A/N: Hi all!
Before I start this chapter, I'd like to thank ExtremeSaucicityfor all her help on this chapter.
She helped me come up with ideas, fixed up my errors, and served as a huge inspiration with her beautiful writing. And yes. She is awesome.
How about we all go over to her fics and leave her a nice –maybe slightly aggressive review telling her to update her stories. Moonshine in particular.
Disclaimer: I do not own Austin and Ally.
Ally nods solemnly; her face still a mixture of shock and disbelief.
"Yeah," she finally says, her voice high and panicky. A delirious laugh is beginning to bubble in the pit of her throat. "A kiss! And then we can get married at the Sonic Boom where Trish and Dez can send us off to our honeymoon with tambourines and meat-fries!" She's waving her arms around in a crazed fashion while she speaks and he's sure it would be quite comical if she wasn't so hysterical at the moment.
Austin's hand flies up to his neck as he looks away from her, the whole awkwardness of the situation finally getting to him.
"Well…I don't know about the tambourines and everything but-"
"See, now you're freaking me out because I don't actually think you're joking." Ally cuts him off, regaining her serious tone.
She doesn't hesitate in giving him another one of her classic 'Ally' faces. This time it's the 'why in god's name was I saddled with the misfortune of meeting you' face.
He doesn't even have time to act insulted as his eyes flick back around the deck before settling on her again. This time they're filled with newfound determination. Austin takes a step closer to her, trying his best hand at reasoning.
"Don't you think this would be a good idea?" His voice was filled with as much hope as he could muster.
She makes an exaggeratedly horrified look in response. Her eyebrows skillfully raised, eyes questioning and mouth slightly agape in abhorrence.
He sighs loudly. She thinks this may the first time she's seen him this annoyed.
"Why are you so against it?" he asks, crossing his arms in as much defiance as he can manage.
"Why are you not against it?" she retaliates, scrunching her face up in a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.
He scoffs, uncrossing his arms to place his hands on his hips. He bends his head down a little, so she doesn't have to look up so much. Well it actually wasn't so much of a look than it was a glare.
"I am trying to save our relationship," he quips, shaking his head at her, looking as if she'd just killed his dog or something. May she note, that he sounds absolutely ridiculous in that bravado tone of his.
Ally forces herself to breathe a lungful of air, before placing both hands on Austin's shoulders, grabbing him forward and forcing him to bend his knees so that he's at her exact height.
"Listen to me, Austin," Ally says, practically seething with unreleased anger, "We. Do. Not. Have. A. Relationship." She spaces out her sentence, making sure each word is etched clearly into his brain.
Austin raises an eyebrow, his eyes slightly clouded with an estranged look as he mulls over her words for a second. Just when she thinks he finally understands; he opens his mouth and any possibility she had of him finding reason are instantly crushed to smithereens.
"Wow…that is the meanest thing my girlfriend has ever said to me before."
She makes an oddly distressed noise that sounds like she's trying to breathe and hold back a frustrated scream at the same time.
"I am not your girlfriend!" she all but yells at the boy in front of her. The sheer nerve he had was enough to drive her to a fit of insanity.
"Be quiet, they'll hear you!" Austin whisper-shouts to her, his eyes frantic as he does a quick take to the table on the far end of the deck. She bites back the sarcastic response forming on her tongue and stops herself from accentuating the glare she focused upon him. She takes another breath of air.
"Austin, don't you think it'll just be better if we tell your parents the truth?" she asks hopefully. Desperately.
"Uh, no," was the blond's well thought out response.
Ally buries her face in her hands, wondering why on earth she took on the task of becoming Austin's fake girlfriend. She could barely keep up with the crazy rock star on a daily basis.
Trish was right. She is a giant pushover.
"Listen, Ally," Austin says, prying her hands away from her face. She's so frustrated, she doesn't even frown at him. Instead she just stares at him, waiting for him to continue. "I don't wanna have to go on all those lame dates with all those girls my mom thinks are good for me," he says sincerely. "It's just not something I wanna do. I mean, why would I do that when I'd rather spend my time cooped up in the practice room, over a grand piano with you?"
He sees her soften at his words. He carefully places her hands back down to her side before he releases his grip on them.
A brief moment of silence is shared between the two. Finally, Ally shifts her weight from one foot to another, her bottom lip ghostly white from the pressure of her teeth biting on it.
"How long does the kiss have to be?"
He smiles.
"See, when we reach our pit stop, we can put the plan into motion," Austin says casually, sitting cross legged on one of the beds.
Reaching the pit stop to Ronmclain Island is the reminder that their time on the cruise is halfway over. As well, is their unofficial-official status of girlfriend and boyfriend. Remembering that fact always served as a motivation for Ally to finish what she started. Or, at least, finish what she agreed to. Let's not forget the motivation to never trust her blond friend ever again.
Standing in front of him, she's afraid to actually discuss the plan. The crimson of her cheeks never did truly die down from the absurdity of his suggestion a while ago and her reluctant acceptance to it. The casual, easy-going vibe he gives off about the whole thing is also ticking her off.
Eventually, she caves. Not without an unnecessarily forced grunt of annoyance however, as she takes a step closer to him. "What exactly is this plan?"
He stares back at her blankly. "We're going to get off and I'm going to kiss you," he states forwardly.
Ally sighs, fixing on her best perplexed look. "That's just going to look very awkward and very unnatural."
He leans forward, tapping an index finger to his chin, most likely processing this information. He doesn't seem fazed at all about the kissing and she wonders if she should run it by him again that friends usually don't go around kissing each other. And by 'usually', she means not ever.
He stares back up at her, his eyes challenging with an odd sparkle present. "Are you suggesting we build up to the kiss?"
She plops down beside him, his eyes following her as she does so. "I'm suggesting we think this through."
He shrugs almost disappointedly and raises an eyebrow. "You got a better idea?"
She scrunches her eyebrows together in thought. He can almost hear the gears and wheels turning and shifting in her mind as she thinks.
"Ooh!" she almost jumps up in excitement, catching him off guard. "We could give each other a very convincing hug," she nods smugly as if she had just fully won herself over.
Austin, on the other hand, doesn't seem as convinced as he fights the urge to scoff pompously.
"Ooh," he exclaims mockingly, "calm down there. Maybe after that, we can have some eye contact, that'll really get them."
She gives him the darkest look she can manage while mentally debating whether or not to slap his arm. He seems to sense her negative vibe and moves a good inch away from her.
She's still frowning disapprovingly at him when he pretends to sigh.
"I'm telling you, this is going to work," he says.
She snorts as a form of reply and he has good enough sense to pretend not to hear it. Hanging his head back in fatigue, he knows it's his turn to reason with her.
"I mean, have you ever seen a relationship where a boyfriend and girlfriend don't kiss?" he urges. She still doesn't say anything so he moves closer to her again, clasping his hands together in the process. "Picture this: we arrive on the island to browse through a couple of gift shops, I'll buy you a nice necklace, you say something nice about me- which isn't that hard if you think about it, and I kiss you."
She feels her face flush at his words and she almost believes that she can hear her heart beat quicken. She almost scowls at the fact that he's still using such a nonchalant tone, having absolutely no knowledge of what his words are doing to her and her rapidly thumping chest. The thought causes her lips to turn downward in bitterness.
His next words however, sound genuinely sincere.
"And you know what? It should be awkward, and you might be convinced it will be, but I know for a fact that it won't be," he says pausing. He's staring straight at her with unfaltering eyes and a hint of a smug smile spreading on his lips, "Because it's you and I."
His words were familiar, yet there was something in his tone that made her believe this was all going to work out. So she just exhales slowly.
"Do I get to pick the necklace?"
"You get to pick the necklace," he assures in a laughing tone, eyes still twinkling.
She looks away from him, trying to find her sane mind. After much collecting and deep breathing exercises, Ally clears her throat.
"It's not that simple, either," she says, regaining authority in the situation, "we need to lay out a scene, make it convincing."
Austin nods in agreement, a small smile present on his face.
"Also we need a trigger word," she continues, her eyes beginning to squint as she thinks, "you know, so we both know when it's coming."
"I see," he supplies, for the pure sake of letting her know he's listening.
"Now, what could I compliment you on?" she asks aloud, her fingers beginning to drum on the bed sheet in a steady rhythm.
"Well, there's so much to choose from," Austin jokes. At least, she certainly hopes he's joking.
He moves his legs rudely onto her lap as he leans back on the bed into a more comfortable position.
Ally swats at his legs away exasperatedly, even going as far as grabbing a pillow and hitting his torso. But this fails as he simply moves them back the second after she swats them off.
He grins at her victoriously from his position lying down and she gives him a disapproving look. The smile on her face kind of ruins it though.
She temporary gives up trying to shove him off as they sit in a conversational silence.
"There are so many things wrong with this plan," Ally says after a beat, sounding as if she has just slowed down long enough to rethink the entire thing.
He doesn't say anything either, his gaze concentrated all the way on the other side of the room. She's sure he agrees. This was practically suicide.
But then Austin moves his legs in a new position. Hovering his legs slightly above her lap, he smirks at her with his eyes mischievous and sparkling with amusement.
"Well, if you're that worried about it, maybe we should practice."
She doesn't think she's ever kicked anybody off of a bed that hard before.
Briskly walking and keeping a good distance in front of the group of adults, he hears Ally's voice speak from beside him, somber and forced to a lower volume than he's used to.
"Recap," she orders assertively. Well, assertive in Ally's sense. No matter how aggressive she was sometimes capable of sounding, he would always regard his brunette songwriting partner is harmless.
He has expected this. They've just departed from the boat in the last couple of minutes and were given an hour or so to explore the island. It figures, one of the first places someone would go to would be the gift shop.
That's kind of ironic, seeing as how people would rather buy souvenirs to let others know where they've been, instead of actually taking time to explore the place for themselves.
Austin scratches his head as he wracks his brain for the response to Ally's demand.
"We are going in to the nearest gift shop, getting you a necklace, all while making sure my family is watching," he recites off the top of his head.
She nods, slightly tilting her head to the side as a way of telling him to continue.
"Uh…then I guess… you can act all sentimental and goofy," he says a bit unsurely, doing a quick take to her as if checking her approval.
Ally slightly rolls her eyes at the thought of herself gushing over Austin, but otherwise motions for him to continue again.
"I'll say the words: for my favorite songwriter-slash-girlfriend," he adds, smiling cheekily as if cursing his own charm and she's sure he's mentally popping his collar at this point, "and you'll say: oh Austin! I'll wear this all the time as a constant reminder of you!" he fake-falsettos in a voice she assumes is supposed to match her own.
Holding a hand up, she promptly shakes her head and pauses his fantasy. "How about I just say: thank you, Austin, you're so sweet."
He furrows his brow as if dissatisfied with her lack of enthusiasm, before giving a half appointed shrug and mumbling a faint, "That works too," under his breath.
Ally doesn't wait for him to recover his ego as she jumps to the end of their little skit. "Last but not least, you'll say: whatever it takes to make you happy."
Austin crinkles his nose in contrast to her smiling attitude. "Doesn't that sound a bit cheesy?" he asks dully, "I mean- I would never say something like that."
"That's why I would never kiss you," Ally deadpans.
"Point taken," he responds immediately without need for confliction.
Before he can take another step, she holds her arm in front of him, stopping him from walking, her eyes boring into his.
"So the line before the kiss is: whatever it takes to make you happy," Ally reviews, her gaze serious. "Don't forget," she adds sternly.
They both give each other an affirmative nod before turning their heels with smiling faces to match as they wait for Austin's family to catch up to them and put the plan to action.
The first gift shop they enter is located right around the corner from where the ship is docked. Oddly, not a lot of tourists coming off of the ship bother to enter.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the majority of the store is filled with wooden carved objects. Really, it's all quite ridiculous. There's enough wood in the store to put a forest to shame.
The air conditioning in the small shack is also turned up so high that the machine makes loud groaning noises every couple of seconds.
Then again, that can also be due to the fact that the machines are so old.
"Excuse me, sir," Austin says, tapping the middle aged store owner on the shoulder. He doesn't look anywhere near as intimated as Ally does, as she stands close to him with darting eyes and hair ready for chewing.
The owner turns around right away, greeting them with thick eyebrows and a caterpillar-like tuft of hair growing just above his lip. His eyes seemed friendly enough.
"Do you sell necklaces here?" Austin asks, casually stuffing his hands in his jean pockets as he speaks.
The owner shakes his head far too many times to be necessary, all while waving his hands in frantic little motions in front of him.
"No, no, no," he states in a thick, unidentifiable accent. "No necklace," he says again after a moment's hesitation, with yet another shake of his head. Austin visually deflates a little, looking disappointed.
Ally sighs at their lack of success and makes a movement to grab Austin's arm and locate his family who are currently browsing the store. They are halted however, when the owner points a thumb over to a counter by the check out register.
"We have shrunken key chains," he exclaims dryly, not impressing either teen.
The duo turn their heads to a display of hand carved key chains dangling from an old suitcase sitting on a counter, not too far from where they are standing.
Austin turns his attention back to Ally, giving her a light shrug of his shoulder. "Would you like a key chain instead?" he asks, only half serious. He has a feeling he already knows what her response will be.
His suspicions are only confirmed when Ally raises a skeptic eyebrow and places a challenging hand to her waist. "Are you serious?" she deadpans.
"No," he laughs, grabbing her hand and leading her to where his family stood.
They haven't seemed to have missed them at all, as they all look pretty occupied, standing by an arrangement of assorted wind chimes. "Next gift shop," he whispers to her promisingly, giving her hand a slight squeeze as Mimi beams at the sight of the two of them.
"There you two are," she says happily, "Austin, look!" She points to a slightly crookedly hung wind chime. "Doesn't that look like the art project you made in fourth grade?" Her tone was nostalgic, yet Austin could read the true intention behind her words.
He lets go of Ally's hand to palm his face as he realizes the embarrassment that will soon befall him.
"Except uglier," Mike Moon adds with a casual nod, earning a snicker from Joseph. His son sends a dark, dispraising look in the direction of the two men.
"This wind chime is something indeed," Edna says, her tone eerily familiar to Mimi's.
Ally bites back a laugh, deciding it will be a good idea to stand up for her fake boyfriend for once. "I don't really think art is his thing," she says, eyeing Austin in a playful manner.
Austin unpalms his face long enough to return her playful expression with one of his own. "At least I don't always color inside the lines," he teases back smoothly.
She hangs her mouth open, pretending for moment to be insulted. "Hey! I so colored outside the lines that one time," she says, her arms crossing in defense.
He scoffs. "You mean that tiny, little, almost non-existent speck?" he asks, squinting his eyes and pressing his thumb and forefinger together to exaggerate how small the speck was. He moves his fingers closer to her face as a point to annoy her.
Ally roughly shoves his fingers out of her face, earning a chuckle from him in the process and rolls her eyes.
"Don't even remind me. I'm still mad at you for breaking my crayon," she mumbles dejectedly, looking down at the floor in a mix of slight anguish and embarrassment.
"I'll buy you a new pack." He waves a hand airily in a disregarding fashion, while a bemused smile stretches across his lips.
"I'd rather have a necklace," she responds dully, her eyes peeking up from her previous fixation on the floor. She gives him a weak, but honest smile through her long lashes as the adults all laugh approvingly.
Austin exhales overdramatically. "Of course you would."
"Don't be cheap, Austin!" Mimi jokes, teasingly slapping her son's arm. He winces slightly, placing his hand to where his mom had slapped, not hesitating in giving Ally a faux-condescending glare to remind her that this is her fault.
As soon as their eyes click, Ally grins toothily at him again. Her eyebrows are slightly crinkled in a belittling fashion and he can't help but think that she looked almost cutely guilty. Yet somehow, she manages to seem not even the least bit apologetic.
He finds himself shaking his head and laughing in amusement.
"One of these days, you're gonna stop getting away with everything," he states, looking up and down her small figure surely.
It's Ally's turn to scoff as she brushes a strand of her brown hair behind her ear.
"Are you gonna stop me, rockstar?" she questions with a bright smile and a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows.
The words roll out of her mouth facetiously, effortlessly. Tauntingly.
He isn't even able stop to comprehend how dorky it all actually sounds, as his mind is fully intent on torturing him by replaying her words over and over again with different peculiarities.
Her eyes are glassy and brimming to the core with such spunk and fortitude that it's becoming hard for him to take his eyes off of her.
Before he knows it; against his own sane mind and reason, he's pulled her close and crashed his lips against hers.
