Take My Body

"I'm not going out with you tonight, Taissa," I laughed, watching my friend's expression fall from excitement to disappointment in less than a second.

Taissa's purse dropped from her hand to the carpet when she gaped at me, mouth opening and closing while she tried to come up with a reason I definitely had to go to the pub with her that evening. I could practically see the cogs turning in her mind and was almost certain that smoke would soon make its way out of her ears. Something seemed to click and she snapped her bony fingers in my face. "Finn is going! You have to go if Finn is going."

I laughed again and made my way around the girl into my kitchen. "When did we make that arrangement? I don't remember signing anything."

The brunette pouted, collapsing into one of the chairs beside the dining table. "Finn said that if I told you he was going you might give in."

"Oh," I said, "I see. Well, sweetie pie, I don't know where he came up with that idea, but Finn tagging along does nothing to make me even want to change my mind about getting pissed at some shitty pub with you and stumbling home at three in the morning. I have to work in the morning."

Taissa puffed out a breath of air and slammed her tiny fist down on the table. "Allie! C'mon. What are you going to do otherwise? Sit at home in your onesie and watch Peter Pan again? Have you forgotten that you're 19 years old? Close the window. Peter isn't coming to take you away. You're a grown up, baby girl."

I gave her a pointed look.

"Fine! But really, Allie. You never come out with us anymore. Finn misses you. And it's not as much fun with just the two of us."

"Yeah, because I am just the best drunk."

She nodded her head enthusiastically. "You are, though! You're right funny when you're proper pissed. Makes for a much more entertaining evening. Finn only tries to hook up with every guy he sees when he's gone and you know how I am."

"Sleepy."

Taissa stood up and grabbed my hands in hers. "Please come out with us, Allie. I promise we won't take you to a gross, shifty pub. We're going to the one near Finn's place, the one that has the open-mic night on Thursdays."

"Oh, great, so we'll get to listen to horrible music by poeple that think they're the next Stones while we get pissed. You two really know how to make a girl want to leave her flat. I'll go get ready right now." I pointed my thumb in the direction of my bedroom.

"Don't make me do it," she mumbled.

I raised an eyebrow. "Do what?"

"You know what. Don't think I won't do it, because I will. I'm serious about this, Allyson. You're coming out with us tonight, even if that means I have to do it."

"I honestly have no clue what you're going on about."

And that's when she did it. The thing about Taissa is that she already has really, really wide brown eyes. Think Allison Harvard, only bigger and wider and even more innocent. When Taissa wasn't getting her way, she would pull out her best, and when I say "her best" I mean "the world's best" puppy eyes, and no matter what it was she wanted I had no choice but to give it to her. When we were in primary school she was really shy and wanted me to ask the boy that sat next to her in chorus if he would sit by her at lunch though she knew that I was 10 times more shy than her, but the moment she whipped those big brown doe eyes out I walked right on over to the kid.

"You're unbelievable," I whispered. I threw the rag I'd been using to wipe the counter from my shoulder and into the sink and left the room, yelling behind myself on the way to my room. "Give me an hour."



The pub Taissa dragged me to, after assuring me that Finn was already there waiting for us, wasn't as bad as I had honestly anticipated it to be. I'm not trying to say that Finn and Taissa had horrible taste in drinking habitats, but Finn and Taissa had pretty bad taste in drinking habitats. It was a rather small building and that abated my fears for the time being; a small building usually meant a small number of attendees. And from what Finn had told me about open-mic nights, especially in this area of the city, not many people tended to show up to the pubs when they were in session, regardless of the lowered alcohol prices.

Despite Taissa having yelled at me over my choice of clothing, we got to pub before Finn could start getting worried - which, in his case and though he always denied it, was actually a really bad case of annoyance. We walked through the doors arm-in-arm, earning a few glances as we entered the large open room inside. Finn had told us he would find us himself when we arrived and so the two of us walked up to the bar and ordered a couple of drinks. Taissa got one of her usual girly drinks while I decided on not my usual - a beer.

We'd been sitting not even three minutes when a familiar harshly accented, deep but slightly feminine voice rang out behind us, a deep sigh interlaced within its words. "Taissa, you didn't."

The two of us spun around, drinks in hand, and stared at our very tall, very broad, very nearly already drunk friend with open mouths. His hip was cocked out, the way it only ever did when he was drunk or incredibly angry, and his arms were crossed over his built chest. I hadn't seen Finn in almost a month, as I had gone back to the States to visit my family on vacation and had only just gotten back, and it seemed as if the boy - man - had been hitting the gym even more often than before I'd left. Finn was on one of his The Boys Will Only Like Me If... kicks and this one seemed to do with being incredibly fit.

"I didn't what?" Taissa asked, perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised over her eye as she sipped at her Cosmopolitan.

Finn stepped forward and pulled at the hem of my blouse, tsking and shaking his head as he did so. "You let her dress herself?"

Taissa's eyes went wide while my cheeks burst into flames. I looked down at my floral peplum top and pink Topshop shorts. I slapped Finn's hand away then shoved him back from me. "First of all, I am literally sitting right here. Don't talk like I'm not. And secondly, what the fuck is wrong with what I'm wearing, McFinnigan?"

"You look like a five-year-old going to the carnival. You could have at least worn heels, Allyson," he whined, staring down at my Keds with disdain. "I don't even want to be seen with you tonight at this point."

I jumped from the stool and glared up at him. "Then don't be seen with me! You're only here to scout for guys anyways." I glanced behind myself at Taissa then walked away, further down the bar, and took a seat closer to the stage where someone was setting up open-mic night.

Finn and I had a....back-and-forth relationship. One minute we were alright, laughing together and giving each other advice, and the next we were at each other's throats, most of the time over silly things. For example, I didn't like the way Finn ditched us for a random hook up whenever we went out with him and he didn't like the way I dressed. Whereas I had known Taissa since I had moved to England when we were seven, I only met Finn after Taissa had gone off to college. They had a few classes together and came to be friends, and I had no choice but to join in with them.

Down the bar Taissa was poking Finn in the chest, her face tight and angry as she yelled at him. She pointed in my direction a few times and said something I couldn't make out before Finn turned on his heel and walked into the small crowd on the dance floor. Taissa shook her head, grabbed her drink from the bartop and made her way down to where I was, sitting at the open stool beside me.

It was quiet for a moment before she spoke. "I think you look cute."

I barked out a laugh, sipping from my bottle. "You told me ten times I should've changed before we left mine."

"Only because I knew how Finn would react." She smiled at me. "Don't let him get you down, Al. In his world, all of his friends need to dress and act the same way he does. You're different from the both of us," she nodded, "and that's why I love you."

I rolled my eyes, knocking my shoulder into hers and tipping the mouth of my beer against the edge of her glass. "I love you, too, Tai."



After almost two hours of horrible performances by girls that thought they were Britney Spears and boys that wanted to be Justin Timberlake, I was on my way to becoming drunk. Finn had made his way back to us after ascertaining that there weren't any cute or even slightly doable boys at the pub with us and apologized, blaming his rudeness on his having not been laid in forever. I was already too far gone to care and accepted his apology, letting him sit on the other side of me as we all watched as act after terrible act took the stage in front of us.

"You know, the only reason I suggested we come here was because every other time I've been there have been hordes of hot twinks on the dance floor," Finn stated sadly, eyes not moving from the country western duo that had been performing way longer than was necessary and nursing his beer. "I should have known better." His lips curled up in a pout and for a second I was honestly scared that he was going to cry. Sometimes, when he couldn't find someone to fuck, Finn turned into a blubbering mess.

I patted him on the back, tugging lightly at his dark hair that had grown far too long in the time we'd been apart. "It's alright, Finny," I slurred, sipping from my own bottle. "I forgive you. But next time Taissa and I get to choose where we go, okay?"

My words seemed to sober him up and he sat up rod-straight on the stool, staring at me with bright eyes. "Next time? There's going to be a next time? For sure? You, Allyson Hartley, are actually making plans to go out again sometime in the near future? Someone call the papers," he raised his voice on the last part and practically yelled, "somebody call the bloody papers!"

I laughed and shoved him. "Shut up, Finn. Yeah, I'll come out again as long as I'm not dragged to a fucking shitty pub like this. You two may think otherwise but I do like to have fun when I go out. If I wanted to get pissed and be bored out of my mind I would stay home."

"Taissa!" Finn's shrill, drunken yell rang in my ear and I flinched away from him, smile still on my face. "Did you hear mine and Allie's conversation just now?"

But Taissa didn't seem to be paying attention. Sometime during my talk with Finn a new act had begun to set up and Tai was caught in a trance. I waved my hand in front of her face to get her attention and she finally, slowly, turned to look at me.

"You alright, Tai?"

She nodded, eyes wider than usual, but still said nothing.

"What is it?"

She turned her attention away from me and pointed to the stage. I followed her stare and my brows shot up, surely hidden underneath my hairline.

"He's fucking fit."

The new act consisted of a single blonde boy who looked to be around my age, who was sat on a stool with an acoustic guitar in his lap. He was clad in a pair of jeans and a white graphic t-shirt. He was staring down at the guitar, his fingers moving slowly over the strings for a moment in practice. The boy's shoulders moved up, as if he'd taken a deep breath, and then he looked up.

His eyes were bright and, not to sound overly cliche, the prettiest blue I'd ever seen; prettier even than Finn's eyes, and I'd told him many a time that he had the prettiest in the world. Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe I was just in the same boat as Finn, but I felt my heart drop into my stomach when he smiled and before I knew it, it had jumped back into my chest and was beating at least twice as quickly as it should have been.

"Hi," he said into the mic, the chuckle in his voice mixed with a bit of nervousness, "I'm Niall Horan." He scratched the back of his neck then started strumming his guitar, and the moment he began singing I knew that I was a goner.