Mr. Iero

Chapter 9

A/N: Sorry I haven't updated this in a while.  I was busy with the end of my summer and now that school's starting I'm busy again but I promise to try to find time for this.  And it's been boring lately.  But I promise it'll get cool soon.  And yayyyy longer chapter.  Sorta.

*Ashley's POV*

The drive from my house to my grandma's was five hours, including Christmas-Eve-traffic.  Being Christmas Eve, my mom wanted to get to her house at around mid-afternoon.  My mom, dad, sister, and I packed ourselves into the car at about eleven.  The ride wasn't too bad, I just had to be careful about my bump - it was surprisingly hard to hide while sitting.

We got there in pretty good time, but of course I was trying to rush us into my grandparents' house because of my urgent need to use the bathroom thanks to this little buddy inside of me.

After I took care of that situation, I walked back into the living room to be greeted by my family.  I didn't have that big of a family - just my grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, and cousin who was a year younger than me, Sarah.

I said my hello's to everyone and then beckoned Sarah to follow me up into the room where I'd be sleeping that night.  She followed me up the stairs and into one of the spare bedrooms.  This house was where my mom grew up, so when we visited, my immediate family would usually stay in my mom's old bedroom while Sarah's immediate family stayed in her mom's old bedroom.

Sarah and I didn't really talk about anything specifically; we just caught up on how our lives were going.  She lived on the other side of the country; so I didn't get to see her often - maybe once every year or two.

After talking for about a half hour, Sarah excused herself to go use the bathroom.  I took the opportunity to take out my phone and see if I had any messages.  I got a few texts from friends, spreading a bit of Christmas cheer around and stuff like that.  After taking a moment to decide, I created a new text message, wrote out "Merry Christmas Eve. We should hang out some time soon," and then sent it to the contact simply titled "Frank."

Sarah came back into the room just then, so I locked my phone and set it on a table next to me.  We were talking for a few minutes until my phone buzzed and the screen lit up.  Sarah, being the nosey little bugger she was, was the first to grab the phone and read the preview of the text.

"Yeah.  You, too," she read aloud.  "And sounds good."  She looked up at me.  "What did you say to..." she checked the lock screen again, "...Frank?" Sarah tried getting out of the lock screen but couldn't figure out my passcode.

"Nothing," I said, snatching the phone and getting up to put it away in my bag.

"Who's Frank?" she added, clearly wanting to at least know something.

I shrugged.  "Just a friend."

"A boyfriend," she decided.  "Isn't he? Huh?" I laughed and shook my head.  "Yeah he is.  He has to be."  Then she started singing the words 'Ashley has a boyfriend,' as if she were an eight-year-old.

My first instinct was to clasp my hand over her mouth to shut her up.  She probably saw how panicky I was, considering that my eyes were now wide open.  The walls in this house were thin and the last thing I needed at the moment was my parents thinking I had a boyfriend.  I had to lie.  Fast.  "Yeah, he's my boyfriend," I said.

Sarah gave me a winning smile.  "I knew it," she said.

"But you can't tell anyone," I added.  "No one's supposed to know.  He's a...secret boyfriend, if you will."

"Why's he a secret?" she asked, extremely interested.

Think on your toes, Ashley.  "He's kind of bad.  Like, he doesn't go to any of his classes, and he has tattoos, and pierced ears."  Not bad enough.  "And he got suspended a bunch of times, too."