Right In Front of Me (Finished)

Chapter 17: Ditching Greyson for a Night on the Town

***Greyson's POV***

        Avalon and I walk into school- correction, I walk into school, and she struts into school. Struts. Are you kidding me? She is actually strutting into school. Like she owns it. She has to know how dumb she looks. Is she just messing around? No. That whole walk explains exactly how she's been acting lately. Like she owns everything and everyone. Not cool, man. Not cool at all. But, somehow, her acting like this is working on guys. They have been asking her out left and right, though they know that she and Hayden are dating. Not cool, either. She just tells them to take a number. Instead, they ask for hers. Then they wink. I've got the whole thing down in my head. She used to be so different, but now, she's like everyone else. Really predictable, but somehow, she keeps surprising me when she blows me off. It comes as a new shock of disappointment every time.
        "Is my makeup noticeable?" Avalon asks. See, these are the type of things that bother me. Before, she wouldn't have cared about the answer to that question. Or any of the ridiculous questions she's been asking lately. Before I get to answer, she says, "Never mind, I'll end up in the bathroom putting on more anyways."
        Our school has full- length mirrors in some hallways, and as we pass by one, Avalon back- pedals to admire herself. She leans forward, putting her face real close to the mirror. She uses the side of her index finger to push upward on her upper lashes, trying to get them to curl up. She does this to both eyes.  Then, she puts her hands down, and pouts, looking at her lipstick, then checks her teeth. She stands up straight, and straightens out her outfit, by tugging down her skirt a little, then pulling her denim shirt, which is tucked into the skirt, out a little, giving it a blousy affect. She tilts her head from side to side messing with her loosely braided hair. She turns to the side, putting a hand on her belly and the other hand on her back, and I really notice just how skinny she is. Not unhealthily skinny, just really skinny. She, then, turns forward, looks at my reflection in the mirror and asks for her makeup bag out of her backpack. I just stand there. She turns around and looks at me, and my body shocks to life, digging through her backpack which was slung over my shoulder. Did I mention that I have to carry her book bag for her now? Well, I do. I hand her the little bag, which had little pictures of bows on it.
        "Thank you..." She said in a voice that didn't make her sound thankful at all; it made it sound like she meant 'Finally! What took so long?'
"You know, this isn't all of my makeup. It's just my emergency stuff that I bring to school. I have a ton more at home." She says, brushing more powder across her eyelids. I roll my eyes. She dabs on more lipstick. Bats her eyes in the mirror. Makes a kissy face, then looks at my reflection, smiles, says, "I'm ready." I put her bag back in her backpack as she hands it to me, already walking away. I have to jog to catch up to her, which is what she expects me to do.
        I spot Hallie in the crowd of tired teenagers, and I don't even care about the fact that we want to be less physical, so I call her name, and run over to her. She looks around for the source of my voice, and before she finds it, I drop Avalon's backpack, along with mine, and connect my lips to Hallie's. She pulls away after a second, startled. "H-hey, Greyson. What's the rush?" She giggles. "It's been an... annoying day." I state, not wanting to get into details. I lean back in, but she says, "Already? It's only 6:30 in the morning. How could you already be annoy-" I interrupt, "You don't want to know." She giggles an 'okay' as we kiss again.
        Avalon says, annoyed, behind me, "Greyson, you dropped my bag! That's Vera Bradley, you know." She snatches it up off the dusty ground, slings it over her shoulder, and struts away from us. By the time Hallie and I are in full makeout-mode, Avalon struts right over to Hayden saying, "Hey, babe." He barely gets a 'Hey' in before she grabs the sides of his head with her elbows out, and starts making out with Hayden. "Sorry, just stressed." She says, pulling away. "Aren't we all?" He smirks, going back in for more lip action. Meanwhile, Hallie slips her tongue into my mouth. I return the favor.

***


        A few weeks go by, and it is now November. Avalon doesn't get much less annoying, but I find her more tolerable when she is with Hallie. Hopefully, she will feel a little more sane tonight, since we are supposed to have a movie night in my room.
         It's almost winter, and getting colder, but the girls still insist on wearing dresses. Today Avalon is wearing a floral skirt with a grey sweater. If I try and forget how impossible she has been lately, I can let myself realize just how pretty she looks today. Hallie's kiss placed on my cheek reminds me that I can't think about anything like that. Hallie is my girlfriend, and she's the one I like. Yeah, just keep telling yourself that, Grey.

***Avalon's POV***

        Hallie just kissed Greyson on the cheek, and it was, like, the cutest thing ever. Greyson announces that he has to leave (We are all standing by Greyson's truck) and he kisses Hallie, says a quiet goodbye to me. Just as he pulls out, Hayden joins my side, and we walk to his Jeep, not far at all away from Grey's parking spot. "Okay," I say suddenly, jumping in front of Hayden and Hallie, causing them to stop walking, "I have a great idea." They widen their eyes, and I roll mine. "Aw, c'mon, it's a good one, promise." I say with begging eyes.
        "Better than the time that you got me to ride in a shopping on a sidewalk, insisting that we go right over the curb, causing it to flip over?" Hallie asks with emphasis. "I still have the scab!" She informs me, accusingly, pointing at her elbow and shoulder; her 'battle wounds' as I called them. "Yes." I answer confidentially.
        "Or that time you wanted to go off-roading in the Jeep, with all of the doors off?" Hayden says, pointedly. I glance at a small dent in the front of the Jeep, reliving the moment and all of the excitement that came with it. "Yes! Look, it's nothing... crazy..." I smirk. "What is it...?" Hallie asks cautiously. I try to hide it, but my evil smile shines through. "Okay, so here's the plan; tonight, Hallie, you tell your mom that you are sleeping over at my house, and I will tell mine that I am sleeping over at your house. Got it?"
        "Yeah... but why would we need to do tha-" Hallie gets cut off by me. "Because... we are... gonna spend the night out on the city!" I exclaim. They exchange glances. Hayden starts, "Avalon, I don't... are you sur-" I interrupt again. What can I say? I'm excited! "Sure, I'm sure! It's a good, fool-proof plan! Please?! Oh, please, ohpleaseohpleaseohplease?!" I beg. They look at each other, then me, then at each other again. I can tell that they are starting to give in. Hallie says, as if it's been building up inside and she had to get it out, "Okay..." I celebratorily say, "Yay!"
"But..." She continues.
"But?"
"I have to be able to go to dance practice, 'till 5:00."
"Done." I say.
Hallie gasps, as if realizing something, "Ooh! I know! You two go to Avalon's house so she can get ready there, then you go to my house and get me something to change into. Something cute, okay?"
"What if your mom asks what I am doing?"
"Say that I need stuff for our 'sleepover.'" She says, putting air quotations around 'sleepover.' I nod to confirm it. This is really happening!


***5:00***

        Hayden and I roll in to the school parking lot, and he spots Hallie standing at the back door, in a t-shirt and spandex. She looks around for anybody, sees no one, and runs to the Jeep. I hand her a bag with her outfit. She says thanks, and not to look, as she gets dressed behind the Jeep. No one walks by but my history teacher. Hayden gets freaked out but I say, "Play it cool." And I wave to her as Hallie is out of sight. When she hops in the back, I must admit, she looks a little better than I look. She compliments my outfit, and I return the favor, and we are off! For an adventure in the city!

        When we get there, it is around 7:00, including a quick stop for dinner, Hayden's treat. Hallie did her makeup during the ride there. We wander around for hours. We are currently walking down the street, Hayden and I hand in hand. "Was this the best idea ever, or what?" I challenge them. "It's one of your best; I'll admit that." Hayden says, kissing me on the cheek. We are now on the sidewalk. I give Hayden a funny look and say, "A kiss on the cheek? You can do better than that." He accepts the challenge. He leans in and kisses me roughly. I kiss back hard. We are soon full-out making out. And I don't even care how awkward this must be for Hallie. The guy who I have liked for a year, his tongue is in my mouth, and that's all I care about right now. I come up for air and say, "Is that all you got?" He hesitates, kisses me roughly, then picks me up. He looks around for cars, but the streets are dead. He bites my lip, and lays down on the street, me on top of him. We are back to making out. The buzz of a car startles us, and we scramble up and run out of the streets just in time not to get trampled by tires. Hallie tells us how stupid we are. I ask, breathlessly and scared, "Hayden, do you want to add that to my list of bad ideas?" I say with a flirty tone. "No way. No... no way. That was not worthy of that list, cause... I enjoyed it too." Hayden replies. We slowly lean in, but Hallie says, "Guys, I think I've seen enough of that. Let's... I don't know, where do you wanna go?" She asks. Hayden and I join at the side, his arm around my shoulder, my arm around his waist, we share a look and I smirk, "Who cares? Anywhere? ...We have all night." I pause. "We can do whatever we want." I taunt them. We all share evil looks.

***

        We jump from bed to bed in Mattress Warehouse. Eat some ice cream from a closed gas station. Scream down the streets in the Jeep. Find a pack of beer and dare Hallie to drink some. She does. We all share a can. We don't drink enough to get us drunk, just enough to make us think that we are cool, and just to say we did it. By 2:00 in the morning, the streets are mostly empty, and I try to hide the fact that I am a little scared of the city at night. Some really hot dude with black hair comes up and asks Hallie for her number. We dare her to kiss him, and, though she says she doesn't want to betray Greyson, she does it; and swears us to secrecy. She probably won't even remember doing it very much; she did have the most to drink, though it still wasn't much. Maybe two shots? Three at most. Hayden didn't have much; he will be driving us home tomorrow.
        The hot guy Hallie kissed turns out to be named Paulson. Cool name. He hangs with us until about four in the morning, and around right then, we all decide to go back to Mattress Warehouse, and jump around or whatever. However, no jumping happened. It was mostly making out, between Hayden and I. I lay with my back flat on a mattress, Hayden on top of me, kissing my neck. I grab hold of the sides of the bed and let out a soft moan. I look over at Hallie on the next mattress over, making out with Paulson. It turns out that Hallie had been, when we weren't looking, drinking little by little some more beer. She probably didn't even realize it was happening. She is the cleanest person I know, and it would shock me if she was purposely getting drunk. But she couldn't have been that drunk, because when Paulson takes off her shirt and then starts for her pants, she kicks him and he runs out of there faster than a lightning bolt.
        Meanwhile, Hayden messes with the hem of my shirt, and I nod, still with my tongue in his mouth. He lifts my shirt off, leaving me in my pants and bra, since I already kicked off my heels. We finally decide to stop, and I put my shirt back on, as well as my heels. We are all starving, but we decide to sleep in the Jeep anyway. The Jeep is parked in front of a Chanel store, so we walk there and climb in. We collapse the seats down, so we have more room. Hallie sleeps in the front, in a ball-shape, while Hayden and I take up the rest of the space, cuddling. We kiss and whisper goodnight to each other. It's not until the next morning that I remember that tonight was supposed to be my movie night with Greyson...