Frank
"Vince!"
That name completely threw me and I almost fell over once again. The others stopped attacking and we all turned to stare at the singer we all admired. He looked a lot more normal standing near the lip of the fountain than onstage, but it may have been the loss of thugs wielding guitars and flashy lights. Sapphire awkwardly waved at him, and I almost giggled evilly, her completely soaking. But I knew that the fact her top was sticking to her like that and her hair was bedraggled and shining like silver only made her more and more gorgeous and Vince wouldn't be able to stop staring.
He was staring, and looking her up and down so blatantly I was surprised she didn't get pissed off. Sapphire was the kind of girl who hated being admired like a piece of meat. She did seem a little uncomfortable under his gaze, but she didn't say anything, only hid her hand behind her. He beckoned her over and she went slowly. I couldn't tell if she was reluctant or eager to go over to him.
I couldn't hear what they were saying, as he offered her a hand out of the fountain. She didn't take it, staying in the water. We were all staring at them, speechless. There was a polite cough from the other side and the appearance of mall security warned us to calmly step out of the fountain and we did, slowly, silently. Out of it, we were the pinnacle of respectfulness, squeezing out jackets and shaking our hair loose of droplets, and the evitable slipping. But as the guard buggered off, we all turned to watch Sapphire being helped out of the fountain by Vince, half smiling and blushing furiously. He offered her jacket, but she shook her head, sending water everywhere. Nevertheless he swung it around her shoulders. She blushed again and he was standing so close she had to bend her head back to talk to him properly.
"Which would you prefer? Handgun or chainsaw?" muttered Gerard.
"Chainsaw," I growled, my bleeding hands clenched and dripping blood into the puddle collecting around us. People were giving us weird looks, four teenagers staring fixedly at a girl and a guy, dripping and shaking water out of our ears. Well fuck them.
"Sapphire! You coming?" yelled Ray. He spoke words we all wanted to yell, to get her away from that cocky rock star. She turned and waved, holding up her finger to show she was only going to be one more minute. Vince looked over and smiled, and gave a small wave which we didn't give back. They began talking quietly again and he laughed at something she said.
"Frank, you're dripping a disturbing amount of blood," warned Mikey in my ear. I looked down and saw I was standing in a faintly scarlet puddle. My hands were shaking with the amount of force I was clenching them. It got worse. She started to walk towards us, but he pulled her back by her wrist and pulled her into another kiss. My breath got caught in my throat. I wanted to scream to them, my tongue feeling leaden in my mouth. I could still taste her skin where I'd made that brilliantly purple mark on her neck. I could see the love bite under her hair, as she kissed him back. I looked up, feeling sick again. She wasn't mine. She was never mine.
I felt two sets of hands grip my arms, the others stopping me from running. I turned away so Sapphire couldn't see the two tears joining the water on my face. Gerard gave me another look and I heard Ray sigh, telling me she had left him
"Hey guys. Where now?" her cheerful voice said behind me and I felt her touch my arm, wrap her arms around me. She was my best friend. That's all she would be. I smiled at her and the others relaxed. I wasn't running this time. I'd never leave her again I promised.
"Making friends?" I joked, leading the way from the fountain. She blushed and her eyes went dreamy. Why did they never go like that for me?
"Yeah…he's cool," she said simply. I smirked, but as soon as she looked away my smile dropped like a stone. The others were quiet too, but as she talked, laughing with them, we all moved on. All of us, except for me. I just kept thinking about her and Vince. The way they kissed was exactly how I wanted to kiss her, to taste her lips and her tongue in my mouth. I wanted to feel her so bad it was torment to have her clinging to my arm, but I knew it would be worst torture to not have her touching me. The way her eyes went all misty and far away, with that little smile too, was exactly how I missed she looked at me. But she went that way for him. I guess I had to accept it; she was his and not mine.
Oh fuck life.
"So where are we going?" she asked me.
"The Ice Cream Factory, where else?" I grinned. I was going to enjoy the rest of today with my friend, because I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. She squealed and reached up and kissed my cheek, and the others cheered. We were technically banned but as we were the Golden Customers for being the only kids to completely finish an Ice Cream Mountain (and suffer the consequences for it too) we were welcome back. It was pity that, despite our Golden Customers discounts, we always managed to turn the clean, shiny and pretty ice cream bar into a complete battle zone of ice cream fights, flying doughnut attacks and suicide split missions.
You could tell as soon as we entered the Factory that everyone knew who we were. Well, our faces were emblazoned on the walls with our names, Golden Customer titles and crimes against ice cream. The place cleared remarkably fast as we offered out favourites.
"I'll have a quadruple chocolate super swill with chocolate sauce, chocolate chips, chocolate dusting and those really nice chocolate wafer things," I ordered. "Anyone else think I'm going to suffer a very chocolately death?" I chuckled. Sapphire made a face.
"I think we all are, bearing in mind chocolate gives you the worst gas!" she giggled, making everyone grimace and I laughed, hugging her close.
"I'll have the same but replace the word chocolate with strawberry," she told the waitress to lingered nearby, ready to bolt. I don't see why, we didn't have any ice cream yet.
"I'll have one of your half metre banana splits," ordered Ray, crushed into the middle of the booth, still dripping water from his afro.
"Ooo! Vanilla version of what the babe's having," ordered Mikey excitedly, almost bouncing up and down on his chair. We all looked at Gerard who was smiling pleasantly like something violently amused him and he was too polite to say what just yet.
"Gee?"
"I'll have the Molehill," he said through half closed eyes. We all breathed in and 'ooo'ed. If the Mountain took five teens to slaughter it (after three hours), imagine something roughly quarter the size and you've got the Molehill. For one guy, it was nutritional suicide. Even the waitress looked alarmed.
By the time our deserts appeared, we were in the middle of a debate whether or not to exact more revenge on Kleaver or if he'd had enough with Sapphire's little glue mission.
"In my mind, only Sapphire's revenge has been honoured. Hence," I said, breaking off to spoon in a mouthful of deep brown goodness "We still have four equally crippling rounds of revenge to deal out,"
"Why four? He left me alone, remember?" asked Mikey, vanilla ice cream already all over his face. I raised an eyebrow.
"Did he not slaughter your brother?" I asked, pointing a spoon full of chocolate sauce and chocolate chips at him threateningly. He moved away from it, eyeing it warily.
"Yeah, I guess," he said shamefully.
"Therefore revenge is yours to be taken," I finished, pointing one last time. Sapphire, who had been watching my spoon a little less warily and a lot more wistful, jumped forward and grabbed it in her mouth, licking off all the goodness.
"Hey!" I yelled, before seizing a dollop of her strawberry sauce and sprinkles and sticking in my mouth. She gasped, horrified and stole some more of mine.
"Oh God. It's started a lot sooner than last time, hasn't it?" commented Ray quietly as Sapphire and I fought over ice cream, before she grabbed a huge dollop of pale pink ice cream and threw it at me.
"Try that!" she squealed, giggling as I licked it off my face. I grabbed some of mine and hit her in the neck, covering my proud lovebite. Ray managed to get splattered as well as I think we can all guess what that lead to.
Soon we were all in the thick of it, ice cream flying everywhere and the waitresses and manager watching helplessly. We only stopped when the ice cream ran out and we were all coated in thick, multicoloured gloop. Sapphire's beautiful hair was now a hideous shade of cream because Ray and I had tipped mostly of Mikey's vanilla monument over her head. Opposite me, Gerard was unfetching shade of pink and peppermint green and was happily drawing smiley faces in the brown on Mikey's cheek. Ray was just a disgusting portrait of colours as Gerard's Molehill had mainly gone to him. I leaned over and removed a chocolate wafer from the massiv of floppy curls and began to eat it. Mmm.
"So…" said Sapphire, looking over the melted remains of our food on the table and smiling pleasantly. "Looks like we don't need to worry about how Gee's gonna manage that Molehill now, eh?"
"Oh, he managed it all right! Right into Ray's face!" giggled Mikey, before Ray slopped his hair all over Mikey like demented dog.
"Hey!"
"Revenge is ice cream flavoured!" chuckled Ray, wiping ice cream look of his eyes. We all discovered the joys of drawing in the ice cream, like Gerard was doing on Mikey's face.
Sapphire drew a little tiny stick figure, next to a another one, holding hands.
"That's you," she proudly told me, like a five year old telling a parent. She pointed to the stick figure who was slightly taller.
"And that's you?" I asked, pointing to the other one. She nodded excitedly, grinning at me through her cream coloured foundation. I looked at her, puzzled.
"Hey, hold on, you got something on your cheek," I said quietly, so she could just hear me. I darted forward once again and licked her cheek, savouring the taste of vanilla and licking my lips.
"Ew! Frank!" she squealed, rubbing her cheek and giggling, before giving me a shove.
"Frank, please observe manners at the dinner table," scolded Gerard, glaring crossly from under his pink hair. We both looked at him and burst out laughing. We were being scolded by a pink vampire!
"Um, excuse me, would you like anything else?" interrupted a waitress who looked faintly terrified at the idea of bringing us anymore ammunition. I grinned at the others.
"Got any doughnuts?"
