Chapter 1
I walked carefully along the uneven grassy terrain of an unfamiliar backyard, the sounds of crickets chirping and the leaves crunching under my shoes seeming extra loud since it was night time. I was walking pretty slowly to avoid tripping as I reluctantly followed my friends, Destiny and Matt to our destination. Matt had soon slowed to a stop though, looking back at me with an amused expression.
"Speed up, Penny. They're waiting for us. The party started half an hour ago." he jokingly said, almost laughing as he held his hand out to me.
I rolled my eyes with an annoyed sigh. "There's gonna be so many people there, they won't care or notice if we show up." I countered, but I grasped his hand anyway and we continued our trek as Destiny walked ahead of us.
House parties were not my thing. At all. I usually avoided them at all costs. Plus being Christian, I wasn't exactly into spending my night at some random popular kid's house, crowded by a bunch of strangers dancing provocatively to loud music. But Matt and Destiny had practically begged me to come along with them to this one, saying that it would be good for us to get out and do something fun.
I had reluctantly agreed, but almost instantly regretted my decision when I heard that whoever was hosting this party was doing it without the permission of their parents, who currently weren't home.
"Come on, we're almost there." Matt said to me as we neared the back door to the house, breaking me out of my thoughts.
Destiny had already went inside, somehow moving faster than us even though she was wearing high heeled boots.
"Why do we have to sneak in through the back door?" I warily questioned as we stepped through the doorway.
"I don't know." Matt cluelessly replied, shrugging as the loud music flooded our ears.
"The host of the party probably just wanted to make sure that none of the neighbors saw us and got suspicious." Destiny replied to my question instead, shouting a little over the noise.
"Oh," I reacted, nodding a bit. I hated how that bit of information made me feel as though we were doing something wrong.
Apparently my tense behavior didn't go unnoticed by my friends, since Destiny was quick to put a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Relax, Penny. Have a little fun." she instructed, me faking a smile before she excused herself to go chat with some people, leaving me and Matt alone.
"There's so many people here...." I observed, almost shuddering as I looked around the packed room.
Matt then gently smiled at me, that being enough to calm me a little. "It's ok. We don't have to talk to anyone yet. Let's go find something to drink." he suggested, knowing how I wasn't too fond of conversing with strangers.
"Ok." I replied with a light smile of my own.
It ended up being quite the task trying to find any drink that didn't have alcohol in it, even though pretty much everyone at this party was underage. Thankfully though, we had eventually found some regular soda.
I almost spilled my soda when I heard the music get impossibly louder as half the guests partook in some weird drinking game, others doing outrageous things like jumping off of chairs and couches.
I wasn't sure where Matt and Destiny were at this point, just searching for them among the chaos.
"Matt? Destiny?" I called out, carefully maneuvering through the crowd.
"Dang it!" I heard some random guy yell, causing me to freeze in place as I wondered what was going on.
"Hey! Everyone out! My parents are home!" he shouted next, everyone instantly scrambling around like a herd of wild animals as they muttered swear words.
My heart rate sped up as I attempted to head for the front door, hoping I'd see my friends over there. But I ended up bumping into someone when I turned around, relief washing over me when I realized that it was Matt.
"Penny, come on, we gotta get out of here!" he said, taking my hand as we almost got trampled by everyone running around.
"Wait, where's Destiny?" I questioned frantically.
"She's already outside. I told her I was going in to find you." he informed me.
I just nodded before we tried to make a break for the door. But that turned out to be nearly impossible with all the commotion, so we did the next best thing; hide.
We had somehow managed to find the bathroom down the hall, rushing inside of there and shutting the door.
"The bathroom? I don't think this was the smartest place to hide." I commented, leaning my back against the door.
"Did you have a better idea?" Matt countered, putting one of his hands in the pocket of his jeans.
"Yeah, how bout not coming to this party in the first place?" I sarcastically reacted just because I was annoyed with the current situation.
"Hey, you didn't have to agree to it. I was just trying to-" he stopped mid-statement when we heard footsteps near the bathroom door.
"Oh no. Someone's coming." I whispered, forgetting about our little argument as I internally panicked.
Matt and I were just silently freaking out when the footsteps sounded like they were getting closer, and we figured whoever this was, was probably about to come inside the bathroom.
Not knowing what else to do, I hurriedly hid in the shower, Matt following suit before closing the curtain also. We just stood in there facing each other, and I blushed as I registered our close proximity. It was at that quiet moment that I noticed how gorgeous his greenish/blue eyes were up close, and I couldn't bring myself to look away as I just stared at him. I'm pretty sure I saw him blush too, but our little moment was interrupted when we heard the bathroom door open.
Someone's hand then reached in on the side of the shower curtain and turned a knob, and before I could process what was happening, I felt droplets of water on my head, it soon turning into a full blast of water. I let out a scream as Matt and I were soaked, him instinctively wrapping his arms around me so I wouldn't fall.
"What the heck?!" the unknown person shouted, pulling back the curtain and freaking out when they saw us. The shower was finally turned off as this man in a suit and tie looked at us with mixture of shock and anger.
"Wha- why are- What are you two teenagers doing in my house? Did my son invite you here or something?" he rambled his confused questions, looking as though he'd just seen a monster.
"We're so sorry, sir." I swiftly apologized, feeling a little stupid in my now soaking wet outfit.
"This looks bad, but we can explain." Matt chimed in.
"Can you start by getting out of my shower, please?" the man sternly requested, us just nodding and slowly climbing out of there, blushing in embarrassment. We ended up having to explain the whole house party situation to him, and he mumbled something about grounding his son and giving him a lecture later. I tried to assure him that we weren't doing anything weird in the shower, but he held up his hand to stop me, saying that he didn't want any details.
"Do I need to call your parents or something, so you can get home?" he inquired, sighing a little in annoyance.
"No, that's ok. Our houses aren't that far from here, so we can just walk." Matt replied, grabbing my hand for probably the fourth time today as we finally exited the bathroom and left the house. We met up with Destiny outside, and after replying to her billions of questions Matt and I had walked her home and were now headed to my house.
Awkward silence was present as we trudged down the pavement, avoiding each other's line of sight.
I almost didn't think either of us would utter a word the whole way to my house, but just then Matt decided to break the silence.
"Look, Penny, I'm really sorry for dragging you along to this party. I didn't think it was gonna get that crazy." he said, just barely glancing over at me as we stopped walking for a moment.
"That's ok. It was kind of exciting." I smiled a bit before we both laughed some. "And I know you and Destiny were just trying to do something fun. I just don't fit in with that sorta thing, I'm sorry." I added.
"Hey, don't apologize for that. I like that you're so wholesome and innocent, it gives me more reason to protect you. And honestly, I think it's pretty attractive." he reacted, gazing at me with what was probably the most loving expression I've ever seen. Did he just call me attractive? "And hey, since you don't like parties, how bout we go do something else that you're into. Just the two of us." he suggested, butterflies erupting in my stomach as I realized he was subtly asking me out.
"I- I would love that. I like bowling." I managed to say, trying to ignore how my cheeks were redder than a tomato at the moment.
"Awesome. How's tomorrow night?"
"Perfect." I said, unable to stop smiling like crazy.
"I'll pick you up at 7:00." he stated, me just nodding as we cutely grinned at each other like idiots.
