Sooner or Later

"So, you and Garrett did it , hm?" Eric asked, sauntering over to Kenzie who was still sitting on one of the couches, ‘looking pretty’ as Garrett liked to call it. She raised her eyebrows at the boy who was supposed to be working, but was clearly too caught up in his new 'arousal' for her. "You know," he continued. "You did the deed." Still no response. "The horizontal tango? The dance with no pants?" He paused, still waiting for response that he wouldn't get.

"Are you done?" The girl asked.

"I don't know; are you going to answer?" He replied.

"Why do you need to know Eric? Do you want details on how good Garrett is in bed?"

"So he's good in bed?" He perked up, reading too far into her words, twisting them into what he wanted to hear.

"That's not was I meant," she tried to correct herself, but that just made things worse.

"He's not good?" She glared at him. "Alright, I'll drop it! I'm sorry, John has clearly accepted the role of overprotective best friend, and I figured I'd play the supportive one." Kenzie's hard exterior seemed to melt a little. This is why she loved Halvo so much, he was always looking out for his friends, and making sure they were happy, putting their needs in front of his own. He was such a sweetheart.

"I appreciate that E, but it doesn't mean you have to pry," she pointed out.

"True, but you know me; I'm a curious little shit. I want to know if you're getting some or not," he poked her ribs. Kenzie glanced over at Garrett who was pulling his shirt off to replace it with an old tour shirt they had lying around so that he would stain his even more. She blushed at the sight and looked away.

"You so are!" Eric exclaimed, almost giddily, making Kenzie roll her eyes at him. She didn't bother fighting anymore; she had to sell it right? "Well I'm happy someone around here is getting laid." Someone? What did he mean by someone ?

"I'm pretty sure John and Shannon have slept together..." Kenzie said, although she wasn't sure it was a fact. She's simply assumed.

"Has he told you that?" Halvo inquired. "Because to my knowledge they haven't...." This confused the girl a little. They had been dating for a while and if you considered John's track record, they would have slept together by now. Not that he bragged about that type of thing, but as someone's best friend, you could tell when they'd been getting some. Maybe Shannon was the one withholding.

Her phone started blaring Barbie Girl, making Eric laugh. She'd assigned the ringtone to Shannon at the beginning or their 'friendship'. Now that she'd gotten to know her, she felt sort of bad about it.

"I have to take this," she told Eric, standing up from the couch. "You should get back to work." She unlocked her phone and pressed it to her ear as she stepped into the back room. "Hello?"

"Hey Kenzie, are you busy?" Shannon asked.

"Nah, I'm just supervising the guys at 8123,” she joked.

"Can…can I ask you a question?" She hesitated slightly, unsure if she wanted to actually speak of this out loud. Kenz on the other hand was confused. What in the world could Shannon want to ask her? She agreed though, figuring that she owed her at least this for all of her help with her 'transformation' process.

"It's about John…I couldn't see myself asking one of the guys and I know that no one is closer to him than you." She paused, summing up her courage. "We were at his house after a date last night and well, I made a move and he reacted badly...." This took Kenzie by surprise. John was the one who was withholding sex? "He pushed me away and said we weren't ready for that and that it was too soon... We've been dating for months... Is he always like this?"

"No..." Kenzie replied hesitantly. She was pretty confused about this too.

"So it's me?" Shannon asked, sounding hurt. Shit, Kenzie wasn't helping one bit.

"No sweetie, it's not you, you did nothing wrong," she tried to comfort her. "John has been acting weird these days; do you want me to talk to him?" She offered.

"No!" Shannon exclaimed. "God, I’d be mortified if he found out I brought it up with you. I'm just scared Kenz. We're going out tonight and we're going to have to talk about this eventually... What if he dumps me?" She sounded genuinely worried.

"I don't think he's going to dump you Shannon," Kenzie sighed quietly. “I think you should trust John. Maybe he isn't ready, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. He has jumped into girls' beds in the past, maybe he just wants to make sure that it's different with you... That your first time is special, you know?"

"You really think that?" Kenzie prayed that she was right about this. She wasn't normally wrong about John. Unfortunately for her, being right could result in officially breaking her heart, but if she was wrong, then Shannon would be crushed. She didn't know what was worse at the moment.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Alright, well thank you Kenzie, you’re a great friend.” And with that she was gone. Kenzie felt a lump rise in her throat, she felt like a pretty shitty friend right now. She was either setting John, Shannon or herself up for failure here. She quickly pulled up a text message and sent one to Garrett;

Come to the back room I need to speak with you.

It didn’t take two seconds for him to show up.

“What? What’s wrong?” he asked worriedly, glancing around.

“I just spoke to Shannon… The fight they had last night was about John not wanting to sleep with her…” A grin spread across Garrett’s hairy face.

“You realize what this means right?” he asked, but there was no reaction whatsoever from Kenzie. “He texted you after this fight Kenz! He was thinking of you when he could have been in bed with another girl. This is a good sign!” The thing was; she didn’t feel good about this at all.

“But I basically just told Shannon that John was going to make their first time special. That he thought she was special…What if he dumps her tonight? Oh god, she’s going to hate me… Why am I trying to sabotage this Garrett? She trusts me. John trusts me; he’s my best friend! I’m such a horrible person…Why am I doing this?”

“Kenzie! Kenzie! Kenzie!” Garrett interrupted taking her face in his hands. “You are down spiraling; calm down.” He took a couple of deep breaths with her before proceeding. “John will not break up with Shannon, not tonight, that’s not the type of guy he is. But you’re in Kenz; you’re in his head! This is what we want! Whenever he tries to do something, bam, you’re on his mind! He’s on a date with Shannon- he’s thinking of you! Writing songs? Kenzie Wright! Soon enough you’re going to be on his mind night and day, if you’re not already. And then we strike. This is just the preliminaries Kenzie. But, if you want to back out I understand. But you have to answer one thing: do you want John? If you answer no, then I’ll back off, but if you can’t deny it then I’m going to be here, working my magic on both of you until I’m the best man at your wedding, whether you help me with this or not.” Kenzie giggled.

“Pretty sure John would ask Halvo, maybe Tim, to be his best man.” Garett sighed exasperatingly.

“Fine, I’ll be the Maid Honor then.” Kenzie laughed, she was glad that she could always count on Garrett to make her feel better. “I understand why you’d feel guilty about this, but I don’t think Shannon and John are right for each other. I think they’ll end up breaking up in the end. We’ll just be speeding up the process.” She supposed he was right, but the guilt was still reigning over everything else. Maybe she shouldn’t have befriended Shannon at all, hating her would have made this whole process a lot easier.

“Gar where did you go?” Pat called from the other room. Footsteps grew louder as someone came towards the door. The girl’s face was still in his hands, so Garrett thought quickly. The kid was always on his toes. He leaned his face down to his girlfriend’s and pressed his mouth to hers as one of his hands slipped down to her waist.

“Garrett-” John stopped in his tracks as he saw the couple. He cleared his throat, making them jump apart. “Tim’s looking for you. We need your help.” He spun on his heels and left the room. Garrett grinned down at the girl.

“That otta push him right back into Shannon’s arms.”

“Garrett?” Kenzie replied, raising her eyebrows at the boy.

“Yeah?”

“Your hand is on my ass. Why is your hand still on my ass?”

“Well you’re my girlfriend for one,” he answered, leaving his hand where it was and pulling her closer to his body. “Besides, Eric is right; this whole girly thing looks great on you.”

“Get off me,” she laughed pushing him away. “And don’t look at my ass as I walk away,” she warned, spinning back around when she realized he wasn’t following her. He grinned widely before walking out of the room before her.

She followed him only to be met by Halvo’s stare. Their eyes locked and he started wiggling is eyebrows up and down, making the poor girl blush. She flipped him off as she returned to her previous seat. For the rest of the afternoon John seemed to be glued to his phone and was avoiding Garrett and Kenzie like the plague. She had managed to corner him before leaving.

“Hey, don’t worry about tonight. You and Shannon will work things out,” she smiled encouragingly but her friend just shrugged. “She’s a great girl John. I’m sure whatever’s wrong can be talked through and fixed.”

“You think so?” he asked.

“Yeah. She’s special.” Her actions and words were surprising her. A couple hours ago she was overcome with guilt and now she was playing along as though this was nothing.

“I’ll let you know how it goes.” She smiled at him pressing a kiss to his cheek before joining Garrett by the door.

“I think we did well today,” he said as he pulled up in front of Kenzie’s apartment. It was her turn to shrug.

“Are you coming up?” she asked, not in the mood to be alone tonight.

“Nah, I should get home,” he replied, but noticed that the girl was clearly disappointed. “I’m running out of clean clothes here Kenz. How about you stay the night tomorrow? I know Pat’s been whining about me hogging you all the time. Sound good?”

“Sure, I’ll text you.” She climbed out of the car and made her way up to her building. She shed her dress as she got to her room and pulled on one of John’s shirts that she’d claimed as her own years ago. She went to bed, neglecting to have diner. She tossed and turned for hours, her thoughts eating away at her. She’d finally managed to get to sleep, but was awoken after what felt like mere minutes by her phone vibrating on her mattress.

You were right. Thank you Kenzie! X

It was from Shannon. The girl groaned, throwing her phone across the room, hitting the wall before it fell to the floor. Yeah, some useful superpower she had; she seemed to be able to read John’s mind about pretty much everything except things concerning her. It was extremely selfish, but the only solution Kenzie could find to counter the guilt would be knowing that John did, or would eventually, reciprocate her feelings. Knowing that things would work out in the end would make this all okay. She had never been much of a risk taker as a kid; she’d left most of the recklessness to the boys, laughing at them when it blew up in their faces. Who would be laughing at her when this didn’t work out?

No, she refused to think like that anymore. Things happened for a reason, right? Garrett was pushing her to do this, so she would do this. She would take a risk for once. Whatever the outcome, it was meant to be. Besides, she was Kenzie Wright; she fought for what she wanted. And she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to go out swinging this time.