The Only Exception

The brush that Nadia was using to dust bronzer onto Sunday's already tan skin in order to make it shimmer was tickling Sunday. She tried not to laugh and kept her eyes closed as she was instructed, but she could feel a fit of giggles on the tip of tongue, especially when the brush tickled her neck. "Okay!" she laughed as she squirmed away.

Nadia rolled her eyes and began lining Sunday's big eyes in black eyeliner. "Keep your eyes closed," she warned, "Taking a poke from this thing to your eyes is not nice."

Sunday never used makeup. She thought that it was such a problem because one had to put it on, make sure she didn't sweat it off or smear it, and then at night, it had to be taken off. And for what? A little bit of color and maybe some glitter? But that night she had allowed her mom to force her into a chair and give her a makeover for the party. A brown golden color covered her eyelids and her eyes were outlined by the eyeliner. The whole thing was enhanced by mascara, and then she was completely shimmery due to the bronzer and some lotion with shimmer built into it. Her lips had also been attacked by a peachy pink shade of lipgloss.

She thought that she looked pretty, but she wasn't entirely sure what Alex was going to say. What if he thought that she looked like a clown? She was relieved when her mom gave her a calculating look before setting down the make up brush and announcing that she was finished.

"You haven't gotten this dressed up for Halloween in forever," Mrs. Phillips laughed. "Greg, come look at her!"

As soon as the make up had been broken out, Mr. Phillips had left the living room. He knew from past experience that his wife would as his opinion on nearly every type of enhancer that she used, and he was not only awful at telling the difference between shades of makeup and complimenting the right things, but he didn't want to see Sunday turn from his baby into some Grecian goddess. It was disconcerting, despite the fact that he had easily given his agreement to let her go to the party.

Yet when called, he returned to the living room. And he couldn't deny that Sunday looked beautiful. "You're very talented, my dear," he said as he rested a hand on his wife's shoulder. "Not that the canvas you had to work with needed much improvement." Sunday smiled and twirled around, looking at herself in the mirror.

"I feel really pretty," she smiled at her reflection, hoping to convince herself of it.

"That's because you are pretty, Sun," Mrs. Phillips insisted. "Amber should be here soon, so why don't you go wait outside? I'll put all of this stuff away." The floor of the living room was littered with all of the boxes that had produced Sunday's accessories, as well as numerous tubes and containers of makeup. She paused a moment later though.

"Sun, are you too old for us to take pictures?" she inquired a little sheepishly.

"Of course not," Sunday countered. She put her hand on her hip and smiled in the most cheesy manner that she could muster up.

Mr. Phillips and his wife took turns being camera people as they posed with Sunday. It was the first pictures that they had taken with her in a while, and the first Halloween that they had done so since before Henry had died. And when they looked at the pictures on the digital camera, Sunday's smile was as big and radiant as it had been in previous times, times when she hadn't been an only child and before she had felt the injustice that adults often dealt with.

And though Sunday and Alex might not have known at that point in time, Mrs. Phillips knew. And it terrified her.

"Have fun, Sunday." She planted a kiss on Sunday's cheek before hastily removing the chair from the living room. Her eyes were about to spill over with tears that she didn't want Sunday to see.

"Is she okay?" Sunday asked as she gestured after her mom.

Mr. Phillips waved an airy hand. "Of course she is," he said. He hugged Sunday. "Have a good time, sweetie."

Sunday opened the door only to be met with a sight that she hadn't expected. "Alex!" she exclaimed, her face breaking into a wide smile. "What are you doing here?"

He was already clad in his costume as well, and Sunday was completely in love with the persona that he had created with a little bit of advice from herself. After much thinking, they had landed on the idea of Prince Charming, for Sunday thought that Alex easily could master the alter ego. He was wearing a ruffled white shirt, the shoes, the funny pants, the old jacket—he had gone all out too. "You look great," she laughed.

"You said you were being a goddess," Alex began, "but I had no idea that it was going to be this amazing." Sunday laughed the compliment off, but Alex took her hand. "No, seriously Sun, you look gorgeous." Her cheeks turned pink and she looked down, embarrassed.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, changing the subject. "I thought I told you that I was coming over with Amber."

"You did," Alex agreed, "but I wrote something this morning, and I promised you that you'd be the first person to hear it, which is really fitting because I thought of you while I was writing it."

His rambling explanation brought a slight smile to her face that was only widened when it registered in Sunday's brain that she had inspired something. "You have to play it or sing it for me!" she insisted excitedly. She grabbed Alex's other hand and pulled him in through the door.

"You have a piano downstairs, don't—"

But before Alex could finish his sentence, Sunday was leading them through the kitchen towards the lower level of the house. The baby grand was pushed into a corner of the room, though it was a beautiful instrument. The only reason Alex could think of as to why it was not a centerpiece was because it did not quite match the decor of the beachy living room. In two quick movements, Sunday pulled out the bench and pushed Alex down before taking a seat beside him herself.

"Play?" she asked, unable to restrain her eagerness.

Alex smiled at her before gently touching his fingers to the keys. He didn't actively have a piano available at Zack's, and the music sounded different than when he played it on his guitar. But he liked it. It sounded softer, more intimate in a sense. And in a way, it also made Alex not want to do anything with the song. He'd written Jasey a song; he'd written Remembering Sunday for a girl that he had been completely in love with. But now it felt like those songs belonged to everyone else: the people who had produced them, the fans that loved them, even the bands that covered them for sport. He didn't want Sunday's song to be altered or touched by other people, no matter how selfish it sounded.

"It might not get on the new record," he told her as he stopped playing.

"I love it," Sunday whispered, looking up at him with... something in her eyes. Something that Alex assumed he was interpreting wrong but hoped he wasn't.

He cleared his throat. "Why don't we go over to Zack's? You can have Amber just meet us there," he suggested.

"Alright," Sunday agreed, picking up the telephone to call Amber with the change of plans.

She wasn't initially happy with the news, but she finally said in an irritated tone, "Fine. I'm nearly there anyway. It's so much less of a bother if I don't have to pick you up."

Though she agreed to the plan, it would have been obvious to anyone other than Sunday that Amber wasn't happy with the fact that Sunday would be arriving with Alex. And an unhappy Amber didn't just lie down and let the things that bothered her go on. She became determined to stop them. As she watched Alex walk into Zack's with a nervous looking Sunday holding his hand, Amber decided quite resolutely that this ridiculous notion of Alex and Sunday was going to end that night.

She quickly swept over to the pair before Alex could find anyone that he knew and begin introducing Sunday. She wasn't going to let Sunday get her toes wet; Amber was going to push her straight into the water. "Hey guys!" she greeted them, forcing a smile onto her face despite her irritation and the pain radiating up from her feet. She had scoured online websites for a pair of Cinderella shoes before finding a pair actually made of glass; the website didn't say that they would be the most painful things in the world though.

"Hey Am!" Sunday greeted her, smiling. "You look so pretty."

Amber ignored the compliment and inspected Alex shamelessly. "Prince Charming, huh?" she smirked. "Looks like we were thinking on similar wavelengths."

And only then did Sunday frown, realizing that she had inadvertently picked an outfit for Alex that made it look like he and Amber should be together. "I let Sunday pick it out," Alex explained, sliding an arm around Amber's small brunette friend's waist.

Jealousy flared, and Amber wanted nothing more than to push Sunday right back out the door. But she repressed the violent urge, and smiled. "Alex, don't you want to introduce Sunday to your friends?" she suggested.

She knew this would be the breaking point for Sunday and Alex. There was no way Sunday could handle Jack's crude jokes or teasing; she would think that Zack's silence or sarcasm meant he didn't like her; she might win over Rian, but that wouldn't be much of an accomplishment in the big picture. All of Alex's friends had adored Amber.

"That's a good idea," Alex said. He gave Sunday's hand a light tug. "Come on."

Sunday instantly looked nervous. Both she and Amber knew she had no people skills. She reached out with her other hand and grabbed Amber's. The blonde smiled and let herself be dragged in the direction that Alex was taking Sunday. She was in charge of the situation, and she loved it.

The porch that Alex had brought them to was one of the parts of Zack's house that was different from Sunday's. While Sunday's spacious porch had a few stairs in the front that led down to the beach, Zack's was more elevated and had a whole staircase on the left side that led to the sand. It was different, but Sunday liked it. She had been so absorbed by the outside scenery that it took her a second to realize that Alex had stopped walking. He cleared his throat and put his arm around her waist, giving it a little squeeze to capture her attention without being too obvious.

Sunday's eyes fell onto two people who were sitting on lounge chairs. One was dressed as a pirate, and the other... Well, Sunday wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to be. He had a Viking hat on his head and around his neck hung a huge clock. She smiled at them. "Hi," she said, "I'm Sunday."

Alex smiled and gave her a reassuring squeeze. As he had never seen her interact with other people, he had been a little concerned with introducing Sunday to his friends. But maybe he should have worried less. With her excited, cheerful smile and gorgeous outward appearance that night, Sunday could have wowed anyone in the world.

Jack gave a lazy and slightly intoxicated grin. "So you're the girl that's been giving Alex the run around," he chuckled. He leaned up and took Sunday's hand before planting a slobbery kiss on it. Sunday squirmed and laughed it off as she retracted her hand.

"I'm guessing you're Jack," she added as she discreetly wiped her hand on her dress.

He stood up and bowed. "At your service, madame!" His Viking hat fell off.

Sunday picked up the hat and handed it back to him. "And you're supposed to be...?"

Jack gasped. "You don't know who Flavor Flav is!? He's only like my idol!"

Alex choked on his beer while Sunday and Amber giggled. That was when Jack took note of the blonde. "Amber!" he exclaimed, "What brought you to town, baby?"

With another girlie laugh, Amber said, "I live here, silly. Sunday and I grew up in Huntington Beach."

The guy on the other lounge chair looked up from his cell phone and gave Amber an approving smile. "You're looking good, Am," Zack Merrick praised her.

Amber grinned, noticing how Zack barely even glanced at Sunday. "I look good?" She sat down on Zack's chair with him and placed a hand on his muscular arm. "Look at you, sweetiepie."

A smile appeared on Zack's face and he draped an arm around Amber's shoulders. He was about to return to a text message on the screen of his cell phone when Alex cleared his throat. "Oh, is this her?" Zack asked.

"Sunday," she clarified with a smile. "Nice to meet you...?"

"Zack," he supplied before looking at his phone. "Uh, glad you could make it. Have fun, Saturday."

While Amber laughed at the mistake made by Zack, Alex glared at his friend fiercely. "Let's go get a beer!" Jack announced as he jumped up from his seat. "Come on, Sunday. We'll let the big kids work their problems out."

As they left Alex, Zack, and Amber, Jack whispered in Sunday's ear, "If we're lucky, maybe they'll duke it out." Despite the uncomfortable feeling that had enveloped her after Zack called her Saturday, Sunday had to laugh. She liked Jack. He seemed like the most friendly, carefree person in the world. Next to Alex, of course.

He handed her a beer bottle after removing the cap for her. "Thanks," Sunday said before she took a drink. It was just as strange tasting as the Heineken had been. "So, uh, are you liking California?" she asked at an attempt at small talk. She had never been very good at it.

Jack was eager to respond to any sort of question though. "Dude, it's fucking sweet," he replied. "Just beach, beer and bikinis."

The statement caused Sunday to laugh while she was in the midst of swallowing a drink of beer. She coughed a little before she asked the next question. "Do you think the band's going to be here much longer?"

He started walking towards the door, and Sunday followed him. "I don't know," he admitted. "We haven't really gotten much started, especially since Alex started hanging out with you." He grinned at her, "Not that I mind you prolonging my stay in California."

She didn't want to say it for fear of creeping him out, but Jack had a really pleasant voice. It was nice to hear him talk.

"Probably like March," Jack added in a rare moment of seriousness. "We'll all be going home for Christmas and New Years, but after that, I think we'll get a lot of stuff done."

"Do you like being in a band?" Sunday asked. They were outside on the porch again, but in a different area than Alex and Zack and Amber.

Jack fell into a lounge chair, and Sunday perched on the one next to him. "Hell yeah," he nodded as he finished his beer. "You get to travel everywhere, and people give you free stuff. I basically get paid for being a dick with my friends."

"Any setbacks?" Sunday asked as she shivered a little. The sky was dark, and the light breeze had intensified a little bit. A string of lanterns caught her eye, but Jack recaptured her attention when he took her hand.

"Calloused fingers," he said. Sunday laughed, and Jack dropped her hand. "So you and Alex are pretty good friends, huh?"

A small smile appeared on Sunday's pretty face, and she looked down at the ground to hide it from Alex's best friend. "Yeah," she said, feeling her smile grow. "He's... something special."

"He really likes you too," Jack nodded as he picked up a beer bottle off the rail of the porch. He sniffed it lightly before taking a drink from it.

The song inside the house changed. Jack dropped the bottle onto the floor of the porch and rested his hand on Sunday's bare knee. She shivered again. "Come dance with me," he said. "But be warned: I have been told by women that my dancing is something that is only fit for the gods." He stood up, pulling Sunday to her feet by her hands.

She laughed. "We'll see about that."