𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋. 𝙏𝙀𝙉 ─── 𝖲𝖤𝖠𝖲𝖮𝖭 𝟭
❝ 𝖡𝖮𝖸𝖲 𝖠𝖱𝖤 𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗘𝗦 ❞
❪ 𝙏𝘼𝙋𝙀 𝙏𝙃𝙍𝙀𝙀, 𝘚𝘐𝘋𝘌 𝘈 ❫

𝟣𝟢. ╱ ✷ ❝ 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 boys are
𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘀 ❞

"𝘽𝙊𝙔𝙎 𝘼𝙍𝙀 𝘼𝙎𝙎𝙃𝙊𝙇𝙀𝙎. Some are assholes all of the time. All are assholes some of the time. Well...maybe not all boys. Most boys are assholes. But girls...girls can be evil."

"Little light housekeeping?" Lainie asked her son as he bounced down the stairs, bed sheets in hand.

"Yeah, I was just going to do laundry." Clay tells her.

"You were? I've never seen you do laundry."

"Me either." Riley came down the stairs, phone pressed against her ear, "No, not you. I was talking to Clay and Lainie."

"I live to surprise." Clay tells the two girls.

"Really? Oh, honey, did you have an accident?" Lainie asked him, causing Riley to choke down a laugh.

"Did I...? Jesus, mom, no. I'm not seven." Says Clay, "I got hot last night."

"I can take those."

"I can do my own laundry."

"In seventeen years, I've had no evidence that's true. Riley is the only one that actually does her own laundry around here." Lainie reaches for the bundle of sheets, "I'm doing a load anyway."

"Thank you."

"Family breakfast in ten." She says, walking away from the cousins with the sheets in his hand.

Riley and Clay share a look before turning to the woman, "We're still attempting that?"

"Attempting and achieving." The older blonde tells the teens, "Riley, off the phone."

"I have to go. Family breakfast." Riley spoke into the phone, turning to go back upstairs to grab her car keys and her backpack, "No, I'm not bringing you anything, asshole."

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"𝗚𝗢𝗢𝗗 𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚, 𝗣𝗔𝗟." Matt greeted his son as he sat down, Riley following shortly after.

"Dad, we talked about "pa"." Clay said.

"Good morning, honey."

"Well played."

Riley scrunches her nose, leaning closer to her cousin and sniffing him, "Dude! Did you fucking shower? I feel like you didn't fucking shower!"

Clay looks at her with an offended look on his face, "I totally showered."

"I feel it's possible you didn't shower." Matt added, agreeing with his niece after catching a whiff of his son's stench.

"I didn't shower." Clay admits.

"Did you shower last night?" Lainie joins her small family at the table.

"Look, I just - I turned the water on just now, and I thought about it all, the whole thing, taking clothes off, dealing with hair, I just - I couldn't do it." Clay tells them, "Look, we shower, like every day, and it's just...a lot."

"Okay."

"Clay, honey..I need to discuss something with you." Lainie starts, looking at her son.

"Oh, shit, I gotta go." Cla stands up, yanking Riley up along with him as she went to take a bit out of her toast, "I'm meeting someone at Monet's for a school project. Love you, guys. Riley, drive me?"

"But my toast!" She exclaimed, being pulled out of the kitchen.

"I'll buy you something at Monet's!"

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"𝗖𝗔𝗡 𝗜 𝗛𝗔𝗩𝗘 a Triple Americano to go, please? My name is Clay. C-L-A-Y." Clay spelled his name, pulling money from his wallet as he points at Riley, "And whatever she wants."

Riley smiled at Theresa, repeating Clay's order but adding a muffin to it before she moved to stand next to her cousin, "I hate being here when I'm not working."

"Suck it up."

"Thank you, Theresa." The man in front of them grabbed his coffee and walked away to a table, Courtney Crimsen already there with another man - her fathers.

"Courtney Crimsen. What a pretty name. And what a pretty girl. With her perfect family. Coffee together, every morning. And you're also very nice, Courtney. Everyone says so. You're one of the most popular girls in school. And you're just so..nice. Right?"

"Wrong."

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"𝗧𝗬𝗟𝗘𝗥! 𝗬𝗢, 𝗧𝗬𝗟𝗘𝗥!"

Riley walks behind Tyler Down, watching as Bryce and Monty called out for the boy as he walked towards the school building.

"Hey, Ty-Ty! Nice ass, buddy!" Monty yelled out, both him and Bryce turning around and pulling their parents down to show their bare asses off.

"Hey, Monty!" Riley calls out, smirking at the De La Cruz boy, "Nice ass, baby!"

"You have an even better one, sweetheart!"

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"𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟, Clay?" Tyler walked over to the cousins as they walked down the hallway, "That picture's all over the school."

"Yeah. That can happen, can it?"

"What are you trying to do?" Tyler asked in a demanding tone.

Clay stops walking, "Anything. I'm trying to do something - anything - which is more than any of you did."

"Well, I'm the only one catching any shit for you, okay? Who the whole school is laughing at, the only one you've done something about." Tyler tells him.

"So far. You're the only one so far."

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"𝗥𝗜𝗟𝗘𝗬, 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 hell?" Jessica walks over to the blonde as Justin chases after Clay, "Tyler?"

Riley shakes her head, "I didn't know Clay was going to take a picture of Tyler's bare ass and send it around to the entire school. I wasn't with him last night. He left and I took a shower."

"Well, what are we supposed to do?" Asked Jessica.

"At this point, I don't fucking know!" Riley runs her hand through her hair, "I'm trying to keep him from doing shit, but he's hard headed, and I'm slowly freaking out, and I'm not even on the fucking tapes!"

Jessica looked at the blonde in front of her, lowering her voice. "We need you to be on our side, RIley."

"I'm not on anyone's side." Riley told her, "I'm on my own fucking side!"

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"𝙄 𝙃𝙊𝙋𝙀𝘿 𝙒𝙀 could be friends, Courtney. I needed a friend. I think you did too."

Riley sat in class between Bryce and Monty, everyone fixated on the photo that had been sent around of two girls - Hannah and Courtney - kissing.

"Who do you think it is?" A girl a few rows up asked her friend.

Both of them looked back at Laura, "Duh."

"I don't think so. I have gym with her, and she only wears sports bras."

"Maybe, I save my nice shit for after hours." Laura spoke up, the class laughing.

"Damn girl, you are slick!" Bryce leans up as Laura turned around to look at him, "Listen, Laura, you ever want to swing the other way....,"

"You'll be the last person that she calls." Riley smirked, leaning over her seat so that she was able to reach the girl.

Laura smirked right back at Riley as she glanced at Bryce, "Right before the police."

The two girls high-fived with a laugh.

A loud smack rang through the room as Monty records himself slapping Riley's ass.

"Monty! You fucking asshole!" Riley turns around, the two of them play fighting in their seats.

"Don't stick it in my face if you don't want me to smack it, Princess." Monty laughed.

"But you had some secrets that you wanted to keep, even from yourself."

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"𝗜 𝗗𝗢𝗡'𝗧 𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗪 what Justin's going to do." Jessica sat at the table with Marcus and Zach, "He says he wants to shut Clay down."

"Marcus scoffed, "We tried that."

"Clay must have listened to his tape." Zach says, "I told you, he listens to his tape, everything changes."

"He hasn't listened to his tape. He just heard Tyler's." Marcus tells him, "He didn't say anything about Jessica's party."

"When he does, he'll probably believe Hannah." Jessica says, "He won't know that she's lying."

"Clay's mom came to see Bolan." Courtney sat down at the table.

"What? Why?" Zach looked at her.

"What else could it be?" She asked him.

"Clay wouldn't tell his mom about the tapes. Hell, Riley hasn't even said anything about the tapes to anyone." Jessica said.

"Why not? He wasn't shy about Tyler."

"That would be so messed up if he told his mom." Zach says, "Riley, she - she's been through enough. I don't think she wants to have to relieve Jeff's death over for a third time. We all know what she went through with her parents' deaths." He pauses. "I'm with Justin. We need to do something serious."

"What? So your mom doesn't find out?" Jessica asked him.

"Yeah, among other people, like maybe your dad."

"What can we do if he's already ratted us out?" Marcus asked. "I'm on track for valedictorian. I do not need this shit."

"Yesh, Marcus, the most important thing right now is your valedictorian speech." Courtney says, brushing through her hair.

"Let's keep that in mind."

Tyler walked over to the table, "You talking about Clay?"

"Keep your voice down, dude." Zach ordered.

Tyler sits down next to Courtney. "Whatever you're doing, I want in."

"We're not doing anything, Tyler." Courtney tells the boy, "It's not like we would trust you if we were."

"This - this isn't fair." Tyler tells the people he sat with.

"Dude, get the hell out of her. Seriously." Zach demands.

"I have a right to be here, guys-,"

Zach cuts him off, "I will snap your arm in two."

"Let me deal with it." Courtney says once Tyler is gone, "Okay? Quietly. No snapping arms."

"We leave Riley out of it." Zach tells them, a serious expression on his face.

"For days after Tyler's picture went around, I tried to catch your eyes. You ignored me for weeks. But I decided enough was enough. I wanted to talk to you. I mean, we were in this together..weren't we?"

ミ⛧ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⛧ﾐ

"𝗜 𝗗𝗢𝗡'𝗧 𝗪𝗔𝗡𝗧 to be at this stupid dance." Riley mumbled as she leans against her boyfriend as the two of them stood with Leah and Jeff.

"Awe, she's mad that I made her come in a dress." Jeff teases his best friend, checking the girl's check.

"No, she's mad that I made her come to the dance in general." Scott smirked, arm wrapped around her waist.

"Is your cousin sitting up there?" Jeff asked as he noticed Clay sitting in the bleachers on his own, "He didn't ask Hannah to come to the dance with him?"

"Nope."

"Split up and get them to dance with each other?" Jeff asked his best friend.

"Definitely."

"Oh, come one." Leah looked at her boyfriend and friend, rolling her eyes at the two of them playfully, "The two of you suck at playing matchmaker."

"She's right." Scott agrees with Leah.

"Oh, really?" Riley raised an eyebrow, "Because I set the two of you up." She points between Leah and Jeff.

"And I set the two of you up." Jeff wrapped his arm around Scott's shoulders, pointing at Riley.

"Yeah, you did." Scott grinned over at his girlfriend.

"Okay, you both did pretty good there." Leah grins.

"We're gonna get the two of those to dance with each other." Jeff says, "If a slow song comes on, dance with my woman. But keep your distance, Reed. Six feet."

Scott held his hand up in mock surrender. "Aye, Aye, Captain."

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"𝙂𝙊. 𝙂𝙊 𝙃𝙀𝙍 her." Jeff sits next to Clay, Riley moving to the other side of the gym where Hannah sat on her own.

"Go get her and do what?" Clay asked the baseball player that his cousin had been friends with for years.

"It's a dance, right? Maybe dance with her?"

"I can't...you know I can't dance. We talked about this when you forced me to come tonight." Clay tells him, "And when you forced Riley to come."

"Riley was coming whether she liked it or not. I wasn't gonna listen to Scott's ass whine." Jeff shrugged, "Besides, nobody can dance. Look."

Clay looks out at the dance floor, most of the students dancing terribly and without a care in the world.

"When people can dance at dances, nobody likes 'em." Jeff tells the Jensen boy, "I didn't force you to come. We made a bet, and I got higher than a 'C' so you lost. Now, go. Come on."

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"𝙒𝙃𝘼𝙏'𝙎 𝙐𝙋, 𝘽𝙐𝙏𝙏𝙀𝙍𝘾𝙐𝙋?" Riley sits down next to Hannah, "You didn't want to dance with anyone?"

"I don't have anyone to dance with." Hannah tells her, "Don't you have your own date? Mystery boy's pretty cute. Dark hair, clean white tux? Why aren't you dancing with him?"

Riley laughs, "Jeff? No, me and Jeff are just best friends. He's dating Leah, and I'm with the baseball jerk that Jeff forced me to come with. And I thought you could use some company. So, again, why aren't you dancing with anyone?"

Hannah shrugged, "I was hoping that Clay would...,"

Riley smirked, "You like Clay?"

"Shut up, I do not." Hannah slaps her arm in a playful manner.

"Oh, you do. And I know for a fact that he likes you." Riley tells her.

"Then why isn't he asking me to dance?"

"Because, Bubbles, boys are assholes that have no clue when a girl wants something from them." Riley commented, "And that's why Jeff is over there trying to talk him into coming over here to ask you to dance."

Hannah laughs, "Are you and Jeff trying to be matchmakers?"

"You didn't hear?" RIley smirked, "We're starting a matchmaking service. You're both our trial run. Come on, Blossom."

"Did you just call me all three powerpuff girls in a span of just a few minutes?" Hannah asked with a laugh.

The blonde grinned, "Sure did."

Both girls stand up and make their way into the middle of the gym, RIley gliding passed Hannah and Clay to make her way over to Jeff, where was was walking down the bleachers.

"We gotta get the two of them together." Jeff says to the blonde next to him, both of them keeping their eyes on Clay and Hannah.

Riley laughed, "No, shit. It's like watching a terrible romance movie where one of them ends up dead before their feelings can be confessed to each other."

"Let's leave the lovebirds alone and get back to our date." Jeff tells her, guiding her back to where Scott and Leah were at, "Hey, Reed! That doesn't look like six feet to me, buddy!"