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𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗞

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
up on the roof with a school girl
crush, drinking beer out of plastic
cups

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REAL LIFE

THE HOUSE WAS buzzing with excitement, building up with anticipation for tomorrow's activities. Tomorrow was the reason why Mary Jane had stayed in Los Angeles by herself for as long as she did, and she could confidently say she was absolutely hyped for it. It was Tina's birthday, also commonly known as TinaCon — a name coined by the girl herself. Well, not only that, but it was also the day that Luna was coming back, and she was already on her way to the house after her flight.

Mary Jane tied off one of the ends of her braids, letting a breath pass through her lips. One of her headphones was in, currently playing cardigan. She had managed to get ready for the day while being as silent as possible. Since she was now staying in Tina's room, that meant she had to accept Tina Time — which meant that the girl was practically nocturnal. She either slept during the day, or not at all. And right now, Tina was sleeping, which Mary Jane wanted her to do before her big day tomorrow.

Speaking of the big day tomorrow, Mary Jane had offered her assistance to help get some things ready upstairs so they wouldn't be so rushed later on. Mary Jane took one more glance in the mirror before looking back at Tina's peaceful sleeping figure, smiling softly at the girl. She honestly hoped Tina knew how much she was loved, because she deserved it all. Seriously, if there was one girl who encapsulated the word perfection, it would be Tina.

Mary Jane quietly left the room, careful not to let the door make too much noise so Tina wouldn't wake up, before climbing up the stairs. The house was pretty quiet since it was still a bit early in the morning, about ten A.M. Well, it wasn't that early, but considering Mary Jane was staying with degenerate streamers, it could be classified as that.

She paused for a second next to Ellum's room, whose door was open — a telltale sign that he was probably awake. Mary Jane peeked inside while leaning against the doorframe, only for a tiny smile to appear on her face. He was sitting at the computer setup in the room, typing something.

Mary Jane rapped her pointer finger knuckle on the wood of the frame, announcing her presence. "Hey."

Ellum looked up from the monitor, only to grin at the sight of her . . . and for his heart to skip a beat, of course. The usual. She was wearing an oversized Eras Tour t-shirt with gray shorts, but that wasn't what caught his attention this time. Not only was she wearing her glasses (which he would never know that she started wearing her glasses more because he said he liked them), but her hair was in two braids, which made her look absolutely adorable.

This girl. Seriously. No matter what she did, she was always finding new ways to make him feel dizzy. (It was the other way around too, by the way.)

"Hi, MJane," Ellum replied, surprisingly finding his voice. "Good morning."

"Morning," Mary Jane said, moving her head just a bit more into the room to nod to the computer. "I'm not interrupting, am I?"

He shook his head. "Not at all." Ellum then closed everything and turned off the PC before standing up. "I was just finishing up something . . . while also craving social interaction."

Mary Jane shrugged, locking her hands behind her back as she had to tilt her head to look up at him. "Good thing I'm here, then."

"Good thing," Ellum confirmed — best thing. "What brings you up here?"

"Oh, I told the others I could help set some stuff up for TinaCon tomorrow, but I'm not sure if they're awake," Mary Jane explained. "So, it looks like I'm just stuck with you." Her eyes sparkled, her stomach feeling quite fluttery at the proximity of them. "What a shame."

Ellum rolled his eyes playfully, shutting off the light in his room. "Okay. That one hurt."

Mary Jane laughed slightly, pushing herself off of the door frame and starting to walk down the hallway. "I'm totally joking. You know hanging out with you is one of my favorite things." She then lifted up her extra headphone, extending it to him as cardigan switched to The blue. "Want to listen?"

Ellum took the headphone from her. "I'm not so sure your headphones will reach all the way up here, actually. I'd have to, like, bend my head down a bit in order for this to work."

"It's not exactly my fault you decided to be so fucking tall," Mary Jane argued lightly. "Not all of us can be six five, Josh."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't be so short, then."

Mary Jane gasped quietly, slowly looking up at him as he started to chuckle. "Excuse you. I'm a perfect height. If anyone's abnormal here, it's you. Like, why are you an absolute giant? I don't get it."

Ellum laughed a little harder, moving his arm up to rest his forearm on top of her head. "And why are you the perfect height for an armrest? I see we both have questions."

Her mouth dropped open. "This is actually insane. MJ slander." She took her headphone back from him, shaking her head as she started to walk towards the kitchen. "I don't want to hang out with you anymore, actually."

"Nope." Ellum suddenly wrapped an arm around the front of her, pulling her back into him. "Like you said, you're stuck with me."

Mary Jane giggled, her heart pounding against her chest at the fact that he was practically holding her. "I take that back." She tried to move forward again, only to giggle more at the fact Ellum only tightened his grip on her. "Josh."

"You said spending time with me was your favorite thing," Ellum continued, starting to step backwards and taking her along with him. "You're telling me you were lying?"

Her laughter picked up again. "I—"

"MJ?" a new, very familiar voice asked, cutting through everything.

Mary Jane was brought out of whatever little bubble they had been in, practically hearing it go pop. She looked up, only to see one specific person standing at the front door with her hand on her suitcase — Luna. Luna was glancing between them intently, a smirk slowly spreading across her lips as her eyes glinted knowingly. Mary Jane's face instantly burned a brilliant shade of red, and she stood up straighter, clearing her throat to try and regain her senses. Ellum dropped his arm from around her as well, and although she was appreciative of that in the moment, she immediately missed the contact of it, and how it felt strangely natural.

"Luna!" Mary Jane exclaimed, trying to move past whatever the fuck just happened, even though she knew Luna wouldn't let it go. She rushed up to her best friend, wrapping her up in a tight hug. "Hey, welcome back. When did you — uh — when'd you get here?"

"Oh, like, two seconds ago," Luna answered, hugging her back just as tight. "Literally just walked in." She pulled back after a moment before focusing on Ellum. "Hi, Ellum."

He waved to her a bit shyly. "Ello, Lunes."

Luna continued to glance in between Mary Jane and Ellum as Mary Jane took a couple of steps backwards to give Luna some space. "You two have seemed to become . . . friends."

Mary Jane gave her a warning glance. "Um, yeah, I would say so." She looked up at Ellum for a moment, even though it made her face feel even more red from how they had been so close just a moment ago. "I—"

And then Mary Jane was cut off, due to being shoved out of the way by an immovable force.

She stumbled a bit to the side from the impact. Ellum managed to grab onto her shoulders, successfully catching her, before she fell to the floor completely. Mary Jane looked up incredulously, only to see that the immovable force in question had been one other than Noah, who had come out of fucking nowhere. She hadn't even heard his footsteps on the stairs. Noah didn't waste any time, saying absolutely nothing, before picking Luna up off the ground and holding her tightly. Luna laughed as he did so, her arms wrapping around his neck to hug him back.

"Jesus Christ," Mary Jane complained. She stood up straighter, yet Ellum still kept his hands on her shoulders — maybe to stabilize her, she wasn't sure, but she sure as hell wasn't complaining. "Why are you a brick wall, dude?"

"No, be nice to MJ," Luna stated, although Mary Jane could confidently say she didn't seem to worried about it. In fact, Luna looked much happier, like the sunshine just came back into her life — which, considering she saw Noah as sunshine, made sense. "Say sorry."

"Sorry," Noah voiced, even though it was slightly muffled by Luna's hair.

Mary Jane rolled her eyes. "No, you're not."

"Yeah, you're right."

Mary Jane shook his head. "Whatever." She turned herself around and took Ellum's arm in her hand, steering them towards the kitchen. "Come along, Josh. Let's leave the lovebirds alone."

Ellum leaned his head down closer to her as they walked into the kitchen as Mary Jane let go of his arm. "How much you want to bet they're not going to move from the entrance for another thirty minutes?"

Mary Jane looked up at him, her breath hitching slightly in her throat from how close their faces were, and she instantly lost all train of thought. It probably didn't help that at that exact moment, Luna's voice rang from her headphones saying I've never felt this close to someone, what if you're my weakness? Them and timing, Mary Jane swore. It was always something.

She managed to compose herself — which how, don't ask her — and scoffed as she pushed herself up to sit on the counter. "Oh, absolutely. I'll cut them some slack, though. They haven't seen each other in about a month."

Ellum shrugged while leaning against the counter near her. "Fair enough. So . . . it looks like you're actually stuck with me now."

Mary Jane nodded slowly, giving him a soft smile. "No place I'd rather be."

Ellum might've thought she just said that to be nice, but in reality, she absolutely did not. The truth was that wasn't another place she'd rather be — because, even though he came out of the blue like that, he was everything she wanted. Mary Jane just didn't know how to go about that, exactly.

＊*•♥̩͙•̩̩͙*˚˚*•♥̩͙•̩̩͙*˚＊＊*•̩̩͙♥̩͙•̩̩͙*˚˚*•̩̩͙♥•̩̩͙*˚＊

REAL LIFE

TINACON WAS OFFICIALLY beginning in half an hour, and even though she was streaming, Luna and Mary Jane hadn't exactly made it downstairs yet.

Noah had taken up most of Luna's time during the day, which was understandable, considering he was her boyfriend and hadn't seen her in quite some time. So, when Mary Jane found an opportunity to spend at least just a small amount of time with Luna, she took it.

Which just so happened to be when a lot of them were downstairs in Tina's room for the countdown stream. Luna had lagged a little behind them, obviously still tired from everything she had done over the past week, and Mary Jane accompanied her. They were about to go down to join the others, they just had to gather a couple things. AKA, bring water.

"Did you have a good performance in New York?" Mary Jane asked, shutting off the water once her bottle was full. "I would've watched it, but it was crazy early."

"I did," Luna replied. "But I don't want to talk about me, I want to talk about you."

Mary Jane turned to her best friend, raising her eyebrows as she screwed the top back onto her water bottle. "What about me?"

"Are we seriously not going to talk about what happened earlier?"

She paused, already feeling her face start to get warm. "I don't know what you mean."

"So I definitely didn't walk in to see Ellum with his arm around you, how both of you were smiling like it was the happiest moment of you life, and that you were giggling like I've never heard you giggle before?"

"No, you must've imagined that."

Luna tilted her head at her, a knowing look on her face. "Mary Jane."

Mary Jane — as always when she was around Luna — felt everything crumble around her, her defenses falling straight to the ground. "I'm confused."

Luna blinked. "What the hell do you have to be confused about? You like him, he likes you. Just, like, make out already, or something."

Mary Jane stared at her for a second. "What are you saying?"

She shrugged. "The truth."

"I'm sure you of all people can understand how complicated liking people can be." Mary Jane's voice quieted a bit. "How it feels impossible."

Luna's eyes softened slightly. "I do know. But there's no obstacles preventing you from going after Ellum, not like how I felt like there was with me and Noah. So, what's stopping you?"

Their conversation was suddenly cut off by Mary Jane's phone chiming from the counter, signaling she got a text. Mary Jane glanced over, only to see it was from Ellum, saying you coming down? Absentmindedly, she smiled slightly at her phone and unlocked it, sending back a quick coming. Once she locked her phone and put it back in her pocket, she saw Luna watching her every move, her expression practically screaming that she knew what was going on. Mary Jane let out a deep breath. God, she was too far gone, wasn't she?

Luna raised an eyebrow. "Think about it, Mary Jane. I mean, you said it yourself." She smirked slightly. "It's more fun to swim in the deep end."

With that, Luna turned around and walked off in the direction of the basement. Mary Jane stood frozen for a moment, not really knowing what to reply to that. She had written that, it was true, but taking her own advice was a little hard. Mary Jane shook her head and walked off, catching up with Luna. The two of them descended down the stairs, and the sound of voices got louder as they got closer to the room. Luna knocked slightly, not bothering to wait for an approval, before opening the door.

"Are those my girls?" Tina questioned, her face instantly brightening as they founded around the divider she had. "Those are my girls!"

Mary Jane waved slightly as she walked further into the — admittedly hot, since the AC was broken — room. Tina was sitting in her normal chair at her desk with Nabi in her lap, and Miyoung was next to her on a normal school. The boys, however, had fallen victim to Tina's very interesting choices of furniture. Noah was sitting on a rock, and then there was Ellum on the shortest stool imaginable (which happened to work for his height), looking undoubtedly handsome in his Kansas City Chiefs jersey (because karma was the guy on the Chiefs, after all.)

"Come in, come in," Tina encouraged. "There's ciders in the fridge, feel free to take one."

"Oh, say less," Mary Jane voiced, opening the fridge and grabbing one. "Lunes, you want one?"

"No, I think that'll be bad for me," Luna admitted. "It might knock me out."

Tina looked at her in concern. "That's right. Aren't you tired?"

"Oh, absolutely," Luna responded, sitting down in front of Noah and leaning back comfortably on his legs. "But you mean more to me than my tiredness."

Mary Jane opened her can of cider, stepping onto the carpet. "Real."

Ellum looked up at her. "You want my seat?"

She took another glance at the very small stool he was sitting on and let out a small laugh. "No, I think I'm okay. But thank you." Mary Jane then lowered herself onto the ground, sitting on the carpet next to him, close enough so that her shoulder was basically pressing into his knee. "I'll just sit on the floor, it's fine."

"The floor might actually be more comfortable than this stool, actually." Ellum deflated slightly at the look Tina gave him. "No offense, Tina."

Mary Jane giggled again, taking a sip of her cider. "Tina, I think the stool's cute, if that makes any difference to you."

"Thank you, MJ," Tina said. "See, Ellum? She appreciates my furniture."

"Tina, it's hard to appreciate your furniture when you're making me sit on a ceramic rock," Noah told her.

And that's how a whole other conversation started. Basically, all they did was just hang out and yap, which is something that they did best, about numerous different topics for the next twenty minutes. Honestly, just sitting there, Mary Jane was starting to make her feel all light and airy. She wasn't sure if it was from the alcohol, or how she was with her friends, or how she was sitting next to Ellum — maybe all three — but she liked the feeling.

(Also, Mary Jane would like to point out that Noah and Ellum acted like legitimate brothers, and it was kind of endearing.)

When there was about a minute left on the clock, Tina put on the song Freak, which was a song she frequently played in the living room. Mary Jane's smile widened, and she straightened up slightly.

"Thanks for hanging, guys," Tina announced. "It means the world to me. Thank you, I'm honored. I feel blessed." She nodded a little. "That's family."

Mary Jane's heart instantly warmed. She was honored to be considered family. All of them then counted down from ten, all the way until the timer hit zero — officially the start of TinaCon.

"Happy birthday!" Mary Jane exclaimed, her voice bending in a little with the chatter of everyone else.

They all put their cans of cider together and cheers'd to Tina. Mary Jane took her last sip out of her can, setting her empty one on the floor. She watched the chat fly by with all the messages and subs for Tina, and by tilting her head slightly, it just so happened to lean against the top of Ellum's arm. And perhaps it was the alcohol in her system, but she didn't find the strength in her to move it.

Ellum looked down at her. "You all right?"

"I'm good," Mary Jane confirmed. "Just a little . . . floaty. In a good way. I'm happy to be here."

"Well, I'm happy you're here, too."

Mary Jane felt her heart beat fast against her chest, and her stomach felt all fluttery. She glanced over, and momentarily locked eyes with Luna even over all the commotion in the room. Luna raised an eyebrow and mouthed jump in the deep end. Mary Jane slightly rolled her eyes, but she did start to think to herself. Could she actually do that?

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action next chapter :)))) actually action the next couple of chapters it'll be a sequence of events

tinacon should be a national holiday tbh . . . I was going to write out some convos that happened during the stream but I got lazyyyyyy