I Have Been Right All Along

SARA'S POV

“Oh, sweet! We’re close to the beach!” Hayley yells as her and I hop off the bus, shielding her eyes from the sun. Her smile is almost as bright as the sun. Obviously Hayley loves the beach.

“Where are we?” I ask as we stand around outside, enjoying the warm weather and some place that isn’t the bus or a dressing room.

“Florida!” someone yells from behind us. I turn around and see Brendon gleefully jogging towards us, a smile plastered on his face. I’m glad to see a smile plastered on his face rather than himself being plastered.

“Florida!” Hayley yells, raising her arms in the air, her hands balled into fists. I join in with celebrating with her.

“Yeah! Flori-oof!”

“Florida!” Brendon yells from my back.

“Bren, get off! You’re like a million pounds!” I yell, hunched forward as I grab onto Brendon’s legs. Brendon slides off my back and I turn around to his pouting face.

“That look suits you,” I smile, lazily pointing at him.

“I don’t weigh a million pounds,” he says knowingly, pursing his lips.

“Okay,” I say sarcastically, letting out a loud laugh.

“I’ll weigh myself tonight! You’ll see!” he says, pointing at me.

I laugh and shake my head at him.

“Hayley, do I look like I weigh a million pounds?” Brendon asks, looking past me at Hayley.

She walks forward, her hand on her chin as she looks him up and down with her eyebrows knitted together.

“Well … you do look a little heavier,” she concludes, dropping her hand from her chin.

He hastily looks down and smoothes out his striped red t-shirt over his stomach before looking back up at us.

“Really?” he asks, sounding concerned. I keep my face straight as I nod at him.

“Thanks for being honest,” he says, believing that he’s gained weight.

“It’s the only rule I live by,” Hayley responds seriously, nodding.

“When did you become so gullible?” I ask.

“What are you talking about?” he asks me after pausing to think about what I had said.

“You’re not fatter. In fact, I think you’ve lost weight.”

He narrows his eyes at me and walks backwards.

Pointing at me, he says, “I’ll get you back, liar. I can’t believe I believed you.”

Hayley and I start cracking up as he turns around and walks away.

Three hours later finds Hayley and me out shopping at the local mall. Despite Hayley being stopped several times for autographs, we continue to shop anyway and Hayley doesn’t seem bothered by the occasional autographs and photos.

We decide to stop at the mall’s Subway restaurant for a late lunch, taking a seat in the food court packed with tons of people of all ages.

Hayley looks up at me over her sub with a smirk on her face.

“What,” I state, lowering my eyebrows and wiping my face with my hands, paranoid that I’ve got some food crusted on there somewhere.

Hayley lets a laugh out of her nose, her eyes sparkling.

“Quit that,” she says, batting my hands. I drop them to the table as she continues.

“So I heard from a little bird that you and Brendon hung out last night,” she asks, raising her eyebrows and grinning. I roll my eyes and sigh.

“Yeah and I’m going to guess that little bird was a jerk named Josh. Josh the Jerk. Am I right?”

“Did you hang out with Brendon?” she questions, avoiding my question about Josh. I look down and smile, feeling a blush heat over my face.

“So what did you two do?”

“We watched The Mist,” I answer as if that’s the only thing we did.

“For four hours? I don’t think so.”

“Well we did watch it! Just … we talked too.”

“Oh come on, Sara! I’m your best friend!”

“I feel like a teenager talking about all this,” I say, looking down at my sandwich, picking at the bread.

“Well get into it! I want to know what’s up with you,” she laughs. I glance up at her and smile before looking back down at my sandwich.

I take a deep breath before saying, “I got him to agree to stop drinking.”

“How’d you manage that?” she asks her eyes wide with surprise.

“Oh dear lord,” I cover my face with my hands, feeling my face heat up again. I hope I don’t have to explain to her about the kiss. She’ll flip.

“You kissed him, didn’t you?”

I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I know she’ll flip out and I’d rather prolong that until we’re out of the mall at least. I don’t want to draw a large crowd.

“You did!” she yells, lightly smacking my arms. I quickly lift my head and give her a stern stare.

“Shh! Can you put a lid on it?” I say, covering her mouth.

“Okay, okay,” she mumbles into my hand. I can feel her smiling in my hand right before I take it off, revealing a smirk.

“I can’t believe you. How did it happen? I thought you and Josh were –“

“We’re not.”

“He thinks you are.”

“We’re not.”

“You might want to tell him that.”

I roll my eyes and sigh, collecting my trash before scooting my chair back on the linoleum flooring of the food court. I can hear Hayley scrambling with her trash, hurrying to catch up to me.

“So … how does kissing him get him to agree to stop drinking?”

“Easy. He likes me. I like him. The only way it’d work out is if he is over his whole independent thing, which is why he was drinking – to be independent. He agrees to quit, we get together – BAM!” I say, flailing my hands around wildly.

“So he’s quitting cold turkey to be with you?”

“Not cold turkey, no. He’s probably still going to drink, just not so much that it makes him sick. He agreed that it was irrational going that far and he wants to stop that, anyway. So it was more-so him telling me he’s going to take a few hundred steps down from what he was doing a week or two ago.”

“I just don’t understand how you guys ended up kissing,” she asks, eyeing inside the clothing stores we pass, abruptly stopping and turning around to go into one. Thankfully I notice and follow her inside.

“I don’t know. It just happened.”

“You’ve never even kissed Josh,” she mentions while thumbing through a rack of t-shirts.

“What does Josh have to do with this?” I ask, my voice rising and my nose crinkling. I watch her go through the shirts, taking a look at them myself.

“You’ve been hanging around him more than anyone else and he’s taken that as you wanting to further things with him.”

“Well shit, Hayley,” I say quietly, sighing afterwards. “I honestly don’t think I even like Josh enough to date him. I mean, he’s a great friend. He’s funny and everything, but I don’t think it’d be cool dating him.”

She moves on to the wall of shoes.

“You should probably talk to Josh,” she says, keeping her back to me as she looks at the shoes, picking up a pair of fancy looking heels.

“Why?”

“He’s kind of mad that you hung out with Brendon last night.”

“Well he can get over it! I can hang out with whoever I want.”

“I know. He knows.”

“Then what’s the big deal?”

She turns around quickly and practically yells, “You like Brendon!”

“Shh! God, Hayley, tell the whole world,” I huff, crossing my arms.

“Well Josh thinks you’re into him and he also knows that you and Brendon like each other so he feels like he’s competing with Brendon.”

“But he should already know I’m not into him! I told him I’d tell him if I was and I haven’t said a word about it. Because I’m not into him.”

“There’s a fine line between what he should know and what he actually knows. He’s a guy. He needs to be told things, it’s practically impossible for him to figure it out. You know how he is.”

“We’ll see what happens. I don’t see myself dating Josh,” I reply, quickly taking interest in a rack of multi colored purses, hoping to drop the subject.

“Well if you need advice,” Hayley says.

“I don’t want your advice,” I mumble.

“Why not?”

Damn. She heard me.

“You’re on Josh’s side. The only advice you want to give me is to pursue someone I don’t want to date,” I tell her flatly.

“That’s not true. If you like Brendon, go for it. I just think you need to let Josh know what’s up, he’s kind of in the dark about the whole thing.”

“Well good. That’s how I like it,” I say snobbishly, smirking.

“Yeah, I figured. So feel free to inform me on your dates with Brendon, I don’t care who you’re into, I want to hear about it,” she smiles, smacking my arm lightly, leading us out of the store.

“So you want to know about last night?” I ask, glancing into the Bath and Body Works momentarily.

“Of course I want to know! What are you? Crazy?” she yells.

“Stop yelling, what is wrong with you?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Well I went to his bus to hang out because we hadn’t seen each other for a while and the rest of the guys were going out and he wasn’t allowed. I just wanted to keep him company.”

“You never keep me company anymore,” Hayley pouts.

“I do too! Anyway, we ended up watching some of The Mist but he started falling asleep so I turned off the movie and he laid down with his head in my lap,” I laugh.

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

“Hayley, that sounds sexual,” I say, staring straight ahead and letting out a dry laugh.

“Yeah it kind of does doesn’t it?” she laughs.

“Yep.”

“Well … continue,” she urges, heading towards the exit of the mall.

“Well I asked him about why he was drinking so much and he explained. Said it was about the independence. I asked him if it had anything to do with what I had said and he finally said it kind of did. We argued about it and then at the end of all that, he told me that he thinks he likes me more than he thought.”

“Wow,” she says, pushing the door open, letting me go through first. I wait for her to catch up to me.

“Then he said sorry and left me sitting there, stunned. I had no idea he still liked me, let alone more than he had originally confessed.”

We don’t say anything for a few minutes as we make our way back to the venue, which is just down the street.

“I found him in the kitchen eating a banana and he apologized again but I told him it was okay and that I was glad he told me because I like him more than I had thought I did. Then we kissed, made out, whatever you want to call it.”

I look over at Hayley, her mouth hanging open, but I can tell she’s smiling.

“Did he taste like bananas?” she inquires and I immediately let out a laugh.

“Yeah, actually, that’s what prompted the make out session.”

“Then what happened?” she asks. I can see the venue coming closer and closer to us.

“Well we got to talking again after that and he said he wanted to stop drinking for me if that’s what I wanted. I told him I didn’t care if he had some drinks, that it’s his life. I said the only thing that I have a problem with is if he drinks so much that it completely screws up his body function. That’s where I draw the line, I can’t handle that and I don’t want that in my life.”

“Aw, Sara, he wants to stop drinking for you. He really cares about what you want out of a boyfriend,” she says. I can’t really tell if she’s being critical or just saying it to say it.

“Yeah I know but I don’t want him to base his life around what I want and I told him that.”

We’re now at the venue and immediately drop the conversation. We head into the venue and run into Zac, Jeremy, and Josh on our way in; they’re on their way out. I say hello to them, in which they quickly greet me, except for Josh. He decides to ignore me, which is odd. He doesn’t even look at me.

“Hey!” Brendon greets excitedly once he spots me on the side of the stage after Panic’s set. He’s sporting a huge smile and pulls me in for a hug.

I suppose he’s forgotten already about me banning him from giving me atrocious, sweaty hugs. He’s not as sweaty as he normally is, though. He’s still kind of out of it from being dehydrated and Panic was forced to play a shorter first set again, and because of that, he’s not as sweaty as he would be while playing a longer set.

I hug him back, choosing not to say anything about his sweaty hug ban.

“How’d I do?” he asks, referring to his performance on stage.

“You were awful. I had to plug my ears,” I say, slowly shaking my head disapprovingly.

“You’re a terrible liar,” he says, grabbing my hand and leading me towards the dressing rooms.

“I didn’t lie, Brendon,” I reply, feeling the warmth of his slightly damp hand in mine.

“You did. I can tell when you’re lying,” he replies, looking down at me for a second as he walks next to me.

“Yeah right. You always believe me. It doesn’t matter how absurd the things that come out of my mouth are, you almost always believe me.”

“Well you seem like a trustworthy person. I guess I should find a new friend, huh,” he sighs, finally reaching Panic’s dressing room door, dropping my hand.

“I suppose so. It was great hanging out with you, though. Fun times, fun times…” I trail off, nodding as I do so. I slide my hands into my back pockets and watch Brendon stand there with a smile on his face, his hand on the door handle.

“Meet me at the back of the venue in twenty minutes,” he says, opening the door and stepping in.

“Why?”

He takes one step back out of the doorway to answer me.

“I promised you I would show you around different places on tour and so far, not so good. I should probably get on that before tour ends. Plus, this town has something awesome I want you to see.”

“Twenty minutes,” I reply, pointing a finger at him for a second before walking away.

“Don’t be late!” he yells before he quickly shuts the door.

“You’re late,” I say as Brendon walks out of the back entrance of the venue. He snaps his head over to where I’m standing.

“Fashionably late. It was planned.” he replies, the door slamming shut behind him.

I snort, raising my eyebrows up at him.
“Perhaps next time you should be unfashionably early.”

“I can do that,” he smiles, holding out his right hand for me to grasp onto, which I gladly do.

We round the building to a rusty fire escape ladder. I stop abruptly, noticing Brendon advance towards the ladder, causing him to tug on my arm unknowingly. He turns to look back at me, confused as to why I’ve glued my feet to the ground.

“We’re not going up there are we?” I ask, pointing to the rusty ladder. He just nods at me as if it were the most obvious thing ever.

“It looks a little sketchy,” I say with wide eyes. That ladder looks about three hundred years old. No way would we be able to go up it without it falling apart.

“I will run up this rusty ladder just to prove that it’s safe,” he says, dropping my hand and looking up at the ladder.

“I really would rather not be a witness to your death,” I say quickly, grabbing his arm before he can bound up the ladder.

“Okay, I won’t run up it, but I’ll go first.”

I drop his arm and sigh, the pink tint in the sky casting a warm hue over Brendon’s face and body. His naturally white shirt looks pink.

“If you insist,” I say airily, crossing my arms as I watch him slowly walk up the steps. He rounds the first corner and leans over the railing to look down at me.

“Come on,” he says encouragingly with a grin so I follow him all the way to the roof of the venue.

From the roof is a great view of the western ocean where the sun is beginning to set. The pink in the sky seems brighter from up here.

Brendon stands at the edge of the roof and looks out over the ocean, resting his elbows on the concrete ledge. I walk over to him and copy his actions, looking at the breathtaking view of the sunset. I look up, straight up, to the rich blue sky and slowly trail my gaze down the different colors and shades of the sunset. The blue bleeds into purple, the purple into red; red to orange to the yellow circle of the seemingly large sun. And all the colors in between are the most stunning I’ve ever seen.

We watch on quietly as the sea drowns the sun, and once the sky is a deep red, I look over to Brendon and smile, the red sky casting a red glow upon Brendon and the whole world, it seems.

Forget Josh, Brendon is perfect. Not only am I more attracted to Brendon than I am Josh, but I can actually see myself being with Brendon. From what I’ve gathered in the past day or so, Brendon would do anything for me, anything. He’d quit drinking all together if that’s what I really want. Hell, he’d probably even quit the band if I was a super bitch and thought that’s what I wanted him to do, which, for the record, will never happen.

The way his eyes light up when he sees me, the way he gets so happy to see me makes me melt inside. The way he always reaches for my hand, even to walk to the closest thing possible, is adorable. I love touching him and hanging out with him. He’s rarely a dull person and always seems to have a smile on his face. He loves life and embraces the future and I need that in my life. I need someone to be there along with me to keep me going.

Brendon glances over at me with a toothless smile, his lips tightly covering his teeth.

“Are you glad you climbed the sketchy ladder?” he asks, leaning one elbow on the ledge as he faces his body towards me.

“Yeah,” I say, almost breathlessly.

“Well,” he says matter-of-factly, sighing before clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Quickly, he turns around and hops up to sit on the ledge where his arms once rested. My eyes widen and my breath catches at the sight just as he finishes his statement.

“There’s only one way down,” he says, looking over his shoulder at the ground below.

“You’re still a terrible liar,” I say. I walk over to him and stand in between his knees, quickly grabbing his wrists. I keep my grasp on them pretty tightly, not wanting him to fall off the building.

“I’m not lying,” he laughs out, twisting his hands around to grab onto my wrists so we’re both clasping each other’s wrists with equal force.

“Are you nervous?” he asks, glancing at his wrists.

“I really, really, really don’t want you to fall,” I say, pouting.

“I’m not going to fall,” he says quietly, looking directly into my eyes. All I can do is stare right back. It seems impossible to look away, almost as if his eyes are drawing me in and grasping me tightly, but not too tight, just like his hands wrapped around my wrists. We stare into each other’s eyes for several seconds, I’m not sure how long exactly, but it feels like a long time.

“Your eyes look so beautiful right now,” he says, his eyes still penetrating my own.

“Please come down off the ledge,” I say softly, tugging his wrists lightly.

“I can’t, this is the only way down,” he says with a straight face.

“No it’s not,” I say while shaking my head. “Please come down.”

“There’s only one way to get me down,” he says, his voice becoming deep. “I’d need a kiss, but…after that, you’ll have to come with me to one more place.”

Luckily the ledge is low enough for me to be able to reach his lips with mine, even though I have to stand on my toes.

After a quick kiss, he smiles and scoots his butt off the ledge. We let go of each other’s wrists, but he quickly grabs my hand and heads towards the ladder, only stopping before the first step. Turning around, he quickly wraps his free hand around the back of my neck and leans in, planting a longing kiss on my lips, taking me by surprise.

His plump lips feel warm and soft. The kiss isn’t lustful or forced as we stand there, close to the edge of the stairs. Sometimes he really makes me nervous for his safety and I really wonder whether or not he realizes where he is half of the time…like on the edge of a ladder at the top of a building.

He pulls out of the kiss with a smile on his face. He lets go of my hand and quickly turns on his heel and sprints down the steps, reaching the bottom before I even have time to process the fact that he’s not standing in front of me anymore.

I go down the stairs and head towards where Brendon is standing, talking to the rest of the Panic guys and Paramore. I’m guessing Fall Out Boy is the opening band tonight due to their absence outside. I walk over and stand next to Brendon.

“You want to be my date to the party tonight?” Brendon asks, turning to me and grabbing my hand immediately. I hold onto his hand firmly and furrow my eyebrows at him.

“What party?” I ask.

“We’re having a party on the beach tonight after the show. And apparently Brendon thinks he needs a date,” Ryan answer sarcastically.

“Ryan…hey…I’ll bring a date if I wish,” Brendon answers in that tone he only uses with Ryan. It kind of ticks Ryan off as well as fires him up for more sarcastic, dry-humored arguments.

“Yeah well I didn’t hear her agree to be your date,” Ryan replies dully, a sly smirk forming on his face.

Brendon’s quick to answer with, “Well I didn’t hear anyone agree to be your date either, Ryan.”

“Hayley, will you be my date?” Ryan turns to Hayley, not seeming so excited about it, but obviously trying to one-up Brendon.

“Sure,” she shrugs, standing to Ryan’s right.

“Now whose dateless?” Ryan says with a smug smile.

Next to me, Brendon shifts his weight from one foot to the other, not answering Ryan. I guess he’s completely forgotten about him asking me to be his date. I do recall, though, that he has ADHD and I am not surprised in the least.

I nudge Brendon in the side and he looks down at me, almost as if he forgot I was there.

“I’ll be your date,” I answer, smiling up at him.

He grins at me and immediately looks back at Ryan, who, by the way, still has that smug smile on his face.

“Now we’re dateless,” Jon whines, pointing to himself, Spencer, Zac, and Josh.

I glance over at Josh for a moment, catching him staring back at me. The expression on his face instantly catches me off guard and is a reminder to me that I need to talk to him and tell him that I’m not interested in him.

I let go of Brendon’s hand and tune out the current argument about dates to the party and head towards Josh. He looks away from me once I get close.

I put my hand on his arm and ask him if I can talk to him. He nods and I lead him to the back entrance of the venue, holding the door open for him to let him go in ahead of me. As I wait for him to catch up to me, I catch Brendon’s gaze, but he quickly looks away before I can yell to him that I’ll be right back.

I sigh as Josh walks in front of me into the building. As the door shuts the sound of Pete talking into the microphone is vaguely echoed throughout the halls and quickly a song begins to play, drowning out Pete’s voice.

Josh leans up against the wall in front of me, crossing his arms and letting out a hefty sigh.

“Are you mad at me or something?” I ask after a few seconds.

He pauses, biting on his lip ring and avoiding my gaze.

“No,” he finally answers.

“You know what? This is stupid. I don’t know why I thought I should even bother to try to explain anything to you. It’s obviously pointless,” I say, giving up and heading towards the door.

“What did you want to explain?” Josh asks. With my hand on the door handle, I turn around and glare at him.

“Well I don’t think I need to explain anything. You obviously feel okay with telling me you’re not mad at me when you know damn well you are. You know I know. I’ve known you for five years, Josh; I know when you’re mad.”

“I just,” he sighs, looking up for a second before looking at me. “I just don’t get you. I don’t know where we stand, other than friends. You act like you like me then now…now you’re all over Brendon.”

I roll my eyes and sigh, “Josh…I told you I wasn’t into you. I said I might be later and that I’d let you know. It’s been later…it’s past later and I haven’t said anything about it. I hang out with you because we’re friends and that’s what friends do.”

He stares hard at me, waiting for me to continue, but I don’t.

“I still think you should give me a chance,” he says with hope.

“I don’t really want to talk about this right now, but I’ll tell you this, I don’t think it’d be fair to you if I dated you. I wouldn’t be into it at all and that’s not what you deserve. You deserve so much more than what I can give you.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

“Let’s finish this conversation tomorrow, okay? I need to really think about what I want to say to you,” I say quietly, opening the door and heading back out to the back parking lot, leaving Josh behind.

No one is in the parking lot anymore, not even Brendon. I don’t worry about where they went at the moment because I’m too overwhelmed with mixed feelings about Josh. I’d rather be alone for a few minutes anyway. I round the corner to where the rusty stairs are and take a seat on the bottom stair.

Placing my head in my hands, my eyes firmly pressed into my palms, I let out a long, deep sigh, frustrated with Josh. I feel the familiar burn in my eyes. I can’t cry over this, it isn’t even worth it. Just because Josh is somewhat stubborn and can’t understand the fact that I do not want to date him doesn’t mean I need to cry.

I hear feet shuffling, but don’t lift up my head, hoping whoever it is decides to not round the corner.

“Hey, what are you doing back here? I thought you were inside,” Brendon says. I lift up my head and look over to him, feeling the tears fall out of my eyes. I rub my hands on my jeans, wiping off previous tears that pooled in my hands, and quickly look at the ground, wiping my eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asks, the tone in his voice quickly filling with concern.

“I’m fine,” I reply, my voice cracking. I laugh at myself and sniff. He walks over and stands in front of me, holding out his hands for me. I take a hold of them and he helps me up to my feet, dropping my hands and reaching his own up to wipe his thumbs under my eyes.

“What happened?” he asks, dropping his hands to his sides.

“Josh is being retarded. He doesn’t understand the fact that I don’t want to date him. He thinks I should give him a chance anyway.”

He rolls his lips into his mouth in thought before replying.

“Will you?” he asks, his eyebrows furrowed.

I shake my head and say, “I don’t know. I don’t want to, but I might just to prove my point to him.”

“Whatever you need to do,” he smiles weakly at me, obviously not excited about the thought of me possibly dating Josh to prove a point.

“Just know that I’ll still be here. Whatever you need to do, do it,” he says.

“It’s not that I want to, I just need to prove to him that he and I wouldn’t work out. I know it’s not fair to you for me to do that, or for him either, but he’s being really stupid and won’t listen to me.”

“No, hey, if that’s what you need to do, then do it. It’d be better to leave him knowing that it really wouldn’t work out then have him be all mad at us or whatever if you never gave him a chance.”

“But I don’t want to give him a chance! It’s not fair to him, either way, I guess, but I won’t be anything for him, just some girl he likes that doesn’t like him back. That’s not fair. It’s not fair to him, it’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to you. I’m trying to make us work, not him and I.”

“Do what you want, I won’t stand in your way, but just know that whatever it is you need to do, I won’t be mad or upset or anything. I’ll still be here, and if you decide to be with Josh for a little while, I understand completely.”

“Brendon,” I smile with a slight pout.

“What?” he asks, smiling back.

“I’ve never had anyone be so…understanding and accepting of anything I wanted or needed to do.”

“Wow, thank God I’m here, then,” he says confidently, puffing out his chest.

“Oh, shut up!” I say playfully, shoving his chest.

He laughs and grabs my hand and we make our way towards the beach. The party starts in about an hour, but we don’t care. Why skip an opportunity to head to the beach?

In the midst of the party, Brendon and I decide to sneak away from the shenanigans that Pete Wentz leads at the party. The things they’re doing interest Brendon greatly, I can tell, but he knows I’m uneasy under the pressure of Josh’s stares and doesn’t hesitate to take me away.

I look down at the sand and our bare feet digging into the sand as I loosely hold onto Brendon’s hand. We stop in front of a set of rocks where the water barely reaches, the tide only lightly lapping against the side of them.

We sit down next to them where the water can’t reach us and I lean into his body as his right arm wraps around my back.

“Thank you for getting us away from there,” I say with a short laugh afterwards, digging my heels into the sand.

He doesn’t answer and we stay quiet for a while, listening to the tide rushing in and the far off laughter from the party we ditched. I can clearly make out Pete’s voice, but then again, who couldn’t?

“You know what I really want to do?” he asks suddenly and I look up at him, resting my head on his shoulder.

“What do you want to do?” I ask, but the reply I get is his lips pressed to mine.

He quickly deepens the kiss, flicking his tongue across my bottom lip begging for entrance, which I quickly grant. We make out for a few minutes before I break off, needing a breath; a bigger breath than I could get in the midst of making out with Brendon.

“Sorry,” he says, laughing to himself before wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

“No need, Mr. Urie, I quite enjoyed that,” I say, leaning back on my hands.

“Good. Me too,” he laughs.