Touchdown Boy

Chapter Seventeen

"Wow," Mark said surprise evident in his tone and on his face. Tom nodded in agreement, tuning his guitar as he did so. Travis remained silent, as usual, but even he seemed shocked. The three boys were spending the Saturday afternoon playing their instruments in Tom's garage. While they had been taking a break, Tom told the others about his date with Addison last night.             

"I guess our sweet, innocent little Addison isn't as innocent as we thought," Mark continued.

"I never in a million years thought she would do that. Not that I minded..." Tom trailed off.

Addison was the shy one of the group. She was quiet and always had her nose in a book whenever she could get away with it. It was Noelle that brought Addison out of her shell, even though she had been friends with everyone else since the third grade and knew them just as well as she knew Noelle. Addison was also deemed the "innocent" one of the group because she used to always blush at the guys' inappropriate jokes during middle school, which led to even more teasing on her behalf. When they entered high school, Addison began to ignore the jokes and the teasing, but her friends' opinion of her remained. The whole group knew that Addison had never had a boyfriend; she hadn't even had her first real kiss until that Saturday when they went bowling.  So to say that Tom was surprised by her straightforwardness last night would be an understatement.

"I guess winning the bet will be easier for you than we expected," Mark muttered. "She must really like you to feel you up on the first date. A crappy first date at that."

"That's the thing," Tom sighed, sitting down on the cement floor with his back up against the wall and his guitar lying in his lap. "I can't tell if she likes me or not."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "Seriously, dude? I think the lack of sex for two whole weeks has messed with your head. You can't even tell when a girl is interested anymore."

Tom rolled his eyes. "I'm serious. She keeps giving me these mixed signals," Tom explained. "I mean, when we kiss she seems totally into it. Plus with what happened last night it seems like she likes me, but then she says things that make me think otherwise. Take last night for example: she kept insisting that it wasn't a date and that we're just friends." Tom sighed in frustration. This was why he didn't do relationships, it was way too complicated. Sex was so much easier; just two people who both want something, no strings attached.

"So it's like a 'friends with benefits' type of thing?" Mark asked. "Dude, you're so going to win this bet. Crap, I guess I'll need to take money out of my savings for that bass guitar." Tom was glad his friend had such faith in him, but Tom wasn't as convinced of his supposedly inevitable victory.

"I wouldn't break open your piggy bank just yet, Mark," a voice called from the bottom of Tom's driveway. Tom jumped a little from the unexpected sound, banging his head against the wall and almost dropping his guitar as a result. Tom turned to see Billie Joe walking up the driveway and into the open garage. There was no vehicle in sight.

"Where the fuck did you come from?" Tom asked, rubbing the back of his head, grateful when he didn't feel any bumps forming.

"Walked over from Adrienne's," Billie answered, nodding his head towards his girlfriend's house, just a few streets over from Tom's.

"Maybe you could, oh I don't know, call before you show up like someone from a horror movie," Tom complained.

"Whatever, DeLonge. You've got bigger problems than shitting your pants just from someone talking to you," Billie Joe retorted.

"Why'd you walk all the way over here? You missed us that much, BJ?" Mark joked, batting his eyelashes at the boy.

"Actually, I came all the way over here to inform Tom that he is so fucked with this bet and there is no way in hell he's going to win," Billie answered, staring directly at Tom.