Vegas Boys

A stranger who was unaware of the situation as they stepped into my bedroom probably would have assumed that: a) my closet had thrown up; b) someone had burglarized my room specifically and chosen not to take anything; or c) there had been some sort of small explosion. There were only a handful of items left hanging in my closet or folded up in my dresser (of which all three drawers were left wide open), as most of my clothes were strewn about the room, left lying on the floor or the furniture wherever I had been standing when I decided they made me look fat or ugly or pale or dorky. By a quarter till seven, I had run through my entire wardrobe and still had not found a single thing I wanted to wear.

"Fifteen minutes," Dad reminded me, suddenly appearing in my doorway as I began rifling through all the discarded clothes. He stared around at the mess for a moment. "Good God."

"I know," I sighed. I examined the pink shirt in my hand and, with a mournful expression, threw it back down on the floor as I realized it would clash with my strawberry-blonde hair. "I can't decide what to wear."

My dad just shrugged and gave me a what-can-you-do? expression. What could I do? He certainly couldn't help me.

"I thought you didn't like that Urie kid anyway," said Dad gruffly.

I winced; I had been afraid he might bring this up. "I don't," I replied matter-of-factly.

"...But you're going on a date with him?" He raised his dark, heavy eyebrows at me skeptically.

"I don't not like him, either," I clarified (well, I was bull-shitting, but he didn't need to know that). "And I'm only going because he asked me. I don't wanna, you know, hurt his feelings or anything."

"Hurt his feelings?" Dad chuckled a little, which was fairly rare for him. "I heard you calling him some names the other day that I wouldn't call my dog."

I glared to hide the fact that I was blushing madly. "You're not helping, Dad."

"Okay, fine. You have ten minutes." Dad didn't sound too convinced, but he left me alone to get ready anyway.

I finally decided on my favorite pair of jeans and an inoffensive (if unimpressive) T-shirt; it seemed better to underestimate the date than to take it too seriously, especially since it was Brendon I was dealing with.

I was just finishing my hair when Dad called for me up the stairs and I glanced at the clock--7:02 PM. Brendon was here.

I hurried downstairs, nerves alight. Brendon was standing just barely inside the front door, obviously as intimidated by his surroundings as I had been the first day I'd moved in to live here over the summer--but I pushed the memory away.

With relief, I noted that he was as dressed-down as I was, in the same outfit he'd worn to school Monday. He was smirking at me, of course, but below that was something a little more tender, and I felt myself blush for the first, but nowhere near the last, time that night. We just stood there smiling at each other, wrapped up in our own thoughts, for several minutes, until Dad finally broke the silence.

"Well, you kids have fun," he said tactlessly.

"Oh," said Brendon and I simultaneously, laughing nervously together at ourselves as we were jerked out of our shared reverie.

"Right," said Brendon, making one of those strange faces of his and gesturing to the closed door with a Vanna White-esque hand motion. "To the car!"

"I want you back by eleven," said Dad sternly.

"Okay." I hardly noticed what I was agreeing to as Brendon opened the door and led the way out to his car.

-----

It had taken me a while to decide what to do after I had first agreed to go out with Brendon that night. My first instinct was to take it back, but then I realized that that would be extremely stupid. Brendon was cute and funny and sweet (sometimes), and he wanted to be with me. Hadn't I just been thinking that it wasn't fair that I had never given him a chance? Here was my chance...my chance to give him a chance.

And so I found myself in the passenger's seat of Brendon's car as we sped away downtown, the whole rickety frame squeaking in complaint every time we hit a dip in the road, although it probably wouldn't have reacted so strongly if we hadn't been pushing ninety miles an hour.

"Isn't this fun?" asked Brendon, half yelling to be heard over the blaring stereo, as we flew--almost literally--over an enormous hill. "It's like a fucking rollercoaster!"

He grinned, and his big white smile lit up the small dim space of his cramped car, and I couldn't help but smile back.

-----

I was so distracted by his presence that I wasn't paying attention to where Brendon was driving me, and when the car finally came to a stop, I didn't recognize my surroundings. As I climbed out of the car, he hurried around to my side to shut my door for me; ignoring him, I closed it myself.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Vegas," said Brendon with a smirk, tossing his car keys up in the air and catching them again, deftly slipping them into his pocket.

I made a face at him.

"The Pink Flamingo, actually," he relented.

"...The what?"

"It's a restaurant," said Brendon simply, and, taking me by the hand, led me inside.

The building I suddenly found myself standing in hardly qualified for the term restaurant. It was a little hole-in-wall joint, with stains of God-knows-what on the ugly patterned carpet and on the walls, which were, appropriately enough, painted hot pink. There was only one room, and it was crowded with so many tables that I wondered for a moment how anyone could ever maneuver between them without breaking a bone or six. On one side of the room were the doors to the kitchen, and every time a scruffy waitress emerged from inside, a cloud of steam and loud profanity (courtesy of the chef) followed close on her heels. Stainless steel carts piled with dirty dishes were parked wherever they would fit along the walls, where they would stay until a waitress had enough time to take them back into the kitchen--meanwhile, flies swarmed about them.

But, despite the less-than-appealing surroundings, the place was absolutely packed to the rafters. Every single table they had managed to cram into the tiny room was full, and Brendon and I stood in the doorway for several minutes before a rather disproportionate waitress (who probably worked a second job in a strip club, judging by the looks of her), ushered us to a small table in the back.

She handed us some paper menus--also bright pink--and then hurried off again. In the center of our plywood table was clustered a diner-esque group of ketchup, mustard, sugar, a napkin dispenser, and an ash tray (which everyone else in the room but us seemed to be making great use of; a veil of thick smoke hovered just below the ceiling.) I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

Brendon noticed. "Just wait," he reassured me, grinning. "You'll see."