Booze, Boys, and Buses

“Where did you get that sucker?” Kacie exclaimed staring wide-eyed at the hickey on my neck as soon as I walked through the door at Zacky’s house.

“From that sucker.” I said, pointing at Matt.

He smiled as he set his beer on the table in the kitchen. “You were asking for it.”

“I was not.” I honestly stated.

“Well, you weren’t complaining.” He reminded me.

I blushed and shook my head. He was giving everyone way to much information for my liking. I hadn’t even told them that we were together yet, and here he was, telling everyone that we almost got busy last night. I looked like a whore now I’m sure.

“My birthday is in Twelve dayyys!” Johnny sang through the house.

They acted just like children. Like big, muscular children. I groaned, considering that I had just started my period that morning. Matt thought I was bitch before, he didn’t know me on my period. Thank god it had been this morning and not last night in his bed. That would’ve been traumatizing. I probably would’ve run away. Far away.

“Here’s a copy of the B-sides. I hope you guys like it. I like it.” Zacky said, handing me a copied CD.

“Thanks Zack. I’ll listen to it later.” I said, putting it into my purse.

The guys all went downstairs to talk, and we girls stayed upstairs to talk. I had to tell them about last night. It was magical.

“So I was supposed to stay the night with him right? And then I came in with some lingerie on and we had already decided on no sex at all. Well he started kissing my neck and stuff and I got all excited I guess. So I started kissing him and then he was the one that pulled away from me.” I explained, nodding.

“That’s strange.” Kacie said. “I would’ve expected it to be the other way around.”

“I know right?” I said, sitting back on the couch.

“Aw, and what happened after that?” Leana asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“He asked me if I would be his girlfriend.”

“And what did you say?” Lacey asked, sitting up closer to me.

Matt’s POV

“So did you guys fuck or what?” Johnny asked, sipping some of his beer.

“No, she wants to ‘save it for someone she loves.’” I said in a mocking tone. “I know that she’s trying to be respectful of her own morals and all, but I haven’t had any in a long, long time. I mean, don’t get me wrong I like her. I wouldn’t have asked her to be my girlfriend if I didn’t, but like, she needs to fuck over her own morals for once.”

“Or you could get her drunk.” Jimmy said, laughing at his own stupidity.

“No, I couldn’t do that to her. It’s not like she’s a bad person. But she doesn’t understand my needs as a man.”

“It sounds to me like all you had to do was give her neck a good suck and she was all yours. Why didn’t you just keep on going with that?” Zacky asked, shrugging.

“I don’t know. I want to fuck her, but I don’t want to hurt her. I know how she operates, and she wouldn’t like it at all if I were to do that to her. She was so happy when I was the one that stopped.”

I was sure that I loved her, and that I was willing to wait. But I didn’t exactly want to wait. The first night that all of these guys got together with their girlfriends they had done it. Why was it different now?

“I don’t know man, this sounds like something you and her are going to have to solve on your own. We obviously can’t help in the chick department. And Zack you have no room to talk about fucking girls because yours said just about the same thing.” Brian said, pointing at Zacky in a scolding manner.

“Shut up man. I’m blue too.” He said, sitting back in his seat.

“Well, get them horny on tour or something. I don’t know. I’d fuck them towards the end of tour. It sounds to me like they’d be more apt to do it then than now.” Johnny said.

Cassandra’s POV

“So are you going to stay in his bed again tonight?” Lacey asked with great interest.

“Yeah I hope so.” I said, biting into an apple I had gotten out of the fridge.

“Awesome.” Leana said. “You may wanna start fucking him soon.

“Naw, Matt said he would wait until I was ready.” I explained to her, being all too sure of myself.

I watched Leana and Michelle bite the corner of their lips at the same time. This meant no good.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, mouth full.

“The guys, aren’t as patient as they like to make themselves out to be.” Lacey explained, scrunching her eyebrows.

“What do you mean?” I asked, swallowing.

“I mean, they’re going to try to get you guys to fuck ‘em soon. Even though they say that they’ll wait for you to be ready. They sort of, use their male charm on you and you end up having sex with them a lot sooner than you wanted to. I know I did. But trust me. There are no regrets here.” Michelle said, pointing to herself.

“Yeah, but Matt wouldn’t push it on me right away would he? I mean, that would be just right dumb.” I said, looking down.

I felt my stomach tighten. What if I wasn’t good enough for him? What if I didn’t have sex with him right away? Would I lose him? I don’t know if I could handle something like that happening to me. He was so great and an amazing guy. He wouldn’t do something like that to me would he? He would wait until I was ready. Right?

“Don’t worry about it. They make sort of a compromise. They end up having sex with you before you’re ready, but also before their balls shrivel.” Michelle said, laughing a little at my frightened expression.

I gulped. This meant a lot coming from Michelle. I sort of figured that she would have been trying to get me scared more than dealing with a compromise. This just helped me to realize that even though she and Val were sisters, there were no hard feelings between her and I. The guys all came back from upstairs. Matt sat next to me and put an arm around me.

“I am so proud of that.” He said, touching my hickey.

“I haven’t even seen it yet.” I said, putting my hand over where his had just been.

“So are we going to start the movie?” Matt asked, shifting next to me.

“What are we watching?” Johnny asked, poking Lacey in the side.

“I don’t know! Why don’t you ask the person that owns the movie collection.” Lacey said, pointing to Zack.

I found it a little funny that Lacey had to point things out to him like he was a dumb blonde. Zack was over at his entertainment center looking for a movie.

“Dumb and Dumber?” Zacky suggested.

“Boo!” Kacie said, throwing a pillow in Zack’s direction.

The pillow completely missed and fell right next to Zack. He growled and literally pounced at her. He started kissing her. They were making out right in front of everyone. I laughed. Was this really what the guys were like with their girlfriends?

“Zacky get off!” She said between their locked lips.

With one good shove, he was on the ground. All ten of us erupted into laughter. After we were done laughing and Zack was done giving everyone the finger, he went back to his movie search.

“How about…Silent Hill?” He suggested, pulling it out of its place in the entertainment center.

“I’ve never seen it before.” I said, holding my hand out so I could see the case. Zack handed me the case after he took the movie out.

“It’s a scary one, you may need to cuddle up next to me.” Matt said, grinning.

I slapped his chest and read the back cover of the movie. It sounded pretty good. I handed the case back to Zack and he set it down on the coffee table, which all of us had our feet occupying in a moments time. Once the movie started I stared wide-eyed at the screen. I did that all the time, even though it wasn’t even scary yet.

“Boo!” Matt yelled, grabbing my sides.

I shrieked and shot him a death glare. “No! I’m watching the movie!” Jimmy said, pointing at the television numerous times.

“I see that Jimmy. You may want to tell Matt to leave me alone in that case.” I said, squeezing Matt’s side.

He jumped and I grinned. This was all too good. A big buff guy was ticklish? I couldn’t help but laugh and continue to tickle him.

“No no no!” Jimmy yelled, picking up Leana.

He set Leana down next to me and then he picked me up almost effortlessly. He set me down on the couch next to himself and then he took a seat.

“There, go Jimmy! Way to take out the trash!” Johnny said, about to give him a high-five.

“Who’s gay?” Jimmy asked quickly.

Johnny was caught with his hand in the air and the room erupted into laughter.

“I happen to know for a fact that he’s not gay.” Lacey said, putting a hand on Johnny’s chest.

“Tehe.” Johnny giggled.

I chuckled and turned my attention back to the television. Towards the end of it, I was holding onto Jimmy with white knuckles. He wasn’t about to loosen his grip on me either.

“Hey man, lay off my woman.” Matt said, ripping Jimmy’s steel grip off of me.

Matt picked me up and looked at me. I pecked his lips. But even just that was enough to get me begging for more. I pressed my lips to his once more and let his tongue take control over my mouth.

“Will you guys not do that in my living room please?” Zack asked, adjusting a pillow on his couch.

“Hey man, you owed me for you and Kacie in my kitchen the other day.” Matt protested, moving his hand from my lower back to my hand.

“Yeah, but now it’s time to stop.” Zack said,

I was falling for Matt and I was falling hard. When I kissed him I just wanted more and more. It was like I could never be satisfied from just one kiss. Matt was like Lay’s potato chips. You can’t have just one.

“Cassie!” Matt yelled, snapping his fingers in my face.

“What?” I asked, coming out of my trance.

He laughed. “Do you want to stay here for dinner or go home?”

“Uh, I don’t care.” I said, biting my nail.

“Ok, we’ll go home then. Bye guys!” Matt said, waving to everyone.

I waved as well and we got out to the hummer. I opened up my purse and looked at the burned CD that Zack had given me. It read, “Cassandra’s B-sides.” I hoped I liked it. I was a horrible liar, so there was no way I could just lie and tell them that I liked it.

“I really hope that you like the CD. It’s going out tomorrow.” Matt said, holding out his hand over the console.

I laced my fingers with his and put the CD back into my purse.

“I hope I like it too because I’m a horrible liar when it comes to telling if I really like something or not.” I admitted to him, shrugging a little bit.

When we arrived at the house, I grabbed my purse off of the floor and followed Matt inside. Matt had been nice enough to offer to make dinner tonight for a change. I tossed the CD into the stereo and pressed play. I began getting dressed for a nice dinner with Matt. I was putting on a cocktail dress, and the CD started playing.

“Oh my god.” I said, walking over to get a better listen.

This was horrible. Like the guitars and stuff were ok, but when Matt’s vocals came in, I wanted to throw up. It’s not that he’s a bad singer or anything, but this was…it’s difficult to explain. I switched to the next song, hoping it might be better. It was better until I started to listen to the lyrics.

“Let me tell ya ‘bout a girl I know who comes alive when you take off her clothes.”

I hit the next button. I didn’t want to hear Matt singing about a two cent whore. I would talk to the centerfold if I wanted to hear about that. I had already heard Crossroads and absolutely loved it. Flash of the Blade was an OK song until the chorus. The chorus completely ruined the song for me. I loved Until the End, it made me happy to hear a good song on here for once. Tension was horrible. Walk was good, but originated from Pantera. The Fight was an all around good song. One of my favorites on there. Dancing dead was just retarded, and I loved the two remixes for Almost Easy and Afterlife at the end.

“So what do you think?” Matt asked, jumping me.

“Uh, in all honesty? Most of it I didn’t like.” I said, sighing and looking down.

“Why not?” He asked, scowling.

“Because it just sounds stupid. Like “Girl I Know” is just about some whore.” I said, shrugging.

“Yeah, that one’s about Val.” He said, smiling like he was proud of that fact.

“Yeah, way to leave room for the imagination. I felt like you were explaining what a whore was to me. I know what a whore is, I don’t need you to spell it out for me.”

“Well, I like it. And the guys and I have been planning on putting this out for a while and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.” He said, leaving the room in a slight storm.

“Never mind.” I muttered to myself, taking off the dress I was going to wear.

I got into some pajamas and crawled under the warm sheets. My stomach growled, but that didn’t matter. I was too upset with Matt to worry about my stomach right now. We hadn’t even been together for twenty four hours and already we were getting into an argument. I had never said that I wanted to stop him from putting out the CD, I just said that I didn’t like it. I decided to text Kacie and get her idea on the whole CD. I wondered what she thought of it. This was our text message starting with me:

So what did you think of the CD?

To be honest, I didn’t like it at all. Did you?

No. Matt got mad when I told him that I didn’t like it. I didn’t know what else to tell him! I mean, how was I supposed to lie. You know how easy it is to tell if I’m lying or not.

Yeah. So I take it that you’re not staying with him tonight?

That’s the way it looks to me. Night, I’m getting tired.

Ok, good night sweetie.

I shut my phone off and put it on the charger that was attached to my wall. Seeing as I was very moody, due to the wonderful PMS, I began to cry. I was never much of a crier. I had always tried to be strong for other people. But during that time of month, I was a soft taco. I heard a knock on the door and obviously it was Matt that came inside.

“Hey.” I heard him say.

Luckily I had my head turned from the door so he wouldn’t be able to tell if I was really awake or not. I shut my eyes and pretended to sleep as best as I could.

“No one can fall asleep that fast. That’s impossible.” He said, chuckling.

I felt the weight on the bed shift and I knew he had sat down next to me. I turned over and tried to wipe away my tears. He helped me sit up and then he held me.

“I love you ok? And I never want to be the reason behind your tears ever. Your opinion is your opinion. I had no right to down you on how you felt about something.” He said, kissing me on the cheek.

“Thank you.” I said, burying my face into his chest.

He smelled almost too good. I just wanted to rip off his shirt and dive in. But I was supposed to still be sore with him. I couldn’t let him know that his “male charm,” or so Michelle called it, was actually working on me. And he hardly had to do anything!

“You ready to eat dinner?” He asked, smiling at me.

I nodded and wiped away another tear.

* * *

After dinner I went upstairs with Matt into his bed. I snuggled up to his chest and buried my face into it. I took in his all too good smell and was soon sleeping sounder than a baby.