Boy Next Door (Michael Clifford)

Chapter 5: White Sugar And Boy Bands

Chapter 5: White Sugar And Boy Bands

Jaycee's parents are total hippies. They have a food truck and travel to different events to bake gluten-free dairy-free cane-sugar-free egg-free cupcakes, which are surprisingly not that bad. Jaycee is not allowed to eat white sugar, which never stops her and is the reason she's usually the one to stay over at my house. Her parents are pretty awesome though, I just wish they had normal ice cream or maybe candy bars in the house.

I quietly made my way to Jaycee's bedroom at the end of the hall. Light seeped through the space under the door, which means she's awake. I tried not to move the beads hanging in front of the door too much.

"Hey," she said when she looked up from painting her toe nails green. I closed the door behind me and went to sit on the end of her bed, putting my bag by my feet. "So, what happened? I thought you were staying the night there."

"I just didn't want to anymore. I drank too much," I explained. "It's quieter here anyway."

"No kidding," she said as she walked on her heals to put the nail polish bottle back on her dresser. "I only knew, like, five percent of the people there."

I took off my shoes and moved up to lie down on her bed. She joined me and started to scroll through her phone.

"I saw you hugging Luke by the way," she wiggled her eyebrows at me. "Are you guys getting back together?"

"We were never really in a relationship, Jaycee," I said. "And no way, he's like my brother."

"A sexy brother," she laughed.

"Why don't you date him, then?"

"Ew, gross, he's like my brother," she said.

"Exactly," I said.

"I think he likes you, though."

"He does not."

"Why did he walk you all the way here?"

"Because it's on the way to his," I tried to justify.

"No it isn't, his house is in the opposite direction from Ashton's."

"Oh yeah," I thought for a second. "I don't know, we're friends, I was drinking and he was being nice."

"Right," she said, not convinced.

"I like someone else anyway."

"Oh, my god, tell me! It's that guy from algebra isn't it?"

"No, it's Michael," I said without thinking, hoping she didn't hear me but no such luck.

"Shut up, Eva, are you kidding? Michael?"

"He kissed me the other day."

"Ev, you can't like him, for your own sake. You know how he is with girls."

"I'm not just another girl though, I'm different."

"That's what everyone says. I don't want you to get hurt."

"I know but I can't help it." I know she's just looking out for me but it's not like he likes me back anyway. I didn't want to talk about it anymore. "Can we just go to sleep now?"

~

I walked home as soon as I woke up the next morning, or should I say 'day'. It was already noon. I was folding my laundry in my room when there was a tap at my window and in came Michael. The door works just fine but he says the window is more punk rock.

"Hey, why'd you leave the party so early?" he asked.

"I left at like one in the morning."

"Yeah, that's early." He walked over to the drawer I left open and picked up a pair of black lace panties.

"Hey!" I said and lunged to grab them out of his hands.

"You wanna try those on for me?" he laughed, I wasn't sure if he was joking.

"No," I said as I turned to hide my red face and close the drawer. "What are you doing here?" I asked. He sat down in my desk chair because my bed was covered in clothes.

"Luke got a message on YouTube claiming to be One Direction's manager."

"Really? One Direction?" I squealed. I probably liked that boy band more than I cared to admit and no one had a problem making fun of me for it.

"Yeah, and I bet him five bucks that you are pranking us."

"Me?" I said. "I'm not that creative."

"That's what Calum said."

I rolled my eyes at that. "What did the message say?"

"They asked us to support them on their next tour."

"That's amazing, and you're about to lose five dollars because it wasn't me."

"It totally was you, just admit it, Eva."

"So you're going to say no?"

"I'm not going to say anything because it's not real and I see right through your little prank," he said as he hopped back out the window.

"It wasn't me!" I called after him.

~

At school the next day I sat with Jaycee, Calum and Luke under what we call Our Tree. Michael has a different lunch period. We were talking about the One Direction message.

"Did you reply yet?" I asked Luke.

"No, I don't know what to say."

"Give them your phone number and ask to call you and then you'll know if it's real," Calum said.

"Good plan," he said and got to work on his phone typing a reply. "But I already know it's real, remember when one of them tweeted about us?"

"That doesn't mean anything," Cal said. "They do that for a lot of bands."

"No, I'm with Luke on this one," Jaycee said. "That's gonna be so cool, you guys are gonna play in front of, like, millions of people."

"And you'll travel all over the world and be famous," I said. "You guys better not forget about me though."

"We're not going anywhere," Calum assured.

"You think you and Michael would work long distance?" Jaycee asked me.

"Jaycee!" I whined.

"You and Michael?" Calum said.

"Oops," Jaycee said. "I forgot they don't know. She has a tiny crush on him," Jaycee told them.

"Jaycee! I said that in confidence," I said.

"I just want everyone to know that I called it weeks ago," Calum said.

"No you didn't because I told you they liked each other last week," Luke said.

"But I suspected," Calum said.

"No you didn't," Luke said.

"Guys, stop, it's not a big deal," I said. They're acting like we're 12 and it's getting annoying.

"Alright, I'm getting jello," Jaycee said.

"I'm going to tell your mom you eat white sugar," I said.

"You tell my mom I'm eating white sugar and I'll leak your nudes," she said.

"I don't have any nudes," I laughed.

"Everyone takes nudes, Eva, and I will find yours and send them to Michael."

"Send them to me, too," Calum said. I threw a fry at him.

"I'm just kidding, I won't tell," I said.

~

Author's note: I never know when to end chapters and this is just a filler w/e so I've been writing this old school like in a notebook during calculus and I forgot to post it sorry but I have a lot of other stuff written so ;)