Notes: Brand new OC, Sharlie. She's mine too.
I get rudely awakened by a surprise dorm inspection. Annie and I are in deep trouble since she forgot to go home last night. To be honest, almost nobody stays in the right dorm, and mostly it gets overlooked, but since Annie's a girl it's a little harder to ignore.
She's mentioned that she's gay several times now, but to no avail, they're ignoring that.
As punishment we have to be checked into our rooms every night for a week. It could have been worse, we could have been 'grounded', which would really suck, because Annie told me that she has great plans for this weekend.
A down point is that Russ saw me and Annie get hauled out of my room and frog-marched to the office for a lecture. Great. You can just picture tomorrow's locker room scene can't you? They already think I'm nothing more than a flirt, can you imagine the teasing that will ensue now that I got caught with a girl in my room?
Connie and Julie already think I'm lower than dirt, and they don't know that Annie's gay, so I know exactly what will be going through their minds when they hear about this.
She tucks her arm through mine as we walk out. "So, you wanna come back to my room? If we hurry we can make it before the inspections reach there. Twice in this office in one morning, c'mon Mendoza!"
"That's really tempting, but no." I reply. "There's only so much trouble I can be in before I get benched from the team."
"It must be nice to have an excuse to hide behind." She teases.
"The only reason you're friends with me is so that I can stop you from being a lunatic, while still letting you feel like a rebel."
She crinkles her nose at me. "That's ridiculous logic."
I hear a carefree laugh and see Traci fooling around with her new guy, and all my good feelings go away again. I don't even know how far along she is with the baby. Will it show soon? Is she going to keep it? Why did she have to end it like that?
Oh yeah, because she doesn't love me. And never has.
Annie taps me on the shoulder and we continue along the hall. "I'm so glad you're a jock."
I give her an enquiring look.
"That would have been a grounding for sure if you'd been anyone else." She adds. "And I have plans for this weekend."
"So you keep saying, so what are you doing?"
"Not me. We. What are we doing?"
Uh-oh. Annie's plans usually involve breaking a few rules – which I'm not adverse to – but the real fun (or so she says) is when we get caught. "So what are we doing?" I ask reluctantly.
"We're going to visit Charlotte."
"Who's Charlotte?"
"My cousin, I told you about her." She says in exasperation.
"Annie, you weren't perchance using ESP when we had this conversation, were you?"
Her face lights up like a beacon. "See? You can do it!"
I guess now's not a good time to point out I was being sarcastic.
*~*~*~*
"So where are we going now?" I ask as we traipse down the hall. I'm guessing we're looking for more trouble, that telling off a few hours ago barely even rated on the Annie-o-meter.
She sighs. "We're going to give Mr Wallace our notes so he knows that we're not going to be coming back to the dorms tonight."
I stop dead. "What?"
"Our notes, from our Moms that give us permission to stay over night."
I don't have one. Simple as. "Was this another telepathic instruction?"
She nods. "Yes, and if you'd been listening you would have heard that I've already written you one. 'Dear Mr Wallace, please let my son, Luis, visit with some friends overnight, blah, blah, blah'. Ok?" She hands me an envelope from out of her bag.
Why do I get the feeling this is a really bad idea?
*~*~*~*
"Sharlie!" Annie's yells almost deafen me.
"Annie-Pie!"
I turn and see a remarkable likeness to little Orphan Annie, red curly hair, big toothy grin, all she's lacking is a flea-ridden dog. She's waving at us like a lunatic, so I'm guessing this is Charlotte.
Annie hugs Charlotte, then remembers me. "Sharlie, this is Luis. Luis, this is my cousin Charlotte."
Got it, only Annie calls her Sharlie. Annie's funny with names, only people she likes are allowed to call her Annie, and she ignores anyone who calls her Joanna. "Hey." I give her a smile.
She grins back at me. "Looking forward to dancing tonight?" She asks.
"Dancing?" I turn to Annie. "For the love of God, start explaining your plans aloud!"
She gives me an innocent look. "We're going out to a club tonight."
"I don't have ID." I reply.
Charlotte does an admirable snort of indifference and digs something out of her pocket. It's an ID with my picture on it, showing me to be twenty-one. "Now you do."
"How…?"
"I 'liberated' a photo of you," Annie grins. "And sent it to Sharlie, who just happens to be a whiz on the computer, and she made it."
I think now's a good a time as any to start worrying.