Heard it Through the Grapevine

Chapter Sixteen

I take a deep breath, and look them all in the eyes individually.

"I need some air. I'll meet you at home, I promise." I hurriedly push past them. Once I'm away, I take off running down the hall. I don't stop until I'm bursting through the stage doors and into an empty alley. Well, almost empty.

"Hey, you alright?" I hear someone say. I look up to see a beautiful girl wearing punk-looking clothes, spiked up hair, and silver chains smoking a cigarette leaning against the alleyway. I quickly recognized her as one of the judges from tonight.

"Oh, hi, uhm, no I'm okay, thanks." I stammer out.

"You don't look like it. I'd think you'd be doing a little better seeing as you guys just won." She replies coolly. When I don't answer, she continues. "What, are they finally making you choose?" I look up at her in disbelief, and she laughs. "I've been following up on all the meme page blasts. The Honeyboys seem to have let drama follow them around ever since I left."

"Are you..." I start to ask.

"Erin. Hi. I used to be in the Honeyboys. Didn't work out, no hard feelings. Don't know if all the boys know that, but give them my love for me. I haven't seen them in a while, and I know they were upset about it. But it was really hard to stay friends with them after the pain of leaving the band. I hope one day they can accept that."

"I'm sure they will, you could try talking to them?" I offer.

"We'll see. For now, I'm gonna let them do their thing. You guys are on your way to being real rockstars."

"Right.." I say, standing a bit closer to her. She offers me a drag and I accept. "Yeah, I guess they are making me choose." I say after a silent minute. She laughs again.

"You know, I know you won't like this advice much, but it's the truth. Go with your gut – you already know who you want." She says as she stubs out her cigarette. I stare back at her in shock. But, before I can speak, a gaggle of pretty girls are calling her name from down the alley, wanting her attention.

"I gotta go, it was nice talking to you, saxophone boy. Have fun back at the Hive." With that, she heads down the street and disappears into the night. Suddenly filled with a new sense of determination and courage, I start heading home. There's someone I need to talk to.

I knocked on his door. I couldn't believe I was here. This was a moment I had been waiting for for a long time, something I have been imagining since I first met him.

Ari opens the door. I moved from the doorway and slowly towards him. Ari was sitting on the edge of his bed, next to his toenail collection. His stare was piercing, as if knowing what I am about to say, even before I did. I couldn't look at him, the anticipation of this moment kept me frozen. When I finally found the words I whispered, "I choose you."

Before I had time to breathe, Ari rushed towards me. He puts his arms around my waist, leaning in close, hovering his lips next to my ear. I can feel the heat radiating off of his body. "I love you." 

He took my face into his hands and tilted it upwards, our lips inches apart. I closed my eyes and waited for the moment that I had been dreaming of since our first one.

And then our lips met in a soft, tender kiss. It was a kiss filled with love, passion and promise. We were lost in the moment, completely caught up in the feeling of being together at last. His arms pulled me in closer and the kiss deepened. I ran my hands through his hair, savoring the feel of his skin against mine.

We finally pulled back, gasping for air, both smiling ear to ear. We rested our foreheads against each other's, "I always knew it would be us."

Thank you for reading our Honeyboys fanfic... we appreciate all of the support from the community. We want to thank the Honeyboys for being so awesome and cool about being featured! We also want to thank the meme accounts for helping spread the word specifically, @slobaddiesoffical, @officalcampusbottle and @sl.ench.

This fanfiction was a lot of fun to write and we hope to continue on with this account with fresh stories in the coming weeks. We hope you all had fun reading this story! Please follow our instagram account @slofanfic for more updates!

P.S. We will be posting the alternate endings to this fanfic soon... don't worry ;)