Mikey POV

We all crowded around Frankie as her hand neared the door knob. My heart was in my throat and I was honestly unsure who I was more afraid of, Lindsay or that John guy. She opened the door about 6” wide and wrapped her body around the edge. Whoever this was would only see her head and shoulders. Unfortunately, this meant the rest of us were blocked from getting a view. As soon as she got a look at the figure on the doorstep, her head jerked back in surprise. And then she started laughing. Laughing!

“Hi there! Let me guess... Hailey? And you're here to see Brendan.” There was still a smile in her voice. The stranger at the door nodded shyly, her bright, mostly red hair bobbing with the motion. “Come on in. Have you eaten yet? We have pizza and soda.”

“Thanks.” The girl walked inside the house, taking each step gingerly. Her eyes looked left and right, up and down, but never directly at anyone's face. Now I could see that her hair had a few streaks of yellow and blue mixed in with the red. Shorter, multi-colored pieces of hair fell into her eyes, which she tucked them behind her ear, only to have them fall back into the small spot again. She seemed to be doing this as a nervous habit, probably because there were a crowd of people around her. As somebody who has to deal with that on a daily basis, and truly hates it, I made a decision. I took a deep breath and summoned my courage. Can I do this? Yes, because you are MIKEY FUCKING WAY! Oh God, I'm scared.

“Um, guys, give the lady room to take in some oxygen. Hi, I'm Mikey.” When nobody moved, I swallowed hard. M.F.W. “I apologize in advance if this comes off as weird.”

“What..?” I gently took her hand and led her into the kitchen. Her face showed surprise, then amusement, in the span of about 10 seconds.

“Would you like a drink? Pizza?” She stood in the middle of the kitchen by the center island, biting her lower lip. “Please, have a seat. You're a guest here.”

“Hmm, ok.” The petite grocery checker was soon seated on a bar stool, located next to a beautiful, black granite bar. Perfect. There were 3 more seats available, but for my purposes only 1 is necessary.

“So, what will you have to drink?” I motion to the choices, then fill a glass with ice. “We have cheese and pepperoni pizza.”

“I'll have a Pepsi and a slice of the plain cheese. Thanks.” I started warming up her food and getting her drink ready. She got this really uncomfortable look and started looking around the kitchen.“Mikey, this is all really nice of you. I don't want you to think I don't appreciate your help but I also don't want you to get the wrong idea.”

“If you think I'm going to try hitting on you, I'm not. That would be a logically assumption, I suppose. I thought...” I raised my voice hoping Brendan would hear and take the hint. “Bren was going to follow us in here!” He magically appeared from the living room and plopped on a bar stool beside Hailey. “After smiling at Bren, I continued. “I saw how trapped you felt. That's how I feel just about every day of my life. So, yeah. Besides, I already have a boyfriend. So, if you want privacy, you 2 can have the kitchen. Just let us know so we can move the drinks. Or better yet, just tell us which room is yours and you can chill there.” Hailey's eyes went wide. “Not like THAT. Just, this is a house with a lot of rooms and a lot of people. If you want to avoid people, its nice to have a door that shuts.”

“Oh, yeah. That makes sense.” Hailey looks embarrassed and says, mostly to her lap,” I hope I didn't hurt your feelings. I didn't know you were ga....”

“It's fine.” I cut her off. Probably a bit to harshly. “Sorry. It's fine. Bren is my friend now, and I was just trying to, t-to, you know, well, maybe you don't. Anyway.... It was very nice to meet you.” I nod toward Hailey, then Brendan. “Brendan, guess we'll wait on the games.” He gave me a mischievous smile.

_

Once back with the others, they tried to grill me for details. I ignored them until I curled myself up on a couch. Now that the deed was done, I was shaking. I couldn’t believe I did that. Did I seem like a freak? She thought I was this young kid with a crush on her. How humiliating. Thought I was helping, but really I was just making a fool of myself. And what was with me not being able to even talk at the end? That was when I made a fool of myself, I think. Stuttering, not being able to even think of the words I want to say. I didn't know what is wrong with me. I hadn't been like that since 2nd grade when I had a crush on my teacher Mrs. Leavingsworth. But that couldn't be the problem. But I didn't have a crush on Hailey. She just assumed I was gay instead of bi which is fine for now considering the circumstances. I wasn't hiding it or anything. Besides, I was fine with her until the end anyway.

After 5 minutes of eye rolling, shoulder shrugging and putting my index finger to my lips in the universal sign for 'shut the f*ck up', I realized they were never going to leave me alone. I stood up and walked toward the front door, motioning for them to follow. Once we'd walked far enough away from the house, I let out a long sigh.

“First of all, did you expect me to whisper about them with them in the next room? Could you hear anything we said?”

“Little bit.”

“Here and there.”

“Well, I think it is tacky to talk about people at all, but especially when they're in earshot. If they're hearing bits and pieces, that's even worse, in my opinion. That's how misunderstands and false rumors get started.” My brother and friends looked appropriately ashamed. At least they were taking this seriously. “Second, what was with continuing to crowd the poor girl after it was obvious that she needed space? Or at least after I said, BACK OFF! It takes courage to go to visit somebody you like, right? Or to tell them you like them. I can't imagine she expected to be welcomed by a group pressing in on her.” Everyone was silent, but their faces spoke volumes. “Since I feel uncomfortable all the time, I thought I could help her. I just gave her a drink and pizza. Then Brendan took over from there, which was my plan.”

“That must have been hard for you.” I nod. My brother knew me better than anyone.

“That was really cool of you. I bet she really appreciated what you did for her.”

“I don't know, Frankie. She thanked me for the food and everything. But, then she basically told me she didn't want me getting the wrong idea.” I looked down, ashamed. “I think she just saw me as some stupid little kid crushing on her. Like that was the only reason I would do anything for someone.” She walked over to me, and threw her arms around me.

“Thank you. I needed that.” Then Ray came up behind me, squeezing me in a tight hug. “Besides, I told her I had a boyfriend.”

“Good!” Ray said, obviously joking around, placing a kiss on my cheek. “Gee, c'mon. You know you wanna join this Mikey sandwich!” He laughed and rolled his eyes a little, but came right over to join in.

Notes

I've been sick for awhile and felt bad about the cliffhanger. I'm going to be finishing up some chapters on my other story now so I'm leaving you with a ending that's warm and fuzzy. But there is a bit of hmmmm.... in there, to be revealed later.


I'm having a hard time keeping up with both my stories, so Idk if anyone would be interested in co-authoring this story w/ me.... but its just an idea I had. Thought I'd throw it out there and see if anyone bites. I do have several ideas for moving the story forward but i'm completely open to changing it as well. :)

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