EDIT #2: JESUS MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST. I'm sorry the formatting keeps fucking up and I'm tired and just jfc someone shoot me please. If the line breaks don't properly show up, then I'm really sorry. I had to use ~~~~~~~~ since the real line break wasn't working.
EDIT: So apparently the upload fucked up. Hopefully it's fixed. Son of a bitch.
A/N: I don't really know how to start this. It has been a shit year, and these past few months have been the worst of it. I'm sorry. Family shit, personal shit, fucking school shit. I don't know. I had to take a break from a bit. I realized how genuinely bad this story is. I'm not trying to be all "oh everything sucks I have no talent feel bad for me" I just genuinely didn't realize until recently how many plot holes there are and how underdeveloped some characters are and just how overall bad this story is. Hopefully it'll improve as time goes on, as this is a learning process. Anyways, enjoy, I guess. A shit chapter to end a shit year.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable. Oh and I didn't proof read, so yea, oops.
Ryan pulled out of the kiss, trying to calm herself from the rush both surrounding her and inside of her. She felt Carlos rest his forehead against hers and she opened her eyes to his smile. She mirrored his expression with the addition of biting her bottom lip.
"We should go congratulate them," he suggested in a whisper so soft she could only hear it due to the close proximity.
"Yeah, we should," she nodded slightly in agreement, but she made no visible effort to move.
"Come on," the Latino laughed, pulling away but offering him arm to her.
Her fingers curled around the muscles of his arm, and they emerged from the kitchen into the crowd of guests. They finally reached the newly engaged couple and broke apart to congratulate them, Carlos patting Chris on the back and Ryan embracing Mia.
"Hey babe. Finally put a ring on it, I see," Ryan observed, lifting Mia's hand to see the gem sparkling on her ring finger before nodding approvingly at Chris.
"Finally planted a kiss on him, I see," Mia retorted, and though she spoke to Ryan, she looked pointedly at Carlos with a Cheshire grin.
"You were being proposed to, and you split your attention to want me kiss a guy?" Ryan questioned with a raised eyebrow.
"Hey, you're very expressive in your kissing. It's hard to miss," Mia teased.
"Shut up," Ryan rolled her eyes, dropping her hand off of Mia's arm in exasperation before turning to face Chris. "Take care of her or lose a limb, ya' hear?" She raised an eyebrow with her threat, but Chris chuckled lowly.
"I think you should be more concerned about my safety than hers," he reminded, receiving a slap on the arm from his fiancée.
"Point proven," Carlos pointed out, gesturing to Mia's action. The older woman scowled at him, Chris laughing to himself and pulling towards the other guests.
"Thanks, guys. Help yourselves to the champagne," he said as he led her away. Carlos and Ryan both smiled before they themselves turned into the crowd to find their own friends.
"I'll be back on the fourth. Just a day or two after you. I promise," Carlos said sincerely after handing James the keys to his car so that the brunet could start the heater.
"And I'll be at the airport to pick you up," Ryan assured with a laugh, leaning back against his SUV barefoot with no regard to the chill of the air against her bare legs. She waved over his shoulder at Logan tucking a very drunk Kendall into his backseat. Carlos turned around to wave goodbye to his friends before looking back to the woman standing before him.
"Can't wait," he admitted, biting his lip as he glanced down at the tiny scrawl of a tattoo just peeking out from the bottom hem of her dress and seemingly wrapping around her thigh.
"Eyes up here, sweetheart," Ryan smirked.
"Aw, she calls me sweetheart," Carlos teased, resting his forehead against hers.
"Don't get sappy on me now," she warned with a small smile.
Carlos chuckled in response, pecking her lips for a brief second before just barely pulling away. He repeated the action playfully over and over until she was laughing against him.
"I'm glad you're giving us a chance," he admitted honestly, still leaning over him with their faces just inches apart. She nodded.
"Me too," she said in a small voice, gaze flickering from his oaken to his bitten lips and back.
The action didn't go unnoticed, and Carlos took the opportunity to her into him once more. This kiss was slower; innocent but with all the passion he could muster. Ryan, at a disadvantage without her heels, pulled away from the car and wrapped her arms around his neck loosely, leaning up into him. Carlos grinned against her lips, Ryan mimicking the action when she heard a loud groan coming from inside the SUV.
"You have three seconds to untangle yourselves before I drive off without you," James warned from his spot in the driver's seat through the open window on the passenger's side. The pair outside laughed as they pulled apart, Ryan moving to the side so that Carlos could reach his door.
"You're designated driver next," James said defiantly as Carlos swung the door open and fell in.
Carlos watched through the window of the moving car as Ryan stood, waiting to go in after she could no longer see the SUV. James glanced over ta his friend, shaking his head with a short chuckle, and Carlos smiled to himself, already counting down the time until the fourth.
Ryan sighed as she entered the room. She stood in front of the small vanity mirror sitting opposite to the bed and stared at her reflection before crinkling her nose and sighing again. One by one, she began removing the pins from her hair, growing more and more annoyed with each tangle and knot. Finally, her hair was free of the monstrosities and she could card her fingers through it comfortably.
Taking a seat on the bed with an entire container of makeup remover pads, she set to work on cleaning off her face. She wiped away at her skin gently, trying her hardest to ignore the tingling feeling that had lingered on her lips since the clock struck midnight. Several minutes and far too many remover pads later, her skin was more or less clear, and it was finally time that she could change out of the horrid dress she had been forced into.
After she'd rid herself of the offending fabric and slipped back into a pair of pajama pants and a shirt she was sure belonged to Alex at some point, she made her way to the restroom. Scrubbing off the remaining makeup with face wash, she stared up into the mirror and tried to refrain from groaning at her own thoughts. The night's events wouldn't leave her mind no matter how hard she tried—everything from the engagement to the beginning of some form of a relationship with Carlos. If it would succeed or if she'd end up running, she didn't know, but just thinking about what the future held left her feeling uneasy. Retiring to her bed with yet another heaving sigh, her thoughts were thankfully broken by a rap at the door.
"You decent?" she heard Alex ask from the other side.
"Nah, I'm buck-ass nude and riding a camel," she responded loudly from her place on the bed. She could almost hear Alex rolling his eyes as he opened the door.
"That was a terrible response. I expect better from you," Alex smirked as he kicked off his own dress shoes and loosened his tie.
"I'm tired, so fuck off," Ryan grumbled, pulling her laptop from her bag beside the bed.
"Yeah, that was one hell of a night," Alex sighed, popping the top two buttons of his dress shirt before falling backwards onto the bed. "Can't believe he finally grew a pair."
"It was about damn time," Ryan agreed with a grunt before smiling at the thought of her faux-sister's engagement.
"Well you could've manned up and said something yourself," Alex commented, turning his head so that Ryan could see his raised eyebrows.
"Wait what?"
"You could've made the first move."
"I could've…. Proposed to Mia?" Ryan was entirely confused.
"No," Alex scoffed with another roll of his eyes, "I'm talking about you and Carlos."
"Oh."
"Yea, 'oh.' Genius," he scoffed again as he sat up.
"Well sue me for assuming you'd want to talk about your sister's engagement more than your friend kissing some random guy," Ryan defended.
"Okay but everyone saw the proposal coming, and while we were all biting our tongues about you and Carlos, it wasn't as expected."
"You call bugging me every two minutes to call him 'biting your tongue'?" she crossed her arms defiantly.
"Okay," Alex admitted after standing up and beginning to rummage through his duffel bag, "so maybe that wasn't the point. But it still wasn't as expected. Plus Chris did ask me before he proposed, so I knew that was happening and so did you."
"Okay was there a point to bringing all of this up?" Ryan huffed, angrily shutting her laptop loud enough to stun Alex who raised an eyebrow.
"Just assumed maybe you'd want to talk about it. I was expecting more of the giddy, I-can't-believe-it-finally-happened, my-prince-has-come kind of mood."
His voice went up in pitch, and he twirled like a teenage girl in love to accentuate his words, but all he received was rolling eyes and a huff. At that, he himself rolled his eyes in annoyance and retreated from the room to the adjacent bathroom.
Ryan reopened her laptop, aimlessly scrolling through news articles and advertisements and absentmindedly thumbing at the ever-present ring around her neck, lost in her own thoughts. While the idea of being with Carlos would have made anyone else giddy, it only made her nervous, and each time she tried to recall the evening's events, she could only cringe to herself. With a sigh, she shut her laptop and dropped it to the floor beside her, knowing she was doing nothing but wasting its battery. After removing her glasses and shifting a few times, she found herself drifting asleep.
Alex woke up to a warm and itchy yet familiar sensation on his neck that drew his attention to the girl curled up into him. Although she often slept near him when they shared a bed, he could tell this time had been different. He looked down at her groggily but with genuine concern, his heart falling to his stomach when he felt her body quaking, her breathing coming out in shattered sighs. She kept her face buried in his chest, but she knew she had woken her friend when she felt him shift, pulling her closer to him and holding her with a hand high on her back. Alex shushed her softly, dropping a light kiss atop her mass of messy brown locks.
"M'sorry," she mumbled into his t-shirt clad chest with a sniffle before looking up slightly.
"S'okay," he assured, looking down at his best friend with a comforting smile. "Wanna talk?"
Her bashful but affirmative nod surprised him greatly, but he quickly sat up and reached for the white fluorescent light built into the old headboard. As it flickered on, he pulled her up to sit, his arms holding her as close as they possibly could. She was silent.
"Okay, talk," he laughed lightly.
"What the hell am I getting myself into?" she asked him in a small voice, her head tilting up to look at him from its place on his chest. He sighed at the rarely-seen helplessness in her hazel eyes.
"I can't tell you for sure, babygirl. That's kind of the point. Taking chances and making your own story out of what happens." He hated having to give her that answer, and she hated getting it, but she remained silent. Alex shifted with a sigh, getting her attention.
"Look, Ry. I know you don't like it, but it's going to feel like this until you change. You can't be so closed off to the concept of being close to someone other than me and Mia and Chris and Margaret."
"I know, but—I don't know. Y'all have seen me at my worst, and you experienced the cause for my current state first hand. You saw what happened to them. You all saw what it did to me, even Chris!" She sat up completely until she was facing Alex, sitting between his legs. "You were all there, and you all stood by me at my worst so there's no way you can compare me opening up to y'all to me opening up to—to him."
Her voice faltered at the end, frustrated tears welling up in her eyes once again, her fingers clenching and balling up into fists. Alex sighed and sat forward, rubbing his hands over her knees comfortingly until he saw her hands relax slightly.
"I know. But do you really need someone to go through that trauma with you for you to know you can trust them? I get that he didn't see you then, and I get that he doesn't even know your whole story, but babe, that's because you won't tell him." His argument was valid, and Ryan knew that very well.
"You need to talk to him. You need to tell him about your parents and about your grandfather and your possible job. You need to tell him about you, and you need to do it before he thinks you're hiding it from him."
"I'm not hiding it from him!" she defended "I just—I haven't gotten around to telling him yet…. Not quite by accident…."
"That's hiding it," Alex said with a pointed look. "And what about when he finds out that you told James?"
"Hey, he knows that I told James something that I wasn't ready to tell him, and he's made him peace with it!" Ryan argued defiantly.
"Yes, but he doesn't know that it wasn't just one thing; you basically told him your life story. If anyone deserves to know, it's the guy who wants to love you, not his best friend."
"And what happens when he finds out that I'm romantically challenged? It's not like the quirky, cute, inexperienced-schoolgirl-who-never-dated kind of challenged. It's trauma. He can't handle that."
"You haven't given him a chance to try."
The argument came to a halt at that statement. Ryan knew she had been bested, and frankly, she couldn't think of another way out to save her life. She grumbled an unintelligible insult at Alex who just chuckled and pulled his best friend back to his chest as he lied back down. There was an unspoken thanks that radiated from the look Ryan gave Alex as they got situated, the light remaining on just as Ryan liked it. Before they could drift off back to sleep, Ryan tucked under Alex's chin, she mumbled something sarcastically, just loud enough for him to hear.
"Happy fucking New Year."
A/N: Yowch. That was just bad. I'm sorry. I needed to have that last scene to prevent even more plot holes. Anyways, happy new year, y'all. Thanks for sticking with me despite me being a piece of shit. Let's hope 2015 doesn't fuck up like 2014 did.