The Boy Band Who Adopted Me!

Chapter 14 - The Tea Party and the Rabbithole

AN: Gavin reference pic.

After a long class of taking history notes with Emmett and aiming paper balls at the clock above the teacher's desk, Gavin texted me to meet him at the greenhouse. I knew the way this time.

When I got there, he was already sitting in the back of the greenhouse with some snacks set out, a bottle of juice, and two plastic cups. "Care for a snack?" he said with a smirk as I entered.

"Sure," I said, sitting down near him. He poured me a cup of juice. After I took a sip, he spoke.

"Alex, I know what happened. I saw the video."

Already? Shit. I looked down, blushing furiously. "I guess it's getting around, huh?"

"Not exactly," Gavin said. "I just happened to pass by a guy showing it to his friends when I was with Jamie. I admit I watched it over his shoulder; I was curious about your singing voice."

"O-oh." I didn't know what to say.

"Don't worry, I made him delete it. Jamie and I are pretty scary paired up together. Some other people are still passing it around, though; but one step at a time, right?"

"Yeah..." I sipped my juice to avoid having to say anything.

"Sorry I watched it. But I actually needed to tell you something: your singing voice is beautiful."

"Wait, what?" I looked up at him, and met his hazel eyes.

"It's beautiful. And that's coming from someone who sings for a band all the time. I want you to sing lead with me in Hearts for Sharks; seriously."

I was astounded. I had always thought my voice was horrible! Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. Still, I had huge stage fright, just like Will.

"I don't think I can. That kind of stuff scares me... Thank you for your kindness, but I don't want to be in the band. Listening to your music is good enough for me."

Gavin popped a mini cookie into his mouth. "I figured you'd say something like that," he said. "It'll be the perfect middle finger to everyone who called you a groupie; come on."

"Maybe," I said, staring into my cup of juice. "Maybe one day..."

"We're going to nail whoever took that video, by the way," Gavin said with a determined look on his face. "They're going to get suspended for a really long time when I find out who it was." I smiled at his willingness to protect me.

After a long conversation about good pop punk bands (a genre I was partial to), we went to lunch and talked about our day. Will asked me permission to tell the guys what happened during first period, and I gave it to him.

"She ran out of the class and I had to tell Mr. Jackson what was going on. I took her out for ice cream," Will said, putting down his sandwich. From the corner of my eye, I watched Gavin look between Will and myself before digging into his food, not saying a word. Was he jealous? 

If he was, Will very tactfully forgot to mention the part where I laid in his lap while he stroked my hair and face.

"Ice cream?!" Cody exclaimed, slamming his hands on the table after just having put a cookie in his mouth. "And you didn't take me?! Barsetti's is like my second home." He looked up at the sky with a wistful sigh. "I could really go for some triple fudge mallow right now..."

After school hours, the boys persuaded me to get some burgers and go to Wonderland with them. In the car, we launched into a debate about the best candy that resulted in Cody exclaiming "Let's fight! Gummi bears vs. Sour Patch Kids!" playfully, and Jamie simply patting his head.

Once we were in Wonderland, Emmett climbed into the treehouse and improvised soft acoustic music on his guitar while the rest of us messed around. I pretended to be the pirate queen defending my ship from oncoming invaders (Gavin and Cody). The boys offered to take me around for a tour of the rest of the neighborhood, as I'd only seen the house with the sound equipment in it. I eagerly agreed.

We walked past all the houses, stopping at a climbing tree between two unburnt ones. Cody yelled for me to follow as he scampered into the tree. I climbed up as many branches as I could; when I'd climbed to a decent spot, I looked out at the rest of the neighborhood. One charred house was visible from between the branches.

"Do you guys know whose house that was?" I called down. Only Cody was in the tree with me; the rest of the guys were sitting around the trunk.

"I forgot our drinks in the van, I'll be back," Will said abruptly, before running off back the way we came. No one addressed my question until he was out of sight.

"That's Will's house," Emmett said when he had gone.

"From what he told me, he probably doesn't have the best memories connected to it..." I said, trailing off as I looked over the burnt skeleton of the house.

"He told you he was abused?" Jamie's voice was low and serious.

"Abused? He said his brother teased him, that's it."

"...He wasn't being entirely truthful, Aly," Cody said, groaning as he flopped over to hang upside down off a branch. "That's just like him."

"We'll leave it up to Will to tell you the rest when he's ready," Jamie said. I saw Emmett and Gavin nod, and the guys left it at that.

I didn't mind if Will had things he didn't want to tell me. We'd only just met about a month ago, after all. So I tried to put it out of my mind, and soon Will came back holding everyone's sodas. Cody fell out of the tree onto Jamie, and refused to even stand next to it after that, so we continued to tour the houses.

"That one was my house," Gavin said as we passed one completely burnt house. He seemed very nonchalant about it. Considering what happened in that house, I would expect him to resent it or not want to talk about it; surprisingly, however, he was very open.

"I still visit this place because I don't mind," he said, reading my curiosity. "Wonderland held too many great memories for me to get hung up on something like that." The rest of the boys were silent as they passed the house, though. Was there something nobody was telling me?

I wasn't too upset about the existence of these secrets. I was just happy the guys trusted me enough to take me to this place which meant so much to them.

After hours of talking about music and joking around, we drove home. Maisy eyed me as I walked into our room.

"Out with the boys again?"

I rolled my eyes and climbed into bed, headphones in.