Afterglow - Evan, open

[Evan Hughes]

Ok, it had to be pretty much official by now. Their prank was the best ever! At least for the year. Actually, maybe the best prank of the month. They were sure to come up with something more awesome soon. But for now, Evan, Brittany, Patch, Mal, Kian and Connor all completely outdid themselves. He didn’t think anyone would work out it was them, they quickly grabbed the animals and made their getaway, to his mind anyway. Except Aly, she would know. And she would be pissed. And Evan found that thought damn funny. It topped everything off, he figured.

He sure did miss Bacon though. The pig was the best pig Evan ever known. Of course, he had only ever known two pigs, both being the pigs he picked up yesterday, but clearly, Bacon was the top pig. He even looked a bit like himself, Evan thought. Thoughts of his after school activities with Brittany sure helped take his mind off his beloved Bacon. He’d even managed to hide her well chewed bra, intending to tease her with it the next time she came over. It was what boyfriends did after all.

Lunch was boring though, oddly enough, compared to class. At least in class there was always people to talk to, and distract from the lesson. But during this lunch, he couldn’t find any of his friends to reminisce their great prank with. So he made his way to the car park, lunch (re: chocolate and coke) in tow. And ignoring his own car, he made his way onto the roof of someone else’s, not that he knew who it belonged to. But that didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. So lying on the roof, munching on a chocolate bar, pausing his meal only to sing random songs from Dr Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog.

[Hannah Bell]

Hannah was in no mood to be stuck inside the cafeteria. After the drizzly grey weather yesterday, Hannah was looking forward to a lunch period out of doors. Though she was not big on camping or activities of that sort, she did like to sit under a nice blue California sky if she could find a clean enough bench or picnic table. Hannah grabbed the small container of salad she had brought, and her purse, and closed the locker. After stopping to get an iced tea from the vending machine, she made her way out of the school.

Many of the students must have agreed with Hannah's thoughts as mobs of kids roamed the area surrounding the school. Her usual spot was surrounded by a group of kids, freshman by their looks, playing what seemed to be some dorky imagined game of Warquest or whatever that was called. She could clearly hear one of the kids shout “Magic Missile!” as he girlishly tossed a balled up piece of paper towards another kid. Hannah shook her head and walked towards the benches near the parking lot.

She stepped daintily around the few puddles that lingered from the night's downpour, not wanting her white heels to get dirty. Despite her recent incident with muddy rain water, she had braved wearing a white skirt again despite the small puddles that still lingered. It was complimented with a light blue tank top, one that she thought looked really cute on her despite the fact that it didn't cover much skin. Had her mom caught her leaving the house, she would no doubt have had to change. Luckily, though, she got her coat on before she said good bye to her mother. Sometimes she felt uncomfortable wearing so little, but it was part of being popular and so Hannah did what was necessary to remain as such.

Nearing her preferred bench, Hannah noticed a figure atop a very nice Aston Martin. Hannah recognized the vehicle immediately, as it belonged to Tyler Durnham. She knew, however, Tyler would never climb atop his car in such a way. He took very good care of the car, and would never risk a blemish. She decided to investigate.

“Evan Hughes?” Hannah hadn't meant to say his name out loud, but she was surprised to see the boy on Tyler's car. She expected it was at least a friend of Tyler's, and she couldn't imagine any world in which Evan and Tyler were friends. “Honey, you think Tyler would like it if he found you on his car? You best get down from there!” Hannah called, hoping Evan listened. Even though he wasn't in the popular crown, Hannah always like Evan. He was nice and fun, a good person to be around. It also helped that he was cute, though Hannah would deny she ever had a crush on him. He wasn't popular. Plus, she had a very nice date with Gage and was really hoping he would ask her out again.

“Come sit with me and have lunch, Evan,” Hannah offered. She would enjoy the company, and hopefully Tyler wouldn't notice any marks on his car. “It'll be a heck of a lot safer.”

[Evan Hughes]

In the middle of his very enthusiastic rendition of Everyone’s A Hero In Their Own Way, something distracted Evan and he trailed off. That something in particular being a girly voice (which made sense seeing how it came from a girl) calling out his name loud enough for him to hear over his singing. So it had to be loud. His first thought was that he was in trouble, that was the usual case whenever his name was said in full. Though his middle name had been missed, so maybe he was only in a bit of trouble.

Turning, he saw Hannah, only grinning wildly as she suggested he move, and quickly. “Dunno, he might like it, who wouldn’t love finding me on their car?” he chuckled. “Anyway, not scared of him. You see these guns?” He held out his arms, flexing them as best he could lying down. “I can take him.” He wasn’t stupid though, he knew if Tyler did see him, the footballer wouldn’t exactly be scared of the not so muscled kid wearing a Transformers t-shirt. He was sure he could run faster than Tyler though, that had to count for something.

Polishing off the last of his current chocolate bar, he shoved the packet into his pocket, staring at Hannah as if considering her offer. “Alright.” he gave in, sliding off the fancy car. “But only cause you want me to sit with you. I’m totally not afraid of Pretty Boy.”

Laughing, he made his way over to the girl. “You’re just excited you have an excuse to get me to have lunch with you, I know. I just hope no one sees me with a cheerleader. You realise what that could do to my rep?” he teased.

[Hannah Bell]

A giggle escaped Hannah's mouth as Evan declared his superiority over Tyler Durnham. “Yes, those guns are very nice. Big,” she agreed, hoping to placate the boy. Not that he was in bad shape, but he was nowhere near the size of the elder footballer. “I'm sure you can take him, honey, that's why I want you to get down. Where would Mr. Durnham be without his pretty face? I'm just looking out for the poor boy...” Hannah smiled and looked to the ground shyly as she realized she was flirting with Evan. A few days ago it wouldn't have been a big deal, but she liked Gage and felt bad about flirting with another boy.

But then again, it was harmless, wasn't it? Evan had a girlfriend, and it wasn't likely she was leading him on. He was a flirty guy in general, and Hannah liked to flirt as well. If there were no intentions behind the flirting, it would be okay. At least, that's what Hannah convinced herself of as she continued to talk to the cute boy that was grinning at her.

As he made his way to her side, Hannah slipped her free hand around one of Evan's arms. “I am excited to have lunch with you.” She lightly bumped her hip into his as they walked to the bench and smiled up at him. “I guess we'll just have to keep this lunch a secret then, won't we?” She winked at Evan, then looked forward again as she blushed slightly. Maybe that insinuation had been a little too much, and her face was feeling a bit warm. She bit her lip, not sure of herself, but once again she convinced herself it was okay because nothing was ever going to happen.

Still, she dropped her arm from his and quickened her pace a bit so that she could sit on the least dirty part of the bench. She looked towards Evan as she sat, doing her best to modestly keep her skirt down. The last thing she wanted was for another boy at the school to see her underwear! She patted the seat next to her with her slender arm, smiling at the boy, then turned her attention to her salad. Her mom had kindly rolled a fork in a few napkins and placed them in a little baggie so that the dressing wouldn't ruin them. The salad kept her focus as she prepared to eat, so without looking Hannah asked, “What do you have for lunch?”

[Evan Hughes]

She was only humouring him, Evan could see that easily, still, he was going to play along. Of course he was going to, it was fun! “Good point. I mean, if I mess up his face, he would only have his personality to fall back on. And yeah, that wouldn’t work. I’m not that mean. Nice of you to look out for him, I’ll tell you what, just for you, I won’t bea him up. Don’t let him hear about you being nice though, he might try to sign you up to his fan club. You know, all those girls who follow him around and sigh whenever he does something, like breathe?” He wasn’t jealous, he really wasn’t, all that attention was kind of creepy to him. He was happy enough with one girl thinking he was pretty cool, and though she didn’t sigh around him constantly, Brit was more than happy to kiss him whenever he wanted, and that was a great thing. Plus, she told him Tyler had tried to chat her up once and she thought it was weird, and wasn’t the least bit interested. Score! He didn’t see all the fuss about Tyler anyway. He was too perfect looking. It wasn’t normal.

Evan did flirt, but he never thought of it as flirting when he did it, he was just being himself. All friendly like and cheery, it was just how it was. If pointed out to him, he would be able to see that it could be seen as flirting, but otherwise he didn’t notice, or care. People would know he had a girlfriend anyway, he and Brit were often hard to spot. And when he intended to flirt, something he hadn’t tried for a while now, he actually had to put effort into it, like he did when he ‘wooed’ Brittany, to make sure he was doing it right and all. So though he noticed Hannah’s cheeks flushing, he thought nothing of it. She was just warm or something.

Bumping her hip back as she walked, propping his bag up on his other shoulder, Evan gave in just a little, and with the girl on his arm, skipped just a little over to the bench. You just had do when you were arm in arm with someone, it was the thing to do after all. “Sure, you say that, but I know you. The moment lunch is over, you’re gonna track down all your friends, and brag that you just had lunch with the awesome Evan Hughes, and then you and your friends are gonna go on and on about how awesome I am” he laughed loudly at the teasing. “For your sake, if anyone asks me if it’s true, if we ate together, I won’t deny. I’m just too kind sometimes.”

While she sat down gracefully on the seat, Evan wasn’t quite the same, plonking himself down nosily. He eyed off her salad for just a moment, quickly realising it wasn’t at all appealing to him. Salads never were, he tended to run away screaming from anything too green. Asked about his own lunch, he moved his bag to the vacant spot next to him, going through it. “Let’s see, lunch...lunch...lunch!” he told her happily, holding up his coke and another bar of chocolate, a Babe Ruth this time. “Hey, don’t look at me like that! It’s one of the food groups, isn’t it, chocolate?” he wondered aloud. “If it isn’t, it should be.”

Stretching out his legs, he opened up his ‘lunch’, getting ready to attack the chocolate bar. He was starving after all, his first chocolate bar doing nothing to help. “So did you hear about the awesome plans for Sunday?” he asked. “Taki, Dare and I thought it’ll be good for everyone to go out, have some fun, maybe act stupid and all. Okay, maybe acting stupid was my contribution to the idea.” Evan laughed. “We’re gonna go bowling, stuff our faces, everyone can tag along. You should come, drag along everyone you can. The more the better!”

[Hannah Bell]

Hannah found herself giggling a little too much around Evan, but she couldn't help it. The boy was just downright silly and incredibly fun to be around. Hannah needed to have someone like that in her life, someone who didn't take life too serious. She may get caught up in all the important stuff like schoolwork and cheerleading and everything else, but being with Evan helped everything to slow down just a little bit. She couldn't even remember the last time she had skipped!

“You are just too nice, Evan Hughes,” Hannah complimented, “I guess I owe you for granting me the pleasure of your company!” He was very much the opposite of Hannah. She was proper, put together, and eating a salad. He said and did what he wanted, didn't mind what he looked like, and ate chocolate for lunch. Hannah eyed the chocolate bar, wishing her mother had secretly buried a Snickers in her salad. Even though she knew there was nothing hidden, she found herself poking around the salad anyway. As expected, no such luck. “I agree, it should be a food group. Then maybe it would be part of our recommended daily allowance.” She tried to joke along with Evan, but she was not half as funny as him, and she felt sort of lame trying to keep up. She decided some salad in her mouth would help keep the bad jokes at bay.

She listened to Evan talking about bowling, and waited anxiously hoping there would be an invite. Why did she want to go bowling with a group of people so bad? She was terrible at bowling, and it could be embarrassing! Though Evan would never worry about looking like a fool. Heck, he did look like a fool quit often, but with him it came off as endearing. She knew his girlfriend would be there too, which for some reason she didn't like. She also wondered to herself if she should invite Gage. There was definitely a small part of her brain that told her not to.

“I'd love to come!” she exclaimed. What was she thinking? “But I have to warn you, I'm just awful at bowling. Maybe I could just sit and watch everyone?” That might be safer, both for her ego and everyone else's feet. She remembered the one time her daddy had taken her bowling, and she dropped the ball on his foot by accident. He ended up with a broken metatarsal and was not very keen on going bowling again for a long while.

The wind picked up slightly, and Hannah became quite conscious of the temperature, silently cursing herself for not wearing a coat today. For California, it was pretty chilly out, and the wind was not helping. Her light tank top blocked very little of the gust, and she could feel the goosebumps starting to grow on her skin. She subconsciously rubbed her arms.

“This isn't like a boys night out thing, is it? I don't wanna interfere if it's you and Taki and Dare...” Hannah didn't really know the other two boys well. One was the new Japanese or whatever kid, and the other was that rock star's son. She had never spoken to either, though if they were Evan's friends she assumed they were at least fun.

[Evan Hughes]

As soon as the words left Hannah’s mouth, Evan paled just slightly, looking around more than a little anxiously. When it seemed as though they were ‘clear’, no one around listening in, he turned back, clearly relieved. “Geez Han, would ya keep it down? I suppose it’s okay to be seen with you, even if you’re a cheerleader, cause we’re friends and all.” he reasoned. “But still, don’t go around advertising that I’m ...nice.” he shuddered then, as if that very word horrified him. “I mean, I just managed to convince everyone here that I’m a badass, and they should be scared of me, and all that. You’re going to ruin my image!” He protested, unable to stop the smile from breaking out. He was sure that even people who didn’t know him would take one look and be able to tell he was far from badass. Probably because of what had caught him now, he was smiling nearly most of the time. And when he wasn’t smiling, he was probably eating, or doing something really distracting. He’d even been told he smiled in his sleep. He did have awesome dreams though.

“Daily allowance? Oh, you mean like how much we should have? Hey!” he enthused, jumping where he sat just a little, grabbing onto her arm lightly. He was excited about something. “How cool would a daily chocolate allowance be, like, pocket money wise! You could go to the supermarket or school or something every day, hand over a little card, they could swipe it and give you your chocolate for the day! Everyone needs chocolate.” he deadpanned. “I wonder how that would work though. Cause I need a lot of chocolate, and they probably wouldn’t give me enough. Can’t have enough. I like chocolate. And candy.” he explained, just in case she hadn’t yet realised. He bit off a big chunk of his bar, chewing on it as he rummaged through his bag. Talk of daily chocolate (which was what he had anyway) got him excited, and he had to share that excitement. “God id.” he cheered with a full mouth, finding what he was looking for. And his hand came out of the bag, clutching a handful of chocolate bars, which he dropped on top of his bag. “I like chocolate.” he explained once more. “Help yourself.”

“Sweet!” he smiled, again, glad he managed to talk someone else into coming. And with whoever Taki and Dare managed to rope in, they surely had a tonne of people coming along now. “No, nope, no way.” Laughing, Evan shook his head adamantly. “Taki and me are gonna help Dare, he’s in a cast, so can’t bowl right. So you’re not getting out of it that easily. I’ll help you, maybe I can teach you!” he enthused, thinking he would be a great teacher. Well, maybe not a great one, but not a boring one. “I’m really good at bowling. Well, better at hitting the pins with my head, but I’m pretty good with a bowling ball too. You might want to just stick to the ball, for starters.” he teased.

“Nah, not a boys night out. More of a everyone’s afternoon. Well, not everyone. Only the cool people are invited of course.” he nudged her playfully. “So unfortunately, and I know you’re gonna be disappointed, but Pretty Boy isn’t invited. Well, you can invite him if you really want, but I just might fight him. No promises. And Aly, she’s Brit’s evil step sister, she doesn’t really like me, don’t know why.” he teased. “She’s not invited. See, only cool people.”

With his bar now gone, he stuffed the rubbish into his pocket, joining the other wrapper and the various other junk he managed to accumulate unknowingly each day. But ignoring the other bars, he instead leaned closer to the girl, staring at the green stuff she was eating, a look of worry on his face. “So, you sure that’s not going to, like, come to life and attack you or something?”

[Hannah Bell]

Panic filled Hannah when Evan suddenly became very serious. She didn't mean to offend him with whatever it was she said that might have come out wrong. In fact, she wasn't quite sure why he got so strange and weird when she called him nice. Her heart started to beat really fast and she began feeling absolutely terrible. But as soon as the smile cracked his face, she realized what he was doing. “Oh, you are such a jerk!” she said, though it was barely intelligible since she spoke the words more as a series of giggles than actual words. She accompanied the statement with a playful slap on his arm, and told herself she would not fall for any more of Evan's tricks.

The giggling continued on as Evan began talking about a chocolate allowance. It started to get really bad, and Hannah almost felt a little embarrassed by how much she was actually giggling. Some of the stuff he said wasn't even that funny, but she found herself giggling anyway. “Well if you wanted, you could probably have most of my chocolate allowance. If I started eating it, I don't know if I could stop! I just adore chocolate.” Hannah smiled, still poking at her salad. It wasn't bad, but all the talk of candy made her wish she maybe had a bit more than just a few leaves drizzled in a low fat ranch.

As he crammed a chunk of chocolate into his mouth, Hannah couldn't help but notice she just giggled more. Usually such stunts by guys were met with her disapproval, yet when Evan did it, she found it just a tad endearing. Gross, but endearing. “Yes, I can tell you like chocolate.” Upon being offered her choice of a candy bar, Hannah really had to fight hard to resist. She was very close to giving in when her mom's old saying came to mind, which Hannah mumbled to herself. “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.” She looked up, and smiled at Evan. “No thanks, hun. I really shouldn't.” She worked way too hard to keep her figure to go on a chocolate feeding frenzy.

The thought of bowling in front of people was scary, but when Evan mentioned he would teach her, Hannah couldn't help but picture in her mind a cheesy 80's movie style tutoring session where Evan's arms were around her, helping her hold the ball, his breath on her neck...

Wait! She liked Gage! What was she thinking? Gage was a very nice boy with whom she had a very nice time and she very much would like to see again. But there was something about Evan, and once again thoughts of him with his arms around her were introduced into her conscious mind. Sadly, however, Evan was taken, and as far as Hannah knew he was quite happy in his relationship. And though Hannah was much prettier than his current girlfriend, she was most definitely not a homewrecker.

Hannah started a bit when Evan asked about her salad. She had been staring at her food, and hadn't even noticed that she wasn't listening to him blather on about who was and was not invited to bowling. Hopefully Brittany wasn't. “Oh, I don't know. I like salads, and a lot of green stuff.” The enthusiasm in her voice had obviously begun to recede, and as she picked the last leaf and pooped it in to her mouth she stood up. She decided she better leave and get her head on straight.

She turned around and tossed her container into the garbage can sitting next to the bench, then turned back towards Evan. “Thanks for lunch,” she said, a little quieter than she may have liked. She really hoped Evan didn't notice anything weird. She would just be aghast if he realized she liked him at all.

[Evan Hughes]

“Hey!” Evan protested, holding a hand up protectively against his arm, as if preparing for another attack. “What is it with pretty girls and hitting me?” he laughed, not really expecting an answer. Brit had seemingly made a habit of it, not that he minded cause it didn’t really hurt, and she tended to screw her face up as she hit him, which was pretty cute. And now Hannah seemed intent on joining the club. Not to mention Jessica, who Evan supposed could be considered pretty, but he didn’t find her as such when she was giving him a black eye. But she hadn’t come after him again, even after their very brief, and worrying meeting in the cafeteria not long ago. Which he was more than a little relieved at. He didn’t need to get beaten up by a girl again.

Evan couldn’t help but grin even more when Hannah kept giggling, taking it as a big compliment. He always found himself funny, but he found everything funny. Patch found him funny, but they had a similar kind of humour anyway and was always cracking each other up. And Brit found him funny, but she was his girl, so if she didn’t find something he said or did funny, he was sure she would just play along anyway. She was sweet that way. So it was only natural that cracking someone else up gave him an ego boost.

“Why would you have to stop eating chocolate?” Evan pondered, though he wouldn’t knock back sharing Hannah’s chocolate allowance in the unlikely event that the policy was ever introduced. Now that he thought about it, he really hoped it wasn’t. An allowance made it seem like they wouldn’t be allowed to go over that amount each day, and even with his chocolate, and some of Hannah’s, that probably wouldn’t be enough. And realising he was going off on a tangent in his head, he stopped his current thought process right there, before it go too involved. “That just seems like a cruel thing to put someone through.”

He quickly realised that Hannah was knocking back the chocolate (imagine that?! Someone knocking back chocolate!) cause of a weight thing, as girls seemed to do. Which seemed senseless to him, as did any reason someone could concoct to not eat the delicious goodness. Especially in Hannah’s situation, she wasn’t big or anything, or needed to lose weight. Plus she was a cheerleader, they always did exercise and stuff. But seeing that she wasn’t going to give in, he shot her a playful, mournful look, slowly putting the bars back, one at a time. Well, all except the last one, two chocolate bars weren’t nearly enough for lunch after all.

Then it was his turn to wonder if he offended Hannah in some way, the girl suddenly becoming much quieter, and something just seemed a little off. But he couldn’t think of anything that he said or done that might have got that reaction, so he just figured that something else was on her mind. Other things than current topics of conversation were always on his mind after all.

So he didn’t mind too much when she quickly polished off her food and stood, getting ready to leave. “Thanks for the company! And saving me from having to beat up Durnham.” Evan grinned, giving the blonde a thumbs up. “So don’t forget about Sunday. It’s gonna be so fun!”

Wrapped / tag to wrap

[Hannah Bell]

“It was all my pleasure, Mr. Hughes,” replied Hannah. She curtsied, for good measure. A small part of her secretly wished Evan would get up and give her a good bye hug, but he seemed very satisfied sitting and eating his candy. Hannah's mind drifted back to Sarah's party, when Evan had hugged her. She also remembered feeling very good about the physical contact then.

Hannah wasn't very used to touching boys much... or at all, really. Her father wasn't heavily involved in her life, and she had no brothers or close male relatives. She wasn't used to boys in general, actually. Dating was a fairly new concept to her, as was kissing. And kissing Gage was pretty nice, but Hannah was currently more curious about what kissing other boys might be like as well, at least, one certain other boy.

“I won't forget, if you don't forget to teach me how to bowl!” It was her main reason for attending, though she told herself the socialization was much more important. She noticed she was getting a bit too flirty again, and decided she better leave. As she walked away, she began the difficult contemplation of whether or not she should tell Gage. It was going to be a long afternoon.

*wrapped*