Smile

Tom could hardly believe his eyes when Laura was standing in the aisle beside their booth, asking for a ride home. Maybe not just because it was midnight, and she very well could have asked just about anyone else at Sam's show for a ride, but because she was still wearing that little bikini top. He hadn't even noticed the skirt she had on, which fell down to her ankles and hugged her hips in all of the right places.

Time flew by after that. He could hardly remember even getting in the car, he was concentrating so hard on Laura. Every so often, he'd glance at her in the backseat from his rear view mirror, and smile to himself. She looked really vulnerable and innocent, except for the fact that she was half naked.

As they pulled away from Laura's house, Tom sighed heavily, glancing at Valerie. "How am I going to get home if I take you and Johnny over to your house?" He hadn't even thought about this until now.

"I don't know, dude," Valerie said, picking at her fingernails. "You'll figure something out."

Tom groaned, and pulled up to Frankie's house, where a majority of the red plastic cups that had been stacked where now thrown around in the front yard. He was surprised that no one had called the cops yet. "Well, come on then. Let's go find him." Tom climbed out of the car, shoving the keys into his jean pockets. Valerie followed suit, shuffling her feet against the cracked cement. The music was still considerably loud, but the crowd had thinned out, so they didn't have to look that hard to find Johnny. He was lying against the wall. Someone had positioned him so that one hand was down the front of his pants and the other was holding a beer can.

"God, that's pathetic," Tom said as Valerie bent down to wake him up.

"Yeah, well.. carpe diem."

Johnny opened his eyes, and it took him a second to figure out what was going on. He recited a stream of profanities as Valerie helped him get up. "Tom, you fuck-tard," Johnny said, "where the hell have you been?"

"Dude, you were drunk." Tom scoffed, irritation washing over him. "How the hell would you know if I was gone or not?"

Johnny groaned, and stood up with Valerie's help. "Come on, baby," she cooed. "Let's go home." The blue haired boy Tom called his best friend cursed all the way to the car, but as soon as he was in the backseat, Valerie shut him up pretty quickly. Tom tried hard not to listen to the smacking noises as his two best friends made out, but in fact, it kind of made him jealous. Tom hadn't had a girlfriend in about a year and a half. He never had to make a real attempt at trying to get a girl, because Tom knew that he was attractive. But the last year and a half of being single, he didn't even know if he wanted a girlfriend.

His last girlfriend, Natalie, was really sweet. She was fucking hot, too, but he never had a chance to get into her pants. She had been about saving her virginity until marriage, which Tom didn't really understand. But instead of arguing about it, he nodded and smiled. Natalie moved at the end of their sophomore year, and that was the end of it. It kind of made Tom sad, but he wouldn't admit that to anyone else. After all, even if she was still around, he didn't know if he would've been able to take the abstinence thing.

So as Johnny and Valerie sucked face in the backseat, Tom tried to think about other things, like the way that Laura's tits got hard when she walked out into the cold air, or the adorable way she tried to hide that she was cold.

Tom pulled the car into Johnny's driveway, figuring that it was close enough that he could walk home and his friends could still get their freak on. He got out of the car without a word, shutting the door behind him with a slam. He had no doubt in his mind that Val and Johnny wouldn't even make it out of the car. He also had no doubt that he wouldn't get caught by a cop. It was past curfew, but Tom knew that the police never did rounds in his neighborhood, because it was a pretty suburban area of Ashville. All of the "good kids" lived in the suburban parts.

*

"Miss Murray, you know that hats aren't allowed during school hours," Mr. Vandersi complained, crossing his arms and leaning against his desk. Tom scoffed, tapping his pencil against his leg. English class had to be the most boring class that Tom had to take. He watched Laura remove the orange knit cap with red cheeks, and he smiled. Mr. Vandersi nodded, and looked at the giant book that laid on his desk. "I want you to break into groups of two or three and answer questions five through fifteen. I'll give you about twenty, twenty-five minutes to finish and we'll go over them in class. Go."

Tom thought over the situation for a brief second, and then stood up. He was thankful that Sam wasn't in this class. "Hey, Laura," he said, sitting down in the empty desk beside her. Tom could feel the stares coming from his friend Derrik, but he ignored them. "Wanna be partners?"

She stared at him, brow raised. "Aren't you normally partners with Derrik?" She asked, nodding her head towards the back of the room.

Tom shrugged. "Eh. He never got any of the answers right."

"So, why me?" Laura's blue eyes sparkled.

Tom shrugged again, and pulled out his notebook. "Unless you don't want to. I mean, that's cool with me. I'll just have to go over there to Derrik and get all the wrong answers, maybe not pass the class, and --"

"Fine, fine," Laura said, scribbling her name on a piece of paper. Tom smirked, and looked over her shoulder at the textbook. "Which millionaire hired the young Gatsby as an assistant?" She looked at Tom, pencil poised above her notebook.

"Uh," Tom answered, "Donald Trump?"

Laura rolled her eyes, and scribbled down an answer. "Dan Cody. Did you even read the assigned chapters?"

Tom's eyes drifted towards her chest, where her shirt revealed just the tiniest bit of cleavage so that it was school appropriate. Her neck was adorned with about six different rainbow necklaces, looking rather heavy and chunky. Laura smacked his arm.

"Eyes up here, Baczak. You wanted to be partners with me, you've actually got to work with me. K?" She wrote down another answer. "What are the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg?"

"Some stupid billboard." Tom shrugged, and closed his eyes. It was the end of the day and he was fucking tired. Friday night had been one hell of a ride, and now that it was Monday, he was thoroughly exhausted. Johnny had been pestering him all weekend to get drunk with him, and Tom may or may not have had a few drinks (he couldn't remember. Such a long weekend.).

"Yeah, but where? God, Tom," she whined, smacking his arm again. "Look at your paper, not my chest."

"It was like, the death valley, or something. God, I don't remember." Tom leaned forward and put his head on Laura's desk.

"The valley of ashes."

"Yeah. Rashes."

Laura heaved a sigh, and Tom sat up, pushing his brown hair out of his eyes. "You realize," she said, "that this English final is basically going to be from Gatsby?" She stared at him, almost in disbelief.

Tom nodded, shrugging a little bit. "Yeah, but I really don't care. Graduation is in a month. It's not going to hurt if I get a couple of zeros." She was irritated with him, obviously, but he tried to ignore it by thinking of her on Friday night, in that skimpy little top.

When Mr. Vandersi stood up at the front of the classroom again, Tom didn't move, even though most of the other students in the class were returning to their assigned seats. Vandersi went over each of the answers, and Tom scribbled them down on his paper as he went, not paying attention to the condescending glares Laura was giving him.