Fall Out Boy Is Family

“Don’t worry about it,” Pete said consolingly to me. “Patrick knows. Pat, meet Starling. Starling, Pat.”

Patrick waved hi to her. “Hey. Can I call you Star?”

“Sure,” I heard her cool (as in cold) voice say back. “I don’t care.”

Pete held up a finger to Pat. “Do not start singing, even if ‘I Don’t Care’ is a great song and you feel like you can’t hold it in.”

Pat glared sullenly at Pete. “Stupid guitarist…”

“Ball-suckin’ singer,” Pete shot back.

I sighed. “Blue-butted baboon, Blue Footed Booby.”

That shut them up. Sort of.

“Who’s the booby?” Pete asked, looking almost murderous.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. You two decide. Oh, gosh, never mind.”

Pat laughed and placed the camera on the dresser nearest to him, presumably his. Pete reached for the locket, opened it and held it out to Starling who placed one foot on each side, then disappeared in a shimmering bunch of silver sparkles.

“Um, where’d she go?” I asked.

“Into the locket.”

Huh. Weird. Well, that’s what you get for having Pete Wentz as a friend.

“Wear this,” he instructed, and held out the locket to me.

As I strung it around my neck, I asked Pete, “So now I’m carrying her around with me all the time?”

He nodded. “Very good.”

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t need to be Einstein to figure that out.”

“I know,” he said back, then leaned in and placed a quick kiss on my lips. “Love ya.”

I smiled. “Love ya too, Pete. See ya, Pat.”

Patrick waved and I exited the room, weighed down with a lot more knowledge than when I had entered, and not to mention a fairy.

“A little more to the left, Sam,” the guy behind the camera said, and I turned my head more to the left. I was at a photo shoot with Fallen at my Aunt Lydia’s company place. My break was in approximately twenty-seven seconds, according to the clock on the wall.

“Look at the camera!” the guy said for the hundredth time, sounding very aggravated. I complied and he snapped a few shots. Then—

BRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNG!

“Goodbye,” I said to the guy, grabbed Fallen’s hand and catapulted out the door. Well, it seemed like I had been catapulted. You know what? Whatever.

Fallen was an absurdly hot guy. His hair had all these random streaks of black, light brown, blonde and even a bit of pale blue. It accentuated his bright blue eyes which were the about the same color as mine, minus the gold stripe—duh. He was also multiple inches taller than me, and, incase you forgot, my cousin.

“I want coffee,” he demanded, and yanked me into this Starbucks or something. I didn’t even get to see the sign. “What do you want?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to escape that madman who calls himself a photographer.”

Fallen frowned and speculated as he looked over the menus on the wall. “He didn’t seem too bad.”

“You’re not the one who had to do all the complex facial expressions and abstract body poses. In fact, for half the pictures only half of your face or the back of your head was in view.”

“Excuse me for having amazing hair,” he said smoothly without even glancing at me, and moved up in line. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I can smell it now…”

I guessed that he was talking about his coffee and told him to hurry up in line. I wasn’t getting any younger.

Fallen ordered and we slid into a booth, with me still empty-handed.

“Guard it with your life,” he told me severely, pointing to his coffee.

“Why?” I asked, blinking a bit.

“I need to use the facilities.” He got that from Aunt Lydia. She always said “facilities”. I don’t think any other word for it was in her vocabulary. Not even the
awesome British one, “loo”. I love that word…

“Hi.”

I blinked and frowned. What the heck? This guy had just appeared out of, like, thin air right in Fallen’s seat. And he looked sort of like Ryan…

“Do I know you?” I asked, slightly perturbed. I placed my right hand on the table just ‘cause I felt like it.

“No.”

Weirdo.

“But I would like to know… Are you Samantha Royce?”

What is he, my personal stalker? I nodded anyway, then realized that he must be another photographer. That was the only way he could know my name.

“Oh…” I said slowly. “Do you want me to do a shoot?”

For a second he looked at me blankly, probably surprised that I had caught on so quickly. Then he nodded and straightened his spine a bit. “Yes, I do.”

And he looks like he’s, what, maybe a year older than me? “Cool,” I said, a smile finding its way onto my face. “When?”

“When are you free?”

I like this guy. Very customer/client friendly. “The ninth.”

He nodded, and I was struck by just how seriously hot he was. Not as hot as Ryan, but he really did look like him.

“The ninth it is,” he announced, then started searching his pockets for
presumably some paper and a pen. I dug a notebook and pen out of my purse and held it out to him.

“Is this okay?”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks.” He looked a bit surprised but accepted the stuff and took it into his own hands.

“No problem,” I said back and zipped up by purse before looking back at him. I then decided to tell him about what I did incase he was wondering. “I don’t do lingerie, but I’m open to just about anything else.” Unless that has to do with no lingerie, and no anything else.

“Great,” he said slowly back, biting his tongue in an irresistibly cute way as he scrawled letters and numbers into my notebook. After a minutes he was done and said, “There you go,” as he pushed the notebook and pen onto the table.

I put my hand over it and dragged it toward me. Then my curiosity got the better of me and I started to ask, “Are you related to…” Then my sense came back and I cut myself off with, “Oh, never mind.”

He raised an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth turned up a bit. “Ryan Ross?”

Resigned, I nodded. Wait, how had he known that’s who I’d meant?

“I have no association with him.” He said that like he was relieved he didn’t. What, does he not like the band? So much for Mystery Guy in front of me being hot…

I looked down at the notebook and started reading what he’d written. After a second, I frowned. When I looked back up at MG (Mystery Guy) he looked sort of worried, like he thought he might have forgotten to write something, or I couldn’t read his handwriting.

Why did he have to be so drool-worthy and hot?

“What’s the name of your studio?” I asked, because he had, in fact, forgotten something. And that was it.

He seemed to contemplate for a second. Does he work for more than one company or something?

“Jeremy’s,” he finally said.

I’d never heard of that one. It might be sort of out of town. Wait, the address said that it’s in town… Whatever.

“Jeremy’s?” I clarified. “That’s it?”

He nodded and I shrugged then wrote Jeremy’s above the address and phone number he’d written down. When I looked back up, MG’s attention was caught by something behind me. I turned around, sending my hair flying, and saw Fallen finally emerging from the bathroom.

“Oh,” I said, glancing back to MG, whose eyes had shifted back to me. “Let me introduce you to my cousin and coworker, Fallen Royce.”

Fallen, who was a few feet away now, had overheard and waved to Mr. MG.

MG held two fingers to his forehead then gave Fallen a little salute. “Well,” he said, “I gotta go. Bye.”

“Bye,” I replied. “See you on the ninth.”

He nodded and walked toward the door, leaving Fallen to take his seat back. And as I watched Mr. MG walk speedily down the street, I realized that I had forgotten to ask his name.

Ah, who cares? It was probably Jeremy, anyway.