She Manages My Heart

Alison's P.O.V

I stood in front of my mirror, looking at my own reflection. My blonde, wavy hair was resting on the grey material of my The Living End t-shirt. I looked down towards my tight, black jeans and smoothed out the material.

I turned from the mirror and walked towards my wardrobe, flinging it open when I reached it. I threw a dirty t-shirt over my head as I looked for my chucks. I had to rummage through fallen t-shirts and jackets I had not bothered to hang up before I found my favorite pair of shoes.

I tied the laces to my shoes and then pulled up my stripy socks that had started to fall
down for what seemed the third time this morning. When I was ready I had another quick look at myself in them mirror before walking out into the hallway and heading towards the kitchen.

“You have an apartment to you know. So why don’t you go home?” I said with a laugh as I sat down at the island in the middle of the kitchen. I sat and watched Alex butter her toast, waiting for an answer.

“I would prefer to stay and annoy the shit outta you” she said, keeping her eyes focused on her toast. “I’m still mad at you, by the way.”

“That would be right. You live across the street, as if that does not piss me off enough.” I muttered loud enough for her to here.

Few words we spoken in the next few hours. Alex sat and watched a movie, taking advantage of my full food cabinet by stuffing her face. I, on the other hand, sat and worked on my laptop.

I put my head in my hands and breathed in and out without saying a word, trying to release some of my stress. I pulled my hands away from my face and looked down at a blue folder on my desk. I reached over and pulled it towards me. I then pulled the various material samples and sketches out of the blue folder and stared at them. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t hear the buzzer go off, indicating that someone was at the door until Alex yelled at me to get the door.

I sighed, not amused by my best friends laziness. I got up and walked towards the door, completely forgetting about the blue folder and the sketches that were sprawled across the desk.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” I yelled at the door, in hope the person behind it would stop banging on the door.

“Jesus! Can you wait just to seconds?” I yelled in annoyance and I flung the door open.

“Sorry is this a bad time?” Mike asked with a smirk, seeing as how pissed off I was at that very moment.

“Oh, hi. No it’s not a bad time. Come in” I said, ushering them in the apartment. “What are you guys doing here anyway?”

“Well you said that if we didn’t hear from you in 12 hours we should come right up.” Tre said, walking in.

“Oh yeah, sorry I forgot.”

“It’s ok; we would have come up anyway.” Billie said, closing the door behind him as he same in.

“We wanted to see your crib.” Tre said, imitating a pimp.

“Ignore him, he’s being ‘gangster’ today” Mike said with the roll of his eyes. “He had a bit too much to drink last night.”

I giggled and turned to look at Billie as he spoke. “Nice place” he said, looking around, admiring my rather messy apartment.

“Thanks, sorry it’s messy. Alex has been here nearly all week and I have not had the time to clean up.” I said, kicking a dirty shirt behind me, in hope that they wouldn’t see it.

“So where is Alex anyway?” Mike said, looking down the hallway to where the bedrooms where.

“She’s in the lounge watching movies,” I told them, pointing towards the lounge room that was just past the kitchen. “You guys want to meet her? Or do you just want to go?”

“We have to meet her some time. So I guess we’ll do it now while we have nothing to do.” Billie said, putting in hands in his pocket.

“Okay then, come this way.” I said and then started to walk towards the lounge.

“Hey loser, who was at the door?” Alex asked, her eyes still fixated on the television,
completely unaware that all four of us where standing behind her.

“Alex.” I said

“What?” she said, still not looking at us.

“Just turn around will you?” I growled, starting to get frustrated.

“No, I’m busy.” She whined, gripping the bowl of popcorn she had closer to her body.

I growled and stomped my foot. I then looked towards Billie; he put his hand up as if to say he would handle this. So I said nothing.

“I would suggest you turn around, or we’ll just go” he said with a shrug.

I could see that this got Alex’s attention. She stopped moving immediately and I was sure I saw her get goose bumps as soon as she heard him speak.

She turned around and stared at the three men that had entered my apartment minutes before. She said nothing as she got to here feet and walked out to them. Her mouth opened in shock.

“Billie Joe Armstrong.” Billie said extending one of his strong arms towards
Alex. Alex stared at his hand for a moment before practically jumping on him, giving him a hug.

I just stood there and laughed as Billie struggled to stay on his feet. Once he gained his balance, he looked over Alex’s shoulder towards me and gave me a funny look before graciously returning the hug.

We ended up spending the whole day at my apartment. I was rather surprised when the guys said they wouldn’t mind staying here; they said they wanted to get to know Alex more, which was unusual because I would have ran for the door.

They were kind enough to answer any of Alex’s questions, even if she did step over the line a few times asking into there personal lives.

I glanced at the clock up on the wall and saw that it was 3 in the afternoon already. I then turned my focus back to my beer. The cold, frosty glass was making me fingers go slightly numb, but I don’t seem to notice, nor care because I was too caught up in conversation with the others.

“So what do you do for a living, Alex?” Mike asked, he leaned forward so his back wasn’t touching the cool surface of the leather couch. He took a swing of his beer as he waited for a reply.

“Well I currently work in a music store; it’s not much but the pay is enough to keep me living in my apartment.” She answered, resting her feet in the coffee table.

“Yeah considering you spend more time at my apartment then you do your own” I said with a laugh, pushing her feet off the coffee table. She only grumbled in reply.

“What do you do in your free time then?” Mike asked again.

“Well, I sleep, I surf the web, I raid Alison’s fridge and cupboard, I annoy Alison, I write, I complain, oh and I play drums.” She said with a cocky grin, looking awfully proud of herself.

“You play?” Tre questioned.

“Hell yeah I do!” she said jumping to her feet, startling us all. “You can come have a look at my drum kit and have a listen to me play if you want” She said to Tre, ushering towards the spare room where her drum kit was held.

Tre nodded in reply and got up off the floor, taking his beer with him, that had been settled on the coffee table.

“She’s……interesting’ Billie paused once both Alex and Tre left the room.

“If you thought that was bad, wait she’s had a few beers. I’m sure you’ll all be trying to jump out the window by then.

“Well in that note I’ll think I’ll make sure they don’t kill each other” Mike said, resting his beer on the coffee table. He stood up, smoothed out his pants and walked away into the spare room along with Tre and Alex.

“You’ll get used to her. After a while she just becomes a part of your life” I said softy, giving Billie a reassuring nod.

“I’m sure we will Allie. I mean, if we can deal with Tre we can deal with any nutcase that comes along” he ginned, giving a small chuckle at his own joke. “How long have you known her?”

“About 24 years now.”

“Wow.” Billie said with a look of bewilderment

“Yeah I know. We went into kindergarten together. Of course we weren’t always best friends, that didn’t happen until year 7; when we both discovered of love for music.”

“That’s a bit like me and Mike” he said with a nod of his head. “She’s nice though. She’s crazy, funny, pretty and her hair is really cool”

I laughed at his last remark. “Yeah that’s all true I guess.”

“She’s got better hair than me.” he said; pulling a face at me as he ran a hair though his short, black hair.

“Billie, everyone has better hair then you.” I giggled

He gasped and the got up out of his seat, walked towards the couch I was sitting and then playfully hit me.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” he asked, resting his back against the couch, looking rather comfy.

“Yeah, sure.” I said, lifting my feet off the coffee table and pulling them in towards me. I moved my body more to the left so I could face him better.

“Are you ticklish?” he said giving me an evil grin.

“Well, I-” was all I managed to say before he practically jumped on my and started tickling me.

“Stop….st...Stop!” I said through fits of laugher as I tried my best to push him off me. He leaned over more, so that I was nearly in-between his thighs. “Not until you take the hair comment back” he yelled, his face getting flushed from all the tickling he was doing.

“NEVER!” I yelled, unfortunately I moved slightly at that moment and fell off the couch, pulling him down with me. I hit the floor with a thud and he landed directly on top of me.

He stopped tickling me when we both hit the floor, I also stopped moving around.
The only sound I could hear was Billie’s gasps for air and my heart thumping in my own ears. It was if someone was waving a piece of chocolate in front of my face, because all I could do was stare into his eyes; he stared right back into mine.

I suddenly realized how close we were; after all he was lying on top of me. I surprised myself as I started to get closer to him, him doing the same. Before our lips could touch we were ripped apart by the sound of a door slamming. He sat up and I crawled out from underneath him, surprisingly missing the warmth of his body on top of mine.

I stood up to see Alex storming out of the spare room and into her bedroom, slamming the door as she went. There was silence before both Tre and Mike came wondering out, looking as if nothing had happened.

“What happened?” I said, tugging my t-shirt down which had slightly ridden up when Billie fell on top of me.

“Nothing…” Tre said, placing his hands in his pockets, looking up at the ceiling, pretending that he did nothing wrong.

I grunted in disapproval and then turned to Mike and asked the same question. “What happened?”

Mike glanced at Tre, hoping he would reconsider his choice to pretend he did nothing wrong. When Tre did nothing and jus continued to looked at the ceiling pretending there was nothing wrong Mike sighed and opened his mouth to talk.

“Well everything was going fine until Tre started acting like a dickhead. He started criticizing the way she played and stuff. She didn’t take it too well.” Mike said, rolling his eyes at his friend’s obnoxious behavior.

“Look I’m sorry but she…she…” Tre said pointing towards Alex’s bedroom door.

“It’s ok Tre. Alex is a lot to take in; just like you. She may hate you now, but I knew this was going to happen away, it’s for the best” I simply said, giving him a warm, friendly, reassuring smile.

He didn’t look too convinced for a moment or two, but the then grinned and walked over towards me. I thought he was going to hit me on the ass, as he usually did when he was satisfied but this time he just wrapped an arm around me neck and gave me a playful kiss on the check.

“This is one of the reasons why I love this girl” he said. I only smiled in reply.

I had to bribe Alex to come out of her room using a block of chocolate. Sure enough it worked; she came out and sat on the couch, staying far away from Tre.

Mike and I were deep in conversation and Tre and Alex where watching an episode of family guy when I noticed that Billie had wondered off. I didn’t think much of it until I saw him looking through the blue folder that contained all my sketches and material samples which I had left previously on my desk, next to my laptop.

As soon as I realized what he was doing I jumped to my feet and scurried towards him, catching Mike and Tre’s attention as I went. “Billie, give them back to me now.” I said forcefully.

He said nothing in reply but just kept looking through them. “Give it them back!” I said again, this time I said it a little louder. I heard Mike and Tre wander over behind me.

I kept my face straight and asked again. Both Tre and Mike were now standing behind Billie so they could get a better look at what he was looking at. His eyes scanned over the various pieces of paper before looking at me. I was clearly not amused and all three of them could see if but the sour look upon my face.

“Alison, what are these?” Billie questioned me. I looked up and him and then down towards the blue folder. With one swift movement I went to grab for the folder but I didn’t succeed as Billie moved the folder away from my grasp at the last second.

I sighed and bushed my fingers over the blue cardboard of the folder, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to pry it from him as he had to tight a grip on it. I shook my head and looked at my feet before slowly bringing my hands up to my face to rub my eyes.

“What are these?” Billie asked me again but this time his voice was more sincere. “They’re just a few ideas I had for American Idiot merchandise.” I said in almost a whisper, my hands still covering my head. “You were not meant to see these” I added, finally looking up, pointing towards them.

“I’m glad we did” Billie said, scanning over then once again before handing them over to Mike to have a look at.

“What?” I whispered.

“There really good. I really like them” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. I looked around to see that both Mike and Tre where nodding in agreement, there eyes still focused on the few sheets of paper that Billie had passed into Mike’s hands.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” he said, trying to assure me.

I looked away from him once again in hope that he wouldn’t see
my slight blush.

“Hey, can I keep these?” he said. “I just want to have a better look at them later.” He added.

“Sure” I said, pausing before I answered, slightly hesitating. Normally I wouldn’t hesitate with these guys; I would just blurt out an answer. But this time I felt as if Billie had something in mind, as if he had a plan of some sort.