That Girl

Finley pulled away, a curse falling from her lips, and she grabbed Alex's hand. "We gotta get out of here."

"What--"

"The sirens," she told him, standing up and pulling him with her.

Alex reached for the bottle of Jack and stood up. "Where are we gonna go?"

"Just follow me. I can't have a run in with the cops."

He paused. "Have you had many?"

Finley scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Shut up. Let's go," she said before starting to run. She could see the lights as they approached and she couldn't stop the way her heart was racing.

"Where are we doing?"

Finley ignored him as she ran through the back yards. When they got two blocks away, she stopped and kneeled behind a line of bushes. She could still hear the sirens but she was almost positive they were out of harms way.

Alex kneeled in the grass next to her. "I'm cold," he told her.

Finley slapped his arm. "Be quiet. I need to hear if they're coming after us, okay?"

He nodded before taking a swig from the glass bottle.

"Are you kidding me?!" Finley hissed. "You brought the bottle with you?!"

"I can't let good whiskey go to waste!" Alex told her.

"That is proof, Alexander! If we're caught, they have proof!"

"Then we won't get caught, will we?" he asked with a smirk.

Finley reached over and jerked the bottle out of his hands. "Don't speak. Please."

Alex smiled and scooted close to her. "Can we pick up where we left off instead?"

Finley rolled her eyes. "No."

He laughed.

"Stop laughing!" she whispered, kneeling up slowly to glance out over the bushes. She could feel Alex tugging at her jacket and she pushed him away. She wasn't sure if he was just drunk or too immature for his own good, but she refused to have a run in with the cops because of him. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder, her hand covering his mouth, signaling for him to shut up.

She saw flashlights a few houses away and muttered a curse. When she heard voices, she stuffed the bottle under the bushes and pushed Alex down, laying on top of him and motioning for him to not move. Alex's dark eyes widened and didn't leave her face. His pulse was pounding as he heard the officers merely yards away. Finley held her breath until she heard the footsteps decrease in sound. And she didn't move for another five minutes, just in case.

She couldn't be too careful.

Alex mumbled something under her hand before laughing.

Finley moved her hand, subconsciously wiping it off on the back of her jeans, and looked at him. "What?"

"I think they're gone," he told her quietly.

"I hope so," Finley said before balancing her weight on her knees and leaning up to peer over the bushes again. "I think they are, too," she decided before standing up.

Alex reached under the bushes for the almost-empty bottle of Jack and he took a drink.

"Put that down," Finley snapped.

Alex smiled before finishing off the bottle. "No point in letting it go to waste."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm glad you're having fun."

"So where are we going to go?" Alex asked her.

"Well, I'm going to go home. I suggest you do the same," she told him.

Alex shook his head. "Yeah, I can't do that."

Finley's eyebrows rose. "Oh? And why not?"

Alex opened his arms, motioning to his body. "I smell of alcohol. My parents will destroy me. Why can't I go with you?"

"Goddammit," she muttered before walking past Alex and out towards the sidewalk.

Alex ran out after her. "Why can't I go with you?" he asked.

"Why can't you go home to one of your friends?" Finley countered, shoving her hands into her pockets.

"I don't know if any of them got into trouble. And I'm still kind of annoyed with Jack. Rian was flirting up a storm with a senior from Towson, so I don't want to interrupt. And Zack lives too far away, so… I'm kind of on my own," he told her with a shrug.

Finley sighed.

"Why can I go with you?"

"Because my father would probably beat you to a pulp," she told him.

Alex paused. "Would he. Would he really do that?"

She shrugged. "It's a real possibility."

"Wouldn't your mother stop him?"

Finley's breath caught in her throat. She hadn't been expecting that. She looked down at her feet and scratched the back of her neck.

"Oh, shit," Alex muttered. He knew that look, the deer-in-the-headlights look. He didn't know how he knew, he just…did. "I'm so sorry, Finley."

"You didn't know," she whispered.

"Finley, I--"

"Let's just go and…see if I can sweet talk my father," she told him, indicating that the conversation was over.

+

"You're the one she punched on her first day, aren't you?" Robert asked.

Alex choked before reaching forward to shake his hand. "Yes, sir, that was me." And, okay, her father was intimidating. He was six foot three, muscular, with more than a few tattoos lining his arms. He looked mean and stoic at the same time, and he briefly wondered if intimidation ran naturally in the family. It probably did.

"What'd you do to her?"

"I…surprised her," Alex admitted.

Robert smiled. "So. Why do you need to stay here?"

Alex looked down at his feet, feeling ashamed and he didn't know why. He was used to drinking, coming home drunk, crashing at his friends houses while drunk. But standing in front of Finley and her father, he felt…ashamed.

"He had a bit too much to drink after their set," Finley told her. "He couldn't go home. We had to run from the cops."

Robert paused. "The cops?"

She nodded.

"You didn't--" Robert stopped himself before he could continue. He pinched the bridge of his nose ands hook his head. "You can sleep on the couch tonight, Alex. Finley, we need to talk."

Finley nodded. "I'll meet you in the kitchen."

Robert stepped out of the living room, leaving the two of them alone.

"Did I get you in trouble?" Alex asked.

"You didn't," Finley assured him. "I'll be right back." She walked quickly to her room, pulling out a pair of gym shorts she had taken from her father and one of her old shirts, taking them back out to Alex. "Feel free to change. We have a lot of blankets if you get cold."

"And your room is down the hall?"

Finley's eyebrows rose. "I don't see the significance."

"Just in case I have a nightmare or something," he told her with a small smile on his face. Or, well, the signature Gaskarth smirk. Same thing.

She couldn't hide the small smile creeping onto her face. "Shut up, Alex. Sweet dreams," she told him quietly.

"Sweet dreams, Fin."

Finley awkwardly smiled, shoving her hands into her pockets as Alex laid down on the couch, before walking into the kitchen to meet her father. She was nervous, but she knew as long as her father let her say her piece, that she could convince him that they were not in jeopardy. "Father."

Robert turned around, frowning. "Finley, I'm disappointed."

She sighed. "Dad--"

"What the fuck happened?"

"We're not in trouble, dad," she told him. "You have to believe me. I got us out of there. I was never seen."

"The last thing we need is--"

"Dad, I know," she assured him. "I swear to you, we're okay."

Robert sighed. "I'm going to have to tell Marshall Walker about this."

"I was afraid you were going to say that."

"Finley, we can't risk anything. We can't keep secrets from him or from each other. We have too much on the line. We can't get caught again."

With a sigh and a clenched jaw, she nodded. She knew the gravity of the situation. But that didn't mean she had to like it.