Chapter Text
“Nine fourty-seven. Wow! The legendary ‘Party Kings’ sure are wild!” Lucy mocked as Kendall closed the door of apartment 2J behind the retiring party guests. The four bandmates, and Jo, Camille, and Lucy were the only ones who remained in the apartment. Katie and Ms. Knight had left for Minnesota earlier that day to visit some extended family on a girls trip.
“Hey,” James immediately responded in their reputation’s defense. “ First of all, it’s the Hollywood Super Party Kings Of Hollywood. And Palmwoods quiet hours are from 10pm to 6am, and we can’t risk getting another strike on our door.”
“How do you guys always have two strikes on your door? Doesn’t Bitters have like a specific time span that deducts one of your strikes if you go so long without any additional strikes?” Lucy countered to James’ argument.
“Yes, but every time one of our strikes goes down, Bitters finds another stupid reason to give us a new one. He’s just waiting for an opportunity to kick us out.” Carlos added, proud of himself for countering Lucy’s mockery.
“And we’re not going to give him the satisfaction of giving us a third strike.” James continued, also feeling proud of himself and Carlos for, as they saw it, ‘winning’ the argument.
“Okay, but wouldn’t he still be getting satisfaction from you guys actually obeying the rules? Just sayin’ it seems-”
“Well it gives us the satisfaction of having a place to live,” Logan added, interrupting Lucy in an attempt to end the argument. “Speaking of our apartment, we now have a post party mess that needs to be cleaned up, and I seem to be the only one doing so.”
“What mess, Logan?” Carlos asked, emphasized by James looking around the apartment living room and kitchen. Logan responded by gesturing to the supposed ‘huge mess:’ a couple stray paper plates, plastic cups, and empty soda bottles, which to anyone else would more considerably be described as mild clutter at most.
“I have an idea,” Lucy said as she walked over to the counter and grabbed one of the empty two liter bottles. “We should play spin the bottle.”
Carlos looked at the others, and shrugged, “Sure, why not?”
“Sounds fun!” Camille said excitedly. “And I promise we’ll help clean up before we leave tonight. Now come on, let’s play!” Camille said, grabbing Logan’s arm and lightly dragging him over to the couch as he hesitantly followed.
“Oh Lucy, if you wanted to make out with me, you could have just asked,” James said with a smirk as he looked into Lucy’s eyes, which rolled in response. James helped Lucy move the white coffee table to the side of the couch, opening up the area in front of the couch enough to fit a circle of teens. James, Lucy, and Carlos each found a spot on the floor in the newly cleared space in the living room. James leaned back against the corner on the L-shaped couch, Carlos and Lucy seated at his left. Logan and Camille joined them on James’ right against the other half of the couch parallel to the window.
Kendall stood next to the circle, raising his bushy eyebrows at his friends, “Seriously? Do real people actually play spin the bottle? It’s like we’re in some cheesy teen movie or something.”
“Well, we are teenagers,” Jo replied as she found a spot in the circle next to Lucy, joining everyone but Kendall on the floor. “Come on Kendall, it’ll be fun.”
“I’ll play, I’m just saying this feels painfully cliche,” Kendall said with an eyeroll as he made his way to the floor, settling onto the floor between Jo and Camille.
“I’ll spin first. Unless any of you are dying to go first?” Lucy paused, allowing for any objections, but none of the other players claimed the opportunity. “Cowards,” she said with a smirk as she reached for the bottle in the middle of the circle, bracing to give it a spin.
“Wait!” Carlos exclaimed, resulting in all his friends freezing and turning to him with varying degrees of confusion and/or annoyance. “Do you think it’s too late to invite the Jenifers back over?”
“No Carlos, I’m sure they’d love to drop everything on a Friday night to play a game of spin the bottle with you.”
“Really?” Carlos replied, grossly misinterpreting the tone of James’ sarcastic response.
“Carlos, he was being sarcastic. Not only have they repeatedly expressed a complete lack of interest in you, but they were also just here like fifteen minutes ago. Why would they come back just to play spin the bottle with you, or any of us?” Logan explained in the unintentionally harsh tone that often accompanies his comments when explaining facts and data.
Lucy ignored the boys’ bickering and spun the bottle. The teens’ focus shifted to the bottle as its red cap spun around, watching with eager anticipation as it passed by each member in a clockwise fashion, slowly deciding which member of the circle would be paired with Lucy for the first round. The bottle made a final round through the circle as its momentum gradually slowed to a stop, the red bottle cap directly facing Camille.
“Ooo I’m the first one, how exciting!” Camille laughed as she scooted across the circle towards Lucy who was seated directly across her. Lucy reached her hand out, gently placing it on the back of Camille’s head where it met her neck. The two girls tilted their heads as they leaned in for their lips to meet. They held the kiss for a second or two before pulling a part, just long enough for it to be short, but more than a quick peck.
“Hmm, not bad,” Lucy joked as Camille returned to her seat.
“Well I have played quite a few roles in various teen dramas, so I guess you could say I’m somewhat of an expert at kissing. Believe me, those scripts are FULL of kissing,” Camiile laughed in return. “Okay, let’s who’s next,” she said as she gave the bottle another spin. Logan smiled at her enjoyment of the game. He’d always admired how open she is to trying new things, no matter how insane something might seem. In fact, her fearless adventurousness was one of the things he loved most about her, it countered his anxious overthinking tendencies with a perfect balance.
The game continued for several rounds, the group of friends each taking turns kissing randomly assigned partners. Camille kissed Jo, Jo kissed Kendall- which Carlos reacted to by booing because “it isn’t fun if you kiss someone you’re actually dating”- Kendall then kissed Logan, Logan kissed Lucy, Lucy kissed Carlos, Carlos kissed Kendall, and Kendall kissed James. The first couple rounds felt a bit awkward for those who were hesitant to play, but they eased into more as the game went on.
After kissing Kendall, James wound up his wrist as he grabbed the middle of the bottle, flicked his wrist the opposite direction, and watched as it spun around the circle. “Let’s see who’s next to get the pleasure of kissing THE James Diamond,” James said as he did his signature model face, emphasized by running his hands down the space next to his face and twinkling his fingers.
They all watched in anticipation and the bottle’s spin slowed, and eventually came to a stop. The others barely had time to process that the red soda cap had landed directly in front of Camille before Logan locked eyes with James, with a harsh deadpan expression on his face, and sternly said “Spin again.”
“Logan it’s just a game, and the rules of the game-” Lucy attempted to argue, but was quickly cut off by Logan.
“I’m aware of the rules, but James is not kissing Camille again.”
“Again? James and Camille kissed? Isn’t that against one of your guys’ codes or whatever?”
“Yeah… that was kind of awhile ago, before you moved to the Palmwoods,” Kendall responded. “But the whole situation was pretty messy, and clearly it’s still somewhat of a touchy subject. I think it might be best to just allow this one exception and have James spin again.”
“Great so everyone agrees!” Logan said cheerfully, before immediately returning to his grimacing eye contact with James. “Spin again.”
“Okay, okay, I’m spinning again.” The entire group watched intensely as the bottle spun, hoping the next pairing would ease the tension in the room. The bottle made a couple full circles, gradually slowing its pace each round, before eventually stopping in front of Logan.
“There Logie, is that what you wanted?” James said with a cheeky smirk.
Although Logan’s feelings of anger and jealousy settled, he wasn’t exactly content with this alternative outcome either. For some reason he still felt a strange uneasiness in his stomach about the situation, though he struggled to identify the emotions that replaced his previous ones. The idea of kissing James almost made him feel… guilty? Perhaps it was the hypocritical notion of kissing James after specifically insisting that James can’t kiss Camille? Surely that was it, he rationalized. It simply wouldn’t be right for either one of them to kiss James after the damage that had previously been inflicted on their relationship after James and Camille had kissed the first time, but it was either Logan or Camille. The thought of kissing James made Logan’s stomach churn with guilt, but Camille was everything to him, and they both had worked so hard on improving their communication, boundaries, and balanced efforts in the relationship to put an end to their previous on again off again patterns. He couldn’t stand the possibility of losing Camille again. Especially not over a kiss during a stupid party game.
Logan let out a defeated sigh, “As long as your lips are nowhere near Camille’s.”
“Don’t worry, Logie, they’ll be too busy embracing yours,” James replied with a small puckered air kiss in towards Logan, punctuated with an antagonizing wink. He loved to get under Logan’s skin by any means possible. All of the guys tease each other, that’s just what bros do, but Logan’s reactions always seemed to satisfy James the most. It was probably due to the fact that Logan is very easily provoked, always fumbling out a poor attempt at a comeback in an effort to hide how flustered he gets from the slightest bit of badgering. James never failed to take an opportunity to irritate Logan, he almost found it cute how easy it was to get him all worked up- well not cute, but just incredibly entertaining.
“Can we just get this over with and move on with the game?”
“Easy there, Logan, I like to take things slow.”
Logan’s cheeks felt hot, and bore a slight flush of pink, he hated how James was always so smug about everything he did. He somehow always knew just what to say to get on Logan’s nerves, and Logan had never been good at functioning when anxious or embarrassed, which only added to James’ amusement. He already had a lot on his mind at this moment, he couldn’t even fully process all of the emotions he was feeling right then, the last thing he needed was for James to continue increasing the stress and embarrassment with his stupid jokes. He just wanted it all to be over; the kiss, or preferably the whole game, James’ over the top teasing, the strange mix of emotions he was feeling, especially the guilt, it was all so overstimulating. He did the only thing he could think to do to get James to shut up, as well as alleviate at least some of his current troubles. He turned to his left, and delicately cupped his hands against James’ cheeks, pulling his friend’s face in towards his own until their lips met in the middle.
As their lips met, Logan had only one thought on his mind, how strangely calm he felt in that moment. Kissing James, who he considered to be his most intentionally annoying friend, wasn’t nearly as gross or uncomfortable as he had expected it to be. In fact, it wasn’t either of those things at all. James’ face seemed to fit perfectly in the slight curvature of Logan’s hands, almost as perfect as the way their lips naturally intertwined, and his skin was smooth and gentle. His lips were soft, perfectly balmed with what was probably one of the many lip balm samples his mom had sent him from her most recent line of cosmetics. The smell of his Cuda Man Spray was weirdly intoxicating- no, not intoxicating, but it did smell good. It’s supposed to smell good. That's the whole point of a body spray, and it certainly did its job well. A faint hint of the cherry soda he had previously downed throughout the party lingered on his breath, complimenting the alluring aroma of his cuda ever so slightly.
The sound of Carlos clearing his throat pulled Logan out of his thoughts, reminding him of the circle of his friends he resided in, whose eyes were all locked on him and James. Logan immediately pulled back his lips, and attempted to ramble out a defense, “I- uh… it was the only way to get him to shut up, you all know how um irritating he likes to be. I just wanted to get it over with. I don’t want to play anymore.” He snapped his hands back, realizing they had still been positioned on James’ cheeks, and wiped them on his jeans as if he could wipe away whatever had just happened.
“Logan, it’s just a game, you’re taking it too seriously.”
“Actually, Lucy, it’s not ‘just’ a game. It’s a STUPID game. I don’t even know why we agreed to this, every time we play one of your crazy game suggestions, it ends badly. Remember the last time we played one of your insane games? Carlos nearly killed James. Sometimes an innocent game isn’t so innocent, all your games ever seem to do is reopen past wounds, and cause arguments-”
His train of thought was interrupted as Kendall leaned past Camille on his left, placing a hand on Logan’s shoulder. “Hey buddy, is everything okay?”
“I’m fine. I just have better things to do than play trivial childish games.”
“He’s just jealous because I’m a way better kiss-”
“Not now, James.”
“It’s fine Kendall, you don’t need to defend me, I’m fine. I’m just sick of this game, besides we should really get to work on cleaning the apartment.” Logan said as he grabbed the soda bottle from the middle of the circle and headed towards the garbage can. The other teens silently exchanged confused and concerned glances around the circle before Kendall finally spoke up.
“Maybe we should just call it a night, it is getting kinda late-”
“Woah woah woah, ‘late?’ It’s not even eleven Kendall,” James protested. “We already had to end our big party early, now you’re telling me we’re cutting the after party short too? You’re ruining our rep as the Hollywood Super Party Kings Of Hollywood. They don’t call us that for nothing!”
“James, no one calls you that, period. It’s just a ridiculous title you gave yourself-”
“Yeah, a ridiculously cool title, Logan.”
“Whatever you say,” Logan said with an eyeroll. “Now, help me clean up ‘party king,’ cleaning up is part of throwing a party. You too Carlos,” Logan said, shoving a trashbag to James.
“Okay, okay. No need to get so bossy, mom.” James briefly held his hands up in a taunting surrendering signal. Logan rolled his eyes and left to grab a broom. James shook open the garbage bag as he and Carlos began picking up the few pieces of trash that were scattered throughout the living room and kitchen. Lucy and Camille returned the white coffee table back to its designated place in front of the couch, then straightened out chairs at the kitchen table and the island counter while Logan swept the floors.
“Jo’s gotta get home, you know how crazy strict her dad is about curfew, but I’ll take the trash out since I’m headed out to walk her back to her place.” Kendall said, grabbing the well filled current trash bag out of the garbage can and tying it off before heading out the door with Jo.
As the cleaning finished, the remainder of the group parted ways for the night. James and Carlos headed to their room, Lucy returned to her apartment, and Logan walked Camille back to her apartment.
“Do you want to talk about what happened tonight?” Camille asked as they stepped into the elevator and pressed the 4th floor button.
“Uh… What do you- There’s nothing to talk about.”
Camille raised her eyebrows at his poor attempt at masking his emotions. “Logan, I can tell when something’s bothering you,” she said, grabbing his hand supportively. “Also you really aren’t good at lying. And you shouldn’t be lying to your girlfriend anyways.” She joked, adding a slight playfulness to ease the tension.
“I just- I think this is your floor!” Logan said, hoping to change the subject as the elevator doors opened and he quickly stepped out, yanking Camille with him.
“Logan,” Camille prompted as they walked down the hall towards apartment 4J.
“I guess… Well,” he paused as he attempted to form a coherent sentence, which proved to be a difficult task when his thoughts didn’t even feel coherent. “Honestly, I don’t even know what’s wrong,” he said with a sigh. “James just really irritates me sometimes, and I guess maybe I’m still upset about the time you guys kissed? I don’t know, I mean I’m definitely not still mad at either of you. I guess there was just a lot on my mind with James pushing so hard to annoy me, and the game that I guess was kinda fun, but also just felt weird, and then there was the mess from the party, and I don’t know…” his sentence trailed off with a groan of frustration. He couldn’t help but wish that thoughts and emotions were as simple and straight forward as math.
“Why don’t you get some sleep, and give yourself some time to organize your thoughts.” She gave him a hug as they reached her apartment door. “Let me know if or when you want to talk about it okay?”
“Okay. Thanks Camille, I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said, giving him a goodnight kiss before entering her apartment.