how to make a mixtape :: mgc (fin.)

7. secrets & eyebrow piercings

//NOT EDITED IM SORRY\\

-

I feel my earphones tugged from my ears, desperately trying to shoulder them back in. Glancing up from the dirty laptop monitor, I glare up at Ashton, who towers above me in his converse and ripped sweater. I twist the cord of the earphone around my fingers.

"What do you want?" I ask, smoothing my hair to flatten it against the tree I sit by.

"To talk to you." He tilts his head back to look up at the high-strung branches and leaves, tapping his foot on the grass. It's short, almost skinned to the ground. I shake my head, pausing my playlist and tucking the head of the earphone into my coat. He crouches next to me, peering over my shoulder and into my laptop. His hot breath touches my shoulder. "What're you doing?"

"Why the hell does everyone ask that whenever I'm making a goddamn mixtape?" I scoff, exiting off the software and opening up Google. I swallow, turning to give him an apologetic look. He bites his lip, sitting down in the patch of buttercups I was picking from earlier. I tap my worn out keyboard. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snap."

"You snap every day, it's no surprise for me."

I push my tongue into my cheek, raising my eyebrows and typing in my email host. There's a gust of soft wind, but it nips at my bare fingers like hamster nibbles. It was hot throughout this month, until last night when there was a sudden flash of snowfall. I stayed up to watch it rain over the parking metres and pelican crossings outside the shop. It wasn't much -- something nobody would believe happened unless they saw it -- but with an overly-poetic mind of a seventeen year old girl, you end up being drawn towards these kind of things. I shove my right hand into the itchy pocket of my ugly mauve duffle coat.

"What'd you want to talk to me about?" I finally say."

"The mixtape contest."

I choke on the breeze, shielding my mouth with my frostbitten hand. I lick my lips, shifting on the ground and tugging my coat tighter around me. "W-what about it?"

He leans in, and I can feel how the heat from his body just brushing my arm. "Why you want the money."

My eyes dart over the screen, my heart thudding. He doesn't know about it. He can't know about it. He'll tell someone -- and someone will lead to other people knowing, and soon enough Alejandro and I will be caught at an ungodly hour with our door broken down and pushed into a police car. I steady my breathing, putting in a cold earphone and resuming my playlist.

"Greed," I mumble incoherently.

He chuckles, his head touching the bark of the tree. He twiddles his gloved thumbs, pulling at the fraying seams. Gosh, if I had a pair of gloves so nicely made, trying to ruin the stitching would not be the first thing I do.

"Not greed," he says. "Quite the opposite, actually."

I clasp my fingers together at the curve of the grey laptop, trying to stop them from quivering. At least I have the bitter weather to blame if he notices. My pulse beats in my freezing ears, and I want to push both my earphones back in, again, but knowing Ashton, he'll press on until he buys my undivided attention.

"What then?"

He looks up from his linked fingers, glancing behind the tree and at the library stretched over the rest of the field. He shuffles next to me, bringing his hand to the other side of my neck to move my head so I'm staring up at him. He searches for my gaze desperately.

"I know you're not supposed to be here," he murmurs under his breath.

My breath halts, and my eyes widen. I fight from his grip and flick my fringe from my face, returning my shaking fingers to the keyboard. I click onto my email inbox, my mouse hovering over the blue highlighted text.