If You're Ready

I woke up the next day cold and with a slight headache due to the drinks I’d had.

“Ugh.” I groaned, sitting up slowly.

I looked around the room to find that Beau hadn’t come in to sleep. I furrowed my eyebrows and stood up, walking over to the bathroom to brush my teeth. After I was finished brushing my teeth and pulling my hair up into a tidy bun, I remembered that I was supposed to be keeping an eye on Tara. Oops. I must’ve been too upset after what happened…well, more like what didn’t happen, that I had forgotten all about Tara. Check minus on the friendship board for me!

I rummaged through the weekend bag Beau had asked me to bring me since he was going to “kidnap” me for the weekend in search of some sweats. People, don’t ever hire Beau to kidnap someone because he’d be horrible . In fact, don’t hire anyone, don’t even THINK about it, kids!

After changing into comfortable clothing, I started to make my way downstairs. I stopped dead at my tracks and looked at the scenery that lay before me. The place was a MESS. This could take DAYS to clean up. I groaned and made my way down the final steps and huffed, resting my hands on my hips. Well, this was going to be a fun Saturday.

I looked at the site around me and there were empty plastic cups everywhere, streamers hanging half on the ground and half on the ceiling, then there were the people. There were various randoms laying on the ground and on the couches. Disgusted, I walked into the kitchen only to be greeted by an even uglier sight. No, it wasn’t the mess. It was Beau. Beau with that blonde chick from last night. Sure, they were fully clothed and there were other people there, but still, he had his arm around her! Angrily I grabbed a pot and a ladle, hitting the ladle hard against the pot.

Beau shot up quickly, alarmed by the noise and quickly brought his hands to his head, regretting sitting up so quickly. When he saw me holding the pot and ladle, he frowned.

“Darla… what the hell are you doing?!” He asked.

What the hell was I doing?! What the hell was HE doing holding onto some chick like that whilst he has a girlfriend.

“Huh?” He was now standing up and walking towards me.

I rolled my eyes and he took the cooking utensils away from me to set them on the cupboard. I glared at him and he just stared back at me, confused.

“Really Beau? You’re going to just stand there and pretend nothing happened?!” I spoke angrily, pointing back to the blonde laying on the floor fast asleep.

A sudden look of realization hit Beau’s face and he quickly went to defend himself.

“Nothing did happen, Darla! I swear!”

I shook my head and walked out toward the backyard to sit on a lawn chair. I closed my eyes to rest them for a moment and when I opened them back up again I noticed a body lay across the yard. I stood up and walked over it, It was Tara.

“Tara…” I poked her. Nothing. I poked her a little harder again and when she didn’t budge I sat on top of her and shook her.

“TARA, TARA WAKE UP! LOOK, IT’S SKRILLEX!”

She instantly shot up and looked around, adjusting her dress and attempting to fix her disheveled hair.

“Where? Where?” She asked, looking all around.

I chuckled and she turned to look at me, glaring.

“You’re evil!”

I shrugged and made my way back to the lawn chair.

“How was the party?” I asked, closing my eyes once more.

“Um, I know I was smashed but I’m pretty sure you were there.” She responded with a chuckle.

“Nope, I went upstairs fairly early.”

I heard shifting coming from the lawn chair beside me.

“Come to think of it…” She started. “I don’t think I saw Beau for a while…DID YOU AND BEAU LEAVE EARLY TO HAVE SEXYTIME?!”

I opened one eye to look at Tara and she was waiting on my answer with a smirk playing on her lips.

When I didn’t answer, Tara jumped to conclusions.

“YOU DID, DIDN’T YOU?!” She gasped. “You slut!”

I opened both eyes this time, shooting her a glare.

“Coming from you? That’s rich.” I chuckled.

Tara was a bit on the promiscuous side…

“But if you must know, Beau and I didn’t get to the sex part. His brother barged in on us, saying something in the kitchen was on fire.”

“Lemme guess, Jai?” She asked.

“Nope, haha. Luke.”

Tara nodded. “Wait you said something was on fire?”

It was my turn to nod.

“So THAT’S where the smoke was coming from! We all thought the boys had rented a fog machine or something.”

We both laughed and I heard another person’s laugh joining in. I turned to see who it was then rolled my eyes and groaned when I saw the person.

“Good morning, ladies!” A clean-looking Beau spoke. He must’ve taken a shower already.

I looked at my watch. “It’s the afternoon and I don’t see anything good about it.”

I heard a chuckle come from the person next to me. “Geez Darla, don’t be so bitter. Don’t worry, you’ll get some tonight.” Tara said, shooting Beau a wink.

Shaking my head I stood up and adjusted my top, walking toward the house. I was stopped by a hand holding my wrist.

“Darla, can we talk? Please?”

“Ohhh shiiit, that’s my cue to leave!”

I watched as Tara ran inside the house then at my surroundings, anywhere but at Beau.

“Babe, I swear nothing happened. I would never cheat on you, you know that.”

Did I know that? I jumped to conclusions pretty quickly sooo, no.

“Darla,” He held my hands.

“Prove it.” I said, still not looking at him.

“How can I prove it?” He asked. “I was trashed, we drank too much and we passed out! That’s all! NOTHING. HAPPENED.”

I sighed, not knowing if I was being too hard on him.

“Darla, please believe me.” He pleaded.

“Fine.”

“Fine what?” He asked.

“Stop pushing it.” I thought to myself. “Fine,” I said. “I believe you.”

Beau smiled and leaned in for a kiss but I stopped him, placing a hand on his chest and pushing him away gently. He furrowed his eyebrow, clearly confused by my actions.

“I said I believed you but you’re still not off the hook.”

“What?! But if you believe me then wh-“

I gave him a look and he stopped talking.

“Let’s go clean up, your house looks like shit.”

“Hey now,” Beau responded, following me into the house.

Jai and James were having cereal a the table, Daniel was having a banana in the living room whilst watching television, and Luke had just walked in with wet hair. Tara was nowhere in sight and other than them, there was no one else in the house. No one but ourselves and the huge dirty house.

“Uh, Beau?” I turned to look at him. “Where are the rest of your friends?”

“Oh, they went home.”

I just stood there looking at him.

“What?” He asked.

“Why’d you let them go? Have you seen this house? It’s a fucking mess and they could’ve helped!”

“Darla,” He said, placing both hands on my shoulders trying to calm me down. “They were guests of the house, I can’t just make them stay and help me clean. What kind of guy invites people to a party then tells them to clean up the house?” He asked.

“A smart guy.” I responded, which made Beau laugh. “I’m a guest of the house.” I continued.

“You basically used to live here, Darla.”

It’s true, I use to spend so much time at Beau’s that it seemed like I basically lived there. I even had my own drawer and a toothbrush there. But like I said before, we’ve started spending less and less time together because he gets really busy so that eventually changed.

“Like you said, used to…”

He pulled me into a tight hug and squeezed me.

“I love you.” Beau said.

I nodded, smirking and earning a worried look from Beau.

“I love you too.” I finally responded.

He smiled and I smiled back. Beau opened his mouth to speak but stopped himself.

“What?” I asked, knowing he wanted to say something.

“Nothing.” He said, shaking his head.

I stared at him and noticed his smile had faded.

“Beau, what’s wrong?” I asked worriedly.

Beau took in a deep breath and I watched him closely. He opened his mouth to speak and, unlike the other time, he didn’t stop himself.

“I was thinking, ya know, since we want to spend more time together, that we should…uh… we should get our own place together for the summer.”

I looked at him, stifling a laugh which caused him to frown.

“Wait, you were serious?!” I asked, shocked.

“Why would I say it if I weren’t serious?” Beau retorted.

Why was he saying it at all? More importantly, where was this coming from? It seems so random. Sure, he has a point. We have limited time together but what would our families say? I guess it wouldn’t really matter because we are both of age, but still, moving in together was a huge deal. At least for me it was.

“It’s ok.” Beau frowned. “You don’t have to.”

He started walking away when I reached for his wrist, making him turn around. We looked at each other and I don’t know what came over me that made me blurt out, “YES.”

A confused expression played on his face and he inspected my eyes. I stared back at him, not knowing what it was exactly he was trying to do. Beau stepped away from me and shook his head.

“No you don’t.”

“What?” I asked confused.

“I can see it in your eyes. You don’t want to move in with me.”

He stormed out of the room, leaving me alone and confused.