Reckless Decadence - Chapter 2

A/N - Thank you to KAZ and Chloe for reading/reviewing on the other website. You guys are awesome. I'm going to try to update again within the next 2 days, but I can't make any definite promises.

Chapter 2

"Lies are wide and black and blue
They hide inside those big brown eyes"
Lies - The Pierces

“YOU HAD SEX WITH HIM?!” Harriet screeched into the phone.

“No. We didn’t have sex. We did other things, but we didn’t have sex.”

“But what about his girlfriend? What’s her name? Fallon?”

The guilt churned Bryn’s stomach and she felt a wave of nausea hit her, “I don’t know. I guess we just drank too much. I don’t really think it was a conscious decision to cheat on his girlfriend. It just kinda happened.”

By this point Mary had completely stopped pretending to organize the papers in front of her and was blatantly staring at Bryn with her mouth gaping open. Bryn glared at her and whispered into the phone, “Harriet, I’ve got to go. I’m at work now, and people are listening to my conversation and judging me. I’ll call you when I get home tonight.”

“Alright. You’d better call me though. I’m dying to know what’s going to happen between you two.”

Bryn hung up the phone and stole a glance at Mary. The woman was sneering at her. She decided just to brush her off and head back to the reference section to finish her work.

*****

William walked into the small apartment he shared with his girlfriend Fallon, to find her sitting on the couch leafing through the pages of a magazine. She looked up and smiled her bright smile at him, and overwhelming guilt ripped through his stomach. “Hi honey,” he kissed her gently on the lips, “Sorry I didn’t come home last night.”

“It’s okay,” Fallon was so surprisingly cool about this kind of stuff, that it made him feel even more guilty, “I figured you were drunk and stayed somewhere. I’d rather have you sleep at someone else’s house then stumble around the city on your own in the middle of the night.”

‘Why is she so good to me?’ William mentally berated himself. ‘Why can’t she be like normal women and just get pissed? It would be so much easier if she would just yell at me.’

“Did you have a good time, though?” she asked.

“Yeah. It was alright,” he lied. He didn’t want to let on that he’d had an amazing time. She might start to ask questions.

“Who all was there?”

“Just Bryn and a friend of hers. Harriet, I think,” the lies kept pouring out. Of course he knew Harriet’s name, but the less interested he seemed in the night, the less suspicious Fallon would be.

“Oh, that must have been fun! How is Bryn doing these days?” Fallon and Bryn had had met on numerous occasions and had always gotten along well, but they had never really developed a friendship. So why was Fallon so curious about her now?

“I don’t know. I guess she’s okay. You know…” He walked into the kitchen to grab a glass of water.

“What was she wearing?” Fallon called from the living room, “She always wears the best clothes.”

‘A black tunic dress just long enough to cover everything that should be covered, with a hot pink belt and pink and black extremely-high heels,’ he said to himself, but instead of saying this aloud, poked his head around the corner to the living room and raised an eyebrow, “Honey, really? How do you expect me to remember that sort of thing? I’m a guy.”

“You have no idea what she was wearing?” Fallon asked skeptically.

“It was some black thing, with some kind of pink thing,” he motioned toward his waist as he said the word “pink thing” and shrugged.

“Okay, okay. I get it. You don’t notice that stuff,” Fallon laughed.

William walked back into the kitchen, opened the cabinet over the sink and pulled out a bottle of aspirin. He opened the bottle extracted three pills and swallowed them. He knew that if he didn’t, he’d have one hell of a stress headache by the end of this day.

*****

“Well, what’s the deal with you guys then?” Harriet asked over the phone late the next afternoon. Bryn had accidentally fallen asleep as soon as she’d gotten home from the library the day before, and this was the first chance she was getting to talk to Harriet since their cut-off conversation the day before.

“What do you mean?” Bryn asked innocently.

“You know what I mean.”

“We were drunk, Harriet. Things happen when people drink too much. It’s not the end of the world.”

“So he’s not telling Fallon?”

“No. And why should he? It’s not like there’s any feelings there. It was a drunken mistake, and we both know it. I like Fallon a lot, and I don’t think there’s any need to hurt her over this one dumb little incident that didn’t mean anything.”

“You can’t possibly tell me that it meant nothing to you, Bryn. I know you used to like him.”

“That was a long time ago,” Bryn thought back to when she and Bill had first met at her first job. She walked into her first day of work at The Gap, and was told to report to Bill for training. Back then she’d had a huge crush on him that she’d disguised, knowing he had a girlfriend, and not wanting to be that crazy girl who crushed on a guy who obviously wasn’t interested in her. Besides, they had become close friends in the few months that they worked there, and often hung out after shifts, and even outside of work. Bill was a good friend and she didn’t want to lose his friendship by confessing that she had a huge crush on him. Eventually he’d left The Gap to record his CD, and they kept in contact, and still remained friends, but after not seeing him every day, her feelings began to fade. Now she just considered him a friend. An extremely good-looking friend, but nothing more.

“But this didn’t bring back any of those old feelings?” Harriet asked.

As she was about to answer, Bryn’s computer emitted a bloop noise, and she looked down at it. Her GMail messenger away message read, “Bored. What’s everyone up to tonight?” and a new message blinked from screen name billbeckett:

“No definite plans, but was thinking about heading out to a local bar near my house. You’re welcome to come if you want.”

“Harriet, can I call you back later?” Bryn asked.

“Sure, but why?”

“Bill just IM’d me about hanging out tonight. I want to see what’s going on and then I’ll call you back later.”

“Seriously? You are so not over him.”

“Shut up. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Whatever, loser,” Harriet hung up her line and Bryn closed her phone and set it down on her bed next to her.

Into the computer she typed, “which bar?”

“Conrads. It’s right around the corner from my place.”

“Who’s all going?”

“No one yet. Just me. And possibly you?”

“Can we go somewhere in between? I don’t want to drive a half hour. Especially after drinking.”

“I don’t want to drive either. Why don’t you park here. We’ll walk to the bar and you can crash on the couch at my place.”

‘Oh my God, what is he thinking?’ she screamed inside her head, ‘I can’t go over there if Fallon is there!’ “Where is Fallon? Isn’t she coming?” she wrote.

“No. She has to get up early in the morning to go to work. Why?”

“So she’s home?”

“Yeah, why?”

“This sounds weird, but I feel awkward going there when she’s home.”

It took a very long minute for him to respond, “Oh… yeah. I can understand that.”

“So lets meet somewhere in between?”

“I don’t want to drive.”

An exasperated sigh escaped Bryn’s lips, “Then why don’t you come here. Same deal. You can sleep on the couch if you’re too tired/drunk to drive.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a great idea.”

“Well do you have any others?”

“No. I guess that’s what I’ll do. I’ll stop by at around nine?”

“Sounds good.”

“K. See you then!”

Bryn snapped her computer shut, let out another deep sigh, closed her eyes, and lay back on her bed. This was just getting interesting.

Reckless Decadence - Chapter 1

Author’s Note:
Hello all! This story is called Reckless Decadence after a lyric in The Pink Spider’s song “Modern Swinger”. This story is in no way really related to that song, but I felt that that one particular lyric summed it up quite nicely, especially after realizing that my first choice (The Hardest Thing to Swallow… from Seed) sounded like a bad porn flick, and my second choice (All My Good Intentions… from Rumored Nights) was el lame-o. This is going to be a really long story, and the chapters are probably going to be pretty short, but there will be many of them. It will be written in third person, but with the POV of multiple character’s expressed throughout (unlike, say, Down and Out, which 95% of the time only followed Julia). It is a William fic (if you didn’t know that was coming, either you’re a noob or you’re really silly.)

The nature of this story is going to be somewhat controversial, but please keep an open mind when reading it. I don’t want to give too much away, but to explain a little further, this isn’t a slash or anything like that. I just don’t want anyone to be angry about the main female character’s role in the story. You’ll see why once you start it.

Usual disclaimer applies: I do not know/own TAI or any of the members of the band (I almost wrote character there. I don’t own TAI’s character’s either), or anything/anyone else with a name you recognize. The situations expressed in this story are all fictional. However, Bryn, Harriet, Mary, Fallon, etc, are all my characters.

If you read the story, I would greatly appreciate if you review!

Love,
Heavyheart21 (resorting to old sn for the mere purpose of not wanting people I know to know I write fan fiction. Lol)

Chapter 1

“You gotta help me out
It's all a blur last night”

Waking Up In Vegas – Katy Perry

“Join our hands and come along, the day’s about to dawn. You feel it coming on and on, the hours upon you now, it won’t be long. You feel it coming…”, Bryn’s cell phone alarm woke her out of a dead sleep, and it took her a minute, in her darkened surroundings, to remember where she was. Harriet’s apartment didn’t have windows in the living room, and Bryn couldn’t remember where the nearest light was, so she felt her way around the edge of the futon mattress until she found her phone, which was still blasting the Phantom Planet song. It wasn’t until he groaned loudly and covered his face with his pillow that Bryn even remembered that William was sleeping next to her. And in an instant, clouded memories from the night before flashed before her eyes.

“Oh my God,” she moaned, “What did we do?”

“I told you you were going to regret it,” Bill’s muffled voice came from under the pillow.

“You did? I don’t remember that,” Bryn racked her brain.

“It was the last thing I said to you before we fell asleep.”

“I don’t remember that. I remember the other stuff, but not that.”

“Why are we up right now?” he pulled the pillow off of his face, “It’s pitch black outside.”

“You can’t see outside from the living room. There are no windows,” Bryn pointed out to him, “But we’re up because I have to go to work.”

“Oh good, I’m going back to sleep now,” he rolled over.

“No, you can’t. You have to get up too,” Bryn nudged him. She was still laying on her back, too deliriously tired to move.

“Why? I don’t have to work.”

“Yeah, but Harriet’s roommate doesn’t know you, and you only met Harriet last night. You have to leave with me.”

Another muffled groan erupted from the pillow next to her, and in one fluid moment he sat up. “Hand me my boxers?”

*****

Despite the early hour, the sun was bright and the air was already hot, and Bryn knew that it was going to be a typical sweltering July day. “Can we just never talk about this again, and pretend it never happened?” She asked; an awkward beginning of their walk to the train station.

William stared at her for a moment, before nodding his head, “Yeah, of course. Nothing ever happened.”

“Soooo….” Bryn used the filler to stall for time as she thought of something to talk about next. “What are your plans for the rest of the summer?”

“We have a small tour in a few weeks. Fallon may join us if she can get some time off work. It should be pretty fun.”

“Yeah… sounds like fun,” she couldn’t believe how easily he brought his girlfriend’s name into the conversation considering the events of the night before, but figured that maybe he was just excellent at pretending.

William talked about the tour, and Bryn half-listened as they walked the ten minute walk to the station, and upon finally arriving they turned awkwardly to each other.

“Which train?” William asked.

“Hmm?” Bryn still wasn’t completely paying attention, but brought her attention back around to him, “Oh, purple line.”

“I’m red.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah…” he exhaled loudly.

“So, I’ll see you soon, I guess,” she half-smiled.

“Yeah. Bye,” he made a move to hug her - their usual goodbye - but she backed away, and stuck out her hand for him to shake.

He laughed as he shook it, “this isn’t going to be awkward forever, you know.”

She smiled at him, but her insides were screaming, HOW DO YOU KNOW?!

*****

On the train, Bryn was busy trying to put the pieces together. They had started off at Angels and Kings to see a band that she didn’t really care about in the first place, and she remembered later, dancing in a club-like setting at a different building. What she didn’t have any recollection of was how they had gotten there, and then how they had gotten from the club to Harriet’s place, and why William had stayed. He could have easily taken a cab home.

Nearby, another passenger’s phone started ringing with T.I. and Rhianna’s “Live Your Life”, and another flashback popped into Bryn’s head. Dancing, no, not dancing, grinding with Bill at the club to this song. And he had, what? He had kissed her neck? She wasn’t sure if the memory was real or if her mind was playing tricks on her, so she took out her phone and sent a text to Harriet: Call me at work ASAP!

*****

“You’re late,” Bryn’s coworker Mary glared at her as she rushed into the main door of the library in a flurry.

“I took the train. The train was late, therefore I am late. Sorry,” Bryn offered the half-assed apology, not really feeling apologetic at all. Mary was only twenty-two, but had the demeanor of a grouchy ninety-seven year old cat lady.

“You can make up for it during your lunch hour.”

Bryn turned around, putting her purse in a lockable drawer, and rolled her eyes. Mary wasn’t even her boss, but she knew that if she didn’t take the fifteen minutes out of her lunch hour, then Mary would actually turn around and tell her boss, “whatever,” she muttered under her breath.

“Also, the reference section needs to be reorganized. You can do it since you’ve neglected to for the past three weeks.”

Bryn wanted to tell Mary all about what else she would reorganize if she kept giving her orders, but instead stalked off to the reference section to start her work.

A little over an hour passed, and Bryn had barely made any progress in the section. It really was a mess. So when Mary walked up and stood at the end of the long aisle to inform her of a personal phone call at the front desk, Bryn was happy for the break.

She knew where the phone was located at the front desk, but Mary accompanied her anyway, most likely so that she could eaves drop on the conversation Bryn was about to have.

“We aren’t supposed to get personal phone calls, so keep it short,” Mary barked at her as she handed her the phone receiver.

“Hello, Bryn speaking,” she greeted her caller, and glanced over at Mary, who had averted her eyes, but had busied herself with sorting through a stack of papers.

“It’s Harriet.”

Bryn could tell she had just woken up by the huskiness of her voice. “Hey. I hate to have to ask you this, but what exactly happened last night? I don’t remember much of anything past Angels and Kings.” She could feel Mary’s gaze shift to her as she spoke.

“Oh. My. God. Girl, you were so drunk!” Harriet laughed, “Bill was too. You guys were all over each other the entire night, well at least after we got to Visions. You guys were dancing all up on each other and everything. He was even kissing your neck!” She paused to laugh again, “You guys were so fucked up. It was hilarious.”

Bryn groaned, “How did we get back to your place?”

“We walked. You guys held hands. It was very cute. Bill originally said he was walking us home so that the two of us weren’t walking around the city by ourselves at night, trying to make himself seem gentlemanly, I’m sure. But when we got to my house he said he was too drunk to get home by himself - which was true - so I told him to sleep on the futon, and I told you to sleep in my bed with me.”

“But I woke up in the futon.”

“Yeah. You refused to get into my bed. You told me you didn’t want to wake me up in the morning while you were getting ready for work, but I know that you really just wanted to get with Bill.”

“I did not sleep there so that I could ‘get’ with him!” Bryn tried to protest unconvincingly. She knew that that was precisely the reason why she’d wanted to sleep on the futon too.

“How the fuck do you know why you did anything? You don’t even remember!”

“Not true I remember one part pretty vividly.”

“Oh, really?” Harriet asked, “And what exactly do you remember?”

“The getting with him part,” Bryn mumbled and turned away from Mary as she said it, but she could feel her co-worker’s judgmental gaze burning into her back anyway.