Be Somewhere

“Ricky,” Danny whined, “Brad's not answering any of my texts!” Ricky dug his nails into the palms of his hands. If Danny said that one more time , he was going to get murdered. Brad had barely been gone ten minutes when Danny had started texting apologies at him. And every ten minutes since then he had messaged more of them to him and complained to Ricky when none of them got answered. “How mad do you think he is? Like, really mad? Or just sorta mad?”

Morgan and Tucker groaned as Danny repeated the question for the millionth time. It was pushing eight at night and Brad had run off before four had rolled around. The phone in Ricky's pocket buzzed again and it was ignored as it had been since Brad had disappeared from their sight. He had one of them whining at him already; a second would kill him.

“Is that Brad?”

Ricky sighed and hung his head before replying, “I don't know.”

“Would you check?”

Ricky sighed again before checking the message on his phone. Brad was more feminine and clingy, but Danny deserved an olympic medal for his ability to whine. It was a talent that Ricky had never seen anyone come close to rival. There were several dozen unanswered texts from Brad that Ricky had ignored earlier; but the one that Danny was asking about; the most recent one; was from someone much worse. Naomi.

It wasn't that Naomi was a bad person; or even that Ricky didn't get along with her. It was that she was closer to Brad than she had ever been with Danny or Ricky and he was in for hell the next time that he talked to her. He was trying to avoid the yelling by not responding to her; she had an amazing ability to make it seem like she was screaming through typing words on a screen.

“It's Naomi.”

“Oh my god! If he got Naomi involved then he must be really pissed at me!”

“That's generally how it works.”

“What am I going to do?” Ricky stopped and turned at the helplessness in his voice. Danny was on the verge of tears and he himself was on the verge of gagging because of it. His best friends starting a romance wasn't on the top ten list of things he hoped to see in his lifetime. It would end badly. “He's one of my best friends... how do I let him down easy?”

“First you have to decide whether or not you actually want to let him down,” He replied; even if he didn't want them together, it was their decision and not his. So it came as quite a surprise to Ricky when Danny tried to verbally take his head off.

“I do not like him like that. He may be that naïve to think it could work. But I'm not. I don't date my friends. You know that Ricky.”

“Not dating your friend and not thinking it could work is a lot different from not liking him. You can admit it.”

“I would if there was something to admit.”

“You're so overprotective of him that it borders on obsessive.”

“He can't protect himself.”

“He can, you won't let him. You won't let anyone else protect him either; now that I think about it, it always has to be you that comes to his rescue. No one else is allowed to.” When Danny glared Ricky knew that he had won the argument; whether or not Danny would admit it with dignity was another matter. He smirked as a challenge, and Danny backed down in as way that anyone else would consider denial.

“Bite me.”

“Isn't that Brad's job, now?” Ricky's smirk grew into a full blown grin. It lasted roughly two seconds until it melted under the heat of Danny's glare. The silence grew thick and heavy when Ricky realized he had crossed a line. Ricky apologized and it was accepted with a quick nod. Or at least he hoped it had been accepted; it was more than possible that it had only been acknowledged.

His phone buzzed again and he cursed.

“What's she saying?” Ricky shrugged as he checked his phone again. As Danny had assumed, it was Naomi.

I promise I won't yell. Please come to Brad's house, he's doing that thing that he does when he's done crying and won't do anything but breath and I don't know what to do. Don't bring that thing with you because his dad doesn't want dogs soiling the furniture.

“Can we stick by the theory that she's not happy with you?” Danny nodded his response and the silence fell in between them again. They wandered aimlessly up and down the road without so much as making eye contact with one another.

“Sorry. I was out of line back there,” he whispered so the camera's could barely pick up the sound. Danny nodded again. The silence grew more awkward as they discontinued the pacing and just stared down the blank road. A car came which gave Ricky an idea.

“Dare you,” Ricky saw the smallest of smiles appear on Danny's face. “The 9:23 ought to be heading in soon. I bet we can make it if we walk fast.” The smile grew to a grin within seconds and the boys were hunched over laughing.

“You two still play that?” Morgan asked with a condescending smirk. “How childish.”

“Let me guess,” Ricky said, “Now that you have friends besides us, you're too cool to be caught playing chicken with a train.”

“I wasn't friends with you guys.”

“Before you were expelled from the Christian school you were,” Danny chirped in. “And after, as a matter of fact. Now you're kind of being a jackass though. If you're too scared and want to run home to Mommy, then do it. Fuck off; we're gonna have fun in whatever way we want to.”

The boys headed off towards the track and the camera followed solemnly. Ricky and Danny stood in the middle of the track as the lights came barreling down the tracks towards them. In the daytime a train could be seen; but at night all that was there were the blinding fluorescent lights. The camera watched as the boys held their breath in anticipation.

Two of the filmmakers closed their eyes; and flinched when they heard the train whoosh by. Lily however, did not. She watched with wide eyes as the boys waited until if one second had passed it would have been too late; and then they jumped. As far as she knew, neither flinched, gasped, or even bothered to close their eyes.

They had played a suicide game without even blinking.