along with the drunken nights that blur blindingly in his memories. With the time they had spent glued to one another, they didn't have much time to go out and socialize with much of anyone else.
He was fearful to think that she may even have more experience than he, her energetic and outgoing personality promising to have a story of living behind it. Trish had mentioned to him that she was the type of girl to involve herself in long term relationships, and although this calmed him majorly, it also weighed on him. If she were to only have a few boyfriends in her review mirror, that's a guarantee that she's been through a tremendous amount of deeply rooted emotions and heartaches.
Still, she found her way to fit scandalous in her life, and he did appreciate this. He was one for a dynamic and explosive time as well, it just worried him that she affiliated with those sorts of situations more than he had. He didn't like to think that she might have been exposed to some drama that he had yet to face.
"So is she officially dating him yet, then?" Dez's voice spins him back into the present, the hushed and careful tone meant to be shared with only Trish. He wondered idly how long they had been in the intimate conversation, and whether or not he missed something important.
"No, not yet," Trish answers and he breathes out a loud of steam, "but if I know Ally at all, it's only a matter of time."
He perks at this, and he's not entirely sure if the other two had noticed. Dez murmurs something else out and he can't quite decipher through it.
"Ally has a real thing for brunettes," Trish vocalizes in a muttering tone, but it's still blunt and loud enough for him to clearly make out. "Both Elliot and Ethan were brunette, and I've seen a picture of Dallas. He's exactly her type."
Austin sits unamused, running a hand through the hair he had fussed over so frivolously before. The point seemed like a lost cause now: unless he could get his hands on some dye along with nerve, he was to remain a blonde.
"Can we please just roast some weenies, or something," he utters uselessly, his levels of perturb not shying away at all in his tone, "this is incredibly boring."
Trish throws him a judgmental sneer and Dez just stands to collect some of the fire pokers from inside. He turns his chair to face inwardly to their cookout and he tries to plow over all his queasy feelings. It had been awhile since Ally sent that text, right? She should be here any moment. Did she intend for Dallas to stay? He wasn't sure if he was up for a weekend with two couples all by his lonesome. Wasn't she supposed to be on the same side as him, playing the joint part of Dez and Trish's third wheels?
So far, his mind plowing was going extremely unsuccessful.
He downs two cans of soda and roasts a handful of marshmallows before she arrives. It's been over an hour since he had pulled into the parking lot, possibly verging towards two by now.
He doesn't bother to look up when she greets him, just nods to address her politely along with a curt grunt. Trish gives her a wolf whistle while commenting on the length of her shorts, and he decides to steal a glance at her outfit. His awareness of her creamy, curved and elongated legs heightens due to the damnable swatch of clothing she's passing off as shorts. Dez smiles and directs her to the s'more ingredients he has laid out.
"Oh, thank god," she sighs with a tremendous amount of theatricality. "I'm so starved, I can't wait to pig out on junk food and sodas. I've been looking forward to it all day."
"Almost as much as you've been looking forward to sticking your tongue down Dallas' throat," he mutters under his breath with no intention for anyone else to hear.
Her hair fans out and she whips her head around to fully face him. "What?" She says ignorantly with a curious twitch of an eyebrow.
"Oh, nothing," he answers horribly sarcastic and although everyone is aware of his insincerity, no one presses further.
She sits next to him in the adjacent folding chair and leans forward to place a marshmallow on one of the prepared sticks. She twists open the bag and some of them topple out into the fire, and while she attempts to tend to the overflowing amount of mallows, she manages to slice open her palm with her poker.
"Owe! Goddammit," she rasps as she flinches backward, and he launches himself over to her in an instant.
He uncurls her fingers to reveal the shallow laceration, and he carefully caresses the underside of her hand while standing the both of them up. She peers upwards to him and her eyes look hesitant to his earnest expression.
"Hi," she breaths out and once her cinnamon scent skates up to him, he momentarily forgets how enraged he is at her.
He clears his throat piercingly and she snaps from her haze. "Let's get you inside and fixed up, why don't we," he offers meekly and Dez interrupts as well.
"Nah, stay here. Me and Trish will get the bandages, we'll be right back." The two excuse themselves inside and he sends a telepathic air of hatred for them leaving him alone with her.
"This is ridiculous," Ally remarks with slight frustration. "It's a little scratch. I'll live."
He shrugs and looks away from her, not comprehending exactly who she is anymore. Her life was always passing in such haste, he himself was proof of that: he had flew in only so long ago and was already a high contender on her importance scale. He could only assume that some similarity must become of Dallas, seeing as he was pillaging ruthlessly into her life without a sign of stopping.
Although, the relationship he shared with Ally was something rather particular, that was a fact. They had created quite the foursome with Dez and Trish and the friendship had bonded into something that could be associated with inseparable. They had solidified a musical partnership that had been planned to continue even when they depart for their universities, thankfully still within a ten minute radius from one another. She had told him that she had never found anyone easier to confide in, not even Trish, and that as irrational as it was, she had put more faith in him than anyone else in her life. He doubted that Dallas could have revoked that status from him in the terse time he had spent with Ally.
He looks back to her and knows that of all the things he's beginning to question, he'll never have to question whether or not she'll look back towards him.
"Maybe I should just invest in a bubble wrap suit for you. Or just coat you in caution tape so people know to be extra careful around you." His smirk lightens teasingly and she looks mildly offended at his little quip.
"Maybe I should buy you a giant neon sign that says, 'I'm a major asshole' to make sure no girl will ever fall for your charm," she answers and he claws at his chest, faking an actual physical wound.
"You're ice cold, you know that, Dawson?"
"I was taught by the best, Moon," her eyes roll in the fond way they always do when she slips him a compliment that's not actually flattering.
The door opens and Dez leans half way out of it, the tousling of his hair an explanation as to why they've taken so long to return outside. He tosses Austin a small box of what he can only assume is first aid supplies for Ally's injury.
"Hey guys, me and Trish are kind of getting cold out here, so we're just going to throw in a movie downstairs, if you want to join." Dez says as he fades back inside.
"I'm not," Ally declares as she steals the bandages from Austin's grasp. "I'm going to eat at least one s'more, goddammit, even if it takes me a million tries to make one."
Dez shrugs impassively and shuts the door, knowing Austin wasn't about to leave her alone out here. Especially next to a fire: with her luck, she would fall in.
She starts fiddling with the wrapper of a bandaid and she can't quite manage to open it, the blood increasing its flow from her wound making it hard to maneuver. He sighs tiredly and takes it from her hands, feeling like a parent of a meddlesome child.
"Here, you better let me," he tells her strictly but with a hidden amount of compassion she still caught on to. He pauses, pondering for a moment. "I'll make the s'more, too."
She stomps down a foot in helplessness, but knows there's no room left to argue with him. His stern expression indicated that his word was finite. She sits back into her chair and he crouches down directly next to her, taking her frail hand into his once more.
He opens an alcohol wipe to clean her up, and finishes dressing the wound in an oddly cryptic fashion. She rolls her eyes at his intensity over what was barely more than a paper cut.
"Stop it," he roughly huffs out, his eyes beginning to revert out of the narrowed slits from his concentration. He gives his work another once over and sits back into his own seat, content that she'll heal nicely as long as she doesn't mess with the bandage.
"Stop what?" She innocently answers, although she is uncertain as to what he was referring to.
"Stop acting like it isn't that big of a deal. You went, like, half way through your hand with a rusty fire poker. You might even need stitches."
She lifts her hand to inspect it, flexing her fingers until she feels a dull throb of pain. She continues to shrug it off, convinced that she's in no state of dire distress.
"I'll survive," is all she offers up as a response. "But not without the s'more you promised me."
He throws her an incredulous look, and moves back over to start roasting a marshmallow. They interact silently for a bit, and while the quiet stirs around them, he feels the anger towards her pool inside of him once more. His knuckles begin to whiten due to his crushing grip on the stick dangling into the fire pit.
There was no doubt she had been neglecting to talk to him about the sudden shift Dallas was presenting. They had never openly discussed the possibility of something more than friendship between the two of them, and it was unsure whether or not either of them even really wanted to peruse a relationship due to the risk it presented. The way Dallas put such a defiant stopper to any option they had before, however, deeply upset him. He liked to know that they had some sort of unvocalized claim to one another: he had always assumed it was mutual, but apparently she failed to feel the same.
She was being incredibly selfish, as well, being tardy to commitments for a boy, irresponsibility as present as the cliché in that. He had known her to be a tad scattered brained before, but never completely thoughtless—and especially of other people's feelings. She was shutting out quite a lot in her life, and he didn't think that she fully realized what she was doing, either.
"Isn't it a beautiful night?" She breaks into his mind swiftly.
"Yeah," he spits out as a response, the animosity evident.
Her soft smile falters into something more of bewilderment, wondering what was suddenly haggling on him. "Alright, Mr. Rude, didn't really need your sass. I was just saying."
He figures that she's trying to amend his lapse with some banter, but her words only make him boil more. "I didn't sass you, I just answered. I agreed with you, what more do you want?"
She sits forward in agitation, disturbed by his abrupt change in moods. "Jesus, Austin, chill out. I was just saying that it's a nice night, is all. What's your deal?"
He scoffs harshly, the brandish in his tone highlighting how ironic her asking him what his deal was to him. "My deals just fine, thank you. What about you? What's going on with you and your deal?"
He can tell she does not understand where his mood came from, but knows that the only way for her to expect it would be to crawl up into his brain. She was good at being intuitive, granted, but she wasn't that good.
"Uh, I don't really know what you mean, Austin. I'm not the one being bitchy, mind you," she snaps back and aggressively folds her arms across her chest. "You're burning my marshmallow, by the way."
He ignores the roasting task and focuses on retaliating at her. "I'm the one being bitchy? I'm not the one who won't shut up about some douche she's just met, Ally."
Her mouth falls open and doesn't associate his outburst with jealousy, even though he was fearful of how clear it was becoming. Her jaw seals and she begins to speak with gritted teeth, "He's not a douche, Austin—"
"Oh, please, he's even worse than I am. He joined drama club in hopes that you'd sleep with him, trust me. I know how the teenage boy mind thinks." He stands and turns his back to her, blowing out the flame that attached itself to the charred marshmallow.
She stands and rips his shoulder around, bringing them face to face. "You don't even know him, you ass. He's not just after my panties, unlike you."
He sputters for a moment, more out of outlandish belief than anger. "Are you kidding me right now? You've known him for how long, Ally?"
"Not much longer than I've known you," she challenges with a sneer and crossed arms.
"And let's keep in mind that in all the time you've known with me, I've never made you forget plans that you made with your so called best friends. He doesn't care that he's affecting the rest of our lives, too, or even bothering to acknowledge that you have a life outside of him."
"What's your problem, Austin? Are you worried that Dallas is clockblocking you? Because I promise, you won't ever have a shot with me," she fires back and he doesn't have to pretend to be wounded by her words this time, because he genuinely is and it shows, too.
He turns and he kicks the plastic chair she had been sitting in moments before with all the might his pent up aggression allows. He faces her again and sees that she's shrunken slightly away from him, scared by his outbreak.
"My problem is you're not letting me be free from you," he grumbles out before marching inside, slamming the door shut juvenilely like the true child he is. She lets out a disgruntled moan and places her face in her hands, too heavy of a payload for only her neck to support at the moment.
She gives his chair a solid kick before sitting measly on the patio blocks, lamely deciding to eat the raw s'more materials in a desperate state. She runs over their exchange in her mind and finds a surprising amount of inspiration in some of the retorts he threw at her.
Sighing, she stands and wipes the crumbs onto her overly exposed legs. Once she's inside she takes hold of her book and makes her way to the piano Dez's family kept in the corner of their living room.
She doesn't bother to write, feeling too overwhelmed to do anything other than play. She guiltily hopes that wherever he is in the household, he'll be able to hear her with clarity.
"So please let me be free from you, let me be free from you, and please, let me be free, I can face the truth," she sings out and her hands waver over the keys before pressing down tentatively. Her mind races almost as fast as her heart and more lyrics surface, the sequence to be decided later.
"Your eyes, telling me lies, and making me find myself, while you have your agenda, a life to pursue," she starts once more and it's hard for her to stop, so she doesn't bother trying to.
He sits lonely atop of the stairs, out of any view point of hers just to be safe, and he feebly frets over her developing song in silence. He knows he had keyed some of the theme, but for the main portion, she was on her own freelance. There was no constant pattern to anything he had known she was feeling, and he figures that the song is invented on imagination more so than reality.
The only fear he has left is that it might not be her singing for him in the tense that he wants to be free from her, but she may want to be free from him.
A/N: alright, so this was the longest chapter in this story so far, and maybe my favorite but I'm not sure yet :p sorry for the emotional roller coaster, but I made Austin a bit more moody instead of the cookie cutter Disney version, just for a bit more realism. Leave a review telling me what you think of the plot twist! (sorry for the overused love triangle of AllyAustinDallas, but I'm unoriginal and didn't know how else to spice things up)
xoxo
