The Devil Wears Girl Jeans [BEING EDITED]

The Devil Wears Girl Jeans (Chapter 42)

“Okay, give me an adjective,” Seth said, tapping the pen against his lower lip, staring intently down at the tattered Mad Libs book that we had found in Lacey's solarium about ten minutes ago. Luckily for me, my mom had work today, so I had managed to sneak out of the house in order to come lounge around and watch yet another horrible band practice. I was pretty sure that she knew something had happened last night, but since she hadn't actually caught Halden in my room, there wasn't exactly anything she could do about it.

“Chicken nuggets,” Quinn said for about the twelfth time, fiddling with his guitar pegs. Seth scribbled it down, and moved on to the next blank.

“Okay, now I need a verb that ends in 'ed'”

“Also chicken nuggets.” Tristan said, not bothering to look up from his phone that he had been typing away on non stop for the last half hour. I guess the curiosity had been killing Quinn, because at one point he finally asked Tristan who was that important, and I was pretty sure I had felt my heart sink in my chest when he'd answered with, “The girl from yesterday.” That had put me in a pretty bad mood, so eventually I had resorted to sitting silently in the chair that was crammed in the corner of the room, conveniently as far away from him as possible.

“Hey guys!” Sammy greeted us as he skipped into the room, followed closely by Lacey who was twirling her car keys around her index finger in a bored manner. Sammy must have sensed something was up, because he immediately came to sit beside me, sending me a worried look. I continued to stare at my feet, and he sighed, realizing I wasn't about to tell him anything, and settled for draping an arm around me instead.

“Guys! Okay, guys. Guys, listen!” Seth said excitedly from the couch, “I am looking for Chicken Nuggets and beauty in the form of a Chicken Nuggets goddess. She should have the physique of Chicken Nuggets and the Chicken Nuggets of Chicken Nuggets. I would prefer if she knew how to cook, clean, and wash my Chicken Nuggets. I know I’m not very attractive in my picture, but it was taken Chicken Nuggets days ago, and I have since become more Chicken Nuggets.”

“Great one, Seth.” Lacey said with fake enthusiasm, but Seth was already doubled over, laughing too hard to notice. I swear, no one made Seth laugh as much as he made himself laugh.

“Guys, stop being distractions. Some of us have a band practice to get through, and demos to make.” Quinn said, adjusting his microphone so that it was level with his mouth. The bottom of his guitar hit him mid thigh, and for a brief second he actually looked like he could be famous. Like he actually had a shot at turning Shark Puncher into something. Which, of course, he didn't, because they were awful. But still, it was nice to imagine.

“Yeah yeah, shut up.” Lacey muttered, flopping down behind her drum set.

“Mom said that if you give me attitude, I'm allowed to punch you.”

“Shut your mouth, she didn't say that, you sassbag. I swear, if yo-”

A piercing sound filled the air, and everyone's hand reflexively flew up to cover their ears. Seth placed the air horn back on the window where we kept it for situations like these. Carr sibling fights were not an easy thing to break up, but it seemed to do the trick, no matter how badly it assaulted our ears.

“Well then. Now that Dallas is, uh, taking a break from the band, who's supposed to play bass?”

Seth had a good point. Everyone looked at each other in confusion, because as it turned out, no one in the room could play bass. And since Dallas's brother (or adoptive brother, I guess) had also skipped out on band practice, probably due to the recent turn of events, we were also down a guitar player. So yeah, it was kind of hard to have a band practice with only a singer and drummer.

“This is a waste of time, I'm out.” Seth said, tucking the book of Mad Libs under his arm and heading downstairs into the kitchen, no doubt to devour one of the many fruit cakes that Quinn and Lacey's army of aunts had sent in for the holidays. There was only a week left until Christmas break, and I still had no idea how I was going to spend it. Halden had informed me that he was going to be spending his Christmas on a cruise, headed somewhere in the general direction of Florida, so there went any fantasy I had of having some kind of cute mistletoe kiss or having someone special to share the holidays with.

Tristan, like always, seemed to read my thoughts, because he looked up from his phone and asked, “What are you guys doing for Christmas?”

There was a chorus of “nothing”'s and he nodded thoughtfully, before glancing at me for the first time since I tried to kiss him the other night.

“We're heading up to my grandmas place next week, if any of you guys want to come. We'll probably come back like, the day before New Years, so I don't know. I mean, I don't want to steal any of you guys away from your families or anything, but yeah. You guys in?”

“I'm in,” Seth muttered, his voice muffled by fruit cake.

“Okay, anyone who isn't related to me?”

“We will,” Lacey said, and Quinn nodded in agreement, “Our parents are going to our aunts for Christmas anyways, it'll be better than sitting around here.”

“Good, good. What about you, Hartley?” Tristan asked hesitantly, as if scared I was going to blow up at him or something. Which I guess was kind of what I did next, but I mean really, could you blame me?

“I don't know Tristan. Are you sure you wouldn't rather bring her?” I said, nodding in the direction of his phone. And then I walked out of the room calmly, even though I felt anything but calm. I heard Sammy get up and come after me, but not once did I looked back because I wasn't sure I could handle seeing the heartbroken look that would no doubt be on Tristan's face.

Because I knew that if I even got a glimpse of his sad, perfect face, I wouldn't be able to resist pulling him in and kissing him this time, and that just wasn't something I could risk. Not when everything was so perfect with me and Halden.