O6 I've Been Up All Night

"I'VE BEEN UP ALL NIGHT"

We piled into Peter's car, the three of us still riding the high of adrenaline. Seeing Daniel so pissed while people sang my song that I wrote about him was the most satisfied I'd been since the break up.

"I wish I had a picture of his face," I said between laughs. "I'd get shirts made."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Cherry popped in between the seats, holding out her phone as a video played on it.

We watched as Daniel went from talking to some poor girl, to hearing the opening of my song. His face changed quicker than a Salvatore brother smelling blood. He was practically foaming at the mouth when people started singing along.

"Please send that to me," I told her. And he called me sensitive. Who knew a simple song could upset him so much?

"Will do," Cherry assured me. "Oh, did you find your song book?"

I let out a sigh, falling against the seat. "No. Either he threw it out or he isn't the one who has it."

"I still have faith it'll show up," Peter said shooting me a confident smile. I almost believed him. But we were out of suspects. "So, home, then?"

After being inside for a week, going back there was the last thing I wanted. I picked up Peter's wrist to see the time. It was almost ten. Way too early to be home on a Friday. "Let's go to the spot."

Peter's brow furrowed. "The spot?"

***

Cloud Creamery stayed open late during the summer, so the parking lot was full of cars when we arrived. We parked in the back and climbed the ladder the was bolted onto the side.

Peter, ever the gentleman, waited on the ground until Cherry and I made it to the top so he wouldn't accidentally look under our skirts. He finally made it up, bag of snacks in hand, when we remembered there were only two chairs.

"You take it," Peter said. "I'll sit on the ground."

Cherry turned on her phone's flashlight. Highlighting all the bird crap. "You sure about that?"

Peter grimaced at the sight.

"I'll share with Cherry." She moved over, giving me a little room. I immediately hopped up as soon as I sat down. "Why are you wet?"

"I took a swim." She shrugged.

"I can just stand." He started to get up from the chair. I placed a hand on his shoulder to push him back down.

"Relax, Conway. I don't bite." The chair was just wide enough for each of us to have a single buttcheek on the seat. It wasn't the most comfortable, but it'll do.

"That is a lie," Cherry said. "Remember Jonas?"

"Yeah, I remember that!" Peter chimed in. "Didn't you bite him because he wouldn't get off the slide in third grade?"

"He was holding up the line. I did everyone a favor."

Peter dumped the bag of snacks onto the table for us to pick through there was a family sized bag of chips and a two liter of soda. Cherry offered to go down to Cloud Creamery to get cups and a couple bowls that were meant for ice cream for the chips.

"This is cool," Peter mused, looking up at the sky.

The view wasn't spectacular or anything. There was too much light to see the stars, but there was a near-by airplane base so there was always an airplane overhead.

"How'd you find this place?" He shifted to look at me, our shoulders, hips, and thighs pressed together. I didn't entirely mind the contact.

"Last year I dated this guy, Nathan. He worked here and I came to surprise him. When I showed up, I saw him with some other girl." The memory of it still hurt a little. "When he saw me, I panicked and ran back here. Which was dumb because it's a dead-end. Then I saw the ladder. I climbed up to hide from him and I don't know, I liked it up here. So I told Cherry about it and now it's the spot."

After I finished my story Peter sat there silently. His light eyes studied me with curiosity. My skin goosebumped under his gaze. "Why do you do it?"

"Why do I do what?"

"Date," he asked simply. "It doesn't seem to go well. Yet, you keep doing it."

I tilted my head to the side, not entirely sure of what he was asking. "I mean, yeah, there's trial and error. It's a risk. Most good things in life are are."

He ran a hand through his light curls. "But being broken up with hurts, right? You go through a mourning period and then you start all over only to go through that heartbreak again."

"That's where the risk comes in," I told him. "You date someone and hope they're the one. And maybe they won't be, but it's worth it to try. You know, like that KeKe Palmer song goes, better to have loved than not at all."

Peter looked back up at the sky, watching a plane fly across the inky blue night. I remembered what he said that day in detention about his brothers picking on him for not dating.

"Is that why you've never had a girlfriend? You're scared of the break up?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "I've seen my brothers get dumped or do the dumping so many times. They try to act tough about it every time, but they can't really hid how much pain they're in after. I don't think I could survive that."

"I don't know, the heart can handle a lot." I picked at the label on the soda bottle. "Endings suck, but you learn something new each time."

"Or write a summer hit about it?" He smirked at me.

I felt myself blush at his words. "Woah, my song is no where near a hit."

"It is amongst our classmates." He pulled his phone from his pocket and pulled up a video.

My face popped on his phone screen screen. He recorded that moment in Daniel's room only an hour ago. I had a huge grin on my face, my hand to my chest and tears in my eyes as I looked up at Peter. I hadn't even seen the phone pointed at me.

"They're singing my song!" I said over the video.

The feelings I had then came back over me. My cheeks hurt even now from all the smiling I'd been doing.

"I didn't know you were recording," I said when the video ended with Daniel spotting us through the window.

"It seemed like a moment you'd want evidence of."

I peered up at Peter and his blond hair that seemed to get bigger by the day. Maybe he was so nice it made me sick, but he was so many other things, too. Thoughtful, considerate, caring. Okay, so those all fell under him being nice. Still...

One thing I didn't expect from him was his fear of commitment.

"Ahem!"

Peter and I jumped at the sound of Cherry clearing her throat. "I got the cups."

As she set them on the table, dealing one from the stack to each of us. She gave me a look, wiggling her brows. In turn, I glared at her.

***

It was around one in the morning when we left the roof of Cloud Creamery. The parking lot cleared out hours ago. Peter dropped off Cherry first. Then drove to our neighborhood.

"Stop at your house so you don't wake the beast," I instructed.

He did just that, parking his car in his driveway next to a jeep. We climbed out of the car. It was a little chilly and I hugged myself.

"Sorry we didn't find your notebook," he said coming to meet me on the passenger side of the car.

"It's fine. Whoever took it must not have had evil plans for it. It's been a week and I haven't received a ransom call or seen it posted online."

"Still, other than Cherry, that notebook was always at your side."

I looked up at him with a new appreciation for his kindness. "There'll be other notebooks."

He started to say something but was interrupted by the rattle of his garage door opening. We both froze and watched as it slowly lifted.

There was a bright flash, followed by four distinct laughs. After blinking a few time to clear my vision, I saw four blond clones of Peter. One of them I recognized as Chris from the other day.

"Baby bro's first time breaking curfew!" Chris said.

Another guy, his blond hair cut close to his head, plucked the Polaroid from his camera, shaking it. "We had to capture this extremely rare moment on film."

Peter groaned, running a hand down his face. "Really, guys?"

"Aren't you gonna introduce us to your friend?" A third blond, who looked exactly like the second blond, asked.

Peter introduced his brothers as Aaron and Evan, the twins. And Ryan, who was the least rowdy of the bunch. He stood back, taking everything in.

"Faye, how do you know this egg head?" Evan, I think, asked, mussing Peter's hair.

Peter looked over at me and even though we've only hung out a handful of times, we had somehow crossed over to being able to read each other's eye signals. His baby blues asked "Are you still okay with being my fake girlfriend?"

I shot him back the tiniest smile to let him know that a deal was a deal.

Peter stood, squaring his shoulders like he was going into battle. "Faye is my girlfriend." He glanced at me again like he was afraid I was going to take it back.

"Girlfriend?" Ryan said out of surprise, finally breaking his silence.

"About damn time!" Aaron smacked Peter's back. Chris held Peter in a headlock.

I jumped back as the other two piled on Peter with affectionate nuggies and back slaps. I thought I was a safe distance away until one of the twins reached out for me, pulling me into the huddle. He and Chris both had their muscle heavy arms around my shoulders. Peter sent me an apologetic look from across the circle.

"You know, Faye, you can't just date a Conway," Chris said, his long hair tickling my shoulder.

"Did you not get my membership fee in the mail?" I asked.

That sent the boys into a fit of laughter. Peter relaxed a little when he saw I could handle his brothers. They all gave golden retriever energy.

"What he means is," Evan cut in, eyes slightly narrowed at me. "Can you bowl?"

I looked at the five of them, waiting for the punchline. There wasn't one.

"Bowl? Like, rolling a heavy ball into some pins?"

Aaron chuckled. "That's bowling, yeah."

I hadn't stepped foot in a bowling alley since our fifth grade field trip. Even then, I didn't bowl. I used the money for renting shoes on a hot chocolate and watched my classmates play. I tried to remember if Peter was one of them.

"Not really, no."

The huddle broke apart in overdramatic, disappointed groans.

"You were so close to being perfect," Aaron said, throwing his hands up.

They were so entertaining it was hard to be offended by that comment.

"It's fine. It's fine," Chris said. "We'll just have to teach her. What are you doing on Sunday?"

My gaze found Peter's. When we made this deal, he promised I'd only be his girlfriend by word of mouth. He said I didn't have to partake in any girlfriend activities, like bowling with his family.

But seeing how happy his brothers were that their little brother had a girlfriend--I didn't want to disappoint them.

"It looks like I'm bowling."

Peter's brows got lost in his hair as his brothers pulled us all in for another group hug.

"Alright, that's enough," Ryan said, breaking things up. "Let's give them some privacy." He must've been the oldest, judging by how they followed his command without any fuss.

Aaron held up the Polaroid he'd taken of Peter and I looking like deer in headlights. "First late night and first girlfriend? Were framing this, baby bro."

Once the four other Conways had gone inside and the garage door rattled shut, Peter started apologizing.

"I'm so sorry about them. They're--"

"They're fun," I jumped in. "I like them."

He didn't look convinced.

"Honestly. They're great. It might take me a while to be able to match faces with the names, though."

"Don't worry about that. I still get them confused."

I laughed. "Noted."

He stared down at his Vans, whispering. "They're still watching us."

Subtlety, I looked up at his house. Sure enough they were in one of the front windows, poorly hiding behind the blinds.

Peter and I had to say goodbye. Not as friends but as boyfriend and girlfriend. We had to put on a show for his nosy brothers.

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his neck. He stiffened, eyes wide as the watched me. "What are you doing?"

"Relax and hug me back."

He gulped. Literally. His Adam's apple bobbed and everything. You'd think I just asked him to disarm a bomb.

Slowly he placed his arms around me. His hands were warm through my thin shirt. I pulled him in tighter because he was my boyfriend and we weren't afraid of getting close. At least that's what we were trying to show his brothers.

Peter tightened his hold on me. I sighed, melting into his arms with my chin on his shoulder. Being in his arms felt nice. Maybe I enjoyed it more than I should've because I began to wonder what it'd be like to be his real girlfriend.

The moment the thought flitted through my mind, I broke the hug. I couldn't let myself think like that.

"Night," I said, before whipping around and going home.

"Night," I heard Peter call out after me.

When I got back to my room. I pulled an old school notebook from a pile of junk on my desk, found a blank page and started writing a new song.

*******

I think Peter's brothers might be my new favorite characters (as I'm typing this authors note I'm working on chapter 9 which has another fun scene with them--so there's a little teaser)

We got to learn a little more about Peter and why he hasn't dated, what do you think about that?

Also, shout out to Shaw1092 for supporting this story with votes and comments 💖💖