A/N: I LOVE Thursdays, 'cause that's the day everyone in my house either has something to go to, or works late, or something. That way, I can get a lot of writing/typing done, and there's no one disturbing me! WOO-HOO! Yeah…so…is it just me, or do headaches seem to intensify when you consume caffeine? OK, now I'm just babbling. I LOVE LES MIS! On with the chapter!

JACK

When I woke up the next morning, I won't lie to you: I had one hell of a hangover. But that's why God invented Advil, right? Right. After popping about four of those little things, I started to feel a little bit better. Of course, the huge breakfast and five cups of coffee I consumed might have had something to do with it.

Yeah, that might've been it.

Anyways, after breakfast, we drove into downtown Gary because Spot wanted a picture of all of us next to some famous building he'd read about. I didn't know what it was, but we humored him anyway. If only to get him to shut up.

"All right, bitches!" Spot yelled, prancing (yes, prancing) about the room. "We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz!"

I just sort of stared at him. "Spot. Is it possible for you to get any weirder?"

"Yes. Don't tempt me. Being this weird this early in the morning when I'm this hung over is not a good thing."

"Ooooook…whatever" I said, gathering up the last of my stuff. "Where are we headed today, O Mighty Keeper of the Sacred Roadmaps?" I asked Snitch, who had insisted we call him that.

He rolled his eyes and fished the map out of his bag. "Ummm…some town called Lincoln. It's in Nebraska. About 500 miles from here, so we should make pretty good time."

I nodded, doing some mental math. "So we should stop around 12:30 for lunch. Also, I'm not taking Itey in my car today. Someone else gets the menace to society."

"HEY!" said Itey indignantly, as everyone else laughed.

"I'll take him" said Bumlets. "And you can have Race."

"What a trade-off" I said, laughing.

Race just glared at all of us, stuck his head out the window, and lit another cigarette.

"Race. PLEASE don't smoke in Liz's car, WHATEVER you do. It's not my car; I don't wanna have to pay to get it fumigated!" Bumlets snapped at Race. Race just glared at him, but after a minute or so, crushed out his cigarette on the ground.

"Thanks" muttered Bumlets.

"You're not welcome" he muttered back.

They're so totally flirting with each other. Heh heh heh…

"Come on, bitches!" Spot said again. We all shot him a death glare, which he ignored.

So we all piled into our respective cars, and pulled out of Gary, bound for Nebraska.

3 HOURS LATER

I swear, I'm gonna go insane before this trip is over.

No, I'm serious. Itey will NOT shut up about this new CD he got, Flogging Molly, I think was the band, and he's going, "JACK! JACK! JACK! CAN WE PLAY IT?! PLEASE?"

I finally said "Yes" just to shut him up.

It actually turned out to not be all that bad. They mixed punk rock music with Irish balladry, and it was actually quite a nice way to spend 70 minutes. But when we pulled into the first rest stop of the morning, even he agreed it was time to take the disc out.

"Awesome band, but the flutes start to give me a headache after awhile" he told me.

Might I add he chose to inform me of this while I was going pee? Well, he did.

Anyways, after that, the ride was pretty much uneventful until we stopped for lunch.

But that, my friends, is another story.

RACETRACK

Why am I all of a sudden the evil one? Itey's the one they ought to be worried about, not me. Idiots…

Anyways, it wasn't like I don't like those guys or anything, it's just that they don't get me. Especially Bumlets. Geez, who died and made him God?

I'd vote for him to be God. Geez, I did not just say that…

But whatever. I mean, the guy's hot. I'm not gonna say God was hot, because that's just not right, but whatever. The trip was pretty uneventful the first 100 miles or so, Snitch fell asleep, and he sleeps like a rock. It was very amusing watching Skittery try to wake him up so they could make up, and after about half an hour he gave up and turned on his Walkman.

I just sort of sat in the backseat, scribbling in my notebook. I want to publish a book someday, so I write down my thoughts and observations whenever I can. People think I'm strange, but, hey, what do they know?

"Hey, Race" Bumlets said to me when we got out for the third time that day (I swear, Snitch has a bladder the size of a quarter). "Whatcha been writing for the past three hours?"

"Oh, you know" I said vaguely. "Stuff."

In truth, I had been writing a love letter. For Bumlets, as a matter of fact, but I couldn't out-and-out tell him that, now could I?

No. I couldn't. So I lied.

"Oh. Cool" he said. "Hey, listen. Think you could take over driving duties for awhile? I'm super tired, and I need a break."

"Sure" I said, shrugging. "As long as you're sure you trust me."

Bumlets just blushed and looked away.

I raised one eyebrow. What was going on?

I didn't say anything; I just shrugged and got into the driver's seat. After some minor fiddling with it so I could get comfortable, I put the key in the ignition, and turned on the car. It gave a little shudder in response, and then the engine roared to life.

The radio, which had had a mixed CD in there, came back to life, playing "In The Name Of Love" by U2 at full volume.

"IN THE NAME OF LOVE! WHAT MORE IN THE NAME OF LOVE! IN THE NAME OF LOVE! WHAT MORE IN THE NAME OF LOVE!!"

"Augh, Race, turn it down, chico!" said Bumlets from the backseat.

I reached for the volume knob. I like U2 a lot, but not THAT much.

We continued on down the highway, going about 75 (I like to speed, hee hee hee), and, eventually, started to run low on gas.

"This is what happens when you go 75 constantly!" Snitch laughed as I pulled into a gas station.

I flipped him the bird, and then walked inside to use the bathroom and get a snack while the tank filled. While I was looking, my cell phone buzzed. It was Blink, in Jack's car.

"Heya Race. What's up?"

"Not too much, Blinkers. You?"

"Going slightly crazy. Spot's a good conversationalist, but even the deepest wells eventually run dry."

I laughed, I'd heard Spot smack Blink on the head and say, "Shut up, you moron, you nodded off in the middle of one of your own sentences!"

"Shut up, Spot" Blink said.

"I chuckled. "Major flirtage if I ever heard it" I told Blink.

"Ya think?! That's kind of my goal this trip."

"Good goal."

"Thanks. Listen, how many more miles till Lincoln?"

"Last time Snitch checked, about 150. Why?"

"We need to get Itey out of this car. 'Nuff said."

"I hear ya. Not too much longer, Blinkers, hang in there."

"SAVE ME!" I heard Itey yelling in the background.

"Make Itey shut up, will ya, Blink?" I heard Jack ask, quite close by. Blink must be sitting right behind him.

"Yeah yeah yeah" Blink said. I'm sure he was doing a little waving gesture with his hand. "Gotta go, Race. I'm getting a bad signal, and I'm not sure how much longer I'll get even halfway-decent reception. See ya in Nebraska."

"Hey Blink?"

"Yeah?"

"We're in Iowa, dingus. It's about two hours away."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Well…see ya then anyways!" he said brightly.

"Bye."

I walked up to the counter, paid for my food and the gas, then went back outside to find everyone had stripped off their shirts because of the sweltering Iowa heat.

I about dropped my Doritos.

Bumlets had taken off his shirt, and he was wearing those kind of jeans that sagged on his hip bones, so that a little of his boxers were sticking out.

God, he was hot. He had the most well-developed pecs I'd ever seen, and his biceps?

Damn.

I was so totally gone, I didn't even hear them calling me. In fact, I didn't notice anything except Bumlets until Pie grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me towards the car.

"Hey, Pie! What the hell?!" I exclaimed, rudely jerked back to earth.

"Come on, dipwad! We're waiting for you!"

"Jesus! I'm coming, I'm coming"

He still ended up half-dragging me to the car.

Eh, whatever. I was still envisioning my half-naked Hispanic hottie.

ITEY

When we got to Nebraska, I'm not gonna lie to you, I was relieved. Spot and Blink were flirting SOOO bad, and Jack didn't seem to notice. I was bored out of my MIND, and I was going stir-crazy.

We checked into a rather nice hotel in downtown Lincoln, I think it was Embassy Suites. It was a pretty damn nice room, all glass and marble counters and king-size beds. Snitch blushed when we saw them.

Gutterbrains. Gotta love 'em!

Anyways, we didn't know what to do, and we wanted to kill some time. We'd passed a smoothie place called Juice Stop on the way to our hotel, so we went there and got smoothies. I got one called 'Home Run', it had lemonade and strawberries and orange sherbet in it.

It was way good.

So we went back to the hotel (after stopping for some alcohol, natch), ordered room service, and stayed up half the night playing Truth or Dare.

Let me tell you, Truth or Dare with a bunch of plastered college guys is always a blast, no matter what.

"Spot…truth or dare?" Jack asked, still looking quite sober.

"Dare!" Spot replied, sounding quite sloshed.

"Ummm…" Jack said, looking around the room. "I dare you to…I dare you to go make out with Blink for at least three minutes!"

Spot's eyes glittered in a very freaky way. "It'd be my pleasure" he slurred.

And then, I kid you not, he reached out, grabbed Blink by the neck, and started kissing him.

I watched them for a moment with a feeling of mingled fascination and disgust. Was that his TONGUE?! Weird. (A/N: No, Itey is NOT a homophobe. This is just…a little new to him, that's all. bows)

"Anyways…" said Bumlets, looking about how I felt. "Let's see…Race! Truth or dare?"

"Truth" said Race, somehow managing to sound confident though he'd had about three beers. "Hit me with your best shot!"

Famous last words, my friend…

"What is your deepest, darkest secret?" asked Bumlets, slanting his eyes so that he looked dead sexy.

Not that I was looking, or anything…OK, maybe a little.

This clearly wasn't the kind of question that Race had been expecting. Nonetheless, he swallowed, looked around, and then announced in a clear voice (with a note of pride in it, in hindsight), "I'm gay, and I think Bumlets is hot.

Dead silence.

END CHAPTER

A/N: Yippee, my first cliffhanger! Yeah, I wanted to update this fic a lot, so I just typed up the most random plotline ever. Anyways…

SHOUTOUTS:

Erin Go Bragh: Yeah, I have that same problem. One of the baritones is an immature, overweight senior who likes to tell stupid dirty jokes and make fun of me for being on guard. And the chaperone lady DID kinda look ready to kill him on the way back from Columbus…AH! A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY!

Cool. Anyway, love ya, thanx for reviewing!

Coin: No we're not using "Words Words Words". I just L-O-O-O-O-V-E English, and I excel at it, and I pick up random words from different places, and can somehow use the right way in the right place. I need to play a drinking game sometime. My friends' ex-boyfriend might know one…anyway, love ya, thanx for the review!

Saturday: No, I'm staying out of the story, and that's that. ((is very sad, but resolute)) Anyways, I put myself in too much as it is. I love it that Itey makes you crack up, he's like the little random druggie dude, only minus the drugs! So it's all good! Latah, love ya, bye!

IT'S ALIVE!! IT'S ALIVE!!

Bass drummers are hot.

Love,

Liz