Chapter 7: Lollers

Violetsaregrace has joined the chat

Malonestits (15:15) hey babe

Violetsaregrace (15:15) hey… Malone stits?

Minixoxo (15:16) Silly! Malones tits, cos she's got the best x

Malonestits (15:16) too true

Violetsaregrace (15:16) Oh, of course (:

Minixoxo (15:17) Wanna come out for retail therapy? X

Malonestits (15:17) shoplifting

Violetsaregrace (15:18) Joking right? Lollers. Uhm I've got ballet now.

Malonestits (15:19) Too bad. Shoplifting without ya innocent face will be tough

Violetsaregrace (15:19) Hee hee

Minixoxo (15:21) you sound 5 when you do that.

Violetsaregrace (15:21) Haha?

Minixoxo (15:22) Better.

Violetsaregrace (15:24) I was actually wondering if you two wanted to properly hang out with my friends.

Minixoxo (15:25) Who? Manky and Gingey?

Malonestits (15:25) When?

Minixox (15:25) Liv?! You actually want to?

Malonestits (15:25) Come on, Mins. Give it a go. We should meet gracey's friends

Minixoxo (15:27) Fine… It might be somewhat amusing. When?

Violetsaregrace (15:27) Yaysers! Tomorrow night!

Minixoxo (15:28) I have a date with Nick. Soz x

Malonestits (15:29) Just tell Nickers no. You've called it off before over a fucking manicure.

"Let's go through the piece starting at the one minute mark… Where the grand battement with pirouettes is."

Thursday. Ballet practice has been so intense these past few days with my recital coming up on Monday so I've practically been living in the studio with just my strange, yet wonderful teacher and some fellow students. Currently we're going through my solo piece, but sometimes during group classes I just have to watch the others doing their own pieces and my mind will wander to, I don't know, my current friendy drama.

I run through my piece another two times before my teacher says we can leave. I'm so exhausted, I want to cry.

"Your piece is looking good," I fetch my bag and slip my feet into my trainers as I hear Christopher (a bit of a dippy) compliment me.

"Thanks, I hope it all goes well on Monday," I reply with a smile, slinging my bag over my shoulder.

"Course it will, you don't need to get stressed out about it." There's a pause as we open the door of the studio to head outside. "You've been looking rather stressed out over it."

"I'm really not, its okay," I say, trying to sound much more upbeat than I currently feel. "I suppose I have a lot going on other than this, so maybe… perhaps it's that."

"Right," I pull on the sleeves of my jumper as we enter outside with the cool evening air.

"But I have been perfecting my ballet joke to keep my spirits up!"

"Yes?" He asks, even though he looks like he's ready to say bye to me and walk in the opposite direction.

"What do you call a stupid ballerina?" I ask with a grin, trying not to laugh before I give the punchline.

"I don't know," He says, coming to a stop. I giggle before speaking again.

"A leo-TARD!" I laugh loudly, so proud of myself that I don't even realize that Christopher seems to have zero reaction to my joke. It's funny, laugh, Christopher, laugh!

"Do you get it?" I ask slowly after I manage to get over my own laughing fit.

"Uh… yes," He says, avoiding eye contact with me. I'm about to ask why he didn't even smile when he talks once more. "I just found that quite offensive."

And then he walks away.

"Oh."

I'm left standing by myself for a second. See what I mean by dippy, he's such a prissy-stick! I've been having ballet classes with him since I was twelve and he's cried at least that number of times in our classes. He's probably gone to cry over that joke now too. It was funny! Oh, poor Christopher, I feel a tad rotten over that.

Well, I guess a walk home awaits me as my Dad had to stay late at college today. It's too cold for this though! It's not like I can complain though to either of my parents, because they will say it's September so naturally I should be wearing a coat when I go –

Oh.

Oh no.

Please no. Pretty pretty please don't tell me that's Rich standing about twenty feet away from me this instant.

It is.

What on earth is he doing here?! He has never, ever come to meet me after ballet before. I was under the impression he didn't even know when or where I had ballet!

He's probably come to ask me to hang out with him and Jade for the evening. Or tell me we're not friends anymore because Jade forbids it. Not as if we've been acting really like friends since Monday anyway.

He's staring right at me so I can't even run away. I'm staring back at him so I can't pretend that I haven't noticed him. He's now waving. I awkwardly raise my hand up to wave back.

"Hey," He says when we've closed the distance enough to speak at a normal level to each other.

"Hello," I say, still a bit confused/startled to be quite honest. "What are you doing here?"

"Alo insisted you join us for a drink today," He starts, signaling in the direction of the pub. As if he needs an explanation for this behavior of Alo's, he adds, "Since you've been avoiding us all week."

"Avoiding you?" I repeat with a laugh that's probably too loud. Rich simply stares at me with furrowed eyebrows.

"Ahem, I haven't been." I add, once my laughter subsides.

"Yeah, well I guessed you had been busy with ballet so I just thought I'd come here and uh wait for you." I pause, before nodding and setting off at a brisk walking pace towards the pub. I never agreed to go, but I suppose I do owe them that since yes, I have been avoiding them.

I just have felt like I can't really be a friend to Rich (or Alo) with Jade there. It makes me feel uncomfortable and I don't think she really likes me anyway. And there's another reason.

I've been spending some time with Mini and Liv whilst Rich has been spending an increasing number of hours with Jade. It makes sense if I don't want to lose Rich and Alo as my friends that I a) get used to Jade and b) get us all to become one group of friends.

I'm not sure how to get part a) into motion yet, but plan b) is currently in full swing. Firstly I asked the girls if they would be willing to hang out with my boys to which they agreed and now I need to ask my boys (should be easy to convince them) if they would be willing to allow another two guests to our zombie movie night tomorrow.

"Well haven't you been busy with Jade as well?" I ask, staring at the pavement rather than looking at him, but out of the corner of my eye I see him turn to look at me as I finish asking the question.

"Uh… I guess, yeah." We remain silent for a moment as I wait for him to say something more about Jade. He doesn't and I seem to find this more annoying than him talking about her a lot. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to preserve some body heat as I think of something to add to the conversation.

"She's perfect for you," I say for the sake of saying something about her. I look back up at him and see him smirk but it's more bemused than his usual all-knowing smirks.

"What makes you say that?" Well, Richard, I don't know why I said it, so thank you, I have to now think of something off the top of my head.

"Oh… Well, her personality and she – interests, yes her interests. And fashion." I mumble, trying to sound convincing. As I say it though, I do realize it is true. They are perfect in many ways, they would have a lot to say to each other and agree on many things, which are good things in a relationship.

For example Belle and Beast had many common interests (despite the obvious differences between them) like books and snowball fights.

"Oh, yeah, well, we're getting on." He replies, as he fishes out a cigarette and lighter from his jacket pocket.

'Getting on' meaning in Rich language that they were perfect in the ways I had previously mentioned. Things in common and such. I shudder, finding the cold too much now, as I vow not to speak of Jade again for the rest of the evening.

"Uhm… here." I glance up at Rich, wondering what on earth he's talking about, only to see that he's stopped walking altogether. I stop too, seeing him remove his heavy leather jacket. He silently holds up the jacket.

"What?" I ask in barely an audible voice. He gives a small, lopsided smile as he lifts the jacket over my head and places it carefully on my shoulders. I pull on the jacket so that I can slip my arms through. We are still standing still and I'm not entirely sure what's going really. All I know is my heart is beating wildly and I am now wearing Rich's jacket. A jacket I've never seen him willingly remove unless it is in the middle of the heatwave and even then he's reluctant.

"Thank you," I breathe, smiling up at him. He smiles back with the cigarette sticking out from his mouth, giving a shrug before finally looking away and walking in the direction of the pub. I feel bad he's now in just a t-shirt in this kind of weather. We continue to walk in silence for the remainder two minutes of the walk.

As we enter the Rhubarb Tavern, I become aware of what wearing a boy's jacket usually means. Most people in the pub will think we're dating and weirdly it doesn't make me feel… uncomfortable? Due to this remarkable realization that I am currently not uncomfortable, I grab Rich by the wrist before he can make his way over to the ginger boy who I can see the back of from where we're standing.

Rich stares down at his wrist with one perfectly arched eyebrow before looking at me. I forget for just a moment what I wanted to do so we stand silently for a second.

"Blood," He says in a calm, sort of humorous voice. "I don't really need to hold anyone's hand when walking."

I sigh, releasing my grip and beginning to remove his jacket.

"I just… I don't need this anymore, because we're inside now." I say, extremely slowly. Why am I acting so weird? It's literally just Rich. The guy I've face painted before. The person I managed to convince that you could probably sit on clouds (it was at the very beginning of our friendship) and then he came to school the next day with many printed pages proving why I was wrong, so now he is a little less eager to believe me. The person I manage to tease at least once a day.

I've been finding it harder to tease him though lately, what is really going on with me?

I let my gaze fall as I follow Rich over to the table and get ready to be the happy, cheery and never-in-a-bad-mood Grace for Alo's sake.

"Grace Face, where the fuck have you been hiding?!" Alo asks in a loud voice as he stands up and picks me up into a hug. I laugh, before falling in the sofa seat opposite both him and Alo.

"Alopops, I have missed you dearly, but ballet has been rather demanding." I say, not really having to fake my happiness with Alo's overall enthusiasm.

As I'm happy for the first time since spotting Rich only a few minutes ago, now seems like the perfect opportunity to put the final steps of part b) into motion.

"So I actually have a question about Mini and Liv…" I tentatively begin, seeing Rich instantly lower his gaze out of silent annoyance.

"Yes. Whatever it is, yes." Alo says eagerly, leaning in closer to hear the rest of what I have to say. I laugh, shaking my head, of course Alo is the easier one to convince.

"Excellent, because I was wondering if they could possibly join us for zombie night tomorrow?" Rich snorts loudly.

"Why the fuck would they want to come to zombie night?" I haven't seen Rich raise his eyebrows that high for a couple of days at least.

"I've already asked them and they said they would love to come and get to properly know the both of you." I say with my most innocent of shrugs.

"Woah, woah, woah, Mini wants to get to know me?" I give a big, toothy smile instead of giving an actual answer to that. "Rich, man, if you steal my once-in-a-lifetime shot with the greatest breasts on a stick, I will… I will do something really shit to you."

"Fine." Rich says with a deadpan expression. I'm taken aback I didn't have to do any convincing myself. He raises a finger and points it right at me. "Just so you know we are playing an R rated zombie movie and if anyone so much as complains they will be kicked out. All right?"

"All right," I say, nodding rapidly.

"Okay, so a cranberry vodka for you?" He asks with a sort of… smile before standing up and heading to the bar.

Why is he being so nice? He rarely ever offers to buy me a drink. And he's never given me his jacket before.

"Strange…" I mumble out loud, before realizing I was actually saying that out loud.

"What?" Alo asks, looking extremely confused as I snap out of my trance and look at him.

"Oh… I just… I didn't have to convince him at all about Mini and Liv invading zombie night."

"Yeah, well, Jade's coming too so he can't really say anything."

I look back at the bar which Rich is standing at, ordering our drinks and I can't deny things anymore.

I can't argue with Franky about the differences between Rich and Alo.

I can't think of any ways to get plan a) in motion, because that's never going to happen. It's not going to happen because as long as she's dating Rich I'm not going to be able to stand being in the same room as her.

Because I have the biggest, unstoppable and soul-crushing crush on my best friend, Richard Hardbeck.

A/N: ALERT! ALERT! Angst lies ahead. Woo thank you to my two regular reviewers, you legit are my reason for keeping this going and I always get excited to read your always lovely reviews. You two sweeties 3