under the skin, part 2.5

August 2083 - Cameron Gibson is 32, April Hutchins is 20, James Porter is 26, Drew Bruty is 27, Bella Bradshaw is 27, Amelia Bradshaw is 28.

* soundtrack: "Reckoner," by Radiohead. Warnings: NSFW/kids *

Men are, by their nature, quite simple creatures. They like beer. They like women. But Cameron Gibson is not just any ordinary kind of man.

James, he's pretty ordinary. He'll drink cheap keg beer as long as it's free, and he certainly likes the sight of April.

Cameron, however, is not impressed with anything less than his usual rich and frothy imported ale. And April, sure, she cute, but next to Bella Bradshaw, a quickly rising young film star and the beautiful mother of his children, April is unfortunately just the average little college tart.

Though she acts like the average college frat-boy. Cameron was always more a playboy than a frat boy. He's not very bold, and he's ridiculously fussy. So belching? His bachelor party starts off with belching? This is not exactly Cameron's idea of a good time.

"Bella Bradshaw," April says. "You're one lucky bastard! You know that?"

Cameron just crosses his arms over his chest tighter.

"You know I had a crush on her ever since she did that movie, you know that animated one with all the animals?"

"That was a kids movie," he says. "It was a cartoon."

"Well, she made a hot cartoon," April says. "And I was seventeen then, I was kind of a kid still."

Cameron is not as impressed by April as everyone else is. And he's even less impressed by these girls Maxwell found to "entertain." One of them tries to dance with him. She smells like cheap perfume in such a way that Cameron closes his lungs to refuse smelling it. Even in Bella's less-than-classy days, she still had a taste for good perfume.

But then, Max wouldn't know this difference himself.

Besides Cameron though, all eyes are on April tonight. Because she's friendly, because she's cute, and since there's free keg beer, she doesn't even have any drinks to make at the bar, so she graces them with her sweet little voice for a song or two.

Max takes a seat near the redhead then. "It's all on you," he says. "Whatever he wants, aren't you girls supposed to be good at figuring out what a guy wants?"

The redhead sits down next to Cameron at the bar. "You're the guest of honor," she says. "You don't have to pay for anything, you know."

"Anything?" he says.

She raises her brow at him. "Yeah, anything."

"Do you know football?"

"What? Football?"

"Sure," he says.

"A little, maybe," she says. "I was a cheerleader in high school."

"Good enough," he says.

She follows him outside. It's dark, and Drew goes long into the street. He has a football. "Stand here," Cameron tells her, pointing to a spot on the sidewalk. "You're ref."

"Never been paid for that before," she says. She seems happy enough to do that job though.

When they come back inside, Drew needs some advice. "I wanted to ask you something," Drew says. "I mean, you scored Bella Bradshaw, you must have pulled out something pretty crafty, right?"

"Hell if I know," Cameron says. "I knocked her up a couple times. That seemed to do the trick."

"How about this?" Drew says, sinking to his knee, displaying his bold sensitivity in a room full of drunk macho men. He pulls a box out of his pocket. He's been holding onto this thing for quite some time now. Maybe since the week Amelia finally kissed him for the first time. He's not ashamed. He's proud of himself for waiting that long. He knew he wanted to marry her the day he helped her move into her house.

Drew tries to will forth the perfect words. He isn't aware of how his brow contorts when he's trying to write poetry in his head. He's usually alone when he's writing. Cameron can't contain his laughter. Drew says, "What, not big enough?"

"Nah, the ring's fine," Cameron says. "But your face!"

"I was just practicing," he says to James. "I can do better than that."

"Yeah, okay," James says.

Drew's face is just fine, he assures himself. But otherwise, he's pretty trashed. He's well and truly blitzed. He wouldn't remember being embarrassed in the morning, and he wouldn't remember most of what went on at this party. And he certainly doesn't remember if this was the moment he drunk-dialed his girlfriend and said, "I miss you Melie-Weelie." Oh yes, he really did! And then accidentally (but not), invited Amelia and the rest of the bridal party over to the bar.

This also may or may not have been this moment that someone wondered, who is that old dude at the card table anyway, and who the hell invited him to the party?

And it may or may not have been this moment when most of the people at the party noticed something was going on between April and Max. It could have been at any point, because April wasn't exactly trying to keep it concealed. She knew Valerie wasn't here, and that was all she really thought to worry about. She was having so much fun that it slipped her mind some of them might not approve.

It might have been this flirty little smile she flashed to Max as they were dancing. It wasn't the dancing in itself - April danced with everyone that night. In truth, James kind of knew it from the start, and that's why he warned her. He knows Max, and in time he came to know April too. So it shouldn't have been as much a surprise as it ended up being.

He wasn't going to say anything. He's a peaceful kind of guy. He never wanted to start any wars or cause any trouble. But she follows him out of the bar. "Where are you going?"

"You know," he says. "I'm just all partied out."

"We just got started," she says. "It's not even eleven yet."

"I don't know why I came out tonight," he says.

"Wait," she calls after him. She says it again, "Wait!" She doesn't know what else to say, but he's not waiting. She tries to take his hand. He brushes it away, but he stops.

"You're mad? It's nothing," she says. "I swear."

"Right, he says. "Well, good luck with that then."

"Come on," she says.

"Screw your whole college campus if you want, but Max? Why Max?"

She doesn't have an answer for that.

There's more going on in his head, words that she isn't allowed access to. She hasn't earned them.

"No," he says. "I'm done picking from his scraps. You guys have fun."

He turns sharp and walks away. She only watches him go.

Behind her, there are footsteps, heels clicking on pavement, and laughing voices. April doesn't know any of them, but she recognizes Bella Bradshaw, who looks remarkably like the animated princess she played in that movie. But even in the presence of Bella Bradshaw, April can't quite muster the spirit to melt into a swooning pile of blubbering fangirl. Because she would, if she hadn't just finished making yet another ridiculous mistake.

"Oh, honey," Bella says. "Good luck with that one, he's always leaving parties early, huh Mariah?"

Mariah only cringes as the girls walk past into the building.

Good luck. The words linger in April's head. For all the luck she's been wished, she's feeling pretty darn unlucky.

Bella bursts in first. "Send the whores home, boys, your ladies have arrived!"

Cameron couldn't be happier to see her, and he squeezes her tightly.

"Hey, careful there buddy," Bella says. "My agent said if you get me pregnant again, he's gonna cut off your balls."

Cameron says, "Even I know that's not the way it works."

Bella tries to get her mom moving out on the dance floor, but Kendal just isn't having it.

Mariah gets on the phone almost immediately. Quinn is probably sleeping by now, but she needs to talk to Micah. She can't tell him why, but she just needs to hear his voice. "I'm fine," she tells him. "I probably won't stay long."

At first she was anxious knowing that James might be here tonight, and now she just feels shaken. All she saw was the back of his head as he walked away, but it was enough. It's been two years. Most of the time, she's been fine, but there are these moments sometimes when she wonders if this is ever going to be truly over.

So she calls her husband, she asks about Quinn, she asks if he wants her to pick up anything on the way home. Without even knowing what they're really talking about, she asks him to remind her of the way her life is supposed to be.

April feels the flashing stage lights disorienting in her head. She doesn't like feeling alone, and now that all the ladies have arrived, that's exactly what she is, alone. She was just a passing novelty, something to look at, some pretty thing to prod and smile at. Even Max, with Valerie in the room, he won't even spare her a passing glance. That fast, and she's reduced to so little.

She's all alone except for Joe, and she really doesn't like being alone. She stumbles into him in the back hallway, or maybe he was actually looking for her. He's been so friendly to her all night. He's been so interested.

She doesn't know anything about him but his name. So with James gone, feeling sorry for herself, with everyone occupied with their wives and girlfriends, April sneaks off with Joe into the bathroom. These situations always seem to start for her with a longing to feel close to someone. She doesn't know him, doesn't know anything about him, but something about his eyes, soft and gray, remind her of Beau, and there's no more comfortable feeling in her world.

He lifts her to the bathroom counter, unzipping his fly, leaving her panties hung loose around one ankle, waving with each movement like a victory flag.

She's not lonely, she wants to tell them all. See? She's not desperate or unloved. See? There's always someone else ready to pick her back up.

This is what she tells herself. She tells herself as hard as she can, because even her own conscience is trying to tell her it isn't the truth.

The rest of the evening goes on as expected, and the party starts to wane. Everyone is tired, Drew pukes a few times in the mens' room and Amelia has called them a cab.

It's been a long time since Amelia and Bella spent such a length of time together without pulling out one kind of fight or another. They actually used to be very close, in their youth before Alon Hutchins happened.

"I'm really glad you came out tonight," Bella says to her cousin. "I feel like we've been fighting for ten years or something."

"We kind of have," Amelia says. "But you know, it was stupid. We were so young, and Alon was such a jerk anyway."

"I know," Bella says. "But still, I'm just sorry, you know? Even if he didn't matter. It was just a really shitty thing to do."

"Awww," Amelia says. Her eyes glass over like she might start to cry, and her arms are poised for an embrace. But she asks, "Are you going to freak out if I hug you?"

"No," Bella says. "Hug away."

A lot of things might have freaked her out, at earlier times in her life, but not so much anymore.

It turns out little girls grow up, whether they mean to or not.

*** to be continued ***

(footnotes: part 1 // part 2 // Cameron's proposal // the last time Mariah saw James // the war for Alon Hutchins)

notes: I hope you all don't mind me breaking up the bachelor(ette) party and the wedding. I didn't mean it that way to start, but then I actually looked at how many pictures I'd taken and how much story I had to cover, and there's no way I could have covered it in one entry.

So long, people, so, so long!

I did give the guys full free will during the bachelor party, but they were all being so boring, lol! Just drinking and belching and throwing up. Nearly all of them wanted to invite their ladies over, and they all had much more fun once the girls showed up. Ah, what can I say? I'm a good matchmaker ;)

I hear you all say to your computer screens, "Oh, April, you didn't!"

*Oh, yes, she did!*

This was an ACR doing, which I kept and recreated for it's perfect relevance to her messed up story, lol! You guys might not remember Joe, but you probably remember his long-time (and now live-in) girlfriend, Carly :( More on this little situation in the extras at the end...