Billy hates the single white button-up he has in his closet. It’s too formal, too stiff, too much. He wore it to Neil and Susan’s shotgun wedding and hasn’t touched it since.
Not until Chrissy pulls it out of his closet one day.
“Oh — I didn’t know you had this,” she hums thoughtfully, thumbing the fabric.
Billy grimaces around his cigarette from where he’s looking through his tapes, trying to find something to play for her, and mutters, “Yeah, keep it in the back, I don’t wanna see it.”
She pulls it out anyway, gets a better look at it, curious as a cat, “Why not? It’s just a shirt,” she says before looking back at him from over her shoulder.
“What’re you doing in my closet, anyway?” He huffs softly, avoiding the question as he picks up a Led Zeppelin tape and shoves it into his stereo.
“I wanted something to sleep in,” she reminds him while turning with the shirt on the hanger, hanging it up on a little hook in the wall before stepping back to admire it.
“That’s not a very comfortable shirt to sleep in, princess,” he mumbles before sucking on the filter of his cigarette, pressing the ‘play’ button down with his finger and even lowers the volume for Chrissy so it doesn’t hurt her ears.
She smiles over at him, “I know,” she says pointedly and playfully, but her smile fades as she takes in Billy’s tense shoulders and his furrowed brow once he turns to look at her. Her own brow pinched, she asks, “What’s wrong?”
Billy hesitates. Pulls the cigarette from his mouth and sets it on the ashtray as he exhales, fanning the smoke out of his way before going over to her. He slips his arm around her shoulders, pulls her close to his side and feels her cold little fingers on his waist. They stare at the shirt for a moment, like how people stare at old paintings in a museum, before Chrissy’s other hand finds his heart over his chest and looks up at him.
He glances down at her, at her wide doe eyes, and huffs a soft sigh. “Bad memories with this shirt,” he admits with a mutter, “I don’t even know why I keep it. Should’ve donated it a long time ago.”
Chrissy turns to him, presses the front of her body against his and wraps him in a hug with her thin arms, holding him as tight as she can while pressing her cheek to his chest.
“Sometimes it’s hard to let go of bad things,” she says softly, like she understands and Billy knows that she probably has a collection of ‘bad things’ she can’t let go of just yet, too.
He wraps his arms around her and pets a hand over her soft strawberry blonde hair, agreeing with a quiet ‘yeah’. She always knows just when to hold him, when to comfort him, when to put off a hard conversation until they’re ready to have it. She knows him, probably better than anyone else ever could.
When she pulls away with a little smile, she looks up at him and says, “But, we can always try to make new memories in place of the bad ones, right?”
And, sure. Yeah. Maybe. Billy gives a little shrug and lets her go when she moves out of his hold, going over to her pink backpack by the door and rummaging around in it. She pulls out a tube of lipstick and straightens, uncaps it as she heads over to his little handmade vanity and leans in to smooth the red lipstick over her lips.
Watching her like that, Billy falls for her just a little more. Delicate and pretty and kind and all his.
She catches his gaze in the mirror and smiles shyly, capping the lipstick but keeping it in her hand as she goes over to the shirt and pulls it off the hanger. When she comes over to him with it, Billy purses his lips, a refusal to wear it ready on his tongue, but those eyes make him weak.
He knows she only wants the best for him. They want the best for each other. It’s the basis of their friendship and relationship, after all. There’s no reason to believe she’d do anything to harm him - not on purpose.
So, when she holds the shirt up to him, he allows it. He pulls his black tank top over his head and tosses it aside, takes the white button-up and slips it on with a small grimace. The material is still scratchy, still reminds him of that day, of the betrayal he felt.
But, when he feels Chrissy’s manicured fingers buttoning up the bottom half of the shirt, he’s pulled back to the moment. She’s concentrating, her brows furrowing as she slips the button through the slit, and looks up at him once all of the buttons are done.
He hates having all of the buttons done up, but he knows she has a plan, so.
“Okay,” he drawls quietly, “I’m wearing the stupid shirt. Now what?”
“Lay down,” she says, pushing on his chest gently, and he goes eagerly.
Flops onto his bed and eagerly watches her follow him, throwing her leg over his hips as she slides on top of him, a gentle and assuring weight. The warmth of her seeps through the fabric of the shirt, definitely wrinkling it, but he doesn’t care - not when she presses a kiss to his lips.
It’s gentle and saccharine, like her, and Billy’s hands find a home on her thighs, sliding up and up, touching her nicely, until he has her by the waist and that’s when she sighs into his mouth and he welcomes the tip of her tongue between his lips.
She brushes her mouth across his and he sucks on her bottom lip, tastes the artificial cherry of the lipstick, and grunts quietly when she pulls away with an impish smile.
He eyes it for a moment before muttering with a little matching smirk, “What?”
“You look good in red,” she laughs softly, almost a giggle, and she presses a kiss to both of his cheeks. Across his jaw. Down his neck.
She pulls away and uncaps her lipstick again, applies it in a messy rush before kissing down even further, to where the collar of the shirt meets his skin and she kisses down to his collarbone through the fabric—
New memories to replace the bad ones.
Billy can’t help the knowing smile that appears on his face, grinning with half-lidded eyes as Chrissy marks up the shirt with her love. It’s a disgustingly sweet thing for her to do for him - but, that’s what she does. What they do for each other; make the unbearable, bearable.
She surfaces with flushed cheeks and lips smeared with lipstick, her bright eyes blown wide as they stare at each other, his heart racing and her breath shallow and bated.
“Slow down, sweetheart,” Billy mumbles as he pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, away from her face, “I’m not going anywhere.”
That only makes her cheeks go from pink to bright red and she claims his mouth again, the sound of their kissing nearly swallowed up by the Led Zeppelin crooning from his stereo.
After he kisses the lipstick off Chrissy’s lips, they lie there together, cuddling while mumbling quiet conversation and laughing even softer.
And the shirt seems softer now, worn thin and comfortable, if possible.
When Chrissy sneaks away to the bathroom, he goes over to his vanity and looks at himself, smiling at the dozen of kisses she left behind on his face and neck and shirt. A reminder that bad memories can give way or be molded to something new. Better.
He carefully shrugs it off and puts it back on the hanger, buttons it shut, and admires it. No one loves him like this girl does. No one ever will love him this way again, he’s sure.
He’d be a goddamn idiot to take it for granted.
When Chrissy comes back, she shuts the door behind her and leans against it, smiling at him in that secret way she does. Full of something more, something he can’t get enough of, and it makes his heart ache for her.
“Can I get that sleep shirt now?” She asks with a little tilt of her head, playful.
She can have anything she wants, but his clothes are a good start.
2087
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