Heart and Soul - Chapter 63: Chapter 63

Help Out a Friend — Jenna POV
"Yeah, but like... How do you know if you've never been with a guy?"
"I just know," Jenna grumbled, staring down at her frozen yogurt cup.
Joey shifted in his seat across the table. The plastic legs of his chair squeaked against the tiled floor as he did. "But you never even kissed a boy before," he argued stubbornly.
Jenna fought the urge to smash his own giant froyo in his face.
"I don't have to."
"But how do you know you don't know that you don't have to..." he trailed off as he seemed to lose track of his point, "... to know?" He finished, eyebrows furrowing. Only Joey could confuse himself with his own words.
Jenna rolled her eyes. "How do you know you're not gay if you've never been with a guy?"
Joey's baby blue eyes widened dramatically. "I don't know," he squeaked, jerking his shoulders.
"You sure this is still about my lesbianism, buddy?"
He leaned over the table toward her and she leaned back on her chair to get some personal space back. "I just want to know, like, who decided to start labeling people according to who they bang, and what were the rules. Like, how do you know?"
Jenna pinched the bridge of her nose. She considered answering his question seriously, but then she remembered who she was dealing with. It wasn't unusual for Joey to dive into intense musings regarding deep topics, despite lacking the cognitive depth to handle them properly. His heart was in the right place, but his brain was usually on a year-long vacation.
Also, she wanted this conversation over, not encouraged.
"You see naked guys in the locker room all the time. Does it turn you on?" She tried.
Joey winced. "No."
"Then you're not into dong," she said flatly.
"How do you know?"
"I don't, Joey," she snapped.
Obviously, she had made a stupid argument. Joey required a great deal of over-simplification to find a point and she just wanted to drop the neuron-defiling conversation.
"Only you can decide what your sexuality is," she continued irritably. "Fuck a guy if you're curious. Or not. Watch me give zero fucks either way."
"Fine," Joey huffed. "I won't ever ask you anything again."
Jenna sighed. If only that were true. It was barely over two seconds before Joey's next question came.
"Why won't you go to the homecoming dance with me?" He practically whined.
"I'm gay," she deadpanned. That had been exactly where they'd started. She couldn't believe they were restarting the loop.
"Yeah, but you could still go with me."
"I told you 'no' five times already. Couldn't you use the energy you're wasting on me inviting literally anybody else?"
"No," Joey moaned, like the attention-addicted five-year-old he was. "Ever since Laura broke up with me no one in the cheerleading squad, or volleyball, soccer and track teams will go out with me. Word really gets around athletes. I blame locker rooms," he finished off with a sulking frown as he crossed his arms, leaning back on his chair.
Jenna rolled her eyes again. He had a point. Word did get around with athletes. That, and Laura was a big-mouthed trash bag with D-cups.
"Ask a girl who's not on a sports team," she said.
"No girl outside the jock circles will go out with me. They all think I'm an idiot."
Yeah, well, Jenna couldn't blame them.
"Go alone then." She shrugged.
Joey scoffed. "After being dumped? Even my team will make fun of me."
"Then go in a group. The girls and I are supposed to go all together."
Joey jutted out his bottom lip. Jenna arched an eyebrow as she realized he was pouting.
"Why would you think that would ever work on me?"
Joey tilted his head. "It works on my mom."
"Do I look like your mom?"
"No, she's blonde and a lot taller."
Jenna rolled her eyes. There was no use pointing out the rhetorical question. Joey wouldn't know the meaning of the word.
"Come on, Jen," he mewled. "If our peeps sees you with me at the dance, they'll ignore everything Laura told them about me, and then I can date in my social circle again and get off your back."
It was actually a sound logic.
"Pwease," Joey baby-talked. "Help out a friend."
Jenna let out a long huff. "Fine," she gave in. "Ever since Sienna lost all that weight in the summer all she can talk about is diets anyway, so going as a group would be lame as fuck."
Joey beamed. "Thank you, Jen. You're the man."
She scoffed. "Please. The man wishes he could be me."
Party's Over — Jenna POV
*there are mentions of DRUGS and ALCOHOL ABUSE*
Jenna would swear on her grandma's grave she hated jello shots any time someone asked, but she'd take one if it were offered every time.
A hand touched her shoulder. "Hey, have you seen Cart?" Melanie asked.
Jenna turned her back to the other girls, with a shiny-eyed mean smile still on her face. "No," she said. "All I saw was Laura making out with Scott Meyers. Can't wait to throw that in her face at school on Monday."
Overcome by a fleeting thought typical of someone who's already had a few too many drinks, she raised her hand to show Mel the two little cups between her fingers. "Want a jello shot?"
Mel pursed her lips. "No, thanks."
Jenna shrugged. "More for me."
"Maybe you should ease up."
She rolled her eyes. "Relax. No one gets drunk on jello." Not unless they'd also been drinking straight vodka all night.
Mel didn't need to know that last part, though.
At some point much later, or maybe not even that later, Jenna stumbled into Bobby Gonzalez, the burly football tackle. Or he stumbled into her. Definitely one or the other.
Either way, he hollered in her face, "Hey, Torres! You seen Parrish?"
"No. But he sure is popular tonight."
"He's the quarterback. He should be celebrating with his team," Bobby said. He smelled like sweat and something earthy.
"I'll be sure to tell him if I see him," she said. "Jello shot?"
Bobby smirked. "Not for me. Joint?"
Jenna blinked at the roll in his hand. "Not for me," she shot back. "I'm not mixing vices tonight."
Also, weed made her horny, and she did not want to hook up with some bi-curious, half-closeted, all-confused high school girl.
Once Bobby was gone, Joey drifted to Jenna's proximity. Or maybe Jenna went looking after him. They definitely found each other. And Joey had definitely had some of Bobby's choice vice.
"Did you see Carter? People are asking," she said, holding him with a hand on each shoulder.
Joey's eyes were reddish and hazy, but they managed to focus on her. "I think I saw him go upstairs with someone," he mumbled.
Jenna frowned. "Why is he going upstairs?"
Carter knew her parties were supposed to stay downstairs. He was also the last person Jenna expected to disregard rules, or his friends' wishes.
With a hand on the wall to stabilize her, Jenna started up the stairs. There was no one on the first level, nor on the second, but she heard something from the attic.
There was a bit of suspicious rumble just before she opened the door to be met with an extremely flushed Carter. His hair was all over the place, lips parted, chest swelling erratically with ragged breaths. Jenna might be tipsy but she knew the hookup makeover when she saw it.
"Joey said he saw you come up here. What are you doing?" She asked.
"I was showing Johnny you brother's drone."
That was the last thing she expected to hear him say. She hadn't even noticed the random kid leaning against the wall. When she looked at him, he picked up Diego's drone from the floor.
"It's broken," she said.
"It's not. Johnny knows what's wrong with it," Carter told her.
"Maybe," the kid quickly added.
Jenna could not possibly care less.
"You want it?" She asked him. Looking at him, she noticed his hair was equally as messy as Carter's, his shirt crinkled at the bottom. She was also not an expert in male private parts at all, but she was pretty sure she could see at least half a hard-on hiding beneath his jeans.
"The drone," she explained when the kid took too long to react. "Do you want to keep it? Diego doesn't even like that sort of thing and this junk just keeps piling up."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, he doesn't even come here that much anymore," she mumbled. "Spends all summer with his friends." That was definitely some disgusting, alcohol-induced oversharing. She should watch out for it.
"Thanks. I guess," the kid said.
"Yeah, you're welcome." Jenna looked at Carter. Flushed, messy-haired Carter, who was alone in her attic with a very excited boy. She bit back a smirk. Or maybe she didn't. Either way, Carter Parrish might be less boring than she knew.
"Now stop being weird and come downstairs," she told him. "People want to see your face."
Carter followed her down to her party, his interesting friend trailing behind them. She left them without another word. People had asked about the pretty boy, she got him. Her job was done. She needed more jello.
She didn't notice when everyone started leaving. She remembered having all her friends scattered around her house, then she was the only one left. Except, of course, Melanie and the lost case that was Joey.
"Party's over, Cinderella. Take your pumpkin home," she told the groggy lump on her couch.
Joey didn't even lift his head, speaking right into the couch cushions. "No. If I move, I puke."
"Light weight," Jenna accused.
"Satan," he threw at her, voice muffled.
Mel was walking around picking up lost cups and empty bottles. Every time, Jenna told her the cleaning company would handle it the next day, but Melanie couldn't help herself.
"I'm not housing your drunk ass," Jenna said, pulling one of her mother's red pillows from under Joey's face. There was a patch of drool on it.
"I don't have a ride," Joey complained.
"Call an Uber."
"You won't even know I'm here," he tried.
Jenna rolled her eyes. "You can have the couch."
Joey lifted his head as the two girls started up the stairs. "Where are you going?" He asked, sitting up.
So much, for 'if I move, I puke'.
"Upstairs," she answered him. "To my room."
"Don't leave me alone," Joey whined.
"It's the couch or the Uber home," Jenna asserted.
Joey pouted. Now Jenna was the one who wanted to puke. She wasn't drunk out of her mind, but she was nowhere near sober enough for this.
"Fine. Just sleep in Diego's room," she gave in. It's not like her brother ever slept there anymore. Too busy with his life in a different city with a different parent.
"You rock, Jen."
"Whatever."
She let Joey, who had claimed to be too sick to move not that long before, sprint upstairs before her. Melanie was already in her room when she came in, ready for bed. Jenna went into the bathroom to change, clean the makeup off her face and brush her teeth. When she came out, Mel was snugged under the covers, on the left side of Jenna's bed.
"I didn't see much of Carter tonight," she murmured.
"He sneaked off to my attic," Jenna said crawling under the sheets.
"Does he seem okay to you?" Mel asked her. "You know, lately. With everything that's happening in his life."
For a second, Jenna was close to asking what was happening in Carter's life. Then she remembered the whole thing with his mom getting married, moving to a new house and the battalion of new step-siblings. That was probably what Mel meant.
"He seems weird," Jenna replied. "But he always seemed weird to me."
Mel looked curious. "How come?"
"Straight people are weird," Jenna sighed, closing her eyes.
Mel laughed. "I'm just worried about him," she said. Because of course she was. Mel lived to worry about people. She was the human embodiment of 'is there anything I can do to help?'
"I guess it's normal for him not to talk to me so much anymore," Mel mused.
Jenna wasn't going to say anything, but... well, yeah. It was weird to talk to your friend the same way you did back when you were friends, after you dated then broke up over the summer because you felt like there was too much going on in your lives to focus on the relationship. Or whatever it is Mel said had been the reason.
"I just wish I could help more, you know," Mel added. Except Jenna didn't know. She didn't share Mel's natural instinct to improve the lives of the people around her. "He's going through a really big transition."
That actually made Jenna snort with laughter, which was something she would never do in public.
Big transition.
"Yeah," she agreed. "I guess you could call it that."