Whatsername

BOOM.

BANG.

BOOM, BOOM, BANG.

I groaned, covering my head with my pillow after hearing that awful drum set once again. I hated that thing with a fucking passion. I couldn't even begin to count how many times Tre had woken me up with it. The sound of the cymbal made my ears ring, and I winced, wishing I could murder whoever invented the damn thing.

Why, oh why did Tre have to go to Billie's to play every single day?

I had thought Tre had taken his kids out for the day, leaving Billie and me alone in the house, so that maybe I would be able to sleep in for once, but as I stood up, grabbed my shoe off the floor, and trudged down the hall to go hit him in the head with it, I realized I had thought wrong.

I staggered my way through the house, still half-asleep, until I had finally reached my destination. I grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and peeked my head into the room. My eyes widened after seeing who it was; I didn't know Billie played the drums....

The door creaked as I shut it and leaned against it, and Billie looked over at me, setting the drumsticks down with a small grin. "Did I wake you?"

"No," I lied, dropping my shoe and walking farther into the room, " but I thought you were Tre."

"Pft. Tre wishes he was as good as me," he joked.

I laughed. "I didn't know you played the drums."

He smiled. "Yeah, my dad taught me...."

"Do something," I ordered, pointing to the drumsticks. I sat down in a chair and waited for him to play. He cleared his throat and glanced at me, almost nervously, and picked up the sticks, twirling them a little before starting.

I smiled, thinking how funny it was that I was about to murder Tre for playing, and now I was requesting Billie to play.

"Yay, that was great," I cheered after he had finished. For once I could actually recall hearing the song before. "That was one of your songs, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. 'Dominated Love Slave'. Tre wrote it," he said as I flicked the cymbal and wrinkled my nose at the noise it made.

"Yeah, I think he's played that before," I yawned, proud that I had remembered something. He smiled, and the room suddenly became uncomfortably silent.

"Billie," I said after a moment, finally deciding to ask the question I'd been wondering about for a while, "why exactly are we hiding what happened between us from Tre?"

He shifted slightly and cleared his throat. "Well, uh, Tre tends to get a little... jealous when there's a girl involved. He's always been that way. And he kinda has a thing for you.... So when we all went to that club, I might have told him not to try anything with you. And then I myself ended up getting drunk and... yeah..." he trailed off.

I sighed. "Tre's a nice guy, but... I don't think I'd ever be drunk enough to let him do anything."

Billie laughed and grinned at me. "That makes me feel a little better."

I rolled my eyes and looked down, embarrassed as he continued to stare at me. “What?"

"Nothing. You're just fun to look at." I glanced back up at him with raised eyebrows, and he continued. "You're pretty."

"Stop," I groaned, my eyes immediately going back to the floor. Did he enjoy embarrassing me? Evidently, yes. He chuckled and placed his finger under my chin, lifting my face up, and softly kissed my lips.

"I win!" he said happily. "You didn't hit me or block my face... or anything!"

I rolled my eyes. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm starving," I said, standing up to leave. Billie followed me out of the room, and we walked towards the kitchen. I glanced over my shoulder and raised my eyebrows after noticing how close he was behind me, and he grinned like the goofball he is. I turned around and opened my mouth to ask him why he was so close, and he grabbed my face, kissed me again, and went back to grinning.

"You know what-- we should go out for breakfast. Go get dressed," he said, quickly turning around and running upstairs.

I blinked. "Okay...."

Thirty minutes later, the two of us sat in IHOP, finishing our delicious pancakes. They were so much better than my burned ones. Actually, anything would have been better than my burned ones....

I licked the last bit of syrup off my fork and set it on my plate, that was now empty except for the strawberry that had topped my meal. Billie had tried to make me eat it, but I won in the end. Sweet, sweet victory.

After staring at the menu for a few minutes, which was surprisingly interesting and colorful, I looked across the table and giggled.

Billie smiled, completely oblivious to the syrup running down the side of his mouth. "What?"

"Nothing," I said, grinning. He looked at me skeptically, and I ignored him. Glancing around the semi-vacant restaurant, I noticed there were only two other tables in the place with people in them. An old couple sat in the one behind us, and a group of girls were across the room, giggling like crazy the entire time. Billie had seemed nervous when we had walked into the place and spotted them; he even hid behind me when we walked by their table. Maybe he was afraid they would recognize him.

I frowned, thinking of how Billie must feel when he's in public; always having to dodge excited fans and psychos seemed like a frustrating thing to have to deal with anytime you decided to go out... and now I was a part of it.

"You don't seem like you're having that much fun," Billie observed quietly. "We're supposed to be enjoying our vacation!"

"Vacation?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"Yeah, our vacation from Tre," he explained with a grin.

"Oh, right."

"We can do whatever we want-- just the two of us... not unless you like Tre being around all the time," he mumbled. "Am I that boring?"

"No," I said, and he sighed in mock relief. "You're not boring. I'm just having trouble focusing with them over there." I nodded my head in the direction of the annoying girls, who were still giggling.

"Ah, I'd go over there and tell them to shut the fuck up, but I'm afraid they'd jump me... and that never turns out well."

I laughed, and the couple behind us shushed me. I was about to turn around and shush them back when Billie's cell phone rang and interrupted everything.

"Hello? Oh, hi, Adrienne." I immediately slid down in my seat and tried to ignore Billie the best I could. Five minutes, numerous mentions of my name, pancakes, the absence of his drummer, and another threat to his son's ass later, and Billie was hanging up. "Yeah, I'll be there in a little while. Bye, Adie."

Adie... he'd never called her that before. "So... what's up?" I asked as Billie reached into his back pocket.

"Oh, we have to go pick Jake up. The little brat isn't listening to Adrienne at all. He didn't even go to school today," he explained as he searched through his wallet.

"Oh...."

Billie finally paid the bill, and we left the restaurant right before one of the giggling girls noticed him and started screaming. Celebrities have such easy, carefree lives, don't they? We had to run to the car to get away from them and their camera phones. Just another reason to hate cell phones....

______________________________________ ---

"I'm staying right here this time," I said as Billie parked the car in Adrienne's driveway.

He sighed and climbed out. I watched him walk up to the door and ring the doorbell. Not even two seconds later, the door flew open and Billie was being smothered by Jakob. He pried him off and pointed to the car, and Jakob's eyes lit up after spotting me. Another two seconds, and Jakob was running toward me, a huge grin on his face as he attempted to drag an overstuffed backpack behind him.

"Hi, Kate! Guess what I did yesterday! I ate pizza! And then I went to the park and I saw a dog and the dog barked and I barked back at him and he--" Jakob continued to babble as he climbed into the driver's seat, honking the horn and messing with the radio while explaining his story about the dog at the park. "--but Mom said if I didn't stop poking it with the stick it'd bite me-- how many teeth do dogs have?"

"I don't know," I sighed, rolling my eyes as he continued to ask me questions, and I looked back at Billie. He was bouncing on his heels, his hands in his pockets as he waited. Adrienne appeared in the doorway a moment later, glancing at me before talking to Billie. They talked for a few minutes, neither one of them looking like they were about to rip the other's head off, which surprised me. But nothing surprised me more than when they hugged... and when Billie kissed her cheek....

"But why don't you know? Grown-ups know everything," Jakob said, his head suddenly appearing in front of me, blocking out Billie.

I blinked and turned my head, trying to look past him, but he moved everywhere I moved. "Because I have a problem remembering things. I don't know how many teeth dogs have, I don't know how many teeth you have, I don't know how many teeth I have, and I don't know most things anymore. So I'm probably not the best person to answer your questions," I said quickly, trying to get him to move so I could see what Billie and Adrienne were doing.

"Oh...," he said and finally moved, climbing into the backseat and shoving his hand in his mouth to count his teeth. "Ung, gloo, glee, glor, glive, scisk...."

I groaned after noticing Billie was walking toward the car. "I missed it... damn it."

"Hey, Kate, what about my dad, do you know how many teeth he has...?"