The Fueled By Ramen Analysis

“Sup buttercup!” Will said appearing out of nowhere. “Ready to go?”

“Buttercup?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“Yes buttercup, buttercup,” he grinned, clearly hiding something behind his back.

“Okay... cupcake,” I said hesitantly. “I’ll just grab a hoodie and we’ll go.”

“Already done,” he said, handing me the Clandestine Stay Gold hoodie Pete had gotten for me. “I assumed that you’d want to wear it so yeah…”

“Well you assumed correctly,” I smiled at him, grabbing the jacket. “Thank you.”

He placed his hand at the small of my back and led us out the front door and next to my car.

“Is it okay if I drive?” he asked, making me stop right next to the passenger’s side door.

“Of course,” I said, handing him the keys. He then opened my door like the gentleman he was and waited for me to put on my seatbelt before closing the door and walking over to the driver’s side.

“So I take it you know where we’re going?” I asked skeptically.

“Indeed, I do,” he nodded. “Just sit back and relax.”

As he pulled out of the driveway I switched the mode on the stereo to play the radio instead of a CD. I scanned a few stations until Will took one of his hands off the steering wheel to stop me from changing it. Burning Up by The Jonas Brothers was playing and I gave him a weird look. “You like The Jonas Brothers?” I asked.

“They’re okay,” he shrugged. “I like this song, it’s catchy.”

“I agree, I just thought you wouldn’t like a Disney pop band,” I said. “That seems more like Brendon’s department.”

“It is,” he laughed. “But they’re tolerable I guess. When you’re in my profession you learn to appreciate all kinds of music. Hold on this is my favorite part.” He turned up the volume and began singing along with Nick and Joe’s voices. “I’m slipping into the lava and I’m trying to keep from going under. Baby you turn the temperature hotter. Cause I’m burnin’ up, burnin’ up, for you baby.”

I began to giggle as the smile on his face fell. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Oh nothing,” I said, tring to regain my composure. “It’s just hearing you sing The Jonas Brothers out of all things is pretty much priceless.”

“I think a majority of my fans would maul me if they heard that I sang along to their songs on the radio,” he half confided, half joked.

“And the rest would just fall in love with you more,” I joked along with him.

“But there would be some who would stay indifferent,” he reasoned. “Well anyways we need a change of subject… you like hotdogs right?”

“That was random,” I said involuntarily smiling. “But I guess I do. I mean I don’t hate them but I don’t exactly love them. Why…?”

“You’ll see in a bit… How about greasy food? How do you feel about that?” he asked.

“Umm well it depends on the place? I don’t know, if the food’s really good, then the grease won’t really matter to me,” I answered.

“Alright one more question. How do you feel about lines?”

“Please elaborate.”

“Shorter than a line at Disneyland but much longer than a line at your average supermarket,” he explained.

“As long as I don’t get bored,” I replied.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure of it that you’re not,” he smiled.

“So did I pass the test?” I asked.

“What test?” he said, looking amused.

“Oh you know, the one where I have to tolerate greasy hotdogs you have to wait in a long line for,” I said nonchalantly.

“Why yes, yes you did. You’ll see in a few minutes why those questions were needed,” he said, signaling to exit the freeway we were currently driving on. The sign said La Brea and I instantly knew where we were headed.

“Hmm could we possibly be going to the infamous Pink’s Hot Dogs?” I asked, looking right at him to see his reaction.

His head instantly perked up and he looked at me then back at the road. “How’d you know?! I was trying to keep it a surprise…”

“Cupcake…” I giggled. “We’re in West Hollywood, driving on La Brea, and you just asked me if I liked hotdogs, greasy food, and waiting in lines. I’m a native Southern Californian, I know my stuff.”

“Have you ever been there before though?” he asked, looking downcast.

“Nope, and I’m glad you’re here with me for my first time. Is it your first too?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, instantly perking up. “I heard a lot of good things about this place but then again I heard a lot of bad stuff. I wanted to try it out for myself but never really took the initiative to until now.”

“Me too,” I agreed. “About the whole good and bad stuff things, I mean. I guess it’s one of those places you either hate or love.”

“I agree,” he nodded, pulling into the valet booth of Pink’s. “Hey buttercup, do you have a valet key for this? Or should I just give the man the regular key?”

“Hold on I know Pete told me about a valet key somewhere,” I said, fumbling with the various compartments around me. “Aha! Found it, here you go.”

I handed him the plastic looking key as we got out of the car. He handed it to the valet guy and proceeded to put on a pair of sunglasses. We then joined the huge line that wrapped around the small hotdog stand and he flashed me one of his swoon worthy crooked smiles.

“You look creepy,” I said bluntly. “You’re lucky it’s only 7 and the sun’s still out, cause if not… you’d look even creepier.”

“A-a-are you serious?” he asked flabbergasted, raising his right hand to take off the huge sunglasses that framed his face.

“No don’t,” I said, bringing his hand down. “I was just kidding and if you take the shades off you never know what might happen.”

I used my head to signal towards the group of giddy 17–year-old girls who were so conveniently placed three people ahead of us loudly speaking of how hot Pete Wentz was and what a shame that he was off the market what with him being engaged to “that whore Ashlee”. My hands balled up into fists and Will places his hands on my shoulders and looked down at me. “Calm down,” he whispered. “They know nothing.”

I nodded and closed my eyes for a few seconds, trying to calm down.

“All better?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “We need to watch what we say and how loud we say it. If they knew who best friend was then they’ll definitely know who you are.”

The line went at a snail pace but Will kept to his word and kept me entertained by all means. He told me various stories of the other boys from TAI and even some of the infamous Santi, all the while the group of girls kept glancing towards us.

“Why don’t I just tell you a story to help our problem,” I said, stopping him from recounting a time when Sisky had embarrassed himself more than usual. “I think they’re catching on.”

He casually stretched out his neck and turned towards them. Now they were all staring at us. Will and I gulped as we heard them arguing about “knowing it was the real him”, The girls then got out of line and headed towards our general direction.

“Will! Will! Is that really you?” called out a particularly horizontally challenged red head.

“Why’d you say that?” snapped one of her friends. “Look he’s getting away! Will! Will Smith! We just want a picture!”

They ran past us and towards the retreating figure that was supposedly Will Smith; apparently he had only been a few people behind us. We let out a sigh of relief as we walked forward due to the ample amount of line space made available by the fan girls’ departure.

“That was close,” he whispered, leaning against the side of the building.

“Not everything’s about you, William,” I joked.

“No more cupcake?” he pouted.

“It gets repetitive after a while,” I reasoned. “But don’t worry, it’ll make a comeback.”

“So what do you think you’re going to get?” he asked, scanning the menu we had received while waiting in line.

“Oh, the Lord of the ‘RINGS’ Dog looks good,” I said, peeking at the menu.

“Ten inch stretch dog, yummy barbeque sauce topped with onion rings,” he read. “That does sound good but so does the pastrami burrito. It says here that it has two hot dogs, grilled pastrami, and chili all wrapped around a big flour tortilla.”

“I’ma steal a bite of that,” I grinned.

“Only if I can get a bite of yours,” he said, tilting his head to look at me.

“Sure thing, cupcake,” I said, winking at him. “So where will we be eating our dogs of greasy goodness?”

“Hmm good question,” he said after much thought. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

I rolled my eyes at him and suggested that we could just eat in my car as long as we didn’t make too much of a mess. He nodded in agreement and we soon found ourselves at the front of the line. We quickly stepped up to the smiling cashier and recited our orders. He shouted out their special lingo to the bustling men and women behind him, busy preparing various food items as Will handed him the money for our meal.

“It’ll be only three minutes,” he said, motioning for us to step aside so the people behind us could order.

Will smiled at me as we watched the people behind the counter go to and fro from all around the kitchen to prepare our food and everyone else’s. “It smells good,” he said, breaking our silence.

“Honestly, it smells like grease,” I said, not really feeling the place anymore. The novelty had worn off and it didn’t seem as spectacular as it once was.

“Just give it a chance,” he reasoned. “If you don’t like it we’ll pick up something else along the way home, deal?”

“Deal,” I nodded, shaking his hand. He continued to keep my hand in his grip until he maneuvered it so that our fingers were laced. My heartbeat raced but it wasn’t for the usual excuse; I didn’t like him in that way… at least I didn’t think so. He kept glancing at me and I just stared dead ahead at one of the short order cooks not knowing how I could get out of my current situation without being mean. One of my biggest faults is my inability to say no / reject someone. When the cashier had called out our food was ready I quickly pulled my hand away from his and grabbed our bag of food.

“Ready to go?” I asked nervously.

“Yeah,” he said. “Let me just grab a few more napkins for any accidentals and we can be on our way.” He shuffled around the condiments station grabbing anything to his liking and a handful of the white napkins. He then motioned for me to open the white bag and he dropped everything in his hands in there.

We got into the car and tried to figure out how we were going to eat our food without having to pay a ridiculous amount for parking or risk getting my car impounded. Will then came up with his quote unquote ‘brilliant’ plan about how we could just eat while he drove back with me feeding him at the stoplights. I uneasily agreed and we were soon on our way.

I unwrapped my dog and stared at it’s greasy glory. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Will began to laugh at me and I just stuck my tongue out at him before biting into it.

“How is it?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

“After getting over the fact that you could probably become diabetic after a couple of bites it’s pretty good, even with it being all greased up to the max,” I said, taking another small bite.

“Do you mind if you opened up my pastrami burrito?” he asked. Instead of answering I did as asked and he opened his mouth, waiting for me to ‘feed’ him once we reached a stoplight.

“Do I have to?” I asked.

“I’d do it myself, but I know for a fact that you don’t want an oily steering wheel,” he explained.

I grabbed the burrito from my lap and shakily held it towards him. He took a huge bite and grinned before chewing.

“This is so… so awkward!” I whined.

“How so?” he said once he was done chewing. “It’s only awkward if you make it awkward.”

After consuming our heart attacks waiting to happen, Will ended up driving to a lookout point at the edge of a highway. From there you could see all the bright lights of Los Angeles and surrounding counties contrast with the dark night sky. We got out of the car and into the cool, crisp air. I zipped up my hoodie and took a seat on the hood of the car.

“Wow, Will,” I breathed. “This is so… beautiful. How’d you find this place?”

“I found it one night when we were recording out here. I was taking a drive to clear my mind and it seemed just the a perfect place to think,” he said, leaning against the metal railing, keeping anyone like himself from toppling over and into the other highway 50 feet or so below us. “You’re the first person I’ve shown this place to because you seem like you would appreciate it most. I might take The Butcher here in the future, he might be inspired to paint or draw something by this.”

“He would definitely make something jaw dropping with this image in mind,” I said, scanning the tiny pinpricks of yellow orbs laid out in front of me. “This definitely makes up for the lack of stars here.”

He nodded and joined me on the hood. “So I take it you like it?” he whispered.

“Yeah, I love it,” I said, bringing my knees to my chest and hugging them. “It kind of reminds me of this song I saw on youtube from The Cab.”

“Now it’s time to leave the lights and hope that the future is just as bright, please think of me back home,” Will began to sing. “The one that goes like that?”

“Yeah,” I smiled. “That one. That explains my situation two weeks from now. I’ll be leaving these lights for the ones in Chicago.”

We stayed silent for a while, letting the ambiance and magic of the place get to us. It really was a great place to think and so many thoughts vied to get to the front of my brain as I took in the sight I saw, never wanting to forget it.

“Chelsea?” William whispered, breaking the silence.

“Yeah?” I asked nervously.

“I’m really beginning to like you,” he confided quietly before coming in for a peck on the lips. But instead of his lips landing on mine’s, they landed on my cheek with my eyes shut tight. I just barely managed to escape what could have been a disaster.

“Will, I can’t do this,” I said, shaking my head with my eyes still closed tight. “We can’t happen.”

“And why not?” he asked, probably feeling hurt. “Chelsea, can you at least look at me and tell me?”

“Because Will, this is all just happening so fast. Not to mention what will the big bosses at FBR say?” I explained. “There’s just so many reasons. Can you please take me home now?”

He jumped off the hood and angrily opened his door and got in. I did the same without all the anger and we were off. The whole car ride there was silent. With just one look at his eyes you could tell he was hurt, confused, angry, and so much more. When we finally got to Pete’s house Will lightly grabbed my arm and stopped me from getting out of the vehicle.

“Just tell me this,” he requested quietly. “Are you starting to have feelings for me?”

“I… I don’t know. I’m just so confused right now. Goodnight Will.”

I rushed away from the car and into the house, seeking refuge in the den where Brendon, Ryan, Spencer, and Jon were located. They saw my tear stained face and asked no questions. Jon lifted up the comforter he was sharing with Ryan and motioned for me to slip in. I tried mustering up a small smile but failed horribly as I crawled on top of their makeshift bed and got in where Jon had gestured. I was soon lulled to sleep by the four boys’ soft singing and someone rubbing my back lightly.