Disclaimer: After reaching the height of my fame and having the song "Cotton Eyed Joe" written about me, I disappeared into anonymity, swearing off all material possessions and ownership. So, yeah, "New Girl" ain't mine.
A/N: I honestly have no idea where this is going, or where it came from.
Sex on the beach isn't as great as the movies would lead you to believe.
Actually, Nick has no idea if sex on the beach is great or not, but foreplay on the beach is enough of a frictiony sandpapery nightmare that they called that particular adventure early.
Sex in the back of a Volvo however... Nick has first hand knowledge of that, now, and he can attest that it is, in fact, awesome, albeit in a boxy, overly safe kind of way. He can also attest that sari removal and reapplication is basically a six man job under the best of circumstances, and largely impossible with just two white people in the confined spaces of a Swiss automobile.
Is Volvo Swiss? Swedish? German. Probably German. They are the ones that are always making automobiles, and watches, and things with tiny parts. Definitely German.
Nick also has first hand knowledge, reinforced several times now, that the all-in sex and talking thing is a much more awesome move than the give up and drink thing.
After the sex, and the aborted sari reconstruction that just led to more sex, they finally managed to crawl out of the car and find a hot dog vendor down the street. Nick's not entirely sure that hot dogs are an impressive first meal for a couple, but they never did make it to the reception part of CeCe's wedding, so hot dogs will have to do.
"Are you done with that?" Jess asks, pointing at the bottle of lime Jarritos half-buried in the sand next to him. He grabs it and hands it to her. Between the cash in his pocket and the few bills in her little pink purse, they had $28, and they spent it all on dogs and soda. They managed to get through almost all of it. They had an appetite.
She takes the bottle from him and takes a long sip, finishing off the last of the soda. There is one left, tucked into the sand at his feet. He likes this version of her, where the little bits of cuteness fall away and she seems to just be in the moment. He's not in the moment; he's so rarely in the moment, and even now, he's more watching than participating, but it's not worrying him for once.
She tucks the finished bottle into the cloth she's using as a trash bag, because this is Jess and so no mess will be left behind. He reaches out, fingers his tie, which is now wrapped around the swirl of blue cloth at her shoulder. They had no idea how to get it to stay on on its own, so they used his tie to tie it to the dress.
The hot dog vendor gave them a 'I know what you were doing' look because of it.
Normally that would bother Nick, but tonight he thinks, to hell with it, and any sense of agoraphobia washes away almost immediately.
"We should go to Mexico," he says.
"Mexico?"
He points at the last bottle of soda. "We know they have good drinks."
"Let's see if we can handle something simpler, like San Diego, first."
He goes to point out that they handled Sam's cabin and Chicago already, but he stops himself, because they didn't really handle either one so much as just got through, and neither Sam nor his Dad really need to come into the night they are having.
"I'm breaking a loft rule," he says, to change the subject.
"Then put your money in the jar and be done with it, Miller."
"No, I..." he says, wondering if he should broach the subject he seems to have inadvertently brought up.
"Winston and Schmidt'll just have to deal," she says, and it's then he realizes that she knows too. Knows the stakes for all of them, Nick, Schmidt, Winston, and her. Because it won't be the same again, after this, and they all knew that the day she moved in. But he'd still do it and apparently, so would she. So they'll all deal, he thinks, because Schmidt can make any little passive-aggressive comments he wants, and Nick won't care. At least, he won't care enough to let it stop him.
That's another one of his new moves. He's happy with this new move plan.
"Hey, you wanna head back?" he asks.
"Tired of me already?"
"I like this whole beachside under a gibbon moon and all, but I thought maybe a bed was in order."
"A gibbon moon?"
"Yeah, a big bright moon, like the butt of a gibbon."
She gives him a look.
"That's not a thing, is it?"
She shakes her head.
"It's chimps that have the bright butts, isn't it?"
She shakes her head.
"I need to give up, don't I?"
She nods.
On the drive back, there are no more comments about gibbous moons. Instead they talk about Jess's new job and the fact that Shivrang is apparently in love with an eleven-foot tall blonde woman. Nick parks and walks Jess up to her apartment like a gentleman, until he gets there and realizes that her apartment is his apartment too. This leads to some awkward fumbling for a minute or so until she grabs his shirt and kisses him senseless while pulling him through the door.
He breaks the kiss once they are inside, largely because he needs to be able to see as to not trip over Bob, and also because he needs Bob not to kill him, so much, just yet. But Bob is asleep on the couch, still dressed in his wedding suit, beer in hand. Winston, sitting next to him and apparently drunk, waves in a half-falling over manner before almost landing in Bob's lap.
Schmidt just sits there on the other couch, nearly comatose.
"What the hell?" Jess asks, seeing her Dad.
"Bucky the Badger bit me and I bled bad but Bob brought me back here bibbity bip … bip … painkillers are cool," Winston says loudly. Bob snort hiccups in his sleep and rolls from a seated position to sleep on his side. Schmidt still doesn't move.
"Schmidt!" Nick yells, as Jess says, "I think we need to get you to bed, Winston."
"Bed! That's a B-word too! B-words are the best. Bed. Badger. Boobies. Bean Bag burrowing."
"Yeah, that's not..." Jess starts to say and shakes her head. She grabs Winston on one side and Nick helps her on the other, and together they frog march Winston back to his bedroom. The entire time Winston sings a Fine Young Cannibals song.
"Be Brives Be Brazy. Bike Bo Bone Belse. Band bi bant..."
They drop him on his bed.
"We need to lie him face down."
"We can't do that, Nick. He'll die."
"Yeah, but he'll be quiet," Nick replies, but he rolls Winston onto his side on the bed anyway, making sure that it's his left, uninjured side. Winston curls into a ball and sings himself to sleep.
Nick feels very much like a parent in that moment. It's not the first time he's felt like that, since he basically had to start being the man of the house as soon as he could walk, but it's the first time he's felt like it since moving to LA. It's the first time he's felt like it and hasn't had it hurt.
He takes Jess by the hand, and with one last look at Winston, walks her back to the living room.
Jess goes back around to her dad, lifting his legs onto the couch and taking off his shoes and tie. Nick goes and snaps his fingers in front of Schmidt's face.
"Buddy. Schmidt! We in there?"
"I offered pasta and Coldplay," Schmidt says.
"Yeah, that's not explaining things," Nick says, sitting down next to Schmidt.
"CeCe said I had to choose."
"You mean..."
"Between her and Elizabeth."
Nick looks over at Jess, who shrugs and sits down next to him, facing Schmidt.
"So who did you choose?"
"I did the only thing I could do."
"You chose CeCe?" Jess asks, just as Nick says, "Elizabeth?"
Jess gives Nick a look that he ignores.
"I ran."
"Wait," Jess says in her exasperated with her roommates way, "you just ran out of the reception?"
"I ran here."
Nick shakes his head, because that's like … a lot of miles, and he knows Schmidt's in shape, but still.
"Schmidt. CeCe was abandoned, at her wedding after her maid of honor, Nick and a badger almost fell on her, and yet, that has to be the worst moment of her day."
"I couldn't tell one of them in front of the other that she can't be with this bit of perfection," Schmidt replies, presenting himself by running his hands in front of his body. Jess hits him in the shoulder.
"You just tell Elizabeth … kindly … that you are in love with CeCe and that you have to see that through..."
Nick knows it's dumb, but he says it anyway, "Yeah, like Jess said, except to CeCe."
"You think he should be with Elizabeth instead of my best friend?"
"Well, yeah."
"Dammit, Nick," she says, standing up. He feels like he's already failed some sort of test, less than six hours into the relationship. He shakes his head as she storms off to her room.
Nick stands up, but decides to deal with Schmidt first. "You know who you're gonna choose, man?"
"No."
"Yes you do. It's simple. Just pick what you want, not what you think you're supposed to have, or what you think others expect of you."
"Why can't I have both?"
"Goodnight, Schmidt," Nick says angrily. He leaves Schmidt in the living room and heads to his bed, but at the last second, he decides that's an old Nick move, and goes instead to Jess's door.
She answers a few seconds after he knocks quietly. "What do you want, Miller?"
"I want the old Schmidt back," he replies. His answer hangs there, in the air, as she stares at him from behind the door. Eventually she nods, let's him into the room.
"Look," he continues, "I don't know who is right for Schmidt. All I know is, sometimes, I miss the old Schmidt. Sometimes I wish the guy who knows everything about hair regimens and personal marketing..." he can't quite finish the thought, so he shrugs.
"And you think, if he's back with Elizabeth..."
He shrugs again. He honestly doesn't want to think about Schmidt or CeCe or Elizabeth or anything else, for that matter. He wants to go back to the beach, where everything can be still and the worst thing he has to worry about is sand in his only pair of dress shoes. Why did he suggest they come home?
She comes over to him, tucking herself around him, and he wraps his arms around her, holding her under his chin. All of a sudden, it feels very late.
"Come on, let's get some sleep," she says, untangling herself from him and pulling him towards her bed.
"Your Dad..."
"Then sneak out early. Or don't. It's late and the last thing I want to think about is what my Dad thinks."
He likes that answer, so he stays. They undress like old friends, rather than new lovers, though he can't help but smile when she turns her back to him to take off her bra and throw on a t-shirt. They tuck each other into bed, and she falls asleep almost immediately, her head tucked into his shoulder and letting out little popping snores against his skin.
Exhausted, he watches her sleep and thinks of Schmidt and college, of the bar and his Dad, of Angie and Shane, of cons pulled and bad zombie novels, and mostly of her, until eventually he falls asleep buried in her smell.