Colin Adams

They finally did it. Kara and Annie finally hosted a goddamn party and so far, it’s the best one of the summer. Or at least, that’s according to these two girls who although are the hostesses of the party, are already drunk on the high of success and two shots of tequila.

Thank goodness John, Sally’s older brother, said he’d be their designated non-drunk host for the night. Leaving his sister and her friends to go a little wild at the best party of the summer. Duh.

So, you can imagine Annie’s excitement when Owen makes an appearance at her party. Sure, yes, he’s come with Birdie who is obviously the one who dragged him to come along, but still. He’s here. And well, after all, he is the one who got away. Perhaps, tonight - in her shiny glory of an amazing party - Owen will finally realize what he’s been missing.

She’s tipsy enough not to care about any awkwardness to follow. All Annie can think about are Owen’s rough hands running through her hair, down her back, and up her thighs. She picks him up a beer and hides it behind her back as she heads in his direction.

“Hey guys,” Annie says overly friend, reaching over to give Birdie a hug - of course not noticing Owen’s change in expression.

“Oh, Birdie, I love the dress!” She adds, looking her friend over as Birdie gives a shy smile and repeats compliments herself. “Listen, you have to have Sally and Kara give you one of our jello shots - seriously,” she adds, giving her a push towards the other two girls.

Of course, never noticing Birdie’s little shrug to Owen as she mouths a promise to be back.

“Owen,” Annie says, as her gaze shifts to him a bright smile on her lips, “Looks like it’s just the two of us,” she hands him the beer she brought him, “For you.”

“Oh jolly,” he mumbles but takes the beer. At least lately Owen doesn’t hate her anymore because she’s not been as crazy; she’s been able to hide the crazy - aka work really hard on making amends with people.

“Oh!” Annie let’s out suddenly, “I have to show you something!” 

Without any warning, she grabs his hand and pulls him along her. Annie is too focused to notice Owen isn’t a willing participant, but her sudden movement leaves him a bit too dazed to respond quick enough.

Squeezing through the different people, Annie pulls him all the way into her bedroom and toward her closet to show him – well, they stumble into it and crash into some of her clothes. Annie lets out a loud giggle and Owen, unwillingly, lets out a laugh too.

“Oops.” 

“You are insane,” he mumbles, while Annie pulls him closer.

“Yeah,” she says cheekily, “Insane about you …”

It’s a weird turn of events because Owen actually seems to be having a nice time and willingly closing the space between them.

“What did you want to show me?” He asks, his voice quiet as if they are in a secret hiding place.

Eyes on his, Annie says softly, “I forget now.”

It feels like the air in the room leaves just as Owen’s lips touch hers. He smells like sawdust, gravel, and dirt. God, it’s everything she thought it would be and then –

“After all these years, you still haven’t changed a bit,” she hears from a familiar voice and instantly pushes Owen away.

There in middle of her room stands Colin Adams. Her best friend Colin Adams. You know, Colin Adams who two days ago, Annie had told she was done chasing after past mistakes. Weirdly, he’d asked her about Owen and she’d told him she was over him. It’d seem to make Colin happy at the time - for a reason, Annie hadn’t been clear about.

The look on her best friend’s face seemed to send a chill down her spine. She’d hurt him. The look he had was one of hurt. And then it got worse because he moved, he turned his gaze from her and left. Annie instantly pushed Owen out of her way, every once of alcohol draining from her system.

Without another word, she rushed after Colin - hearing some vague words from Owen as she left him behind. Nothing made sense other than finding Colin and she had to find him now. 

Eventually, she caught him just outside her apartment building. Must not have been going fast, she thought briefly.

“Colin!” She yells at him. “Stop!” He did and turned in her direction. “What happened, what do you mean?”

He’s silent for a while before he shrugs, hands in his pockets, “It’s what you do.” 

“What do I do?” She demands.

“Always looking to get loved by the guys who don’t actually love you.” His voice is quiet but steady. Their gaze never leaves each other but Annie is left without words.

Colin breaks the silence, “Look, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Before he leaves though, Colin approaches her and places a soft kiss on her forehead. His lips feel warm. Annie doesn’t want him to go but as swiftly as he’d appeared in her bedroom, his figure is out of her sight. 

–

He laughed.

It was a joke, right? There wasn’t any possible way that this was really happening: Annie Simmons, the love of his life, girl of his dreams, had certainly not just told him that she loved him. Not seriously, anyway. Definitely not in that way. So he waited, awkwardly, for the punch line. For her to laugh. But she didn’t. She just stood there, looking back at him, waiting for him to say something.

“Wait, you’re serious?”

“Yes, you idiot. Haven’t you been listening to me?”

“You love me?”

“Yes.”

“… why?”

“What do you mean, why? You’re kind and you’re genuine. You’ve always been there for me. And yeah, sure, you are ridiculous and awkward, and the biggest nerd I’ve ever met, but I love that about you, too. Colin, you’re my best friend and I love you.”

He took a nervous step towards her, “Okay, so just so we are clear: you love me. You, Annie Simmons, love me, Colin Adams, whose idea of a wild night is eating too much candy and checking out the maximum books allowed at the library? You love me and not just like a brother … like you love me, love me?”

“Yes.”

He reached out for her, took her hand and —

“Hey, are we out of toilet paper?”

Colin opened his eyes, sitting up abruptly. His eyes adjusted to the sharp light, and he realized that the hazy figure in front of him was Bobby. He exhaled back into his pillow, seeing now that it had all been a dream (what else?).

“Under the sink,” He said, turning over back over, sleepily hoping to return to his dreams of Annie.

Not that Stu would tell him that. This was, after all, one of Stu’s only opportunities to have a little fun.

“What was that, sir? About the ice cream. You said you didn’t steal it. Why would you bring that up unless you had a guilty conscious?”

He cocked his head, raising one brow as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to return to the scene of the crime. Where didn’t you steal this ice cream from? We’ll see if the owner remembers you.”

With that, he gestured back up the boardwalk, indicating that the man should lead the way.

“By the way, what is your name, son? I’ll have to run it through the system to make sure that eraser wasn’t reported missing. We might still have a bulletin out for your arrest.”

At that comment, Stu couldn’t help himself. He really did laugh. Or, it was more like a small snort which he quickly covered with a cough.

He couldn’t wait to tell Zach about this when he met up with him later. He’d be sorry he’d decided to patrol the other end of the boardwalk and missed it. Though, in all likeliness, Zach would have his own stories.

“I mean, think about it, what kind of idiot would steal ice cream? It’s like three dollars. Would I really risk it for three dollars? I mean go big or go home,” He tried to laugh, tried to make it a joke, but he couldn’t and he just made this strange noise instead. And then his face turned white as he realized that it might have sounded like he was planning on stealing something much more valuable than just ice cream, “But I’m not the go big guy. I’m the smart guy. The one who ... goes home.” 

He was really starting to panic now, as soon as Officer Runkin said that they had to return to the place where he had bought his ice cream. Was it really going to come down to this? He’d bought it at Ben and Jerry’s and Josh Lucas had served it up to him, but he was about 90% positive that Josh had come to work high and would he even remember he’d sold any ice cream to him? Did he even know what planet he was on right now? Would this turn into some drug bust? Would Officer Runkin think that he’d gotten drugs, as well as ice cream, and that was why he was acting strange? 

“Yeah, okay, sure. I think I might even have a receipt,” He said, fishing into his back pocket, only to find it empty. “Er, okay, maybe not. But I got it over there at Ben and Jerry’s,” He explained. 

sooo i realized that i don’t think we’ve ever really talked about this buuuut, how often do you think colin comes to nick’s house? i think we’d pretty much said that nick just kind of shows up at skyfall whenever he wants to see colin??? but colin does come over to nick’s a house a lot, right? in which case, he’s probably met stephen!!

colin: .... nick can i have his job??? ;DDD

“I learned a long time ago leaving food unattended in this house meant it would be consumed, no questions asked,” she replied, plopping down in the chair. She was reminded of the time she’d come by to watch some sporting event, left her Pad Thai on the table for ten minutes while she made a phone call, and came back to find Chase had already eaten half of it. Even in the moment she’d broken down laughing about the entire event.

She did raise her eyebrows at Colin as he asked if he was in trouble. “Of course! You saw the same thing happen that I did at the party last night!” she exclaimed, immediately followed by slapping her hand over her mouth. It hadn’t occurred to her until this moment that Chase and Kim might be upstairs, able to overhear her if she talked too loudly. 

“Wait… are they here?” she asked, raising her eyes to the ceiling as she whispered. Even if they were, both were undoubtedly passed out from the alcohol consumption from the night before, she reasoned. 

“It… She’s not supposed to suck face with him! It should be with my brother!” she said quietly, immediately regretting her choice of words because it sounded totally creepy. “You know what I mean,” she said quickly. “He could literally have made out with anyone else at that party but he had to pick her. You.. you… you should’ve thrown yourself in the middle of it! Put a stop to the whole thing! It was indecent!” 

Bonnie realized this was a ridiculous course of action, though the idea of Colin throwing himself between two people making out was sort of funny. “Can’t you talk to him? I know… Alan doesn’t want anyone to know but… I mean… you understand. Its like with you and Annie… except she didn’t stick her tongue down anyone’s throat last night,” she sighed, grabbing a strawberry and popping it into her mouth as she looked forlornly at Colin.

“Oh, yeah ... that .... don’t worry, they aren’t here. At least, I don’t think they are ... ” 

Colin rubbed the back of his neck, nervously. The truth was, he had seen it. All of it. He’d seen Alan see it, too, but he didn’t know what to do. Chase and Alan were too of the most important people in the world to him, and he hated that the was the one who was stuck in between in this love triangle. 

He wanted them both to be happy ... and right now, they both wanted to be with Kim. Colin knew that Alan had been in love with Kim since forever, and on that field, he got “dibs” but then Kim was a living breathing person and she got a say in all this, too. 

And maybe she’d rather be with Chase, than Alan? He didn’t know what the right thing to do here was. He hadn’t talked with Chase yet about it, at all. He wondered how much Chase liked Kim. He doubted it was as much as Alan, but did that mean that he should step back to give Alan a shot (a shot that he was unlikely to ever take ... as someone in the same situation as being in love with your best friend, Colin had a pretty strong feeling that neither he or Alan would say anything to Annie or Kim, even after they both promised each other that this would be the summer they finally did.) 

“I don’t really wanna get in the middle of it,” He said, as he concentrated intently on eating another scone so he could avoid her gaze. 

TALKING TO LEX ETC ALKDSJFKLJDSKLJFAKLJ drunk!Lex be like “hey someone get Luke Solo here a drink” and has no idea he messed up the reference i cRY #facepalm  he def has no clue who kit fisto is hahahah he’s probs just ??????? the whole time until colin says ‘star wars’ and he’s like ohhhhhh yeah ive heard of that smdh yes i think lex may be one of those ppl who has never seen star wars somehow (i feel like it wasn’t really on kitty’s ‘approved viewing’ list hahahaha)

adslfjlkjklJFKLADJSKFKLDSJKLFJK ok but sally at least once def filmed colin telling a tall tale about nick to some really drunk/high person and like the whole video is him sweating and sally giggling basically but she def snapchatted that to like everyone #facepalm  But omg you know they have the best time coming up with increasingly ridiculous backstories for him ‘you know he got his fortune from robbing the graves of ancient pharoahs, right?’ ‘nick is secretly king of prussia’ ‘nick once wrestled a crocadile when he was growing up on the amazon and he now wears a suit made entirely from its skin when he’s at board meetings’ ;DDDDD

LUKE SOLO!!!!!! OMG but no cue that gif of ben wyatt like “i don’t even have time to tell you how wrong you are/wait no, it’s gonna bug me if I don’t” and then colin pulls out his handy pre-made family tree of the skywalkers/solos and tries to give lex this very important life lesson but lex probs walks out i nthe middle of it haha (also colin would freak out if he knew that lex hadn’t even seen star wars and he probably goes up to nick like “how are you friend with this guy????” and like tries to schedule a sw marathon and basically cares wayyyy too much that lex doesn’t know anything about sw 

ANYWAY back to sally/colin haha 

THE VIDEOS OF COLIN TRYING TO LIE ABOUT NICK!!!!!!!!!!!! omg hahaahh I feel like gets so embarased about them and is like “well i was so drunk i usually don’t sweat thAT much” but mostly just like “please don’t show them to annie” hahaha

“You’re late.”

Jane leaned in the door frame, having wrenched the door open as soon as Colin climbed out of his car, now blocking Colin’s entrance as she raised an eyebrow. Behind her, Carrie was curled up on the couch, her head resting on her hand, silently backing her best friend.

“Silent reading time started half an hour ago. I had to stop in the middle of Emma. You know how much I hate stopping in the middle of Emma. Only for you. I would only do this for you.

“We even had snacks. Snacks, Colin! You missed the snacks. They were little crumpets and bought teacups for our Austen night.”

Her arms folded across her chest as she searched his empty hands for signs of peace offerings. “I’m sure you know, the only way you can make this up to me is with coffee. So where is it?

A good excuse in his mind and a good one in Jane’s didn’t always match up. Reading night was special, sacred even, where the Adams were concerned and you just didn’t show up late. Especially on Austen night. Which was one of Jane’s favorites. (Colin secretly enjoyed Austen night, too, he just didn’t like to say that out loud). 

Anyway, the truth was, Colin had been distracted. And he’d been distracted by coffee (or rather his new star wars themed coffee maker that would actually play the theme song when it had finished brewing), but he actually hadn’t bothered to bring any. 

After he sits down beside her, Annie just rolls her eyes at him, “A girl can never have too many shoes,” she tells him matter of factly as she moves closer to him and rests her head against his shoulder. 

Annie doesn’t say anything for awhile. It’s the same old story and she shouldn’t be as upset as she’s feeling tonight, but she honestly thought she was going to get she lead part. After all, she’d had such a good audition, her and Kara had stayed up late drinking to celebrate. 

Eventually, she lifts her head up to glance at him, “I didn’t get the part.” Letting out a sigh, she adds with half a laugh, “The usual.”

Plopping her head back down on his shoulder, Annie just shrugs, “Maybe I should just stop, you know? I’ve been thinking about that, just stop auditioning, then I’d get less disappointed. I mean, it’s not like I don’t like my job…”

His smile faded when she started talking about quitting acting. "Hey, no. Don’t you talk like that.” He said, making a move to sit closer to her without realizing it. “Don’t you give up on your dreams, Annie. Never give up on  your dreams. If you wanna be an actress: that that’s what you are going to do. Don’t expect it to be easy and don’t expect it to happen right away. You are going to have to work at it. But you’ve got passion and you’ve got talent and one of these days, you are going to get that part. But you never will if you don’t try. And you’ll hate yourself if you stop trying. I know you. You’ll regret the shots you don’t take.” 

If only taking his own advice was as easy as it sounded. He almost told her, right then, how he felt. If there was ever a time to be bold, it was then. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. There was always that voice of doubt in the back of his head. 

And there was always that fear of what would happen to them if she didn’t return his feelings. He didn’t want this to end. He never wanted to stop being the person who was there for her after a hard day. He didn’t want to make things uncomfortable. So he didn’t say anything.