Chapter Text
“Billie… why is it bright green?”
“Why should the car not be bright green?” he asked, “y’know it’s less likely to get stolen.”
“It’s embarrassing, you’re gonna get people staring at you constantly…” Mike explained in a hushed tone. Billie shrugged.
“I like the attention,” he stated plainly.
Something about the confidence of his words made Mike laugh and blush slightly.
“And lucky you, you won’t have to put up with me for much longer,” Billie’s smile flattered slightly as he said that, but quickly came back.
That might have been a joke, but Mike would gladly ‘put up’ with him for as long as he wanted him to. Billie seemed to notice his disagreeing expression.
“You ok? I hope I didn’t scare you off with my strange taste in vehicles.”
“Oh, no. You didn’t,” he laughed.
Mike found Billie’s strangeness somewhat funny and endearing, and he now liked him too much for them to just stay acquaintances. He made plans in his head to ask Billie if he was free to hang out any time.
“Alright, so where exactly do you need me to take you?” Billie asked as he got in and started up the weird neon green car, “like- what’s your address?”
“Right, you need that, here-” Mike entered his address into the gps.
“Yikes. That’s far away. We'd better get going” he started up the car.
The minutes started to go by as their drive went on. Getting only a few hours of sleep was getting to Mike, and he yawned. He also finally realized how tired he was. In the midst of his yawning, he attempted to ask a question to make sure no awkward silence decided to emerge between them on their drive.
“So what are you doing in San Francisco?”
“Mainly visiting some relatives, but I wanted to look around the city too, especially since I don’t get to travel too often,” Billie responded.
“That’s cool.” Mike said plainly, looking out the window. He didn’t know what else to ask, they had reached the point where there was no more small talk to be made. They had already talked about everything.
“I think storming off back at the Starbucks wasn’t such a good idea. Could’ve used a coffee right ‘bout now…”
“You can sleep if ya want,” Billie suggested, “or I could buy you a coffee.”
“I dunno.” Mike gazed out the window at the city of Los Angeles going by. It did become silent between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. There was some song playing on the radio that Mike didn’t recognize, but Billie seemed to, because he was quietly singing and humming along. He had such a pretty voice. He was so pretty in general-
Stop it, Mike. You’re staring, he’s gonna think you’re a creep.
Billie’s green eyes darted over to him, the eyes he was just admiring, and Mike quickly looked away as soon as they made eye contact.
“Do you sing?” he blurted out.
Billie shrugged, “Yeah, sometimes.”
“You have a pretty voice.”
Fuck, he couldn’t have said something less weird? Like ‘nice’? Billie definitely thought he was a weirdo now.
“Sorry, what? I couldn’t hear you.”
“Uh- I uh, just said you have a nice voice.”
“Oh, thanks!” Billie smiled.
Mike wouldn’t doubt that he was attracted to Billie, at first it was just acknowledging that he was an attractive person, but hell, he might be developing a crush.
He yawned again.
“I might try to sleep now, if that’s okay?”
“Yeah, of course, man.”
Mike slumped his head against the car door and closed his eyes.
……
“Hey, you, wake up!”
Mike jolted awake, startled by the tap on his shoulder.
“Hmm? What?” he mumbled.
“Sorry for waking you up, but I thought you might be hungry.”
He was handed a donut with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.
“I wasn’t sure what you liked, but I figured everyone likes donuts. So.” Billie gestured towards it.
“No, this is great, thank you!”
Mike took a look at the surroundings outside of the car. They were stopped in a little parking lot next to a bakery.
“How long have we been on the road for?” he asked.
Billie thought for a moment, “I’d say around three hours. I wanted to get up and walk around a bit.”
“Did you?”
“Not unless you count buying pastries from the bakery literally 20 feet away from us.”
This earned a laugh from both of them.
Ugh. Billie even had a cute laugh.
“We can switch. I can drive the rest of the way if you’d like,” Mike offered.
“Would you? I’d definitely like a break from driving.” Billie replied.
“Totally. Yeah. lets switch,” they both got out and switched their seats, “but I have no clue where we are right now, so I’ll have to figure that out.”