He's Giving Me a Reason, an Emblem3 Fan Fic (Sequel to Riptide)

Chapter 30

"Avery! Girl I haven't seen you in months! How's it been?" Vince pulled me into a welcoming hug.

"Hey Carrie, I've been good." I laughed squeezing him back.

"Glad to hear it. Where's Stromberg?" He looked around to see if Wes had somehow snuck in under his radar.

"He and Drew couldn't make it. They say hey though." I smiled despite how sad I was feeling. I wish he were here.

"Well tell the guys hey from me. Nice to see you Adrianna, you too Jase." He made some small talk with Adrianna about Westminster and how school just 'wasn't the same having only one Fisher to annoy'. Then Carrie pulled Jase into a bro hug before disappearing into the growing crowd.

Wow I've only been here for five minutes and I'm already thinking about him. Jase wrapped his arm around my shoulders and gave me a concerned look.

"You want a drink?" He asked me. I looked at Adrianna who looked just as sad.

"Let's make that two." I replied nodding over to my best friend. Jason gave an understanding nod and went off to find the keg.

"It's so weird. Being here without them, I mean." Adrianna looked at the masses of people standing around us.

"Tell me about it. They probably know every single person here." I smiled to myself. Wes was such a people person- he made friends everywhere he went. Great. I was thinking about him again. It's just a week Aves; he'll be back before you know it.

"Only six more days." Adrianna said, reading my mind. I saw a familiar tuft of red hair stand out from the crowd. A few seconds later the familiar face appeared with it.

"Thank you." I said gratefully accepting the cup from Jason.

"No problem, you guys need to let loose a little. Come on you wanna play some pong?" I shrugged my shoulders. Over the past few months I had actually gotten pretty good at beer pong. I glanced at Adrianna to see her reaction.

"You guys go ahead. I'm going to go talk to Owen for a bit." She said, spotting her brother across the yard.

"Ready to play?" Jason pointed inside.

"Sure. I'm just going to get another drink first." I pointed to my now empty cup. Jason laughed and ran a hand through his hair.

"Well I'm not that great at beer pong so you might want to hold off on that. I will probably cause us to lose more than once, so you will definitely end up drinking in a few minutes." He said poking fun at his own skill level.

"Thanks for the heads up." I chuckled abandoning the bottle of Smirnoff on the counter. "Let's play."

* * * * *

Wes POV

"All this rehearsing is driving me insane." Keaton flopped down on a bed identical to the one I was sitting on.

"We just need to get this right. This has been our dream for so long, we need to do everything we can to make sure we achieve it." I said looking through the sheet music for "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" by the Police. I was super pumped to sing this as our competition song; Drew came up with this awesome idea to do for the verses.

"You're right." Keaton agreed, sitting up now. "We left our entire lives behind in Sequim to do this. Let's prove it to ourselves that we didn't leave for nothing." I clapped Keaton on the back. I was glad to see the kid had his game face on.

"And we will. You guys wanna go through the harmonies one more time?" Drew asked. I nodded and ran through the song until I felt like my vocal chords were going to die on me.

"Okay, I think we're done for today. I'm in serious need of a break." I admitted walking over to the Keurig machine in the corner of the room. I clicked a button and watched as my mug filled up with green tea.

"What do you think everyone's up to right about now?" Keaton asked whipping out his phone.

"I don't know. It's only... 11." I said checking the clock. "It's a Friday so they might be out." I silently hoped that they weren't out at some wild rager without me. I'd never actually admit this to anyone but I was scared. What would happen if we actually made it through to live shows? That half of the competition was happening in the fall when all of my friends were going to be starting their new lives off at college without me. I'd be in Los Angeles competing for America's hearts while all of my friends were spreading out across the country.

And Avery. I couldn't ask her to give up her future to stay behind with me. She had dreams too, and what kind of boyfriend would I be keeping her from that? I couldn't be happy away from her, but I couldn't be happy having her there, knowing how much she would have to give up to be with me.

God damn it Wesley. Snap out of it and just live for the moment. You love Avery; she loves you. Just live for the moment.

"Hey bro you wanna play?" Keaton asked turning on the X-Box. I swear that kid was addicted. I shook my head.

"Nah, sorry. I've gotta make a call." I walked out onto the balcony and slid the door shut behind me. I held down number one on my speed dial and waited to hear her voice.

"Hello?" she said louder than usual.

"Avery? Where are you?" I scrunched my eyebrows, confused.

"Wesley! Hey, I'm so glad you called!" She said still yelling. "Hold on it's really loud in here I'm going to head outside. Eventually the background noise died down. "Sorry about that. Jason dragged me out to be social." She laughed.

"Are you at a party?" I couldn't help it, I laughed a little.

"Ha-ha, laugh it up." She replied, I could tell she was smiling on the other end of the phone. "Yes I'm at Vince Carrington's house." She told me.

"Aw man, I forgot! It's the lost weekend! What are you doing there?" I asked. Every year Vince picked a weekend that his parents were out of town to party for 48 hours straight. It was nothing but cheap beer and weed to live on the entire time. It was enough to keep me out of the party circuit for weeks. Usually girls didn't really take an interest in that kind of thing though. I heard Avery laugh through the phone.

"This isn't Gossip Girl Wes, girls are allowed. Besides, the 'lost weekend' has evolved. There's actually food here this year." She said. Hmm. Didn't see that coming.

"You said you wouldn't mention the Gossip Girl thing." I whispered just incase Drew and Keaton could hear. Which I'm sure they couldn't, but I still didn't want to say Gossip Girl at full volume.

"I only made you watch like three episodes! The other 100 episodes were all you. You definitely liked it." She giggled.

"Nah I just have a man crush on Chace Crawford." I said making her laugh again.

"Oh please, Nate Archibald's got nothing on you." She teased back.

"That's completely true." A small smirk played on my lips and I heard her giggle. "You get back to your party, I'll call you tomorrow." I told her.

"And then we can go over our plans for the Season 6 premiere." She laughed.

"October 6th could not come fast enough." I said sarcastically, but smiling all the same.

"Haha of course. Bye, love you." She said.

"Love you." And after I hung up, I just continued standing there- grinning like an idiot. Avery had that effect on me.

And the weird thing was- I was kind of looking forward to the Gossip Girl premiere this fall.

Hey guys! Hope you liked this chapter!!! :D Hahaha I just got Netflix so I've been watching a lot of GG lately... it's addicting. Anyway, thanks for reading! 60 votes for the next upload??

LOL i really need to finish watching Gossip Girl and know what happens before I start signing my chapters like "xoxo" haha :) BYE GUYS :D