Dedicated to @Sweetandtoxic for her sweet comment on the last chapter and I hope you're feeling much better after that crappy day you said you had hahaha 

Chapter 16

It was awkward.

For some reason, it just was. Austin had been polite and cordial just a few hours ago when he'd met Alyssa and Warren, as well as when he met my great uncle and aunt. This time, however, he was quiet and stiff, bordering on hostile.

I would have cracked a joke about him being jealous of Will, but it didn't seem like that was the case. He just seemed wary of him in general.

Will felt it too.

After telling Austin about the whole camp thing and how the Idiots might have ended up there, he quickly excused himself to talk to his friends about going back early, looking awkwardly between Austin and me, before scurrying to a table on the opposite side of the room. I watched his retreating back until he was no longer in sight.

I nudged Austin. "Hey."

He looked at me. "Huh?"

He had that look on his face—kind of disoriented and lost. I realized I snapped him out of his thoughts. It wouldn't take a genius to know that there was something that was bothering him.

"You look stupid," I told him.

"Shut up."

"Seriously," I said. I wasn't sure how to ask if something was bothering him without sounding like I was worried of him. Because I wasn't. Really, I was just... curious, at most. "Just ten minutes ago, you were all, the guys seems pretty okay, and everything, and now you—"

He held up a finger.  "Did you—did you just try to imitate my voice?"

"What? No. I—no."

"I don't speak like that," he said. "And my voice sounds nothing like... that. Whatever that was."

Flustered, I looked away pointedly. "Shut the fuck up, I'm asking you what's wrong here."

There was a pause, in which I proceeded to try to not look at him while he, however, seemed intent on looking at my face. From my peripheral vision, I could see his lips move until a small smile had painted his face. "You're asking me what's wrong."

"No."

He nudged me. "You're concerned."

I looked at him with mock horror. "No. Why would I—how can I—I'm not—" I stammered out, which only made his smile grow wider. "You—you suck. You suck monkey balls."

Forcing myself to shut up, I took in a deep breath and tried my best to ignore the amused grin on the dickhead's face.

"Monkey balls," he repeated, sounding exactly like he enjoyed the situation.

"Fuck off."

"Red." He smirked, one corner tipping higher than the other. "You're blushing."

"Am not."

"Are too."

Annoyed, I raised my injured hand to his face. He recoiled instantly, almost as a reflex. It was enough for him to drop the amused expression, reverting back to his scowl. "If you don't shut up, this handkerchief is going to your face."

He took a step away.

I fought the urge to smile.

"I'll stop," he said for good measure.

"Thought so." My eyes head over to the direction Will had gone to. Seeing he was still nowhere in sight, I looked back at Austin. "What is with you and blood anyway?"

He shuddered. "I just don't like it."

I felt as if there was something more to this. If I tried to think of everything else that had happened to him so far, and I tried not to connect the dots. He was clearly uncomfortable about that redhead on the photo, as well as the word "accident." Then there was his apparent hemophobia.

If I added all of those, did it have something to do with the redhead getting an accident?

It seemed too convenient to think that way, especially since I didn't exactly know Austin that much. I quickly dismissed the thought. It wasn't like I was going to meet him again anyway after this night, and I had no business trying to figure him out.

He was still as much of a stranger to me as he was the moment he spilled coke on my shirt.

When Will came back, there were five other people trailing behind him, all in varying degrees of sobriety.

I wasn't sure if he noticed the space between Austin and me, but an easy smile was on Will's face as he  approached closer, getting within earshot.

"Do you guys have a car?" he asked us.

"Yeah," I replied. "We'll just follow yours."

"It's just the beach anyway," he said.

Only when we were outside of the bar did he introduce us to his friends, all of which I immediately forgot as soon as he moved on to the next. I didn't have to bother to know their names. All I needed was to find Tori and finally just end this whole thing.

They were parked six cars from Georgina. His friends headed towards their car, but Will stayed for a bit, as if he was about to say something, but seemed to have trouble saying it.

I took it as an opportunity to thank him, breaking the awkward silence we'd all fallen into. I would have reveled more on Austin's obvious discomfort, if only because I was still irritated by the fact that he thought I was concerned (which, in any way, I was not), but I was also beginning to feel uncomfortable, so I didn't.

"We're really glad for the help," I said with a smile.

Finally, Will spoke. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, that's all right. See you there?"

"See you."

With one last look, he jogged towards his friends.

I turned to Austin. "Is it just me, or do you not like Will?"

"Just you," he replied dismissively, heading to Georgina without waiting for a response.

I followed suit, but his whole behavior was still bugging me. It kept nagging me, somewhere at the back of my mind, because he was just as difficult to understand as Tori. In fact, he was much, much more difficult to understand. At least Tori was constantly random, if that even made sense, while Austin was randomly random.

One second, he was a cocky, arrogant piece of shit, and the next he was kind of all right (not that I would ever admit that), until all of a sudden he would suddenly close off and become somewhat uninterested. It bothered me, quite a lot, because while I wasn't the most social person, at least I almost always got a good grasp on the personalities of others.

I learned, over the years, to know how people would react in a certain situation. After being friends with Tori, watching her interact with different kinds of people while I watch from the sidelines, I just think I figured people enough to keep them from surprising me.

And confusing me.

Austin, however, was all sorts of confusing.

This was why, after strapping my seatbelt on, with Georgina's usual whining in the background, I decided to say, "You're not jealous of Will, are you?"

"What?"

He wasn't flustered in any way, which relieved me a lot. He just seemed honestly surprised and vaguely offended that I asked him that in the first place. There was already too much on my hands at the moment, and him being attracted to me wasn't going to help in any way. It would only complicate things further.

"Why would I be jealous of him?" he asked me, with a genuinely puzzled look on his face. "Red, honey, I hate to break it to you, but don't flatter yourself."

Gritting my teeth together, I took a deep breath and tried my best not to let my anger get the best of me. "I'm not flattering myself, dickwad. I'm trying to see what's wrong here. Clearly, you hate the guy."

"What does it matter?"

I threw my hands in the air. "Fine. Whatever. Just drive."

"Look." He seemed to have trouble keeping his voice even. "I don't hate him, okay?"

"Well, you don't like him."

He pulled out of the parking lot, taking his time to reply. Neither of us made a move to turn the stereo on. After a few beats, he said, "He reminds me of someone. That's all."

I wasn't sure if he was saying the truth, but when I looked at him, his jaw was set and his eyes were fixed ahead. There was a note of finality in the way he spoke, so I swallowed back the words I still wanted to say and turned away, resting my head against the window.

He was confusing.

I hated him.

I didn't want to dwell more on this new piece of the puzzle; this new dot.

Relax, I told myself, closing my eyes and resting my head against the window. Since we were basically following Will's car, I didn't have to tell him the directions. I kept my eyes closed, trying to erase every distressing thought on my mind, comforting myself with the possibility of finding Tori in just a matter of minutes.

I noted, just slightly, that he didn't turn the stereo on, and the rest of the car ride was fraught with silence.

---

"We set camp somewhere over there," Will informed us as soon as we all got out our cars. "There aren't any parking spaces there, so we'll have to walk on foot."

I nodded, stifling a yawn. "All right."

Austin didn't bother to reply.

I still felt slightly woozy from the nap I had taken on the car ride to the beach. Somewhere after our argument and the extended silence in Georgina, I fell asleep, only to be shaken awake seventeen minutes later by Austin telling me we've arrived.

He seemed tired as well. I kind of felt guilty for finding the time to rest, even though there was nothing completely wrong with that. Whenever I looked at him, and remembered the fact that he had only settled in this morning and was probably experiencing some jetlag, it almost felt like I was robbing him of something by taking a short nap.

If anything, it erased any negative feelings against him and our argument. I held grudges—a lot of them—but the argument earlier didn't seem as important after a few minutes of sleep. I must have just been exhausted and generally stingy.

"Check the locks," Austin reminded me right after he ducked inside to grab something from the backseat. I did as he told without question, heavy with sleep. I heard the sound of something being ripped, and I looked up to find one of his hands extended to me. "Want some?"

I blinked and focused on whatever he was holding. It was an opened pack of M&Ms. Not one to turn down chocolate, I took a few. "Thanks," I mumbled.

I wasn't sure, but it felt like some sort of apology from the argument. Like an offer for a truce. Of course, it might not be, but I was willing to forgive a guy who'd give me chocolate.

Will and his friends walked a few feet ahead of us, joking and laughing along the way. Every now and then, Will would turn back as if to make sure we were still following them. Austin and I shared the M&M's, which honestly surprised me because if it were me, I would have hogged all the chocolate to myself.

Even Tori had a hard time smooching chocolate off of me.

"You think they're not actually out to kill us?" I asked Austin, looking at the group walking ahead of us, just in time to see some guy purposely bump his shoulder with another guy, causing the latter to say a few expletives and the rest to roar with laughter.

They didn't seem like a deadly bunch, but it wasn't exactly a comforting thought.

"We'll see," was his response, along with a noncommittal shrug that obviously meant he couldn't care less.

"When they turn out to be some bloody cult who need the blood of two teenagers for a ritual or whatever, I'm not going to help you escape," I muttered darkly.

"Wasn't this your idea? You're the one who believed in that William guy."

"Will," I corrected.

"Same thing."  He popped a handful of M&M's into his mouth.

He ate them silently, a lot like I did. I didn't bite M&M's. I like to let them stay on my tongue until the shell melts for as long as I could. Austin was the same. Tori was always too impatient to do that, crunching into them almost as soon as they make contact with her mouth.

I reached for the pack in his hand as well. He held it between us, so I didn't have to ask, which I was thankful of. Call it prideful, but there was no way I was going to actually ask him for something, even if it involved chocolate—and that was saying a lot.

"Sometimes," he said, "your trust issues really annoy me."

He was so direct about it, it was surprising. "You trust people too easily."

"I don't trust them," he said. "I just... don't think immediately list them off as bad people."

"Is there even a difference?" I didn't even mean it as question, but he replied anyway.

"Yes. There is." He was speaking matter-of-factly. "You automatically dislike strangers. You judge them too quickly. I don't trust them. I just don't think the worst of them."

I knew he didn't mean to offend me. The tone of his voice was enough to let me know that he didn't mean to say it as an insult. He was, to be honest, merely stating a fact. Somehow, though, it made me feel as if he had insulted me.

It was ridiculous. He was simply making an observation, just like he did back at the club when he said something about me not accepting help from anyone, but I could feel his words ringing loud in the silence of the night.

"I don't like taking risks." I didn't know why I was telling him this, but I was. "It's pathetic."

"Nobody likes taking risks," he said. "But we do anyway."

"Well, I don't."

He sent me a small, cryptic smile. Shadows fell across his face, but his eyes caught the light. "You're here, aren't you?"

I almost stopped walking, completely taken aback.

Somehow, I hastily looked away. "I guess." I frowned at the sand, feeling slightly irritated because some of it had actually found its way into my shoes. "It's a first."

He nodded thoughtfully, but there was something in the way his eyes glinted that made me stop walking. "The first is always the biggest step."

---

Will and his friends had set camp somewhere over a slightly rocky terrain on the beach. We had to go over it—it wasn't really that big—but Will offered me his hand to boost me up. For some reason, I found it impolite not to take it, so I did.

"Thanks," I said.

"No problem." He released my hand, almost reluctantly. If anything, I was glad he knew his boundaries.

Austin hauled himself up with ease, completely sure of his footing. I wasn't sure if it was just me, but he seemed intent on not looking at my direction. We finished the pack of M&M's just a few minutes before, with him generously giving me two of the last three pieces.

"That's us," Will said, gesturing to the five tents set up just a few more yards ahead of us. There were around six people sitting around the campfire. The wind carried the sound of a guitar being played over to where we were.

"How many are you?" I asked him.

"Twelve," he replied with a slight laugh. "Seven of them don't live here. Friends from college."

"That's a lot," I said, already certain that there was absolutely no way I was going to remember any of them by the time we leave.

I realized, of course, that if there were twelve of them and I counted everyone present, that meant the Idiots were nowhere to be found.

We made our way back down the rocky terrain, back on the sand, walking towards their little camp. The air was humid, but there was a chill from the sea breeze. It was something I'd always hated—how the air can be both stifling and cold.

"We hope you brought more booze!" one of the guys sitting around the campfire had shouted.

"Damn, did Peter pee on the cooler again?" Will called back.

"That was one time!"

"Duuude, Peter peed on the cooler?" a groggy voice in the darkness asked.

"Yes," everyone chorused.

There was a groan. "Guys, that was two years ago. Will you ever let it go?"

Laughter ensued.

I scanned the faces, still clinging onto the slight hope that the Idiots were here, knowing it was futile.

I turned to Austin, about to ask him about our next plan now that we knew they weren't here. When I looked at him, though, I forgot what I was planning to say, the words dying on my throat. He was grinning.

"Dick?" I prompted, feeling cautious of this grinning creature that was clearly not the same dickhead I'd been with just a few moments ago.

He hardly noticed me. "Peter?"

There was silence as everyone turned to us. This didn't seem to bother him anyway,

"Holy shit, Peter, is that really—"

"Austin?" A lanky guy shot up from his seat on the sand.

 "You know each other?" Will sounded just as shocked as everyone.

"Austin. Fuck." The guy, Peter, ran over to where we were standing, almost stumbling in the process. There was a grin on his face, identical to the one on Austin. "First Lewis and now you? Man, I haven't seen you in ages."

I was completely stunned into silence to see Austin grinning so widely, looking so much like the way he did in that picture in the glove compartment. In fact, it looked better in person. I could almost see his happiness rolling off him in waves, revealing him in a new light that made me step back, blinking.

 Never had I expected to see Austin actually look this way. He hadn't been enthusiastic about a single thing up until now. From the sidelines, I watched as he charged towards Peter and they both did this complicated handshake thing that ended with them locking in a one-armed embrace.

His laughter kept ringing at the back of my head, like a song stuck on repeat. I was so dazed, looking at him, that I hadn't realized Will was talking right beside me.

"Wow," he said, shaking me out of my trance.

I knew it shouldn't have made me feel anything, but all of a sudden I felt embarrassed about watching Austin and Peter—who were now talking animatedly about something (and no, I was not looking at the wide grin on Austin's face, nor was I thinking that it looked good on him). Quickly shifting my focus to Will, I said, "Wow, indeed. Was he the same guy who knew Lewis?"

His eyes slid from the odd pair of laughing boys to meet mine. "Yeah. They're... uh. They seem like really good friends."

That, I couldn't argue with.

I wouldn't be surprised if Austin had forgotten all about me; or the fact that we were here for a reason that did not involve complicated handshakes and admittedly attractive grins. I scanned the rest of the faces, just to make sure that Tori and Lewis weren't here.

Most of them were staring at Austin and Peter as well, just curious faces in the dark. I caught around two of them eyeing me as well. I looked at Will.

"I guess they're not here," I said.

He looked around, as if to make sure I hadn't just missed them, before giving me an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry."

It wasn't like it was his fault or anything, and I would have told him he had nothing to be sorry about, but the words were lost when Austin caught my eye.

He seemed almost disoriented when he saw me, realization dawning on his face. It was like he had forgotten all about me until he saw me. Peter stopped talking long enough to look over at me.

The guy had a mop of light-colored hair (I couldn't exactly tell if it was blonde or light brown in the darkness). He was skinny and tall—taller than Austin.  Unlike Austin, though, Peter didn't seem quite as confident with his towering height. He didn't carry it with the same ease, so he mostly seemed awkward.

It was Peter who reacted first, grinning. "Hi!" he said brightly, making me step back in surprise.

Austin recovered with a slight cough. "Reed."

"They're not here," I simply said in response, eyeing Peter warily.

"Who?" Austin asked. I stared at him. It took a while before he slapped a hand to his forehead. "Jesus. Fuck. I mean, they're not?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

"Are you guys looking for Lewis and that girl he was with?" Peter sounded reluctant as he looked between the two of us.

"Yeah," Austin said the same time I said, "Yes."

"Shit, dude." Peter shook his head. "I brought them back here. Caught up on some things. Didn't stay that long."

The mere fact that they'd been here—that we were so close—made it hard to swallow back the disappointment I was feeling. I had to look down, focusing on my shoes instead.

"What time did they leave?" I heard Austin say.

There was a pause. It made me look up. Peter's mouth was set in concentration, eyes turned up, as if the answer was floating in midair. We waited, anticipating his reply, until his eyes snapped back to Austin's. "I don't know, man. Around thirty minutes ago?"

"You know where they're going?"

"I think they mentioned something about a party," Peter replied.

If parties were involved, I had a feeling it would be Tori's idea. I thought about it, my mind quickly scanning through the list of people who could be holding a party, but came up with too many guesses. Tori had too many friends.

From beside me, Will suddenly spoke up, "Why don't you stay for a bit?"

Both Austin and I turned to each other, almost in sync.

"You should!" Peter piped up from beside Austin. "Even just for a while. Dude, I have so many things to tell you, it's not even funny."

There was a question in Austin's face. He seemed reluctant, completely unsure. It was in the way his eyes seemed to search mine for an answer.

Maybe it was the way Will was looking expectantly at me, or the cheerful timbre of Peter's voice, or even just the fact that Austin seemed to be letting me decide completely. I wasn't sure what it was, nor did I want to dwell too much on it, but somehow, I found myself heaving a sigh.

"Fine." I could almost see Austin perk up at my reply. I wanted to take it back, and I would have, if it wasn't for the way Peter looked at that moment. I suppressed the urge, trying to convince myself I wasn't going to regret this decision, even though I somehow knew I already would.

"We're staying?" Austin sounded like he couldn't believe he heard the words right.

"Just for a bit," I said warningly.

When a grateful grin crossed Austin's face, I quickly looked away.  

---

Ooooooooh progress ;))) Look, I know this story probably seems dragging and repetitive and I understand that it's not for everyone, so if you happen not to like this, you don't have to continue reading it only to comment that this story is "going nowhere." To those of you, however, who seem to be enjoying this, thank you so much and I hope you guys like this. :) Sorry for the delay btw stay cool! 

Currently peeing in a cooler, 

Sam 

(okay i'm not really peeing in a cooler)