DreamOutLoud13
Blue Crack Addict
Thanks for all the hugs, well wishes, and feedback on the previous thread. I'm feeling much better this week, and I meant to post this chapter sooner, but time got away from me. It really does fly when you're having fun 
In this chapter, the boys do boys stuff, and the girls do girl stuff... and there's an author's note at the end:
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Instead of going home, Heather rode the subway until she reached the station nearest Jenny’s apartment. Jenny was expecting a phone call from her, not a visit, but Heather thought she’d be pleasantly surprised.
When Jenny opened her door, Heather put both her arms up in the air and shouted. “Surprise!”
“What are you doing here?” Jenny said, tucking Heather into a hug.
“Are you still up for girl stuff?”
“I’m always up for girl stuff with you.” Jenny said, gesturing for Heather to come inside. “What did you have in mind?”
“Let’s do the kind of stuff we did when we were teenagers. You know, press-on nails, and hot fudge sundaes.”
Jenny nodded, smiling. “All while wearing white lipstick and skintight bellbottoms our fathers would kill us for wearing?”
Heather laughed. “I think I’ll pass on the bellbottoms. Too out of style. Anyhow, I don’t want to go home at all today, there’s nothing for me there. I’d just as soon stay out until it’s time for the concert.”
“So we’re going?” Jenny asked, the pitch of her voice rising with genuine excitement.
“Yup. Adam says he wants to show you a good time.”
Jenny raised her eyebrows. “My, my, my, Heather. I didn’t realize you were into sharing your men!”
“Hey, they were his words, not mine! I don’t plan on sharing him with anyone.”
Jenny pouted. “Not even me, your best friend ever?”
“Jenny, you have a boyfriend!” Heather shouted, laughing. “I shouldn’t have to keep reminding you.”
Jenny laughed. “I can’t help myself. I don’t mean anything by it though, I swear.” She pulled a solemn face and raised her right hand as though she were testifying in court.
“Tell it to the judge.”
“Who’s the judge?”
“Your boyfriend, silly! Now go get ready so we can get out of here.”
“Okay, okay!” Jenny said, laughing. “But where are we going?”
“The nearest drug store that still has a soda fountain. Just like old times.”
Adam and the other three were spending their afternoon quite similarly to how they had the day before. Only this time they weren’t accompanied by a very tall Dutch photographer. Nothing against him personally, Anton had been great to work with and they hoped to do so again in the future, but it had been so long since they’d all, all four of them, gone out together without having to worry about deadlines, rehearsals, interviews, or impressing the media. Adam didn’t realize how much he’d been missing it until he’d had this little taste of it back. Too much lately it had been Bono, Edge, and Larry trotting off to their prayer meetings, and Adam, although he regretted nothing about his lifestyle choices, often felt quite alone, especially being an ocean away from his other friends and family.
Today they were just mates. They were alone, with no responsibilities. They didn’t have to be a band, or be Christians. They just had to have fun and enjoy each other’s company. Today they’d revisited the music store they had loitered in yesterday. Smack in the middle of the store there stood an odd-looking jukebox which mildly resembled a Dalek. Adam had had his photo taken in front of it yesterday, although it was Edge who showed the most interest in it. Today, Bono actually chatted up the female owner of the store and attempted to get her to sell it to them at a ridiculously low price. It seemed clever until Edge pointed out that it would surely cost them three times what it was worth just to get it back to Ireland.
After leaving the store, they wandered aimlessly down an avenue, looking for the next point of interest in their day’s journey. Larry was the first to spot it. He began to cross a side street, but stopped in his tracks not more than two feet from the curb. The narrow side street was blocked off for an entire block, and was filled with the colourful booths of some sort of open-air market.
“Let’s check it out.” He said, leading the way.
With a bit of difficulty which included asking questions that made them sound like tourists, Jenny and Heather managed to find a drug store with a soda fountain. Such things had become a rare commodity by the time they were teenagers, and were even harder to find now. Stepping into the cool, gleaming brightness of the store, they first traveled up the aisles of the store, picking up the tacky items of their youth. After making their purchases they went over to the fountain and each took a seat on one of the comfy stools along the sparkling counter. Jenny ordered a hot fudge sundae, Heather a root beer float, and then they began liberating their purchases from their plastic packaging prisons.
Altogether they had two packages of long, bright pink press-on nails, a tube of white lipstick, and several gaudy purple plastic hair baubles. Jenny opened the hair baubles first and lay them out in a row on the counter.
“Do you have a hairbrush in your purse?” She asked.
Heather fished it out and handed it to her. “I’m almost afraid of what you’re going to do to me.” She said as Jenny got up from her stool to stand behind her.
“Don’t worry, you can do the same to me.” Jenny said as she began brushing Heather’s hair.
By the time the soda jerk, looking slightly comical in his bow tie and crisply-folded hat brought their ice cream treats to them, Heather and Jenny had fixed one another’s hair quite absurdly. Heather’s hair was pulled into a crooked ponytail, just off-center of the top of her head, while Jenny’s was in an equally crooked half ponytail. The soda jerk raised an eyebrow at the girls, but refrained from commenting.
While they enjoyed their ice cream, Heather and Jenny took turns giggling over each other’s hair, and lamenting over their own while taking turns using the shiny chrome napkin dispenser as a mirror. When their glass dishes held only the sticky, melted remains of their ice cream, Jenny cracked open the packages of press-on nails and they got busy applying them.
It took them longer to apply the plastic nails than it had to fix their hair, but when they had, the effect was intriguing. It was amazing how much simply sticking some fake nails on could make you feel like a teenager. By the time Heather and Jenny were smearing on the white lipstick, they were giggling like schoolgirls. The soda jerk, who was wiping down the counter at the other end of the fountain, looked up at them for a moment, then looked back down at the counter, shaking his head, as if to say ‘I will never understand women.’
Laughing, Heather and Jenny left the drug store and began walking down the street, arm in arm.
“Where are we going now?” Jenny asked.
“Wherever our feet take us!”
They continued on down the street, not paying much attention to where they were going, that is until they came to a side street that was blocked off. Jenny peered down it and when she saw the colourful booths filling it, she turned back to Heather excitedly. “The Beal Street Art Fair! I can’t believe it’s already been a year since the last one!”
“Well come on.” Said Heather, leading the way into the crowded street. “Let’s see what they’ve got this time.”
The girls began weaving their way in-between the carts and booths overloaded with handmade goods and craft supplies, giving everything a good lookover. The aroma in the street was incredible. The normal city smells were mixed with the smells of fresh-cut wood, pungent ink and paints, the soft smell of textiles, and the mouth-watering scents of street-food.
“Man, I want a funnel cake or something.” Jenny said, eyeing a booth along the sidewalk where various treats were being sold.
“You just had a sundae, wasn’t that enough?”
“I can’t help myself, I have a weakness for food sold from booths at street fairs!”
Heather laughed. “Fine, go get something. I’m gonna go check out these scarves.”
Jenny tacked herself onto the end of the short line of people waiting at the food booth, while Heather walked over to a cart nearly covered with hand-dyed silk scarves hanging from hooks and rails. The artisan had cleverly arranged them by hue. Heather began walking counterclockwise around the booth, following the spectrum of colours as it went from yellows to greens, when she came face to face with Larry Mullen Jr.
Heather gasped and jumped back, her bedazzled fingers flying up to cover her mouth. Larry took a step back as well, staring at her with eyes like saucers. “What the hell happened to you?”
“What?” She asked, confused, lowering her fingers. But then she saw her nails and remembered. When he’d last seen her just a couple of hours ago, she’d looked absolutely sane. Now she looked as though she’d fallen off of a time machine of bad taste. She looked down at her nails, blushing. “Oh, it was just, my friend and I were being silly.”
But before Heather could get any farther in her explanation of herself, she heard a wonderful and familiar voice coming around the corner of the cart and growing closer.
“Lawrence? Where’d you go? I wanted to ask your opinion on something.” Adam came into view then, looking just as amazing as ever. His face lit up when he saw her. “Heather! What are you doing here?” He said moving toward her quickly and pulling her into an embrace. “You look...” He stopped, lost for words.
Heather made a face somewhere between a grimace and a smile. “I look insane, I know. Jenny and I were out and we just got a little carried away with silly girl stuff.” Even as she spoke, Heather was pulling her hair loose of the ponytail. When she did, one of the fake nails popped right off and landed in the street. Heather glanced at it and then began popping the rest of them off. The glue was weak and by no means permanent and it was only a few seconds before all ten pink nails lay in the street like dead beetles.
Just then, Jenny came back bearing a large cone of cotton candy. “Heather! What are you doing? I just bought those!”
“Jenny, this is-” Heather began, but Jenny cut her off.
“Adam! It has to be!”
“Pleased to meet you. And this is Larry.”
Jenny shook their hands, but her attention was on
Heather. “What are they doing here?”
Heather turned to Adam. “What are you doing here? As big as this city is, how in the world did we both end up here today?”
“It must have been fate.” Adam said softly, while he gently wiped away her white lipstick with his thumb, restoring her to her normal self, before kissing her gently.
Heather smiled as their mouths broke apart, and leaned against his chest. She didn’t know if such a thing as fate actually existed, but the thought that something in the cosmos could bring two people together in the most random of circumstances made her feel quite good inside. Unfortunately, the moment was brief before Jenny recaptured Heather’s attention.
“Could you... could you hold this?” Jenny said, shoving her paper cone of cotton candy at Larry with such force that he had no choice but to take it. She thanked him and began removing her own phony fingernails. While she wasn’t looking, Larry tore off a big chunk of the sugary pink candy and shoved it into his mouth. By the time she looked back up at him, he was watching her with a completely straight face, as though nothing had happened. Jenny looked from him to her diminished cotton candy and back again with narrowed eyes, before reaching over and plucking the cone from him. “I’ll take that back now, thanks.”
Adam and Heather broke into laughter, and after a moment Larry joined them, revealing his newly pink-stained tongue. When the laughter died down, Jenny looked from Adam to Larry.
“Aren’t there supposed to be four of you?”
Larry glanced down the busy street. “Bono and Edge are around here somewhere.”
Heather smiled. “I’m sure Jenny would like to meet them.”
Jenny agreed that she would, and so Larry led the way into the crowd to find them, with Jenny following close behind. Heather and Adam took up the rear, arm in arm. They wove between the booths and stalls, and eventually found Bono riffling through a rack of belts, while Edge stood nearby, quietly watching a craftsman carve intricate designs into a piece of wood.
“Hey Bono!” Larry said, clapping him on the back. “Look what we found!”
Edge turned around to see, although Larry had not addressed him directly. “Heather!” He shouted warmly when he saw her. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s really strange. Jenny and I were just out, doing girl stuff and wandering around, when we came down here and just happened to run into Larry and Adam. It’s so bizarre that you guys were here too.”
“Maybe they’re stalking us.” Jenny said, grinning.
“How could they be stalking us? I think they got here first.” Heather said, laughter in her voice.
“Okay, then we’re stalking them.”
“Yeah, that does make more sense, what with them being the rock band, and us just being us.”
“Because no one would want to stalk us.”
“Well, I’m sure some creep somewhere would, but that’s...” Heather trailed off, realizing that all four members of U2 were watching this strange exchange between she and Jenny in amusement. She grinned and changed the subject. “Jenny, this is Bono and Edge. Guys, this is Jenny.”
Bono and Edge greeted Jenny and extended their hands for her to shake. After shaking their hands, Jenny turned back to Heather. “You didn’t tell me they were all so handsome!” She said, winking. Over Jenny’s shoulder, Heather could see Edge and Larry’s cheeks growing slightly pink. Bono, however, looked quite pleased with himself.
Heather smiled. “I guess I was too busy telling you about just one of them.” She said, turning her head around to smile at Adam, who stood behind her with his arms around her. In response, he gave her a smile and a little squeeze.
Everything about Heather continued to amaze Adam. Her beauty, her feistiness, and that she’d just happened to appear in the middle of this lovely little art fair. He was having trouble taking his eyes off of her, but he managed it just long enough to see what everyone else was doing. Jenny was sharing her cotton candy with Bono and Edge, and Larry had moved off several feet to another booth.
After a few more minutes, Bono, Edge, and Jenny joined Larry. Adam took Heather’s hand and followed. They were now a group of six, not four, and despite his affection for Heather, Adam found himself troubled by that. He’d been completely awestruck when he followed Larry around the corner of the rack of silk scarves and seen Heather. He’d been thinking about her, thinking about buying her a scarf, and then suddenly she was there.
But now Adam found himself torn. He had less than two days left with her, and then he would be off to the next city on the tour. Surely he should make the most of his time with her. But a small voice deep inside his head kept reminding him that despite having been with his mates every day for the last few months, today was really the first time they’d spent quality time together, and he’d been enjoying it. There was no telling when they’d all be together again, so comfortably and with no worries. He hated to see it end just because Heather had shown up. He wanted to be with her, of course, but there was plenty of time for that later. Right now he wanted to savour the time he had left with just his friends.
“Adam?” Heather said, her voiced traced with mild worry.
Adam glanced around and realized he’d come to a halt near a booth selling awful-looking handbags. The other four were several feet ahead of he and Heather. “Sorry, I was distracted.” He said and began moving forward again, but Heather wasn’t moving.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, looking up into his eyes, and he knew she was fearing another conversation similar to the one they’d had alone in the hall after the concert. But for a change, the state and future of their relationship wasn’t the most pressing thing on Adam’s mind.
He smiled, attempting to reassure her. “It’s nothing serious, I was just thinking...” He paused, working the words out in his head. “The guys and I were just out, having a good time together without having to worry about working. It had been a long time since we were last able to do that, just the four of us.”
“Oh.” She said, drawing out the word, comprehension and relief washing away the confusion and worry previously in her face. “No, it’s alright, I understand completely. Bros before hoes.”
Adam’s eyes grew wide and he felt his jaw drop open. Heather was smiling at her own quip, and he felt impending laughter creeping into his stomach. “What?!” He managed to say before the laughter burst forward.
Heather began laughing too, and they leaned against one another trying to regain control of themselves. “It was clever wasn’t it?” Heather sputtered.
“Indeed.” Adam said, trying to draw in a deep breath.
After some moments they managed to recover. “I was planning on spending the afternoon with Jenny anyway.” Heather said, looking around, but Jenny and the others were nowhere in sight. “Dammit, now we’re gonna have to look for them.”
“They couldn’t have gotten far.” Adam said, but he made no movement to go after them just yet. Instead, he slipped his arms back around Heather.
Heather smiled and reciprocated. “We’ll say goodbye here then, good and proper. Or improper, I guess.” She said, and before he could respond, she kissed him, full and deep, but brief. They broke apart, both smiling, and then headed off to find the others.
It didn’t take long. He was right, they hadn’t gotten far. Still smiling, Heather went up quickly and took Jenny by the arm. “Come on Jen, we’ve got things to do.”
Jenny raised her eyebrows at Heather. “Huh?”
“Girl stuff. We’ll see them after the show tonight.”
Jenny still looked bewildered, but she trusted Heather’s lead. “Okay... See you guys later, I guess.”
“Bye, guys.” Heather said, and led Jenny away.
“What was that about?” Larry asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
Adam shrugged, wishing not to make such a big deal out of
it. “They’d been doing girl stuff, we were doing guy stuff, I guess. Best not to mix the two.” Luckily the others took this explanation at face value and they were able to continue on as they’d been doing before Heather and Jenny arrived.
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First, let me just say, I have no idea if that linked picture of Adam was actually taken by Anton Corbijn, but I had to work it into the fic, because it's an awesome photo.
Secondly, I'm quite sure nobody was going around saying "bros before hoes" in 1982, but I absolututely could not resist including that. It brings the lulz though, right?
Lastly, the first half or so of this chapter was originally a lot longer, Heather and Jenny spent longer at Jenny's apartment before leaving. I was going to go into this whole big description of Jenny's apartment, and how it was furnished more nicely than what she could actually afford, because her parents insisted on furnishing it for her, but decided that that was too much needless information about a supporting character. The part with Heather and Jenny at the soda fountain was also originally a lot longer, but ultimately I trimmed it down, because it seemed completely uninteresting. This chapter gave me so much damn trouble when I was writing it, but hopefully the finished product was worth it
In this chapter, the boys do boys stuff, and the girls do girl stuff... and there's an author's note at the end:
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Instead of going home, Heather rode the subway until she reached the station nearest Jenny’s apartment. Jenny was expecting a phone call from her, not a visit, but Heather thought she’d be pleasantly surprised.
When Jenny opened her door, Heather put both her arms up in the air and shouted. “Surprise!”
“What are you doing here?” Jenny said, tucking Heather into a hug.
“Are you still up for girl stuff?”
“I’m always up for girl stuff with you.” Jenny said, gesturing for Heather to come inside. “What did you have in mind?”
“Let’s do the kind of stuff we did when we were teenagers. You know, press-on nails, and hot fudge sundaes.”
Jenny nodded, smiling. “All while wearing white lipstick and skintight bellbottoms our fathers would kill us for wearing?”
Heather laughed. “I think I’ll pass on the bellbottoms. Too out of style. Anyhow, I don’t want to go home at all today, there’s nothing for me there. I’d just as soon stay out until it’s time for the concert.”
“So we’re going?” Jenny asked, the pitch of her voice rising with genuine excitement.
“Yup. Adam says he wants to show you a good time.”
Jenny raised her eyebrows. “My, my, my, Heather. I didn’t realize you were into sharing your men!”
“Hey, they were his words, not mine! I don’t plan on sharing him with anyone.”
Jenny pouted. “Not even me, your best friend ever?”
“Jenny, you have a boyfriend!” Heather shouted, laughing. “I shouldn’t have to keep reminding you.”
Jenny laughed. “I can’t help myself. I don’t mean anything by it though, I swear.” She pulled a solemn face and raised her right hand as though she were testifying in court.
“Tell it to the judge.”
“Who’s the judge?”
“Your boyfriend, silly! Now go get ready so we can get out of here.”
“Okay, okay!” Jenny said, laughing. “But where are we going?”
“The nearest drug store that still has a soda fountain. Just like old times.”
Adam and the other three were spending their afternoon quite similarly to how they had the day before. Only this time they weren’t accompanied by a very tall Dutch photographer. Nothing against him personally, Anton had been great to work with and they hoped to do so again in the future, but it had been so long since they’d all, all four of them, gone out together without having to worry about deadlines, rehearsals, interviews, or impressing the media. Adam didn’t realize how much he’d been missing it until he’d had this little taste of it back. Too much lately it had been Bono, Edge, and Larry trotting off to their prayer meetings, and Adam, although he regretted nothing about his lifestyle choices, often felt quite alone, especially being an ocean away from his other friends and family.
Today they were just mates. They were alone, with no responsibilities. They didn’t have to be a band, or be Christians. They just had to have fun and enjoy each other’s company. Today they’d revisited the music store they had loitered in yesterday. Smack in the middle of the store there stood an odd-looking jukebox which mildly resembled a Dalek. Adam had had his photo taken in front of it yesterday, although it was Edge who showed the most interest in it. Today, Bono actually chatted up the female owner of the store and attempted to get her to sell it to them at a ridiculously low price. It seemed clever until Edge pointed out that it would surely cost them three times what it was worth just to get it back to Ireland.
After leaving the store, they wandered aimlessly down an avenue, looking for the next point of interest in their day’s journey. Larry was the first to spot it. He began to cross a side street, but stopped in his tracks not more than two feet from the curb. The narrow side street was blocked off for an entire block, and was filled with the colourful booths of some sort of open-air market.
“Let’s check it out.” He said, leading the way.
With a bit of difficulty which included asking questions that made them sound like tourists, Jenny and Heather managed to find a drug store with a soda fountain. Such things had become a rare commodity by the time they were teenagers, and were even harder to find now. Stepping into the cool, gleaming brightness of the store, they first traveled up the aisles of the store, picking up the tacky items of their youth. After making their purchases they went over to the fountain and each took a seat on one of the comfy stools along the sparkling counter. Jenny ordered a hot fudge sundae, Heather a root beer float, and then they began liberating their purchases from their plastic packaging prisons.
Altogether they had two packages of long, bright pink press-on nails, a tube of white lipstick, and several gaudy purple plastic hair baubles. Jenny opened the hair baubles first and lay them out in a row on the counter.
“Do you have a hairbrush in your purse?” She asked.
Heather fished it out and handed it to her. “I’m almost afraid of what you’re going to do to me.” She said as Jenny got up from her stool to stand behind her.
“Don’t worry, you can do the same to me.” Jenny said as she began brushing Heather’s hair.
By the time the soda jerk, looking slightly comical in his bow tie and crisply-folded hat brought their ice cream treats to them, Heather and Jenny had fixed one another’s hair quite absurdly. Heather’s hair was pulled into a crooked ponytail, just off-center of the top of her head, while Jenny’s was in an equally crooked half ponytail. The soda jerk raised an eyebrow at the girls, but refrained from commenting.
While they enjoyed their ice cream, Heather and Jenny took turns giggling over each other’s hair, and lamenting over their own while taking turns using the shiny chrome napkin dispenser as a mirror. When their glass dishes held only the sticky, melted remains of their ice cream, Jenny cracked open the packages of press-on nails and they got busy applying them.
It took them longer to apply the plastic nails than it had to fix their hair, but when they had, the effect was intriguing. It was amazing how much simply sticking some fake nails on could make you feel like a teenager. By the time Heather and Jenny were smearing on the white lipstick, they were giggling like schoolgirls. The soda jerk, who was wiping down the counter at the other end of the fountain, looked up at them for a moment, then looked back down at the counter, shaking his head, as if to say ‘I will never understand women.’
Laughing, Heather and Jenny left the drug store and began walking down the street, arm in arm.
“Where are we going now?” Jenny asked.
“Wherever our feet take us!”
They continued on down the street, not paying much attention to where they were going, that is until they came to a side street that was blocked off. Jenny peered down it and when she saw the colourful booths filling it, she turned back to Heather excitedly. “The Beal Street Art Fair! I can’t believe it’s already been a year since the last one!”
“Well come on.” Said Heather, leading the way into the crowded street. “Let’s see what they’ve got this time.”
The girls began weaving their way in-between the carts and booths overloaded with handmade goods and craft supplies, giving everything a good lookover. The aroma in the street was incredible. The normal city smells were mixed with the smells of fresh-cut wood, pungent ink and paints, the soft smell of textiles, and the mouth-watering scents of street-food.
“Man, I want a funnel cake or something.” Jenny said, eyeing a booth along the sidewalk where various treats were being sold.
“You just had a sundae, wasn’t that enough?”
“I can’t help myself, I have a weakness for food sold from booths at street fairs!”
Heather laughed. “Fine, go get something. I’m gonna go check out these scarves.”
Jenny tacked herself onto the end of the short line of people waiting at the food booth, while Heather walked over to a cart nearly covered with hand-dyed silk scarves hanging from hooks and rails. The artisan had cleverly arranged them by hue. Heather began walking counterclockwise around the booth, following the spectrum of colours as it went from yellows to greens, when she came face to face with Larry Mullen Jr.
Heather gasped and jumped back, her bedazzled fingers flying up to cover her mouth. Larry took a step back as well, staring at her with eyes like saucers. “What the hell happened to you?”
“What?” She asked, confused, lowering her fingers. But then she saw her nails and remembered. When he’d last seen her just a couple of hours ago, she’d looked absolutely sane. Now she looked as though she’d fallen off of a time machine of bad taste. She looked down at her nails, blushing. “Oh, it was just, my friend and I were being silly.”
But before Heather could get any farther in her explanation of herself, she heard a wonderful and familiar voice coming around the corner of the cart and growing closer.
“Lawrence? Where’d you go? I wanted to ask your opinion on something.” Adam came into view then, looking just as amazing as ever. His face lit up when he saw her. “Heather! What are you doing here?” He said moving toward her quickly and pulling her into an embrace. “You look...” He stopped, lost for words.
Heather made a face somewhere between a grimace and a smile. “I look insane, I know. Jenny and I were out and we just got a little carried away with silly girl stuff.” Even as she spoke, Heather was pulling her hair loose of the ponytail. When she did, one of the fake nails popped right off and landed in the street. Heather glanced at it and then began popping the rest of them off. The glue was weak and by no means permanent and it was only a few seconds before all ten pink nails lay in the street like dead beetles.
Just then, Jenny came back bearing a large cone of cotton candy. “Heather! What are you doing? I just bought those!”
“Jenny, this is-” Heather began, but Jenny cut her off.
“Adam! It has to be!”
“Pleased to meet you. And this is Larry.”
Jenny shook their hands, but her attention was on
Heather. “What are they doing here?”
Heather turned to Adam. “What are you doing here? As big as this city is, how in the world did we both end up here today?”
“It must have been fate.” Adam said softly, while he gently wiped away her white lipstick with his thumb, restoring her to her normal self, before kissing her gently.
Heather smiled as their mouths broke apart, and leaned against his chest. She didn’t know if such a thing as fate actually existed, but the thought that something in the cosmos could bring two people together in the most random of circumstances made her feel quite good inside. Unfortunately, the moment was brief before Jenny recaptured Heather’s attention.
“Could you... could you hold this?” Jenny said, shoving her paper cone of cotton candy at Larry with such force that he had no choice but to take it. She thanked him and began removing her own phony fingernails. While she wasn’t looking, Larry tore off a big chunk of the sugary pink candy and shoved it into his mouth. By the time she looked back up at him, he was watching her with a completely straight face, as though nothing had happened. Jenny looked from him to her diminished cotton candy and back again with narrowed eyes, before reaching over and plucking the cone from him. “I’ll take that back now, thanks.”
Adam and Heather broke into laughter, and after a moment Larry joined them, revealing his newly pink-stained tongue. When the laughter died down, Jenny looked from Adam to Larry.
“Aren’t there supposed to be four of you?”
Larry glanced down the busy street. “Bono and Edge are around here somewhere.”
Heather smiled. “I’m sure Jenny would like to meet them.”
Jenny agreed that she would, and so Larry led the way into the crowd to find them, with Jenny following close behind. Heather and Adam took up the rear, arm in arm. They wove between the booths and stalls, and eventually found Bono riffling through a rack of belts, while Edge stood nearby, quietly watching a craftsman carve intricate designs into a piece of wood.
“Hey Bono!” Larry said, clapping him on the back. “Look what we found!”
Edge turned around to see, although Larry had not addressed him directly. “Heather!” He shouted warmly when he saw her. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s really strange. Jenny and I were just out, doing girl stuff and wandering around, when we came down here and just happened to run into Larry and Adam. It’s so bizarre that you guys were here too.”
“Maybe they’re stalking us.” Jenny said, grinning.
“How could they be stalking us? I think they got here first.” Heather said, laughter in her voice.
“Okay, then we’re stalking them.”
“Yeah, that does make more sense, what with them being the rock band, and us just being us.”
“Because no one would want to stalk us.”
“Well, I’m sure some creep somewhere would, but that’s...” Heather trailed off, realizing that all four members of U2 were watching this strange exchange between she and Jenny in amusement. She grinned and changed the subject. “Jenny, this is Bono and Edge. Guys, this is Jenny.”
Bono and Edge greeted Jenny and extended their hands for her to shake. After shaking their hands, Jenny turned back to Heather. “You didn’t tell me they were all so handsome!” She said, winking. Over Jenny’s shoulder, Heather could see Edge and Larry’s cheeks growing slightly pink. Bono, however, looked quite pleased with himself.
Heather smiled. “I guess I was too busy telling you about just one of them.” She said, turning her head around to smile at Adam, who stood behind her with his arms around her. In response, he gave her a smile and a little squeeze.
Everything about Heather continued to amaze Adam. Her beauty, her feistiness, and that she’d just happened to appear in the middle of this lovely little art fair. He was having trouble taking his eyes off of her, but he managed it just long enough to see what everyone else was doing. Jenny was sharing her cotton candy with Bono and Edge, and Larry had moved off several feet to another booth.
After a few more minutes, Bono, Edge, and Jenny joined Larry. Adam took Heather’s hand and followed. They were now a group of six, not four, and despite his affection for Heather, Adam found himself troubled by that. He’d been completely awestruck when he followed Larry around the corner of the rack of silk scarves and seen Heather. He’d been thinking about her, thinking about buying her a scarf, and then suddenly she was there.
But now Adam found himself torn. He had less than two days left with her, and then he would be off to the next city on the tour. Surely he should make the most of his time with her. But a small voice deep inside his head kept reminding him that despite having been with his mates every day for the last few months, today was really the first time they’d spent quality time together, and he’d been enjoying it. There was no telling when they’d all be together again, so comfortably and with no worries. He hated to see it end just because Heather had shown up. He wanted to be with her, of course, but there was plenty of time for that later. Right now he wanted to savour the time he had left with just his friends.
“Adam?” Heather said, her voiced traced with mild worry.
Adam glanced around and realized he’d come to a halt near a booth selling awful-looking handbags. The other four were several feet ahead of he and Heather. “Sorry, I was distracted.” He said and began moving forward again, but Heather wasn’t moving.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, looking up into his eyes, and he knew she was fearing another conversation similar to the one they’d had alone in the hall after the concert. But for a change, the state and future of their relationship wasn’t the most pressing thing on Adam’s mind.
He smiled, attempting to reassure her. “It’s nothing serious, I was just thinking...” He paused, working the words out in his head. “The guys and I were just out, having a good time together without having to worry about working. It had been a long time since we were last able to do that, just the four of us.”
“Oh.” She said, drawing out the word, comprehension and relief washing away the confusion and worry previously in her face. “No, it’s alright, I understand completely. Bros before hoes.”
Adam’s eyes grew wide and he felt his jaw drop open. Heather was smiling at her own quip, and he felt impending laughter creeping into his stomach. “What?!” He managed to say before the laughter burst forward.
Heather began laughing too, and they leaned against one another trying to regain control of themselves. “It was clever wasn’t it?” Heather sputtered.
“Indeed.” Adam said, trying to draw in a deep breath.
After some moments they managed to recover. “I was planning on spending the afternoon with Jenny anyway.” Heather said, looking around, but Jenny and the others were nowhere in sight. “Dammit, now we’re gonna have to look for them.”
“They couldn’t have gotten far.” Adam said, but he made no movement to go after them just yet. Instead, he slipped his arms back around Heather.
Heather smiled and reciprocated. “We’ll say goodbye here then, good and proper. Or improper, I guess.” She said, and before he could respond, she kissed him, full and deep, but brief. They broke apart, both smiling, and then headed off to find the others.
It didn’t take long. He was right, they hadn’t gotten far. Still smiling, Heather went up quickly and took Jenny by the arm. “Come on Jen, we’ve got things to do.”
Jenny raised her eyebrows at Heather. “Huh?”
“Girl stuff. We’ll see them after the show tonight.”
Jenny still looked bewildered, but she trusted Heather’s lead. “Okay... See you guys later, I guess.”
“Bye, guys.” Heather said, and led Jenny away.
“What was that about?” Larry asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
Adam shrugged, wishing not to make such a big deal out of
it. “They’d been doing girl stuff, we were doing guy stuff, I guess. Best not to mix the two.” Luckily the others took this explanation at face value and they were able to continue on as they’d been doing before Heather and Jenny arrived.
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First, let me just say, I have no idea if that linked picture of Adam was actually taken by Anton Corbijn, but I had to work it into the fic, because it's an awesome photo.
Secondly, I'm quite sure nobody was going around saying "bros before hoes" in 1982, but I absolututely could not resist including that. It brings the lulz though, right?
Lastly, the first half or so of this chapter was originally a lot longer, Heather and Jenny spent longer at Jenny's apartment before leaving. I was going to go into this whole big description of Jenny's apartment, and how it was furnished more nicely than what she could actually afford, because her parents insisted on furnishing it for her, but decided that that was too much needless information about a supporting character. The part with Heather and Jenny at the soda fountain was also originally a lot longer, but ultimately I trimmed it down, because it seemed completely uninteresting. This chapter gave me so much damn trouble when I was writing it, but hopefully the finished product was worth it
It felt very natural, I wouldn't have known you'd cut chunks out if you hadn't said 
Bros before hoes... 
