Summer Rain

[28] Endlessly

Dedicated to Riffitique, who helped with the graphic on the side. Thank you!

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(Unedited)

 I'm not perfect,

But I swear,

I'm perfect for you.

And there's no guarantee,

That this will be easy.

~Endlessly- The Cab

       "What if he hates me?" I asked Devon as I pulled to a stop at a red light. I was on my way to Starbucks to meet up with him and Shawn. Shawn, who now knew the whole story. Shawn, who might think I'm crazy, or broken, or something.

       "Why would he hate you?" Devon asked incredulously.

       "Because of what happened!"

       "It's not like he was involved." He paused, and I heard someone talking, but it was muffled so I couldn't tell you it was or what they were saying. "He won't treat you any different, Raine."

       "You don't know that!" I flicked on the turn signal and turned onto the street Starbucks was located on.

       "Yeah, I do," Devon said, sounding amused. "He just told me."

       If I hadn't been driving, I would've buried my face in my hands. Oh god, Shawn was listening? And Devon was telling him what I was saying. "Dev," I hissed. "Violation of unspoken best friend rule number eleven, if we're talking about someone, you don't tell them we're talking about them!" I pulled up in front of Starbucks, debating whether or not I should park and go in, or leave and make up some excuse of why I couldn't come. Maybe a sudden cold... Or that I had spontaneously anthropophobia, and couldn't stand being around people.

       Devon laughed. "Whoops, I forgot. And Raine, don't even think of running, I can see your car."

       "No, you see Bells’ car," I corrected, because it was true, I was borrowing Bells’ car. I guess we kind of shared it, since I helped with gas and insurance, but she was the one who had bought it.

       "And I see you in it. See you in two minutes." Then he hung up. I rolled my eyes. Devon and his demanding-be-on-time tendencies. I circled around and parked in an open spot near the entrance. I grabbed my stuff and got out, then locked it. I could see Devon and Shawn from hear; they were sitting at one of the tables by the windows at the front. Devon waved to me as I walked in, and smiled innocently when I glared at him. Cursing him in my mind, I walked over and pulled a chair up to their table, then sat down. Devon slid a vanilla bean frappe in front of me, so to stall; I took a sip before speaking.

       "Hey Shawn," I said, nodding at him, but not meeting his eyes. Instead, I focused on a strand of hair curling above his ear. It had been about a month since I had seen Shawn. Between filming for Call Me Cupid and the events I had to go to with Kaden to keep the dating facade up, I hadn't really had a lot of extra time. Plus, there had been the Devon-Jared-Blake-Shawn complex.

       "You know, I'm a little hurt that you think I'm gonna judge you," Shawn remarked casually. I glanced at him, then looked back down and took a sip of my drink, unsure of how to reply. "I punched Blake too."

       My head snapped up. "What?"

       "He gave me permission," he said, still using an easy tone, as if we were talking about the weather instead of injuring someone.

       "I thought you were against violence!" Devon exclaimed. Apparently, this was news to him too.

       "Violence without reason," Shawn corrected. "He offered." I tried to imagine Blake telling Shawn to punch him, then Shawn taking him up on his offer. Shawn must've punched him hard too, if they were both training to be police officers, they would have to know how to. Except, there hadn't been a bruise on Blake when I saw him yesterday.

       "But I saw him yesterday, he looked fine," I said, raising an eyebrow. Was Shawn lying to make me feel better? I knew he word vomited, or at least had, but I wasn't sure if lying was included in his word vomit.

       He laughed. "He said not the face. He's a bit of a pretty boy." Hmm, maybe that was one way to describe Blake, or at least one side of him. The Blake I had known three years ago could be called that, I guess, but he had been more or less acting then. I didn't really know Blake well now, but the times I had talked to him, he had been pretty serious.

       "Hey, are you Raine Evans?" I looked up to see a girl standing in front of our table. She slid her designer sunglasses into her dark hair and examined me with narrowed eyes. I blinked, nodding slowly. There was something familiar about this girl. I had seen her somewhere before, I know it. "You know, it's really idiotic of you to be cheating on Kaden so publicly," she said with a slight sneer. Then I realized where I had seen her from before. I didn't know her, but at the beginning of summer, I had stood behind her in line. It had been in this Starbucks, so I guess it wasn't so surprising that she was here.

       Then her words finally sunk in. The first thing I wanted to do was gape at her assumption. Since when did talking to guys mean you were in a relationship? The second thing I wanted to do was smack her. I wasn't cheating on Kaden! I couldn't, with Devon and Shawn even if I wanted to, since they were gay. I did neither. "They're just friends," I told her calmly, noticing that several people had taken their phones out and were recording this.

       She rolled her eyes. "That's what they all say."

       "Um, excuse me," Shawn said, drawing her attention to him. "But we're gay."

       For a moment, the girl looked surprised, but she quickly covered it up. "Wow, you must be desperate then."

       "What's your problem?" Devon demanded, fingers tapping slowly against the table. Too slowly. Devon didn't have anger issues or anything, and he definitely wouldn't hit a girl, but it bothered him when people made comments about homosexual people. Which was pretty reasonable, since it's not like they're any different from us.

       "You can't act and you're ruining Call Me Cupid," the girl said. Oh right. She and her friend had planned to sneak into auditions and try out. She had been certain she was perfect for the part of Alyssa and that she was going to get famous or something. I guess that plan didn't really work out for her.

       "I think I can let everyone else be the judge of that," I replied, still using a calm, even tone. Flipping out at a small insult like that wouldn't be good. Not to mention it was probably the reaction she was looking for.

       "Kaden deserves so much better than you!" she exclaimed, clearly getting frustrated that her plan wasn't working. I'll admit, before, that would've made me feel pretty insecure, but strangely, it didn't. Maybe it was because things were actually getting better, and because I didn't want something like that to bring down my good mood.

       "I'll let him be the judge of that too."

       Before she could say another word, one of the workers -finally- stepped in. "Is there a problem here?"

       I shook my head. "No, we were just leaving." I grabbed my bag and Frappuccino, then stood up, careful not to trip or stumble. I was acutely aware of the fact that all the cameras were still trained on our little group. The video would probably end up on YouTube or something. Devon and Shawn followed suit after me and we walked over the shop, leaving the girl and hopefully also the cameras behind. "Sorry about that," I said as we walked across the parking lot.

       Devon shook his head in disgust. "What the hell was she trying to pull?"

       "She probably thought she would get away with insulting me and somehow become famous off it," I replied with a slight shrug. I had a feeling fame meant a lot to her. She had talked about getting the part to be famous, not because she liked the story, or even liked acting.

       He shot me an incredulous look. "Don't tell me you're used to that."

       "No, it's the first time that's happened." Whoa. It was the first time someone had tried to insult me, to my face. Sure, I had seen hate pages, and mean comments, and ridiculous assumptions in magazines, but that was the first time it had happened in person.

       "Huh, you're first hater encounter," Shawn said, looking amused. Unlike Devon, he didn't really look affected by the encounter anymore.

       "...Is it weird that I'm really excited about that?"