Chapter 32 - Hooking Up and Growing Up

Adri is allergic to garbage.

Unfortunately in a house with a toddler, two teenagers, and three pets, there's a lot of it.

Regardless, once Melissa has taken the trash out, she and Adri take part in their favorite pastime: dancing.

"Thanks for coming over so much, Adri. I mean...it sounds silly, but I've been like super lonely ever since Marie left and...I'unno, you're really helping."

"Dude, I totally get it, and it's no problem. Call me anytime."

Melissa grins. "I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here, honestly. I just..." She blushes. "You're my best friend, you know that?"

 

Adri looks down with a secret smile, her own cheeks flushing as well. "And you're mine. I kind of can't imagine life without you, you know? We've been friends since we could walk, basically."

The two embrace. But both find themselves hanging on a little tighter, a little longer, than might be appropriate for two people who are just best friends.

Melissa is finally the one to break the hug. But as they pull back, they lock eyes and freeze where they are. She's shocked to feel her heart start pounding.

Adri leans in first, but Melissa meets her halfway there without hesitation.

When the brief lip lock is broken, Melissa gasps at the electricity shooting through her. "Watcher..."

"Yeah..." Adrianna meets her eyes again, and the electricity doubles in power.

Maybe it's sort of childish to never want to part from one's best friend, but Melissa doesn't let any time pass her by. She grabs Adri's hand. "Maybe we can be...more than just bffs."

Adri likes this plan.

They go off to walk through high school together, awkwardly-shaped-face-hand in awkwardly-shaped-face-hand.

It's Max's birthday the next day. After everyone goes to school, she invites Jamie over to see his son grow up, just as she promised.

If she decided to let Maxwell blow out his candles while Jamie was in the bathroom, that might be the tiniest bit of passive-aggressiveness from finding out that Jamie is her new boss now that Honey Darnell has passed on. Honestly, she's been in the Music Career for like a whole two weeks longer than him!

He still gets to the event before the growing up actually occurs.

In retaliation, Jamie informs his son passive-aggressively of the many exact, embarrassing, and sometimes completely false and silly reasons why Tiara has never actually gotten married.

She in turn reminds Max why Jamie lives in a shack with a whiny teenaged girl while the Toft family has a fine, happy home, thank you very much.

All kidding around aside, Jamie encourages Max to come visit the theater where they both work. He agrees to check it out sometime.

Jamie is so happy he puts his elbow in his food.

This seed will self-destruct in five...four...three...

Old. But not too old to step down from ruling the household as they rightfully should.

As Tiara stands in the bathroom one day, she begins to reflect on her life and the decisions that she's made.

Sleeping with four different guys. Fathering four different children. Never committing to a man but always protecting her offspring.

While she doesn't feel like she's had the committment issues that her mother was notorious for, she also remembers her younger sister Naomi's outburst at the breakfast table one morning.

"Some of us like being in love! Some of us aren't scared of it! And, for the record, I LIKE Mr. Hamming!"

She's always found it funny that her mother and Mr. Hamming reconciled so soon after that happened, as if her mother had been having second thoughts about her lifestyle for years.

There's this weird gnawing at the bottom of her stomach and, for the first time in a long time, she wonders if she's been holding back her own second thoughts all along.

For some reason when she calls her Mr. Hamming and asks him to come over, he actually does.

"Hey."

He eyes her, the way that she's shyly avoiding looking at him, and frowns. "Hey. What d'you need?"

"What?"

"I mean, there's gotta be some reason you invited ol' Gussie over, am I right? Broken TV? Clogged sink?"

The jab hurts a little, but she feels as if she's deserved it for a long time. There's no clean and clear way to say what she's got on her mind. Eventually, after a bit of hemming and hawing that's obviously getting on Gussie's nerves, she sighs and spits it out.

"Gus...look, sometimes we do stupid stuff, right?" Before he can answer, she presses on. "Sometimes we run around and sleep with every man we meet just to fill this hole inside us, and sometimes we hide from something that could be really good to keep ourselves safe, and sometimes we just don't know any better, but..." She rubs her forehead, tears gathering in her eyes. "But sometimes, we figure out that we were stupid. And we don't like it. And we want to change. And..."

When she meets his eyes finally, they've softened. He doesn't look angry. He actually looks...hopeful.

Her fear disappears. She takes him in, drinking him up like a dying woman in a desert, and sighs softly. "Gus, I've...I've been a stupid bitch."

"Yeah. You have." He chuckles softly. "But I've been a stupid bastard for just as long."

Tiara reaches out and touches his cheek, brushing her thumb against the smoothness she finds there, as if he shaved before even coming to see her. "I'm tired of being stupid."

"Me too."

It's settled. Though they see no reason to marry, they talk it over and make plans. Before the day is out, he's moved into the Toft household for good, so that maybe, just maybe, he and Tiara can spend the last of their very few adult days together in happy bliss.

Tiara smiles as she pulls away from him, eyes sparkling. "The, uh...stereo's broken, though."

Gussie decides to be a big, strong man.

It doesn't work out very well.

"HOLY SHIT GUSSIE."

Tiara wonders if it's too late for her to change her mind about this whole moving-in thing.

Max will forever have a crippling fear of stereos now.

Yes, Gussie. Clearly it was your awesome muscles that destroyed that fire and not the firefighter.

Father-daughter bonding.

(it's probably a good thing that Melissa got Tiara's eyebrows and not her father's. But the nose is still unfortunate. xD)

"All right, ya'll, I'm heading to work! Be good!"

"Later, Mom!"

Megan waits about five minutes after Tiara leaves.

Why, hello, Dorian, fancy seeing you here.

"Sup?" he asks as soon as he sees Megan. "There some reason you invited me over at like...8 o' clock when we got school tomorrow?"

Megan eyes him with a smirk before glancing around. Melissa and Gussie are hanging out outside. Max is reading in the bedroom. She's pretty convinced that she has the house to herself for a while. "Y'know, I was thinking today..."

"Oh, really?"

"We never DID get to make out last time we hung out."

Dorian's eyes widen a little, but, to his credit, he keeps his rather neutral expression on his face, as if he's trying to figure out if this is a trick. "Well, I mean..."

"All right, apparently I'm gonna have to convince you. C'mere."

"What?"

"You're the tensest mofo I've seen in years."

She doesn't go easy on him. She literally digs her fingers into the knotted muscles along his shoulders, her smirk growing with every groan he makes. "You chilling out?"

"Yeah..." He sounds a little breathless and it makes her heart spin in her chest. "Yeah, getting there."

She chuckles, her voice low and silky. "Anything else I can do to help?"

Dorian glances over his shoulder, quirking a brow. "I'm sure you can think of something."

For all her false bravado, Megan is a coward at heart. Yeah, they've been flirting the whole time they've known each other, but her actually making the first move? He seriously wants her to do that?

She looks away shyly, her smirk downgrading to a small smile as she tries to build up the courage to what she's been dreaming of for weeks now.

"Megan..."

"Yeah?"

He drops his voice to a whisper and she would reflect years from this moment that it was probably the sexiest thing she ever heard in her life. "Stop thinking and just fucking kiss me."

She obliges.

"How was that?"

"...damn, girl."

The tension explodes.

Perhaps the only reason they don't immediately go find Megan's bed is because she knows for a fact that Max is in there and that Melissa's bound to get tired and go to sleep any time now. The two have to settle for making out furiously on the couch, Megan always trying to keep one ear open.

She's extremely grateful that she did when she hears Gussie and Melissa's voices approaching the back door. Megan pulls back with a gasp. "Shit, we need to hide y-"

There's no time.

 

"..."

"..."

Megan pipes up. "Gus, were you really playing tag in your-"

"I don't know who you are," he interrupts, eyeing Dorian. "But Miss Tiara's gonna get home in about ten minutes. You've got ten seconds to get out of here before I tell her you were here."

"Yes, sir."

When Dorian's snuck out the back door, giving Megan a little glance and relieved smirk over his shoulder, she looks at Gussie. "...are...are you gonna tell her?"

Gussie smiles at her, corners of his eyes crinkling. "I keep my promises." As they head to their separate bedrooms, Megan nearly sinks into the floor with relief. "Night, Meg."

"Night, Gus."