Don't Hesitate

"So then what happened?"
"So then I left."
"You left. Like, just left? What did you say?"
"I had work, Linda! I had to go. "
"Screw work. No, wait, screw Kellin instead--"
"Linda."
Demi stood up abruptly, sending a ripple across the table as she stood, the two half-empty glasses of wine throwing their contents dangerously close to the edge. "I messed up," she added quietly.
"What?" Melinda threw a hand into the air and then landed it on the top of the glass instead, lifted it and brought it to her lips. "Excuse me if I missed somethin' here but it seems to me like that is exactly the opposite of what you've done."
Demi eyed her closely, frowning. "Are you kidding me? You, you, out of all people, are telling me this is a good situation?"
"Pretty much," Melinda said, draining her glass.
"I can't believe you."
"People change. You're not the girl you were when we were growing up, and neither am I. Besides, I was always kinda jealous he was into you."
"He was never into me."
"He is now. And don't kid yourself, Dem, of course he was, it was just one of those stupid things, you were too young, you were both screwing around with other people."
"So what changed," Demi muttered, sinking back into her chair, running her hands through her hair. "I mean, look at this! Think what it looks like. Best friends as kids, I'm the girl that didn't wanna risk it with a guy like him, what, he gets in a band, goes off and gets famous, and then suddenly I'm back in the picture like some pathetic groupie?"
"I don't think anyone's gonna see it like that," Miranda said philosophically, reaching for the bottle of wine.
"Julia will." Demi covered her face with her hand. "Oh, fuck, Julia."
"Yeah, fuck Julia. You wanna know who the groupie is here? She is."
Demi sighed and leaned back in her chair, extended her hand towards the bottom of her wine glass. "I don't wanna be that girl, Linda," she said softly.
Melinda pursed her lips, flipped her golden mane across one shoulder, then swept it back over the other, tapping her long fingernails on the table. Then she said, "Tell me what the hell that means."
Demi's brown eyes drifted from the depths of her glass to the other girl's lighter pair. "You know what that means. You and Gabe."
"Don't bring Gabe into this," Melinda snapped, before she added, "And anyways, that was different, he broke up with her before we even started dating."
"But not before you--"
"Don't be scared about being the other woman," Melinda said, smiling mischievousness, raising her glass.
"I can't believe you're advocating promiscuity."
"I'm not-- advocating anything. I'm just saying, worse things could have happened."
Demi looked at her friend with a raised eyebrow.
"You could've gotten pregnant."
Demi rolled her eyes.
"You used protection, right?"
"Linda. Can you just stop for a second? I need to think."
Melinda took a sip of her wine and motioned for Demi to do the same, which she did, feeling her cheeks flush, tiredness roll in behind her eyes like grey clouds on a stormy horizon. She watched Demi for a moment, eyes not leaving her face which downcast, before she said quietly and very thoughtfully,
"Have you not thought that maybe this has come at a good time for you?"
Demi raised her head. "How the hell is this a good time for me? Work is fucking shit right now. I haven't even heard anything back from that article I sent off to NME last month, I'm trying to get used to Danny not being around--"
"That's what I'm talking about."
"What?"
"Him not being around, Dem! Fuck, do I have to spell it out?"
"Don't say another word," Demi hissed, and stood up again.
"Will you sit down? Jesus, girl, I'm trying to help."
"Well, you're not." Demi folded her arms across her chest and turned her back to the table behind her at which Melinda was still sat.
She leaned across and tapped the table with her hand. "C' mon, sit down."
Demi got slowly back into her chair and reached for her wine, face full of stoic resolve.
"I'm gonna ask you a question, and I want you to answer honestly," Melinda started and slid a hand across the table to meet Demi's, who nodded, twitching her mouth to the side. Melinda's eyes were wide, blue, and friendly.
"Say you took all those people out of the equation. His girlfriend, your boyfriend, whatever. Think about last night. Would you still want to be with him?"
Demi sighed. "Uhh, what kind of a question is that? That's not the situation."
"But what if it was?"
"It isn't. It isn't." Demi rested her hand on the table. "There's no situation. There's no being with him. Last night, it was just a bad decision."
"You're fucking kidding me."
"Linda." Demi looked at her with sad round eyes.
"Alright," Melinda said, holding up her hand. "If you could see what I could see-- no, wait, forget it. As your step sister, I get you, Demi, I do, but if you--" She waved her hand superfluously in the air. "We'll forget we ever talked about this."
"Yes."
"But I don't think this is the end."
"It's the end."
"Alright."
----
"So that's it? The end?"
"Yeah. And then-- she left."
"What, no good-bye blow?"
"Shut up." Kellin threw a smile across the room to Gabe who had just spoken. Jesse was hanging upside down with his legs cross the back of the sofa, Jack was lying on the floor listening to his iPod, Justin was sat next to Kellin at the table with a serious kind of expression on his face.

It went silent, each boy nodded slowly and thoughtfully and looked around the room. Kellin shifted in his seat, biting gently at his lip. "So?" The others looked at him in turn, shrugging a little amongst each other, nibbling their nails or rifling through a magazine on their lap. Kellin cleared his throat. "I kind of expected you to be more surprised."
"Well, if it had been some other girl," Jesse offered at length.
"Why's that different?"
"Because some other girl is not Demi."
"So."
"You've been wanting to do her for years, it was so fucking obvious," Jack called.
"So fucking obvious," Jesse agreed.
"Is your dick happy now?" Gabe asked.
Jesse leaned over and nudged Kellin. "I think more than his dick is happy."
Kellin smirked and looked down. Justin lifted his head, face pensive as he said in a heavy kind of voice,
"What about Julia?" Jesse nodded, chewing on his lip.
"What d' ya mean?" Gabe asked lazily.
"I can see she's a three-way kind of girl," Jack shrugged and Justin rolled his eyes.
"Seriously. You gonna tell her?" He added.
Kellin gave a slight shrug and reached for the can of Monster sat across the table from him at the same time that Justin did. Their hands met, their eyes met, and Justin's lips did not even twitch into smile, his eyes just darted away fast as he pulled his hand away and murmured,
"I think maybe you should."
"Thanks for the advice," Kellin muttered sourly and looked towards the other three boys. "Guys?"
"Um," Jack murmured and gave a yawn. "I say don't say anything."
"Unless you're thinking of making this a permanent thing," Gabe added.
"Yeah, if it's like a permanent fix. I mean fuck. Haha," Jack smirked.
Jesse shrugged his shoulders a little and said, "Well, I don't know. If it's over for you and Julia now." Justin looked at him with a slightly concerned look on his face, and then went back to the magazine he'd been reading.
Kellin sipped from the can, eyes going a little cloudy as his mind drifted back to the previous night, brief flash images, scents, colours, feelings which provoked a gentle shiver, a slight raising of the hairs on his arms, imperceptible.
"Kellin?"
He looked up to see that Jesse had flipped himself the right way up, half-lying across Jack who was looking at him expectantly. They were all looking at him expectantly. He faltered. "Yeah?" He swallowed the lump rising in his throat.
Justin stood up abruptly and broke the silence, and his face was flat and a little grey in the harsh light of the room as he said, "Anyways, a couple of weeks and we're in the studio. That'll give you time to figure things out."
"Figure out your feeeeelings," said Jack.
"Waa," added Jesse. "I think you just need to figure out how she likes it."
"She's fucking hot, man," Jack muttered.
"And her jackass boyfriend's out of town," Gabe added.

Kellin shoved his thumbnail between his teeth and bit down gently, a smile creeping across his lips. "You think I should talk to her about it?"
Jack, Gabe and Jesse nodded in unison. Justin remained silent, turned away and rifling through a stack of magazines on a side table. The way he held his shoulders, high and taut, made Kellin a little uneasy when he looked that way.
"This is only the beginning, my man," Jack called, and Kellin couldn't help but smile.