When You Can't Have It, You Want It

The next real ‘get together’ the group had was a barbeque at Alex’s place. Zack decided it’d be more ‘legit’ if we arrived together, so he picked me up and we drove to Alex’s in his car. Right before we entered the main room where everyone was chilling, Zack placed his hand on the small of my back and led me towards a chair.

“Want anything to drink?”

I raised an eyebrow. I shrugged indifferently and sat beside a tired Jack. As the guys continued to laugh at random jokes, I sat in silence thinking of reasons to be ‘mad’ at each one of the guys.

Right then, Jack opened his eyes, saw me sitting stationary to his right, and decided to use me as a pillow. Uhh, I don’t think so. I scooted over to my right and Jack’s head followed, his body lagging behind. After a few minutes of me scooting and Jack lagging, he finally raised his head and glared at me.

“What the fuck, pillows don’t move!”

“I am not your pillow, Jack,” I stated calmly, patting his head and trying not to laugh.

He pouted, “You were my pillow last week?”

“But then I remembered,” I started, trying to think of an excuse. I bit my lip and continued, “that you were the one who ripped off my Barbie’s heads in third grade.”

He laughed and then saw my serious face. His semi-smile dropped. “Seriously, Rosaline? That was like, a decade ago!”

I smirked. “Um, yeah- I’m trying this new thing. See, I didn’t get mad at you back then but it’s bad juju or something for penting up anger. So I’m releasing the anger now and getting some good juju.”

Jack didn’t catch a single word I said. Too many long words. I’m not even sure if he knows what ‘juju’ is. Do I know what that is?

“I just got you a Coke since there was nothing else left, what did I miss?” Zack said, sitting in the small space that was separating a very confused Jack from me.

“I filled Jack in on my juju issues,” I said, before taking a sip from my Cola.

Zack looked at me questioningly and then said, “Right.”

I smiled and then shrieked as Alex flinged a rubberband on the bare skin of my arm, causing me to jump and spill a little bit of my drink on me. Apparently, the other guys were in the middle of a huge Rubberband war.

“Cunt, that hurt!”

“Oh, stop being such a girl,” Alex laughed, getting ready to rubberband Jack.

“Thanks for noticing that I am a girl,” I muttered, adding on a few choice words under my breath. At least I now had an excuse to be a bitch towards Alex. With tears at the brim of my eyes, I looked down at my arm and saw a slim line of red. That’s going to leave a welt or bruise. Aw, it looks like a heart. Or maybe that’s just a combination between my freckles, the line of red, and my watery eyes. Hmm.

I wiped my eyes and walked into the kitchen to attempt to clean off my shirt. I reached under the sink and tried to find something that would help. Nothing.

“Alex?” I yelled, trying to locate the brunette while he was busy running around.

“Yes?” He yelled back.

“Where’s your Tide-To-Go stash?”

I could almost hear the gasp in his voice. “How do you know about that?”

I laughed, “Don’t worry about it! Where is it?”

“In the pantry, top right shelf.”

I opened the pantry door and my eyes were instantly blinded. I shrieked, slammed the door shut, ran into the living room, and grabbed a pillow. Then, I put the pillow over my face and screamed ‘My poor virgin eyes, my poor virgin eyes’ into it repeatedly. How could Kara and Rian do that in a pantry? With food in such proximity? EWW.

“What happened?” I heard Rian ask, with panic in his voice, “Was there an earthquake? Kara and I just felt shaking and heard screaming so we got here as fast as we could.”

More like came here. Wait, did he just call me fat?

“Yeah, what did happen?” I heard Alex ask as he walked into the room.

I narrowed my eyes and threw my pillow at Rian. That sick, horny man. Ew! I curled into a ball on the couch and buried my face. My head was starting to hurt. I knew I was good at faking it but damn, I didn’t know I could create head aches.

I felt the couch sink in next to me and a voice whisper in my ear, “You’re good, you seriously have them worried. Alex, not so much... look at him, but subtly!” Louder, he said, “Shh, let’s get you home.”

I moved to get off the couch and glanced around the room. Kara was nowhere to be seen but Rian was red as a beet and looking at me, obviously ashamed that he was walked in on. Jack was rubbing the back of his neck and probably trying to figure out if I was on my period. And Alex? He was nowhere to be seen.

Zack ‘helped’ me out to his car and drove me back to my place. On the car ride home, he said a total of one sentence to me, “Stage 1 is complete, just two more to go.”