Mako's Message: First off, I need to talk about this cover art contest I mentioned in the previous chapter. First of all, the art that is currently up is NOT a reader submission, but a sketch I did myself, and it's not that great, and it's just line art because I can't color to save my life. It's just a place holder.
The second thing is that I've decided that this will be a "running contest". There is no end date for it, and I will continue to accept submissions until the story is over, possibly beyond. Every piece of art I decide to use as cover art will win the artist a fic of their request.
Thirdly, I want to (re?)state that this art can be anything. Photos(original or photoshopped), hand drawn, CG, whatever. It can be realistic or stylized, doesn't matter. I just have to love it, or find it most appropriate for the story.
Other than that, not much else to say. Just a fun little chapter. You might want to go (re)read the christmas chapter of Holiday Bonus too. Just because. But it's far from necessary.
Enjoy!
Riley needs to stop making me like her.
With Katie it was easy. I didn't like her, and if I get a chance I'm going to kill her. Or I'll do something so that she can never have children. Depends on how creative and or merciful I'm feeling at the time.
But Riley...she's genuinely nice and really cool. She offered to take Angela and all her friends out to the mall for her birthday. Which was kind of a surprise until I found out that it would just be the four of us. But that was a surprise too. I mean, last year she had like, three other girls at her party besides me and Jessi, and now that she's a cheerleader you'd think she'd have MORE friends.
Now that I think about it though, by the end of the last school year I didn't see her hanging out with anyone else...or talking about anyone else...not really. When I met her I remember thinking she must be really popular if she was worried about people crashing her party, and I had the impression that she wanted to be one of those super popular girls with a whole mob of friends, but when I asked her about it today she just put an arm around my and Jessi's shoulders and said, "Quality over quantity girls, quality over quantity."
Anyway, Angela's mom dropped us off at the mall and we were just wondering what we should do while we waited when Riley showed up, looking like a sexy bitch as usual. She came up and hugged Angela and said, "Happy Birthday" and then she looked up at the mall, then back to us, and then she asked Angela to hold her hand.
We all kinda blanked out on that one.
But she just grinned and held out her hand and said, "Come on, give me your hand."
So Angela took her hand and then Riley looked at me and Jessi and said, "Okay, you two hold hands too."
I admit I didn't get why she wanted us to hold hands. It's not like we were a bunch of toddlers and she was afraid we'd get lost. But she wanted us to so I shrugged it off and held out my hand for Jessi. She took it, but she looked embarrassed as all hell. I think I even caught her blushing a few times, not that I can blame her, considering.
Then Riley raised her and Angela's hands up, laced their fingers together, pulled her close and said, "Alright, let's go fuck with men's minds."
And it all clicked.
I think Angela really enjoyed the looks she and Riley were getting because she really started to get into it. She never once looked like she tried to let go of her hand, just pulling Riley along if she decided she wanted to go in a different direction, and they always stood as close to each other as they could without actually occupying the same space. But damnit they tried.
I wonder what Dave would have thought if he'd seen them like that.
I wasn't having as much fun with it as they were. I actually kind of forgot I was holding Jessi's hand and just kept doing it because I didn't think about letting go either. Nobody looked at us the way people looked at Angela and Riley though. They were raising dicks and the most we raised were eyebrows. It didn't bother me though. The last thing I needed was people actually thinking I was in to girls. Not that I saw anybody from school, but still.
There was one moment though when Jessi and I were sitting on a bench outside of a Victoria's Secret. Angela and Riley wanted to go in, but Jessi and I refused. I had no interest in seeing Riley pick out underwear..
Actually, maybe I should have gone in. Might have given me an idea about what Dave likes. Besides leggy blondes with big tits that is.
Anyway, while Angela and Riley went in and looked through frilly underwear Jessi and I sat outside on a bench, and we were still holding hands because we'd just stopped thinking about it. And across the...hall? Street? These two guys were walking in front of the stores across from us and one of them spotted us and pointed us out to his friend, who looked over and smiled at us. Then they lifted their hands up, letting us see that they were holding hands just like we were, and nodded to us before going back to whatever they were talking about.
Jessi turned completely red. It was pretty funny actually.
I told her we didn't have to keep holding hands if it was embarrassing her so much, but she just shook her head and said, "No, it's okay. It's kinda fun, watching guys look at us. That was just..." and she blushed again.
And we ended up sitting out there for ages. I ended up texting the guys while we waited. Dillon sent me one of the photos from the other day(one of me on the swing)which was actually really good. I showed Jessi and she immediately asked me to send it to her too.
I'm not surprised they took so long though. They were having so much fun in there I think they might have actually forgotten about us for awhile. They weren't even bothering to get dressed between trying things on and would just walk back out into the store in whatever they tried on last, like they were putting on a fashion show. I pretended to blow my brains out when we noticed this, which Jessi thought was hilarious.
The worst part though, was that when they did finally come back out Riley was staring at this business card, which Angela explained was part of a job offer. The blond bitch actually got an offer from the regional manager to be a Victoria's Secret model. Well, really she said she was going to try and set up an interview/audition/whatever for her, and that if she didn't hear anything from them in a week to call the number on the card.
But after looking at the card for a couple minutes she threw it away, which horrified Angela so much it was fucking hilarious. She stood staring into the garbage can for almost a full minute before finally saying, "Why?"
And then Riley had to go and shrug and say, "I've got better things to do." which actually made me respect her more.
So then we all decided it was time to get lunch, and Riley treated us to whatever we wanted from the food court.
As we all sat down, Riley stared up the ceiling and tapped her lips and then said, "Let's play a game." Whenever everybody stared at her she said, "Well this is her Birthday party after all. We should play at least one game."
I grabbed Jessi's hand again and lifted it up over the table and said, "This didn't count?"
Riley just smirked and said, "That's an entirely different kind of game." Then she sat down and said, "Alright, let's play 'The Celebrity Look-Alike' game. We take turns being compared to other celebrities. I'll go first as an example." and then she leaned onto the table and said, "So, who do you think I look like?"
Jessi made the first suggestion, "Britney Spears?"
Riley's mouth fell open a little and she shot her this "wtf" look just before Angela said, "Jessica Simpson." Riley turned and glared at her and I grinned and said, "Pamela Anderson."
And with that she threw her fork into her tray and crossed her arms and said, "Okay, seriously, fuck you bitches. I bought you lunch and this is how you repay me?"
After we were done laughing Angela took some time to think about it before saying, "Scarlett Johannson? Maybe?"
And Riley said, "Okay, that's more like it," then looked at me.
I snorted as I picked at my food and said, "I'm sticking with Pamela Anderson."
Riley flipped me off then asked Jessi, "What about you?"
Jessi said, "I'm trying to remember her name...but there was this girl on this show my brother watched that looked like you...I don't know her name though. It was about killer robots that looked like people."
Riley just looked at her with her eyebrows raised, "Killer robots? Was it Battlestar Galactica?"
Jessi shook her head and said, "No, this was in set in the present"
Riley said, "No idea then."
Angela said, "Alright, my turn."
Riley said, "I have a girl in mind I just can't remember her name. Give me a minute."
Angela looked to me and I said, "I guess you kinda look like Emma Stone."
Then Riley snapped her fingers and said, "Emily Browning!"
Jessi said, "I was thinking she kinda looked like Selena Gomez..."
Riley looked at Angela for a moment and said, "Yeah, I can kinda see it..."
Then she said, "What about me?"
And nobody said anything. For a long time.
Jessi kinda shrank into herself and I think she said, "Nevermind" but I couldn't really hear her.
Then Riley said, "Jessi makes me think of a taller, slimmer, Kat Dennings."
Angela asked who that was and Riley just said, "Google her."
Then I took the plunge, "So, who do I look like?"
"Chloe Moretz", from all of them. At the same time.
I'm not gonna lie and say I wasn't shocked at how quickly they all answered. I asked them, "Don't you even need to think about it?"
Riley shook her head and said, "No, not really."
Angela nodded her head and smiled at me, "It's kinda creepy."
Jessi shrugged and said, "You also kinda look like Taylor Swift,"
That was about when Riley checked her phone and swore then said, "I just just realized that there's no way for me to get to work on time if we go see a movie. It's my fault, we shouldn't have spent so much time in Victoria's Secret. Can we cut this short? I'll make it up to you another time I swear."
Angela was fine with it, saying that it would give us plenty of time to get ready for trick-or-treating, so we split, and headed home.
It kinda sucks though, when I picked out my costume I was figuring I'd be going with Dave for at least some of it, but he's working with Riley, and even if he did get to see me in costume it wouldn't matter. It doesn't matter how tight my pants are, or how loose my shirt is, or if I don't bother with a bra, because Riley will always be able to out do me in sex appeal. And even if Dave thought I was one sexy pirate, he would probably just imagine what she'd look like in what I was wearing.
But at least I'll still be carrying a real cutlass, so hopefully we'll run into candy thieves again.
