Connor walked into the house and jumped when he heard the door slam behind him. He looked over to see Giovanni with his back to him. "Andrew... Are you ok?" Gio didn't respond, he had forgotten who Andrew was in his panic. He mumbled something to himself before he turned to see Connor staring at him.

"I'm sorry, I'm fine I just took my medicine and it has these weird side affects but I'm fine!" He brushed it off and walked away from the door. Connor shrugged it off as it wasn't the first time Gio had acted weird at the beginning of them hanging out. Giovanni's parents were absent, once again, as they had planned to go to a party being thrown at a friends house. Gio could've gone with them but he told then he had made plans, so he stayed home. The two talked while picking out which movies they wanted to "watch" later. By "watch" they really meant which movie was going to serve as background noise as they talked for hours until they were forced to realize that the movie had ended once they finally paused in the conversation.

Connor still tried to flirt with him but Gio continued to show no signs of him picking up on the cues. He truly didn't know how to feel about Connor, all he knew was that he was giving him attention, and this attention was sparking a very new and complex feeling in his body. Whenever he saw him, or even thought about his memories with him, he felt a fluttery feeling deep in the pit of his abdomen that would quickly make his face burn. They had just begun their deep spiral into endless conversation when their stomachs made themselves heard.

"Oh jeez," Giovanni exclaimed "I'm starving... What should we eat?" He looked to Connor was already dialing for pizza. They laughed and suddenly something entered Gio's mind. He had remembered what one of his favorite pass times when he and Brandon used to hang out long before they were forced to stop. "Hey hold on I have a surprise!" Gio smiled as he hopped up from the couch and ran to his kitchen. Connor sat in excitement as he ordered the pizza. Gio rummaged through his freezer until his fingers made contact with the cold glass making his smile widen. He quickly grabbed it along with his cups and put the surprise behind his back as he walked into the living room. Connor looked up at him in confusion as Gio walked up to the couch.

"Oooo what is it, what is it!?" Connor practically yelled. He imagined it being his favorite candy, Charleston Chews, which was quite hard to find in their town. His hope filled eyes were soon met with a bottle of Whiskey. The expression of wonder on his face was quickly replaced with one of what could be described as confused disgust. Gio saw this and his smile dropped as quickly as Connor's.

"What's wrong?" He asked, confused at Connor's expression. He felt sorry for pulling him away from his friends on such a big holiday, so he thought getting drunk would make him happy. Gio thought the idea of drinking was something everyone wanted to do.

"Uh... I kinda of hate drinking, and aren't we a little... young for that hard stuff?" Gio couldn't believe his ears, too young? Brandon always told him that drinking was cool, and fun, and that if he didn't do it with him he was neither of those things and- "Are you ok, Andy? Why are you crying?" Gio was snapped back to the real world when he was called, and realized he was crying. "You've been all weird since you close the door earlier, what's wrong?"

"I'm sorry... I just thought... I thought this would make up for the fact that I hurt you. Please don't be mad at me."

"Mad?" His face turned to one of more concern than confusion as he took the bottle from his shaking hands and set it on the table. "Why on earth would I be mad? I just don't fancy drinking, thats all! You didn't hurt me or anything, you didn't even know."

"Its just that..." Gio was very confused, why was he being so nice, why wasn't he getting angry at his crying? "My friends always told me that if I didn't drink with them then I couldn't hang out with them... And that I wouldn't be cool like them."

"They sound like dickheads to me!" His eyes widened at the statement. "Some friends they were, really friends wouldn't pressure you into doing things you don't want to do." The two realized after Connors speech that they were holding hands, which brought red tints to their cheeks. Gio was trying to understand what he was saying, had Brandon really been wrong this whole time? "Here I have an idea. Why don't we do something fun, that isn't illegal!" They lightly chuckled at his jokes, the mood in the room now slowly returning to one they both enjoyed. "Hey do you have anything we can bake? Thats always fun to do!"

"Uh..." Gio thought about what he had in his pantry, though he couldn't see what was still good. "No I don't think so."

"Well looks like we have to go out and get some!" He stood and smiled, offering Gio a hand to get up. Gio smiled, and took it. "Know of any close by stores that won't be too crowded?" Gio nodded and grabbed their coats as they left the house to go buy some cookies.

-

The three teens arrived to house party around 9:40 and it appeared to them that it was not fully started yet. There were not a lot of people outside, but they knew that parties usually start to pick up after 10:30. They saw Brandon and Chris standing in the front talking to some guys from school. Genevieve squealed and ran out to greet Brandon. He looked away and rolled his eyes before fake smiling and picking her up to hug her. (Y/n) and Jackson walked up to the trio and said hello. "Where is Lainy and them? Not here yet?" Genevieve asked as she hung on Brandon's arm.

"They said their still picking up Beth, but they'll be here soon." (Y/n) read off her phone. The group then started to have a conversation, but (Y/n) couldn't help but focus on how Brandon was acting.

Brandon always acted as if he didn't care about Genevieve, and that truly bothered her. She felt so confused about the situation. On one hand, she hated how Brandon treated her best friend, and she knew he was only dating her to get her jealous. She wasn't jealous! Why on earth would she even care about who he dated? On the other hand... She was mad at Genevieve for not listening to her. Genevieve knew how she felt about Brandon, yet she still continued to send her stuff about him and their endeavors. Why shouldn't she deserve him? He'll only hurt her and make her realize just how horrible he is... right? These thoughts that plaqued the girl's mind had stopped for a while, but ever since he smirked at her on Christmas Eve, they had come right back to bite her in the ass. She hated herself for thinking about him so much, especially when she knew Jackson didn't like it when she worried about it.

As the girl's mind swirled with thoughts she was forced back to reality when someone called her name. "Uh, hello? Earth to (Y/n)." She blinked a few times to focus her attention on Brandon, who was calling her out. "You gonna asnwer, or what?" She took a minute to hold back a sparky comment, and looked to Jackson to explain what was going on.

"We were talking about our new years resolutions, wanna tell them yours, babe?" He smiled down at her. She looked back to the group as she tried to remember what she had told Jackson.

"Oh... um..." She was blanking, she couldn't think over the tangling thoughts in her head. "I really wanna work on my anger issues." She blurted out. The other teens nodded in response.

"That's a good one, I should really do that too!" Brandon joked, causing the others to laugh. 'You should probably work on pretending to love your girlfriend, your really bad at it.' The girl thought as they continued to talk. After a few minutes the other three girls arrived. "Great, let the party begin." Brandon cheered as he walked into the house, Genevieve followed closely behind. The other teens agreed and entered the house.

~

Sorry this took so long... I'm really trying to push myself to get to the good stuff cause its coming REALLY soon! We're just stuck in the building it up and that always sucks 😔