When I woke up I felt cold. My hands felt around the mattress and I took note that I still had my blanket on; so why did I feel cold?

I picked my head up off the pillow and glanced across the room. Vic wasn't in his bed, nor was he in mine.

He must've gotten up and left my bed sometime in the early hours of the morning. Warm golden light was pouring through an open window, indicating it had to be mid afternoon.

Suddenly the bathroom door swung open, thick steam rolled out and filled the room.

Vic emerged following the steam. He was wearing tight dark blue skinny jeans and nothing else.

"Oh hey, morning." He said.

"Mhm, morning." I replied, pretending to rub my eyes so it wouldn't be too obvious that I was completely staring.

I watched Vic throw on one of his signature short sleeved, button up shirts. This one was light pink and had little red lobsters all over it. I felt myself smile, thinking that Vic looked insanely hot in pink.

"Did you sleep alright?" Vic asked.

"Yeah, definitely. Thanks for showing me this room otherwise, I probably would've slept on the floor." I replied, sitting up in the bed.

"It was no big deal. There's no way I would've let you sleep on the floor." Vic said nonchalantly.

I smiled to myself at Vic's comment. I was a little nervous waking up today. The way Vic had acted towards me last night was something I had never expected. I didn't know how he was going to act today. He was so unpredictable. I was half expecting him to pretend like nothing happened and deny everything he had said to me. Maybe it was because he had been drinking and didn't remember.

"Speaking of sleep... how did you sleep?" I asked, peeling off my shirt that was matted in sweat.

I watched Vic's gaze flick towards me. He quickly turned back around to face a long stand-up mirror, continuing to button up his shirt.

"What do you mean?" Vic asked aloofly.

"Uh... you came and slept in the bed with me." I said softly.

"Oh, that. Yeah I slept fine." Vic shrugged.

"So you do remember asking to come into my bed?" I asked, a little more confidently now.

"Mhm. You hog the bed by the way, did you know that?" Vic answered. He spun around in the mirror and shot me a grin.

"I do not hog the bed." I rolled my eyes.

"You totally do. I was practically falling off the bed the entire night." Vic shot back cheekily.

"Alright well at least I don't snore, like you do." I snapped back.

"Oooh Kellin is feisty the morning after a party, noted." Vic grinned, his eyes darkening just a bit.

"Me? Feisty? I'm not the one who took a body shot off another guy. Or danced with another guy." I heard myself say.

I hated to admit it but Vic was right. I was feeling more confident than usual this morning and even though I absolutely loved every second of last night, part of me still didn't believe that Vic would do any of those things sober.

"Whoa! I never would've expected such judgmental words coming from your mouth, Kellin." Vic giggled as he slid his feet into his Vans.

"Wait, you weren't drunk last night?" I arched my eyebrow.

"Nope." Vic shook his head.

"But why did you act like you were?" I questioned.

Vic sighed as he rubbed his face. I watched his expression, he looked exhausted and confused.

"I don't know. Sometimes it's easier to pretend to be drunk around my other friends." Vic said, grabbing his snapback from the side table before plopping it on his head.

"But you didn't have to pretend around me." I said.

Vic didn't say anything else, he just simply shrugged and grabbed his phone from the bedside table, tossing me a spare towel.

"Hurry up and get showered, Quinn. We have to be at the fried dough stand in 30 minutes." Vic muttered before leaving the room.

After I showered off all the sweat from my body, I pulled on my clothes I was wearing last night. I walked down the narrow steps of the ship and out onto the boardwalk.

The salt filled breeze hit my face immediately and I squinted my eyes in the bright afternoon sun, trying to find Vic and Mike.

Mike was smoking a cigarette and leaning against the mustang, while Vic was sprawled across the hood.

"Hey guys." I said, announcing my presence.

Vic sat up and looked at me before sliding off the hood of the car. He gracefully hopped over the driver's side door and plopped onto the seat.

"What's up, Kellin?" Mike asked before taking a seat in the back.

I opened the heavy door and slid into the passenger side, scrambling to find my gold aviator sunglasses.

"Ah you know, the usual, tired, a little hungover. Work should be fun today though." I turned in my seat, answering Mike.

"It's actually just you and Vic today, I have the day off, surprisingly." Mike grinned.

I watched Vic intensely as he gripped the steering wheel and backed the car out of the spot, turning onto the road towards town.

"We've never worked together before, I'm looking forward to it." I said kindly.

"I'll be sure to hide the extra bags of powdered sugar. Just in case." Vic smirked at me.

"No fair! You've known me long enough to realize now that I'm just a huge klutz." I fired back.

We suddenly came to a stop outside of a medium sized blue house with white shutters. I quickly learned that it was Vic and Mikes'. Mike jumped out of the car and ran towards the front door, giving us a wave.

Vic lurched the car forward as we drove the short distance to the boardwalk. He pulled into a spot right behind the fried dough stand and turned the car off.

"Shit, I don't have my uniform with me." I looked up at him with frantic eyes.

Vic walked up to the back door and unlocked it, before turning to me, "My dad always keeps a bunch of extra sets in the bathroom closet."

I followed Vic into the dimly lit backroom before veering off into the bathroom to get changed.

When I was finished pulling on the uniform, I made sure to smear a glob of aloe on my face. My sunburn was getting better, but I wanted to make sure it healed properly and didn't scar.

I walked into the main part of the fried dough stand and saw that Vic had his back to me. He was messing around with the ice cream machine, it looked like it wasn't working properly. Vic kept turning a bunch of knobs and tinkering with a few of the switches on the back.

"Can I help you?" I asked and started to walk towards him.

Suddenly a large nozzle on the front popped off and strawberry ice cream started exploding all over the floor at rapid speed.

"Fuck!" I heard Vic yell.

"Oh my god!" I exclaimed, running over to Vic and kneeling on the ground.

"I'm going to go grab a mop!" Vic shouted over the noise and sprinted from the room.

I started grabbing a bunch of ice cream bowls from a nearby cupboard, holding them out under the stream of ice cream to try and catch it. The problem was that the ice cream was falling too quickly and the bowls were way too small.

I panicked and decided to try and hold out my shirt to catch the ice cream instead. The pink and freezing substance dripped down my chest and onto my thighs, sending my shivering. I grabbed the paper hat from my head, desperate to hold off as much of the ice cream as I could.

The hat was working decently so I tried to stand up to grab more but ended up slipping, falling forward. Sitting there defeated, while strawberry ice cream poured all over the floors I did the last thing that came to mind.

I put my head under the stream and opened my mouth to eat some of the ice cream, hey, it was my favorite flavor after all. I didn't get very far when I heard Vic laughing obnoxiously.

I sat back from the machine and found Vic, doubled over on the ground, clutching his stomach that was rattling up and down from laughing so hard. Tears streamed down his face as he tried to choke out words.

"W-what a-are yyy-you d-d-oing Kellin?" Vic giggled and crawled over to me.

"Uh....trying to help?" I smiled, shooting him a look.

"And you thought that... wearing it... and eating it... would help?" Vic asked, continuing his laughing fit.

"I like strawberry ice cream okay! I panicked!" I shouted, the sound from the machine still whirring loudly.

I watched Vic giggle and shake his head, muttering something under his breath before smiling at me in disbelief.

"Here, take this and start mopping up the ice cream!" Vic said, handing me a big yellow mop.

"But the machine! It won't stop!" I answered, mopping furiously back and forth.

Vic hoisted himself up on one of the metal counters and reached his arm behind the machine. He kept inching closer and closer to the wall before suddenly, the machine shut off and the ice cream stopped pouring.

"How did you do that?" I asked loudly, forgetting that the noise was gone.

Vic giggled again and slid off the counter.

"When I was grabbing the mop, I remembered that there was an emergency stop button on the back of the machine." Vic answered.

He walked towards me a little too fast and ended up falling on the melted pink liquid, crashing down onto his back.

"Are you alright?!" I exclaimed, before throwing myself onto the floor and crawling over to Vic's aid.

I grabbed Vic's hand and helped him sit up, scanning him up and down to make sure he didn't hurt himself. He had strawberry ice cream all in his hair and I couldn't help but giggle at the sight around us. Vic must've found the humor in it too because he cracked up laughing along with me.

"Look at you! You have ice cream in your hair!" I held my stomach and laughed.

"Well at least I don't have it all over my face and neck!" Vic shot back, gasping deeply as he tried to speak in between laughs.

We both laughed and laughed, at nothing in particular, until we fell into a comfortable silence.

"You're something else, Quinn." Vic said and stood up slowly.

"You're not so bad yourself, Fuentes." I responded.

I saw Vic smile to himself before he grabbed the second mop and started mopping the floor. I gripped mine and joined him, working from the left of the shop, moving towards the middle. After a few minutes we had almost all of the strawberry ice cream mopped away. I plopped my mop in the yellow bin, squeezing out the excess water before setting it down in the corner of the shop.

"Um Vic?" I asked hesitantly.

"Mhm?" Vic said, placing his mop next to mine.

"Remember when you came to my Dad's house, and you were talking about the music you submitted to college?" I continued, wiping my hands on my thighs.

"Oh I know where this is going." Vic said with a smile on his face.

"You do?" I arched my eyebrow.

"Yeah. You want to hear my songs." Vic said, plugging in a speaker that was sitting on one of the metal tables.

"Um right, yes, I do. And you're okay with that?" I questioned.

"Duh. It's no biggie. All my friends have heard my songs. Jaime, Mike, and Tony played the backing instruments on all the songs I submitted; I wrote them. We're all in a band called Pierce The Veil." Vic shrugged and hit play on his phone.

The sound of an acoustic guitar filled the room. I was completely taken aback by Vic's voice. It was slightly higher than I expected, it had this addicting twang to it, and he did the thing where his tone got all husky, it was something special.

Suddenly, electric guitars flowed through the speakers followed by the heavy crashing of drums. It was like an explosion of sound and it was hard for my ears to keep up with it all, even as a decently musically inclined person.

"What's this one called?" I asked.

"Yeah Boy And Doll Face." Vic answered quickly, as if he talked about this song all the time.

Vic's voice started switching between clean vocals and angsty screams as he belted out the painfully beautiful lyrics. Most of the time, I could easily pick up what the song was about because the lyrics were pretty simple or predictable. But with Vic's song, I had absolutely no idea the story behind the words.

It was as if he wrote out an entire plot in his head and put a melody to it. The words flowed together like poetry, it was so intricately written, anybody could listen to it and take something completely different from it.

When the music stopped, the room was filled with silence once again and I couldn't get one verse out of my head.

"Wrap this up

With a knife that loves to feel

How do you know how deep to go before it's real

Take me home

Can I even complicate your breathing

I guess I'm just your average boy

This is me"

I knew exactly what it felt like to not be special, to be different, and not in a good way.

I cleared my throat and looked up at Vic who was simply tapping a beat out on the metal countertop.

"Vic, how do you come up with your lyrics?" I asked softly.

"I dunno. I just started keeping a notebook with me during school and shit. I'd just write whatever came to mind or things I'd hear." He answered nonchalantly.

"Your lyrics are beautiful. Seriously, I've never heard lyrics like these before. You're insanely talented, Vic." I gushed.

"Eh they're alright. I feel like they're too creptic sometimes, like what if no one gets them?" Vic glanced at me.

I pressed my lips together, trying to figure out how to answer.

"I think... that people are really going to connect with these words, Vic. I think they're going to help a lot of people." I whispered.

I watched Vic's face as I said this to him. He looked perplexed, like he was deep in thought, somewhere completely different and far away from this room.

"I hope so." Vic said softly after a long, long pause. Vic looked up at me, his eyes glowing again, warm and full.

I opened my mouth to say something when my phone started beeping uncontrollably. I fished it from my pocket and illuminated the screen, seeing ten text messages from my Dad.

"Shit. It's after six... I told my Dad our shift ended at 5 and Lisa made a special dinner. I gotta go, I'm sorry. Maybe we can listen to more of your songs later though?" I asked, standing in the doorway.

"Yeah for sure. I'll see you later." Vic nodded and gave me a small wave.

I waved back, lingering my gaze on his for a few seconds longer, suddenly unable to look away. I eventually turned on my heels and dashed out the door, heading back to my Dad's.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

After apologizing a thousand times and mending things with my Dad, I found myself laying on the couch, watching a movie. Even though it was only 7:30, I had changed into my favorite pajama pants with snowmen on them. There was a knock on the door and my Dad signaled at me to go answer it.

I sighed, getting up and shoving my feet into my fluffy penguin slippers, trudging over to the door. I whipped the door open and was met with a smiling Vic. Oh my god. I'm wearing penguin slippers! Vic on the other hand... looked downright sexy.

He was wearing black skinny jeans that hugged his muscular legs in all the right places, a black button up shirt, and a dark red leather jacket.

"Hey Kells... nice slippers." Vic said, grinning.

"Uh thanks...what's up?" I asked, curious as to why he's here. We just saw each other at work.

"Are you going to bed?" Vic questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh. No, I just wanted to get into comfy clothes when I got home." I said.

"Ah, well I was wondering if you'd want to come to the boardwalk with me.... and the guys. There's rides, arcade games, and cotton candy." Vic smiled.

"Uh y-yeah, I'd absolutely love that. Let me just go get changed real quick." I answered, turning to leave.

"Wait!" Vic called out.

When I turned around Vic was holding a single pink rose.

"For you." He smiled wide, passing the flower to me.

"I-it's beautiful." I stammered out.

"I know your favorite color is yellow, but I saw this one while walking over here and it was pretty, and I thought that maybe you'd like it." Vic shrugged, looking down at the ground.

"Also, it matches your cheeks, you know, because of your sunburn. It's getting better by the way." Vic added, grinning at me cheekily.

"Ha ha very funny. Um.. I'm going to go change now. You can wait in here if you'd like." I said, stepping aside to let Vic in.

"Sure, thanks." Vic answered, making himself comfortable on the couch.

I grabbed a small mason jar from the kitchen, filling it up with water and gently placing the pink rose inside. I walked into my room and set the glass on my bedside table.

I rummaged through my dresser drawers, trying to settle on an outfit that could make up for this monstrosity Vic just witnessed me in. Was this a date? No way. He just brought me that flower to be nice. Plus, we were going to hang out with the guys, not by ourselves. It definitely wasn't a date. I settled on my favorite pair of black skinny jeans as well but opted for a hunter green flannel buttoned up and my jean jacket. I brushed my hair and tucked a loose strand behind my ear before walking out of my room, ready for whatever this night was about to hold. 

_________________Author's Note________________________

Hi everyone! Sorry this update took a little longer than I had originally planned.

What are your predictions for the next chapter? Vic and Kells going to a carnival? Is it a date? Is it not?

Friendly reminder to vote if you enjoyed :)

Also, how is everyone doing if you're in quarantine? This app and writing these stories for you all is helping me cope BIG time.

-Cassidy :)