The Punchline to the Joke Is Asking

Pete, Gerard, and Joe decided to escort Trey and I back to my place, their glares making it clear that Trey would sleep on the couch for his stay.
“So, you’ve known each other for a long time.” It wasn’t phrased as a question, and Gerard’s tone wasn’t quite welcoming as we stepped inside my apartment.
“Yeah, we have.” I answered neutrally, my face blank as I looked at him, but my eyes were made of ice, instead of the warm Caribbean sea they usually resembled.
“Tell us how you met?” Pete requested, though answering was anything but an option.
“I ran away from home, and wound up in New York.” Trey spoke up. “I was 13, I thought I knew it all.” He shrugged off the naïve stupidity of youth. “I wound up accidentally taking sides in a… disagreement between a few gangs. Apparently, I picked wrong.”
“That’s when I swooped in and dragged you out of there.” I grinned at him crookedly. “Made you run all eight blocks back to Jamie.”
“And when we got there, Jamie made me help fish that bullet out of you.” Trey winced, and I rolled my eyes, then tugged on the chain hidden beneath my shirt. Clicking against the key to Jamie’s decrepit ‘house’ was a deformed bit of metal. Trash, to anyone who didn’t recognize the steel for what it was.
“Little miss lucky.” I grinned slightly sadistically at him, and he snatched it out of my hand, pulling it towards him. I had to lean in or be hung, so I just slumped against him.
“You fucking kept it?” He gaped at it in disgust, then glanced up at me.
“Yup. Can I have my neck back now?” I smiled, my head lolling on his shoulder until he released the lucky bullet.
“Where’d you get shot?” Joe demanded, his eyes scanning me for bullet holes.
“Right… here.” I pulled down the collar of my tshirt, stretching it so the hollow right below my collarbone, off to the left, was visible. There was a small, pale circle there, slightly puckered. “Two inches off my heart.” I shrugged, letting my collar slide back into place.
“Wait, how’d you get shot?” Pete asked, not really sure how we’d gone from running home to Jamie to bullets.
“The thugs were pissed and had the firepower, Trey was just the idiot that got in the way. I couldn’t let him get shot for that.” I snorted.
“She means she pushed me out of the way and got hit instead.” Trey translated.
I ‘hmphed’ at him, crossing my arms across my chest. “I’m a stupid softie, and I’d only been out there for a year. I was still learning.” I muttered mutinously.
“Keep telling yourself that.” Trey laughed, ruffling my hair.
“Hey!” I swatted his hands away. “Only Joe’s allowed to screw with my hair.” I narrowed my eyes at Trey, feigning anger.
“Why him?” Whined Pete, as Gerard observed Trey and I, watching us closely.,
“’Cause he’s my favorite.” I winked at Joe as Pete pretended to burst into tears.
Then Trey ruffled my hair again, so I tackled him.
“How do you like it?” I yelled, screwing up his perfectly styled and dyed locks. “Huh? Huh? What now, biyotch?” I laughed, and Trey shoved me off the couch, peering over the side at me as he laughed and I shot him a false glare.
“Joe’s staying the night with you two.” Pete suddenly interrupted us, and everyone looked at him.
“What?” We asked in unison, perplexed.
“You’re already all over each other.” Pete shrugged.
Gerard glanced at Pete out the corner of his eye, then focused on me, not saying a word, but I knew that look. That was the look that meant ‘I know something you don’t want me to’.

“Well, this… this is…” Joe tried, a few silent minutes after Pete and Gerard had left.
“Freaking awkward.” I finished for him, and he nodded enthusiastically.
“So take a nap, we won’t do anything.” I suggested, and Joe’s expression asked just how stupid I thought he was.
“We’ll stay here; and you’re a light sleeper after a Monster.” I gestured to the can in his hand.
“Fine.” Joe sighed, giving in. It wasn’t my argument that won him over, it was… affection, maybe? I think a normal girl would have chalked it up to being ‘daddy’s little girl’, but that wasn’t me.

“Yeah, he’s asleep.” Trey confirmed a minute later.
“Good. So tell me everything.”