Keep Reaching

10. Two Times the Fun

"Rise and shine, stupidhead" was the first thing Justin heard when he woke up the next morning. Then he felt a pillow whacking him in the face.

"Hh-oowwww," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. "Huh? Ariana?"

"The one and only," she said, smiling.

Justin sat up. "You're in a good mood."

"Well, when Scooter forced me to come wake you up to tell you we were spending the entire day together, how could I be happier?"

He yawned. "The entire day? What does he want us to do?"

"Ah," she said mischievously, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "We're not gonna do what he wants us to do. We're gonna do what he'll kill us for doing. Sound familiar?"

"You reject my offer of revenge and then you re-propose it to me a day later?" Justin raised an eyebrow. "What changed your mind? What's gotten you all peppy?"

"Nothing," she lied. Despite Justin confiding all his ex troubles in her, she couldn't do the same. She didn't want to. "I've just come to my senses. Anyways, we need to take it slow. Scooter can't get any idea of what we're doing."

"What exactly is it that we're doing?" Justin asked as he got out of bed and walked into the bathroom. "Watch a horror movie when Scooter strictly said comedy?"

Ariana rolled her eyes. "We're gonna go shopping downtown. When I ask you to hold my bags, you should blatantly ignore me whilst chatting with a 'bro' on your phone."

Justin spit out his toothpaste and rinsed, shaking his head. "No. Why do I have to look like the bad guy?"

"It's just you being yourself," she said, crossing her arms.

"Nah, I'm a total gentleman," he argued. "We need to change the plan."

"I'm all ears."

"You know what?" Justin said, coming to a realization. "We've been so stupid. We've been trying to ruin ourselves in an attempt to take Scooter down in the process, but that won't work as well as if we targeted Scooter directly."

Ariana thought about it. "Well, yeah. Obviously. But-"

"No, just listen. We need to...undermine him somehow. He's kept it a complete secret that we're a PR stunt, so he can't take any credit for it. We could - no. Or we could....no. This is hard." He looked to Ariana for inspiration. "You?"

"What about me?"

"Do you have any ideas?"

"Not really," she said. "Everything seems a little too cruel. Ruining his relationship with his wife is basically evil, and trying to destroy his career is just as bad. We can't kidnap his kid or anything, we can't go around telling everyone what a fraud he is....It's hopeless."

"You're thinking too big," Justin told her. "We don't need to take it that far. We can't. We're gonna think small, like stupid pranks. We could duct tape his car. Cover his room in sticky notes. You know. Make his life miserable, but not too miserable."

Ariana was dumbfounded. "That's...stupid? What are you, twelve? No. Let's just not try anything at all. Now hurry up and get dressed, we need-"

Justin grabbed her arm before she could leave the room, pulling her back towards him. "Hey, hey, it's not stupid."

She was about to protest when something dawned on her. "Wait...Remember that time we were going to the movie theater?"

He thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. You wouldn't let me kiss you-"