chapter ten . just dance

"Dude! You're not even dancing!" Wade complained, trying his best to keep up with the game. He stumbled around, making it evident that he wasn't a good dancer.

Lucielle stood next to him. She found it easier to dance than Wade and was smiling to herself while she did so, in her own little world of sunshine.

The group realized that they were surrounded by the paparazzi in the morning, with no easy way out. They didn't want to go out and face the paps after the whole issue with the Swift siblings.

So they were quickly overcome with boredom and the only solution that came up was to play Just Dance. It was surprisingly Elizabeth's idea, although Wade kept making jokes about being too "entitled" to play it. She flipped him off.

So there they were, playing Just Dance in their living room.

Wade was tragically losing every single round he played, while Victor was winning just from flipping the remote around while he sat on the couch. It pissed Wade off.

"You suck at this." Elizabeth stated bluntly, watching Wade stumble for the 100th time. He turned around and flipped her off, and then she threw her shoe at him.

Wade dramatically collapsed to the floor when Victor won again. "Fuck you!" He groaned.

"You wish." Victor retorted, shoving his free hand into the pocket of Oliver's hoodie that he never gave back. Maisie noticed and raised her eyebrows over at her brother, who blushed and sunk further into the couch.

Adonis wrapped his arm around Maisie's shoulder, letting his girlfriend rest her head on his shoulder.

"Yuck." Darnell exclaimed, jokingly turning his head away in disgust. Maisie smacked him in the shoulder with a playfully annoyed expression on her face. He burst out into laughter and Jonna was quick to shush him.

"Who's next?" Victor held up the remote.

"Ooo! Me!" Jonna was quick to stand up and snatch the remote from his hands, eagerly running up to stand next to Wade.

"I guess I'll go too." Zinnia stood up and took Lucielle's remote. Hunter, who was also playing the game, tossed his remote to Adonis.

"I don't dance." He told Hunter firmly, tossing the remote back.

"Please? It'll be fun." Maisie pleaded, sitting up so she could look at him in the eyes. He looked back at her, finally breaking into a sheepish smile.

"Fine, fine." Adonis stood up, taking the remote from Hunter's hands. Hunter chuckled and sat down next to Maisie, but Wade squeezed in and made a big deal about pretending to be Adonis. The whole group laughed while Maisie's face turned numerous shades of red.

Wade gave Oliver the remote and they started a new round, the group watching as all of them made fools out of themselves.

Maisie looked down at her phone when it went off, her eyebrows furrowing when she opened one of her texts. Wade looked over her shoulder in curiosity, watching as the brunette clicked on a link that led her to an article.

Wade could practically feel her stiffen against him when the link fully loaded, an image of her and her brother enlarged at the top of the article.

It showed Oliver while he was yelling at the paparazzi, and Maisie was in the passenger side crying. Let's just say it wasn't a flattering photo.

Before she could read the article, Wade reached over and pulled her phone from her hands. "What was that for?" Maisie asked, looking over at him. Her voice sounded anxious, like she was a child caught doing something wrong.

Wade shook his head at her, shoving her phone into his pocket. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked back up at the four people dancing in front of them.

Maisie looked back over at him with pleading eyes, but she huffed and leaned back against the couch when she saw that he wasn't gonna give it back.

— — —

"We're gonna get security by tomorrow!" Adonis told the group, a proud smile on his face. After a long and lengthy chat on the phone, he managed to find a group of security guards that he trusted.

"Yes!" Darnell pumped his fist in the air. "We can go outside!"

Jonna smiled sheepishly when Darnell say back down and she looked up at the ceiling to look as though she totally hadn't been staring at him.

He didn't notice and stood back up again to wrap Adonis in a hug, who awkwardly tried to back away from him.

— — —

Hunter stood in the kitchen, trying to cook dinner for his friends. He obviously wasn't doing well enough, because he was using a butter knife to try and cut a potato.

Oliver casually walked inside, but he immediately covered his mouth with his hand to stifle his laugh at the frustrated boy.

Hunter's head shot up when he head Oliver's giggles and their face heated up in embarrassment. "Not a single word about this to anyone!"

"I can't promise that." Oliver laughed. He walked further into the kitchen and sat up onto the counter. "You're using the wrong knife."

"Is that why it's taken so long to cut one of them?" He asked, setting the knife down.

"Yeah. Use this one." Oliver reached over and grabbed a sharper knife, handing it over to Hunter.

He used the knife and it immediately sliced through the potato, his eyes widening in shock. "So it was the knife's fault?"

"No, it was definitely yours. Didn't you ever get taught to cook?" Oliver chuckled.

"Not really. Nona tried to teach me once, but I caught a piece of bread on fire and we had to evacuate everyone." Hunter explained.

"Nona! How is she?" Oliver immediately smiled, "I love Nona."

"She's been great, super busy lately." Hunter laughed, cutting the rest of the potatoes with ease.

"I haven't seen her in forever. We used to always hide out in her place. Remember that one time she hid us behind the counter?"

"Yes! Wasn't Wade there too?" Hunter set the potatoes into the pot of boiling water he had on the stove, struggling to tear his eyes from them.

"Oh he was! Are you making anything else for dinner?" He pushed himself off the counter.

"No, is this not enough?"

"It's definitely not. Here's some noodles! We can make these." Oliver tossed the box of noodles to Hunter, who caught it with a struggle.

The two boys continued to make the dinner, playfully messing with each other until they finished. The kitchen was a total disaster.

— — —

Later that night, Wade found himself outside of Maisie and Zinnia's door. He held her phone tightly in his hands. He wasn't planning on keeping it that long, but he knew that she would read the article the second she got it back.

Zinnia opened the door. "Oh hey!" She smiled up at her friend. "You need anything?"

"Actually, yeah. Can I talk to Maisie?" Wade nodded his head past her and into the room, gesturing to her that he wanted to be let in.

"Yeah, sure." Zinnia stepped out of the way and let him in before she closed the door and stepped back towards her bed, shoving her headphones on over her ears.

Wade stood by the door for a few seconds, making sure he was in a serious enough mindset to talk with her. He walked over to her bed and nudged her awake.

"Hm?" The brunette mumbled, sitting up on her bed. Her hair was messed up and the majority of her curls had fallen out, but neither of them really cared. "What's up?"

"I have your phone." Wade held up his friends phone, waiting until Maisie was fully awake to hand it back to her. "And I wanna talk to you about what you were looking at when I took it from you."

"You shouldn't have even taken my phone. You're not my dad." Maisie took her phone back, setting it down next to her.

"Mae. You're like a sister to me, and we both know damn well that you would've been upset once you read that article." Wade firmly told her. "You just- You just can't read those things about yourself, they don't define you-"

"They do define me. It's exactly what the media thinks about me. Shouldn't I know how they feel?" Maisie interrupted him, looking up at him with a saddened expression.

"No it's not. You shouldn't read those things." Wade paused and looked down at the girl who was practically his sister. "I know you're gonna look at it anyway." He sighed.

"I just gotta see- are you disappointed?" She asked, grabbing onto her phone. Her voice was breaking, as though she knew that she shouldn't be doing what she was about to do.

"No, I'm not. I used to be that way." He gave her a small laugh to reassure her that it was okay. "It just doesn't put you in a good mental space and you just have to learn to ignore these things."

Maisie nodded her head. "Can I just read this one? I promise to stop after this."

Wade tried to refuse, but with the upset look she was giving him, he was forced to give him. "Fine, just- just don't take it personally."

She nodded and opened her phone, ignoring the fact that he was watching from over her shoulder. She began to read the entirety of the article, not showing any emotion as she scrolled through the harsh words that Wade knew were cutting into her heart. Maisie was quick to turn off her phone when she finished the article and stared anywhere but at Wade.

"Maisie-" He began, reaching over to set his hand on her shoulder. The gesture was enough to send the brunette sobbing into his shoulder. Wade wrapped both his arms around her and let her get her emotions out, trying to whisper encouraging words into her ear.

Maisie cried until she felt as though she had physically ran out of tears, laying numbly inside of Wade's arms. "All of those things they said about me, about Oliver." She whispered after a few minutes of silence, "They just assumed things without any evidence. Why would they do that?"

"Because the media is a cruel place." Wade assured her, rubbing comforting circles on her back. "It's not a place where they compliment people, it's where they'll tear you down over and over again."

She nodded and pulled away from him to wipe the tears from her face. "I hate that."

"Who doesn't? We just gotta pretend it doesn't exist." He told her. "I'll help you out with it. The first step is to stop reading anything that has your name in it."

"Okay." Maisie sniffled, messing with her blanket.

"And the second step is to go to sleep. You're tired and you're not thinking straight, we can come up with a better plan tomorrow." Wade gave her a hug and stood up from her bed. "Goodnight, Mae. Wake me up if you need anything."

The brunette nodded and watched as he left the room, choosing to follow his advice and go back to sleep.

NOTE
so writers block hit me like a train and idk when the next update is gonna be. i feel like this update is trash but i wanted to update so here you go
ily guys
<333