What Happens in Art Class...

It felt like any other day when I woke up one morning. In fact, I wasn’t expecting anything special at all. Get up, go to school, hang out with Gerard, go home. That expectation changed when I sat down to breakfast. Mom was smiling at me like I had done something wonderful. Something was definitely up.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart.” Oh, right. That was what was up. Now, don’t get me wrong, I had no problem with it being my birthday. I just wasn’t expecting it so soon is all. It was my eighteenth birthday. The big step into being an adult. Scary stuff.

I smiled at her, “Thanks, Mom. I had completely forgotten about it.”

“Did you? So that means you don’t have any plans after school?”

Did I have plans? I mean, knowing Gerard…There was no way he would let my being legal go unnoticed. “I’m not sure. I’ll have to talk to—”

“To Ryan?” she cut me off, “I get it. He probably has some special present to give you, right? I was a teenager once, Frank, I know how these things work.”

My face was on fire. How could she just say something like that?! I swear, there needed to be some boundaries with her. Instead of telling her this, though, I just blushed and said, “Um…yeah…I gotta go…”

Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck throughout the entire school day. And I honestly had no idea why! It seemed to me like thoughts of Gerard just sent my heart thudding and my stomach fluttering and there was nothing I could do to stop it. May be it was the fact that my mom would be thinking about me having sex while I was doing it? I mean, that’s pretty damn awkward. Especially since I was with a guy.

In the end, class went smoothly. Gerard dropped absolutely no hints about his plans. In fact, Ryan was more suggestive than him. He was dressed as some mutated thing (um, yeah, I did mention my birthday’s on Halloween, right?) and he looked completely shocked that I wasn’t. I had kinda forgotten about the holiday…

“Hey, you trick-or-treating today?” he asked at one point.

I shook my head, “Not this year. Eighteenth birthday. Kinda a big deal.”

He seemed to perk up at that, “Oh, I get it. You’re getting a different treat.” He then made a show of pressing his tongue to his cheek. Sometimes I wanted to punch him. This was one of those times. However, I merely blushed and looked down at my paper. He was probably right anyway. Still, that made two people who were aware of my supposed birthday plans. If we went to Gerard’s house there’d be three…

I shook my head to try and remove the thoughts just as the bell rang for everyone to go home. I refused to move from my seat, pretending to be busied with my project. Still, I knew the room was empty when I felt arms wrap around my shoulders and a chin rest on my head.

“Happy birthday beautiful,” Gerard’s smooth voice floated over me, and suddenly I was calm. I don’t get my body sometimes.

I turned in my seat and kissed him, “Thanks. It’s a big one.”

“Yeah. Eighteen. You can finally smoke legally.” He smirked.

I swallowed hard, “That’s…not the only thing I can do legally…”

His smirk grew to a reassuring smile, “Yeah, but we’re not doing anything you don’t want to do today. This is your day, and what you say goes.”

It does? “It does?”

“Of course. You’re eighteen now. You do what you want.”

I loved him so much in that moment. He had to have read my anxieties in class. There’s just no other explanation. I kissed him again, longer this time, “You’re the best. How about we go to your house and watch movies or something? And then…we can see where the night takes us.” Okay, so sweet Gerard was maybe making me just slightly horny. Don’t judge me.

He raised an eyebrow, “You’re not going to ask permission?”

I laughed, “I’m eighteen. I do what I want. Besides, she knows I’ll be at “Ryan’s” so…” I let that one hang in the air. I had shared my mom’s awkwardness with Gerard before, so he probably got the implications.

The drive to his house was nice. We chatted about my past birthdays. Usually I spent it with Mom. I didn’t have much friends growing up. He said that sucked and that he would make Mikey bake me a cake. That scared me. I definitely didn’t trust Mikey’s cooking skills.

Said baker looked up from the couch when we got home and practically freaked out, “Frankie!” When he started calling me Frankie, I had no idea, “What are you doing here?!” He jumped up and ran over to me.

I shrugged, “It’s…uh….kinda my birthday.”

His eyes popped and he looked between Gerard and I, “Oh…Oh! Yeah, cool. I’ll just, uh, go to Rays’ then.” He headed for the door, but Gerard grabbed his collar, “No, you’re going to get in the kitchen and bake a cake. We’re celebrating like normal people today.”

He looked even more shocked at that, and I found myself extremely embarrassed. Did everyone really think that about Gerard and me? That we were just all over each other every chance we got? I was not okay with that no matter how true it was.

Mikey left to the kitchen and Gerard plopped us down on the couch, “It’s Halloween,” he said, “How much you wanna bet there are horror films all over the TV?”

I laughed, “Let’s do it!”

“Whoa!” Mikey’s voice came from the kitchen, “What happened to being normal people?!”

Gerard and I looked at each other and busted up laughing, “Not do it, Mikey!” I yelled back, “We’re watching horror films!”

The rest of the evening was nice. Mikey did eventually stop freaking out at and taking everything we said as sexual, and he even managed not to burn the cake! It was actually really delicious. My favorite part of the night, though, was that I got to curl up next to Gerard in his bed and fall asleep. Call me a romantic, but I love the intimacy of sleeping next to someone.

It was apparently a bad idea, though, because when I got home Mom was freaking out, “Where have you been young man?” she demanded.

I shrugged, “Ryan’s. Like I told you. We watched some movies and fell asleep.”

She grumbled something like, “Oh, yes, I’m so sure you were sleeping,” before ruffling my hair, “Just call me next time, okay? Mothers do this thing called worrying about their children, and you’re the only one I have.

I wanted to tell her that I didn’t have to because I was an adult….But that would hurt her feelings, so I just smiled and said, “Sure.”

“So when are we having our celebration here? I think Saturday would be nice. And of course it would give a nice opportunity to get to know this Ryan…You are inviting him, right?”

Invite…Ryan? Now there is one thing I did not want to do…Letting that sleazy bastard into my house was out of the question. But it was Mom’s request… “Yeah, of course.” This was going to be fun.

Notes

Hey! So, I don't have a Gee's POV for this one yet, but I had internet so i figured I might as well upload Frankie's. I promise to get Gee' up ASAP. Please give me feedback, I seriously love it :)