Intuition.

“So…how’s the staying awake part going for you?”

I fought to slide my eyes open, sluggishly raising my head and looking over at Gerard. “Well, thank you. Considering it’s seven thirty AM and there’s sunlight shining on my face.”

“I dunno, you look kinda sleepy,” he chuckled, yawning and looking ready to curl up and sleep.

“Smart ass,” I murmured. I stretched a little and yawned too.

“Eh,” was the only reply that I got.

We both almost dropped off to sleep when the sound of car tires on gravel caused slight waves of awareness to seep back into our over-tired brains. We didn’t move from our positions, we just listened. A car door slammed and soon after footsteps could be heard coming up the path.

I didn’t have to guess to know it would be my Dad dragging his exhausted ass back from the hospital.

“That’ll be my Dad,” I stated.

As I said this, the door opened and moments later my Dad called out for me, wondering if I was awake.

“Yeah, in here!” I called, twisting so I could see the entrance to the lounge room.

“Morning Fra– what happened in here– oh. Hello there, are you a friend of Frank’s?”

It was almost comical to watch him stumble over his words as he took in the room, its condition and its contents. “Yes, sir. My name’s Gerard,” he answered, looking more awake than he was two minutes ago. The sight of my Dad was probably enough to sober the most intoxicated drunk.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Gerard. Frank, you didn’t tell me you were having a friend over, I would have given you some money for pizza and lollies,” my Dad directed at me, looking a little put out.

I sighed and twisted back around so I was lying down again. “I did, Dad. I left three messages on your voicemail because you didn’t pick up. You should check it once in a while.”

“Oh.”

And that was all I got in reply. I didn’t even want to turn around and see the predictable look of astonishment.

“How long are you home for?” I asked quickly, before he could leave the room.

“Until six tonight. I have another surgery tonight,” he answered, before he walked out of the room muttering something about needing to shower.

After he was definitely gone, Gerard finally spoke up. “Wow. He looks wrecked, man. He’s a doctor, right?”

I nodded, eyes closed.

“Hey, you alright?” he asked softly and I felt the couch shift as he moved closer to me. I opened my eyes and fixed my fuzzy gaze on Gerard’s face. He looked concerned.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” he answered stiffly, face dead pan.

I held his gaze a little longer before looking away and begging – pleading – for the tears not to fall. I was tired, over-overtired at that. That’s why I wanted to cry so much. The only reason.

No amount of begging or pleading worked though. The tears fell, sliding down my cheeks faster than I could wipe them away and soon torrents of them were flowing down, unable to be stopped. I sniffled a little and waited for Gerard to pull away, scared off by this raw show of emotion.

I focused my senses on his movement and he did as I predicted – at first. But then I had his arms pulling me to him and holding me tightly to his chest. His voice cut through muffled sobs, comforting and strong.

“It’s okay, it’s alright. Sssh. It’s all okay. I’m here.”

When I heard the water shut off from upstairs, I hurriedly wiped at my cheeks and nose. Gerard pulled back a little, holding me gently at arm’s length. He didn’t say anything, I was expecting something like what Charlie would say – that I needed to confront my Dad and talk to him – but he just stayed silent.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” I whispered.

“Sometimes you don’t need to say anything.” He smiled crookedly.

I nodded and we both lapsed into silence, both looking around the room. There were bits of popcorn everywhere, left over pizza boxes, pillows from the pillow fight we had to keep awake, more DVD cases strewn across the floor and to top it all off, clothes from where we’d stripped down to our boxers for whatever reason we had at the time.

“I was thinking of cleaning up now, but after thinking about it a little more I’ve decided to do it later,” I said, scratching my thigh where I somehow had a mosquito bite.

“I’ll help before I go.”

“When are you going to go?”

“Well, I’ll have to leave in about a half hour; I need to take Mikey to his tutoring classes,” he explained, looking regretful.

“I thought your brother was really smart?”

“He is. He’s the tutor.”

I laughed. I don’t know why but I just started giggling and then I was laughing hysterically. Gerard was laughing along with me – probably because he was as tired as I was and wasn’t really feeling too sane at the moment.

“Okay, okay,” he finally choked out, “we need to get dressed and make a start.”

“Just gather your stuff and I’ll do all this later,” I smiled. “It’s the leas I could do for you coming over.”

“What are you talking about? This is one of the best sleepovers I’ve been to. You have to come to one our Epic Nights soon too.” He stood up, suppressing another yawn.

“Epic Nights?” I stood up too and stretched.

“Where all the boys get together at one of our houses,” he explained as he gathered his clothes and pulled them on. I had to admit that I perved slightly. I didn’t mean to but he was just so…ripped. His torso looked positively chiselled and I knew for a fact that it felt like that too from when he was hugging me before. Probably all the soccer he plays.

“Sounds like fun,” I finally replied, averting my gaze.

“Oh, it is, man,” he assured me, frowning as he pulled on his jeans which were being difficult.

“Do you really have to go home?” I asked quietly when I heard my Dad moving around upstairs.

“Yeah, unfortunately,” he sighed and, as if following my track of thought, said, “hey, you can spend the day with your dad. He’ll be home, like, all day.”

Okay, not exactly my train of thought. “I don’t think he’ll really go for it,” I muttered. “I’ll hang around, y’know, doing things.”

“I’m sorry that I have to go.”

I looked up at Gerard, who had already gathered all of his things, picked up all the pillows and at least half of the packets that we used last night.

“No, no, it’s alrig–”

I call this surprise. Complete and utter surprise. Deep shock sounds quite fitting too. Before I could assure him that it was all fine and I didn’t mind, he had placed a small kiss on my lips. Well, I guess you could call it corner of my mouth, but it was still some of my lips.

I looked up at him, completely dumbfounded and every bit confused.

“Everything will be alright,” he whispered softly, smiling at me with tenderness, “I may not have known you for all that long but I know you’ll make a great best friend. I’ve never really had one of those before so I think you’ll be a good one.”

I could not have hid the massive grin that overtook my face if I wanted to. “Best friend?”

“Yeah. Sorry if that’s coming on too strong for you–”

“No, no! It’s fine.”

“–but I just think you’d make a great best friend. If you’d like to be mine.”

“I’d like to,” I said immediately.

“Cool. So I’ll see you at school, Monday best-friend-in-the-making?” His eyes twinkled, making his eyes look like a muddy river with the sun reflecting on it.

“For sure, man.”

When Gerard had gone home, I started finishing cleaning up the lounge room, putting away DVD cases and what have you but my Dad interrupted me.

“How about you leave that and we can do it later? We can go out for brunch or something, maybe even…uh, I don’t know. We’ll find something to do?”

I stared at him for a while, half of me wanting to scream yes and half of me waiting for him to realise he had to go back to the hospital or something. When he didn’t pull out his cellphone or realise any forgotten errands I tentatively nodded my head.

“Yeah, sure. Why not?” I said slowly. “Let me just go get dressed and we can go.”