(Vincent's Pov)
I woke up to the sound of my phone going off and I get up and looked around the room a bit. I grabbed my phone and turned the alarm off, I then got up and headed to the bathroom and looked in the mirror to see I had a black eye and I could see the cut that Clementine was talking about. I looked to my stomach a bit to see some bruising but in all honest it didn't look too bad and I didn't feel bad in a way that would result in me having to go to the hospital. I took a shower and once I was done, I went back to my room to see Clementine getting up and I went to my dresser to grab some clothes. I handed her some clothes I had and she nods in thanks and I nod in return as I got changed once she had gone into the bathroom, I went down the stair and started on breakfast. It wasn't long till Clementine came down and I handed her a plate so she could eat her food, we both ate in silence and once we were done, I went to feed the chickens and then I went to my car and took Clementine to school. I drove back home and went into my study area and I looked over my resume to see if it was ok, once I was finished reviewing it I printed it out and nodded as I decided to look up the location of the music store.
"Ok this should be fun." I muttered as I got back into the car and drove to the shop. I parked the car and I headed into the store and looked around a bit.
"Hey how can I help you?" I hear and look to see an older man as he walked up to me, we both shook hands as I introduced myself.
"I'm Vincent I was wondering if you had any job openings for this shop?" I asked and he smiled.
"I do, the name is Chuck or Charles if you're fancy… so you want to work here?" He asked and I nodded as I handed him my resume and he looked it over.
"Oh, you use to be part of a band… you seem qualified enough, but I need to know if you're really good." He says and he took me over to the guitar section of the store, he made me name off each guitar, how to properly fix a guitar, then we did this over with the pianos, and other instruments as well.
"See we mostly get band kids from the high school to come in here for parts or a new instrument, and none of them know what the heck they are looking for even though they've been here." He says and I wanted to chuckle at that, I don't think it was completely true but I won't doubt him.
"There are some rues when it comes to the guitars, we don't let people play over rated songs like highway to hell and stuff, it gets boring from time to time." He explains and I nod.
"Oh, yea trust me, I went into a music store in the city and all you heard was three people playing Sweet Home Alabama at different points, I hurt my ears a bit." I say as I hold a guitar, it was a red and black custom SG Gibson electric guitar.
"Oh, right I forgot to mention, we do customs here, in the back if you ever want to try that." He explained and showed me the small sop in the back and I saw a few unfinished projects.
"I can teach you how to make them just in case I can't make the order myself." He says and I look at him.
"Wait… you're hiring me?" I asked.
"Why not? You know about all different instruments, you have the qualifications, plus I need a helping hand anyway with my age." He says and I nod as we shook on it. We got all the paperwork done and I thanked him a lot for the job. I would start Thursday morning at eight. Once we finished talking, I looked to my watch to see the time and I told him I had to go. I then left the shop and headed back to my home to get some work done on the house and to feed the chickens again, I then went to my study and logged onto the computer to look up the information on when I was going to get my keyboard from the delivery service. I should be getting it today it says and I nod and then I get a call on my phone.
"Hello?" I answered.
"Hey Vincent what's up?" I hear Louis ask.
"Uh, it's going good, I see my keyboard should be here today." I tell him.
"That's good, I got the express shipping but eh you know how things get." He says and I nod as I lean back into my chair.
"So how is your day so far?" He asked.
"Going good, well except the black eye and stomach but I'm ok… I also got a job at a music shop." I tell him.
"Wait you got a job?" He asked.
"Yea… at a music shop." I say.
"Wow." He says and I shrugged.
"You do know you still get some profits from the band; you still have ownership." He explained.
"Wait I do?" I asked.
"Well yea, you helped start it up, you think we would leave you high and dry?" He asked.
"I mean… we didn't really talk on it… but regardless I still got the job, I think it'll be fun." I explained.
"Well, if it's something you love then I can't stop you, anyway you sure you're good?" He asked.
"Yea… I have a cut under my eye but that might go away." I tell him and I stretched a bit as I put the phone on speaker and I looked around my office a bit to see if I need to add anything.
"I'm sorry that happened." He says.
"Nothing for you to say sorry about, it was bound to happen just… I just freaked out." I tell him.
"You going to charge them?" He asked and I shrugged.
"I honestly don't want to deal with a lawsuit, besides the cops haven't called me and I'm making no attempt to call them." I tell him.
"Dude, you should, people are making comments saying you should it was a hate crime." He says and I sighed a bit.
"Louis… I just… don't want to deal with this." I tell him.
"Are you scared or something?" He asked.
"I'm fucking terrified." I tell him truthfully as I just looked at the poster Louis and I had made together.
"Why?" He asked.
"I'm not sure… it freaked me out and they made up that lie and there are people that believe them… and I'm just afraid that people would try worse things." I tell him.
"Vincent, this is why you need to step up, they need to know that stuff like this isn't going to go without consequences, people like that need to be punished just because they were brainwashed into thinking this stuff that we all know isn't true." He says.
"Don't make things political please." I say and lay my head on the desk a bit.
"I'm not trying too; I'm just saying that you need to make sure they get what they deserve." He says and I sighed.
"Vincent, just think on it." He says.
"I will but the city themselves or the state might charge them, they're pretty pro-LGBTQ… except for those three… a guy did help me…. I don't know." I say.
"Alright… Brody says hi." I hear Brody in the background and I laughed a bit as he put it on speaker.
"Hey Vincent." I hear.
"Hey, how is everyone?" I asked.
"We're all good, and you?" I hear Ruby say.
"I'm ok… got a job now so hah." I joked.
"Cool where at?" Mitch asked.
"Music store in town, guy name Chuck owns it and he hired me today, I start work on Thursday." I tell hem.
"Good for you." Sophie says and I nod.
"My mom also called me." I tell them.
"WHAT!?" They yelled and I covered my ears.
"Ow." I muttered then looked to my phone.
"You all act like that's weird or something."
"It is, she hasn't called you in so long." Louis says.
"She's been busy with work you know." I tell him.
"Yea but." He tried to say.
"And I was busy too." I tell them.
"Ok, ok, I get it." He says and I nod.
"What did she say?" Brody asked.
"She asked if I was ok… and even asked if she wanted me to let her come visit with my grandma… I told her no then she offered for me to visit her in the summer… with Clementine... so yea… besides a family reunion is coming up and my grandma is hosting it so I kind of have to go anyway." I explain to them.
"Oh, this is great though, you did say you were going to visit family." Brody says and I nod.
"Yea that is true." I looked to my watch to see that I had to head to Clementine's school.
"Hey guys I have to let you all go I need to pick up Clementine." I tell them.
"Alright well tell her we said hi." Louis says.
"I will." We all then say our good-byes and I go to my car and I start to drive to the school where I see Clementine waiting at the front and I pull up next to her.
"Hey stranger." She says as she takes a seat in my car and I nod to her.
"Hey yourself." I tell her as I start to drive her to her house.
"I thought we were going to go to your house?" She asked and I looked to her.
"I think you and your mom need to talk about that video of you… I don't want to be the reason your mom and you are fighting." I tell her and she looked to me and I looked back to the road.
"Then after that if your parents are ok with it, you can come over to my house and I'll cook some soup… kind of don't feel like eating anything solid right now." I tell her.
"Your stomach, ok?" She asked and I nod a bit.
"I think it is, it's not painful but I can still feel it, though I am surprised that it doesn't hurt as bad as I think it should." I tried my best to explain to her.
"I think you should get that checked on still." She tells me and I pat her shoulder.
"I know you're worried but don't be, if I feel like I need to go I will… besides I have Brody to worry about me… by the way the band says hi."
"Oh, you talked with them?" She asked and I nodded.
"Also, I got a job at the music store with Chuck, so I'm not too sure if I can get you on Thursday." I tell her.
"It's fine, Lee can get me, or I can take the bus I always have a backup plan." She says and I chuckled at this as I pulled into her driveway and I see her mother come out the house and she doesn't look to happy. I looked to Clementine who wasn't getting out and I sighed as I got out the car and went to her door to open it.
"It's best to rip it off like a band-aid." I tell her and she sighs then nods as she gets out the car and we both walk up to her mom who looked to me and then did a double take.
"What… that's what they did to you?" She asked as she took my face a bit in her hands and I hissed a bit at the pain and she let go and I took a breath.
"Ok, that still hurts… also no I have bruising on my stomach and side but it's ok the doc let me head out so I should be fine." I explained and she nods then looks to Clementine.
"I'm sorry for getting upset but you know why." She tells Clementine.
"You know how I am with my friends though, especially after they caused this to Vincent, it's uncalled for." She defended herself.
"You know those boys can press charges on you Clem."
"They're to afraid and humiliated to try that and we all know it." She says and I look to her.
"Clem, you mom is just worried and I understand that, honestly I told you I didn't want you involved." I told her and she looked to me.
"Ok, Ok, I messed up but still if anything happens, we will fix it all up." She says and we all nod.
"So, I say we ground you for a week." Her mom says.
"But."
"Do you want to make it two weeks?" She asked Clementine who closed her mouth.
"Ok, but can I still hang out with Vincent… just to make sure he's ok and all, you know." Clementine says and I looked to her then to her mom as she sighed.
"Fine but you'll be doing AJ's chores for the week, plus your fathers to make up for it." She says.
"Ok done deal." Clem says and we head inside and Clementine went to go and grab some things from her room and I look to her mom as she looked to me.
"I didn't know how badly they beat you." She says and I nod.
"I'm surprised my jaw wasn't broken… they had steel toed boots on." I say and look to her.
"Jesus… why would they do that though?" She asked.
"Bullshit stuff is all I can say, and sorry for swearing." I say as I looked to the ground a bit.
"Do you need an ice pack?" She asked.
"No, I have some at home." I tell her then AJ runs in and once he sees me, he runs into me for a hug and my stomach hurts so I grunt a bit in pain.
"Ow, ok, that hurts." I say and he pulls back.
"Are you ok? I'm sorry if I hurt you." He says and I lean down a bit and pat his head.
"It's ok little dude I'm just injured right now so hugs kind of hurt at the moment." I explained to him, but leaving out the fact that I was hurt b other people, he doesn't need to hear that type of stuff then I remembered something and I looked to Carly as she looked to me.
"I uh… I have a question to ask you and uh, Lee when I get the chance?" I asked.
"Oh, Lee is here, he's just in his study right now." She says and I nod as Lee comes out of his study and I look to him as he comes up to us.
"You need to ask us something?" He asked and I nodded.
"I uh… my mother wanted to know if Clementine wanted to come to a family reunion of mine in the summer time, I mean it's up to her too but I just wanted to ask you both just to be on the safe side." I tried to explain and I looked to them.
"Well, if Clementine is fine with it then of course she can go, with some stipulations of course." Lee says and I nod.
"Of course." I then heard Clementine come down the stairs and I look at her as she comes up to us.
"Ok I'm ready." She says and I nod as she says bye to her parents and we head to my car. I drove to my house and I looked to the farmlands a bit as I pull into the driveway, Clementine and I go in the house and I head to the kitchen to get started on dinner.
"So, what are you in the mood for I know I offered soup but you might want something else?" I asked.
"Hmm, oh Lee has an old pizza recipe if you want to try that?" She asked and I nod as we get the ingredients ready. We made some homemade pizza dough and fresh vegetables.
"One time my grandpa and I made some homemade butter, but one time the churner broke so we shook jars…. I still remember the pain in my arms from constant shaking." I tell her and rubbed my arm a bit.
"Oh, I tried that once with Mom, it was fun… well until AJ didn't close the jar properly and he shook the jar really hard, it was funny though." She tells me and I smiled and chuckled a bit.
"Must have been a huge mess." I say as we work more on the food.
"Oh, it was but it was an honest mistake." She explained and I nod as we work more on the pizza. After a few hours since we had to let the dough rise for a bit, we worked on what we wanted on the pizza.
"Usually when I order pizza, I get the meat lovers, oh and the Chicago pizza is to die for." I explained.
"Once Carly made spinach pizza, it was ok but I'll take peperoni over that any day." She says and I laughed at this as we placed the food on the pizza and I had the oven preheated. We set the pizza in the oven and sat at the table to let it cook so I set my alarm on my phone.
"How's your uh stomach and face?" she asked.
"It's good, haven't felt anything bad in a while." I tell her as she placed her hand on my face a bit and I look at her.
"I still want to kick those fuckers' asses." I hear her mutter and I look at her.
"Please don't I don't want you getting into any more trouble." I looked at her more as she sighs at what I just said.
"I know, but… alright… so you got the job at the music shop?" she asked and I nodded.
"Yea it's going to be fun, I might even be able to make custom guitars, and other things, but I know we're mostly going to be selling to band kids for schools, well until chuck and I can get his online store running, I might ask Doug to help out if needed." I thought on it a bit.
"Oh, yea he can help out with that, big tech nerd." She says and I chuckled.
"I think we should work on making it simple for right now." I say and looked to the timer.
"So favorite movie of all time?" She asked and I think.
"That's a bit hard for me, but my mom did say that I would always watch Return of the living dead to the point the tape wore out, my grandfather watched it with me too, so I guess that's why… actually he use to watch all my favorite movies with me." I say as I think about it some more.
"Memories, I'm glad you have some good ones at least." She says and I look at her.
"I'll have good memories here too you know." I say and as she was about to say something the timer went off and I got up to look at the pizza, I then took it out the oven and set it on the counter to cool off a bit but I did cut it while it was hot.
"I hope you do have good memories here… after everything that's happened." I hear her say and I look to her as she looked down at the table a bit.
"Hey getting my ass kicked once isn't going to affect me that much, it'll be a thing in the past for me." I tell her.
"But that was three against one."
"Yea I know… but life sucks like that… I had a really good friend that helped me, she kicks ass." I chuckled a bit as she turned red and turned her head away from me and I smiled at this.
"Plus, I could work out some more you know." I say and flex a bit and she laughed at this and I smiled as I got her a plate and put some pizza on it. I went back to the table and handed her the plate and we ate for a bit.
"I could help you with working out if you're serious on it… I mean you don't have too it's just an offer." She says and I look at her a bit.
"Let me heal up a bit and we can start on that… by the way when is your next game?" I asked.
"In two weeks, it's the homecoming game, you know how they do it with football but it's not as extravagant, we still have to dress up though." She says and I look at her.
"So, you play during the day then go to the party at night?" I asked and she nods.
"Pretty much, it's weird I know but that's what has been happening for years." She says and I nod at this.
"I get it." I eat some of the pizza and it was really good but my jaw hurt a bit so I would take my time here and there to eat it.
"So, you need a date for this?" I asked her.
"No not really, I usually go with my friends though." She explained and I nod at this and I eat the rest of my pizza. I then got up and so did she as we grabbed the rest of the pizza to eat and I sat back at the table and thought a bit.
"What's on your mind?" She asked.
"Honestly? Nothing, got nothing going on up here." I say and tap my head lightly and I smiled as she smiled back at me. After we finished, I decided to grab one of the beers I had in the fridge and we both sat outside for a bit and I also started a fire to keep some light on us as we just sat down.
"Can I try some?" She asked and pointed t my beer and I look at her a bit.
"I mean sure but do you really want to try it?" I asked and she nods so I go and grabbed her a beer of her own along with a soda and handed the beer to her. She opened the can and took a sniff and I laughed at her facial expression and she looked to me then took a drink. She spat it out instantly and I couldn't help but laugh some more and it started to hurt as I look at her and she placed the beer on the table.
"Oh god that was good."
"That was fucking nasty." She says and I chuckled as I handed her the soda and she took a drink. I smiled at her as I finished my beer and then grabbed hers and I looked to her.
"How can you drink that?" She asked and I shrugged.
"Usually, I can't drink this until I'm wasted because I can't taste it by then and my brain is like 'Cool more alcohol' but eh it's ok for now." I say and take a drink and looked to the fire.
"That… no never again." She says and I chuckled again.
"I think you would like more fruity drinks like Mikes Lemonade, or flavored Vodka." I explain to her.
"Is that any better?" She asked.
"Depends, if you like the burn, I would suggest Fireball Whiskey, though I wouldn't drink that anymore, about six shots in and I'm fucking done." I explained to her and she nods.
"Noted." She says and I nod at this as we talk some more and I look to the stars again.
"So, you're in your twenties?" She asked.
"Twenty-One yea." I tell her.
"How old was Minerva?" She asked and I think.
"I think she's Twenty-Two but I don't care anymore." I say as I drink the rest of her beer.
"I knew a guy who only dated older women, another guy that said he only dates girls two years younger than him, same with girls at my school but most of them want older guys." She says and I look to her.
"What about you?" I asked.
"Max is three years older than me, younger has to be a year, maybe two." She says and I nod in agreement.
"So, have you dated any girls?" I asked.
"I have, though they were just 'testing' how it feels and stuff, like they weren't being assholes about it but they did realize some things." She says and I look to her.
"Like they're bi and stuff?" I asked.
"Yea, or they have no sexual attraction, though I never was looking for that in a relationship, not that I wouldn't be down to try." She says and I laughed a bit.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I didn't mean… it's just… sex is weird with me." I said.
"Oh?" She asked.
"Well, I mean… I never had sex when I was female, so I have no clue what that felt like, and as a guy… well it's amazing but when I first tried it, I was scared cause we all know sex ED sucks in schools." I tell her.
"Hold on, how were you scared?" She asked and I rubbed my neck a bit.
"Well… let's just say Minerva and I kind of… freaked out a bit when we saw some blood." I tell her and she laughed.
"Hey I was worried." I tell her and she laughed more.
"I'm so sorry… I'm just imagining you freaking out." She says.
"I mean... it was funny but what was embarrassing was when we talked to Ruby and Brody about it… they laughed too but they explained it to us." I tell her.
"Why would they know more?" She asked.
"They wanted to be nurses or doctors so they did more work on the science field… I mean Ruby is taking online courses for her nursing degree." I explained.
"Oooh ok." She says and then we stay quiet a bit and we both start laughing.
"I mean it was awkward to ask Brody about this stuff, and I'm older than her." I say as we calm down a bit. We finally relaxed a bit and I looked to the time and I got up along with Clementine as we headed inside after I put the fire out. We decided to watch a movie and as we were she moved a bit so I could place my head on her lap. We continued to watch the movie before I finally closed my eyes an fell asleep on the couch, laying in Clementine's lap.