"Can I come in?" she asked quietly, and slowly entered upon the other girl's brief nod. The chestnut-haired freshman sighed, as she plopped down onto the bed, then took notice of the rather wild outfit and arched one eyebrow questioningly.
"I figured if I was going to a WWF event, I might as well look the part," her friend felt compelled to explain.
"Oh," was all Kitty said. If she thought the outfit showed a bit too much skin, she kept that thought, amongst others, to herself. Having had the spotlight shone on her own clothing, the other girl seemed to finally take notice of the baggy white sweater and ripped old jeans that Kitty had thrown on.
"Aren't you planning on doing anything fun later tonight?" she asked lightly. Kitty shrugged her slim shoulders.
"It's not like I have guys lined up around the block asking me out on dates or anything--in fact, the last time I went out was with Lance, and we broke up a week ago," she mumbled, toying with one strand of her hair. Clearing her throat, she added, "And besides, it's Monday night. I should be studying. Unlike you, I have a major history test tomorrow, and really can't afford to go to some WWF show even if I wanted to--which I don't."
"Okay." Her friend tried to keep her voice light, but for some reason it cracked and ended in a high note, as feelings of guilt flooded her. Somehow, she still felt responsible for Lance and Kitty breaking up. Stop it, she told herself sternly. Kitty broke up with Lance because of the way he behaved at the Backstreet Boys concert. It was nothing to do with you. Kitty shot her a weird look at hearing the way her word was spoken.
"Are you all right? I mean, you don't have, like, a cold or anything, do you?" she asked, and the genuine concern in her voice only made the other girl feel guiltier than she already was.
"No, I'm fine," she said quickly. "Just a, um, you know, sore throat."
"Oh, okay," Kitty accepted her excuse without a second thought. A sudden smile lit up her face, as she suddenly asked out of the blue, "So, when are you going to tell me who this guy friend of yours is? Because I know you wouldn't go to a two-hour live wrestling show just for the heck of it."
"Oh, it's not that important," her friend tried to dismiss the idea quickly, a blush beginning to stain her rosy cheeks. Kitty's smile grew wider.
"Come on, who is it?" Her blue eyes gleamed teasingly, as she asked, "Is it a new boyfriend?"
At that, the blush grew deeper, until the other girl was positively flaming scarlet.
"Hopefully after tonight, he will be," she mumbled to herself. Clearing her throat, she said to Kitty, "Oh, it's just a good friend from gym class. He, um, is a major fan of that Stone Cold guy, whatever, and since the main event features the World Champion against the--the Stone Cold whatever--"
"Oh, you mean Stone Cold Steve Austin?" Kitty spoke up casually. Her friend nodded.
"Yeah, Steve Austin, so you know, I figured he'd never forgive me if there were two tickets available and I didn't do anything about it," she finished lamely. Clearing her throat, she added curiously, "By the way, since when did you bother to find out wrestlers' names?"
A thundercloud passed over Kitty's eyes.
"SCSA happens to be Lance's favorite pro wrestler," she muttered darkly. The other girl blushed again at the mention of his name, and felt another wave of guilt hit her as she once again thought over what she was doing. Stop it, she told herself sternly. You've made the decision to sacrifice this friendship with Kitty to be with Lance, you might as well stick with it. Out loud, she said, "Oh dear, I'm going to be late. Bye, I've got to meet my friend and go to the arena for the Stone Cold...whatever." And she flew out of her room and down the stairs before Kitty could even blink.
Lance
was waiting for her three blocks away from the X-Mansion, just as they'd
planned. He straightened up from where he'd been leaning against his Jeep,
and greeted with a brief nod.
"Glad
you made it, Princess," he said lightly, as he opened the passenger's door
for her. His eyebrows rose a few centimeters when he took notice of her
outfit, but he made no comment about it and instead simply got into the
driver's side.
"So
what took you so long?" the tall senior asked casually as he shifted into
drive and began to pull away from the curb. The slim girl seated next to
him carelessly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, before answering,
"Kurt was bugging me about giving him one of the tickets to WWF Raw."
"Oh,
really?" Lance's voice held an amused tone. "I never knew the Mighty Blue
One was man enough to enjoy a wrestling show."
She shot him a dirty look for the comment, to
which he promptly and methodically apologized, before admitting with a
giggle, "In the 'Mighty Blue One's' own words, 'Who cares about the grown
men faking punches at each other? I just want to see Trish Stratus and
Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley in the Whipping Match scheduled for tonight'."
"Well,
I couldn't disagree with him on that," Lance joked, before once again apologizing
under her look. "So how'd you ditch the elf?"
"I
cracked him over the head with a sledgehammer and dumped him into the lake,"
she joked.
"Well
good for you, Princess," Lance approved, to which she giggled before admitting,
"No, I told him that the Victoria's Secret catalogue had arrived, and snuck
out through the back window when he went down to check."
"Ah,
beauty and brains, I like that, Princess," Lance complimented, and she
was thankful that he was keeping his eyes focused on the road, or otherwise
he would have seen the immediate blush that stained her cheeks upon his
words. Lance made a left turn, and announced cheerfully, "Well, here we
are...What?" He was cut off in mid-sentence, as both he and his date for
the evening gaped openmouthed at the jam-packed arena parking lot, and
the tens of thousands of people milling about, waiting impatiently to get
inside. The girl's eyes flicked over to the scoreboard on the arena walls,
which boldly proclaimed in bright yellow lights, "WWF RAW TONIGHT! SOLD
OUT!"
"Hn.
No kidding," she muttered irritably, and flipped her hair out of her eyes
with a single toss of her head.
"Hey,
don't worry, Princess," Lance tried to assure her. "I've seen worse at
that BSB crap fest, I can handle it. Hopefully, wrestling enthusiasts are
as easy to cut off for a parking space as drooling thirteen-year-old teenyboppers
and their grouchy mothers."
"I
can't believe how hot it is in here," she murmured, as she and Lance pushed
and shoved their way through the jam-packed arena for their seats. An entrance
theme was playing loudly on the TitanTron, and she could barely catch a
glimpse of a tall, apparently male figure making his way into the back
before the production crew went to a commercial break.
"Great,
now it looks like we've missed the first half hour of the show," she muttered
in a low voice. Lance, meanwhile, had found their surprisingly good seats
in the fifth row, and was motioning for her to sit down next to him--something
which she didn't exactly refuse.
"Hey,
don't worry about it, Princess," Lance told her smoothly. "The first half
hour is always a long and boring interview cut by one of the owners or
their boys, and you'll see exactly what the promo was all about in a neatly-packaged,
two-to-five-minute-long replay right after the first commercial break."
Just then, the commercials ended, and a replay
of the promo promptly lit up the TitanTron screen. Lance turned to her
smugly, and said, "See? What'd I tell you, Princess?"
She
was smiling to herself, paying absolutely zero attention to the action
in the ring and instead studying Lance's profile out of the corner of her
eyes, when a weight crashed right into her back, sending her sprawling
forward and almost onto her face.
"Princess?
You okay?" Lance reached out, and quickly pulled her back. Once he was
sure that she was fine, he added teasingly, "Hey, I know Rob Van Dam and
Chris Jericho are probably considered quite attractive by most females,
but neither one of them should you literally fall for."
She blushed, and muttered distractedly, "No,
it's not that," before glancing back and up to see who had shoved her.
A pair of clear, ocean-blue eyes stared right back at her, as a tall, slender
high school-age girl with long platinum locks and sleek legs to kill for
feigned concern.
"Oh,
did I hit you?" she shrilled nasally in an almost comically high-pitched
voice. Turning to a lanky, skinny girl with limp, unkempt hair and stuffed
into an ill-fitting pink cotton dress and yellow stockings, the leggy blonde
squeaked, "Look at what you made me do, Tori. You made me bump into this
very nice young lady and her boyfriend whom she's trying to impress!"
"Jeez,
sorry, Patricia," Tori muttered in a surprisingly masculine voice,
crossing her arms grumpily and emphasizing the other girl's name. Patricia
turned and plastered a big, phony smile on her heavily made-up face.
"So
sorry, Miss. Guess Tori and I just weren't watching where we were
going?" She fluttered her long, dark lashes in fake concern. "You are
okay, aren't you?"
"Sure,"
she muttered, crossing her long legs and turning around, shifting slightly
in her seat.
"Time
to play the game..."
As soon as the particular heavy-metal entrance
theme hit, the entire arena practically exploded with excitement, as the
crowd packed into the audience stood up and screamed their lungs out, clapping
and cheering creating a frightening raucous. Lance himself stood up and
cheered along with the others, pulling his bewildered Princess up with
him. As she stood there, confused and managing to force out a few half-hearted
claps, she asked, "Um...I hate to sound so clueless, but just exactly whom
are we cheering for?"
"Triple
H," came Lance's prompt response. Oh, yeah, that just really
answers all of my questions, she thought to herself, as she made a
mental note to check out the official WWF website later that night and
find out just exactly why this Triple H guy was so popular.
"And,
um, just exactly why are we cheering for this Triple Whatever person?"
she asked tentatively, as a muscular six-footer with long, dark blonde
hair appeared underneath the TitanTron and slowly began making his walk
up the ramp, to which the audience responded by cranking up the noise it
was already making--if that was even humanly possible.
"Well,
he's been out for eight months with a quadricep injury, so it's only fair
that we give him this kind of reception when he comes back," Lance replied
reasonably.
"Oh,"
she murmured.
She
was standing there, feeling ridiculously proud for having learned something
new and grinning in a rather silly fashion to herself, when suddenly the
ringposts exploded in what appeared to be brimstones and hellfire. Being
so close to the ring when the pyros exploded, she reacted the only logical
way she knew how: she screamed like a...well, like a girl...and jumped
into the nearest object her brain deduced safe: Lance's arms. As the pyros
subsided to let the eerie chords of organ music resound throughought the
arena, she realized that she was still being held by Lance. Her eyes shyly
traveled up to meet his, as the two stood there, and she began to blush
furiously.
"Oh,
um," she stuttered intelligently. "I...I'm sorry for...for overreacting
like that..."
Just then, there was a sudden flash of light, as a familiar, high-pitched voice shrilled, "Oh, that was just magnÃfico, fantastique!" The nasal words being spoken so suddenly broke her out of her trance, as she quickly pulled away from Lance, her face flaming red, and turned around to see the leggy, platinum-haired girl who'd nearly sent her sprawling face-first into the crowd--she vaguely remembered her name to be something along the lines of Patricia--smirking widely as though she'd just gotten hold of some convicting evidence and holding a Polaroid camera. She turned her attention briefly to the ring to see whether the thing that, according to Patricia, had been 'magnÃfico, fantastique' concerned the action in the squared circle, then determined that it couldn't be possible when she realized that the bell had just rung and the two men were still locked up in the center of the ring. Turning her attention back to the cat-that-ate-the-canary-style smirk on Patricia's face, she deduced that it must have had something with...with the embrace--or whatever one wanted to call it--that she'd just shared with Lance. Patricia seemed to notice she'd caught on, and tittered before quickly shrilling, "Oh, did you think that it was about you?" When her response came via the form of stony silence, she giggled, "No, no, not at all! It's just that I happen to find masked men who come out to pyros very attractive." The other girl turned around at last, shaking her head and muttering, "Well, if there are people that actually like Hanson, then I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."
"I...I
had a really good time tonight," she stammered awkwardly, as she sat there
in the Jeep with Lance long after the show had ended.
"Me
too," Lance murmured softly, and for a moment there it looked as if though
he was going to say something else, before he quickly changed his mind
and kept his mouth closed.
"So..."
Her voice trailed off, as she played around with her hair.
"So..."
Lance echoed uncertainly, keeping his eyes fixed on anything but her face.
"So...I'll
see you in school tomorrow," she finally said, as she impulsively reached
over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before swiftly hopping out
of the car. Tightening her coat around her, she turned around and caught
the surprised look on Lance's face, as his hand instinctively went up to
his cheek. She waved a shy good-bye, glad that it was dark so he couldn't
see her blushing. He returned her wave after a while, before starting up
the engine of his Jeep and making a U-turn, returning to the Brotherhood
house.
She
sighed to herself as she walked the three blocks to the X-Mansion, having
insisted that Lance drop her off there so she wouldn't have to risk anyone
finding out just who exactly her mystery date was. As the X-Mansion finally
came into sight, she felt relief wash through her, knowing that her secret
was safe--for now, anyway. Unfortunately for her, this was one of the rare
instances when she was wrong, as she reached out to open the door only
to have it flung wide open by someone. Someone who was apparently very,
very angry.
"Ki...Kitty,"
she stammered, as she leaned back in surprise, alarm instantly shooting
through her body. Kitty's normally sunny face was contorted into a nasty
expression full of fury, as she spat out venomously and in a bitingly sarcastic
tone, "So, did you have fun with your new boyfriend...Princess?!"
Well, I finally got off my lazy butt and finished the latest chapter in my ongoing ficcie. Sorry it took me so long to update, but I've been...um, busy. With...um, stuff *mentally makes note to bug someone for more lessons on guy talk*. Okay, I think I finally know who I want our mystery girl to be, but I'm not sure yet; I'll make the decision once the fifth chapter is complete. Unfortunately, you'll kind of have to wait for said chapter, since I'm catching the live kickoff to the first Creed concert of the year on VH1 on Wedsneday night (heh, yep, Wednesday night's the night that I'll be completely and utterly ignoring my fic to pledge my undying love and loyalty to Scott, Mark, and Flip -_-), and won't be able to update till the very earliest Friday night. Sorry. But I promise I'll really make it up to you guys with the fifth chapter. Scout's honor *conveniently forgets that she's never even been a Scout*
