Always you

- 3 -

word count: 3394
[part 2] ep. 12 - ep. 19

Wednesday morning was absolute chaos at school. Everyone was treating Jay like a king, they might as well clean his shoes and give him a foot massage. Getting all the way to your classroom was a nightmare. You weren't even near the damn bike god and yet every student was asking you about him. You'd lost count of how many times you'd told someone you didn't have Jay's number and that no, they couldn't join the hummingbird crew.

Minu had to wait until the middle of math class when he was sure no one was awake enough to listen to you to tell you about Jay's secret birthday party after school. Dom was supposed to tell Jay you were all doing special training in order to drag him to some bar.

Secret birthday parties aren't exactly your forte but you couldn't say no to anything that involved a little bit of alcohol and a lot of chaos. You weren't technically supposed to drink yet but that hadn't stopped you before and it certainly wouldn't stop you now.

"Do I have to be here?" asked the red haired boy.

"For sure! You're on the same team~!" says Minu who's always in for some team building.

Turns out Dom works at the club sometimes in the evening and he'd asked the guys who owns it if you could borrow it for a bit. You had the whole club to yourselves, so many opportunities.

Jay didn't seem too thrilled about the surprise but then again he didn't seem too thrilled about anything ever.

You stayed a little bit away from the others still not entirely sure where you fit in with them. Vinny was on his phone somewhere on the other end of the room. He probably didn't feel like he fit in with them either, he didn't seem to want to fit in.

You made your way to the bar and checked out the bottles. You'd seen some of them before, some others looked like they were older than your grandma and the rest looked like they cost more than three of your limbs on the black market.

"What are you doing?" Vinny asked from behind you startling you in the process. You hadn't noticed him.

You were currently checking out a bottle of cherry rum in a cabinet near the floor. You handed him the bottle instead of answering his question. He smiled at it and wasted no time opening it. You stopped him before he started drinking straight from the bottle.

"Get a glass dumbass," He looked you straight in the eyes and took a swig from the bottle anyway.

"Fuck's sake," you sighed before taking the bottle from his hands and drinking as well.

You found somewhere to sit and both took turns drinking in silence for a while. You were thinking. Thinking about how this is exactly what you'd once pictured when you thought of the future. You and Vinny, you'd be sitting somewhere, sharing a drink and enjoying each other's presence. Of course it was a little bit different but if you squinted you could almost believe nothing had changed. You thought about that a lot these days, the past and the present and how different things were. You thought of the future as well, you wondered how wrong your vision of it is. Burried deep inside of you was a little bit of hope as well, a small flame growing each day and that flame hoped Vinny would still be in your future.

The boy beside you was also lost in thought, if you had to guess you'd say he was wondering if he made the right decision joining the crew or maybe he was thinking about how crazy it was that he ended up here. However his thoughts were similar to yours. He'd forgotten what your presence felt like and now that he'd remembered he wondered why he ever thought he didn't need it. He felt nice, he'd missed feeling nice.

You felt warm, you blamed it solely on the alcohol but you knew damn well there was something else as well. You thought about Vinny way too much these days. He'd completely taken over your brain. You heard your laugh echo in your ears before you felt it bubbling in your stomach. You weren't sure how long you'd been smiling but you didn't mind it. All it took was a couple of days with Vinny for you to go completely insane. You'd forgiven him long ago but you were much too stubborn to act on it. You thought, damn, and with that you laughed again and took the last bit of rhum left in the bottle.