Ash’s POV
One day, just after the bell had finally rung after hours of school, Alex was giving me loving eyes from across the hallway. I had already managed to push my way through the crowd to my locker, while he was still trying his best to leave the classroom. It had been a week since we first kissed, and it would be a lie if I said I wasn’t the happiest I had been in quite some time. I wasn’t exactly sure what we were, but we would sneak into each other’s room every night to be with each other. It was like some serious Romeo and Juliet shit going on, just like the story I had told him ages ago. We never went any further than kissing, but boy was it a lot of kissing.

Just imagine this. I would lie in my own bed waiting to hear Isobel and Peter go to sleep. They would always talk in bed, and I could hear their voices from my bedroom (not what they were saying, though). So after 20 minutes of silence, I would sneak out of my room, tiptoe over to Alex’s room, quickly slip in, and climb on top of him. It might sound quite weird, but we would just kiss each other until one of us fell asleep, which could either happen in no time, or it would take another hour or so. I know, it might seem a bit over the top, and you would expect that kissing him would lose it’s meaning, but my feelings only managed to grow more and more as we came into contact again.

I just really hoped he felt the same way and wasn’t just using me.

Before I could daydream any further, somebody walked into the locker right beside me. I saw Alex trying to catch his breath, muttering something about ‘those darn high school kids’. He sighed one last time before looking up at me. I couldn’t help but let out a small giggle, causing him break out into a large grin. God, as much as I never wanted to admit it before, that smile really was the death of me. It was just so perfect and made me want to kiss those lips of his again.

But not now, not while we were around all these people we knew.

Alex opened his locker, letting his one hand search for mine, intertwining our fingers loosely so it wouldn’t be noticed, “so, I was thinking, maybe we could go on a date right now?”

“Right now?” I looked at him with wide eyes, shocked that he finally got the balls to ask me out. He sounded so confident, I never expected him to be like that. But I liked it, like he knew exactly how I was feeling about him at that moment. Of course I would have rather said yes straight away, but I was caught off guard. I just hoped he wasn’t going to think I didn’t want to.

“Yeah, why not?” He shrugged like it was no big deal, but I could feel his hand starting to sweat and shake a little, “I was thinking we could just go to the diner we always used to go to. I’m actually offering to pay, I just had to wait until I got this month’s allowance.”

“Really?” I raised an eyebrow at him, but I realised I was starting to make him really nervous, so I decided to stop joking around with him -- even though it wasn’t on purpose, “Was that really the only reason why it took so fucking long for you to finally ask me?”

He calmed down immediately and let out a chuckle while putting his last book back onto the shelf. “One of the reasons, but it doesn’t matter. I’m asking you now, right?”

“OK, fine,” I shot him a quick smile before letting go of his hand to grab my jacket out of the back of my locker. Good thing I did, too.

Before I could even realise, Jack and the other’s were standing close behind me. I jumped after I closed my locker and turned around. As much as I loved them, they really had to stop doing that. I know they didn’t mean it, but I still was so easily frightened by small things. They could tap me on the shoulder and I would already be too afraid to see who was waiting to speak to me. I couldn’t help it, and I just really wished I could; I didn’t want my friends thinking that I was afraid of them.

“You guys going to hang out with us?” Jack asked with a big grin, luckily not having realised how I reacted to him. The one person I didn’t have to be afraid of, other than Alex, was Jack. I didn’t need to be afraid.

I looked at Alex with wide eyes, not sure what I was supposed to say, “umm… I don’t--”

“Ash said she had quite some catching up to do,” Alex interrupted before I made a complete fool out of myself and make our relationship -- or whatever it was -- known to all our friends, “so we’re probably just going to go straight home. But we have a whole week ahead of us where we will all be in New York, so I’m sure we’ll catch up.”

“Oh, ok,” Jack was a little upset, but still managed to understand that I had a ‘good reason’ for it, “But you’re still coming to band practise tomorrow, right?”

“Of course,” Alex assured his best friend before focusing his attention back on me, “Are you ready to go?”

I nodded and said goodbye to the people I unfortunately had to ditch this one time. Well, it wasn’t just one time, obviously, since I hadn’t been up for it for quite sometime. I didn’t want them thinking I didn’t want to be around them anymore.

But, now I was going on a date with Alex, and that was what I was going to focus on. I really liked him, so I really didn’t want to screw up what I possibly could have with him. The fact that he asked me out already meant a lot; that he wasn’t just doing this to kiss me. I was still going to make sure things weren’t going to go too fast. This was going to have to go at my speed, but something told me that Alex was thinking the same exact thing. In the week we had this thing going on, he never pressured me into doing anything, and he actually would sometimes ask my permission to kiss me before doing it. Now, that was what a boyfriend was supposed to be like.

As soon as we got to the small diner downtown, we were seated at a booth. Instead of doing to classic thing where you sit across from each other, Alex made me sit next to him so he could wrap his arm around my shoulder. I never considered this as a possible way of sitting, but so far it seemed to work. It was a lot easier to kiss whenever you wanted to, talking to each other no longer meant shouting to hear, and we could both watch the door incase anybody walked in.

This first date was a whole lot different from the one I had with Luke. Sure, the one we went on was pretty romantic and special (I should have known something was up. Of course he was expecting something back for doing something like that), but this was just a whole lot more comfortable. We were only high school kids, we didn’t need super fancy dates. This was perfect; something we were both able to afford, and a place we were both able to be ourselves. Nothing more was needed to show how much we liked each other.

It was also completely different because this wasn’t a date where you still had to get to know each other. I already knew quite a lot about Alex, and he already knew a lot about me, so all the awkward conversations didn’t need to happen. We got to tell each other things that just made me laugh like never before. Alex told me this story about how he used to ride horses when he was younger, and I just couldn’t imagine this hot rockstar being one of those guys. But, hey, I used to dress up my brothers as princesses, so I wasn’t much better.

Although we had already finished our food for quite some while, we still stayed seated, Alex’s arm loosely around me while I leant into his side. I turned around one last time, carefully placed my hand on his jaw, and let our lips meet in a soft kiss. He quickly kissed me back before I pulled away, and it seemed like it was a good decision not to make it last longer. When I looked back at the entrance, I saw Rian walk in, followed by Harper, Lianne, Jack, and Zack had joined them as well.

Well, shit.

They immediately saw us sitting and walked right up to us. This time it was Alex’s turn to start freaking out, not knowing what to say to our friends. There was a very high chance that this was going to out us, but I had a trick up my sleeve. Alex wasn’t the only one that could lie, I was pretty good at it too.

“I thought you said you couldn’t do anything after school,” Jack sounded upset, looking between Alex and I with betrayal in his eyes. I knew exactly what this must look like, and, frankly, it really was.

But, still, I decided to use the lie I had thought of before. So, I shrugged like whatever Alex and I were doing wasn’t a big deal, “Alex said he was hungry and suggested going to a drive through, but I thought it was pointless, because it would mean he’d want to stay in the parking lot to eat it. So why not go get actual good food while we’re at it? Plus, he’s paying, so I’m all cool with it.”

“Oh,” Jack nodded, but glared at Alex nonetheless. He raised an eyebrow, clearing his throat and doing a small movement with his head. I had no clue what Jack was doing, but apparently Alex understood in one go. The arm that was once holding me close, was slowly taken away before the boy next to me shuffled awkwardly.

Wait. Hang on a moment. Jack just basically told Alex to keep his hands off me. Why would he do that? Was he really that protective of me? Yeah, I know what happened and that Jack told me he was going to make sure nothing would happen to me again, but this was a step further. I trusted Alex, and Jack had to know that as well. Maybe he just wanted to make sure Alex didn’t have the wrong intentions. Whatever it was, I knew for sure that it wasn’t because he was jealous. Jack and I had told each other many times that that nothing was going on between us and that neither of us had feelings. Remember the accidental kiss? Well, we talked about it. I knew for sure that Jack wouldn’t just get feeling for me since then. That wasn’t how he worked.

“Well, it’s been two hours since school ended, you could have asked us to join,” Rian added, taking no notice of the tension happening between the two best friends.

“Two hours!” I exclaimed as if I was surprised by the amount of time that had elapsed (I actually knew exactly how long Alex and I had been there), “well, shit. I’ve got work to do!”

“Umm, then we should, umm, go,” Alex suggested as we both got out of the booth. Jack gave him one last warning look before we both quickly left the diner. That was very very close.

----

Nobody was home when Alex and I arrived. We took this to our advantage and didn’t need to hide our relationship. After going separate ways to get changed into lounge clothes -- we coordinated accidentally, I wore light pants and a dark t-shirt, while Alex wore dark pants and a light t-shirt -- we quickly disappeared downstairs in the basement to continue our date. Well, if you could consider playing video games a date, then this definitely was one.

Instead of sitting on the old ratty couch, we were sitting on the cold hard floor, just off the carpet. Alex was leaning against the sofa while I was sitting in between his legs, my back pressed up against his chest. We were both holding the same controller, Alex’s hands over my own as he helped me press the right buttons and move around the character on screen. It was some shooters game, and I had no idea what the goal was, but it was fun having Alex teach me something he was quite passionate about. If only it was something that would actually be useful for me later on… Ok, ok, I’m only kidding. Maybe I would be able to beat the guys at this game if I continued to play.

“As soon as that guy is past us, we’re going to go to in building right in front of us and hide behind that wall,” Alex mumbled, thinking out loud while also telling me what his plan was. He moved my thumb forward on the joystick, causing our character to run right where Alex meant it to go. As soon as we were at the wall, I hit the button to hide and crouch so other people wouldn’t be able to see us, Alex didn’t even have to help me.

“I knew which button it was!” I exclaimed happily, proud of myself being able to understand what to do. Although I didn’t know the goal and purpose of the game, at least I was doing something right.

Alex kissed my cheek as a reward, “ok, I think it’s time for you to have your own console.”

“No, I’m not that good yet,” I whined in protest. It wasn’t only because I believed that though. The main reason why I liked doing this was because of the contact I was able to have with Alex. While the whole room was dark and quiet, the TV being the only light source, I felt safe in Alex’s arms. And the fact that he was guiding my hands just took it a whole step further. To be honest, I really liked it.

“You’ll be fine!” He chuckled and reached up to grab another controller, letting me use the one from before.

And, just as expected, I was doing terrible. I had no idea what I was doing and only knew how to run around or hide. In the time that Alex had been shot once, I had already revived at least 15 times. I really was trying, but I had no clue how Alex knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t even have to think about which combination of buttons he had to press for specific things, while I had to keep reminding myself what button meant I jumped.

“I’m so bad at this,” I pouted, ready to give up. This wasn’t about the game for me, it was only about being around Alex. Slowly but surely all his attention went to the game, and he started to forget that I was even here.

“Oh, come on, you’re doing great!” Alex told me, not taking his eyes off the TV screen once, “Tell you what, if you manage to shoot one person, I’ll ask you to be my girlfriend.”

“Fine, then,” I grumbled and tossed the controller onto the couch. Alex didn’t even seem to take notice that I wasn’t playing anymore.

I sighed and turned around so I was now on my stomach, our chests pressed up against each other. Alex’s knees were up, causing our hips to be aligned, but he still didn’t seem to be more interested in me. Now, I don’t know what made me do it, but after I had loosely wrapped my arms around his neck, I started slowly kissing the skin that I was able to reach. It definitely caught Alex’s attention, though. He let out a small surprised groan, moving his head aside to give me more access. I started trailing my kisses up closer to his ear, taking my time to tease him.

It was the same way I had managed to get Luke to focus completely on me, but this felt completely different. There was no alcohol involved to make my brain think that everything I was doing was ok, no matter the consequences. Back then, I didn’t care about what it would lead to, and if it was any good. This time, I made sure to carefully place all my kisses in the right way, making conscious decisions about what I was and wasn’t going to do. Another big factor was that I knew this wouldn’t lead to Alex and I having sex. I wasn’t out for that this time, and he knew that.

“This is also a very good way of persuading me,” he breathed out shakily, trying to suppress all the sexual thoughts going through his mind, “maybe I’ll just ask you… Will you be my girlfriend?”

I didn’t reply for a while, instead brushing my lips up against his jawline, occasionally allowing full contact. Just before I reached his lips, I broke away and whispered, “yes.”

As soon as I grazed my lips on his, he pulled me closer to close the small space between us. His controller was dropped on the floor, his hand going for my waist instead. I caressed his cheeks to allow myself to balance my weight better, but also to add a loving touch. Alex’s heart was beating fast against me, reminding me that I wasn’t the only one enjoying this and slightly freaking out about all of this actually happening. This kiss had been much deeper and heartfelt than any of our other ones. Just as Alex’s hands started to trail down towards my ass, the door opened without us knowing.

“Hey, guys, we’re back--” Peter was standing in the hallway, looking at us with wide eyes, frozen and not sure what he had just witnessed. When he finally blinked again, he turned to look upstairs, “Isobel!”

I tried to scramble away from Alex while I still could, but, just like his dad, he was not able to move. With his limbs not moving by themselves, I wasn’t able to back away before Isobel came downstairs in confusion. She was able to see the whole crime scene in it's full glory.

Only minutes after that, Alex and I were both sitting next to each other at the kitchen table, his mother sitting across from us. She had just come back from whispering with her husband, talking about what was going to have to happen between Alex and I. He was standing a couple of feet away, watching what was going to go down, ready to jump in if needed. I never felt more under pressure than I did then.

“Ok, so,” Isobel took a deep breath, giving us both intimidating looks, “this is definitely a shocker. I should have known there was a possibility of this happening, I didn’t think it ever would have, though. You know, Alex, when I said you’d figure out why you kept saying mean things to her in the beginning, I didn’t mean or think you’d actually develop feelings for her. Wait… you guys do have feeling for each other, right? Or was this just a one time thing, because that will change how this conversation will continue.”

I looked at Alex out of the corner of my eye to see his response. We both stayed still for a while, but soon enough he started nodding slowly, not daring to look at his mother. I didn’t move for even longer, staying motionless even after Alex had finished. I grabbed his hand underneath the table and gave it a small squeeze before briefly nodding as well, not daring to see Isobel either.

“Well, I can’t do anything about that, can I?” Isobel continued letting out a chuckle, “Umm, Peter and I have talked about it and came to some conclusions. We’re not going to make you break apart, because that’s unreasonable, but there’s going to have be rules. We both agree that you’ve been spending too much time in each other’s beds. How long has this been going on for already, actually?”

“One week,” Alex mumbled, feeling ashamed even though he didn’t have to be. But, to be honest, I also felt very embarrassed being in this situation.

“Ok, that’s not that long, but it still applies. I was ok with it before, but I want things to change. I know you guys do it whenever one of you doesn’t feel alright, but I feel like you’ve been taking advantage of us being so easy with it. You can still go to each other if you really need it, but otherwise don’t do it. So, you guys can share a bed without reason once a week, but no more.”

“Mom!” Alex complained, finally making eye contact with the person disciplining us, “But--”

“Alex, shut up,” I interrupted before his mother could take away what she had offered us, “there are many parents that would have sent me out of the house to go live somewhere else, or they could have even forced us to break up. Be happy with this. Seriously, this isn’t half that bad.”

He stopped immediately and didn’t say another word. Isobel gave me a smile, “thank you, Ash. Just, follow those rules and everything will be fine. Of course, I also won’t tolerate any sex in this house.”

“We never agreed to that,” Peter broke in, taking a couple of steps towards us, “let them be teenagers. As long as they’re being safe, then I’m fine with it.”

Oh my god. Was this really happening right now? Was this really turning into the sex talk? Of course I liked the fact that they dealt with this as if I wasn’t some fucked up girl, and that they did it like how they would have done with anyone, but it was still very very awkward. Even Alex gave me a quick look, begging for them not to start with it. But of course, parents being parents, they weren’t just going to leave it at that.

“As long as you’re being safe,” Isobel stressed, changing her mind, “which means you guys need to take precautions if you’re thinking of going there. So, make sure you are prepared before and have condoms. We don’t need any mistakes happening.”

Yeah, like the one still going on with me. Definitely didn’t want that happening again, thanks for the reminder.

“If you ever find yourself in the situation where you don’t have them, you have to stop. Don’t think that it won’t happen to you, because there is still a large chance of it happening. Always use condoms. If you don’t know how to use them, I’m prepared to show you anytime, don’t be embarrassed. Just please make sure you’re safe. So, before you think of having sex, whether it be with each other or somebody else, please come to us so we can help you make sure you have all the necessary protection.”

“A bit late for that,” Alex muttered under his breath, only me being the one close enough to hear him.

Isobel looked at him with a raised brow, “I’m sorry, what was that?”

He shook his head, “nothing, don’t worry.”

I couldn’t help snorting as I tried to hold in my laughter. Isobel now looked at me to see if she could get an answer from me instead. I tried to stay composed, but the devilish smile kept returning, so I gave up and hid my face by placing my head against the table. Alex still managed to make jokes in the awkwardest of situations, this definitely being the worst.

After my laughter had died down a bit, I sat back up straight, but couldn’t help the laughter that came out as I said what I said next. “I’m sorry, Isobel, but your son, Alex, here, hasn’t been a virgin for quite a long time.”

He tightly squeezed my hand in annoyance, not wanting me to have told his parents that. Isobel’s eyes went wide with shock at my comment, “Alex! How come you never told us!”

“I never thought it was necessary!” He argued, already getting ready to plan his revenge on me, “I know what to do. I’ve never gotten anyone pregnant!”

“Peter, did you know about this?”

“I had my suspicions, but I wasn’t going to stop you from humiliating these kids,” Alex’s dad laughed.

Notes

Just a 'little' chapter to lighten it all up a bit. Don't worry, drama will soon come again. I just didn't want it to only be sad stuff. Trust me, it's not over yet.