All Just Pretend

Blake stepped foot into the kitchen of the flat and scowled at the sight before her. It was disgusting, to be blunt. Guess this is what I get for living with a bunch of boys, she thought to herself. She may have understood it, but she’d be damned if she just let them make a mess without cleaning up after themselves.

“Oli! Matt! Someone!” she screamed, her shrill cry echoing throughout the flat. It was early, but she knew the guys wanted to have a “going away party” that night, and there was no way in hell she was letting their friends into the flat with the way it looked.

“Fuckin’ Christ, Blake!” Tom hissed, the only one to stumble out of his bedroom at the early hour. “Quit yehr yellin’, aye?”

The blonde planted her hands on her hips. She was still only in her PJs but the idea of modesty around these boys had flown out the window a long time ago. After living with them for a little less than a year, Blake had no choice but to strut around in whatever she damn well pleased. If that meant her underwear and a t-shirt, then so be it. Blake was not about to be shy just because she was living with a bunch of boys.

“They’re leaving in two days, Tom. They want to party tonight, recoup tomorrow, and then leave on Thursday. And you have lost your fucking mind if you think I’m cleaning everything!” She ended her rant with a loud shout throughout the flat, hoping to wake up Matt and Oliver in the process.

Tom shook his head and scratched his neck before brushing by her and heading to the fridge in the kitchen. He had known Blake for roughly a year now, and he usually liked her. She was a crazy bird, and she yelled a lot, but she kept things in line around the flat, which they all needed. She was blunt and loud and she didn’t care if she was prancing around the flat in her underwear and a tank top with a bunch of their mates sitting around. She claimed she lived there too and she was going to wear whatever the fuck she wanted!

“Oh fuck this,” Blake muttered, stomping towards Oli’s bedroom. She didn’t even knock before she burst through into his room. “Oliver fucking Sykes! Get your lazy ass out of bed right now before I drag you out myself!” She let her voice bounce off his walls and when he barely even flinched she walked over to his window and tore open the curtains. She heard him groan, but it still wasn’t enough so she walked over to his iHome where his iPhone was sitting on the dock and turned it on, scrolling through his music until she landed on his own band’s newest CD. She rolled her eyes and selected “Anthem” before she turned the volume up and pressed play.

“This is an anthem, so fucking sing!” blared through the speakers.

Blake stood back with a satisfied smirk and walked out of the room. “Get up or I’ll do it again you bastard!” she threw over her shoulder before slamming his door shut. She heard his curses shortly after, but ignored them.

She headed back into the kitchen and grabbed the orange juice out of the fridge, a smile still on her face. Tom was at the island, leaning over it trying to wake himself up. “Well?” he asked. As if he needed to.

Blake took a drink and smiled. “He’ll be out soon.”

“Fuckin’ ‘ell Blake!” he roared, his bedroom door slamming against the stop in his room. “I fhought yeh were past this bein’ obnoxious shit?”

Blake rolled her eyes and took a seat next to Tom at the island, waiting for Oliver to come into view. When he stormed into the kitchen, she just grinned and held her orange juice out in greeting. “Morning!” she greeted him cheerily, gesturing to the mess in the kitchen and the disaster area of a living room. “Hope you’re ready to pick up your shit!”

He glared at her. “Yeh’re the craziest bird I’ve ever met. Yeh just broke my fuckin’ eardrum wiff tha’ trick yeh pulled, Blake. Couldn’t yeh just wake meh up like a normal human for once?” Oliver stalked into the kitchen and grabbed the orange juice off of the counter, taking a swig from it without even giving it a second thought.

Blake, in response, raked her fingers through her blonde hair and screamed, “OLIVER! PUT THE FUCKING BOTTLE DOWN!”

Both of the Sykes brothers jumped at the sound of Blake shrieking. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ Blake!” Tom hissed, covering his ears, “Shut yehr bloody mouth!”

She got up from her chair and pointed at them both, a venomous look in her eyes. “Clean this place up before our friends come over later, or fear the consequences!” With one last glare, she stomped out of the kitchen and went back to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

Oliver shook his head. “Fuck! She’s so bloody obnoxious.”

Tom rolled his eyes, just briefly glancing up at his older brother before turning his gaze back to the newspaper sitting in front of him. “Good, now say it like yeh mean it.”

Oli didn’t even protest. His brother and he had been having the same argument for months. Tom thought Blake was nice enough, but she had been fighting with Oliver more and more as of late and Oliver kept claiming he was sick of it. So Tom would always tell him to tell her to leave, but Oliver never would. They both knew it.

Oliver may not have been attracted to Blake that first day in the tattoo shop, but the longer he knew her the more he got pulled in. That was probably why he had told her so many months ago that she could move into the flat if she needed somewhere to stay. She was tired of living with James and his fiancee and wanted to be on her own, and as soon as Oliver had suggested it she had jumped at the opportunity. It was perfect because she needed somewhere to live and they needed someone to look after the flat when Matt, Tom, and Oli were on tour. So now, even though he thought Blake was being obnoxious--and he would never admit it--but he couldn’t let her leave.

***

Hours later, the flat was clean and the party was in full swing. The alcohol was abundant, the smell of weed floated through the air to Blake’s distaste, and all of their friends were there. It was a great party since the boys would be gone for the next few months, going to Sweden to write and record their next record.

From her spot in the kitchen, Blake kept shifting her attention between barely paying attention to the guys playing beer pong and Oliver sitting around with some other people in the living room.

She wasn’t jealous. Blake didn’t get jealous. She had never been jealous in her 22 years of existence. But Oliver hadn’t had a girlfriend in the whole year she had known him and so as she watched him sit on the couch with some of the other guys and their girlfriends, along with some brunette bitch she had never seen before, she couldn’t help but stare. She had been staring since the girl had stepped foot into the flat, and she hadn’t stopped. It wasn’t that she didn’t know Oliver was attractive to girls. She knew this, and she didn’t even care. She knew when he went on tour that there were probably girls dropping at his feet in every place they stopped at. But it was different watching it unfold before your own eyes.

Blake crossed crossed her arm in front of her chest while her hand held onto her elbow. She sipped her beer while she watched Oliver. “Hmph,” she sighed to herself, trying to pull her gaze away from him and the bird on the couch.

When she turned, Matt was before her with his girlfriend. The drummer smirked, his dimples exposing to the world. “Jealousy doesn’ look good on yeh, love.”

Blake rolled her eyes dramatically. “Really? Because stupidity doesn’t look so good on you either, toolbag.” Blake shifted her gaze to his girlfriend who had long ago informed Blake that she could do and say whatever she had to to keep the boys in line. “Ash, how do you put up with him?”

The blonde smirked and patted her boyfriend’s chest. “He’s really good in bed,” she winked at Blake, who threw her head back and laughed.

Matt just grinned. “Yeh’re just mad ‘cause ‘m righ’!” he exclaimed, nodding in the direction of his friend and bandmate. “Yeh ‘ate tha’ bird sittin’ next ta ‘im, don’ yeh?”

Blake gave him a bored look. “Yeah Matty, I’m positively head over heels for your mate over there. Take me Oliver!” she exclaimed, gesturing her hands around wildly. She had had a little too much to drink.

Matt smirked and rolled his eyes. “Well now no need ta be a smar’ ass abou’ it. Yeh don’ love him? Then why are yeh still livin’ here love?”

The blonde narrowed her eyes and sipped her drink. “What do you mean?”

“Why are yeh still ‘ere? Yeh fight wiff Oli more and more wiff each passin’ day and I just don’ get why yeh don’ leave.”

Blake stepped back, her jaw dropped in surprise. “Ex-cuse me, Matthew? Are you trying to tell me something? Because I’ll fucking pack my bags tonight if--”

Matt laughed, raising his hands in surrender. “Relax, Blake. It was jus’ a question. Jus’ tryin’ ta make yeh fhink.”

Blake flipped him off before slamming back the rest of her drink and setting her beer on the table. “Fuck off,” she muttered before turning back around to face the living room. Matt’s laugh echoed as he left to refill his drink, but Ashley stayed next to her blonde friend.

“Girl talk,” Ashley demanded in the way she did when she wanted you to be honest with her. “Do you like Oli or not?”

Blake shrugged but then shook her head. No, she did not. She didn’t like him when he first stepped foot in the tattoo shop and she still didn’t have feelings for him. They were friends, and that was that. She told Ashley this.

“If that’s true, then you need to stop burning your eyes into the poor girl’s head and have some fun.”

Blake didn’t respond and Ashley laughed, patting her shoulder lightly before walking off to find her boyfriend. With that--and an empty drink--Blake went to find some more alcohol.

***

Blake was hammered.

She could handle her alcohol just fine, but between several rounds of beer pong, a round of Never Have I Ever, and just drinking everything she could get her hands on, she was gone. She didn’t care though; she didn’t have work in the morning and it wasn’t like she was the only one getting drunk. Everyone was trashed.

Blake danced her way into the kitchen to the non-existent music and grabbed the almost empty bottle of vodka and poured some into her cup and then poured a little cranberry juice in as well. She downed the drink and spun around in a circle, throwing her hands in the air happily.

“‘avin’ a good time, love?” he asked her. He was drinking too, but not nearly as much.

She spun around once more before she stopped in front of him, putting her hands on his chest to steady herself. She laughed. “Where’s your girl?” she asked him, tracing her fingers over his chest.

“Couldn’ handle her alcohol and passed ou’ early,” he answered easily, stealing the bottle of Jaegermeister off of the counter. “Fhink she needs ta take some lessons from yeh,” he joked, referencing her clearly intoxicated state.

Blake smirked but didn’t stop her fingers as they continued to trace patterns absentmindedly on his shirt. “Maybe you just need to pick the birds you fuck better. Birds...” she trailed off, laughing. “That sounds like beasti... beastia....” Her drunk tongue struggled to find the word and finally she just laughed and said, “Fucking animals.”

He shook his head in amusement. “Maybe yeh can’t ‘andle yeh liquor eifher.”

Blake looked up at him through her eyelashes, her green eyes piercing into his own honey orbs while she batted her unnaturally long eyelashes at him. “You don’t think I can handle my alcohol, Oliver?”

Her voice was low, dangerously so, and Oli was in a position he would have rather not been in. But he was there, and most of the party was passed out, and... he couldn’t say no to her.

She leaned closer and wrapped an arm around his neck, her fingers twirling in his hair. “You know,” she spoke, eyeing him again, “you have nice hair. Remember when we first met?”

He nodded slowly, but not too drastically. He liked her fingers touching him like they were. “I were a twat then,” Oli said easily.

Blake barked out a laugh. “You were. Still are I think. But you don’t straighten it anymore, and I like that. Messy is easiest.”

He smirked. “‘ow so?”

“Easiest to rake your fingers through,” she practically whispered as she leaned in even closer. Her lips were so close, and her alcohol soaked breath was washing over Oliver.

“Blake...” he trailed off, trying to stop her. He knew what was coming, but he also knew she was trashed. He himself wasn’t exactly in the proper state of mind. Did they really want this? More importantly, did it matter?

“Shhh,” she whispered before she leaned up just a little further and captured his lips in a kiss.

And that was all it took.

They tripped their way into Oli’s room because it was closer and Blake slammed the door shut with resounding finality. She pressed his body against it, leaning as close to him as she could physically stand before she attached her lips to his own again. Her hands went to his hair, tugging it while his own hands gripped her waist so hard she was sure there would be bruises there in the morning. That didn’t matter though. Not much did. Her brain was clouded from the alcohol and all she could concentrate on was the boy in front of her.

When she bit down on his bottom lip and raked her teeth over it, he released a groan, and pushed her away only slightly. “‘s not a good idea,” he muttered.

Blake just threw her head back and laughed. “Oh shut up,” she told him before bringing her lips back to his neck and biting the skin. “Are you really telling me,” she spoke, only stopping to kiss his neck, “to stop?”

He released a groan when she bit a sensitive part of his neck and shook his head. “Not at all, love. ‘m jus’ statin’ a fact.”

She silenced him with a kiss and then pulled back. “Do me a favor and stop talking.”

So he did just that.