Pete couldn't tell anyone how he knew he and Jeanae were finally over; he just did. He'd claim crazy precog skills, except he didn't see the Ashlee thing coming at all, even while it was happening.

||

'Starfucker' got thrown around even before Michelle. It wasn't fun, but it was more fun than his hand through a passenger seat window. After he explained it to his band (yelled it, fine, but they acted like he wasn't allowed to have a rebound phase, like it'd be another overdose in a parking lot), he was mostly left alone.

They were leaving him alone with surprising diligence the night he introduced himself to Ashlee. "Hi, I'm Pete," he said. "I think your album did better than mine."

She scrunched her nose up and laughed. It wasn't a very pretty laugh, way too loud and kind of stupid sounding. "My sister's did even better."

Whoa, issues. Pete's smile was real this time. "I'm going to dump the girl I'm here with. Want to get out of here?"

It was the kind of beginning that should have started a quick, shitty relationship, but Ashlee begged off after an hour of fucking around, getting Pete's cell number before a bodyguard type ushered her to her car. He didn't expect her to actually call, but she did, right in the middle of his Saturday-afternoon shitty cartoon binge.

"So, were you high? I'd have noticed drunk, but I still can't always tell if people are, you know." She sniffed into the phone.

He blinked, fingers freezing in Hem's fur. "Um. No?"

"You fail at cliché, then." He heard a weird, soft thump, and his phone beeped. "Did I tell you I like your band? I don't think I did."

"No." The feedback was weird, like - "Speakerphone? Fuck off."

"Relax, god, I'm painting my toenails. Purple or red?"

"Purple. Red's trying too hard. Why'd you call if you're painting your toes?"

"Why not?"

He waited for her to say something else, give him an explanation or start babbling in his ear, but instead she hummed tunelessly and left him hanging.

"So...Cartoon Network fucking sucks."

"Aren't you kind of out of their target demographic?"

The words sounded weird coming from her mouth, less because she didn't know how to say them and more because Pete hadn't expected to hear anything like that. "Yeah, probably. Hemmy's not, though."

"Hemmy?"

He kissed Hemmy's nose. "My dog."

"Have you checked dog years?" She laughed when he didn't say anything. It sounded less stupid than it had the night before – or maybe he was just in a better mood.

"I'll make Joe tell me." He tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling. "I don't listen to your music, you know."

"Neither do I. I listen to yours, though."

"Patrick's." And Joe's, and Andy's, before it was his.

"I listen to the words."

"Well, you called me. I already knew you had shitty taste."

He winced as soon as the words came out of his mouth and waited for her to hang up, but she just said, "Are you in that bad a mood? I can call back later."

Yes, he thought. "No," he said.

"We talked," he'd tell Patrick later. And that was all they did; Pete couldn't explain why he smiled enough during those two and a half hours for his muscles to notice and ache a little after he hung up.

||

After that they talked more nights than they didn't, until even Pete had to admit they were something like friends. He still thought about fucking her, though, quietly and shamefully and never while jerking off. It would have been easier if she was the America's Sweetheart type her dad seemed to want her to be, because then everyone would want her and Pete's libido would leave her alone. As it was, though, she was just off kilter enough, just weird enough, that Pete was a little obsessed.

"It's, I don't know," Ashlee said. "About the time you realize you can't open your window for spring because some jackass is going to shove a camera in your living room, it starts sucking."

"You're rich, though."

"My dad's rich. You're rich."

"Though thankfully, not also your dad."

And – he didn't mean to. When he realized there'd be a later, a future, he'd spend a lot of time hoping it mattered that he didn't mean to. He was lying down, and as they talked, his hand just...moved.

He wasn't even really conscious of the way he was moving, the slow burn in his stomach, until she sighed into the phone and his hand tightened around his dick as his hips thrust, both completely without his permission.

"Shit," he said, and dropped the phone. He yanked his hand away immediately, fumbling with his Sidekick. His face was face burning even though the only other person in his house was Hemmy, who was neither a person nor currently in the same room. "Sorry. I, uh, had a twinge in my elbow."

"You should just hang up on me," she said, and – jesus, she sounded pissed. "A twinge in your elbow? Come the fuck on, Pete."

"I did. I'm sorry, I just. Sorry?" He rubbed the side of his nose, making a face into the phone. "Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize." The snippiness was gone as soon as it'd appeared; she never stayed annoyed even half as long as Pete did. "Just hang up for now, okay? You can call me later."

"I won't sleep. I'll call you then and -"

"And I'll answer if I want to. You think I don't know how to turn my phone off?"

Before Pete could answer, she hung up.

He knew her well enough to know she wasn't mad, which was good, because he liked talking to her. She was a nice girl and...fuck, fuck, this wasn't going to work. He set his phone down and fumbled with his pants, wiggling out of them as fast as he could and smearing lotion on his hand.

He came hard and embarrassingly quickly, thinking about the way her ass looked in the tabloid picture she'd shoved in his face last week. It was the first time – but it wasn't, he thought, self-loathing settling in even faster than the orgasm. Of course it wasn't. He was a sucker for sob stories and Ashlee was even more fucked up than he was, had a huge reputation and five detractors for every one of Pete's.

And she was nice. Pete hit his head against the headboard, hard. She was nice.

"I'm an asshole," he told Hemmy when he wandered in.

Hemmy sniffed the air and growled a little. Pete closed his eyes, because shit, even his dog disapproved. He was pretty sure that counted as a new low.

Not that he was going to stop talking to her, of course. Pete knew himself better than that. When she called the next day and suggested tacos, he went out and told a reporter they were close friends and that he was dating the Keebler elf. Only half of that made it to print.

Time passed. He called her at three AM a few weeks after he'd given up and started fucking his hand thinking about her. She picked up right away, like always; and like always, he didn't bother asking if she'd been asleep.

"My eyeballs wouldn't explode if crows pecked them out, right?"

"They're probably too moist. Mushy. Not that I've tried."

The room felt like it was collapsing in on him. He flicked on his bedroom light, and the walls moved back to their normal spots. "Ask your dad," he said, deliberately flip. "He's into the whole Satanist sacrifice shit, right?"

He'd long since stopped thinking her laugh was ugly, but this was a new one, low and wrenching and hurting. "Jesus," he said, "what -"

"My fucking dad, I don't know. It's...you know how it is."

Pete didn't, actually, and had no idea how to help. "He's an asshole?" he said hopefully.

"I love him, and he's my dad. God, whatever. About your nightmares."

"I think most people who like cummings are total fakers," Pete said, because he wasn't a moron. "Hey, do you like gummi bears?"

"More than I like cummings."

She sounded halfway calm. Pete pulled the covers up to his chin, mashing the phone to his ear. "When I'm a fucking rich old asshole has-been, I'm going to get a pool of them and invite all my best friends to go swimming. In my gummi bear pool. It'll be awesome."

It sounded totally stupid, but she laughed a little, so Pete counted it as a win. "I guess I'd better stay friends with you, then."

Unfair, unfair. Unfair for his stomach to sink hearing her say friends, unfair to feel his own mind let him go a little as she calmed down. "You're allowed to call me too, you know."

She was quiet for so long Pete was starting to wonder if she'd fallen asleep. "You always call first."

Jesus. He clenched his teeth. "Okay," he said. "Yeah. Okay."

||

"Seriously?" Joe said. "Like...seriously?"

Patrick rolled his eyes. "They're just holding hands."

"Wrong, my friend. They're holding hands in the tabloids."

"I was in a tabloid once."

Pete used one of Andy's own drumsticks to pull his shorts down. "You sound kind of proud of that, for an anarchist."

He was something like ninety-nine percent sure Andy learned how to sniff like that from Pride and Prejudice, or some other English thing with dresses and tea. "Tabloids tear down the bourgeois and promote chaos. They count."

"Gimme those Doritos," Joe said, and stole them from Patrick.

"Motherfucker!"

They went down in a cloud of dust – literally, since Pete's mom's lawn was more dirt than grass right now – and Pete leaned back, satisfied with the subject change, even if he knew it was more an act of pity on Joe's part than coincidence.

||

Pete figured they'd have fucked and broken up by now. Instead he was leaning in and kissing her on the cheek, clutching her hand like he needed reassurance.

He kind of did, actually.

It was a dumb move on his part to let the paparazzi follow him, but he felt like walking. One of them shot out a question and he gave the same answer he had a few times before: "She's not my love story," accompanied by a huge, cheesy grin.

It made it into the paper. Then it made it into several papers.

"Sorry," he said at dinner one night. "I shot my mouth off. I wish they'd listen when I use the 'just friends' line."

Ashlee lifted the table cloth and crooked her leg, frowning at her foot. "I hate these shoes," she said. "I'm going to have blisters. They'll ooze, that's disgusting."

Which wasn't really an answer – but then, Pete told himself, good friends didn't always have linear conversations. "Do you need a band-aid?"

She shook her head. "I'm going to the bathroom, I can't fix it out here. Sorry."

"...okay," he said to her back. He twirled his spaghetti, swinging his legs a little and trying to force himself to wait patiently.

An eternity later, he checked his Sidekick. Five minutes had passed. He sighed and texted Mikey, waited for a response, texted Patrick, answered Mikey, and checked his watch.

Ten minutes.

When he hit the twenty mark he went to the lady's room and knocked awkwardly, rocking back on his heels.

No one answered. Of course no one answered. He sighed and pushed the door open, half expecting to be attacked with a Tampon or something.

Ashlee was standing barefooted in front of the counter, staring at herself in the mirror. Her face was twisted, almost angry-looking; she jumped when she looked up and saw Pete's reflection.

"So, um." He cleared his throat. "Did you fix your shoe?"

He knew she didn't like eating; "I think I look okay," she'd told him once, "but it's not worth everybody obsessing, you know?". Beyond that, he knew plenty of skinny people, both in the scene and not. It was still jarring to see her shoulders jerk, shoulder blades poking out.

"My shoe was okay," she said.

And that - "Oh. You'll get an infection."

She twisted a foot. "I can afford it."

Justfriendsjustfriendsjustfriends. He shook his head hard. "Yeah, well, I can't."

Much as he'd hoped no one would come in when he barged in to begin with, he was hoping even more now as he stepped forward and hopped up on the counter, tugging her wrist until she rolled her eyes and sat next to him.

"What the hell," she said.

He took her hand and leaned his head on her shoulder. "Seriously. There's bacteria and...stuff. It's a bathroom."

As uncomfortable as she was to lean on, it got ten times worse when she stiffened. "Don't."

He pulled back, looked at her. Jesus, she looked as scared as he felt. "I don't want to not be friends. That tends to end...just, end."

She traced tiny shapes on his hand. "And messily, with you."

"How'd you -"

"Please tell me I wasn't the only creep doing interview-stalking the past few months."

"No," Pete said, "but I don't get why you'd want to, if you know how it is with me, and I don't think your dad would like me anyway, so -"

Interrupting was a nervous tic of Ashlee's. This was the first time she'd done it with a kiss, though.

He felt so stupid. He always did, because kissing was as stupid as it was fun, but also this time his insides were like pudding, which hadn't happened in long enough to make him feel doubly stupid. Triply, even.

She touched his hair when she pulled back. "...conditioner," she said.

He blinked at her. "What?"

"Nothing." She hopped off the counter and shoved her shoes back on. "That was nice."

"It was," he said slowly.

She pulled him down and kissed the corner of his mouth. "So, yeah. You go out first."

Pete spent the rest of the night in a happy daze that lasted through a kiss goodnight and three hours of sleeplessness. He finally gave up halfway to four AM and grabbed his phone.

"Am I still allowed to call you?" he said as soon as Ashlee picked up.

"That's stupid," she said immediately, her tone the same kind of calm she kept it at when talking to the press. "Of course you are."

"It's cold." It wasn't. "I'm just..."

"Lonely?"

Hemmy was lying next to him, and his contacts list was forever long. "Not exactly."

"I could come over."

He twisted his sheets around his finger. "This isn't a booty call."

"Make some popcorn. We'll watch bad fake porn on Cinemax."

"Soft porn," he said, but he was talking to the dial tone.

He didn't have any popcorn, so he made hot chocolate instead, and then after a few seconds' thought heated up two TV dinners. It wouldn't hurt either of them to eat some extra.

She kissed him when he opened the door, but it was light – friendly – and she pulled away almost too quickly for him to react. "I don't smell popcorn."

It was instinct to pull his hoodie up over his head. "I didn't have any. There's chicken, though. Well, kind of chicken. Chicken product."

"That works. Ooh, hot chocolate." She pulled her own hood up and sat cross-legged on the couch, lifting the blanket Pete had brought out and waving him over. "So what channel's Cinemax?"

He almost dropped his mug. "I thought you were joking."

Her smile was...Jesus, fuck insomnia, fuck justfriends, when she did that. He shook his head and sat down, not bothering to try to wiggle away when she snuggled next to him and handed him TV dinner. "Come on, Wentz."

It wasn't really a dare, but it sure as hell felt like one; he turned it on. Ashlee laughed and turned the volume up, making fun of everything almost to the point of being too edgy. But of course she did it with enough eye rolls and self-mocking to make it funny, because Pete was at the point where almost everything she did was some variation of awesome to him.

Eventually she got bored and flipped to some crappy morning show. "You're usually asleep by now."

"You're not usually here," he said thoughtlessly.

The pause was long enough to fit several apologies in, but Pete forced himself to stay quiet. She finally stood up and held out a hand. "Come on, then."

He let her lead him back to his room, pull the blankets back, and gently shove him down. He drew the line at her actually raising the covers and moving to tuck him in. "Whoa, hey."

She raised her eyebrows. "I'm taking the couch."

"You won't sleep."

"Yes, I will."

He could have looked at five or six parts of her body and known she was lying. This time, it was the way her shoulders twitched and slumped. He tugged the covers on the other half of the bed over. "Come on."

The sheets rustled when she climbed in. He watched her feet tent them, the outline of her knees, because he didn't want to look up to her face and think about how many times he'd gotten off with his head on the pillow she was punching into shape.

"You're not allowed to be prissy about this," Ashlee told him.

"I – okay."

There was nothing else to say. Ashlee closed her eyes and he did too, and somehow, he managed to fall asleep just as the birds started chirping.

||

Pete wasn't new enough to sleeping with other people that he woke up touching her. He was lying on his side facing her, though, so her nose was the first thing he saw.

"Good morning," she said.

He was already living in a Lifetime movie. Kissing her was like punctuation.

They didn't have sex, because they were both kind of tired and Pete's head hurt a little and, really, giggly kissing and rolling around like teenagers took up a few hours all on its own. When Ashlee's stomach actually growled in the middle of Pete giving her a hickey, they gave up and went out to the kitchen.

Halfway through a burrito of dubious age, Ashlee swallowed a bite and said, "You know, I thought about you fucking me against the counter a few times."

Pete froze.

She blushed brighter than he'd ever seen, slapping a hand over her mouth. "I – that sounded funnier in my head. Two weeks ago. Before we were -"

Pete took a step forward and knocked her slippers off gently, tickling the soles of her feet. As come-ons it was pretty twee, but it made her laugh and kick her feet when he lifted her up, so it worked.

"This is stupid." She touched his neck. "Not the sex, but...why didn't we just do it on the first date? I would've."

"I like this better." He went up on his toes, kissing her. "You have burrito-breath, by the way."

She kicked playfully, foot just brushing against his crotch. He caught his breath.

"...oh," she said, and did it again, touching his lips with a finger.

When he stepped forward, her foot fell away. He half expected her to be shy, but she reached out right away, fingers curling against him.

"Harder?" he said, pulling her sweatshirt up.

It took some work to get her out, and when he finally dropped it on the floor, her hair was tangled and sticking up. He kissed her again, trailing his hands up her sides.

"Come on," she said, and squeezed very lightly. "If you want me to get you off, you have to touch me more."

He waited until he'd cupped his hands over her breasts and could flick her nipples before saying, "I want to get off inside you."

It was kind of gratifying how quickly she started flailing, grabbing his shirt and pulling it off before rolling sideways to work on her pants. He took that as a cue to attack his own, sucking it in and yanking them down viciously when the zipper got stuck.

"Jesus, finally," Ashlee said. She hooked a leg around him and pulled him close, pressing herself up against him – and yeah, finally, finally after 'just friends' and tabloids and all the shit that was supposed to come after this.

It was better this way. He nodded to himself and lifted her enough to slide two fingers up her thigh and over her cunt, smiling when she shivered.

"Don't touch my dick yet. No, seriously, I'll come in your hand." He rested his forehead against her shoulder, touching her clit and pressing a finger into her slowly. "Plus, I won't be able to concentrate."

She touched everywhere else instead, stroking his skin like they both didn't know they'd be doing this again as soon as they had the energy. He didn't complain, not when she bit his lip impatiently and not when she knocked his hand away so she could guide him into her. "Oh God," he said.

"I'm on the pill, by the way." She kissed his cheek and thrust her hips.

The thing he remembered most was stubbing his toe when he came. It throbbed like a motherfucker, but he had a blissed-out Ashlee tracing a mustache on his Jack Skellington tattoo while she cuddled him, and seriously – fuck stubbed toes. Right then, Pete figured he'd take on gangrene, or both big toes flat out falling off, if it meant he got to keep her.

He kissed her and whispered, "You're incredible," instead of telling her about the toes. He was pretty sure the message came across all the same.

The rest of the day was slow and sleepy and relaxed, which more than anything else made him realize that this wasn't another Jeanae any more than it was another Michelle.

She smiled and threw a piece of popcorn at his face. He caught it in his mouth, chomping theatrically.

Back in middle school gym, his class had always had to do the stupid trust exercise where you locked arms with someone and stood together, back-to-back. This felt a little like that; it had for weeks, Pete realized, resting his head in Ashlee's lap and hugging her legs.

"You're my girlfriend now," he said.

Her laugh was loud and startled, but as happy as he'd ever heard it.

||

"...seriously?" Patrick said again after watching Pete kiss her goodbye.

Pete nodded. "Seriously."

Patrick wiggled his eyebrows a few times before nodding. "Yeah, okay."

||

It took him awhile to get used to her press, her dad, her fans being assholes. It took her awhile to get used to his friends, his scene, and his fans being assholes. But eventually they were dating, and Pete blinked one day during lunch with his mom and realized he wasn't going to fall out of love any time soon.

So he bought a ring and went down on one knee. That part was easy; the problem was that he hadn't really planned what to say.

"Um," he said.

She smiled, looking halfway to cracking up. "Um?"

"I had a dream you got eaten by dinosaurs," Pete blurted. "Like, a fucking huge T-Rex. It sucked."

"Dinosaurs are extinct." She patted his head. "You're holding a ring box, Pete."

"I know they are. And I know I am. Um. Just, like, if you did get eaten by a dinosaur, you could probably carve your way out of his stomach easier if you had a ring, right? Especially a diamond one. It would be pretty badass."

He'd never seen her look that touched, which was funny, because his mouth wouldn't stop saying stupid things. "Pete..."

"I'm asking you to marry me." Fuck it, he thought, and flipped the box open. "Please?"

She answered by tackling him to the ground and kissing him until they both almost came in their pants.

||

Pete was a little disappointed when, forty years later, the dinosaurs still hadn't attacked.

But only a little.