“Me and Travis are hanging out with some other kids from school tonight, Mom,” Seven said as he shoveled down his dinner, expecting Blaire to be there to pick him up in a few minutes. Travis would be coming over shortly, having gotten caught up in something he had been working on at the house and opted to skip a home cooked meal in favor of something processed and greasy.
Evan snorted, “You mean you’ve decided to share Travis with the rest of the population? Heaven forbid!”
Seven sneered at him, “It wasn’t by choice.”
At this, Chad chuckled and their father rolled his eyes.
“Where will you be?” asked Paul, giving his youngest a stern look.
Rolling his eyes, Seven answered, “We’re going to see some small bands play over at the Airedale and Travis wants to hang with these guys. He met one at school and they’ll talk about music while I sit there.”
Sandy sighed, “Seven, you’re a very nice boy. I’m sure you could make friends if you would just open up a little bit to them and be a bit less hostile.”
“Mom, they’re stupid,” sighed Seven, “They’re just idiots joining into a fad in a desperate attempt to find somewhere to fit in and deny how pathetic and lonely they really feel. None of them actually go to see the music, they just want everyone to see them there and think that they look cool. It’s idiotic and depressing.”
“Whatever you say, Seven,” Sandy answered exasperatedly.
“You’re so obnoxious when you’re like this,” Karen said, half-serious, half-teasing.
Seven grinned, “What are you talking about? I’m always obnoxious.”
The doorbell rang and Seven got up, muttering that it was probably Travis. He opened the door and sighed, “Hey, Blaire.”
Blaire smiled, “What’s up? You and Travis ready to go?”
“Travis isn’t here yet. We’ve gotta go get him,” said Seven, turning around to call back, “I’m going, now. I’ll have someone call you if I die or anything!”
“Wait a second!” his dad yelled back and he sighed, impatiently waiting for them to give the ok for him to leave.
Evan walked over and handed him a twenty, “Dad says to take this, call if you’re going to be home later than twelve and don’t be a dick.”
Seven snatched the cash and glared, “Take your own advice, asshole.” He pushed Blaire out the door and slammed it behind him.
“Are you the youngest?” asked Blaire with a grin.
Seven smirked and nodded.
Nodding, Blaire explained, “I have two older sisters, an older brother, a younger sister, and a little brother and we always gang up and pick on my brother. Usually, it’s not even intentional.” Seven nodded, not knowing how Blaire wanted him to respond, “So where do we have to go to get Travis? He just told me to pick him up from your place.”
“Just to his house,” said Seven.
Blaire pulled out his car keys and walked over to the matte black junker parked in front of his house with a girl sitting in the front seat, “How far is it?”
Seven just walked straight passed the car and across the street to Travis’s house. He didn’t even bother knocking anymore, just opened the front door. Blaire blinked and hurried over after him.
“Travis?” Seven called, “Blaire’s here! You ready to go?”
“Yeah!” came Travis’s answer from up the stairs. He hurried down and grinned at the two boys standing in his entry way, “Just had to finish up some stuff. Didn’t mean to make you guys wait.”
Seven shrugged, “We haven’t really been waiting. Let’s get going.”
Blaire led them back out to his car and they got in the back seat. Starting up the car, Blaire introduced the girl, “Travis and Seven, this is Tash, and Tash this is Seven and Travis.”
“Hey,” she said with a warm smile. Her reddish brown hair was cut into that weird hardcore mullet things that was popular with the rock-scene girls and she had about ten hoops in each ear, a barbell in her right eyebrow, a labret, a diamond stud Monroe piercing over the left side of her lip, a diamond nose stud in her right nostril and wore a simple black tank top, a denim mini-skirt, and a pair of black leggings ending just below her knees, showing her scuffed black Sauconys. She wore lots of black beaded bracelets and sparkly makeup and her nails were painted dark red or black, patterned every other nail, chipped and bitten down.
“You don’t look familiar,” said Seven, “What school do you go to?”
“Berkeley Central.”
There were three public schools in their Berkeley County. The county was square-shaped and sparsely populated, so where most places each town or township had its own school system, the county had just split the square into the three small schools. There was a smaller square in the middle and that was Berkeley Central students, then the outer square was cut in half down the middle, the right side going to Berkeley East where Seven, Travis, and Blaire attended, and then the left side went to Berkeley West. There were a couple of private school in the area, too, but most kids went to one of the three public schools.
“How do you like it there?” asked Travis.
Tash snorted, “What’s there to like?”
“Amen,” muttered Seven.
“Don’t you even complain!” laughed Blaire as he drove, some rock band playing quietly on the stereo, “You can act like some disaffected youth all you want, but everyone knows that you’re in the top of our class.”
Seven shrugged, “School comes easily to me.”
“It’s the rest of the world that he has trouble with,” Travis snorted jokingly and Tash giggled loudly. Seven wanted to slap her. He could tell she would be a problem right away. She liked Travis.
“Everyone else will be meeting us at the Taco Hut across the street from the Airedale then we can all go in together,” said Blaire as he drove. ‘Taco Hut’ was what they had begun calling those Taco Bell/ Pizza Hut places that sold everything from Taco Bell as well as a couple of personal pan pizzas and breadsticks from Pizza Hut.
Seven knew this was not going to turn out well. He was so socially awkward and Travis was correct in saying he was very judgmental. These people wouldn’t like him because he wouldn’t like them and it would end very badly and it was possible he would lose Travis because of his own stupidity.
Travis put a hand on his forearm and leaned in to whisper to him, “Everything will be alright, ok? Just don’t stress out about it.”
Seven sighed and smiled up at Travis (who had to slouch down a lot so his head wasn’t rubbing the roof of the car) who smiled back. He would just hold in any snide comments and try to talk to everyone before he decided they were pathetic.
“NATASHA!!” A tall boy with chestnut brown hair, a Lincoln-esque beard, adorable dimples and two barbells in his left eyebrow called when they entered the Taco Hut. He was sitting at a table with a bunch of other kids, them in a booth and him and a few others on the side in chairs.
“ROD!!” she called back with equal enthusiasm and a wicked grin. She ran over and tackled him, knocking them both to the ground and earning a couple of glares from the management who couldn’t really complain because there were no other customers there for them to be disturbing and the chair was unharmed.
Blaire smiled, “That’s Rod. He and Tash have been best friends since they were born.” Travis chuckled. “I’m totally serious. They have the same birthday and the hospital they were born at had a shortage on cribs so they were put in the same one and when they tried to separate them they started crying. They’ve been inseparable ever since.”
“Weird,” muttered Seven.
Travis grinned, “Says the guys who met his best friend in a chat room in fourth grade and had him move in across the street seven years later.”
Blaire laughed at that, “Interesting story. I guess some people are just fated to be friends.”
‘Or hopefully more,’ Seven mused mentally, ‘I wonder if he loves her the way I love Travis.’
“Blaire, who’re you’re friends?” a small blonde girl called over to them. Her short hair was flipped out and she wore way too much make-up; thick, thick black eyeliner and mascara, dark heavy eye shadow, and thick deep red lipstick. She also had a diamond stud Monroe piercing, but on the opposite side of Tash’s.
“This is Travis and Seven,” said Blaire, “Guys, this is Anne, Rod and Jeff.”
Seven waved awkwardly, while Travis shook each of their hands.
“Where’s Dinsmore?” asked Blaire, sitting down next to Jeff.
Jeff had a lime green Mohawk, a barbell in his right eyebrow, a ring round the middle of his bottom lip, his ear lobe slightly gauged, in each ear were two thick conch piercings and on the right one were three silver hoops along the cartilage at the top. He was built thicker than the rest of the boys at the table with solid muscles all through his arms.
“He’s out on a date with that girl.”
“The one we haven’t met yet,” laughed the blonde girl, Anne.
“He says we wouldn’t like her.” Said Rod with a childish pout.
Blaire rolled his eyes and went over to the counter to order food.
Anne offered Seven some of her cinnamon twists and Seven gladly took a few. Man, he loved those things. Travis had immediately struck up a conversation with Jeff, who was apparently the drummer for Blaire’s band. Their vocalist, Dinsmore, was for some odd reason dating some crazy snotty rich girl and was unable to hang out with them tonight.
Seven had a tendency to notice height and realized he was the shortest male in the group, but he was still Jeff, Rod, and Blaire were all taller than him. Travis was of course the tallest one there and Rod, the otherwise tallest, seemed a little disconcerted that Travis towered over him by several inches.
“Are we about ready to roll out of here?” asked Tash, having pulled up a chair and continually stole Rod’s nachos.
“Stop taking my nachos,” Rod whined. He was obviously a very outgoing, playful person. Seven mused that if he were making a Sim of him, those personality bars would be full. Then Seven realized that this was probably a sign that he’d spent way too much time playing the Sims and should probably stop for a while.
When Rod would laugh, so would his brilliant emerald colored eyes. Seven knew that if he weren’t so in love with Travis, it would be very easy for him to develop a heavy crush on Rod. That just made Seven’s heart ache. So badly did he want Travis for his own…
“You ate all of my cinnamon twists,” Anne said with a sad pout, staring down at the empty baggy. Seven had been eating them subconsciously while his mind had run away from him.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, “Do you want me to go get you another one?”
She laughed, “No it’s ok, I was just joking around. I didn’t want anymore anyway. I’ve already eaten two chalupas and a crunchwrap.” He blinked. That was a lot of food for someone so tiny.
Blaire had only bought two soft tacos, which he quickly wolfed done before he glanced at his watch, “The doors opened a couple of minutes ago so we should head over now. Everyone have money?”
“Blaire, you always say that and you always offer to pay, but we always have money and never take you up on the offer,” laughed Tash.
”Just throwing it out there,” chuckled Blaire. He looked over at Seven, “ I’m always working at my dad’s stereo equipment store and I have a lot of money saved up, so I figure there’s no better way to spend it than helping out a friend in need, you know?”
Here it was obvious, Blaire’s giving personality and care for his friends. Seven could tell that he was the kind of guy you could count on. This could just be because he was looking for good qualities in everyone. He knew that he would have to pick something out of everyone and acknowledge it if he was going to keep from making biased assumptions. He smiled at Blaire and noticed that this had earned him a smile from Travis. Warmth grew in the pit of his stomach.
“Let’s get going!” shouted Rod, who threw Tash over his shoulder and marched out the double doors. Every laughed and followed.