The next few months were filled with parties, HIM concerts, and band practices that Ville always wanted me to tag along to. For some reason that escaped me, he seemed to be fascinated with me.

He liked to sit on my couch and watch me while I painted on the floor. He was often asking me to draw or paint something for him, and after a while it got to be a habit for me to sit and sketch him or the rest of the band during practice, or when he was composing a song. I had drawn more pictures of him in the few months that we'd known each other than I had anyone else in my entire life.

As fascinated as he was with me, I was probably more so with him. He could act like a child sometimes, sitting in weird positions and chewing on his lip or the pen when a song was giving him trouble. And other times he acted just like the rockstar that he was, shirtless in his low-cut jeans, watching me with smoldering eyes and giving me a suggestive smirk while he was on his post-show adrenaline high.

He showed me his artwork, as well. He liked to sketch and paint like I did, and though he didn't have as much free time as I did to pursue visual art, he had a talent that I did not -being able to draw a person from memory- and I had several sketches he had done of me hanging on my bedroom wall.

My weekdays were filled with school, which I found didn't stress me out like it use to, and my nights and weekends were filled with Ville and his band and friends.

Being around Ville gave me a sense of confidence that I hadn't had before. If this wonderfully talented man thought I was worthwhile, then I thought I was, too. I stopped worrying so much about what other people would think of me. I started dressing more boldly, and put dark blue streaks in my blonde hair. And one night while drunk and hanging out with Ville and one of his tattoo artist friends, the man had talked me into letting him pierce my lip, so I had a little silver stud in the right corner of my lower lip that I liked to chew on.

Overall, I felt like an almost completely different person than I used to be, and I was definitely enjoying myself. I was completely content with my life.

'The one downside of 'Life With Ville', though, was the hangovers', I thought from my perch in front of the toilet.

XxXxX

I was in my last class of the day, working on my homework for the night and simultaneously writing down the notes that the professor wrote down on the whiteboard. There was a party at some bar that Ville liked in Espoo. I had no idea what Espoo was, but according to my cell phone, was about ten miles from Helsinki. But whatever it was, there would be a party, and I would be lucky to make it home in time for school tomorrow, there was no chance I'd have time to do my homework.

Luckily I finished the assignment before the bell rang, leaving only the homework from my last class for me to do during first period tomorrow. I got up and ducked into my messenger bag strap and grabbed the bag of clothes and toiletries I had so that I could get ready at Ville's, and was out of the classroom before anyone else. I knew Ville would be waiting for me in the parking lot, either with Mige and his car, or to accompany me home on the bus, as usual when there was a party that night.

When I got to the parking lot I followed the sound of loud music to Mige's car. I tossed my messenger bag and pink duffel bag into the back seat and crawled in after it. I returned Ville's smile from the front seat. He looked cool as usual, with his long legs encased in destroyed jeans and feet clad in Chucks' stretched out and resting on the dashboard.

"Hey, darlin'. How was school?" When he talked a stream of cigarette smoke spilled out of his lips and I smiled at him.

"It was alright, for a Tuesday."

It was apparently not illegal to drink and drive in Finland, or Mige and Ville just didn't care, and after a few drinks of some sort of green liquid that Ville had in a water bottle, I decided that I didn't care either.

I found that my mind was speeding up, and I didn't feel drunk, just... weird. Shifty, almost.

"Ville, what is that stuff?"

He turned back towards me and grinned. "Absinthe. Like it?"

I considered it and realized that I did. "Yeah, feels good."

I continued to drink from the bottle and it seemed that in no time at all we were at Ville's apartment.

I crawled out of the car and followed Ville up the stairs, Mige following me with my bags because he had been worried that I would fall down the stairs if I tried carrying my stuff myself. When we got to the apartment we were greeted by a half-naked, and more than half-drunk Linde.

It was barely two o'clock in the afternoon, and already the four of us were working on some major hangovers.

I set my stuff down on Ville's bed and made my way into his kitchen to dig around for food, I hadn't eaten since I got up this morning at six.

Since Ville had a diet that consisted of mostly celery, peanut butter, alcohol, and coffee, that was what was in the fridge. As well as a can of whipped cream that didn't I even want to consider the purpose of.

"Ville, I'm hungryyyy!" I whined as he walked into the room.

He blinked and glanced down at his stomach, which I assumed had started growling. "Hmm, me too. Mige! To Sinenin Ankka!"

Mige whooped and I assumed whatever 'Sinenin Ankka' was, he approved. Linde, now with a shirt, a pair of boxers and rain boots on, led the way through the apartment building.

We all piled into the car again, this time Ville was in the backseat with me, sitting sideways against the door with his legs thrown over mine because they were too long to fit between the seats. I had continued drinking from Ville's water bottle after Linde had told me it would make me 'trip my balls off', and I wanted to see what he meant. I poked at Ville's kneecap through the hole in his jeans, my muddled mind finding the rough skin very interesting.

We parked in front of an obnoxiously blue building and the green liquid made getting out of the car a lot harder than getting in it had been. When I tripped and fell into Ville he took the bottle away, telling me to take it slow for a bit. I didn't particularly want to, but I figured that Ville knew more about that stuff than I did.

We sat down in a corner booth, me squished in between Ville and Linde. As they translated the menu for me I realized that none of the items on it had any meat in them, and figured that was why the three boys liked the place so much.

After ordering our food and a round of beers the boys started talking band stuff and I relaxed in my seat, content to watch them. Ville and Mige dominated the conversation, and Linde interjected occasionally in his calm -and slightly slurred- voice.

I watched the rapt expressions on their faces and suddenly wished for my sketchbook, which I had left back at Ville's. I glanced down at the rosary around Ville's neck and imagined him with a halo around his head and the expression he was currently giving Mige, and giggled.

Ville glanced over at me. "What'cha laughing about, blondie?"

I giggled again. "You look like Jesus."

Mige started laughing and Linde launched into a conspiracy theory about Jesus actually being the anti-Christ and a satanist and having all the Christians fooled that made me contemplate alcohol being the only substance affecting his mind.

XxXxX

We made our way home an hour later and then watched movies in Ville's bed for the next five hours.

At nine I untangled myself from the three of them and made my way to Ville's bathroom to shower so I wouldn't be completely disgusting in the morning. Ville had apparently changed clothes while I was in the shower, and when he walked into the bathroom to pee he had on a pair of black jeans with a sheer black shirt and biker boots.

I was in my underwear and had the two different outfits I had packed laid out on the counter, trying to decide between the two. I could either go with the dark red lace dress that made me look like a 'hot naughy whore', in Sasha's words, or the strapless black dress and lace tights, 'hot classy whore', outfit.

I decided on the black dress. When I finally wrestled the skin-tight outfit on, not an easy thing to do while half-drunk, Ville was standing in front of the mirror trying to tame his curly hair. It didn't like doing what he wanted, which usually led to him shoving a hat down over it.

I knew how he felt, my hair wasn't curly like his, but it did have quite a wave. I decided against messing with straightening or curling it, and instead put it in a french braid that ended in a bun at the nape of my neck.

I glanced over at Ville, who was watching me. "Want some makeup?"

He shrugged but seemed interested, so I got out a grey and a black eye pencil and and lined his eyes heavily with both, so that they had kind of a smokey look.

When I finished he put his hands on my shoulders and used them to steer me towards the wall where he had just been standing, "shove over, love," and started digging through my makeup bag.

I'd learned long ago that Ville was damn good at applying makeup, though I never saw him wear more than eyeliner. I guessed it was an artist thing.

He pulled out a dark grey eyeshadow and put it on my eyelids with his fingertip. He added thick black eyeliner to the top of my eye and electric blue to the bottom.

When he finished I pulled on my shoes- knee high, leather, stiletto heel boots. And then turned to check out the result. Ville smiled at the two of us in the mirror. "We make one sexy fucking pair."

XxXxX

It was a couple hours later and I was lit like a firecracker. Ville, next to me and equally drunk, was laughing and talking to Mige with his arm around his shoulder, and I suspected he couldn't stay up by himself.

I had made friends with a redheaded girl when I was dancing with her and she had asked me if I wanted to go to the bar with her, in an American accent. Instantly I'd had to introduce her to my friends, and dragged her off to find them.

That had led to the girl -Mila, Maria, Mikaila?- making out with one of Ville's black haired friends -Jyrki or Jussi, I still hadn't figured out which was which- and me trying to help Mige keep Ville in his chair. The other black haired guy, I was pretty sure this one was the one that answered the door for me all those months ago -did that make him Jyrki or Jussi?- was next to me trying to keep me upright.

I turned to him and grabbed his hand as I stood up. "Dance with me!" I grinned in a way that I hoped he couldn't say no to, and tugged on his hand.

We danced a few songs and then I felt someone come up behind me and warm arms wrapped around my waist. Arms that I realized were covered in tattoos that I knew all too well when I glanced down. I was suprised he was standing, let alone dancing.

Jyrki/Jussi grinned at Ville over my shoulder. He had a look in his eyes that made me think that I might have gotten a bit in over my head. Ville's head rested on the top of my head -I was that short- and suddenly whateverhisnamewas leaned forward and they were kissing. Right. Above. Me.

My jaw dropped open and I was too... we'll go with shocked... to care that I looked like a fish.

And then Ville's arms retracted until just his hands were on my hips and the other guy pulled back from him and I thought we were going to dance again until I realized that he was leaning towards me. His eyes were really blue close up. And then he was kissing me and I was thinking about how I wanted it to be Ville kissing me instead until I realized how rude that was and went back to trying to decide whether it was Jyrki or Jussi that was kissing me.

When he finally pulled back from me I noticed that the part of Ville's body that was pressing into me had gotten a lot -ahem- firmer than it was before. I flushed. I knew I wouldn't ever act on it, but there was some definite threesome potential here.

We continued dancing until the other black haired guy pulled Ville away from me and told the three of us that it was four a.m., and the club was closing.

XxXxX

Another one of Ville's friends, this one with short brown hair -I really needed to learn their names, it'd been months- dropped the four of us off at Ville's apartment.

We were all stumbling drunk and passed out as soon as we made it to a suitable sleeping surface; me, Ville, and Linde in the bed, and Mige in the bathtub- it was closer to the toilet, he said.

I was not thrilled to wake up an hour and a half later for school when my phone alarm went off. Even after a shower and three cups of coffee, I was still not entirely sure I was completely sober.

I dried my hair and put it in a tail and then pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater, with nice, conservatice Keds. I smiled at my reflection in the mirror- I felt like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.