Stars

Chapter 6

The next week passed uneventfully, Ray being away in California with his family, and Pete having refused any offer to get together with Mikey and Gerard. Frank had been staying the night for the past few days, as his less than accepting grandparents were staying the weekend at his house.

Mikey lay on his bedroom floor, having been playing bass for the last 2 hours and getting nowhere. The bass lay next to him, the strap resting over his chest. A loud buzzing against the instrument caused Mikey to sit up suddenly, the neck of the bass hitting him in the knees, causing him to yell out in pain.

He picked up his phone, quietly cursing it, and swiped to answer the call,

“This better be fucking worth me breaking my kneecaps, you ass,” Mikey said, only half-jokingly.

“Nice to hear from you too,” came the laughing voice of none other than Pete Wentz through the speaker of the phone.

“Anyway, I’m bored off my ass and my Aunt and Uncle aren’t here so yeah.” Before Mikey could get a word in, Pete quickly jumped back in,

“Wait, is Frank there?” Mikey nodded, then remembered that Pete couldn’t see him,

“Uh, yeah, he’s been here the last few days, staying the night. Why?”

“Ooh, okay, awesome, so I was wondering if you guys wanted to come over and maybe spend the night or something? I just don’t want to have to stay here alone all night, and you guys have never been over and we have a shit ton of popcorn and movies and we could like watch them and-” Pete’s increasingly worried rambling was cut short by a short laugh from Mikey,

“Yeah, we can come over. You need to chill out, seriously,” he said, smiling.

“Oh, ok, cool. So, I’ll see you guys around like 2 or something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Ok, cool. Bye!”

“Bye, asshole,” Mikey hung up smiling, and stood up reluctantly, running down the stairs to tell Gerard and Frank about the plans.

Only an hour later, the three found themselves in Gerard’s sputtering car.

“This isn’t some ruse to get us into a house party, is it?” Gerard grumbled from the back of the car, where Frank was lying with his head in his boyfriend’s lap.

“No, you fucking idiot. He literally moved a month ago, he’s not gonna know anyone yet,” Frank replied, turning his head to look up at Gee, who laughed.

“You’re fucking adorable,” he said, moving Frank’s fringe off his face, revealing his smile.

“Well, one of us has to be. If we were both just amazingly hot, the world wouldn’t be able to handle us,” Frank replied, wiggling his eyebrows jokingly. Mikey violently cleared his throat,

“Can you save this for the 23 hours of the day where you’re together and I’m not in a car with you?”

“Sorry Mikes,” Gerard said, laughing quietly. The rest of the short car ride was spent in silence, except for the loud music blaring through the car’s speakers.

Checking the address Pete had sent him for what seemed like the 600th time, Mikey looked through the house numbers in the street before pulling up in front of a mint green painted house, with no cars on the driveway. Frank got out of the car first, and almost ran to the door, then began aggressively ringing the doorbell, much to Mikey and Gerard’s annoyance. A disgruntled Pete opened the door, holding a large bulldog by the collar,

“Fuck you, Iero,” he said, laughing. The dog began to jump up, scrabbling against Frank’s knees. He bent down and began to scratch the dog behind the ear, letting it lick him all over his face.

“That’s disgusting,” Mikey said, walking through the door to join Pete and Gerard, who were watching Frank being tackled by the seemingly small dog.

“Hey! Bronx!” Pete shouted, and the dog looked up at the tattooed boy. “C’mere!” he called, and the dog ran over to him, looking up with its head tilted sideways. Pete kneeled down and picked up Bronx, motioning with his head to follow him through the uncharacteristically clean, white house, to a living room with worn leather sofas, a brown coffee table, and a tv mounted on the wall. The kitchen was directly next to the living room, separated only by the change in flooring from carpet to wooden floor.

“Well, um, this is my house, I guess,” Pete said, letting Bronx jump out of his arms and onto the scratched coffee table.

“Cool,” Frank said, as Pete went to get popcorn from the cupboard. Frank immediately picked up the dog again, and completely ignored the rest of the world. Gerard flopped down on the sofa next to him, and began to rest his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder, who completely ignored him.

“Fraaaaannnk,” Gee began to nuzzle his head into Frank’s neck, flicking his hair in his face. “Pay attention to meeeeeee.” Frank just laughed, continuing to play with the dog as Gerard gave up, and sunk back into the couch.

“I’ve been replaced,” Gerard mumbled to Mikey, who was sat next to him, laughing.

Frank quickly stopped playing with the dog as he was hit in the back of the head by a flying can of Coke, sending both Gerard and Mikey into a flurry of laughter. Frank turned around to see Pete holding another can, laughing too had to throw it again.

“Fuck you Wentz, fuck you.”

“Serves you right for not paying attention to me,” Gerard said, letting Frank fall sideways so his head was resting on his leg.

When everyone had drinks, and was sitting on the sofa, Pete pulled up Netflix, and began to scroll through movies.

Two movies and one episode of Stranger Things later, Pete pulled out his phone and ordered pizzas, one pepperoni and sausage, and one veggie. Half of each was finished quickly, and Frank had somehow migrated to sitting on the floor, his head resting on Gee’s legs. Pete had been up and down the entire time, and was now sitting at the end of the sofa, away from everyone else.

Mikey moved over, laying his arm over Pete’s shoulders and letting his head fall on top of the shorter boy’s. Pete moved his arm around Mikey, and turned to lean into his chest. Mikey smiled, then Pete looked up.

“Come with me, I wanna show you something cool.”