Mapped against the blackness of the unknown and unexplored, the stars above acted as millions of silent witnesses to the events far below them. They didn't judge or offer advice…they just watched, as they had for eons. However, at that moment, the stars found themselves under observation, as the eyes of Michael Liston tracked them from his spot in the back of Brittany's Jeep.
Beside him, Sugar slept on the shoulder of a very aware and uncomfortable Rory Flanagan. Michael smiled as the Irishman kept glancing down at the sleeping face of the girl; his eyes lingering longer with each glance. To be honest, he couldn't help but feel a bit jealous that Rory had the courage, albeit limited, to actually make physical contact with Sugar. Michael figured he'd be slick with flop sweat had he been in a similar role. Hell, just sitting next to Motta had him tense; some 'hero' he was turning out to be.
With the thought, the sophomore pulled his smart phone out and again flipped through the photographic montage provided him by his very own Jiminy Cricket. From the stars to the trailing Tacoma, Michael shifted his gaze to the vehicle ahead. The darkness limited his view but every few seconds the Jeep's headlights would silhouette the passengers of the leading truck, and he could make out the short cropped Nellie Baker among the rest of the gathered shadows. Again he glanced down and was met with her question…'the' question of the proverbial hour.
'Croparazzi' or 'New Directions'?
At that exact moment, his phone, returned to life by the nearby cell tower, began to vibrate in his hand. Nellie's pictures were replaced by the identity of the incoming call: 'Mom'. With a nervous glance at the completely distracted Rory beside him and the oblivious Brittany and Sam in the front seats, Michael swept the face of his phone and answered his 'Mom'.
'Hi…Mom,' he spoke lowly into the wind of the late summer night.
'Sweetie, its so good to hear your voice!', Charlie Booth nearly squealed in exaggerated glee.
'I'll be home soon. Blaine said he'd give me a ride home,' Michael continued the charade on his end.
'How lewd,' Booth purred, 'What will McKinley say?'
Michael shifted the phone to his other ear and his eyes narrowed at the pseudo-threat.
Sensing Liston's irritation through the phone, Charlie quickly switched the mood.
'Seriously though, man, I missed you. Mass Effect isn't the same without my wingman.'
Michael smiled and lowered his voice, 'That's because no one else will save your ass when you get in trouble.'
Laughter flooded through the phone, 'Ain't that the truth!'
'Enough with the pillow talk, Mikey, wait to you hear what I did last night,' Charlie continued.
'I…,' Michael interrupted, 'I lost your camera. The damn thing fell in the filthy mudhole where they took me. I almost fell into the cess pool myself!'
Waiting for the chastising he knew he would receive, Michael readied several more lies with which to satiate the incredibly intuitive leader of the Croparazzi.
'Shit…don't worry about it, man,' Charlie honestly replied, 'I never should've sent you with those thesbionic douche bags anyway.'
Michael's eyes widened in disbelief.
With the silence, Charlie continued, 'Are you okay?'
'Yeah…Yeah,' Michael stammered, 'I was just really upset I lost your camera. I'll pay you back.'
'The Hell you will,' Charlie laughed, 'Losing a camera is what I get for wasting your Saturday, especially when you hear what I did last night…dude, you're going to shit.'
Trepidation tickled the corners of Michael's eyes. He had heard that 'excitement' in Booth's voice before…usually right before he launched something big.
'What did you do?' Liston dared to ask.
Charlie's eagerness oozed from the phone, blanketing the tone of his voice with a childlike reverence.
'You know that file of Ryan's you lifted from the front office?'
Remembering the incident vividly, Michael couldn't control his gaze from drifting up to the leading Tacoma and Blake's silhouette. Anxiety and regret began to eat into the lining of his stomach.
'Yeah,' he whispered, 'I'm following you.'
Charlie cackled with the exuberance of one wholly committed to the exquisite joy found in Villainy.
'SO…I found the name of his old school in his file, and for shits-and-giggles I looked it up on the Internets. Guess what I found?'
Michael licked his lips nervously, 'What?'
'Ryan went to some crazy expensive private school that makes Dalton look like a Taliban recruitment center. I was floating around the school's website, when I saw it…a chatroom. It looked like it was originally there so the students could discuss academics with their teachers but it had been bastardized into another social media outlet. So…I logged on.'
Shifting his phone back to his other ear, Michael looked again at the the other travelers in the Jeep before continuing.
'W-what did you find?'
'I KNEW you'd be excited!' Charlie misread the sophomore's stammer, 'Dude, check this shit out! Ryan split and didn't tell anyone where he was going. He closed his Facebook account and deleted all of his e-mail addresses. Hell he even disconnected his phone! None of his old friends have heard from him since before he moved! How screwed up is that!'
'Pretty screwed up,' Michael whispered, his eyes still on the vehicle ahead, 'How'd you get them to talk to you?'
'Mmmm,' Charlie started to answer before finishing his latest sip of coffee, 'shit I'm so excited I just spilled that on my Eurythmics shirt!'
'The red one?' Liston asked absently.
'Hell yes the red one! Damn, Annie I'm sorry,' Charlie said as sounds of scrubbing floated over the phone, 'Anyway, yeah…I just showed them that pic I snapped of me and Ryan on the first day of school. They were so desperate for info that they never questioned it. Besides, I'm a charmer, Mikey…I've got skillz to pay the billz.'
'What did you tell them?' Michael dared to ask.
'HA…everything!', Charlie proudly proclaimed, 'You should've heard his old friends when I told them he had joined a glee club. Do you know that they didn't even know he could sing! Apparently in New York his was just another goddamned boring athlete with more money than God.'
The last part of Booth's statement trailed off a bit, as if the boy's voice wouldn't grant equal volume to a declaration that proclaimed another family richer than his own.
'But here's the best part,' Charlie purred into the phone, 'They were all very, very interested to learn of little miss Penelope Baker, so I sent them one of our pictures of her.'
Michael's eyes widened in horror, 'You don't mean the ones from…the rain, do you?'
'Hell yes I mean one of the ones from the rain!' Charlie barked in exasperation, 'Why do you have other pics I don't know about?'
'N-no, its just that…those pics are sort of…' Michael searched for the proper way to phrase his statement, a way that wouldn't alert Charlie to his change of heart.
'Sexy as hell? Raunchy? Raw? All of the above, right!' Charlie interrupted.
'Right,' Michael whispered, and his head lowered.
'Oh yeah, I made a lot of new friends…a LOT!' Charlie crowed in triumph, 'In fact, I made sure I sent my new friends a 'turn-by-turn' to get to Lima.'
Michael's face paled, 'You…didn't.'
'I did!', Charlie wailed, 'Dude, hurry up and get over here, when you get back. We've got to get everything ready on our end because Mr. Blake Ryan's Past is en route…and it is coming in HOT!'
'What do you mean?' Michael questioned.
The sophomore actually 'heard' Charlie's shark's grin 'grow'.
'No way…I'm keeping that surprise for when I see you. Let's just say that despite our differences, Blake owes me one.'
Michael's phone vibrated, alerting him that Charlie had hung up. With the call ended, his old screen returned displaying the pics Nellie had left for him.
'Croparazzi' or 'New Directions'?
Looking back to the stars in the sky, Michael suddenly felt very, very small.
And the air grew colder.
(Author's Note: My continued and eternal thanks to all of you for your kind words and support. And for Funkst...like Charlie said Blake's past is coming in hot and so is a new character ;) )
