Goody, Like Two Shoes

"Oh, you're here." were my mom's first words when she and dad came home to find Frank, Gerard, Julie, Mikey and I sprawled out across the floor.

It didn't take long for us to leave the house; each of us, in turn, glaring at my parents, and Gerard "accidentally" spilling half a pack of crushed Oreos down the side of the armchair.

"I've lived here all my life, but is there anything productive to do in Belleville?" I asked once we were out in the street, and, when Frank grinned, I added a quick "Other than getting high."

Frank pouted but his smile instantly perked up, "Making babies - now that's productive."

We all shook our heads at his childishness.

"And you're eighteen tomorrow? Damn, you must have some...condition... where you're a three year old in an eighteen year old's body." Gerard laughed.

Frank giggled and nodded, "But have you ever seen a three year old with muscles like these?"

We played along, humming "ooh"s and "aah"s just to appease him.

"So where are we going, anyway?" Julie asked, stopping mid-step to glance down at her watch.

"I dibs that we get some beer, go down to the river and get smashed." Mikey suggested.

"Beer?" Gerard grinned, "Did I hear you mention beer?"

"How about that, Frankie? Shall we spend your last night of being seventeen getting pissed in the park?" Mikey asked.

Frank didn't need to say anything, his smile was enough of an answer, and we all walked lazily to the nearest liquor store.

Was I part of their plan to get loaded? Because, really, the most alcohol I'd ever had was one glass of wine every Christmas since I was fourteen ... So that comes to a grand total of two glasses of wine in my entire life.

The five of us piled onto a bench outside the off-license, the males of the group fishing in their pockets for whatever they could find : cookies, a tissue, four dollars in coins, two ten dollar bills and an accumulation of black fluff that was found in Gerard's hoodie.

"Any requests?" Gerard asked, collecting the small amount of money from Mikey and Frank.

"Whatever you're having." Julie shrugged.

"Sasha?"Gerard turned to me.

And I thought that teachers were supposed to be sensible...

"'Um..." I squinted.

"I don't think "um" is a drink." Mikey laughed.

Frank cooed and leaned over the back of the bench to wrap his arms around my shoulders, "She means that she's never had any alcohol before, and that she'll try whatever we're having. Right, Sash?"

I nodded, "Took the words right out of my mouth."

"Right, Budweiser it is." Gerard nodded, "And whatever else we can afford."

So Gerard, Frank and Julie headed into the store, leaving Mikey and I on the bench with a plastic shopping bag - filled with a few packets of chips, three cans of Red Bull and a tube of Smarties - between us.

"Here." As soon as Frank left the store with Julie and Gerard behind him, he thrust a bottle of some blue liquid in front of my face, "Try this. Fancy "girl-drinks" to get you started."

Gerard quickly put the bottles and cans in the plastic bag before rubbing his bare arms, "Come on then, people, it's getting chilly. Let's hurry."

We took god knows how many shortcuts through back alleys that I had never even known existed, passing numerous groups of kids who were gathering rubbish for bonfires, and Gerard had been pelted with stones by three little girls who were convinced that he was a witch.

I'd have to agree with them on that.

We ended up in a little hollow in bushes on the side of the river that ran through the middle of the park.

Frank instantly took his jacket off and set it down on the leaves, smiling, "There you go, Sasha, so your ass doesn't get pneumonia."

"Oh, look after her, why don't you..?" Mikey shivered, huddling up to Julie's side and leaning back against a tree trunk.

Gerard cuddled up to Julie's other side, yawning loudly.

Frank simply smiled, sitting cross-legged next to me, his right arm around my waist and he rummaged in the shopping bag before handing out bottles of drink.

Before long, we'd all finished our first drink - including me.

Mine was only a cocktail type drink, but it did have alcohol in it.

"Hey, gimme that." Frank reached over to Gerard, plucking a cigarette from between his lips, taking a drag and then looking at me, "Give it a go?"

I looked at the cigarette, "Um..."

What harm could it do...?

Well, my grandfather did die of lung cancer,from smoking too many cigarettes.

"Maybe a quick puff." I took a quick sip of my second drink, before putting the cigarette between my lips and practically retching from the smell even before taking a single drag.

Frank patted my back, "You don't have to. It was just an offer."

I didn't want to seem like a wimp in front ofthe boy who was my current infatuation Frank and my friends, so I took a drag, holding back the coughing fit that was working it's way up my trachea, and the hidden tears that were stinging my eyes.

The four of them seemed impressed when no gagging ensued, and the little cylinder of tobacco made its way back around the circle.

"I," Gerard began, taking a gulp from a bottle of vodka, "have a very good idea."

Two hours had passed and we'd just stepped over the thin line from tipsy to smashed.

"Yeah?" Julie asked.

"Truth or dare." Gerard grinned, proud of his idea.

Four nods.

Hours later, one of the boys ended up trying to pee on a sleeping duck and fell into the river, and that only made the rest of us - who'd worked our way through at least three quarters of the beer - to join in with the paddling in the river.

"Crap!" I yelled, feeling the cold water rise up to my neck, and Frank started laughing behind me, like a fool.

"It's cold, huh?" he slurred, wading in front of me and reaching for my hands under the water.

He swung our twined hands and pulled me closer to him, looking dazed and puckering up his lips, directing them towards my face but landing on my left ear instead.
He giggled shyly, "That wasn't supposed to 'appen..."

"No?" I replied, my voice quiet, "Well what waaas supposed to happen, 'en?"

"Nu-uuh, a bit mooore like this."

A "bit more like this" just so happened to be his lips colliding with mine and one of his hands running up my side, the other clasping the back of my neck.

My arms, that had been swaying limply at my sides, tensed up and my fingers clutched the bottom of his wet t-shirt, my thumbs slipping under the material and rubbing against his stomach.

Ohgod.Ohgod.Ohgod.

What a way to spend a drunken evening.

A chorus of wolf whistles echoed behind us, and Gerard was cheering, "About bloody time, too, fuckers!"

I ignored him, wrapping my legs around Frank's waist and he walked us towards the shore before laying us both down on his jacket.

We stared at each other for a while, the noises of Gerard, Julie and Mikey splashing around in the river kind of soothing, and Frank leaned up, bleary-eyed, to place a sloppy kiss a few inches away from my lips.

We both reddened, averting our eyes.

"Uuhm..." I shivered.

Frank squinted, "You looks cold. Le's go back to mine an' get clean clothes."

I nodded and let him help me up, and we took our share of the beer, too, before leaving the park without a word - the other three were having too much fun to even realise that we had left.

It didn't take us long to get back to Frank's and we arrived to find an empty house, save Buster who was sleeping on the bottom stair.

"Shhh..." Frank giggled, trying to step over the small dog without waking him.

We got up the stairs eventually; after much giggling and almost-falling-over incidents, and, as soon as his bedroom door was open, Frank's was flinging his t-shirt and jeans across the room, getting into bed in his Mickey Mouse boxers.

I stumbled across the room then rifling through his chest of drawers in search of something to wear.
Next, I hid behind the curtain, trying to take my clothes off and put on a grey vest and black basketball shorts, and Frank ended up getting my bra thrown at him in the process when he'd crawled across the bed and tried to tug the curtain away.

He was giggling like a little boy once I was in the bed next to him, searching through the bag, that was on top of the duvet, for two bottles of beer.

Frank manoeuvred closer to me, sipping his beer idly, and bringing up a random topic to talk about, "What are you going to do after we graduate in June?"

"I've never tol' you?" I yawned.

He shook his head lazily.

"I'm going t' Berkeley. Study z-z-zoology." I replied.

"Berkeley?!" Frank's eyes widened and he hiccupped, "But tha's, like, all the way over the ovva side o' America."

"Uh-huh."

"You're leaving me?" his blank expression turned into one of sadness, "My best friend, and you're leavin' me? What 'm I 'posed do without you 'ere?"

"Go to Rutgers and study moosic, like you said you wanted to. Be famous and get laid." I smiled weakly.

Frank buried his face in my neck and he actually started to sniffle. Genuinely.
"But I don't wanna be famous or get laid without you there."

I cooed quietly and put my arm around his shoulder, giggling, 'You want me to be there when you're getting laid?'

"Nu-uh." He shook his head, looking up at me with a few, small wet patches on his cheeks.
"I wanna get laid with you."

I couldn't think straight.

Especially when Frank clambered on top of me and moved his lips along my jaw, his hands moving under the vest I was wearing and pushing it up my stomach.

But, one thing I knew, I definitely wouldn't be letting him do this if I was sober.