Wicked Little Town

Friday finally came along and even though he would admit it to no one, Gerard was stupidly excited about that night. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly why he was so excited. He thought that maybe it was the fact that he was doing something different for once in a long time. The truth is he had been feeling a thrill ever since Frank arrived in town but Gerard was sure it was just that, something new and different.

“Do you mind closing today?” Gerard popped his head in the kitchen to talk to Ray. “I’m going upstairs to change.”

“Sure, I’ll close. You’re gonna change?”

“Yeah. I’m going to Frank’s, remember?”

“I do. And you’re gonna change?”

“You just asked that twice, what am I missing?”

“I don’t know. It’s just… it’s weird? Like, you wouldn’t change if wewere going to hang out.” Ray knew this for a fact because they hung out all the time after work and Gerard has never been one to care about what he was wearing.

“Oh, come on now, don’t tell me you’re jealous, Ray.”

“Far from it. Frank seems great, I’m glad you have a new friend.”

“So…?” Gerard asked, genuinely confused.

“You’re changing your clothes.”

“That’s a third time,” Gerard pointed out to him.

“All I’m saying is, I would change my clothes if I was going out… on a date.”

“Okay, now you’re just not making any sense. I’m gonna go now.”

Gerard dismissed Ray’s remark and left the kitchen to go to his little apartment above the dinner.

He took a quick shower, trying really hard not to think about what Ray said, but it hit him while he was choosing which shirt to wear after he put on some jeans. Why did he care so much?

He started panicking, pacing up and down the small apartment, his breathing coming in with short, choppy breaths and his stomach was doing this thing where it seemed to be flipping inside of him. Ray had to be wrong. He just had to. Gerard wasn’t developing feelings towards Frank. He couldn’t be. He just met him. Besides, when was the last time he liked someone? He couldn’t even remember and frankly he never really bothered to think about it. He was fine. But still, he was choosing what to wear. Maybe he shouldn’t be going to Frank’s.

“Okay, this is ridiculous.” He finally said out loud, to his conscience that wouldn’t shut up about it.

“He is a friend and is someone that doesn’t really know me. This is totally normal. It doesn’t feel normal because you haven’t made a new friend in a million years so shut the fuck up about it already,” Gerard shouted to the empty apartment and turned around to look at himself in the mirror, and sighed. Luckily, he convinced himself enough to finally finish getting dress and actually leave the apartment.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When the bell rang at Frank’s house, he was sitting on the floor in the kitchen trying to put Lily in a t-shirt while Cherry was standing next to him with a marker, drawing on his face even though he told her not to about five million times. Now Frank had his face half covered in red ink.

He stood up after he finished up with Lily and they both stared at him. He stared back and as he was about to go to the door, he hesitated about telling Cherry not to paint her sister’s face but he knew it was unlikely she would listen to him so he took the red marker out of Cherry’s hand altogether.

Cherry pouted because she knew she had been caught but she didn’t make a fuss or anything.

“I’ll be back in a second, please don’t burn down anything,” he said to both of them, but they all knew it was directed specifically at Cherry.

Frank run to the door and opened it. “Quick, quick, come in!” he said and run back to the kitchen, making a gesture for Gerard to follow him.

“Umm… hello to you too?” Gerard answered him as he closed the door behind him and followed Frank to the kitchen.

“Ha!!” Frank screamed as he caught Cherry with another marker, purple this time, that he had no idea where she got from and she was going for Lily’s face. Cherry pouted again at her dad like he had ruined fun forever, but she lit up when she saw Gerard was walking behind Frank.

“What’s going on?” Gerard asked, and then saw Cherry throwing her little arms towards him. “Hey you!” he kneeled down in front of her and kissed the top of her and Lily’s heads.

“Well…” Frank started answering as he also sat on the floor and put Lily in his own lap. “I thought it’d be a good idea to buy them some markers and coloring books. Turns out, markers? Bad idea,” he said and pointed to his own face making an annoyed gesture.

“Oh… it doesn’t look that bad actually,” Gerard said, looking at Frank as he slipped his hand into his pockets. He took two little boxes out of his pockets and showed them up to Frank. “Crayons are better though.” He handed the boxes to the girls.

“Oh, that’s really smart,” Frank nodded at Gerard. “So, no water colors for a while either, right?”

“Probably not your best choice, no. Unless you want your house to become a giant Pollock, then go crazy, kid.” Frank laughed at Gerard’s artistic reference, and felt kind of proud of himself for actually getting it.

Gerard sat down on the floor with his legs crossed and sat Cherry on them, then took the crayons out of the box and one of the coloring books that were lying around. Gerard and Cherry picked up one crayon each and started coloring together.

“I love coloring books, and I love that this is a superheroes one,” Gerard said.

“Oh yeah, Cherry loves those more than the princesses or animal ones. Lily loves the ones with animals, sometimes she just looks through them,” Frank was looking at Gerard coloring while saying this. “It seems like you know a thing or two about coloring.”

“I went to art school,” Gerard dropped a bit dryly. “You can tell because of my masterful coloring book skills.”

“Oh yeah? How come you run a diner?”

“Ah… it’s my parents’. Long story short, I didn’t know what I wanted to do after college and kinda got stuck with it. It’s okay though. I actually like running the place. I get to um… meet people,” Gerard said, which wasn’t entirely true. Not that he wanted to lie to Frank, but the truth was that even though he always felt stuck, now he was actually kind of glad he about it, because he met Frank.

He started to feel the weird stomach thing he was feeling at his apartment when he was getting himself reeled up about his clothes, and had started to feel out of breath. Luckily, though, he couldn’t concentrate on it because Frank started talking again and he focused on that instead.

“I get it. It’s hard to go chasing your dreams when you don’t really know what they are. Like, I know I want to be a musician and that’s not gonna get me anywhere now, because I have two babies to take care of but who knows, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere if I [i/]wasn’t[/i] a dad either.”

“It depends, are you talented?”

Frank felt doubtful. He thought he was, but was it okay to say it himself? Did it count if it was coming from him? He decided to answer with another question. “Are you?”

“I think I am,” Gerard replied, pretty confidently.

“I think I am too, yeah. Man, I love playing guitar,” Frank sighed and looked away for a second.

“Maybe it’ll happen someday, you are young. How old are you exactly?”

“19?” Frank said, guiltily.

“Holy motherf…”

“I know! Shut up”

“With all due respect, you may be the bravest motherfucker I’ve ever met,” Gerard said half surprised, half impressed.

“Why? Because I fucked up and had two babies at 18?” Frank asked, a bit ashamed of himself.

“No. Because you man up to it,” Gerard looked at Frank for a second and hesitated at first but then finally said “I’m sorry, I gotta ask. Where’s… their mom?”

“I…” Frank said after taking a big breath that meant there was a long story soon to follow, but the doorbell interrupted him. “Must be pizza. To be continued?”

“Yeah…” Gerard smiled at Frank with compassion, “Of course. Oh, your face is still red.”

“Well, it’s my true self anyways.”

Frank got up from the floor, sitting Lily down and giving her a coloring book to look through as an exchange for his own hands which she had been playing with the whole time. Lily looked up at him with big eyes, unlike Cherry who was too busy trying with no luck to paint Gerard’s hands with the crayons.

Frank looked back at Lily who gave him a sad, pleading look, to reassure her.

“I’m just going to the door to get food, honey,” he said with a smile and walked off, leaving Gerard in the room, wondering as usual, how it was that he communicated with the twins because as soon as Frank said that, Lily relaxed and flipped through her book carelessly.

Finally, Gerard just smiled at the whole situation, until he heard Frank open the door and then someone shouting.

“WHAT THE FUCK, FRANK!”

Notes

I'm back with this!
I'm kind of on vacation so I've really got more free time to write so if you are lucky I'll be back with more of this soon!