You're a Hot Mess (Peterick)

Chapter Fifteen - That Pleasant Type of Chill

*I've been writing this in small snippits whenever I could this week. On the bus, in school, in the morning, at night. So that would be my excuse as to why it's super, super late. Sorry! But on the upside, the story's kind of advancing (or leading up to it anyway) and I think this chapter has one of my favourite scenes I've written for this so far. This isn't actually beta'd yet. But I did promise it'd be up today and it is. So sorry for any little mistakes. * 

The rest of the break went pretty much like this: 

I hung out with Gabe until I couldn't bare him anymore, I interrogated William on everything he knows about Erin and luckily for me he did not hide his jealousy well, which only proved my theory even more, then Patrick and I did fun potential-boyfriendy things like play mini-golf, go to the cinema, sit in the park and watch Gabe and Erin 'hang out' without them realising. 

Pretty standard stuff, really. 

But now it's the last day and I'm stuck with that feeling you get before you go back to school. 

You know the one: Lots of dread with a fraction of excitement.

So, with it being the last day of the break, Gabe and I decided to at least make it a little interesting. 

Actually, maybe decided isn't the right word. Tried. We tried to make it interesting. 

Since the Halloween party we went to a few nights before was a bust we thought we might as well try and find another party to go to to make up for it. It didn't go well, obviously. 

If it did we wouldn't be sitting on a curb in a quiet part of downtown this late into the night, half drunk and utterly disappointed. 

To make it worse, it's just me and him. Patrick's family wanted to spend the last day with him and William had to go back to school early to set up the coffee shop for tomorrow's shifts. Not that there's anything wrong with Gabe but, you know, I've spent a week with him. One week, morning to night. That'd make anyone irritating. 

 "That didn't go to plan." Gabe says solemnly, with a slight comedic edge to it. I laugh half-heartedly and then shake my head, "Nope. Attempt two failed." 

A car drives by, the headlights making us shield our eyes. Honestly, who's even out this late? 

He gets up from the curb, dusting himself off and looking down at me, "Well, I'm in the mood for another drink before we head back." 

"The bars are all closed, Gabe." 

"Yeah, but the 24 hour grocery store over there probably has beer." He points across the street and sure enough, a big, flashing, green and red neon light informs us that it is in fact, open all night. It seems as good a place as any. 

So we trek across the road and enter the store. I notice the clerk by the till has his head buried in a magazine that he probably picked up somewhere in the store. He also looks like he'd rather be anywhere else than here. 

Gabe heads straight for the alcohol section, picking up two packs of beer and stacking them on top of each other. I'm not even sure he can see, but I know he doesn't care. He tells me to get two packs as well and I decide I don't really have much choice in the matter, so I take two as well. 

At the end of the isle I notice a girl with three cases of beer, four bottles of vodka and various alcopops sitting in a bundle. She stares down at them like she's waiting for them to magically appear over at the till. I think she actually goes to our school.