Redesign Me, State of the Art (Jalex)

So Chase Your Words With Your Tongue

Alex's POV- 7 Months Ago

I hated going to parties. I could never understand why my friends were constantly forcing me to go with them. The music was always too loud and horrible, alcohol often tastes like a wet sock soaked in bleach, and the cops end up breaking most of them up by midnight anyway.

But it was kind of "uncool," I guess, to not go to a senior party as a sophomore. So that's why I was standing in the living room of whatshisface's house, pretending to enjoy myself for the sake of my nonexistent popularity. It was pretty crowded and frankly looked like a soft porn film with all the couples sucking each others faces along every corner of every hallway. There were also never really any gay guys at these things, so I was usually left to my lonesome while the friends who had begged me to attend went off to play tonsil hockey with some random chick.

Since I despised the taste of alcohol and wasn't a fan of the stuff I did while under the influence of it, I often volunteered to be the designated driver. The soda at the party that night was pretty crappy; mostly knock off brands from Sav-On that the cheap host had bought to imitate things like Sunkist and 7Up. I was leaning against the wall of one of the less crowded and less pornographic hallways of the small house. My phone had been my best pal for most of the night as I scrolled through random websites and avoided contact with most of the other people there.

There was this guy in the adjoining room though, that had peaked my interest. I kept catching him looking at me and was a little flustered by the attention because, I mean, the guy was pretty good looking. After about half an hour of participating in a game of 'pretend like you weren't staring at him by looking off into the other direction like an idiot,' he got off of the couch and began to walk over to me.

To say that I was slightly nervous was an understatement. He tossed his hair a little bit with his hand and a too-good feeling ran through my stomach. I shoved my phone in my pocket and tried to nonchalantly fix my own mane that I hadn't bothered with at all up until this moment of the night. I silently cursed the lazy, two-hour-ago me for not putting myself together at the least before coming here accompanied by my low expectations.

He put his weight against the wall parallel to mine, almost mimicking my body's posture and tipping back the cup in his hand, taking a gulp of whatever concoction he had in there. I scrunched my nose up at the thought of burning liquid traveling down my own throat.

"It's Coke," he suddenly said.

"Excuse me?"

"The drink. I'm not a huge fan of the loopy juice myself," he clarified.

"Loopy juice?" I laughed at the term.

"Yeah. It's a lot more fun to say than alcohol isn't it?"

"I guess so," I chuckled again in response. The more I saw of him, the quicker I realized how unfamiliar he was. "Not to sound rude, but who are you? I mean I've never seen you around school or anything."

"I'm uh, not really from around here. Just visiting. Had some things to do in town. Zack," he introduced himself, extending a hand.

"Alex," I answered, returning the gesture. I groaned as another one of the worst top forties blasted through the shitty speaker in the room over.

"Wanna go outside?" he suggested, obviously not a fan of the horrid music either.

"Please," I agreed. We pushed pass several groups of people before making it to the backyard area. I slid open the glass door and stepped out into the crisp, fall air. Summer was wearing off so it was slightly warmer, but there was still a nice little bite to the temperature. "You must be pretty far from home judging by that accent of yours," I pointed out to him.