#he also made fun of pete wentz for not even being from chicago instead from the suburbs 😭😭 like okay

[mychanicalbrides]

soo apparently my dad knew pete wentz??? he was in a band called firstborn in the 90s and would play at a bunch of shows in chicago as openers, like they were everywhere you went. pete wentz was guitarist and my dad knew the singer becaus he made a zine for him... he never knew pete like directly but holy shit i was like What.

[earlgreytea68]

It’s my FOBiversary!

A year ago tonight I started reading this Regency AU about people I didn’t know. I stayed up all night. And then a year ago tomorrow I woke up and thought to myself, Who the hell is Pete Wentz? And then I found out. 

And if you’re wondering how I’ve spent my past year, it’s been learning this: 

That:

Once upon a time. 

Once upon a time there was a boy named Pete. He was supposed to be a lawyer. What he wanted to be was in a band. He wanted to stage-dive into crowds of people. He wanted to scream into microphones for attention, and to have the audience scream back at him. 

He wasn’t especially good at music himself. (What he was good at was soccer. Really good at it, as Patrick Stump will tell you. All-State in Illinois.) 

But what Pete was also very good at was two things that turned out to be super important to his future: emo LJ poetry, and Making Things Happen when they needed to happen (even if that made him the asshole). 

Pete was in a band that was touring and stuff but he was kind of getting bored. He knew this kid Joe who said, “Hey, let’s try a pop punk thing for fun,” and Pete was like, “Ha, that sounds hilarious, let’s do it.” (Pete was once part of a band where the members were only allowed to perform using instruments they didn’t know how to play. Pete had a history of bands-for-jokes.) 

At the same time: 

Once upon a time there was a boy named Patrick. He was super-good at music, had written it in his head for as long as he could remember, sang so well naturally that it literally didn’t occur to him that singing wasn’t something everyone could do. He was so good at music that he could be lazy about it, that he took up drumming because it was so easy for him that he didn’t have to put much effort into it. 

But by the old age of seventeen he was also super-disgusted with everyone around him for failing to take him seriously, when he was *really good at music.* Just because he was a *drummer* didn’t mean he didn’t write *awesome music,* ugh, it’s really rough to be sulky teenage Patrick Stump, let me tell you. (It’s also rough to be stubborn, control-freak Patrick Stump later on, and Patrick-Stump-who-has-such-a-beautiful-voice-why-doesn’t-anyone-respect-me-as-a-MUSICIAN-goddammit. Patrick’s a sweetheart but he’s also got the kind of effortless affinity for things that makes you very impatient at how long it’s taking everyone else to WAKE UP ALREADY.)

Anyway. One day, the drummer boy Patrick was working at a Borders and interrupted a conversation he heard two boys having about the band Neurosis. Because that’s the kind of pretentious music geek our boy Patrick is. One of the boys happened to Joe, who was about to change Patrick’s life and Pete’s life and his own life by somehow stumbling upon Pete Wentz’s creative soulmate in a Borders bookstore. But how was anyone to know that at the time? Joe just thought, “Wow, look at this kid who’s pretentious about music, I bet he’d get along with Pete.” So Joe said to Patrick, “Hey, do you know Pete Wentz? I’m starting a band with him and we need more people.” 

Patrick knew of Pete Wentz. Pete was in real bands. Bands that toured. Pete would be an excellent person to know in this scene Patrick wanted to get more into, instead of just know of. So Patrick was like, “Whatever you need for your band, I can definitely do it.”  

Joe called up Pete. Joe said, “Hey, you know that pop punk thing we’re going to do?” 

Pete said, “Oh, yeah, that joke band?” 

Joe said, “I met this kid Patrick, he could be a drummer or, I don’t know, anything. Here’s his MySpace.” 

At this point it’s unclear exactly what happened, although it seems to be that Joe and/or Pete definitely approached the meeting of Patrick with the idea that he was definitely not going to be the band’s drummer.  

They go to Patrick’s house. We know exactly what Patrick was wearing because Pete tells us: He wore shorts, knee socks, and an argyle sweater. Pete thought this kid and his outfit were kind of amazing. Patrick, when he tells this story, say that his first impression of Pete was he thought he would be taller. 

Patrick, apparently, sang. According to some accounts, he sang Through Being Cool. Pete said, “Yo, we’re going to make you our singer,” and Patrick was like, “But...I don’t really sing,” and Pete was like, “You definitely sing,” and Patrick was like, “I guess, man, whatever, can the band play my music?” because that’s really what Patrick wanted at that point, and Pete was like, “Sure.” 

It was a joke band. Pete had a serious band. It would have been ridiculous for Pete to leave his band for this pop punk thing with a couple of kids. In fact, Patrick actually held songs back, kept them in his pocket, assuming the band wasn’t going to work out and he would need them for when he struck out on his own. He was building connections, he was using Pete Wentz for everyone he knew, he was hiding his favorite songs and riding this whole thing out. 

But the thing about Pete Wentz: He’s smart. Always smarter than he acts. Joe in a Borders had stumbled across a one-in-a-million find, a kid with a once-in-a-lifetime voice, a huge reserve of natural talent, someone who was preternaturally good at music to make up for Pete’s lack of that. Pete looked at this kid and thought, He’s a golden ticket, and held on tight, and never really let go. 

Patrick was a restless kid, with one foot half out the door. When he tried to quit the band, Pete said “NO, NO, THIS IS THE SERIOUS BAND NOW. I AM DEDICATING MYSELF TO THIS BAND.”  

And he did. 

He broke up with his other band and he devoted himself to Fall Out Boy. (In fact, Pete’s the one who originally registered their trademark, charmingly listing his AOL email as the band’s contact info. Letting one person in the band trademark the name is exactly what a lawyer would never want you to do, but, because Pete’s a good guy, he transferred the mark over to the band’s corporation once they were big enough to incorporate.)

And Pete said to himself, “We are getting ourselves a record deal, now that I have dedicated myself to this band.” This is how Pete is: If someone needs to make something get done, it’s Pete who does it, and if he has to be an asshole to do it, then so be it. Patrick, in the later years, will give interviews constantly defending Pete, marveling at the impression people have of him, begging people to understand that he’s a nice guy who’s a great friend (Patrick, of course, is Pete’s favorite, and the beneficiary of most of Pete’s single-minded get-it-done-ness, so he’s possibly somewhat biased). 

So the band makes a demo. Pete goes to the guy who will eventually produce their first album and says, “Hey, I’ve got this, like, joke band, can you listen to it?” The producer was like, "Who's the singer?" And Pete was like, "Patrick. I think he said you recorded one of his former bands." Which was true. So the producer was like, "Patrick, the drummer kid?" and promptly never listened to the demo, because he was like, "Pete has lost his mind" and moved on. 

And then eventually when he finally heard Patrick sing he was like, ......oh.

The producer is recording this other band, and this other band was, like, the first band in this particular Chicago scene who had made it this far. So this band has this deal and the producer is super stressed out about it because it's his first kind of chance to prove himself to a major label and the band, it turns out, is terrible with vocal harmony, like, just awful, and the producer is like, “What the fuck is this, we can't give the label this.” 

So he tells the band they need to go out and find someone to do harmonies for them, and the band starts asking around, and hey, wouldn't you know it, a rumor had begun that you know who's aces at vocal harmony? That kid Patrick. (I BET I KNOW WHO STARTED THAT RUMOR.) So the band says to the producer, "We're getting Patrick to come do the harmonies" and the producer is like, "WHAT IS WITH EVERYONE AND THIS KID PATRICK ALL OF A SUDDEN.”

So Patrick comes in to the studio, and literally he is a child in high school. The producer remembered him as a fourteen-year-old, but he’s still only seventeen now. He had to keep calling his mom to extend his curfew. So Patrick comes in and they're all ordering lunch, so they ask Patrick what he wants and Patrick is like, "no, no, I don't want to eat anything before I sing," and the producer is like, "look at this pretentious kid.” So he's like, "okay, whatever, go record some stuff.” 

And then Patrick starts singing. 

And the producer is like, WHAT THE FUCK IS EVEN HAPPENING. 

And keeps Patrick in the recording booth for like thirteen hours or something, with no food, with Patrick periodically calling his mom to be like, “Nope, still recording.” 

So then the producer went back and listened to Pete's demos.

You see, it was a slow gradual shift from joke band to “hang on, maybe something is going to come of this.” For everyone but Pete, who seems to have never doubted and always been all-in. 

It starts with Take This to Your Grave. 

No, it starts with Evening Out with Your Girlfriend, but Patrick is cranky about that one. 

So it starts with Take This to Your Grave. They record fast and cheap, because they have no other option. Pete is hiding from his parents because he’s supposed to be in school. Patrick writes the songs and Pete nitpicks the lyrics so intensely that they have vicious fights about it and sometimes the rest of the band isn’t sure the album’s going to get made. Patrick is so annoyed at Pete’s rewrites that he has a sudden revelation: “Wow. I must really want to be in this band.” Even for Patrick, it has gradually gone from an opportunistic joke to a real possibility for a future. Patrick struggles to write lyrics with Pete, but eventually becomes so exhausted by Pete’s dedication to his particular ~~visions that he’s like, “OH MY GOD, IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE SO PICKY, YOU COULD JUST WRITE THE LYRICS AND I’LL WRITE THE SONGS AROUND THEM,” and Pete’s like, “Oh, cool, let me go get you all of my emo LJ entries we can use,” and so that’s how that arrangement starts: Pete feeds stream-of-consciousness poetry and Patrick makes music out of it. 

The first song they write together successfully is “Saturday.” It’s the first song they don’t have a knock-down, drag-out fight over (and Patrick is not shy about throwing a punch at Pete at times). And it’s a song explicitly about them. The lyric reads “Pete and I attacked the Lost Astoria,” but Pete claims he wrote it with Patrick’s name and it was switched up for Patrick to sing. “Me and Pete,” Patrick sings at the end. And it’s this song -- this first song of successful collaboration, this song that’s all about them -- that they still play at the end of every concert. (In the video, Patrick plays a detective chasing down Pete’s charming serial killer whose calling card is the Queen of Hearts, until the plot twist where they’re actually the same person.)

The buzz around their joke band is building. Their shows start turning into near-riots (because Patrick is just that good when he sings). Pete stage-dives into crowds and lets audiences shout lyrics at him. Where is your boy tonight? Boys like you are overrated. Two more weeks. They fantasize about playing bigger venues, not Wrigley or anything, because who would aim for that, but just shows where they’re getting paid in more than pizza. Pete is beating down the door at indie labels, with a strategy of landing them a small deal to build a fanbase before springing up to a major record label. He tours the band with exhausted determination, in a broken-down van. At one point, Patrick has to break the news to his family that he’s going to delay college because he’s got this band he’s in. They’re like, “What do you do in this band?” He’s like, “Oh, I’m the singer,” and his family is like, “...You sing?” 

Because Patrick’s a singer because Pete saw it in him, Pete wanted him to be. Patrick sings Pete’s words; Pete sings through Patrick. 

The producer finishes up Take This to Your Grave while they’re on tour. When they get back, Patrick is pleased with it. He’s the kind of perfectionist who spends all night on thirty seconds of feedback at the end of a song, but the producer knows what he was going for and Patrick’s happy. 

Pete wants his screaming to be louder, so he goes back into the studio to re-record his screams. 

Pete’s plan eventually works perfectly. They start small. They build a following. They land a major record label. 

Pete Wentz suddenly finds himself, with his joke band, staring directly at the future he dreamed of. 

And it drives him into a panic. He engineered their strategy. He held them together. He bought Patrick a hat when he worried about not wanting to see the audience while he sang, and he promised to be the frontman, the on-stage presence, the complement to Patrick’s musical talent. Together, he and Patrick are two halves of one perfect rock star.  

And Pete Wentz is panicking. 

(TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE)

The band keeps scrapping songs and writing new ones, unable to get exactly what they want. Pete, terrified of letting his band down, plummeting into a depressive episode of his bipolar disorder, isolates himself, handing lyrics over and then going back into hiding. Overwhelmed, he takes too much Ativan in a Best Buy parking lot. He says later he wasn’t trying to kill himself, just shut his brain up for a little while. (He talks often about needing a creative outlet; he writes often about his brain being a noisy place.) He says later that he remembers Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” on the radio. He says later that he felt exhausted by the act of being Pete Wentz, that he was so much Pete Wentz for everyone that he forgot to be it for himself. 

A phone call to his manager saves him. He doesn’t die in that Best Buy parking lot. He spends a week in the hospital before moving back in with his parents. His band goes to Europe without him, struggles through shows without their epicenter. 

The suicide attempt is a discernible thread through Pete’s lyrics through the years. Also discernible, it seems, is a promise made to Patrick: not to do it again. 

~~~~~~~~~

The band regroups. The band writes a number of songs in a frantic two-week session, including “Sugar, We’re Goin Down,” which Patrick claims later to write in ten minutes, fooling around, and then says to the band, “I just paid for our kids to go to college with this song.” The album’s producer agrees. He signs on after hearing their demos of “Sugar” and “Dance, Dance,” two songs he predicts will be smash hits.

They are. Only after Pete once again goes to bat for the vision he wants, because the record label hates the refrain of “Sugar,” calling it too wordy. Pete wins, in basically every way he could win. 

His joke band’s a big deal now. His joke band gets nominated for a Grammy. Patrick, at the Grammy ceremony, realizes, “Huh. I...think I’m a singer now. I should probably take this seriously and, like, get lessons or something.” (This is, incidentally, why he’s so difficult to understand, as it was a while before he learned proper enunciation. In the beginning, he sometimes wrote songs out of his vocal range by accident.) 

They tour. They write. They promote. Pete keeps up a steam of Q&A’s at their fan website, patiently giving advice on relationship break-ups and losing loved ones, and talking about how hot Patrick is whenever he gets a chance. 

He makes up a string of nicknames for Patrick, then tells the fans they’re not allowed to use them, only Pete can use them. 

(Patrick says later he has no nicknames, but Pete, as ever, makes his own reality.) 

He says that he makes Patrick sing his favorite songs to him whenever he wants.

He says that Patrick is so perfect he basically dreamed him up. 

He says that he always wants to be wherever Patrick is. 

Patrick is his true blue.

Pete is always the source of Patrick’s loudest applause. Pete would take a bullet for him. “Patrick is the only reason anyone will ever listen to this band,” says Pete. 

“Pete’s lyrics are ninety percent of the reason anyone listens to Fall Out Boy,” says Patrick. 

They’re like that, these two. 

They descend into what the New York Times at one point refers to as their “creative exclusivity.” They talk of never having a friendship ever before like the one they share. They reference cryptophasia in how they communicate. Their long-suffering bandmate Joe suggests they should just get married already, and they respond, “We are.” 

Pete teases Patrick about wanting to do him, whispers in his ear at concerts, leans on him or curls close, kisses him on the cheek. 

And always, they finish with Saturday. 

They write Infinity on High quickly and easily and it’s a huge hit, but in the meantime Pete’s gone down in infamy with one of the first viral dick pic leaks and Patrick’s had to talk him out of quitting the band, the same way Pete did for him years earlier. Patrick goes into protective mode, defending Pete far and wide to anyone who will listen. Patrick gives interviews where he says he wishes people understood who Pete is, how he’s loyal to a fault, how he’s Patrick’s best friend. “What do you wish people knew about Fall Out Boy?” people ask him. “What do you wish people would ask you?” “How great Pete is,” Patrick says. 

But, you see. 

Patrick is tired. 

They’ve been touring non-stop for years now. Patrick skipped college in favor of Fall Out Boy. Patrick has grown up on-stage next to Pete. And Pete’s five years older, but Patrick’s been supervising him all this time. Pete’s the sort who thinks it’s a good idea to jump off a roof holding a patio umbrella. Pete once took to throwing bowling balls overhand around a luxury hotel suite they were in. Patrick has perfected the rolling of his eyes and the careful, nonjudgmental removal of himself from the more questionable situations. When Pete, convinced he would die at the age of 27, turned 28, it was Patrick who received the calls of congratulations for having gotten Pete through. 

And Patrick is tired. 

And Pete is in a whirligig of fame. Patrick’s best friend is still shorter than he thought he would be, is still a good person to know, is still loyal and smart, is still a poet who sends Patrick lyrics for him to mine, picking together pieces from here and there, archeology of Pete’s soul. Patrick will say later that what he does is write the score for Pete’s life. 

Pete is still his best friend. It’s just that Patrick’s best friend is now also very famous. They’re a big-deal band, and Pete is far more than the bassist. Pete is the showman; Pete is the onstage banter; Pete, Patrick will say, is the singer, he just sings through Patrick.  

When Pete gets married, Patrick’s the best man, just as Pete will later be Patrick’s. But when Pete gets married, the wedding photos are on the cover of People Weekly. 

Writing the album that will come to be Folie a Deux is a struggle. They fight more than they have in years. Patrick spends most of his time in the studio. Pete waltzes in and out, criticizing what Patrick’s doing. Once, they get into a physical fight over chord progressions. After phone conversations with Pete, Patrick throws things around the studio. Pete has descended into a haze of prescription pills, because Hollywood doctors will give you anything, and, hey, if a doctor handed them to you, it must be okay, right?  

Patrick remembers touring for Folie as being a disaster. This is possibly for reasons other than the tour itself, because the rest of the band seems to disagree. At any rate, it is Patrick who asks for a break. Patrick says they need to take a breath or they’ll end up hating each other. Pete doesn’t seem to take this very well. 

They release “What a Catch, Donnie,” a rare ballad that ends with a medley of their greatest hits. In the video, a lonely Patrick collects the detritus of Fall Out Boy’s success. He gets a happy ending, joined in the end by the rest of the band and all of their friends. Notably absent is Pete, who puts himself on a sinking ship and leaves everyone else partying joyfully without him. 

The hiatus begins.  

Pete says it feels permanent. 

Patrick embarks on what at first seems like a fun passion side project, and then increasingly gets more pressure put on it as the hiatus drags on and Pete says he can’t imagine ever playing for Fall Out Boy ever again, can’t imagine the band ever getting back together. Patrick is still writing songs for Fall Out Boy that he tucks away for “someday,” says he would still take a bullet for Pete Wentz, but it feels increasingly like maybe he’s a solo artist now. 

Pete starts another band and finds himself a female lead singer, because, he says, he can’t replace Patrick. But they feel increasingly separate. Fall Out Boy feels increasingly in the past. Patrick tours on his solo material without his trademark hats. He bleaches his ginger hair blonde and sticks devil horns on his head. If once he had Pete for the showmanship side of rock-stardom, Patrick steps forward to be the whole thing now. 

But the thing is. The thing is that one day Patrick posts an angry, frustrated, lonely, unhappy blog entry. Oversharing on the internet: used to be a Pete Wentz thing, becomes a Patrick Stump thing. But Pete Wentz knows what that kind of oversharing means. 

Pete reads the entry. Pete considers his friend, furious at being a has-been at 27. Pete paces. Pete thinks about how tough it is to call your ex after a bad breakup. But Pete does it. The reunion sex might be great, after all. 

Pete says to Patrick, “You need your band.” He says, “We built each other’s houses and you don’t even know my kid.” He says, “I need a creative outlet, can we try writing?” 

He says Patrick agrees not because he wants to, but because he’s a nice guy. 

But Patrick’s got Fall Out Boy songs tucked in a drawer somewhere. Patrick always wanted a pause, not a full stop. 

They write. 

They get nowhere the first session, but they write. 

They write well enough to try it again, and then they write “Where Did the Party Go?” 

And then they write. 

They get the band back together. It takes Patrick six hours on the phone with Joe, Joe with his successful new projects and his butting up against Patrick’s stubborn control over the music, but Patrick makes promises and they get the band back together. 

“I wouldn’t hold my breath for a Fall Out Boy reunion,” Pete tells the press. 

The next day, there’s a Fall Out Boy reunion. There’s a new single, recycling a lyrical line Pete first wrote years earlier and that they liked enough to revive. There’s a new album, and on it is a song written by Patrick during the hiatus, about hot whiskey eyes. I miss you missing me, Pete wrote in a poem during the Folie era of their lives. I miss missing you, writes Patrick. 

They tour. Not the tour of small venues they thought they would have because no one would care, even though that very first show people waited hours outside in the Chicago cold and the crowd was so loud Patrick could barely hear himself. No, they shift to arenas. Patrick has to find a way to sing live songs he thought they’d never tour on because no one would ever want to hear them. 

They write another album, fast and easy like the old days. It’s history repeating but they get to do it right. They write songs with lyrics that say And in the end, I’d do it all again. And I think you’re my best friend. And I’m yours. 

For the third album of their second chance, Pete writes, I’ve lived so much life God is gonna have to kill me twice. A far cry from the lyrics from the first album of their first chance: I read about the afterlife but I never really lived more than an hour.

They perform. Sometimes Pete still stage-dives. Always the crowd shouts his words at him. Always Patrick makes those words beautiful. 

Always they end with me and Pete, in the wake of Saturday. 

So. 

That’s what I’ve been doing. 

[robinrunsfiction]

Irresistible - Chapter 1

Pairing: Pete Wentz x Female Reader Rating: Teen Requested By: None Author’s Note: Although not specifically requested by her, all my Pete Wentz stories are dedicated to @glittercupcakes-and-squats. Also this is written in first person because it felt right. I know I don’t do that a lot, but I hope you all enjoy!

It was a quiet Thursday afternoon as I busied myself organizing and straightening up the display cases of glittering diamonds and other gems set into gold and platinum. Working in one of the most high-end jewelry stores in Chicago was a unique experience, and I had been working there for long enough to know what I was doing.

You don’t become the top earning salesperson in a store like this by gossiping and being inattentive. I had worked hard to build up a reputation of trust and confidentiality. Men came in one day with their wives, then with their mistress the next, and I knew not to mix up the two. Trust fund kids came in and blew tons of cash on watches and earrings that they lost in no time but had to replace to maintain their social status, but I never scolded them or mentioned it when their parents came in. The nouveau riche came in to spend as much money as possible to show off, and as much as I wanted to call them out on their lack of taste, they tended to be the best customers, throwing around money like it was nothing. To the wealthy what mattered was what everyone else thought about them, the first impression they made without saying a word. Image was everything.

When the door opened, and a couple of men walked in, I instantly eyed them up. They were a little old and too nicely dressed to be trust fund kids, no rings on their fingers meant they were single, or at least acting like it that afternoon. I could stand to earn a healthy commission if I played my cards right. They browsed the displays for a moment before I approached them with my best customer service face on.

“Good afternoon gentlemen, can I help you find something in particular?”

“I’m looking for a birthday present,” the one with the dark brown hair and eyes replied. He looked familiar, I’m certain he’s been in here before, but not often enough that I know him by name. Not to mention he was good looking; the gift is probably for one of his many girlfriends. “Maybe some earrings?”

“Is this for a significant other, spouse, family?”

“Oh, just a friend,” he grinned. Yep, called it.

“How about these?” his friend asked pointing to a pair of studs down the way. He seemed nervous and a bit overwhelmed. He wasn’t the type to usually shop in a place like this, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he was back one day looking for an engagement ring to impress a girl with expensive taste.

I moved down the counter and bent down to retrieve them from the case. Standing back up, I leaned forward, making the low-cut neckline of my black dress help make the sale for me. “These are gorgeous, and they’re very classic. You have a good eye,” I replied while shooting a smile to the friend. He smiled back shyly. What a sweetheart.

“Yea Trick, those are nice, but what else do you have?” The first man asked with a million-dollar smile. I smiled back, if he was looking to drop some money, I was more than willing to oblige.

“I have some just down here that you may appreciate, just one moment,” I replied as I hurried down the row of counters. Just then Bernard, the owner of the store, came out from his office.

“Pete! So good to see you!” He greeted the dark-haired man warmly with a handshake.

“Bernard, how are you doing? I see business is still booming.”

“Of course, thanks to the likes of you and your father,” he said with a knowing laugh. “Come, I have brand new Rolex I want you to see. Come, come,” he said ushering him along to a different counter.

I was fuming. Bernard had personal relationships with so many of his customers, which was to be expected, but it meant he frequently stole sale from me. Old bastard.

I put away the earrings I had pulled to show them and stomped into the back office. One day I’d have my own store and I’d run Bernard out of business. He’d come crawling to me for a job, selling my designs instead of the same old Rolex every executive in the Chicagoland area already wore.

I glanced at my phone and saw Christine had texted me and Jennifer about going out for happy hour. After an afternoon like this, there was no way I wasn’t going out.

~

When I got to the club, the girls were already there, and had a drink waiting for me. They’re too good to me, honestly. Jennifer was an investment banker who worked too damn hard in my opinion, so the fact that Christine got her out of her apartment after work was a miracle unto itself. Christine was a walking good time. A professional photographer with a rock star boyfriend, honestly if I could be her, I would.

“Not a good day today?” Jennifer asked as I sat down.

“Just the same old bull, ya know?” I replied before taking a swig of my drink. The club was loud, and I vaguely felt like we were getting too old for this scene. “I get that Bernard knows these people, but I’m building my own client base, future clients, and they aren’t going to come to me when I get out on my own if they don’t remember me.”

“Well maybe if you focused on something besides your job, you wouldn’t worry about your job so much,” Christine suggested knowingly.

I rolled my eyes. “Easy for you to say, you got like the hottest man on earth, you work for yourself, and travel everywhere whenever you want.”

“Speaking of hot guys though,” Jennifer piped up. “That one keeps looking over at you, (YN).”

I tried to keep it cool and not obviously stare the direction she was looking, but I had to admit I was surprised when I saw who she was talking about.

Pete.

“Oh, I met him today in the store, he was buying a gift for a friend,” I said turning back to my friends. I could trust these two not to spread any gossip around. They were as discreet as me, ya know except for when I was telling them everything.

“That must be the lucky lady,” Christine said as a tiny blonde thing in a tiny dress opened gifts. “Ope, (YN), she’s all over your man, he must have got her something good.”

“He is not my man. He wouldn’t ever be my man, even if he was interested in me. I know how these rich playboys operate. I’m not looking to be cheated on, I’m not looking to be a side piece, I’m no fool. I gotta find someone sensible like Kingston.”

Christine scoffed. “Did you just call my man child of a boyfriend, a musical genius, but otherwise loveable idiot, sensible?”

“Ok, you know what I mean, he’s loyal, that’s rare these days.”

“That’s true,” Jennifer chimed in.

“Excuse me, I hate to interrupt, but were you helping me at the jewelry store earlier?” I heard Pete ask. My friends were looking at me with wide eyes, wondering how I’d respond. I turned and looked up at him and he was flashing that with that same million-dollar smile.

I nodded in response. “Yea, hi. It’s Pete, right? Did Bernard get you what you needed?”

“That, and then some,” he laughed, adjusting the watch on his wrist. Subtle.

“Good I’m glad,” I smiled politely. Why was he over here talking to me when there were half a dozen girls waiting to fawn over him at his table. I spotted his friend from earlier, who still looked uncomfortable. Poor guy.

“I felt badly that Bernard interrupted, and I didn’t get your name,” he said with a soft look.

“Oh, right, I’m (YN),” I said extending my hand for a handshake, intending to keep things professional. “Yea, he does that sometimes, but he owns the place, so what can I do?”

“Well (YN), I was wondering if you’d like to dance?”

I could feel my friends’ eyes drilling in the back of my head, I could practically hear them yell ‘yes!’ for me, but I wasn’t convinced. “Aren’t you here with the girl you bought those earrings for? Or maybe another girl who you’ll be in buying earrings for eventually?”

“Don’t worry about it, they’re just friends,” he laughed.

“I don’t believe you,” I said shaking my head.

“(YN)!” I heard Jennifer scolding me.

“Why not?” Pete looked offended.

“I know your type. Always showing off with the expensive clothes, and cars and lavish gifts and parties to impress girls who just like the big bank account. But you don’t really mind, because you aren’t looking for something serious. You’re just having fun,” I shrugged.

“You should give me a chance,” he said with a look that almost made me believe him. But I wasn’t going to be swayed that easily.

“Why? I’m not looking to get my heart broken and an expensive necklace as a consolation prize.”

“I’m not like the other guys that come into your store,” he said sincerely. At this point he was crouching down to my level where I sat, looking in my eyes, but I willed myself to stay strong. There was absolutely no denying that he was gorgeous, but that wouldn’t keep the gold diggers away. Just the opposite.

“Sorry Pete, it’s late, and I gotta open up the shop tomorrow. I’ll see you the next time you stop by,” I said taking the last sips of my drink and turning back to my friends. “Either of you wanna share an Uber?”

“What is wrong with you?” Christine practically growled when Pete was out of earshot.

“I’m tired and I wanna go home, and like I said, I don’t wanna be a side piece! Now are we sharing an Uber or not?”

Chapter 2