Runaway Bride, chapter 7
I woke to Tre shaking me gently. "Cassandra. Cassandra. We're here. Wake up."
"What?" I was completely out of it. My neck hurt from falling asleep on Tre's shoulder, and I had lines on my face from his shirt.
"If we don't get off the bus, they're going to throw us out. Is that what you want?"
"Ha, ha. No." I got up, stretched, and rubbed my eyes, starting to wake up. Tre grabbed the bag with the clothes and ridiculous amount of money we had found and led me gently off the bus. I squinted in the bright California sunlight.
Tre held out his arms. "Welcome to Berkeley."
"Mmmmmph. It's wonderful." I muttered. I was still kind of tired and wasn't really in the mood to be excited right then.
Tre looked hurt. "Well, excuse me, princess. What were you expecting, a giant limo to take you away to your palace?"
I looked at him and sighed. "I'm sorry, Tre. Can we just go?"
"Yes, ma'am. We'd better get started, we have kind of a long way to walk."
"What?" At first I thought he was joking, but was dismayed to realize he was serious.
"We're going to walk. I want to save our money, I don't want to waste it on a cab."
"Please?" I looked at him imploringly.
He gave me another hurt look. "Are you serious?"
"No, I suppose not." Tre started walking ahead of me, and I followed. "Where are we going anyway?"
"To Dave and Lola's." Tre turned a corner and started along a new street.
"Who the hell are Dave and Lola?"
Tre shrugged. "Friends. They know some people that can get us fake IDs."
"What?!" I stopped walking. "What did you just say?"
Tre stopped as well and turned around. "Look. We can't be Cassandra and Frank anymore. If we stay ourselves and start to do things like buy a house or a car, the police will find us. Do you understand?"
I was still confused. "Who's Frank?"
Tre gave me a strange look, then started to laugh. I expected him to let me in on whatever was so funny, but he didn't, just continued to laugh until I got annoyed. "What?"
Tre didn't answer. "Well, fine." I walked past him, even though I had no idea where we were going.
His laughing subsided enough for him to say, "Wait, Cassandra, stop." I did, and stared at him.
"I'm Frank." He suppressed another chuckle. "That's my real name."
"How was I supposed to know that, if you never told me?" I tried not to let it bother me that it didn't bother me that much that I had never known Tre's real name.
"I don't know." He walked over to me and put an arm around my shoulders. "I like you. You're funny."
I made a face. "I'm glad my ignorance is amusing to you."
"Oh, don't worry. It is." He smiled.
"You're an asshole, you know that?"
"It's what I've been told."
We started walking again, and I lost track of how many streets we passed, how many corners we went around, how tired I was becoming.
Tre finally stopped in front of a tall, white apartment building. "This is it." He beamed.
"Good. Can we go inside, like, now?" I panted. I felt like I was going to collapse.
"Yeah, sure." Tre pushed the button on the intercom. He waited a second, but there wasn't an answer. He pushed it again.
"Will you wait a goddamn minute? Who the hell is it?" A hoarse voice demanded.
"It's Tre. Tre Cool."
The voice paused. "Who?" I wondered how good of friends Tre was with these people if they didn't even know who he was.
"Frank Wright? Don't you remember, we've known each other for like five years, you sold me a goddamn drum kit?"
"Tre!" The voice boomed. "Sure! Come the fuck up here! Are Mike or Billie Joe with you? Bring them the hell up!"
Tre hesitated. "Uh... no... they're not with me, that's kind of what I need to talk to you about."
But the guy seemed to have moved away and pushed the button to let us in and didn't hear.
Tre gave me a wary smile. "That was Dave," he explained.
"Hmm." I nodded. I had a bad feeling about this guy, he didn't seem like the most trustworthy person. But before I could say anything to Tre, he had pushed open the door and motioned for me to follow him. There was a small room with pink walls and a grey desk that I guess was supposed to be like a lobby, and a door that said "Stairs." Tre walked to this door and opened it. "They live on the fifth floor," he told me. We walked up the stairs, on which the white paint was beginning to peel. Tre opened a door that read "5" on it, and walked down a hallway with an ugly yellow carpet. He knocked on the door labeled "C."
The door flung open. "Well, if it isn't Mr. Tre Cool!" The guy who I guess was Dave rushed out and gave Tre a huge bear hug. I looked at him skeptically. He was wearing a white tank top, grey sweatpants, and no shoes. His thick brown hair was uncombed, and looked as though it had been put on his head lopsided.
"Hey Dave," Tre said calmly.
"What the hell are you doing here in dear ol' Berkeley?" Dave asked him, but Tre didn't have time to reply. Dave looked past him and saw me. A grin spread across his face. "Well, well, who do we have here?" He stuck out a pudgy hand. "Dave Meyers. It's very nice to meet you, lil' lady."
The fact that he had just called me "lil' lady" didn't do much to improve my impression of this Dave guy. But I wanted to be nice, so I just smiled, shook his hand, and said, "I'm Cassandra. It's very nice to meet you."
Dave raised his eyebrows at Tre. "I'll explain later." Tre said quietly.
Dave shrugged and gestured towards the door. "Well, come on in, then!" he said excitedly. He stepped back into the apartment.
The first room appeared to be living room, and could best be described using the word brown. There was an old brown couch, brown carpet, and brown walls. The only thing that wasn't brown was the television, which sat upon a brown table.
"Lola, we got visitors!" Dave called out. He turned back to us. "I was just readin' my newspaper. The sports section, o' course, don't wanna be readin' none o' that politics stuff. Not fit for a guy like me, you know!" he guffawed at his own comment. He passed into the kitchen. Thankfully, this room was in a different color: yellow. The walls were yellow, the floor tiles were yellow, the counters were yellow, and table in the middle of the room was yellow.
Dave noticed me looking around. "You see, me and the misses don't wanna bother with tryin' to match colors, so we just figgered we'd pick one color for each room. Smart idea, huh?" He tapped his head, as if to show off his own intelligence. I nodded and smiled a tight-lipped smile.
"Is he bothering you with nonsense talk about his 'genius' decorating plans again?" came a voice from behind us. A woman who I assumed was Lola walked up to Tre and kissed him on the cheek. "How you doing?" She was wearing tight jeans, blue flip-flops, and a blue T-shirt that read "It's Not That I Can't Hear You, I Just Think You're Stupid." She had short dirty blond hair, and cigarette in her left hand.
"Hey, Lola." Tre answered. "This is Cassandra." He gave her a look as if to say, Shut up, I'll tell you later.
Lola wasn't fazed. She walked over to me and said, "Welcome to our home, honey." She stuck out her hand for me to shake. I noticed she had "Bitch" tattooed on her right arm.
Lola turned to Dave. "So, you ready to get goin'? We were just gonna go to the store. You wanna come?" She asked Tre and I.
"No, thanks. We're kind of tired." Tre answered.
She shrugged. "That's fine. You remember where the guest room is? You two can stay in there. We'll be back in a couple hours, that okay?"
Tre nodded, and they left, slamming the door behind them.
He motioned to me. "You wanna go rest in the guest room for a while?"
I nodded. He walked down a short hallway off of the living room and opened another door. This room was all done in blue, with a blue bed with blue sheets, a small blue table, blue carpet, and blue walls. Tre took of his shirt and shoes and lay down on the bed.
"Man, I am exhausted." He sighed. I followed his example, taking of my shoes, shirt, and bra. I walked over to the bed and lay down directly on top of Tre.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asked me.
"I thought we were supposed to be resting. Aren't we?"
"Yes. Yes we are." He was silent for a second, then starting shifting under me.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Your boobs are pushing into my back." He replied.
"So?"
"So it's really turning me on."
I waited. Finally I said, "Well are you going to do anything about it?"
"I thought you'd never ask." He turned over under me, and I giggled. He smiled and kissed me. I kissed back, and we stayed like that for a while. Some crazy animal thing suddenly came out in both of us and we started kissing harder and harder. I realized that this was the first time we had been really alone since the hotel room, but then had been the first day we had known each other. We both moaned and and were breathing hard. I dug my nails into Tre's back, and he gasped. "Harder." He whispered urgently, and I complied. I trailed my nails down his back, leaving white scratch marks. He groaned with a mixture of pleasure and pain. He bit my shoulder and I gasped even louder than Tre had. He took this as a sign to bite all the way down my arm, leaving small teeth marks.
"Ow." I muttered.
"Sorry." Tre whispered. We smiled and kissed again. He was just unbuttoning my pants as I heard the front door burst open. Loud footsteps grew louder as someone walked over to the door.
"Shit!" Tre gave me a worried look and pushed me under the sheets before I could say anything. I heard the door open and Dave's voice. I couldn't hear what he said, but I noticed that Tre's legs were under the sheets, and it gave me an idea. I crawled as slowly as I could in the direction of his feet and waited a few seconds.
"Yeah, sure, dinner sounds... " Tre was saying, and I took this as an opportunity to trail my tongue down his foot. "Great!" he finished his sentence in a high-pitched squeal as he jerked his foot away in surprise.
I could almost hear Dave give Tre a weird look. "Um..okay... we'll meet you out there in a few minutes. Tell Cassandra when she gets out of the bathroom," he said quickly, as if he just wanted to get out of there. I heard the door shut. Tre waited a few seconds before he ripped the covers off me.
"You whore!" He tried to grab me, but I got off the bed before he could. "What were you thinking? He probably thinks I'm the biggest freak in the entire world!"
I couldn't say anything, I was laughing so hard. Tre chased me around the room before finally pinning me to the bed. "You know you're going to have to pay for this."
I raised my eyebrows. "Oh, really?"
"Yes." He kissed me roughly on the mouth. "But not now, because we're going out to dinner with Dave and Lola. Put your goddamn clothes back on." He got off of me.
I repeated Tre's line from that morning. "I like you. You're funny."
"What?" I was completely out of it. My neck hurt from falling asleep on Tre's shoulder, and I had lines on my face from his shirt.
"If we don't get off the bus, they're going to throw us out. Is that what you want?"
"Ha, ha. No." I got up, stretched, and rubbed my eyes, starting to wake up. Tre grabbed the bag with the clothes and ridiculous amount of money we had found and led me gently off the bus. I squinted in the bright California sunlight.
Tre held out his arms. "Welcome to Berkeley."
"Mmmmmph. It's wonderful." I muttered. I was still kind of tired and wasn't really in the mood to be excited right then.
Tre looked hurt. "Well, excuse me, princess. What were you expecting, a giant limo to take you away to your palace?"
I looked at him and sighed. "I'm sorry, Tre. Can we just go?"
"Yes, ma'am. We'd better get started, we have kind of a long way to walk."
"What?" At first I thought he was joking, but was dismayed to realize he was serious.
"We're going to walk. I want to save our money, I don't want to waste it on a cab."
"Please?" I looked at him imploringly.
He gave me another hurt look. "Are you serious?"
"No, I suppose not." Tre started walking ahead of me, and I followed. "Where are we going anyway?"
"To Dave and Lola's." Tre turned a corner and started along a new street.
"Who the hell are Dave and Lola?"
Tre shrugged. "Friends. They know some people that can get us fake IDs."
"What?!" I stopped walking. "What did you just say?"
Tre stopped as well and turned around. "Look. We can't be Cassandra and Frank anymore. If we stay ourselves and start to do things like buy a house or a car, the police will find us. Do you understand?"
I was still confused. "Who's Frank?"
Tre gave me a strange look, then started to laugh. I expected him to let me in on whatever was so funny, but he didn't, just continued to laugh until I got annoyed. "What?"
Tre didn't answer. "Well, fine." I walked past him, even though I had no idea where we were going.
His laughing subsided enough for him to say, "Wait, Cassandra, stop." I did, and stared at him.
"I'm Frank." He suppressed another chuckle. "That's my real name."
"How was I supposed to know that, if you never told me?" I tried not to let it bother me that it didn't bother me that much that I had never known Tre's real name.
"I don't know." He walked over to me and put an arm around my shoulders. "I like you. You're funny."
I made a face. "I'm glad my ignorance is amusing to you."
"Oh, don't worry. It is." He smiled.
"You're an asshole, you know that?"
"It's what I've been told."
We started walking again, and I lost track of how many streets we passed, how many corners we went around, how tired I was becoming.
Tre finally stopped in front of a tall, white apartment building. "This is it." He beamed.
"Good. Can we go inside, like, now?" I panted. I felt like I was going to collapse.
"Yeah, sure." Tre pushed the button on the intercom. He waited a second, but there wasn't an answer. He pushed it again.
"Will you wait a goddamn minute? Who the hell is it?" A hoarse voice demanded.
"It's Tre. Tre Cool."
The voice paused. "Who?" I wondered how good of friends Tre was with these people if they didn't even know who he was.
"Frank Wright? Don't you remember, we've known each other for like five years, you sold me a goddamn drum kit?"
"Tre!" The voice boomed. "Sure! Come the fuck up here! Are Mike or Billie Joe with you? Bring them the hell up!"
Tre hesitated. "Uh... no... they're not with me, that's kind of what I need to talk to you about."
But the guy seemed to have moved away and pushed the button to let us in and didn't hear.
Tre gave me a wary smile. "That was Dave," he explained.
"Hmm." I nodded. I had a bad feeling about this guy, he didn't seem like the most trustworthy person. But before I could say anything to Tre, he had pushed open the door and motioned for me to follow him. There was a small room with pink walls and a grey desk that I guess was supposed to be like a lobby, and a door that said "Stairs." Tre walked to this door and opened it. "They live on the fifth floor," he told me. We walked up the stairs, on which the white paint was beginning to peel. Tre opened a door that read "5" on it, and walked down a hallway with an ugly yellow carpet. He knocked on the door labeled "C."
The door flung open. "Well, if it isn't Mr. Tre Cool!" The guy who I guess was Dave rushed out and gave Tre a huge bear hug. I looked at him skeptically. He was wearing a white tank top, grey sweatpants, and no shoes. His thick brown hair was uncombed, and looked as though it had been put on his head lopsided.
"Hey Dave," Tre said calmly.
"What the hell are you doing here in dear ol' Berkeley?" Dave asked him, but Tre didn't have time to reply. Dave looked past him and saw me. A grin spread across his face. "Well, well, who do we have here?" He stuck out a pudgy hand. "Dave Meyers. It's very nice to meet you, lil' lady."
The fact that he had just called me "lil' lady" didn't do much to improve my impression of this Dave guy. But I wanted to be nice, so I just smiled, shook his hand, and said, "I'm Cassandra. It's very nice to meet you."
Dave raised his eyebrows at Tre. "I'll explain later." Tre said quietly.
Dave shrugged and gestured towards the door. "Well, come on in, then!" he said excitedly. He stepped back into the apartment.
The first room appeared to be living room, and could best be described using the word brown. There was an old brown couch, brown carpet, and brown walls. The only thing that wasn't brown was the television, which sat upon a brown table.
"Lola, we got visitors!" Dave called out. He turned back to us. "I was just readin' my newspaper. The sports section, o' course, don't wanna be readin' none o' that politics stuff. Not fit for a guy like me, you know!" he guffawed at his own comment. He passed into the kitchen. Thankfully, this room was in a different color: yellow. The walls were yellow, the floor tiles were yellow, the counters were yellow, and table in the middle of the room was yellow.
Dave noticed me looking around. "You see, me and the misses don't wanna bother with tryin' to match colors, so we just figgered we'd pick one color for each room. Smart idea, huh?" He tapped his head, as if to show off his own intelligence. I nodded and smiled a tight-lipped smile.
"Is he bothering you with nonsense talk about his 'genius' decorating plans again?" came a voice from behind us. A woman who I assumed was Lola walked up to Tre and kissed him on the cheek. "How you doing?" She was wearing tight jeans, blue flip-flops, and a blue T-shirt that read "It's Not That I Can't Hear You, I Just Think You're Stupid." She had short dirty blond hair, and cigarette in her left hand.
"Hey, Lola." Tre answered. "This is Cassandra." He gave her a look as if to say, Shut up, I'll tell you later.
Lola wasn't fazed. She walked over to me and said, "Welcome to our home, honey." She stuck out her hand for me to shake. I noticed she had "Bitch" tattooed on her right arm.
Lola turned to Dave. "So, you ready to get goin'? We were just gonna go to the store. You wanna come?" She asked Tre and I.
"No, thanks. We're kind of tired." Tre answered.
She shrugged. "That's fine. You remember where the guest room is? You two can stay in there. We'll be back in a couple hours, that okay?"
Tre nodded, and they left, slamming the door behind them.
He motioned to me. "You wanna go rest in the guest room for a while?"
I nodded. He walked down a short hallway off of the living room and opened another door. This room was all done in blue, with a blue bed with blue sheets, a small blue table, blue carpet, and blue walls. Tre took of his shirt and shoes and lay down on the bed.
"Man, I am exhausted." He sighed. I followed his example, taking of my shoes, shirt, and bra. I walked over to the bed and lay down directly on top of Tre.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asked me.
"I thought we were supposed to be resting. Aren't we?"
"Yes. Yes we are." He was silent for a second, then starting shifting under me.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Your boobs are pushing into my back." He replied.
"So?"
"So it's really turning me on."
I waited. Finally I said, "Well are you going to do anything about it?"
"I thought you'd never ask." He turned over under me, and I giggled. He smiled and kissed me. I kissed back, and we stayed like that for a while. Some crazy animal thing suddenly came out in both of us and we started kissing harder and harder. I realized that this was the first time we had been really alone since the hotel room, but then had been the first day we had known each other. We both moaned and and were breathing hard. I dug my nails into Tre's back, and he gasped. "Harder." He whispered urgently, and I complied. I trailed my nails down his back, leaving white scratch marks. He groaned with a mixture of pleasure and pain. He bit my shoulder and I gasped even louder than Tre had. He took this as a sign to bite all the way down my arm, leaving small teeth marks.
"Ow." I muttered.
"Sorry." Tre whispered. We smiled and kissed again. He was just unbuttoning my pants as I heard the front door burst open. Loud footsteps grew louder as someone walked over to the door.
"Shit!" Tre gave me a worried look and pushed me under the sheets before I could say anything. I heard the door open and Dave's voice. I couldn't hear what he said, but I noticed that Tre's legs were under the sheets, and it gave me an idea. I crawled as slowly as I could in the direction of his feet and waited a few seconds.
"Yeah, sure, dinner sounds... " Tre was saying, and I took this as an opportunity to trail my tongue down his foot. "Great!" he finished his sentence in a high-pitched squeal as he jerked his foot away in surprise.
I could almost hear Dave give Tre a weird look. "Um..okay... we'll meet you out there in a few minutes. Tell Cassandra when she gets out of the bathroom," he said quickly, as if he just wanted to get out of there. I heard the door shut. Tre waited a few seconds before he ripped the covers off me.
"You whore!" He tried to grab me, but I got off the bed before he could. "What were you thinking? He probably thinks I'm the biggest freak in the entire world!"
I couldn't say anything, I was laughing so hard. Tre chased me around the room before finally pinning me to the bed. "You know you're going to have to pay for this."
I raised my eyebrows. "Oh, really?"
"Yes." He kissed me roughly on the mouth. "But not now, because we're going out to dinner with Dave and Lola. Put your goddamn clothes back on." He got off of me.
I repeated Tre's line from that morning. "I like you. You're funny."
