Plain and Simple

A/N: Thanks for checking out the story so far. Also please review if you have the time, I'd really appreciate it. Plus, to cu-kid, thanks for pointing out those couple of mistakes, and to both you and Anon; thanks for reviewing :)

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Chapter Two-Live Talk

She couldn’t fully understand what she was happening right at that moment. Lying on her back in her bedroom, clutching a pillow to her chest as he stared at the ceiling she just couldn’t figure it out for the life of her. Sighing and rolling over she shifted positions and rested her head don her hands, which in turn sat on her pillow. Ever since she went out with everyone she’d had a knot in her stomach and it was irritating her due to the fact that she couldn’t explain why she felt this way. As she had been since that moment a day ago, she went through every single thing that happened before, during and after the movie.

When she thought of meeting up with the girls just after their school bell rang, she got no reaction from either her emotions or body. She then thought about meeting the guys at the entrance to the cinema, and she felt a small twinge in her gut and from there she desperately tried to determine the cause for its growth. However no matter how many times she thought about it she had no luck in pin-pointing the source. Sighing once again she turned around and grabbed her iPod which sat on her bedside table. Switching on the pink device she quickly jumped to The Ramones and tried to think of something else. Unfortunately once the opening guitar strums of ‘What I Like About You’ began playing the tense sensation quickly returned.

Burying her face in his pillow, Jess swiftly switched to shuffle mode and hoped that whatever came up next wouldn’t elicit such a reaction. As the familiar tune of once of Macy Gray’s songs filled her ears she smiled once nothing happened. Reaching underneath her bed she effortlessly grabbed the book ‘Twilight’ without looking and flipped directly to her favourite spot, hoping to fit in some extra reading time before she was forced by her parents to return to studying or call her down for dinner. Reveling in the first truly romantic scene where the main character Bella fell for the vampire Edward she could only wish for a similar, yet of course realistic, scenario for herself.

~~~~

“Geez, what’s eating at you today?” Adam asked over the microphone as he scored another kill. Earlier Mike had called and asked if he was busy, which soon escalated to a Halo match they had running over Xbox Live. Right now, though, Adam could see something was nagging at his friend when he noticed that he was beating the Halo freak of their group by at least five kills.

“Nothing man, I’m just not playing too well today,” was the tried reply he got which was accompanied with a loud yawn. It was then that Adam was able to ambush Mike’s character and soon he was beating his friend by six kills. “Shit! Where the Hell did you come from?”

Looking at his TV screen with a confused look he decided to confess. “Um, Mike, I’ve been following you since your guy respawned. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

There was no reply for a few moments before Adam soon began to here The Ramones playing in the background from the other end of his headset. When that happened, he knew something was wrong as Mike only ever played music, especially music he liked, when he needed a real boost in his morale. Unfortunately it didn’t help much as Adam soon scored the winning kill of the game by merely going easy on his friend and attacking him head on. Sighing as they went back to the pre-game lobby Adam forced himself to ask the question again.

“Seriously Mike, what’s going on? You usually don’t play that bad, especially during the holidays,” he demanded, as it was starting to irritate him how he never gave a real answer. “And don’t try and stifle that yawn, I can tell you’ve been staying up all night trying to figure out something for your art project, but I also know that isn’t the cause of your distraction.”

“Listen, I’m fine. You’re half-right, I am just tired from staying up all night with the art thing,” was the response he got. “I’ve got this general gist of what I should do, but I don’t know how to execute it.”

“Tell me and I can probably help you out.”

“Nah, it’s not that simple. It’s one of those things where I know exactly what it is down to the very minor details, but I can’t explain it in words.”

“Just tell me already,” Adam said as he grabbed his nearby Coke and took a sip whilst his friend figured out a way to describe what he was thinking.

“Okay, well,” Mike started off hesitantly. He’d never been truly confident with his art, even with his best friend of eight years, however he pushed on as he soon found the words to articulate his plan. “I wanted to focus on the aspect of emotions, and how to capture them in an artwork. You know, sort of like putting in extreme detail on the facial expressions and body language.”

“Yeah, I got you, the usual teenage angst setting. Go on,” urged Adam.

“Well, that’s pretty much it,” Mike finished lamely as he tried to think of something else to say. “But first, it’s not about teenage angst, do you realise how low I’d be marked for such a clichéd idea? Remember, range of emotions, so the main figure will be happy as well as sad. Also I’m aiming to put it all on one piece of paper, so no multiple frames for me to work on.”

“What about a canvas?” enquired Adam with a smirk as he could practically hear Mike scowling on the other end of the connection.

“Don’t even joke about it, you know how much I hate painting,” the black-haired youth shot back. Ever since he was young he never liked painting. He saw it as a lot of work, and a lot of effort got you something which looked nice and colourful, but with graphite and charcoal, if you put in the same amount of work and effort you could produce something spectacular. He especially hated the technique when his parents once signed him up for a painting class against his own will. “Back to the point though, got any ideas on how I should draw this all out?”

“Well depends, who’re you going to use to model for your artwork?” Adam asked, now intrigued by the concept. “I mean, is the main figure a guy or girl?”

His only reply was silence. Mike didn’t respond for at least two whole minutes while in the background, ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ finished up on the stereo and ‘My Sherona’ began to play. Confused by this reaction, or lack of to be more precise, Adam quickly thought back to anything he said which might have made Mike clam up in such a manner. Not even after a moment’s thought he already knew what the problem was.

“Please tell me you’re not going to ask Jessica,” Adam said finally, breaking the awkward silence between the two mates. When there was no response, Adam pressed on as he already knew the answer to his rhetorical question. “No. Don’t do it Mike, you nearly lost Lana as a friend because you came on too strong, don’t go through the same motions with Jess.”

Finally he got a response from Mike, besides the sigh that his friend let out before he spoke again. “Listen, nothing bad will come of this. It’s nothing, I promise you that nothing bad will happen and if something does, well you’re free to torment me for the rest of my life until I've reached my death-bed. Deal?”

Groaning in frustration at how easy-going Mike was with the situation he could only trust his best friend and hope for the best. “Fine, deal. Just remember, take it slow.”

“Hey, I’ll be okay,” Mike replied with a sad smile on his face, knowing that if something did happen he’d be the one to be rejected and fall into a small depression like last time. “And I will be nothing but charming with Jess, and try my best not to come off as a creep.”

“Yeah, yeah, you made your sale.”

“Well if that’s the case I’ve got to go,” Mike said as he began to get up from the couch in his living room. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow and let you know how everything goes once I make the call.”

“Wait, you’re doing it right now?” Adam spluttered, nearly dropping his Coke as he sat up abruptly on his own couch. “Like, right now as soon as you log off Xbox Live?”

“Yeah, why not?” Mike asked as he turned off his stereo, which had moved on from The Ramones to ‘Save Me’ by Remy Zero. “It’s not that late and I’d prefer to get it over and done with before I start fretting like a hysterical teen. You know that’s not exactly my style, right?”

“Uh, I guess,” was the unsure response as Adam soon relaxed in his seat again. He was mainly worried that their recent conversation would influence Mike a tad too much and he was right. It didn’t sit well with him the idea of his friend calling a girl he only recently started getting along with and asking her to model for his artwork.

“In that case, talk to you tomorrow,” and with that Mike signed out of Xbox Live and turned off the gaming console before grabbing his phone out of the pocket in his worn-out sweat pants. Quickly scanning through his contacts list he soon located Jess and before he could hesitate he quickly hit the call button.

By the time he heard the steady purr of the dial tone he began to internally freak out as he started to mentally berate himself for being so rash. Unfortunately that was Mike's second biggest flaw in his personality, he never really though things through. However before he could listen to his own rational thoughts and hang up, the dial tone came to a sudden stop and she answered.

~~~~

“Hello?”

Jessica felt that same knot in her stomach as she heard Mike’s voice filter in through the phone. Although she had added him as a contact after they first met she had never received that many calls from her, and only a handful of texts, and this call came as a complete surprise to her. However that wasn’t why she had that same feeling in her gut at that moment, as she still couldn’t figure out why it came and went.

“Hey Mike, how are you?” She asked, ignoring the feeling she was experiencing.

“Oh, good. Nothing much going on here. What about you?”

“Just the usual, reading ‘Twilight’ for about the fifth time,” she answered with a small grin on her face. Like Harry Potter Jack, Mike, Lana and herself were all big fans of the series Stephanie Meyers had started. That had also come as a shock to her when she found out Mike read those books as she didn’t peg him for much of a romantic, but then again he usually brushed it off with the explanation that he only read the series "just for the werewolves". Then again, when she thought about it for a moment, she had never seen him as a fan of My Chemical Romance, Blue Oyster Cult, The Ramones or even Queen before the previous day. “So, was there anything you needed or did you just feel like a chat?”

“Uh, actually there was something I wanted to ask you,” he said nervously. Absentmindedly toying with her hair she let him gather his thoughts while wondering what he was about to ask her. “Well, you know how I do art, right? It’s just that I’ve got my final year project to complete and I...well I need a model...”

She let him trail off as she realised why he sounded so shaky. Usually if this was any other guy she would’ve immediately hung up, not before she gave them an earful of insults and a promise that she'd cause significant bodily harm to them if they ever met again. However it was Mike, and she knew he was a pretty safe guy so she decided to press on.

“And what would this model have to do?” She asked tentatively.

“Nothing much, it’s not even a nude artwork,” he said quickly, hoping to reassure her he wasn’t trying to get into her pants, no matter how much his sex-obsessed seventeen-year old mind told him he actually wanted to. “I just need someone, a girl, to do a few poses in a couple of scenarios and once I get a few pictures of them I can do the rest on my own.”

Smiling when she noticed how nervous he actually was and what it would be like in his position she already knew her answer. Unfortunately for Mike, she also wanted to tease him a bit. “Well that sounds all nice and such, but who was your first choice?”

“My first choice?” he repeated naively, confused. “That’d have to be you, of course.”

As soon as she heard his response Jess found a faint blush slowly creep along her cheeks. She hadn’t expected him to answer with such a determined tone of voice, instead hoping he would have started stuttering as he would try and argue the case that he was not a pervert for probably the millionth time and reassure her that she was the first one to be called. Once again, by some insanely lucky pick of the draw, Mike had made an unknowingly charming and genuinely nice comment about Jess. And it got to her.

“Uh, well, thanks Mike,” she said as she increasingly began to play with her shoulder-length brown hair. Before she could continue she heard her mother calling her down for dinner and, knowing she should wrap up the conversation, she quickly asked Mike one more thing. “When should we meet?”

“You mean you’ll do it?” Mike asked incredulously, clearly expecting her to turn him down or at the very most not agree so quickly.

“Of course, you need my help and I’ve always wanted to be in an artwork,” she joked with a light laugh. “So, I’ll ask again, when should we meet?”

“Just give me a call tomorrow and let me know when you’re free,” was the response. “My mum’s calling, so I’ll have to cut this call short.”

“No problem, I’ve got dinner myself.”

“Well then, talk to you tomorrow,” Mike said, grinning broadly to such an extent he was sure Jess could tell he was that happy.

“Looking forward to it, see ya,” however before Jess could hang up she heard Mike say one more thing before he ended the call.

“See ya Jess. And thanks, this really means a lot to me.”

Pausing while she stared down at her phone she felt that same blush come back as well as the familiar knot tighten itself within her stomach. This entire thing was getting out of hand, and it was just plain infuriating and befuddling how she couldn’t control her reactions. It was especially confusing when she just then realised it was Mike who was the source of these reactions.