Eyes Like Sunsets.

The moment Megan steps into my car and I see the look on her face I know something went down between her and Alex. Not exactly sure what went down I don’t say anything until we make our first red light stop. That’s when I glance at her curiously, hoping she’ll clue in to the fact that I’m desperate to know what happened and to get out of the clueless loop I reside in.

She looks back at me and replies with an obnoxious, “What?”

“So?” I ask.

She gives me a look of confusion, “So?”

I roll my eyes, glancing between her and the red light a couple of times before replying, “Oh, my God. You were out there for an hour Megan and nothing happened?”

“Stuff happened.”

Glaring, I tell her I’m forcing her to tell me tomorrow before noticing the light turns green. I step on the gas and fly through the intersection as Megan sort of laughs at my lack of a threat.

For a while we drive in complete and utter silence, starring out the windows like exhausted children who just had the most epic time of their lives. Occasionally, Megan releases a heavy sigh or yawns or makes some sort of audible noise and changes the song of my iPod which is plugged into the sound system.

Suddenly, my phone goes off, playing Queen’s “Under Pressure”. I reach for it, but Megan shoves my hand away and picks it up for me, speaking perkily to the person on the other line as she flashes me a wide grin I don’t quite catch onto until after she says the caller’s name, “Oh, hey John, nice of you to call little Jovi on such a wonderful night.”

I glare at her for a quick second before looking at the road and repeating the action a couple of times. Finally, after a while I snatch the phone from her hands and press it against my ear. “Hey John, sorry, Meg stole my phone.”

“It’s cool,” he laughs. “I was just wondering if you forgot something.”

I scrunch up my face unknowing of what he’s getting at. Did I forget my sweater or something? I look down at my chest, seeing that I’m wearing it. Maybe he’s being all flirty or something, hm, no, that can’t be it. “What’d I forget?”

“Our deal,” John responds questionably.

That’s when I realize we were supposed to go out tonight. Mentally, I curse about a thousand times and look at Megan desperately. She cocks her head to the side and looks at me oddly like she doesn’t understand and that’s when I also realize I didn’t even remember to inform her of my plans in the first place.

“Shit, uh, hold on.” I look at the road and notice no way am I going to find a place to pull over. So, instead I put the phone on speaker and hand it to Megan who continues to look at me like I’m retarded or something. “Alright, so I’m just going to drive Meg home and I’ll meet you somewhere, okay?”

“You’re ditching me again!” Megan narrows her eyes. “Seriously?”

I bite my bottom lip, nodding apologetically. “We, well, sort of made plans, but I promise I’ll take you out for dinner tomorrow after class, okay?”

Megan merely slumps down into her seat and nods.

“Where do you want to meet?” I ask John.

“Well it depends, did I win or not?”

I laugh, “Yes, yes you did, so looks like I’m drinking tonight.” I try to sound as cool, calm, and collected as possible, but despite the fact that I sound like I’m comfortable with the whole idea of getting drunk with some rock star I’m totally not. I’ve never drank anything in my entire life, which is saying something for someone who’s best friend’s with Megan.

“Awesome,” I can tell John is excited just by the way his voice seems to light up on his end of the line. “Just meet me at the venue in two hours. By then all the fans will be gone and I’ll be able to wait out back for you without getting attacked.”

I smile; holding back laughter as I tell him the plan sounds great and say my goodbyes before telling Megan to hang up my phone and give it back. When she does she has an expression of pure shock plastered on her usually happy face. “Holy fucking shit.”

“I know,” I scratch the corner of my eyes with my left index finger before glancing between her and the road. “I’m freaking out.”

“No, no, don’t freak out!” She waves her arms around like a maniac. “It’s not a big deal. Well, okay, it sort of is, but that’s just because you’ve never drank before and for years you’ve been telling me the same thing,” she clears her throat, raising one hand in the air before speaking in a deep, manly voice, “not one morsel of alcohol will taste these virgin stained lips for as long as I live!”

I punch her in the shoulder while watching the road attentively. “I do not sound like that and besides this is different, right? I really like John and I think he really likes me which means I’ll be safe with him.”

Megan shrugs.

“I’m just really nervous, you know? I mean, what if I do something stupid?”

Megan rolls her eyes as I turn off the intersection, onto one of the back roads that leads to the house. Silence forms between us until we make it all the way home and I pull into the driveway. When I do, Megan turns to me and places both of her hands on my shoulders and sighs.

“Jovi, I’m going to tell you some useful advise that every person who’s about to get drunk for their first time needs to know.” She pauses and I raise my brow at her, waiting for her dramatic pause to be over with. “You always look stupid when you’re drunk; it’s a well known fact.”

“Great.” I shrug her off, put the car into park, and get out of the car. She follows me and together we walk to the front door where I shuffle through my set of keys and stick the house key into the door and open it up. Restlessly, we pile into the front room, kicking off our shoes and dropping our stuff before practically running to the couch and falling onto it.

“So, what are you going to do for two hours?”

“Get ready I guess.” I sigh, pushing some loose dreads behind my ear. “Wanna’ look hot for tonight?” I smile awkwardly, hoping it’s possible to make myself look somewhat presentable for a guy I always feel so head-over-heels nervous for.

“Need some help?”

I nod a zillion times before standing up and practically pulling her upstairs. Once we get up there, we enter my room and bolt towards my closet and begin searching through it. Megan carelessly throws half of my wardrobe onto the floor, muttering her opinions on each article of clothing like she’s some professional critique. I admit, it angers me a little knowing she doesn’t think my clothes are nice enough to impress a guy, but at the same time I sort of know she’s right. I don’t usually “dress to impress”, instead I look for comfort.

It takes at least forty-five minutes before Megan finds a pair of black gladiator sandals and hands them to me. After that, she crawls out of my closet and walks out of my room and into hers. I fall back, cleaning up my disastrous bedroom while waiting for her. Ten minutes later she storms into my half cleaned room holding two outfits. One is something I’d never wear in my entire life: a tight black mini dress that looks like it could belong to a twelve year-old. The other (and less horrible choice): a pair of black shorts with a white tank-top and a matching vest over top.

“What do you think?”

I scrunch up my face. “I think you’re crazy if you ever think I’m going to wear that.” I motion to the dress.

She frowns. “Why?”

I roll my eyes and spread my arms, looking down at myself. “Have you seen my curves? I have none.”

Megan throws the second outfit onto the bed and shoves the dress against my chest, telling me to at least try it on. Reluctantly, I do what she says and head to the bathroom to slip off my dirty clothes and put on the dress. Awkwardly, I slip it on, wiggling for a while until finally the straps finally set against my shoulders. Seconds later, Megan comes barging in, gasping when she sees me. I don’t know why, but for some odd reason, despite the fact that the dress looks absolutely uncomfortable as hell it surprisingly isn’t. It fits snug against my hips and chest and ends a couple of inches above my knees.

“Take a look.”

I turn around to face the mirror and instantly smile. If I do say so myself I look pretty spiffy. The dress brings out all of my curves, especially my chest which is weird because normally my chest looks pretty flat.

“I look… good.” I smile, turning to Megan who’s giving me the same expression as I give her. “Thanks.” I engulf her into a hug.

“No problem now let’s do your hair and makeup.” She pulls me into her room and sets me down onto her bed, pulling out random objects I know nothing about. After that she gets to work, wiping stuff on my eyes and lips and pinning my hair in weird ways until finally she tells me I’m done and it’s nearly been two hours. With that, I give her one last smile and leave, heading to the venue.



When I get there I instantly see John waiting for me in a new change of clothes just like me. Instead of looking scruffy and hot like early today he looks clean cut and overall handsome. I can’t help, but bite my lip when I see him smile at me through the window of my car as I park it.

Awkwardly, I pull at my dress and slip off my seatbelt before stepping out onto the pavement. Thankfully Megan didn’t make me wear heels otherwise I probably would’ve fallen right then and there.

“Glad you could make it.” John walks towards my car and circles around the front of it. Suddenly though, he stops as soon as he sees me and gives me a once over, grinning like an idiot. “You look, well,” he pulls at the collar of his shirt nervously and looks at me. “For lack of a better word you look hot.”

“Uh, thanks?” I cover my face in my hands, stopping myself from laughing.

“I’m assuming Megan took over your wardrobe for the night?” He wraps his arm around my shoulder and I can practically feel my heart skip a beat as walk through the back gates of the venue to where all the tour buses are.

“How could you tell?” I laugh.

“Manly instincts, I guess.” He responds, pulling me through a group of people I think I recognize from another band. I don’t say anything to them though, I’m too psyched that I’m on my way to The Maine’s tour bus wearing the hottest dress I can possibly imagine myself wearing hanging off of John O’Callaghan’s arm.

Can you say dream come true or what?

Silently, we enter the tour bus and instantly I notice nobodies around. All there is, is a candle on the table, along with two empty wine glasses. I cock my head to the side and look at John who smiles and pulls me up the stairs. “You may be seated Madame.” He bows at me.

“Uh, okay.” I bite my bottom lip for the millionth time tonight and sit on one of the chairs, looking around the bus. At the corner of my eye I see John pull out of bottle of Vodka. He sits across from me, opening it and pouring some into each glass.

“Drink up sweetheart.” He places the bottle on the table before grabbing his glass and swirling it around. He smirks at me, waiting for me to pick it up. When I do he counts to three and together we take a sip. It tastes good and burns my throat, but I keep drinking and drinking until the whole thing is completely gone.

He looks at me wide-eyed. “Are you sure you’ve never drank before?”

I nod, “Not until tonight.”

“So, I’m taking away your drinking virginity?”

“Yup,” I smile.

“Awesome,” he downs the rest of his and pours us another round until we drink that one too.

Countless times he does the same thing until the bottle is finally gone and I can feel myself getting disoriented. Giggling to myself, I lean forward onto the table so that my chest presses against it. I see John’s eyes glance down there before looking up to my eyes and smiling.

“What’cha wanna’ do John?” I ask.

“I don’t know, make out?” He suggests with a laugh.

At this point I’m not sure if it’s the hormones in my body or the alcohol talking, but my bet is it’s a mixture of both because I literally leap around the table onto John’s lap, pressing my lips against his like a wild animal. He doesn’t seem to mind though, he goes along with it, prying open my mouth with his own and sticking his tongue inside. We do that for a while, just make out, until we pull apart and say something I don’t quite remember and head off to the bedroom.

And that’s the last thing I remember doing.