Hollywood Hills and Suburban Thrills

"Just let me call them," William insists, his cell phone at the ready with his thumb on the 'send' button. I smacked him on the chest again.

"No, they're probably busy," I whine, my hand flinching when his finger twitched on the phone.

"It's our day off, Dani. They're probably sleeping." He disagrees with a confident smile.

"Well, I don't want to wake them." I say, jumping for his phone but he held it farther from my grasp. I was about to complain again but he pressed the little green button and had the phone against his ear in a split second. I gawked at him in disagreement, lunging for the phone so that I could hang up, but he jumped out of the way and I went stumbling past him.

"Hey man, what's up?" he says as I gained my balance. I turned to see that he had his back to me, his head down as he talked to his friend. "Yeah, yeah, I just went out for the day. But I had a favor to ask."

I wasn't going to have this so I jumped again, clinging to his back, but to my surprise, he only stumbled slightly before retaining my weight and steadying himself again. I gawked at the side of his face by which I was and I heard the person he was talking to ask "what do you need?"

"I need someone to come pick me up," he says easily, shrugging and grimacing for a millisecond when I dug my nails into his shoulder in objection.

"Ok, where are you?" the person asks.

"I'll text you the address. See you in a bit."

They exchanged goodbyes and William hung up before glancing sideways so that he could see me, a smile sliding onto his face.

"That was unnecessary," I dictate, gouging my nails into his shoulders again. He didn't even flinch this time.

"I wasn't going to let you walk the twenty blocks to the diner. That would be rude." He says and I hardly noticed that he had started walking.

"It's only thirteen blocks," I mused quietly to myself and he chuckled, his lungs bumping against my stomach where I was pressed against his back.

"Tomato, tomahto." He says and plops me on the couch. I grunted in displeasure and crossed my arms, pretending to pout. He sat beside me and looked at me, shaking his head. "You're really upset aren't you?" he asks a couple minutes later as he texted someone on his phone. I could only assume he was texting his friend the address to my house.

"Well yeah!" I say like we were debating whether or not one plus one equaled two. "It's completely uncalled for. I could just as easily walk there."

"But that would be ungentlemanly," he counters, turning to look at me with a wide smile as he tucked his phone in his pocket again.

"Whatever." I murmur, turning my attention to the blank television screen and letting the subject drop. Then, after about five minutes, he spoke.

"So, you're going to explain what happened outside earlier," he says nonchalantly, picking at the hole in the knee of his jeans. I wondered idly how a boy of his size—height and weight wise—found clothes that weren't too huge for him. He had to wave a hand in front of my eyes to gain my attention. "So?"

I shrugged; I didn't want to talk about this at all. "I don't know," I started out and he sighed with irritation. Of course he wanted a better explanation that that, but I was going to keep it as simple as possible. "I thought it was my mother for a second."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "And if it would've been your mother?"

"I would've thrown you into Jude's kennel and left you there until the coast was clear," I answer in a clearly bored tone and he laughed softly.

"I have a feeling Jude would've been willing to scoot over a little bit," he jokes but then was serious again. "But what's wrong with you mom coming home?"

I inwardly cringed. I hadn't expected him to be so interested in anything about me and this was definitely not one of the things on my "share" list. So, I kept it vague. "She's not friendly; let's just keep it at that."

He was about to say something else, but the sound of a car door slamming shut cut him off as a grin spread across his face.

"Your carriage waits," he says, standing and grabbing my hand so he could pull me to the front door. And before the person on the other side could even think to knock, he was opening it.

"Hey guys," William says casually to the two band members that stood before me. I'm not going to lie: for second there, I gawked. One second only before I composed myself, or at least tried to. It felt like someone had lit off firecrackers on my insides.

"Hey Bill," one that I recognized from the diner said. He smiled at me then. "You must be Danielle."

I nodded. "Dani," I corrected, returning the smile as best I could, and shaking his hand.
He shook mine firmly. "Adam, but you can call me Sisky."

My mouth twisted. "Sisky?" I repeat, confounded.

"Sisky" sent an odd glance towards the boy beside him and then to William. William smirked.

"She doesn't know who any of us are," he explains as if it were no big deal. But apparently "Sisky" that it was a big deal.

"You don't know who any of us are?" he repeats, shocked, and I shook my head sheepishly, feeling the heat rush to my face. "Good God, Bill, you pick out the fun ones!"

This time, William flushed red and looked down at his shoes. I didn't have time to even crack a smile at his shyness, however, before the second boy stepped forward with a grin.
"The Butcher's the name, banging drums is my game." He says easily, holding out a hand that I shook with a smile.

"Dani's the name, being rad is my game." I reply and he laughed.

"She's a keeper," he says, slapping William on the shoulder and causing him, once again, to blush and look down. He muttered something under his breath and then ripped the keys from Sisky's hands, heading toward the car. The three of us scrambled to follow him. He was about to get in the driver's seat when his phone went off.

"Hang on one sec," he says to me before walking a few paces away and placing his phone to his ear.

Sisky, The Butcher, and I all got in the car and waited quietly. Quietly, that is, until The Butcher decided to crank up the stereo. I couldn't help but glance at William a couple of times and wonder who he was talking to. His posture—his shoulders hunched over and his free hand crammed in his pocket—made it seem like he was talking to a secret agency or something.

So I had to ask. "Do you know who he's talking to?" I asked Sisky and he shrugged before hitting The Butcher on the shoulder. The Butcher glared at him for a millisecond before killing the radio and asking what he wanted.

"Do you know who William is talking to?" I asked before Sisky, but the reaction from The Butcher was not one that I was anticipating. He burst out in laughter. I stared at him in confusion. What had I said?

"I can't believe you called him 'William'," he says finally, his laughter just barely dying away. I looked at Sisky with the same perplex on my face and he shrugged.

"None of us really call him William," he explains as The Butchers fit of hysterics slowly quieted. "We either call him Bill or Will,"

I thought about that for a second. "Billy Becks…" I started, trailing off as something else came to mind. "…is the sex!"

Sisky and The Butcher both started laughing loudly, clutching their stomachs and slouching over in their seats; I was as well. And then, William was in the driver's seat, looking at us with an odd expression.

"Did I miss something?" he asks.

Butcher straightened up, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Nothing," he says, casting a secretive glance my way and I nodded at him as my laughter died down to just giggles. Sisky was gasping beside me.

William glanced at each of us one more time before started the car and pulling away from my house. I was gazing out the window now, the euphoria of that laughing fest slowly wearing off, when I got a text message from my mom.

You're five minutes late. You'll be working a half an hour longer now. Consider this a warning.

Good mood officially gone.