Nothing Could Stop it (Chapter 5)
The world was a colorful place. That was the thought that kept popping into my head as we strolled around Los Angeles. It was Wednesday, and Anthony and I were with our YouTuber bud, Shay Carl. We had already filmed a Lunch Time with Smosh with the massive man, as well as aided him in the making of a video for his own channel. He had insisted on taking us to see the world of Los Angeles- specifically Venice Beach.
I had been a little apprehensive, considering all the California On’s and Theater of Life’s I had seen. And my guesses were pretty accurate.
The Venice Beach boardwalk was full of every type of person. There were the crazy, the obviously intoxicated, the slutty, the homeless, the creepy, the public masturbators, the elderly, the loud, the sexy, the douchebagy, the gay, the annoying, the red-neck. Colorful indeed.
“What is there to do other than eff around?” I was asking Shay. The big man was talking to a random stranger in his trumpeting voice, about something random and slightly awkward. Normal old Shay. Shy was definitely not the right word for him. Anthony was looking at some sketchy corn-dogs that a dirty-looking man was selling.
“WHAT IS THERE TO DO?” Shay’s eyes grew wide and he clutched my wrist. He shook me slightly and stared at me intensely. “What ISN’T there to do?”
I laughed and made a face at him, getting all up in his grill. Shying away from Shay was not the answer, he was one that needed to be one-upped. “Well show me the fun then. Because all I see is creepers and food poisoning laced food”.
Shay’s laugh resounded throughout the street, causing several people to look our way. Quiet was another word that couldn’t be used to describe the bearded, heavy-set YouTuber. He turned around and began to skip forward, motioning us with a dramatic wave of his hand. “Follow…meeeee”. He sang.
Anthony and I glanced at each other and broke into laughter, following our skipping friend. We made sure to do a little skipping ourselves.
Shay proved his point. There was plenty to do. We bought stupid t-shirts and useless thingamabobs, we ate, watched people surf, skateboard, and street-perform, and of course snapped some pictures with recognizing fans.
We were resting on a bench overlooking the huge beach when Shay got a call.
“Welp, guys. That was Mommytard. I’m need a mi casa as soono as possible…o”. He slipped the phone is his pocket and rose from the bench. “You guys cool here? You can get to your hotel alright? I don’t have to worry about you guys being raped or anything?”
Anthony and I got up. “We’ll be fine, man. We’ll just get a cab.” Anthony reasoned.
“As far as rape goes, I’ll try to contain myself around Anthony.” I sent a suggestive glance toward my friend, bouncing my eyebrows.
The two men laughed and Shay attacked us with a group hug. “Awww I love you guys” He squeezed harder and harder.
“Air. Breath. Help. Gurgle.” Anthony’s face was red. I wasn’t much better. Finally the man let us go.
I smiled and fisted the air “Heterosexual power!” was my battle cry. Again, Anthony and Shay laughed.
“See ya later alligators!” Shay turned around towards were his car would be, making his way toward the long walk back and waving his hand spastically the whole time. Anthony and I waved also, wishing him a good day.
When he was out of sight, I turned to my friend. “That was fun. He’s so crazy. What do we do now?”
Anthony shrugged. It was about 5pm or so. Nothing else was planned today. Tomorrow was pretty free also. “We could fuck around some more?” He suggested, flopping back into the bench.
“I don’t know how many more creepy snake-wielding street performers I care to see, Ant.” I joined him on the bench. That, and my feet were killing me.
“True. My feet hurt.” Anthony laid back his head and closed his eyes.
“You are such a mind reader.” Our shoulders pressed together and I stared out at the sloshing water of the ocean. It was a hazy day, the only sun coming from the occasional break in the gray expanse of the sky. I could taste rain in the air.
“Well duh, both our feet hurt dumbass. We’ve been walking all day.” As a rebuttal, I punched his gut, surprising him from his lazy trance.
“Friday is the movie shoot. Right?”
“For the fifth zillionth time, yes. You are such a space-cadet.”
“Fifth zillionth?” I questioned, a smile playing on my lips.
“Ughhh shut up! I tired. I no talk good.” Anthony put his hands over his eyes.
“Anthony caveman? Ug?” I poked and prodded his chest. Fucking around with him really was my favorite pastime. I liked hearing him get all “annoyed” and “exasperated”. He laughed and smacked my hand away.
“You’re a bitch.” But he was smiling. He opened his eyes and looked at me suddenly.
Words escaped me as those brown eyes held my own. The silence stretched. It wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable, but a little curious.
“Yeah, but you still love me.” The words fell out of my mouth in a whisper. He continued to stare, his lips twitching a little in an agreeing smile. It was a nice smile, I realized. Crooked and slight, but still kinda cute. Cute? CUTE? There was that fucking word was again. Cute. I didn’t think that my best friend Anthony Padilla was cute, god damnit. With a start, I noticed that my hand had found a resting position on his chest after my poking at him then losing my train of thought. His fingers were brushing at my own. Awoken from my stupor, I jumped up quickly and focused my attention on the tree directly in front of me.
There was sign on the tree. Come to the Arts and Motion Production of Peter Pan, it read. I needed a distraction, any distraction.
“Dude, how about we go see this? It’s in 15 minutes.” The words raced and stumbled from my mouth. I pointed to the sign and snuck a glance back to Anthony. He was a little dazed, his hand still on his chest were it had been touching my fingers. My skin tingled with the memory of it.
“A play?” He raised an eyebrow. “I don't want to see some crappy-ass school production.”
“Hey, it might be fun to watch. You have any more brilliant plans, Padilla?”
The play was actually not half bad. First of all, it was put on by high schoolers, rather than little 4th graders like we expected. And many of them really had talent. They had set up a moveable stage on the grass surrounding the boardwalk. The darkening sky and gray clouds made the area where all the seats were crammed (there was an alarmingly large amount of seats, too) was dark as hell. The stage, of course, was lit up.
But the play was great, nonetheless. Plus it served a distraction to these weird and crazy observations about Anthony that my head kept producing. I couldn't stop thinking about his laugh, close proximity, smell, hair. My arm buzzed with heightened sensitivity where his own was pressed against mine on the shared armrest. What the fuck was wrong with me, was this a medical problem and my arm needed to be amputated?
It definitely wasn’t something more serious. Like, say, Anthony’s touch was doing that to me. But I wasn’t…
I wasn’t… well. No. I denied everything that slid into my mind. Every possibility. I wasn’t that. Anthony was my friend, my bro, my business partner, the peanut butter to my jelly.
Nothing else. Nothing more. He couldn’t be. That made no sense.
Everyone was up and clapping, I realized suddenly. Everyone but me, sitting on my ass like a idiot.
I shot up and joined in with the applause and cheering. Anthony glanced at me and I saw was his white teeth shine in the darkness. At this point, there was barely any light in the crowd and I couldn’t really see his features that well. But I knew what I would find. Deep, dark eyes, straight hair that hung slightly over his eye (a hair cut was in order for this man). He had a freckle on his cheek, and one directly over his top lip, and oh- his lips were rosy and soft, I imagine, and his-
I snapped out of my mind rambling. Shut the fuck up, Ian. In my head, I was hitting myself with a bat, unwrapping duct tape to seal my fucking mouth closed.
And then, the lights of the stage were out, and everyone was stumbling over chairs and people, making their way back to the boardwalk to go home. Anthony pulled on my sleeve and we snuck out from our row into the sea of people. Right then, I could feel drops of rain beginning to fall on our heads. I had been correct earlier, I knew it was going to rain.
Voices muddled together in a blur of noise, so Anthony and I skipped talking and stuck to forcing our way through the people to find a taxi and go back to the hotel. He was still holding the top of my sleeve, I realized. Without thinking, I shifted so the top of my knuckles slid to connect with his palm. His hand warmed my own; I didn’t realize how cold it has become until now. Anthony didn’t seem to notice the hand shift, he was determined on fighting his way through the throng so we could hide from the slowly increasing downpour.
In the taxi, Anthony buzzed about the play. “That was actually pretty impressive, man. I remember in high school wanting to do something like that. Drama. Then we did smosh and didn’t really have to, since I could do acting on my own, in front of a camera. I could be terrible; it didn’t matter. But that was awesome. I especially liked the kid who played Peter. He was great. Really loud and assertive. Had great facial expressions.”
He rambled on, I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy lost in thought, introspection, worries. When we got to the hotel, I paid the driver, and we made our way to the hotel as fast as possible, dodging raindrops and racing to the overhang in front of the hotel.
“Don’t you think, Ian?” His change in tone woke me from my thoughts and made me pay attention. He had grown quiet, a little…embarrassed, even.
“What?” I bit my lip. I hadn’t been listening and this seemed important.
“Never mind, forget I said anything.”
“Oh no no no no no. You can NOT do that to me, you douche-nozzle.” I narrowed my eyes at him. I couldn’t stand when people did that to me. If you said something, I want to know what you said. No matter what. I glared at him.
“I said, I think that maybe this acting thing, you know, the kiss, might make way for more professional opportunities for us. I said that I thought-” He paused, looking at the ground. Whispering his final words. “I said I thought it was a good thing.”
“Oh, yeah Ant. Of course. I agree. New opportunities.” I smiled. This kiss was going to be big for us, I could tell. And it was an arrow that had been shot from its bow and was racing towards its target; nothing could stop it. And nothing would.
We made our way through the lobby, into the elevator, down the hallway, to our room. A quick glance at my cell revealed that it was 8:30. My stomach grumbled loudly, rudely reminding me that we had lunch about seven or eight hours ago.
“Man, I’m starved.” Anthony flopped onto the bed and kicked his shoes off. He flipped on the TV. “Can we order something out and get it delivered?”
“This late?” I looked at the hotel information booklet. “I don’t know, Ant.”
But we actually found a pizza place who delivered late; never underestimate a city like LA, I suppose. We ate and goofed around; being general dumbasses and laughing so loud we recieved a annoyed call from the receptionist downstairs concerning complaints. After pizza, Anthony and I lounged on the double bed, watching a movie we had found on HBO.
The sudden quiet brought back those weird thoughts I had been having earlier. Anthony was close, so close I could feel the heat that his stretched-out body released on my own side. I wondered what would happen it I moved a little toward him, causing our sides to brush against each other. Would it leave a tingling feeling on my skin?
Suddenly Anthony turned his head. And I wondered for a panicked second if he could read my mind and he heard that stupid, confusing question, and he was disgusted with me.
No. Calm down. We were good friends, not mind-connected.
“Ian, do you think-” He cleared his throat, squirming uncomfortably, the perpetual red stain on his cheeks darkening and spreading. What was making him so awkward? I could guess a few things.
“What is it, Ant?” I whispered, smiling, egging him on in my mind. “Just say it.”
“Well, erm, I was wondering if we should. Well you know.” He gestured with his hands and pulled himself up into a sitting position, pulling his legs into his chest. “That movie, we should be as prepared as possible. We don’t want to look like unprofessional idiots and make them think twice about hiring us for the part. I was thinking maybe. And if you don’t want to, just say no. Its probably stupid anyway-”
“Anthony, are you suggesting we should practice our kiss?” I cut him off from his mindless rambling. He would be at it all night I hadn’t.
Anthony’s eyes widened and he nodded. “You know, just to be completely ready.”
I couldn’t agree more.
I had been a little apprehensive, considering all the California On’s and Theater of Life’s I had seen. And my guesses were pretty accurate.
The Venice Beach boardwalk was full of every type of person. There were the crazy, the obviously intoxicated, the slutty, the homeless, the creepy, the public masturbators, the elderly, the loud, the sexy, the douchebagy, the gay, the annoying, the red-neck. Colorful indeed.
“What is there to do other than eff around?” I was asking Shay. The big man was talking to a random stranger in his trumpeting voice, about something random and slightly awkward. Normal old Shay. Shy was definitely not the right word for him. Anthony was looking at some sketchy corn-dogs that a dirty-looking man was selling.
“WHAT IS THERE TO DO?” Shay’s eyes grew wide and he clutched my wrist. He shook me slightly and stared at me intensely. “What ISN’T there to do?”
I laughed and made a face at him, getting all up in his grill. Shying away from Shay was not the answer, he was one that needed to be one-upped. “Well show me the fun then. Because all I see is creepers and food poisoning laced food”.
Shay’s laugh resounded throughout the street, causing several people to look our way. Quiet was another word that couldn’t be used to describe the bearded, heavy-set YouTuber. He turned around and began to skip forward, motioning us with a dramatic wave of his hand. “Follow…meeeee”. He sang.
Anthony and I glanced at each other and broke into laughter, following our skipping friend. We made sure to do a little skipping ourselves.
Shay proved his point. There was plenty to do. We bought stupid t-shirts and useless thingamabobs, we ate, watched people surf, skateboard, and street-perform, and of course snapped some pictures with recognizing fans.
We were resting on a bench overlooking the huge beach when Shay got a call.
“Welp, guys. That was Mommytard. I’m need a mi casa as soono as possible…o”. He slipped the phone is his pocket and rose from the bench. “You guys cool here? You can get to your hotel alright? I don’t have to worry about you guys being raped or anything?”
Anthony and I got up. “We’ll be fine, man. We’ll just get a cab.” Anthony reasoned.
“As far as rape goes, I’ll try to contain myself around Anthony.” I sent a suggestive glance toward my friend, bouncing my eyebrows.
The two men laughed and Shay attacked us with a group hug. “Awww I love you guys” He squeezed harder and harder.
“Air. Breath. Help. Gurgle.” Anthony’s face was red. I wasn’t much better. Finally the man let us go.
I smiled and fisted the air “Heterosexual power!” was my battle cry. Again, Anthony and Shay laughed.
“See ya later alligators!” Shay turned around towards were his car would be, making his way toward the long walk back and waving his hand spastically the whole time. Anthony and I waved also, wishing him a good day.
When he was out of sight, I turned to my friend. “That was fun. He’s so crazy. What do we do now?”
Anthony shrugged. It was about 5pm or so. Nothing else was planned today. Tomorrow was pretty free also. “We could fuck around some more?” He suggested, flopping back into the bench.
“I don’t know how many more creepy snake-wielding street performers I care to see, Ant.” I joined him on the bench. That, and my feet were killing me.
“True. My feet hurt.” Anthony laid back his head and closed his eyes.
“You are such a mind reader.” Our shoulders pressed together and I stared out at the sloshing water of the ocean. It was a hazy day, the only sun coming from the occasional break in the gray expanse of the sky. I could taste rain in the air.
“Well duh, both our feet hurt dumbass. We’ve been walking all day.” As a rebuttal, I punched his gut, surprising him from his lazy trance.
“Friday is the movie shoot. Right?”
“For the fifth zillionth time, yes. You are such a space-cadet.”
“Fifth zillionth?” I questioned, a smile playing on my lips.
“Ughhh shut up! I tired. I no talk good.” Anthony put his hands over his eyes.
“Anthony caveman? Ug?” I poked and prodded his chest. Fucking around with him really was my favorite pastime. I liked hearing him get all “annoyed” and “exasperated”. He laughed and smacked my hand away.
“You’re a bitch.” But he was smiling. He opened his eyes and looked at me suddenly.
Words escaped me as those brown eyes held my own. The silence stretched. It wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable, but a little curious.
“Yeah, but you still love me.” The words fell out of my mouth in a whisper. He continued to stare, his lips twitching a little in an agreeing smile. It was a nice smile, I realized. Crooked and slight, but still kinda cute. Cute? CUTE? There was that fucking word was again. Cute. I didn’t think that my best friend Anthony Padilla was cute, god damnit. With a start, I noticed that my hand had found a resting position on his chest after my poking at him then losing my train of thought. His fingers were brushing at my own. Awoken from my stupor, I jumped up quickly and focused my attention on the tree directly in front of me.
There was sign on the tree. Come to the Arts and Motion Production of Peter Pan, it read. I needed a distraction, any distraction.
“Dude, how about we go see this? It’s in 15 minutes.” The words raced and stumbled from my mouth. I pointed to the sign and snuck a glance back to Anthony. He was a little dazed, his hand still on his chest were it had been touching my fingers. My skin tingled with the memory of it.
“A play?” He raised an eyebrow. “I don't want to see some crappy-ass school production.”
“Hey, it might be fun to watch. You have any more brilliant plans, Padilla?”
The play was actually not half bad. First of all, it was put on by high schoolers, rather than little 4th graders like we expected. And many of them really had talent. They had set up a moveable stage on the grass surrounding the boardwalk. The darkening sky and gray clouds made the area where all the seats were crammed (there was an alarmingly large amount of seats, too) was dark as hell. The stage, of course, was lit up.
But the play was great, nonetheless. Plus it served a distraction to these weird and crazy observations about Anthony that my head kept producing. I couldn't stop thinking about his laugh, close proximity, smell, hair. My arm buzzed with heightened sensitivity where his own was pressed against mine on the shared armrest. What the fuck was wrong with me, was this a medical problem and my arm needed to be amputated?
It definitely wasn’t something more serious. Like, say, Anthony’s touch was doing that to me. But I wasn’t…
I wasn’t… well. No. I denied everything that slid into my mind. Every possibility. I wasn’t that. Anthony was my friend, my bro, my business partner, the peanut butter to my jelly.
Nothing else. Nothing more. He couldn’t be. That made no sense.
Everyone was up and clapping, I realized suddenly. Everyone but me, sitting on my ass like a idiot.
I shot up and joined in with the applause and cheering. Anthony glanced at me and I saw was his white teeth shine in the darkness. At this point, there was barely any light in the crowd and I couldn’t really see his features that well. But I knew what I would find. Deep, dark eyes, straight hair that hung slightly over his eye (a hair cut was in order for this man). He had a freckle on his cheek, and one directly over his top lip, and oh- his lips were rosy and soft, I imagine, and his-
I snapped out of my mind rambling. Shut the fuck up, Ian. In my head, I was hitting myself with a bat, unwrapping duct tape to seal my fucking mouth closed.
And then, the lights of the stage were out, and everyone was stumbling over chairs and people, making their way back to the boardwalk to go home. Anthony pulled on my sleeve and we snuck out from our row into the sea of people. Right then, I could feel drops of rain beginning to fall on our heads. I had been correct earlier, I knew it was going to rain.
Voices muddled together in a blur of noise, so Anthony and I skipped talking and stuck to forcing our way through the people to find a taxi and go back to the hotel. He was still holding the top of my sleeve, I realized. Without thinking, I shifted so the top of my knuckles slid to connect with his palm. His hand warmed my own; I didn’t realize how cold it has become until now. Anthony didn’t seem to notice the hand shift, he was determined on fighting his way through the throng so we could hide from the slowly increasing downpour.
In the taxi, Anthony buzzed about the play. “That was actually pretty impressive, man. I remember in high school wanting to do something like that. Drama. Then we did smosh and didn’t really have to, since I could do acting on my own, in front of a camera. I could be terrible; it didn’t matter. But that was awesome. I especially liked the kid who played Peter. He was great. Really loud and assertive. Had great facial expressions.”
He rambled on, I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy lost in thought, introspection, worries. When we got to the hotel, I paid the driver, and we made our way to the hotel as fast as possible, dodging raindrops and racing to the overhang in front of the hotel.
“Don’t you think, Ian?” His change in tone woke me from my thoughts and made me pay attention. He had grown quiet, a little…embarrassed, even.
“What?” I bit my lip. I hadn’t been listening and this seemed important.
“Never mind, forget I said anything.”
“Oh no no no no no. You can NOT do that to me, you douche-nozzle.” I narrowed my eyes at him. I couldn’t stand when people did that to me. If you said something, I want to know what you said. No matter what. I glared at him.
“I said, I think that maybe this acting thing, you know, the kiss, might make way for more professional opportunities for us. I said that I thought-” He paused, looking at the ground. Whispering his final words. “I said I thought it was a good thing.”
“Oh, yeah Ant. Of course. I agree. New opportunities.” I smiled. This kiss was going to be big for us, I could tell. And it was an arrow that had been shot from its bow and was racing towards its target; nothing could stop it. And nothing would.
We made our way through the lobby, into the elevator, down the hallway, to our room. A quick glance at my cell revealed that it was 8:30. My stomach grumbled loudly, rudely reminding me that we had lunch about seven or eight hours ago.
“Man, I’m starved.” Anthony flopped onto the bed and kicked his shoes off. He flipped on the TV. “Can we order something out and get it delivered?”
“This late?” I looked at the hotel information booklet. “I don’t know, Ant.”
But we actually found a pizza place who delivered late; never underestimate a city like LA, I suppose. We ate and goofed around; being general dumbasses and laughing so loud we recieved a annoyed call from the receptionist downstairs concerning complaints. After pizza, Anthony and I lounged on the double bed, watching a movie we had found on HBO.
The sudden quiet brought back those weird thoughts I had been having earlier. Anthony was close, so close I could feel the heat that his stretched-out body released on my own side. I wondered what would happen it I moved a little toward him, causing our sides to brush against each other. Would it leave a tingling feeling on my skin?
Suddenly Anthony turned his head. And I wondered for a panicked second if he could read my mind and he heard that stupid, confusing question, and he was disgusted with me.
No. Calm down. We were good friends, not mind-connected.
“Ian, do you think-” He cleared his throat, squirming uncomfortably, the perpetual red stain on his cheeks darkening and spreading. What was making him so awkward? I could guess a few things.
“What is it, Ant?” I whispered, smiling, egging him on in my mind. “Just say it.”
“Well, erm, I was wondering if we should. Well you know.” He gestured with his hands and pulled himself up into a sitting position, pulling his legs into his chest. “That movie, we should be as prepared as possible. We don’t want to look like unprofessional idiots and make them think twice about hiring us for the part. I was thinking maybe. And if you don’t want to, just say no. Its probably stupid anyway-”
“Anthony, are you suggesting we should practice our kiss?” I cut him off from his mindless rambling. He would be at it all night I hadn’t.
Anthony’s eyes widened and he nodded. “You know, just to be completely ready.”
I couldn’t agree more.