Don't Hold Your Breath

"Maybe if you found someone else......" Jon said as we were walking towards my house. It was Friday. The rest of the week had gone by with a blur. It was just 4 days of me avoiding Ryan as much as possible with out him being suspicious. Ryans dad had come home a couple days ago. So I was a bit worried about him. Okay extremely worried. But he didn't seem to have any new injuries so I guess he was okay.  Jon agreed to come over after school as an excuse for me not to have to walk with Ryan. Ryan knew Jon hated him, so he wouldn't come near me when I was with Jon or Spencer. 

"Well that shouldn't be hard, considering no one in our school is homophobic." I added sarcastically. He rolled his eyes. 

"I'm just trying to help." 

"I know. I'm sorry. It's just so frustrating." 

"Yeah." Jon sighed in agreement. As we approached my house, I noticed an all to familiar car parked in our driveway. 

"No way......." I muttered under my breath. 

"What is it?" Jon asked but I  already started sprinting towards my house. "wait up!" Jon ran after me.

I swung my door open, and there she stood. Only the most wonderful member of my family ever. 

"Vicky!!" I nearly shrieked with excitement. I ran over and gave her a big bear hug, nearly knocking us both to the ground. She laughed and hugged me back. 

"Nice to see you too B-bear." I was so excited I almost didn't notice the fact that she brought company..... To my house...... 
"In case you're wondering why I'm here......" she started. "I moved back to Las Vegas, turns out Princeton wasn't for me. I'll be attending a college near by. But I did bring friends with me from Jersey." She gestured towards the four boys sitting on my couch. "This is Gerard, Frank, Mikey, and Ray." she gestured to each one in order. I caught the eye of one in particular. The cute one with glasses. As soon as he noticed me looking at him he looked down and turned red.

"Dude. What he hell?" Jon said out of breath and he came up behind me. 

"Sorry. Jon this is my cousin Vicky. Vicky this is Jon." I introduced them. 

"Nice to meet you" she shook his hand. He froze almost not able to respond, and I rolled my eyes.

"Well, I'm going to get something to drink. Anyone want anything?" I asked. There were a bunch of "yeahs" and "sure's" as I walked into the kitchen. I was followed in by Vicky. 

"I saw that." she whispered in my ear as I opened the fridge. 

"Saw what?" I asked innocently. 

"I saw you looking at Mikey. He's single you know. And he's pretty cute too. He's also gay." as she said that I dropped two of the sodas I was carrying. Smooth.......

"Sorry, but I'm straight." I responded a little too quickly. 

"Please Brendon, you're not fooling anybody. Except maybe aunt Amy and uncle Boyd. But they're probably just in denial."

"I have no idea what your talking about." I denied. 

"Come on Bren, you know you can tell me anything." She looked at me with annoying puppy dog eyes. 

"Fine." I leaned in closer and just barely whispered. "I'm gay."
She jumped back and squealed. 

"I knew it I knew it!" she was a bit too loud. 

"Shhhhh." I shushed her. "please don't tell anyone." I begged. She pretended to zip up her lips and throw away the key. I rolled my eyes, but smiled at the same time. 

"Thanks." But just then I heard a smacking sound coming from the living room. 

"EWWWWWWW CAN YOU TWO LIKE NOT DO THAT IN PUBLIC AGAIN!! EVER!" I heard someone shout. Then an argument erupted. "DONT TOUCH HIM!" "DONT YELL AT ME!!"
then Vicky ran in there and began scolding them. 
"WILL YOU GUYS SHUT IT! YOU'RE IN MY FUCKING COUSINS HOUSE!" 

"DONT TALK TO HIM LIKE THAT WITCH LADY!"

"WITCH LADY?! WHAT THE FUCK!?" She pretty much joined the argument herself....... I sighed and pulled out a few sodas from the fridge. 

"Need some help?" I looked up and saw Mikey standing in the door way. 

"S-sure" I stuttered as I dropped 4 of the 7 sodas I attempted to carry. He chuckled and helped me pick them up. 

"So.... Brendon is it?" He was obviously tryng to make conversation. The silence was a bit awkward. 

"YOURE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!" more arguing came from the living room. Mikey rolled his eyes and I laughed as I set the sodas down on the counter. 

"Guess they won't be wanting these at the moment....... Do they do this all the time?" I asked. He laughed.

" Yeah, Frank gets all protective over Gerard, and Ray some how always manages to get sucked into it." 

"So are they dating...?" I asked stupidly.

"Yeah they're attached at the hip those two." he said as he reached for a soda and opened it.

"Ah." was all I could manage. Why did I always manage to turn situations awkward? 

He chuckled. "You should have seen them on the airplane. Some flight attendant was being all flirty towards Gerard, so frank threw a bag of peanuts at her." I chuckled at the picture going through my head.

"FRANK IF YOU DONT LET GO OF RAY THIS INSTANT ILL TAKE AWAY YOUR SKITTLES!!"
I heard Vicky shout. 

"Ha. Is she their friend or their mother?" I joked as I grabbed a soda and took a sip. 

"YOU CANT DO THAT! YOU'RE NOT MY MOTHER!" 

"I guess that answered your question." 

"I CAN AND I WILL!"

"THATS UNFAIR"

"LIFES UNFAIR!"

" I would have guessed otherwise." I laughed and so did he. 

"MIKEY WILL YOU GET IN HERE AND MAKE THESE TWO SHUT UP!" 

"Well this calls for the peacemaker." he sighed and set down his soda and walked into the living room.  I attempted to pick up all the unopened sodas but dropped them when Vickey came up Behan me scaring the hell out of me.

"Soooo what did you and Mikey talk about?" 

I sighed. "I give up. If they're thirsty they can get them themselves. "

"Brendon answer my question. "

"Nothing, just small talk." I sighed. 

"I think he likes you." she put bluntly. 

"Vickey!" I whined. 

"What? I'm just trying to help you." she crossed her arms. And I sighed in defeat this time. 

"I'm sorry. It's just...... I kind of like someone else........" this caught her attention. 

"Who is he? Is he cute?! You should ask him out!" she seemed a little too excited for being a third party observer. 

"Its a little more complicated then that......." she looked at me confused. 

"How is that?"

"Hes straight."

"Oh. And you're sure about this?" 

"Yeah..." I answered. When in truth, i wasn't sure. He had his moments......... But odds are he's straight. 

"Well, maybe the best thing to do is to move on. Find someone else......." She had a point. If I moved on, found someone else, then I could be friends with Ryan with out having to worry about all this drama, and I could be there for him...... Like a real friend.

"Yeah, you're right. Thanks Vic." I smiled. 

"Nooo problem. I'll be right back......." the way she said it made me think she was up to something. 

~*~

A couple minutes later we were all sitting in the living room, Mikey was quietly sitting in the corner, Ray and Frankie were arguing over something pointless, and Jon was drooling over my cousin. Then all of a sudden she pulled me up off the chair and led me outside. 

"Stay here" she commanded. 

"Um, okay...?" i said confused. What the hell was she up to? A few seconds later she pushed Mikey through the front door and slammed it behind him. He stumbled a little, then froze when he met my eye.

"Um, hey........" I mumbled looking at the ground. Nice Vic key. 

"Hi......." he mumbled kind of awkwardly. 

"Sooooo...... Um, I see Vic key forced you out here too." 

"Um, c-can I ask you a-a q-question?" he stuttered. 

"S-sure." I responded kind of taken by surprise. 

"D-do.... A-are.....do you want to go out s-sometime?" He was kind of cute with his nervousness and such. He was about as red as a tomato. I took a second to think about it. It couldn't hurt right? Vic key said I should move on. And she was right. This was the best way to make this happen. And besides, Mikey was pretty cute. And he seemed to like me......
A grin spread over my face. He instantly became less nervous and looked up at me. 

"How does tomorrow night sound?" He grinned. 

"Sounds great." it wasn't until we went back In the house that o realized that Ryan was supposed to be coming over tomorrow night. But I'm sure he won't mind if I move the time to a little later..... Right? If anything, I'm sure he'll be happy for me.