A Hotter Touch, A Better F... Than Any Girl You'll Ever Meet

Chapter 7

The next couple of days I guess I was kind of getting back on my feet. Actually the Thursday of Pete's arrival marked my third sober and sexless day in a row. Shit, that sounded like some alcoholic writing. But... Instead I'd spent the evenings hanging out with Spencer and Jaime, his girlfriend, and one night Brent had come over as well. He spent most of his time keeping Brendon from doing anything stupid, though. What 'stupid' meant, nobody ever really bothered telling me, though.

Pete had sent me a text Wednesday night just as I was about to start cleaning up the boxes I'd gotten from Mom and kind of distracted me by revealing that his plane was coming in on Thursday as he'd said, but at five am. So instead of cleaning out the boxes, I went to bed early.

******

We were playing video games. Mario again, actually. Spencer and I share an obsession and apparently Pete thought it was cool enough. Brent, who was also present, didn't let us forget that he'd have preferred Halo, but grudgingly played with us anyway.

Looking around, I realised that our apartment looked even more like a disgusting bachelor joint than usual. Half-empty bags of potato chips and pizza boxes were scattered all over the floor. Cans of beers, empty and full alike and courtesy of Pete's not-fake ID, were scattered over the table and we were all dressed quite, well, casually.

It had been a good day, really. We'd hung out, watched movies, played video games. I'd taken Pete into the basement room, which belonged to our apartment and which we'd fashioned into a rehearsal studio, to play him some of our new material after his lengthy insistence. And then, obviously, more video games.

"Shit!" Pete screamed and tossed the controller away.

I turned to where Spencer was looking victoriously at the older man. "Lost again, Wentz?" I asked.

He merely huffed.

Brent laughed. "You should know better than to think you can beat either one of those two. I think they've spent close to every free moment they've had together the last ten years playing Mario."

"Not true," Spencer objected. "Close, but not true."

I gave a small laugh myself at that last comment.

"Where's Brendon?" Pete suddenly asked.

I think I choked on my laugh and I quickly stretched out my hand to grip my abandoned beer bottle and drank deeply before reaching for my cigs as well.

"Ehrm... In his apartment, I think," Brent answered, scratching the back of his head.

"Why isn't he here? He knows I'm in town, right?" Fall Out Boy's bassist gave a pout. "I want to hang out with Brendon as well."

"He knows you're here," Brent informed.

"Then why is he in his apartment?" Pete asked again.

Sometimes I found it hard to believe that man was seriously well on his way to twenty-seven. He could be so childish you won't believe it. But then I guess that in our late teens we become preoccupied with being as grown up as we possibly can and then later we realise that being a child was much cooler and allow ourselves to be immature again. Either that or Pete Wentz was bipolar.

"That's a long story," Spencer started, looking at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Call him and tell him I'm out if Pete wants him over so bad."

"Alright, I sense conflict," the man in question replied. "And we have four days before we go on tour. That's enough time for any story."

"Ryan," Brent said, looking at me. "That's for you to tell."