The Now or Never Kind

Luckily Beth’s dad got an important business phone call—well, lucky for us, possibly quite unfortunate for some poor sod—so we were off the hook for a while. Mostly we sat in her room and did pretty much nothing; I flipped through a few magazines while she surfed the internet. As usually we somehow ended up reading really bad fan fiction; the hilarity de jour involved me stealing a bisexual Gabe Saporta from Guy Ripley. Not Ryland, Guy. We sent it off to Vicky for them all to enjoy.

Unfortunately we had sat down to have dinner together: big table, each with our respective plate, nooooo talking. For a while, that is. Eventually Mr. Di Costello asked me what I had been doing in New York and what college I planned to attend. That led to a semi-awkward moment—I looked to Beth for a clue, and she could only shrug slightly—and I had nothing else, so I told the truth. I wasn’t going to college; the band was going on the road full time starting in a few weeks.

He looked up at me in surprise, and I smiled tentatively. After a moment he continued eating. “Well, you’ve decided on a career,” he said. I breathed a sigh of relief and forked a bite of tomato. “You could learn something from her, Elisabeth.”

And then I made an idiot of myself by choking on my laughter. Beth kicked me under the table and I took a sip of water, narrowing my eyes at her over my glass. “Angie has extenuating circumstances,” she chided with a sigh.

“Yes, yes.” He waved that away. “That reminds me. Madeline and Anthony are in town.”

Beth dropped her fork. “Daddy, no.”

“You know how fond they are of you,” he continued conversationally. “Not to mention they have a son a few years older than you. He’s a good young man.”

“I have a boyfriend,” she reminded calmly. I picked at my salad, trying to make myself invisible. I could pick up on the underlying tone in her voice—she wasn’t sure whether Jesse was still her boyfriend, but she wasn’t about to let her father know that—but I wished I had that ability to not let my features betray my words.

Mr. Di Costello grumbled briefly before fixing her with a stern look. “A boyfriend who lives in another time zone whom you rarely ever see. You have no idea what he’s doing over there; he didn’t strike me as the most moral person.” He paused and turned to me. “No offence meant to you, Rhiannon.”

I didn’t know whether I should smile and say it was okay that he was questioning one of my best friends or if I should stand up for him because nobody, regardless of age or occupation, talked shit about people I love (but I’ll be honest, Beth’s dad scared me a bit), but in the end it didn’t matter because he rolled right on. “Regardless. You’re attending the party tomorrow.” He crumpled his napkin on the table beside him and continued over whatever Beth said. “And if you wish, Rhiannon may join you.”

My eyes widened at Beth, willing her to say no. She’d told me about the Giulianis and their parties. And their son. I shuddered to think about having to spend an evening with him, but that didn’t mean I wanted Beth to face the intense boredom alone.

“You know she would hate it,” Beth said, rolling her eyes and leaning into her fist.

“Be ready by four,” he said finally, standing. “Rhiannon, you can stay and… entertain yourself in some way.” As soon as he left the room, Beth let her head fall to the table. I reached across and patted it gently.

The next day we went out and bought her a new dress, shoes, and handbag. I almost fell over when I calculated exactly how expensive everything was. Beth did financial reprisal way better than anyone I knew. But it was fun wandering around fancy stores and picking apart how terrible a lot of things for sale were.

I should never be allowed to shop. I’m terrible for retail-workers’ self-esteem.

I was lying across the foot of her bed as I watched Beth put her makeup on. It was already past four, but I’d learned that when Paul said four, he really meant four-thirty. Fashionably late and all that. Beth was busy telling me all the secret fun things she did when no one was around, like running down the main hall in your socks and sliding until you hit the door and playing the grand piano really loudly. And then of course there was the library, which was always a good idea.

Soon, however, I found myself waving goodbye to my love, behind the tinted windows of the car, and wandering back inside this very large, empty house. After walking around for fifteen minutes, and realising that I was lost after ten, I ended up back in Beth’s room. For a while I texted back and forth with Didi. Apparently she already missed us and was thinking of drive out to Chi-town; she’d never been there, after all, so it would prove interesting. I told her not to drive for hours and hours yet since I had no idea how long we would be sticking around.

Eventually I simply flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling awhile before deciding that there was no way I was comfortable here. Particularly by myself. So without moving my eyes from mentally drawing patterns on the plane above me, I scrolled down in my phone and waited for it to ring.

“Hey,” I greeted in a monotone. “Want to drive down to Elmhurst and pick me up?”

On the other end, William laughed richly. “Why would I do that?” he asked, amused.

“Because I’m bored and will pay for gas?”

“But why would I want to see you?”

“…Just come get me, you twig.”

The intercom on the wall crackled on about half an hour later, and the doorman’s voice came through, saying that there was a Mister William Beckett here to see me. I snickered to myself and told him to let him in. Even though it made him sound like something out of “Gone With the Wind”. Or maybe that was just the doorman’s accent.

I managed to find my way to the front door easily and skipped to the front door just as the bell rang. I suppressed a smirk thinking that Beth probably would have knocked the doorman—I still didn’t know his name—out of the way and answered the door herself, but I waited patiently, hands folded behind my back.

William looked uncertain, to say the least. I don’t blame him; I was just of agog the first time I went to Beth’s house too. But he smiled when he saw me grinning at him. “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” I said, strolling out. “But assure Mr. Di Costello that I’m quite safe with a friend, and don’t mention his name.” The man in the suit nodded and shut the door behind me.

“What was that?” Bill asked incredulously as we walked to his car.

I shrugged. “It’ll be better for you if Paul doesn’t know I’m with you,” I explained. “Although he probably already has a file on you, what with you doing Warped with us last year and all.” Now he looked more than slightly timorous. And I just smiled.

I found it amusing that he didn’t ask what I wanted to do until we’d gotten to his house. “Have you eaten yet?” he asked as I wandered around the living room.

“Define eaten,” I replied. “Aww! Little Billy!” I picked up a picture and held it next to my face, grinning widely. “How fucking cute were you!”

William snorted. “Like you weren’t adorable at two. I’ll call for pizza. What do you want on it?”

He went into the kitchen, presumably for the phone and number, and I continued looking at all the pictures. It seemed the whole house had that perfect homey feeling that was so rare, and I felt oddly comfortable here as I crouched to look at a rack of movies. “First you talk to my mother and then you find baby pictures of me? Frightening, truly terrifying. And you’re the expert of Chicago-style pizza; you pick.”

Leaning back into view, he gave me a dry look. “I asked because you went veggie last summer,” he pointed out, waving the phone at me with one hand. I waved him away and smirked when he grumbled nonsense loudly. I hopped up, grabbing a few cases, and strolled after him. Bill was finishing up giving the address for delivery when I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his middle. I leaned my chin on his shoulder when he hung up, chuckling. “Hi?”

“You never told me you like terrible horror movies and martial arts films,” I said, holding up the DVDs. He shook his head, escaping my grip to cross to the fridge. “We could’ve talked about that instead of whatever the hell we talked about when I was drunk.”

“Aww, but you’re so fun when you’re antisocial and depressed,” he said with a grin, pulling out two bottles. He handed one to me and took the movies from my hand before walking out to the living room.

Both of us were completely enraptured by the hilarity of the “monster”—also known as a guy in a terrible orange and brown bird-thing costume—when the doorbell rang. We scrambled up, trying to get to the door first; he tickled my side, making me shriek, and I grabbed him by the back of his red skinny jeans and tugged him back. I landed with a thud against the door when he missed launching himself ahead of me.

“Get off me, Lamppost!” I laughed, trying to push him away enough so I could open the door. “I’m going to pay for it.”

“Like hell you are,” he argued, grabbing my wrist and pinning my hand against the door. “You’re my guest, princess, and I’m not—” Bill squeaked, a noise that, if I made it, Matt and Jesse would mock endlessly over how feminine it was. I nudged him back and opened the door, smiling politely at the very confused-looking pizza guy.

I can hardly blame the guy. My hair was a mess, there had been thuds and suspicious noises, and I was out of breath. I paid for the pizza and took the box, telling him to have a good night; he hesitated in replying, “You… too, ma’am.”

Bill was glaring at me from the couch when I turned, and I shot him a hopeful smile as I set the box on the table in front of him. “Pizza’s here?”

He rolled his eyes and handed me a napkin. “You didn’t have to grope me,” he muttered, taking a slice.Yes, I did. “Your pants made me do it,” I justified with a straight face, munching on a piece of cheese. “Nothing but trouble, those things.”

Chuckling, Bill shook his head. “But you can’t just go around feeling people up. It’s socially unacceptable and they’ll get the wrong idea.”

I rolled my eyes away from the movie and gave him a look that screamed ‘Are you fucking serious?’ “Since when have I done things based on what other people think?” I asked. He shrugged innocently. I turned back to the screen and took another bite. “Besides, this isn’t public.”

“Meaning what?” he asked after a moment. I blinked a few times before shrugging a shoulder. I really didn’t have an answer; it was more of an observation than anything else.

It was nearly eleven and in the middle of our third movie when William spoke up. “Mind if I ask you a personal question?”

Lying back against his chest, legs half-hanging off the couch, one elbow using his knee as an armrest, I queried lazily, “When did we start having the start the type of relationship that we have to ask to ask personal questions?”

“Touché, Princess. I’ll bear that in mind.” He fidgeted and I leaned forward so he could make himself comfortable before he pulled me back. “Is there any other reason you and Ryan broke up besides trust?”

It took me a few moments of not-thinking before I frowned. “I don’t think you talk to the All Time Lowians much,” I reasoned slowly. “So one of them talked to either Gabe or Pete. I’m going to guess it was Jack, since he’s got the biggest mouth, and Gabe, since Pete should know better by now.”

“Actually it was Ryan.” I tilted my head up to look back at him. You look so cute with glasses was the thought that drifted across my mind as he glanced down. “He said it was to warn me against loose morals, but I think it was so I would know if you were suddenly miserable again.”

I exhaled loudly through my nose, crossing my arms. “If he’d expressed that level of concern when I was with him, I’d not have ended it,” I muttered.

Two hands wrapped around me and uncrossed my arms, holding my hands apart. “You and I both know that’s a lie,” he reproached gently. I frowned stubbornly, but it melted when fingers curled around mine. “But you’ve been surprisingly cheerful. Why is that?”

“Because it hasn’t hit me yet?” I guessed, not even paying attention to the movie anymore. “Because I’m always away from him, so how is this any different?” I sat up, setting both my feet on the floor and folding my hands in my lap. “Trust me, it’s taken a lot to feel normal, and right now miserable sounds about normal.”

William sat up, one leg behind me, and simply looked at me. I bit my lip, intently focused on not looking at him. I twitched, feeling his fingers walking back and forth across my leg. I turned sharply, frowning childishly. He raised his eyebrows, smile growing. “Admit it. You’re happy.”

“How dare you make such a scandalous accusation.”

He laughed, taking my hand again. “It’s okay. You were in a situation that you didn’t like, then you remedied it. Being pleased is perfectly—”

“It was a fucking mistake, Bill,” I snapped, shutting him up. “I had something good and when it was at a low, I made a knee-jerk decision, and now it’s over. I am, as most people would say, a fucking idiot.”

As I glared at him, lips pursed, he studied my face with deliberation. “You don’t want to talk about him,” he said eventually.

I smirked humourlessly, pulling my hand out of his. “See? I always said you were intelligent.” I stood and headed for the front door.

“Where are you going?”

“Outside. I need some air.”

I’d intended to wander until I cooled off, but I never made it past the front porch. William grabbed my wrist to stop me and turned me around to face him. I blinked expectantly. Smiling he tucked my still-messy hair behind my ear, knocking me off-guard, and gently pressing his lips to mine.

It’s funny how you don’t notice how something is gone until it comes back. Or something better appears. I hadn’t had that nervous, sick, excited feeling in my stomach in months, and for something like a kiss… I didn’t remember when the last time that was.

But this was Bill. Billiam Weckett. Bilvy. Lamppost. The charmingly annoying bastard who called me princess all the time. I wasn’t supposed to get that sort of reaction from him.

“Why would you do that?” I sighed, eyes still shut.

A knuckle stroked my cheek, making the skin prickle. “I don’t know,” he said almost casually. “Maybe because guys often do things on the spur of the moment… Maybe because of the way the porch-light caught you just right… Maybe just because I still can’t help finding you incredibly attractive when you’re angry.”

My eyes snapped open. “That’s not what I meant!” I stepped away from him, tugging my hair. “God damn it, I can’t take this!” William looked puzzled, which yanked at my stomach for some reason, almost enough to bring me to tears. I rubbed my eyes and met his gaze as surely as possible.

“I’m a mess, alright? I’m a pile of broken pieces that have been stepped on too many times to be put back together without a lot of time and an exorbitant amount of patience I highly doubt anyone has the capacity to possess. That is why I don’t want to talk about Ryan, because he seemed to get that and accept that, and I don’t think I’m going to find someone who’s willing to try for a good, long time.” Bill had almost no expression, just watching me. I sighed. “So what do you want from me?”

He shrugged a shoulder vaguely. “Just something simple.”

I laughed shortly, turning to lean on the fence and look at the clouds looming in the black sky. “Of course,” I said mockingly. “Simple. And what would that be?”

In the night quiet, William crossed the porch and stopped behind me. I shuddered as he drew the curtain of hair away from my neck, kissing the skin just below my ear as he hand crept along my stomach. “Everything,” he murmured.

My breath hitched when he nipped my neck, and I steadied myself by gripping the fence tightly. I swallowed hard, trying to collect and straighten my thoughts, but that didn’t stop my fingers from running through his hair. Am I dreaming? I wondered. My stomach jerked as I felt hand slide up under my shirt. Nope. Definitely not dreaming.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” William asked against my neck. My eyes flickered open, and I licked my lips before nodding. He pulled away and turned me around so I was leaning against the post frame.

I took a deep breath and tried not to think about the fire in those dark eyes. “I hated you,” I said in amusement.

There was something wicked in the way he smiled, even in the dim light. “You know what I’ve always wondered since then?” He fingered one of my earrings and let his fingers trail down my neck to the pendant resting on my chest. I meant to hum inquisitively, but it came out as more of a squeak. Then his smirk definitely widened. “If you growl like you did at me that day during sex.”

My mouth fell open in shock, but I didn’t get the chance to comment since at that moment the night around us flashed blindingly and boomed deafening. I jolted away from the post and clung to Bill, arms tucked between us. When I regained my senses, he was holding me tightly and rain was pounding down from the sky.

Bill kissed the top of my head. “I didn’t think you were afraid of thunder, princess. Or anything else that wasn’t human.” I looked up, embarrassed that I’d reacted as such, and he chuckled, pulling me by the hand. “No, I know you love storms, but we’re going inside.”

As soon as the front door shut, I realised how hard my heart was pounding, and I could barely hold onto a thought. Well, except for a few, but I wasn’t about to divulge those. “You know,” I said as William turned off the movie we’d abandoned, “You never showed me your bedroom.”

He quirked an eyebrow at me, lips tilted up faintly. “No…” he agreed. “I didn’t. Why?”

I sauntered over to him slowly, hands in my back pockets. He tilted his head at me and shuddered visibly when I ran my hand over his belt buckle and tugged. I walked backwards, pulling him along by the belt until Bill started guiding me by the hips.

When he reached past me and pushed a door open, I had to take my attention off him and fulfil my habit of taking in all the details of the room. I’d never seen it, but it all seemed strangely familiar, and it took me a moment to realise why. “My room’s taken on the same ‘I spend no time here’ look,” I mused.

William stood from leaning in the doorway and slid the door shut. “Well, I don’t. Tour and all.” A chuckle escaped my mouth when I noticed something, which triggered a memory. “What?”

I grinned, eyes darting over to him from his bed. “You have red sheets.” He nodded slowly, stepping towards me. “I had a dream that you had red sheets.”

He smiled, our arms finding their ways around each other. “Maybe it’s a sign,” he whispered ominously. “You having dreams about me.”

“Maybe,” I agreed softly. We looked at each other for a long moment before I smoothly pulled his glasses off and set them on the dresser. Then all I could think of—if you could call it thinking—were the sensations: his lips, his tongue, his hands, his hair. He eased me down to sit on the bed, and I instantly tugged him down on top of me.

I arched into him, whimpering, as his hands slid up my sides and over my chest, and my fingers tightened in his hair when he trailed kisses down my neck. “I hate buttons,” he muttered, trying to undo my shirt. I chuckled quietly and gasped when he bit my shoulder. Bill looked up at me, grinning with his tongue between his teeth, and commenced kissing down my chest as he pushed my shirt off my shoulders.

I easily undid his belt, making him groan into my skin when I pressed my hips against his. Next I set to work at his jeans, and I had learned that the thing about getting off skinny jeans was to either use your feet or be on top.

He seemed surprised when he found himself on his back with me straddling him. I smirked at his expression and drew a finger down his chest to the top of his jeans. He bit his lip, head rolling back, as I slid the zipper down slowly and torturously pushed them down; he kicked them off, making me slid forward and creating friction between us that made him moan.

I bit my lip, grinning at the sound, and he sat up to catch my lips, quickly undoing my bra with one hand and making it disappear. Then William pulled me by the back of the neck until I was kneeling over him and without even bothering to unzip them, tugged my jeans off my hips.

“Stupid me forgetting to wear a belt,” I breathed before sealing my lips around his clavicle. He let out a hoarse chuckle, skimming a hand down the front of my boyshorts, which caused a muffled squeak.

“I adore you for wearing easily removable clothing,” he whispered, rubbing me teasingly. I buried my face in the crook of his neck, trying not to make a sound. “Except for the buttons.” He pressed his palm against my breast, making me gasp.

“You’re going to punish me over buttons?” I pushed his hand away and rolled my hips against him, feeling him jerk towards me.

His fingers dug into my ribs. “Oh, god,” he groaned in my ear. I smiled into the pillow and squeaked when he flipped me over and pinned my shoulders back. He gave me a narrow-eyed smirk. “You’re a fucking tease.”

I shrugged as best I was able. “So I’ve been told.” I pushed my lower lip out and tugged at the hem of his shirt; he flung it away and ran his fingers through my hair. My lips curled into a smile as I drew a pattern on his chest with my index finger, watching him shiver. “Have I mentioned that I love hearing you swear?”

William smirked and, licking his lips, dipped toward me. “I don’t want to hear you talking in complete sentences anymore,” he whispered, fixing his mouth to my neck again. I arched into him, whimpering as I felt his hand slide down my stomach again, and restrained myself from pulling his hair.

I pressed my lips together, hand tightening into a fist around a handful of sheet, as he slid a finger into me. He nibbled at my neck, trying to provoke a sound out of me. Shakily I eased my hand downward, but just as I passed his navel, William grabbed my wrist and pinned it above my head.

“Don’t make me tie you down,” he murmured, sliding in another finger. I quickly turned my head, stifling my moan into his mouth; he grinned into the kiss and let go of my wrist to brush his thumb across my cheek. My hips jerked into his, and I dragged my fingers down his chest and slipped by hand into his boxerbriefs.

Bill pulled away just long enough for a groan to escape before I pulled him down by the back of the neck. I rolled my hips in circles, moving my hand up and down at the same agonisingly slow pace. He pressed his face into my neck, whimpering as he felt around frantically in a drawer with his free hand. I lay back relaxed as he growled in aggravation and sat up to sift through the dark.

His head rolled back with a moan when my hand sped up a little. “Oh fuck,” he breathed at the ceiling.

I chuckled softly, and he looked down at me as my chest heaved. “Would you really tie me down?” I asked, intrigued.

I could see him smirk as he pushed my hand away; William slid my boyshorts off, and his boxers soon joined them on the floor. He grabbed my wrists and held them by my head, attacking my neck with his lips. I twisted, pressing my body flush with his. “That was a full sentence,” he reminded in my ear, voice already croaky. “So I guess we’ll find out.”