First Love | James Hetfield

False Starts

Warning:

this chapter will contain a small bit of sexual harassment/assault, nothing too serious, but there will be asterisks (***) to inform you where to skip if you need to.

1983

Annie examined her figure in the mirror. She was wearing a short, satin pink dress that she thought was way too fancy for a Fourth of July cookout, but the girls refused to let her wear anything else.

"You look hot." Aurora nodded from beside Bea who was also nodding. "Yeah. You wear it better than I ever could." She said, scanning Annie's outfit.

Annie frowned at that.

"It's okay, though. You look amazing! You can keep it." She smiled. Annie's eyes widened. "What? No, Bea.. this dress is like three hundred dollars." She shook her head.

"No, I insist. I wore it once and it was collecting dust in the back of my closet afterwards." She waved her off.

After the girls finished getting dressed, they helped each other with hair and makeup.

"Rory, go get the drinks from the garage, Annie will you help me get the food out?" Rory and Annie both nodded and they separated into different directions of the house. Annie followed Bea's lead while she grabbed various chip bags from the cabinets and opened them before putting them on the counter. Bea pointed to the fridge. "There's half a watermelon you can cut."

Annie cut the watermelon, luckily with the exception of any chopped fingers, then Bea turned on the propane tank for the barbecuer out on the back deck.  She flicked a bunch of knobs then groaned out of frustration. "Whatever, Cliff can do this later." She turned to Annie who was leaning on the back doorway, biting down on a watermelon chunk.

The girls turned their heads at the sound of the front door opening followed by Aurora's sweet greeting.

"Where's the fuckin' booze?" Annie heard a male voice with a funny accent. She noticed that the way he pronounced 'fuckin' sounded more like 'fockin'

"Oh, here they are! Come on." Bea whispered to Annie, looping their arms together. They entered the foyer and were met with three men. One of them was about 6'2 while the others were a lot shorter, only a few inches taller than the girls. Annie immediately felt uncomfortable under all the male eyes when they all landed on her. "Where the hell is James?" Bea asked from beside her.

She got no response when all three men were staring at Annie with raised eyebrows. One of the shorter ones approached her. He had hair just below his shoulders, with a mustache that was made up of about three individual hairs. "I'm Lars." He stretched his hand out confidently. "Annie." She took his hand and shook it, then chuckled awkwardly when he wouldn't let go for a few seconds.

"I'm Cliff." The taller one pushed Lars to the side and offered her a friendly smile and a hand. "You a friend of Bea's?" He asked as she shook his hand. "Yeah." She smiled genuinely. "Cool." He nodded. "Good to meet you." He said, taking a step back. Her smile never left her face. She hoped she could talk with Cliff more throughout the night. He was nice, she thought.

"This beanpole right here is Kirk." Cliff threw his arm around the curly brunette's shoulder. "Hi." He smiled a bright crooked smile and waved instead of shaking her hand. "Hey, I'm Annie." She smiled.