"I'm a time bomb,
It's time that I explode,
Waited so long, For moonlight overload
You are the only target,
I always hit my mark,
Let's get this fire started, Our sparks will light the dark."

Midnite Dynamite - KIX

/

Joss tried to forget about what had happened in the classroom with Billy as she ate lunch. She poked at the food in front of her with very little enthusiasm as Lori chattered on about classes, the private party coming up the weekend after exams - that Lori had an actual invite to, and a whole array of other subjects that helped take Joss' mind off everything else for a short while.

By the time the school day was nearly over all Joss could think about was leaving and falling into bed, sleeping until her stomach woke her up demanding food, and then she'd sit and watch whatever junk was on TV until she felt tired enough to go back to sleep again.

But life was rarely ever that easy, and she groaned silently to herself at the homework she still had to complete. She had an essay due by the end of the week, her last paper, that was already overdue, it would count towards her upcoming final exam results. She had no choice but to find her way to the library and spend a few hours working on it before she could get that blissful release of being home.

She walked with Lori back to the lockers, getting out her own books as Lori chatted on about this fabled upcoming after-prom party. It was a good thing Lori knew her well enough to know Joss had no desire to attend any of these highly social events, otherwise Joss might have felt a twinge of missing out on something big. But as it stood, Joss felt she'd rather have pins stuck through her eyeballs than attend a senior leaving party.

She supposed Billy would be attending too. She guessed he was also going to prom as well, another event that Joss had no desire to step fifty feet near, but she couldn't help wondering who his date was? Everyone who was anyone already had their partner picked out months ago, and Joss didn't think he was the type to leave his choice until the last minute.

"So, it's either blue or green, what do you think?" Lori said.

"Huh, what?" Joss questioned, her attention lacking.

"My dress, Joss, are you even listening?"

"Yeah, of course I am. The blue, I'd go with the blue, it'd bring out the green in your eyes." Joss didn't really know if that was true, but it sounded like something she'd read in one of her mom's magazines.

Lori looked placated if not fully convinced Joss had been truly invested in the conversation. "Well, thanks. Hey, you fixed your bag!" Lori said, pointing out the repair. "That's a cool knot, I didn't know you were a girl scout."

"Yeah, it's holding pretty well," Joss said with a strained smile, not really enjoying this whole game of lying and avoiding, it felt like it grew with each new cover up and excuse.

"Hey, Tanner?"

The deep familiar voice made Joss freeze, her whole body feeling a sudden rush of panic that gave her the unpleasant sensation that she couldn't draw in oxygen for a few seconds.

Her eyes flew to the source, and to her dumbstruck disbelief, she saw Billy was making his way over, his arm slung around his latest on-again-off-again girlfriend.

Joss felt suddenly trapped, her heart beginning a random frantic beat that threatened to be heard by everyone around her as it pounded in her own ears. Her eyes darted a moment for any escape, even though she knew there was none, that this was it, the moment she had always dreaded, becoming gut wrenchingly real. He was going to expose her right here in the shitty musty smelling school hallway. He was going to tell them all she was an impostor, and then she'd become that same outcast and terrified eleven year old that had cried herself hoarse every night because of the prospect of one more soul destroying day here. She'd worked so hard to be just another face in the crowd and she'd idiotically poked the bear that would now be her downfall.

Joss blinked stupidly and Lori gave her a discreet nudge to snap her out of her frozen state.

"Hey," Joss managed to push past her lips, knowing to remain stock still and silent would only seem all the more bizarre to anyone around them.

She glanced at Lori out of reflex, to see her response to all this, and saw she was now looking at Joss with confusion and surprise, that Billy Hargrove was not only singling her out, but that he knew her name.

"Hey Trish," Lori said to the girl with her arm resting lazily at his waist.

"Hi, Laura?" Trish questioned, with a dismissive sigh, sounding like she didn't give a damn about any of their names or company. "Listen babe," she said, directing all her attention to Billy, not even waiting for Lori to acknowledge she'd got her name wrong. "I gotta go get some stuff from my locker so, meet you by your car, later?" She gave him a wink and her hand slid across his backside in a promise of what a good time later would be.

"Later, baby," Billy said, as she walked away up the corridor, his eyes lingering upon Trish's body before flicking back to Joss, as if sheepishly caught doing something he knew wasn't strictly okay. But a smirk quickly replaced any perceived doubt, sardonically enjoying watching her reaction to this confrontation.

"So, you know Joss?" Lori questioned, sensing Joss' discomfort of being targeted so publicly, and trying her best to defuse the sudden tense air that had gathered around them.

"Yeah, Lori, right?" Billy's gaze went to Lori, his expression and gestures all dripping with grinning charismatic charm. But, Joss could see him giving Lori a good sly study, working out what buttons he could push to get this conversation where he wanted, wherever the hell that was. "She helped me out with math the other day, right, Tanner?" He turned his grin back to her and Joss wanted to back up a step.

"Yeah," Joss said, with no real conviction, thankful that the heat had been directed away from her just long enough for her to find some form of composure and not turn into a hyperventilating mess. "Thursday afternoon," she said pointedly, not wanting her time line of the fictional Jerry she'd told Lori about to overlap by mistake.

"Thursday, yeah." He smiled and glanced down as if concealing his need to laugh. "I just wanted to come by and say thanks again, it really helped." He somehow gave a look that was both bashful and predatory beneath a frame of lush dark lashes, using his looks to their full advantage, and Joss saw Lori being slowly but surely sucked in by it.

Joss' mind buzzed, slowly feeling all her heightened emotions drifting back down. If he wanted to expose her, he would already have done it by now, and this didn't feel like a conversation with someone intent on destroying her life. But it did feel like he was pushing, trying his luck, seeing just how far he could take things before she broke. Joss didn't have any intention of breaking and that thought galvanized her, she pulled her posture up a little straighter.

"Joss is a total life saver with notes," Lori said with a giddy grin, seeming to find this sudden attention from someone popular quite fun, despite her previous doubts about Billy.

"Yeah, total life saver. A real saint," Billy said, looking over at Joss with a glint in his eyes, as if sharing a private joke between them, but Joss wasn't smiling. "You girls on your way home? I can give you a ride, if you want?" Joss could feel his eyes on her, searching, lingering at her throat. Was he checking for his love bites?

Lori pushed against Joss discreetly in silent excitement. "I mean I'd love to, but I've got band practice and Joss is going to the library to study, so..."

Joss wanted to groan in displeasure at her plans being disclosed to the one person she felt like she needed distance from right now.

"Maybe another time?" Lori said, with a hopeful look.

"Yeah, another time." Billy said, with a devastatingly disarming smile. "See you 'round." He gave a little flick of finger to his brow in a mock salute and walked off in a confident strut, which Lori seemed to be enjoying a little too much for a moment. Joss stared after him as well, but her reasons were very different to her friend's, and after a few seconds she regained herself and began to fuss over the contents of her bag.

"What the actual hell!" Lori squealed. "You know him? How do you know him?"

Joss squirmed at the questions. "Know is not quite the word I'd use." She decided to keep her answers as passive as she could.

"How come he came to you for help?" Lori asked, not letting Joss off so easily.

"He got a detention on Thursday, I guess, and I was still hanging around after school. He asked if I was good at math. I am, so I just... helped him out. It wasn't a big deal." Joss felt a sour fizzing clutch at her stomach. More lies to count, more lies to try and keep straight.

"Sure," Lori mocked gently. "Dates aren't a big deal? Billy Hargrove owing you one, isn't a big deal? What world do you live in Joss?!" she teased.

"It isn't a big deal," Joss deflected.

"At least it now makes sense why you defended him the other day."

"I wasn't defending him, I just-"

"Yeah, I get it now. You spent time with him, saw he wasn't really that bad of a guy, right?" Lori smiled as if solving a puzzle she'd been working on for a while. "And, I get why you did, I understand you wanted to give someone a chance because you-" Lori cut herself off and glanced away. "It's cool Joss, I get it."

What exactly did Lori think she'd got? Because Joss didn't really understand any of this either. "Okay, it just isn't a big deal," Joss repeated, still feeling that little pulse of panic threatening within her. Lori reached out and touched Joss' arm lightly as if able to sense the unease that had started to spread and consume its way through her mind.

"Joss, it's fine, I get it. You don't have to explain, it's cool." Her eyes were full of a meaning that Joss couldn't really say she understood, but she nodded, feeling somewhat reassured.

Joss let out a sigh of air through pursed lips and closed her eyes a moment, truly trying to let go of the anxiety. "Okay."

"Besides," Lori said with a little mischievous side glance, "I think he likes you a little."

"Me?" Joss said, her voice suddenly too high.

"Don't freak out. He was just looking looking at you, you know?"

"No, not really." Joss tried to play her reply off as completely oblivious.

"Well, you wouldn't," Lori said, nudging her. "I gotta go, I'm gonna be late, but see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Joss said, raising a hand in weak farewell as Lori pulled her bag onto her shoulder and returned the wave. As she watched her friend walk away, Joss' stomach wavered somewhere between that place of fluttering butterflies and freshly poured cement, because if Lori had seen something, who was to say others wouldn't see it too?

/

A/N

Hello! Welcome back. I hope you are enjoying the story. Another short chapter, but hopefully a bit of a tense feeling build up, a few set ups for what's to come and well, I'll shut up before I just tell you blow by blow what will happen. I'm excited to get this all uploaded and complete.

Your time here is a gift and never expected, so thank you for spending your reading time with me for a while.

Until next week, maybe we can find out what Billy's little game is?