hey wild heart, i'd give up everything;

so much to do.  so much to see.

“She could very well arrest me, you really can’t just go off underestimating her, you know.  That’s the way she likes it.  That’s what gives her power.  And she feeds off of that, and then BAM.  She gets you right where you least expect it.”

Her eyes fell closed when she felt his lips pressing against her cheeks, smiling gently and nudging against him.  “You’re an angel, August Hunter,” she murmured, tugging him in one last time before he could pull away fully and kissing him swiftly on the lips.  “Thank you.”

She followed him toward the trunk of the car, biting her bottom lip for a second and looking between the trunk and Auggie, as if she expected something to just, like, happen without her having to actually do anything in the meantime.

“I really don’t think I’m going to have to tell her,” she pointed out flatly, stupidly.  Naively, really.  “I mean… I just have to buy a new spare, right?  Or a new tire?  Oh, god, I don’t have enough money to buy a new tire.  Auggie, how much is a new tire?”

Her palm found her phone in her bag, not making any moves to dial any numbers, but passing it from hand to hand nervously.  “Should I call Crosby?  God, he’ll hang this over my head through Easter.”

She popped the trunk button on the key fob, lifting the trunk and letting Auggie investigate the supplies staring back at them.  “How’s it look, Boss?”

“Babe, she’s your mother, and you drove her car practically down the street,” Auggie pointed out to her, hoping she could see at least a little bit of reason. Of course, this was the be all, end all at the moment, so really, this could go either way. “She’s not going to arrest you.”

He turned back to her, grabbing her gently by the shoulders. “Take a big deep breath with me, Ted,” he told her, inhaling sharply, and nodding for her to follow, before exhaling. “Everything is going to be okay. We’ll just get the car back home with the spare and then you and I can figure out the rest,” he assured, giving her arms a squeeze. “We can put our money together to repair this one or get a new one or something.”

“You shouldn’t tell Crosby, though. And I say that because if my sister did something like this, and later told me, I wouldn’t let her live it down. So for your sake and sanity, do not tell Crosby,” he warned before looking into the trunk, spotting the spare tire and all the tools to change it. Upsides to his girlfriend’s mother being a cop? She was always prepared.

“It’s looking like you won’t be going to prison after all,” he joked, pressing a kiss to her nose and picking up the jack and the spare from the trunk. He walked around to the front, kneeling down in front of the flat tire. “Could you just pass me the wrench from the back, please?”

HE WAS LAUGHING AT HER.  HER OWN BOYFRIEND.  But, okay, yeah.  Maybe he had a point.  Maybe she was being, like, a little overdramatic.  Or more than a little overdramatic.  Definitely more dramatic than she needed to be.  But she couldn’t help it if she was freaking out, thank you very much, and it was perfectly valid to freak out — so.  Here she was.  Doing just that.  Thank you.

She welcome the hug, burrowing her face in his chest for a moment until the two were just sort of swaying together on the side of a fairly unoccupied Main Street.  It wasn’t a rare occurrence for Shallow Creek, really.  The Town Square — even though it was one of the only things the town really had going for it at all — definitely had its “not so busy” times, and four o’clock on a Sunday was one of those times, evidently.

“Maybe a smidge,” she echoed his thoughts, pinching her fingers together in a similar gesture.  “But you’ve met my mom, right?  Short hair?  Has a car with sirens?  Uniform?  Badge?  Because she’s a cop?  Like… if anyone out there could arrest me, it would be her.  And I’m sure she’d be honored — and disappointed to be the first one to ever put me in a pair of handcuffs.”

God.  As if she ever wanted there to be a second.

“Okay, okay.  The time for panic has passed.  I just have to… think of a way through this.  I have to figure out how to change a flat tire.  Should be… relatively simple enough.  Right?”  She turned back to look at him.  “Do you… know… how… to do that?  Maybe?”

“But I while your mom will definitely be pissed, she’s not gonna arrest you,” Auggie offered, hoping to make her feel at least a little better. He glanced down at the pathetically flat tire that looked almost as sad as he knew Teddy felt.

It had to be just her luck that she’d taken the car out and gotten a flat on her first try. Teddy was the sweetest girl he’d ever met, and she was good almost to a fault. That he knew of, the worst thing she’d ever done was get a B+ on a test, and it had been a mistake on their Geometry teacher’s part.

She was that good. So he can understand why she’s freaking out. And it just makes him want to help her more.

“Dad’s been teaching Allie and me to drive, and mom wouldn’t let him start until he taught us the basics of how to survive in a car, which includes the art of changing a tire. So you’re in luck,” he told her, kissing her cheek before pulling away to assess the damage. He wasn’t an expert, he had to admit that much, but he could at least replace the tire.

That is... if her mom kept a spare in the trunk. And a wrench for the bolts. And a jack. “Two things. Does your mom keep a spare in the back?” he asked, walking around to the trunk. “And you know you’re going to have to tell her, right?”

OLIVE U ALWAYS 4 EVER! ‘09 EDITION! the best music for my best girl on christmas

this was a tragic year for music. oasis AND danity kane broke up. i hope these tunes can help you remember the good and sad times. or at least jimmy jam your way through the new year. thank you for being a friend, traveling down the road and back again, etc, etc. 

xo syd vicious aka super grover aka ya fave boi named sydney

Bashfully — we’re talking terribly red-faced, heart pounding a bit too fast, the works — Teddy took Auggie’s offered hand and stepped out of the basically useless car, nudging the door shut behind her and dropping the keys into her bag after locking the vehicle after her.  She slung her bag over her shoulder, leaning back against the closed door and closing her eyes for a second.

“I’m an idiot,” she expressed, hiding her face in her hands for a second before peeking back at her boyfriend through the slats between her fingers.  “Like, Guinness is going to do a study on me, a World Record sort of thing.  I’m going in the book for biggest idiot move made by an otherwise smart girl.”

God, she could already hear her mother’s voice in her ear.  We’re just… disappointed.  We expect more out of you!  Why would you be so reckless?

And so on, and so forth.  Really, you would think Teddy was laundering drugs with how fast her head was spinning at this point.

“I have no business operating a vehicle, Aug,” she pointed out, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the flat tire.  “None.  I don’t even know how that happened, and now I have to figure out how to fix it.  And?  Do I?  Strike you?  As someone?  Who knows?  How to do that?”

Auggie couldn’t hold it together anymore, no matter how hard he tried for Teddy’s very embarrassed sake. But he laughed because she was freaking out, and probably afraid as hell, but only she could manage to make that look so dang cute.

He reached out for her hands tugging her away from the car and into his arms, and wrapped her up in the tightest hug he could manage, his laughter still rumbling in his chest. “No, babe, you don’t strike me as someone who knows how to do that at all,” he tells her, giving her a squeeze.

“Nor do you have any business operating a vehicle considering you don’t have a license, you rebel,” he teased, bowing his head to kiss her forehead. “But I think you might be overreacting maybe a little bit?” he pulled back a bit, holding his thumb and index finger as close together as possible.

Okay, okay, okay, okay!  She was fine.  Totally fine.  There was nothing to be worried about.  The fact that Teddy Graham was fifteen years old and totally not supposed to be driving right now and was driving right now was nothing that she couldn’t handle.

Just like she could totally absolutely handle the fact that, like…

She was stuck.  Let’s just face it.  The car she had no business driving had gotten a flat tire.  And now she was here.  Stuck.  And trying not to freak out.

WHY HAD SHE LET OLIVE CONVINCE HER THAT SHE COULD DO THIS?

Her enV2 was open next to her, a string of texts rolling in from Olive practically mocking her from the cupholder of her dad’s Volvo that he was surely going to banish her from ever being able to take a step near ever again.  

OLIVE:  HOW DID TEDDY GRAHAM OF ALL PEOPLE GET A FLAT TIRE???????

Teddy glowered at her phone, pushing a stray curl out of her face and grabbing her phone, angrily tapping out a response and smashing the SEND key.

TEDDY:  TEDDY GRAHAM ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE DRIVING A CAR IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU KNOW >_<

Okay.  You know?  She just had to bite the bullet. She had to call her mom and ‘fess up to her big, stupid, terrible truth.  She had (ILLEGALLY) taken her dad’s car out of the garage and (ILLEGALLY) driven all the way down Main Street before she’d realized she had a flat tire, now parked in front of Kingdom Cone — the greatest (and only) ice cream shop in Shallow Creek and trying not to have a mental breakdown.

You know, trying to convince the coolest girl in the senior class that Teddy could be the coolest girl in the sophomore class?  Yeah.  Really not that worth it.  And really not working out all that great.  She hadn’t thought this through at all!  What was she going to do?  Cruise past her and be like, “Yeah, I’m so cool.  Look at me driving my dad’s Volvo without a license.  Let me sit with you  and your pretentious friends at lunch like my mom didn’t totally bust y’all’s barn rager last Friday.”  Yeah.  Fat chance.

Mid-breakdown, she heard a tap on her window, nearly leaping out of her own skin until she turned her head and saw a familiar face looking back at her, nearly doubling over in relief.  “Ohmygodhi.  I… don’t really know how to explain this.  Just… don’t tell my mom.  Or my dad.  But… definitely not my mom.”

Auggie had to try really hard not to laugh at the look on his girlfriend’s face right then. She was clearly freaking out, but he had to admit, this was actually kind of the greatest thing he’d ever seen. His very good, very unlicensed girlfriend had apparently driven her parents’ car without an ounce of permission (or, once again, a driver’s license). “Hi, Ted,” he greeted.

She’d probably be pissed if he laughed. Or well, maybe not pissed, but she’d definitely feel bad, and maybe even more embarrassed than she probably already was, so he tried his hardest to reel it in. He opened the car door for her and held his hand out. “Car trouble?” he asked, a smile escaping him despite all of his best efforts.