Claire hugs her navy blue shawl around her, walking next to Gray as Rick and Karen run down the steps of the church for the first time as a married couple.
She catches him by surprise. "Can I ask you a question?"
"You just did."
Claire sticks her tongue out. "Do you notice... anything on my neck?"
"What?" Gray asks. "You mean the trail of hickeys that I can still see underneath your makeup? No... not at all."
She groans. "I knew it was noticeable."
"Carter probably saw them from where he was standing at the front."
"Ugh, Gray."
"Just being honest." He pauses. "It's like, a million degrees outside. Why are you still wearing that sweater?"
"It's a shawl, and duh, you're not allowed to show any skin in church."
"Church is over."
"Church is never over," says Claire, wiggling her fingers at him. She gestures up toward the bright sky. "God is always watching."
"Sorry, forgot what a good girl you are."
She bites the inside of her cheek, a telltale sign of her obvious nerves; he's come to know this. "My dress is backless, Gray."
"Oh." He forgot about her scars for a second there. The grafts of her skin that trace their way next to the crevices of her spine, jagged and tender, a painful reminder to her own tragedies. The ones that mean absolutely nothing to him, but just about everything to her.
She looks at him, then unclips her hair, letting it tumble loosely down her shoulders. Her locks are clamped with tight curls that haven't had any time to breathe; she maneuvers them to cover her neck.
"Do you think that's better?" asks Claire.
He pauses, suddenly feeling very brave. Not brave enough to hide his blush, though. Thank you, alcohol, for giving me an excuse to do dumb shit. "Here," Gray mumbles, his cheeks feeling hot. He pulls out a pinkcat flower from Claire's bouquet, tucking it in the wispy strands of hair behind her ear. "That's… better."
He decides that tonight of all nights is a great opportunity to check what his alcohol tolerance is, for some reason. What better night could there be to test this, than at the inn with the entire town present? Alcohol doesn't make him shy. It makes him fun to be around, according to everyone who's written him off as a miserable shit before seeing him drunk. He has to wait to embark on his drinking-binge, though, because Karen and Jeff are sharing their father daughter dance during dinner. Claire practically sobs next to him.
"Blondie, what's your deal?" Gray readies himself for her illogical answer.
"It's so emotional!" she says, her voice breaking from the raw passion in this statement. Yep, there it is. "I really love weddings."
"Why do you 'really love' weddings?"
"I dunno. They're so magical." The lights have been heavily dimmed. Claire looks over at Karen wistfully, as her white gown sways across the dance floor. She's holding onto her father, tears surprisingly streaming down her face.
"It's just a church mass and a party," Gray says.
"It's so much more than that!"
"You're right, it's another excuse to drink." Gray takes a sip of his champagne, and realizes that he needs something waystronger than this pathetic apple juice.
"Ugh, Gray, don't you ever want to get married?" Ann asks, wagging her eyebrows at him.
"Pfft, you're wacked."
Claire drops her voice low, so that only he can hear her. "Did your parents have a good marriage?" she asks him inquisitively, catching him by surprise again.
"Yeah," Gray says, his face flushing. "They did." And it's true. Before the bullshit hit his family like a ton of bricks, his parents were very much in love. Before his mother's cancer happened, before his father used drugs to self-medicate, before the insufferable anguish, they were once really happy.
"I've always dreamt about my wedding," Claire sighs, smiling at Karen from across the room. She wipes the rebel tears that have rolled down her cheeks hastily.
"Lucky you, most people in Mineral Town get married pretty young," Popuri tells her with a laugh, looking over at Kai longingly. She had been the one to catch the bouquet that Karen threw an hour ago, which apparently meant that she'd likely be the next one to get married (Gray was previously unaware to this dumb tradition). Claire's cheeks go all rosy at the mention of this, and he figures that his time to start drinking is long overdue.
After they're finished eating, he practically runs to the bar, doing two Jägerbombs with Cliff and Ann. He then downs back four Fireball shots with Karen, Kai and Popuri. Or, maybe I did more. Gray's lost count; Doug just keeps 'em coming. Surprisingly, Manna, Duke, and Harris even join in with them. Claire and Rick, sober as ever, cheer Saibara on when he steps in to do a couple, much to his consternation. Maybe Gray started drinking way too early in the night.
But, he's usually able to sober up pretty quickly. That just means that he'll be good for later, so that he can drink more.
Good choices. Good choices all around.
He's apparently convinced Claire to take a sip of his tequila. "Ah, it burns!" Claire hollers, stifling a laugh.
"You were supposed to lick some salt!" Popuri giggles, searching for the shaker on the bar counter.
"Where's the lime?" Ann asks, downing back her tequila with ease.
Gray takes the rest of it, downing it back while sharing a grin with her, and maybe this wedding isn't so bad after all.
Karen has popped in a CD of her favourite hits from this decade, the stereo pounding on the dance floors as she dances with Claire to that "Jenny from the Block" song that his mom used to like. Gray's eyes stay fixated on her the whole time. He wants run over there, kiss her, pull her away from it all. Away from Cliff swinging Ann around, from Popuri making out with Kai by the bar, from Trent searching for-
Wait.
What?
He hasn't spotted her yet. Trent's carefully combing through the room, obviously trying to locate Claire amongst the townspeople. Dismayed, Gray rushes towards her, catching whatever stupid is in the air.
"C'mon," he says, tugging her toward the middle of the dance floor.
"My shawl!" she exclaims, as it falls from her shoulders. He stands across from her, all wobbly, as if they're about to enact that dancing scene from Pulp Fiction.
"You… you don't need that, Blondie," Gray tells her. "You don't... need to cover up your scars. You... never do."
Claire looks up at him, her eyes big and blue. They look like the Curaçao and Sour Puss Raspberry mixed drink that he and Kai used to chug at high school parties. Damn… He takes her hand, much to her surprise, and spins her around to the beat of the song. Is this "Ride with Me?" Or "Pony"... ugh, I don't listen to any of this shit.
"How are you such a good dancer?" Claire asks him suspiciously, trying to raise her voice over the music. Gray spins her again, while Ann drops herself low next to Cliff beside him.
It's the alcohol. "How're you such a terrible one?" Gray slurs back, and she snickers.
"Uhmm, because you're making me dizzy!"
"Don't you… don't you blame your shitty dancing on me, Blondie," he says. Claire switches partners, grabbing Karen's hands in attempt to feel the rhythm, while Ann and Cliff join her. From the corner of his eye, Gray can see Trent make his way to where they all are as "Oops I Did it Again" comes on. Two reasons to get the hell off the dance floor.
"C'mere," he says, taking her hand while whirling her to the bar, amidst the crowd of people. He wants two things: that mixed drink the colour of Claire's eyes, and Trent to screw off. Doug polishes a shot glass thoughtfully, greeting them.
"Two… two Pornstars," Gray requests, holding up two sets of fingers on both of his rough hands.
"That's four," Claire tells him, laughing. The knot on her halter dress is coming undone, so she reaches her arms above her head to retie it. Her honey hair spills loosely around her, and this action makes her look so effortlessly sexy. Gray can't really explain why, though; he's too drunk. He just knows that he likes it.
"I know my math, Blondie," Gray says as Doug hands him both of the shots skeptically.
"I dunno, Gray," Claire says uncertainly. She's looking down at the little glass that he's given her, like it holds the answers to everything. "Will it sting going down?"
"It'll feel… so good going down."
Great, now he's thinking all dirty.
Stupid teenage hormones. This is the alcohol talking, this is the alcohol talking, this is the alcohol talking.
No, it isn't.
Gray clinks his shot glass next to her, and downs it back, like this will clear his mind. She does the same, her expression brightening.
"Hey!" Claire says, eyes sparkling. "That wasn't bad at all!"
Why does he want to taste the drink on her tongue so badly? What is wrong with him?!
"It's like… a Jolly Rancher, Blondie," Gray says. He just realizes now that the pinkcat flower is still nestled in her hair, like it's always belonged there. Wasn't he the one who placed it? "Hey… don't… you have a ranch?"
She grins. "Um, good observation?"
"Thanks." He tips his hat like a cowboy, bringing her back to the dance floor. "You okay?"
Claire nods. "Surprisingly, yeah. I'm like, guessing that didn't have a high alcohol percentage, right?"
He shrugs, ignoring this sentence, because it sounds a whole lot like something her stupid boyfriend would say. "Can't Stop" by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers blasts on, and he can't help but shift to a smile. "Do you know this song?"
"Um, I know it's by those people that you have a poster of in your room."
"The poster of the models... or the Red Hot Chilli Peppers poster that I got?"
"I can't with you, Gray," she laughs.
This isn't exactly a song that he can hold her to, but he's having too much fun to care. He sings along to the lyrics, and she tries to join in with him, shuffling her feet and throwing her head back to snicker. And then that song by Switchfoot slowly comes on... the one that every girl used to request at high school dances when they wanted their crush to notice them.
Claire smiles up at him. "Do you know this song?"
"No. Not really."
"It's called 'Dare You to Move' from this movie I love. It's actually a religious one, and-" She pauses worriedly. "Are you okay?"
Gray can't stop gazing at her. Is he dreaming any or all of this? His brain is foggy, but Trent is nowhere in sight. Did he get both of what he wanted? Such a concept.
"Never… better," he mumbles.
The pairs in the wedding party get together for this slow dance, holding each other almost instinctively. Claire doesn't press herself against him like they did at the inn that night, though. She knows better, she's got a boyfriend now, she's leaving room for Jesus, the usual. While still trying to be respectful amidst his intoxicated haze, Gray moves an inch closer, his hands on her waist and hers on his shoulders. He isn't sure if he's swaying, or the room.
"Gray, are you sure you're alright?" Claire stares at him worriedly. Yeah, he's definitely the one drunkenly swaying.
He doesn't meet her eyes. Because if he does, he'll surely kiss her. "I told you, Blondie… never better."
"I think that you're wasted," she tells him. "Know how I know?"
"How?" He spins her slowly, the bottom of his loafers making a tapping noise on the ground. "Besides the fact that I prob'ly reek of alcohol."
"Um, that," she says with a giggle. "And your Chicago accent really comes out."
Gray could hear himself all evening talking with that rough dialect… he just didn't know she could hear it, too. "Where're you from again?"
"Boston," Claire says, putting on the accent heavily, so it sounds more like "Bahstan." "I told you that."
"You didn't."
"I did so."
He barks out a laugh. "Maybe... you need to get wasted... so that your full accent can come out, Blondie."
She smiles, but her brows quickly knit apprehensively. "Do you miss Chicago, Gray?"
Gray doesn't mean to, but his hands tighten on her waist. He wants Claire to throw her arms around his neck so that he can pull her against him, breathe her in, hold her closer. "That was my home. But... I don't think I can ever... go back."
"So, is this your home now?"
"No."
She watches him sadly, her hand on her chest, hovering over the beating of her own heart as the song slows to an end. Gray finally allows his eyes to bore into hers, as he swallows back a lump in his throat. Why can't the alcohol help him to tell her that she feels like home? That when she's next to him, he doesn't give a damn if he's in Forget-Me-Not-Valley, or the Sunshine Islands, or even Mineral Town, because all that matters is her?
He looks down at Claire. At her ocean-blue eyes, like water from the deepest part of the sea. At her tousled hair, the colour of spun gold, cascading down her shoulders. At the smattering of sun freckles on her nose, at the translucency of her fair complexion, at each scar colliding against the skin of her back, visible only when he spins her around. He wants to trace them with his fingers, like those mazes that you have to find your way out of.
The flower in her hair is falling out of its place. With shaky hands, he adjusts it gently, and then there's a tap on his shoulder. Judging by the eager expression on Claire's face, Gray doesn't need to be a psychic to know who it is.
"Hi, Trent!" she exclaims, grinning.
He turns to see Trent's left eye twitching. "What's… up, doc?"
"Mind if I cut in?" Trent asks in a levelled tone, pushing Gray away with his hip. He stumbles to the side, regaining his composure quickly as "If I Ain't Got You"by Alicia Keyes comes on.
"You know where I'll be," Gray says, strolling over to the bar. Only this time, the walk to it is lonely and isolated.
Kai and Popuri still have yet to come up for any air in the corner of the bar. They've been making out for the last hour, so he figures that they can easily just get a damn room. "I'll have a Jack Daniels," Gray tells Doug, dragging his palm over his jaw. He feels like he could fall into a peaceful, deep sleep at any minute now.
"Make that two," says Karen, strolling over to knock Gray with her shoulder. "'Sup?"
"I'll have some water," says Rick, glaring at Kai and his sister.
"Don't be boring. Make that three," Karen says, before glancing over at Gray. "You look like shit!"
"Thanks, Kare."
"Make that four," Trent calls from faraway. The slow songs are over, and given how late it is, the night is nearly over too. He walks with his arm thrown around Claire's waist, clinging close to her.
"You want one, hun?" Doug asks her, pouring the amber-coloured whiskey into individual glasses for everyone.
"Oh, no thank you!" she says.
Gray sips his drink, but extends it to her with tremoring hands. "You'd like it, Blondie," he says, as she tentatively takes it.
"She wouldn't," Trent cuts in, snatching the drink from her. Claire rolls her eyes, grabbing it back.
"I'll be the judge of that," she says, plucking a straw from Doug to sip it. She makes a wretched face when the taste enters her mouth.
"Sexy," Trent tells her with a wink, leaning in to kiss her.
"Yikes," Claire snickers, peeling Popuri off of Kai, as if this sip of whiskey has given her a newfound burst of energy. She runs on to the dance floor with Popuri, while Ann joins them, giggling like mad.
"You remember me, don't you?" Trent says, after he catches Gray staring at Claire once again. Karen and Rick shift away uncomfortably, avoiding the confrontation that's about to transpire.
"How could I forget?" He takes a swig of his drink, relishing in the burn that it leaves in his throat. He unknots his bowtie, wanting Claire so badly right now, more than he's ever wanted anyone in his entire life. He needs to just go back in time, before he drank all of this booze, so that he can hold her close again.
"You can't blame your mother's death on me," Trent snaps. He places his drink down roughly, glaring at Gray, who in turn lets out a low chuckle.
"I can," he says. "And I do."
"Is that why you want my girlfriend? You're trying to get back at me?"
Gray stares at him dizzily. No way this asshole just said that. "I don't."
"You don't?" Trent picks up his drink again, leaning back to swallow it in its entirety, like the alcohol doesn't faze him. "That's interesting, because I think that you're lying."
"Claire's my friend," he says, and it's the truth; it's the honest to God truth. She is his friend. Before everything else that he's felt, Claire has been his friend first. It's just that something happened inside of him along the way.
Gray will be the first one to admit what a piece of shit that he is. Sure, he's miserable, and a grouch, and a horny dumbass, and foul-mouthed as hell, but he's not a bad guy; he's always been there for people. If Claire wants him in her life, then he'll gladly be there for her, whether it's to shield her from this jealous jerk, or to prevent her from flying too close to the sun. And if that means forgetting about his feelings for her, or pushing them aside as though they never existed, then so be it. Maybe he actually only loves her and cares for her as a friend.
Well, I've thought about her in ways that you don't typically think of friends in.
This could all just be some drunk bullshit philosophy that he's conjured up. But one thing's for sure: Claire is friend, and he wants to keep this friend safe and in his life.
"Screw you," Gray mutters, feeling like the same angry person that he was after his mother received her terminal cancer diagnosis. The version of himself who fought his way through pain and turmoil; the one who frightened others around him.
"You need to stay away from her," Trent warns. "I mean it. She's pure, and she doesn't need to be tainted by the likes of you."
That's what he wants? A girl who's squeaky-clean?
"Pure?" Gray asks. "Is that what gets you off?"
"Gray, she's a good girl. You can't just tarnish her."
"You oughta leave her alone, you friggin' creep."
"I'm a creep?" Trent lets out a breath, but he isn't laughing. He's fuming. "At least I'm not trying to take what isn't mine."
Like Claire is his property... like she belongs to him. "You're a creep 'cause you're goin' after a younger girl," he mumbles. "She's seventeen... she's a friggin' minor."
"You are so damn jealous. You can't just be happy for her?"
"Like hell I'm gonna be happy for her. Why can't you just date someone your own age?"
"I'm allowed to have a preference," Trent says calmly. "And she's almost eighteen."
"You cocky sonuvabitch." Gray shakes his head in disbelief. "I'm from Chicago, and I really don't give a shit. I will literally-"
"Oh, I know exactly where you're from. I did my damn residency there. I remember you. But I'm from Dallas, and I'm not afraid to fire."
The hell does that even mean? Could this guy get any lamer?
"I swear to God, if you touch her, I'm gonna fuck you up 'fore Officer Harris gets a chance to." Gray pushes aside the drink; his head is pounding, and suddenly, he doesn't feel like a fun drunk anymore. He's aggravated and doing his best to resist the urge to knock Trent's goddamn smug lights out.
He'd win the fight anyway. He's not cocky, he just knows.
Trent blinks. "Too. Late," he says, a smirk slowly forming across his mouth.
And Gray lunges for him. He drunkenly staggers over though, missing his steps and falling. The floor feels cool against his face, and on the bright side, his head isn't pounding anymore. That might actually be a bad sign, though. Trent notices the crowd gathering around them, and good-naturedly kneels down to help him up.
"Stay away from her," he says through grit teeth, lowering his voice. His expression quickly shifts to a smile, because he's fooled everyone and mastered the art of wearing a mask like the psychopath that he is. He extends his hand, but Gray refuses to take it.
Claire rushes over, gathering her dress in her hands as she runs to him. "Gray, are you okay?" she asks, her eyes all worried and watery-blue. So deeply fucking blue.
"Gray's having some trouble holding his liquor, Claire," Trent explains to her, professional as ever. "However, given the amount of food that he's likely eaten tonight, and with a stature such as his, I'd reckon that this is due to an overconsumption of highly concentrated alcoholic beverages. You see-"
She just ignores this condescending medical explanation, which seems to annoy him greatly. "Are you okay?" she asks again, looking at Gray anxiously. He merely nods his head. He doesn't care; he'll show that friggin' doctor.
He rises with forced ease, sobering up as best as he can, like he's done a hundred times before. He's a little unsteady, but he'll manage.
"Never better," Gray tells her, grabbing Rick's glass of untouched water from the bar, sipping it lightly. The straw misses his mouth a couple of times, and his hands are still quivering a bit, but Claire smiles in relief, and he really does feel better already. She looks like she's about to say more to him, until Trent urgently whisks her away, out of the inn doors, as the party diminishes to an end.
Although Gray pretends like he's fine, he's still very much drunk. And is unfortunately feeling both incredibly brave, and incredibly stupid.
So he darts after them like a paranoid idiot.
"Gray, I-" Kai begins, but Gray isn't listening. He's already gone out the doors.
"Was gonna ask you for something... but now I don't remember." Kai frowns, feeling woozy himself. He and Popuri drank way too much tonight, but his girlfriend's mouth on his makes any notion in his head very forgettable. They run upstairs to his room, with both Rick and Karen nowhere in sight, as their drunk lips mash against one another hungrily.
