We've Proven Our Love Over Time So Strong.

-Brian's POV-

Times recently had gotten rough, and I just needed a day to clear my head. A day with my four best friends, without their significant others. The reason for that being that I had recently gone through a rough breakup, and it didn't help that I'd still have to see her because she's the twin sister of Matt's fiance. I sat on a towel, staring off into the water while the other four talked.

“Bri!” A raspy voice interrupted my thoughts, and I looked up at Matt. “I love you to death man, but you need to let this go and have fun. Val said she's gonna talk to Michelle and get this thing fixed.”

“Fuck that, there's no fixing what she did to me. Val can talk to her all she wants, and maybe I can be friends with her, but I just don't wanna date her anymore after what happened. Dude, I was going to propose to her!”

“I know man. We're all sorry, we are, but these things do happen.”

“I'll be fine. Just don't talk about it and I'll forget about it.” I grabbed the football that was sitting next to me before standing up. “Can we not talk about it anymore?” I threw it at Matt as I caught him off guard. We spread around and threw the ball around for a while. As I was running backwards to catch it, I heard the guys start shouting at me to watch out. As I turned to try and stop myself, I collided with somebody, taking both of us to the ground. I jumped to my feet as she turned to look up at me. “I'm so sorry. Are you okay?” I asked, holding my hands down to her.

She grabbed my hands and I helped her to her feet. “Yeah, I'm fine.”

I brushed sand off my arms as I took a quick look at her. Her burgundy hair pulled into a ponytail, square black rimmed glasses surrounded light brown eyes, pulling her features together perfectly. She wasn't out of this world, but I was somehow drawn in. We exchanged a few words before she turned to walk away.

“I saw that look,” Jimmy said behind me. “You need to go after her, like now.”

“Why?”

“I know what that look means, now go talk to her.”

I turned to see the others nodding, motioning for me to go. Not even knowing what look I had, I jogged after her grabbing her attention again. I asked if she wanted to get a drink, not even knowing if she was of-age to have alcohol. She seemed hesitant at first, but agreed. I felt instantly stupid after I had introduced myself and she showed me her iPod that was playing one of my band's songs. As we walked, we talked about a few simple things, and when we sat at a table with our drinks, I started asking questions in an attempt to learn a few things about her. Hours flew by without our knowledge until we were startled by my friends. Both of us looked over the water, noticing that the sun was setting.

“I'd better get home,” she said as she stood up. “Whoa...”

“You want a ride or something?” I asked, noticing that she was buzzed.

“I'll be fine. It's not a long walk to my house.”

Two things were keeping me from letting her go by herself. I wanted to spend a little more time with her, and possibly get her number, as well as I didn't want her walking home alone in the dark when she was buzzed. “Can I at least walk you home then?”

“Okay, sounds good,” she said with a smile.

Most of the walk was silent and awkwardly relaxing. She pointed out where her house was and I followed her to the front door. The moment turned completely awkward now, because I knew I wanted to see her again, but I barely knew her, and I was afraid to ask because I didn't know how she would respond. She gave me one last thanks before turning to the door.

“Umm, I'd like to see you again,” I said.

I caught her off guard as she turned to me. After she explained to me how she thought this wouldn't happen again because I was famous, I reassured her that I was a human, and came out to ask for her number. As she reached for my phone that I held out, her hand grazed mine, and it felt like an instant connection had sparked. She handed it back to me with a smile. After we said our goodbyes, she went inside, and I started my walk back to my house. While walking, I was able to think. I had recently just ended a long term relationship, and I knew it was way too soon to start a new one. Something about Lisa had started drawing me in. I didn't know what I was going to do just yet, and I was actually afraid. Afraid of getting hurt, and afraid of hurting someone who didn't deserve it. When I got home, I wasn't surprised to see that Jimmy, Johnny, and Zack had invaded my house.

“That was quick,” Zack said, the only one in the kitchen as I went in to grab a beer.

“Dude, I just walked her home.”

“Ok, so you're not gonna go after her?”

“I do wanna hang with her again, but I'm just afraid of things happening that I don't want to happen right now.”

“Like falling in love again? So soon after...you know.”

“Yeah, that. And the fact that we do go overseas next month for like three months. I just met her, I don't know her that much, and I'm over this love at first sight shit.”

“At least keep talking to her, you never know. She may be willing to wait.”

“Yeah true, but I just don't wanna go into things headfirst anymore. I do think she's cool, but like I said, I just met her today. It already seems like things are happening way too fast.”

“You just need a new woman, like now. Maybe she'll be the one to help you out of this depression you're in right now.”

I shot a glare towards my friend. “Zacky, I'm not fucking depressed. I'm just hurt. Just let it be, please?”

“Okay, okay.” He held his hands up defensively. “Did you at least get her number?”

“I did, but I blanked on the thought to give her mine too.”

“She didn't even mention getting yours?”

“Nope. I didn't think much of it when I said I would get ahold of her soon to hang out.”

“Nice, she's testing you. Gena did that to me when I first met her.”

“Huh?”

“Her not asking for your number in return is a test. She wants to see if you really are interested in her, and interested enough to get ahold of her. But be careful about it, because that's also a sign that she was really hurt by someone...” he trailed off as I kept my attention on him to continue. “I learned about it from Gena. She did the same thing to me, because she was once hurt too, and had a hard time trusting people. She admitted to me eventually that she was testing me for a while to see if I really liked her or was gonna use her.”

Of course I had a slight idea of that test. Part of me was beating myself up inside for already starting to get involved with someone who was a fan of my band. I knew that if something did happen between us, my fame could get her hurt. People like to start rumors, and spread rumors. I knew that if I was going to talk to Lisa more, I had to lay things out.

“Okay, but I already had intentions on calling her to hang out, so does that mean it's still a test?”

“To her it could be. You know you have those intentions, but she doesn't. Now had you asked if she wanted your number and she said to just call her whenever, well, that just screams out that she's testing you.”

“Yeah, of course. I knew about this a bit, but I never experienced it. I guess because Michelle...well...we were together for a long time, and brought together through a mutual friendship.”

“All I can say is just talk to her more. We all know you don't wanna get caught up in this love at first sight shit anymore, but it happens, and you can't help your feelings. Go with your gut. That's all I can say.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I'm just afraid that if something does happen, it'll stress her out, and I don't want someone getting hurt that doesn't deserve it.”

“That's why you just lay everything out eventually. Hang out a few times, see if anything sparks, and if it feels like something will, then you sit down and have a serious talk with her. You said she's cool, right? Well there ya go. I gotta get home now. Jimmy and Johnny are in your den. They also invaded your fridge. We all came by to see how things went.”

I said bye to him before heading to my den. Jimmy and Johnny were indeed in there, watching TV, clearly having helped themselves to the beer in my fridge. “That was-” Johnny started to say, but I cut him off.

“Don't even start. I just had the speech from Zack, and don't wanna hear it.”

Jimmy agreed, and just to be funny, he reached over and punched Johnny. Before they started playing around and I had beer stains on my freshly cleaned carpet, I stopped them. “Chill out guys! I just had this shit shampooed after you guys.”

We sat to watch TV for a while. My phone was in my hand, and I was having a mental debate with myself to send a text message now, or wait. Of course I didn't want to come off as desperate, and didn't want to scare her away. The farthest I had gotten was having a message typed with my thumb hovering over the send button. My phone dying before I could send the message was enough of a sign for me. After the guys had left, I went to shower and went to bed, grabbing my dog Pinkly to let him sleep in bed with me.

“She's cool. I'm interested, but why is this so fucking scary?” I asked myself as I stroked the curly fur of the tiny dog curled up by me. “I can get onstage and play guitar in front of thousands of people a night, but when it comes to talking to one girl, I freak the fuck out.” I laughed to myself. “I really should've given her my number too, had I known about this so called test.” I sighed as I tried to lay comfortably so I could go to sleep.