All the Faint Lights

Chapter Five
-Trisha-
"What the hell?" I muttered as I watched as Caroline disappeared behind the elevator doors obviously pissed off about something, "What happened?"

I looked over towards James who was leaning against the wall hitting his head and muttering 'stupid' over and over again. I called his name he looked at me and sighed, "I might have accidently call your sister a whore."

"Excuse me?" I asked completely shocked.

"I swear, the way she said something, I thought of something else, and then it just got all-"

"James freakin' Neal!" I growled and he flinched and then held up his hands.

"I'm sorry, I swear, I didn't-"

The elevator dinged and opened to reveal Sidney, Geno and Marc, the three troublemakers. I sighed frustrated at the situation and then shook my head at James.

"What happened?" Sidney asked as he walked up and stood behind me, "I saw your sister, she looked pretty pissed, practically ran Flower here over."

"James here called my sister a whore," I said and threw my hands towards James who was back leaning against the wall muttering 'stupid'.

"Why you do that?" Geno asked and James growled and then ran towards the stairs and disappeared, "Where he go?"

"Better be going to apologize to her!" I hissed and then turned around and walked back to my office, forgetting why I was going to the elevator to begin with.

-James-
“Stupid, stupid, stupid, why are you so stupid?!” I growled as I ran down the stairs and making it to the bottom floor and running out of the stairwell and passed Coach, practically running him down.

“Watch where you’re goin’ Neal!!!”

I waved up my arm to show Coach that I heard him, but I was still sprinting down the hallway. I made my way towards the back door, past some of my teammates asking what was up. Running out the door I looked around, hoping that I would find her, but was sad to see that she was nowhere to be seen.

I cursed, kicked the ground and shook my head, my hands on my hand. I cursed again before opening the door and walking back into the arena and back to the locker room, wishing that I could take back the things that I said.

‘…That’s not how you talk to a girl! Why did you say that to her?! You automatically assumed that she was a whore! You’re such an idiot, why did you do that?! You do hurt girls’ feelings! It’s not right!...’ I thought to myself as I quickly gathered my gear and swung the strap over my shoulder.

“Yo! Nealer! What’s going on?!” Max asked as he ran over towards me, “I’ve been callin’ ya for the past five minutes!”

“Sorry Talbo, I need to-“

“Neal!” I heard my name turned to see Trisha charging at me. I groaned and then cursed and threw my bag onto the ground.

“Trish, I tried to reach her, but she was-“

“You go here! You apologize to her!” she said and handed me an address, “Or I’ll kick your ass!”

“What is this place?”

“It’s a music store, it’s where she works, she starts at eight tomorrow morning, go before the morning skate,” Trisha said and I sighed and nodded my head.

‘…She’s scary sometimes…’

-Caroline-
“How can you just stand there and act like it’s all right for him to call me a whore!” I argued while glaring at Trisha and seeing Asher and Gordon looking at us confused.

“It’s not all right Caroline! I yelled at him! He tried to run after you, but you were gone!” she said and I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

“Oh my god, the nerve of that asshole! He’s such an ugh-“

“Not the wall!” RJ yelled because I was about to punch the wall.

“Ok, I don’t know what’s going on here, but Linny, get in the box so we can work on-“

“He’s gunna apologize to you!” Trisha said, cutting Asher off and I scoffed.

“He can keep it! Neal can take that apology and shove it up his ass!” I yelled.

“Ok,” Asher said and then wrapped his arm around my waist, picked me up, and started to walk towards the box.

“Put me down, Asher!” I growled and he smirked.

“Gladly!” he said and then set me in front of the microphone, “Sing.”

“Fine,” I growled and then watched as he left the room and appeared in front of the window, tapping towards RJ to start the music.

The music started and I sighed and placed the headphones on and started to sing, “I remember when my heart caught the fever. You were standing all alone in the summer heat. I was with my boyfriend, my new boyfriend he was as sweet as he could be- WHY WOULD HE APOLOGIES?!!!”

Asher and RJ flinched and threw their headphones off because I yelled into the microphone.

“Those aren’t the lyrics,” Gordon said and I growled.

“Why wouldn’t he Lin?! He made a mistake!”

“He called me a whore Trish! He didn’t accidently bump me!” I yelled and then took the headphones off and walked out of the box.

“And that’s a wrap on that song,” RJ sighed and rubbed his face.

“Why are you being so difficult on this Linny? James said something that he shouldn’t have and feels bad, now he wants to apologize.”

“I don’t want it! I want him to stay away from me!” I growled and then grabbed my jacket and walked out of the shop, heading over towards my jeep and going home.

-James-
“I think this is the place,” I said as I looked at the address, my phone and then up at the store sign.

“I never knew that this was here,” Max said and I nodded my head.

“Thanks for coming with me, man,” I said and Max nodded his head.

“Someone needs to teach you how to talk to women,” he laughed and I scoffed and walked towards the door.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have brought you,” I said as I opened the door and walked into the shop, looking around until I spotted Trisha’s sister, Caroline.

“That her?” Max asked as he nudged his head over towards the corner of the room where a girl was standing on an unsafe latter stacking some boxes.

“Yeah,” I said and looked to see that she was in jeans, flats and what looked to be some kind of band t-shirt.

I took a deep breath and then walked over towards her, Max following behind me because I’m too scared to talk to her on my own, afraid that I might say something wrong, I know, I’m a coward. I coughed a little and then looked at Max.

“Excuse me,” Max said before I could get a word out.

“Jesus,” Caroline yelped and my eyes widened when she lost her balance and started to fall back.

I don’t even remember what happened, or how it happened, it just happened so fast and my reflexes took over. I threw my arms out caught her as she fell.

“Nice, Nealer,” Max smirked as he looked over towards me.

“What the hell?!” I heard her growl and then looked down to see that she was glaring at me. She pushed away from me and the angriness in her eyes didn’t lessen, “What are you doing here- Dammit Trisha!”

“She’s just trying to help me.”

“I don’t know or care why you’re here-“

“I’m here to apologize,” I said and she scoffed and pointed towards Max.

“And you brought back up, why?”

“I’m here to make sure that he doesn’t screw up,” Max teased and I rolled my eyes; “Obviously you’ve noticed that he doesn’t know how to talk to women.”

“Obvious! Because every girl ‘loves’ to be called a whore.”

“I didn’t mean it like-“

“Yes you did,” she said and I groaned.

“See! There you go again! You think you know me but you don’t!” I said and Max placed his hand on my shoulder, telling me to shut up before I make the situation worse.