CASUAL AFFAIR; brendon urie

Chapter Thirty-One

"Hey," I replied, finally looking up from the drink, and meeting his eyes, smiling sheepishly. It was hard to keep serious eye contact when my girly insides were being all twisted up something fierce.

"Hey." He repeated, smiling right back. "You look ... wow. Florrie, you look amazing." He gestured down the length of me with a sweep of his hand, giving me that sweet, boyish half-smile.

"You're not so bad yourself." I reached over and brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his shoulder. My hand hovered, before I quickly withdrew it, and held it in a loose fist by my side. "For wearing a recycled outfit." I added, teasing.

"It is not!" he protested indignantly. "Well ... maybe it's the same waistcoat and suit jacket ... and braces ... but the rest is all different!"

"Mm hm." I chuckled, taking another sip of the fruity drink. "So I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to say happy birthday."

One of his eyebrows arched, giving me an ironic look. "But you're not."

I bit my lip, swirling the toe of one of my boots around. "25's pretty old."

He snorted with laughter, shaking his head, leaning over too quick for me to react, and plucking my drink from my hand, taking a totally macho swig for such feminine drink. "Hey!" I protested, trying, and failing, to snatch it back before he drained it. He simply gave me the grin of a kid that's swallowed a worm before his mom can slap it out of their hand, and took the little umbrella out the empty glass, leaning over, and tucking it behind my ear. "You're mean." I whined, sticking a hand on my hip, contemplating taking it back out, before deciding against it.

"I'm mean? You called me old." He retorted, before poking his tongue out at me, and then running it along the rim of the glass, teasing me.

I blew a raspberry, and opened my mouth to retort when all of a sudden there were hands covering my eyes, and Breezy giggled in my ear "Guess who!" before releasing me and stepping in between Brendon and I with a 'ta-da!' and some jazz hands. She looked, despite only having been here for under an hour, already tipsy on her toes, grinning sillily. "I was just wondering where Linda had dragged you off to."

"I-" I fought the urge to glance over at Brendon. If I was lucky, she hadn't even noticed, and -

"I didn't know you two knew each other." She waggled a finger between us, cocking her head to the side.

It was one of those moments when you can actually hear, as well as feel, your stomach dropping to the soles of your feet. Y'know, the bad kind of butterflies. I opened my mouth, mind whirring as it searched for something I could respond with, and I mean, there were tons of innocent things I could say, but every time it started to become coherent, it was stamped on by the thought we're fuck buddies. Just when I thought that might actually blurt out my mouth, I was saved yet again, by my 'ish'.

"Well, we met at Dallon's party in January." He said matter-of-factly, even throwing in a little shrug, smiling.

That seemed to sate the curious look on Breezy's face, and she nodded bouncily, saying "Oh!"

I was buoyed on by this, laughing airily, and throwing my hand up to him. "And there was that time we bumped into each other at Dairy Queen!" I probably didn't need to add that, but ...

Brendon laughed back, nodding. "Yeah, that. And I worked as a delivery owl once for a message from Dallon."

Breezy clapped her hands together. "Ain't life funny." She frowned, shaking her head. "Wait, that's not the saying ... um ... oh! It's a small world." She giggled, shoving me playfully, before doing the same to Brendon, then sticking a hand in his face "Flo did my nails, see. Aren't they the cutest?"