200 Word Warm-Up

This is just a scene I threw together to get a feel for the characters. Note the third-person, the actual story will be all first-person (the POV worked better for this scene, though). It's 184 words long.

Billie Joe sighed and leaned against the wall, lighting his cigarette and passing the plain blue lighter to his companion. With a tired glance at the other man, Billie inhaled and drew the smoke into his lungs.

“What’re you majoring in again?”

“Me? I’m gonna try something like…I dunno, something probably like English,” Billie Joe responded, gazing out at the horizon. “What ‘bout you?”

“I’m probably going to try for music theory or somethin‘,” Tré responded, shaking some loose hair out of his face and pocketing the lighter.

“Damn, that’s way more exciting than English.”

“Lot less useful, though.”

“Eh. Ya win some, ya lost some. Y’know?”

“Yeah. ‘Course I know.”

Billie Joe just smirked and took another quick drag of his cigarette. “Can ya believe that college’s starting in a few months? I mean, it’s like just yesterday I was fifteen.”

He winced at the painful memories of that time. “Not that I’m glad that I’m not 15 anymore,” he quickly added. Tré just laughed.

“Same here,” the older of the pair stated, “I wouldn’t relive that time for a million bucks. Ouch.”