People that Jess grew up with used to call Jersey "the armpits," but in reality most of it's not that bad, just tacky. A lot of New York is tacky too, though New Yorkers never want to admit it. But Jess isn't a New Yorker anymore, at least not in practice, so he likes to think he's gained some perspective on it.

Still, you don't go to Jersey because you want to, you go because you have to, because you got family or business or a girl there. It's not a place with things to do, and the only people who vacation there are people from other parts of Jersey. Jess has never been here for more than a few hours, other than this one time a few years back when he cracked his engine block on his way back to Philly, but even then all he did was nap in the backseat until the AA guy finally showed up. Not like there's much to see off the turnpike, anyway.

Anyway this time around, of the three reasons, Jess has got the second - business, as in real, academic business, in Princeton of all places, which he's not sure really counts as Jersey. The entire town looks like a greeting card; Jess keeps jerking his head around, expecting to see Gene Forrester or Tobias Wolff or the entire fucking cast of The Dead Poets Society strolling down the sidewalk in double-breasted suits. It's a bit surreal, is the point, and after his talk is done he asks his tour guide buddy (that's what they called this kid when Jess arrived, "your weekend tour guide buddy," Jess has no creativity in him right now to joke) where the nearest grown up bar is.

"Uh," says Buddy, whose real name is something pretentious like Sebastian or Octavian or something. Jess doesn't care. "I'm underage."

"I'm not inviting you," Jess says, rolling his eyes. "You're a senior, right? I just need to know which one isn't going to be full of students." Jess asks. Buddy shrugs, glancing nervously over Jess' shoulder and rubbing his neck. "Look, I don't give a shit. Do I seem like the kind of visiting whatever - "

"Visiting Guest Author," says Buddy.

"Whatever, my point is, I don't care, and I know you know where people party, even if you don't," Jess says. "Just please don't make me drink at the fucking Doubletree Motel, is all I'm asking."

Buddy looks faintly shell-shocked, and Jess wonders if he's ever heard an adult use the word 'fuck' within his earshot before. "Um," he says, "well, avoid anything with coffee. Or music. Or fancy food."

"Uh huh," Jess says.

"Which are...most places," Buddy says. "I mean, it's Princeton, you know. So...okay, well, there's only one actual bar," Buddy continues, a bit more confidently. "It's kind of a dive, and there's been a lot of fistfights and stuff there lately, and it's got, you know, a reputation, so most students don't really - "

"Where is it," Jess says.

Buddy shrugs. "Honestly, I don't really leave campus very much," he says. Jess stares at him incredulously, and the kid shrugs again. "Do you have any idea how many papers I have to write each week?"

"Nope," says Jess, and claps him on the shoulder. "I suppose this would be a really bad time to tell you that I dropped out of high school."

The kid sighs, and reaches up to rub his eyes beneath his glasses. "I think it's on the square?"

"Thanks," Jess says, grinning.

It's a karaoke bar, actually, but Jess will take it, since there's nobody currently singing. The crowd is mostly old guys huddled in groups of twos and threes, eating pretzels and watching football on the big screens. There's a gay couple in a corner booth having an intense, whispered argument over a plate of nachos, and a girl with blonde hair and an apron, glaring and punching buttons on the karaoke machine, muttering angrily under her breath. So the general vibe of the place is overall sort of sad and resentful, which suits Jess just fine. He orders whiskey.

"Start a tab?" the bartender asks.

"Sure," says Jess, who has a real credit card now, in entirely his own name, with a limit higher than five hundred bucks. Two whole grand, actually. He'd very nearly put the letter up on his fridge when it arrived. He gets airline miles, even.

The bartender snatches it from Jess' hand and disappears with it, not noticing the significance of the moment. Well, go figure.

It's not that Jess is depressed, is the thing - or, well, there's a certain constant presence of low-level depression that's sort of always lying around in the garbage pile of Jess' emotions, but he hardly even notices it anymore. It's just, college towns make him itchy. They're full of students and buildings and tiny little manicured grass patches that people call "the quad" for no discernible reason other than the fact that it sounds very collegiate. This place is even worse, in a way, because it's Princeton. He keeps wracking his brain to try and remember if Rory had applied here, and he never realizes he's doing it until he's already doing it, and then he has to stop himself from doing it, because he's been trying pretty hard to stop relating fucking everything in his life back to Rory fucking Gilmore, already. He's had...some success, generally, but arguing with a roomful of Ivy League nineteen-year-olds about Jane Austen today hadn't exactly helped him in that area at all. Even though most of them had had shitty opinions.

Rory had had shitty opinions sometimes, though. Jess drinks his whiskey and tries not to think about it.

Off on his right side, someone drops a glass. Jess doesn't even register the sound, really, too used to the general background noise of places like this, but then somebody goes, "son of a bitch!" and shoves his shoulder so hard he almost falls off his stool. That, he notices.

"The fuck?" Jess says, and looks over. It's the karaoke girl, standing in a pile of glass shards and glaring at him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she demands. "I told you not to look for me."

Jess gapes at her for a second, thrown. "What?"

The girl scoffs loudly, her face lined in dramatic, exasperated disgust. "Whatever," she spits, turning on one heel and storming off to the kitchen.

Jess gapes some more, at her back and at her ass, which is the nicest one he's ever seen on any girl who's ever hated him instantly on sight. The thought is kind of depressing.

"You know her?" the bartender asks suspiciously, having ambled back over at the commotion. Across the floor, a couple of the football fans are now watching Jess instead of the television, which is just great.

"No," Jess says, to the entire room. "No, I've never seen her before. Probably got me mixed up with someone else." The bartender squints at him, and Jess holds up his arms and tries not to look like a creep. "Honestly. I'm from out of town. This is the first time I've even been here."

"Claire's from out of town too," the bartender says, but he's not squinting anymore. Jess drains the last of his whiskey and holds up the empty glass, which seems to erase the last of the lingering suspicion. Well, good thing his credit limit's so high now, Jess figures, watching the guy pour out a double, because he's definitely gonna end up paying at least three times what that Old Crow is worth. "Just watch yourself, alright?"

Jess bites back a sour reply. "Fine," he says, and settles back into his stool. The football fans grumble to themselves and lose interest, which is in everyone's best interest, really.

He sees the girl a few more times, glaring venomously at him through the little window on the kitchen door, but Jess determinedly doesn't make eye contact, focusing on his whiskey and occasionally, his phone, which has been going off all day. His agent, mostly, bugging him for photos, still on a rabid kick to get Jess to be "more available," which means she wants him to start a Twitter account. Jess keeps sending her various synonyms and translations of "fuck off, please," but she's got a thick skin, and an unlimited texting plan.

"Talking to my dad?" he hears, in the middle of an involved text conjugating the verb "to annoy" in French. Jess looks up, and karaoke girl is standing in her pile of glass again, glaring. "Sending him updates?"

Jesus Christ. "Look, lady," Jess says, glaring right back, "I don't know you, okay? You've got me confused with someone else."

The girl scoffs. "Oh, real original, Peter."

"Yeah, see," Jess says, "I'm not Peter. Okay? So calm the fuck down already."

"You're not - " the girl cuts herself off, visibly faltering. She studies him carefully, arms crossed tightly across her chest. "You're not...Peter," she says slowly, sounding a little freaked out.

"No," Jess says, rolling his eyes.

"You're not..." she says again, trailing off into an incredulous silence.

"You want to see my ID?"

"Yes," she says quickly, and Jess glares at her. "Hey, buddy, you offered! Also, I work here."

"So?"

"So, it's the law!" The girl raises an imperious eyebrow, holding out one hand.

Jess weighs the effort of continuing this whatever-it-is against how much whiskey is left in his glass, and sighs in resignation as he reaches for his wallet. "If this is how you treat most out of towners, no wonder this place has a shitty rep," he says, sliding his driver's license out of its pocket.

The girl ignores him, plucking it from his hand and examining it closely. "Jess Mariano," she says, glancing between the ID and Jess' face, eyes narrow. "...oh."

"Yeah, oh," Jess mocks, holding his hand out for the ID. The girl gives it back, her face sliding slowly into sheepishness, now. "Satisfied?"

"Could be fake," the girl says, but she sidles up to the bar next to him, her sneakers crunching loudly on the broken glass that absolutely nobody has made any effort to clean up yet. "Wouldn't be hard for you to get a phony ID. If you are Peter, that is."

"What, is he in the mafia or something?" Jess asks.

"Or something," the girl says dryly.

Jess eyes her, a bit warily. "It's not fake," he says.

"Am I just supposed to take your word for it?"

"Look, there comes a certain point where you have to just decide whether to believe me or not," Jess says. "I'm not him, okay? I don't know what else to tell ya."

"You look like him," the girl says, still sounding vaguely freaked out. "You...look almost exactly like him, actually."

"Well," Jess says wryly, "it's my lucky fuckin' day then, isn't it?"

"Hm," she says, staring at him. Jess looks away, taking a drink to cover the discomfort. She's got a hell of a stare. "What are you doing here, then?"

"Drinking," Jess says flatly.

"Alone? On a Monday night?"

"I was alone," Jess says pointedly, "until some psycho in a miniskirt started interrogating me."

"This is not a miniskirt," the girl says, offended. "It goes all the way to my knees! That's not mini."

"Okay," Jess says skeptically. "Sure."

"And I wasn't - okay," she continues, huffing a little. "Sorry, or whatever. It's just really weird, is all."

"Uh huh."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jess sees her cross her arms again, this time in a pout. It's doing some interesting things for her breasts that Jess is trying hard not to be interested in. She's not the kind of trouble he needs right now, no way. "Look, the next drink's on the house, okay? Sorry I offended your delicate sensibilities, Mr. Mariano."

She pronounces his name in the most irritating way possible, which Jess knows is deliberate since she'd said it right the first time. It's that, more than anything else, that makes this crappy decision for him. He really is his own worst enemy sometimes. "It's Claire, right?" he asks, turning his head. She blinks, startled. "The bartender told me your name."

"Yeah," she says, her shoulders tensing slightly, then relaxing slowly. She rolls her head around on her neck a couple of times, avoiding eye contact. "Claire Gordon."

"Why don't you take the rest of this one and we'll call it even," Jess says, sliding the glass over in her direction. "If I get a free one then I'm ordering something decent."

Claire scoffs again, but Jess knows she's tempted, just by the way she leans toward the drink, probably without even knowing she's doing it. "You want me to drink your backwash? That's your big opening line?"

"We already had an opening line, and the honor went to you, I believe," Jess says. "'Son of a bitch,' I think it was."

Claire taps her fingernails on the bar, considering. Then, without looking at him, she slides onto the stool next to his, waving her hand at the bartender.

"You lie to me and I'm gone," she says, still looking away. "About anything. I mean it - you so much as exaggerate something and you and your sport jacket are outta luck, pal."

"You've got some real issues, you know that?" Jess says. "I want scotch. Nice scotch."

"You can have tequila," Claire says.

This is a bad idea. "That works," says Jess.

"Writer? Like a real writer?" Claire wrinkles her nose. "Like...a journalist? Or - "

"I write novels," Jess says tiredly, already sick to death of having this conversation with every pretty girl he meets. Not that Claire is pretty, exactly. She's still too angry and suspicious to be pretty, snapping at him every other sentence and scowling at him whenever she thinks he's not paying attention. Still, she's got killer legs. Killer everything, really. "My third one comes out next month. You can pre-order it on Amazon now."

"I hate reading," Claire tells him bluntly. Jess snorts and toasts her with his empty shot glass. "I flunked sophomore English. I had to go to summer school."

"Must not have been that catastrophic if it got you into Princeton."

This time, it's Claire who snorts. "I'm not a student," she says, and Jess kind of figured she wasn't, but he still wilts a little in relief. "I barely graduated. College was something for other kids."

Jess smirks. "Right."

"Why'd you think I was a student? Do I look that young?"

She looks like a goddamn Disney Channel star, with that long blonde hair and perfect makeup. Jess looks her up and down, weighing the pros and cons of actually saying that out loud. "Not young, exactly."

"Naive, then." She sounds a bit belligerent. Clearly, this is a sore spot. Jess seems to have a knack for finding hers.

"No. Just - wholesome." He smirks at her again, this time a little pointed. "Like a nice girl from a good family."

Claire actually laughs, which Jess feels a brief moment of accomplishment about. "Right."

"Texas, right? The accent is - "

"A giveaway, yeah." She shrugs, knocking back the remnants of Jess' shitty whiskey, not even flinching. A nice Texan girl from a good family, Jess thinks. "I've been trying to train myself out of it, but I can't make it stick."

"Maybe you're not trying hard enough," Jess says, just to see her reaction. Predictably, she doesn't give him one. Her knack so far seems to be seeing through Jess' bullshit. Not that his bullshit is ever all that opaque, but still. "Or you secretly don't want to lose it."

Her laugh this time is distinctly bitter. "Trust me, it's not the latter."

Jess lets it go. "So if you're not a student, then what the hell are you doing here?"

"Other people live here, you know. The town is more than just the college."

"People like them, maybe," Jess says, aiming his chin at the football fans, who are grunting in unison at something on the television. Claire smirks, quick and mean-spirited. The best kind of smirk, in Jess' opinion, especially on a girl. "Not like you and me."

"What are you doing here, then? Wait, let me guess." Claire's eyes glitter at him. "You're an alumni."

Jess scoffs. "No," he said. "I didn't go to college, either."

Claire tilts her head at him, seemingly intrigued. "Then what? Are you that famous of a writer?"

"No." Jess considers his empty glass. "My last book won an award, though, and I was invited to lead a couple of workshop things on campus. And Princeton's not the kind of place you can say no to."

"What kind of award?"

"A book award," Jess says, and smirks at her. She rolls her eyes, but she's smiling. "Not one of the prestigious ones, you probably wouldn't recognize the name. But it came with some money."

"How much money?"

"Eight hundred dollars," Jess says, and Claire snorts in surprised laughter. "Hey, that's more than my advance for my first novel, which was, uh...twenty bucks and a six-pack of Corona."

"Hell, why am I the one paying for drinks, then?" Claire asks.

"Well, I'm poor now."

"Only until those pre-orders start rollin' in, hm? Then the drinks are all on you."

"Right," Jess says, laughing.

Claire seems a bit more relaxed now, grinning at him with her tongue poking out from between her teeth. "Speaking of," she says, and climbs up on her knees on the stool, launching herself over the bar. Jess doesn't even try not to stare at her ass, which doesn't look any worse with the addition of two tequila shots. "We should try some of this."

She comes back up with a flushed face and a bottle of Goldschläger. Jess groans out loud. "You're kidding me, right?"

"What? I've always wanted to try it."

"It's horrible," Jess tells her. "There, I just saved you a hangover."

Claire smirks, like she knows something he doesn't. "It's either this or more tequila."

"Isn't this coming out of your paycheck?"

"I'm the manager, so it's whatever," Claire says, working at the foil on the cap. "How do you drink this? Do you need a mixer, or what?"

Jess shakes his head at her. "Bullshit," he declares, "you're the owner's daughter or something, right?"

Claire's smile goes a little dark. "Nope," she says, popping the 'p.' Jess can't help but stare at her mouth, which was probably her intention. Definitely her intention, he amends, as her smile grows wider. "Last chance."

"It's schnapps, you don't mix schnapps," Jess says, resigned. He groans again, eyeing the bottle. "Get some apple juice for a chaser, if you need one."

Claire rolls her eyes at him. "Do you need one?"

"I'm not in twelfth grade, so no," Jess says. "Although drinking Goldschläger at all is a little twelfth grade, so I don't know, maybe we should just go for broke."

Claire shakes her head, leaning over the bar again to snag a clean glass. "You're from New York, aren't you?"

Jess frowns. "How did you - oh, very funny."

"S'okay," Claire says, aiming that mean smirk at him again. "I'm used to it."

"He cheated on you," Jess guesses.

"No," says Claire.

"Cheated on your sister."

"Don't have a sister."

"Cheated on your brother," Jess says, and takes another swig straight from the bottle.

"He didn't cheat on anyone," Claire says, laughing. There are gold flakes on her bottom lip. "We weren't - it ain't like that with Peter and me."

"What's it like, then?"

Claire takes the bottle out of his hands, leaning back in her seat. They've moved to one of the booths, as far away from the football fans as they can get. Supposedly, Claire's not on shift tonight, but Jess suspects this is more bullshit, since the bartender keeps staring at them blatantly whenever he thinks they're not looking. Or maybe the guy's just in love with her, or something else boring like that.

"Complicated," she says finally, and takes a drink, much longer than his. Jess watches her incredulously; he has never, ever met a girl who can drink like this one. She doesn't even seem tipsy yet.

"That's a non-answer," Jess says. "Everything's complicated. Life is complicated."

"Not everything," Claire argues. "Some things are simple. Or they should be."

"Like what?" Jess asks skeptically.

"Like lying," Claire says. "You know? Don't lie. The end. Simple."

"That's your thing, huh?"

"Yeah, that's my thing," Claire says, taking another drink.

Jess squints at her. He's definitely drunk. Not stupid drunk, but drunk enough. "Now that's naive."

"I said should," Claire argues, but she doesn't seem particularly angry. Just kind of tired, all of a sudden. "Don't call me naive, by the way."

"Another thing?" Claire glares at him. "Fine. You're very worldly and mature."

"I'm worldly enough," Claire says, leaning forward on her elbows. "It works for me."

"Yes, it does," Jess says, leaning in to match her pose. Definitely drunk, he thinks. "Tell me something else that should be simple."

"Cupcakes," says Claire.

"Cupcakes?"

"Cupcakes should be simple," she says. "You've seen those cupcake restaurants they've got now, right? And all those Food Network shows, the competitions? All the fancy flavors and frosting and crap? It's ridiculous. A cupcake is just - it's not fancy! It's mini. A tiny little cup of cake. You don't gotta cram a million different flavors into it."

"Chocolate," Jess says, sliding his fingers down the back of her hand until she lets go of the bottle, smirking as she visibly shivers. "Or vanilla?"

"Vanilla," Claire says firmly. "Also simple."

"You don't seem very vanilla to me," says Jess, palming the bottle. Claire's staring at his hands. "Or maybe you just haven't met the right cupcake yet."

"You callin' me naive again?" Claire asks, turning her hands palm up on the tabletop. The edges of her sleeves are wet from the spilled liquor on the table, and she's got a bundle of those cheap bead bracelets wrapped around one wrist. Jess picks that one up and slides them off her hand and onto his, just because. Claire lets him do it, smirking.

"I'm actually," Jess says after a moment, "kind of wasted."

"I figured," Claire says.

"You're not." It's not really a question.

"I have a weird tolerance," Claire says, with a shrug.

"Did you get me drunk to take advantage of me?" Jess asks. "And here I thought you were a nice girl."

"I'm really not," Claire says, gently taking the bottle back. Not that he was going to drink anymore, but she doesn't know that. "But you're not that nice either, I think."

"No," Jess says slowly, looking closely at her somber expression. "I'm not."

She's not pretty, but she is a knockout. The knock-you-out kind of knockout, Jess thinks. She's got a heart-shaped face and there's something absent from her smile, an absence that could be disturbing in the right light, the right situation. Jess could write a poem about that smirk; he might actually try it, when he wakes up tomorrow. If he wakes up tomorrow. It's that kind of night, down here in the armpits. He didn't come here deliberately, but he's here all the same.

"I'm tired of men who are nice to me," Claire tells him, and takes another long, long drink. Jess watches her throat move and thinks about squeezing it, just a little. Maybe more than a little. Maybe.

"How old are you?" Jess asks.

"Do you care?" Claire says.

Jess snaps her bracelets against his wrist. "Hm," he says, leaning back. "Well. No."

Claire laughs. "My apartment's just down the street, you know."

"Is it."

"We can leave this here," Claire says, waggling the bottle in his face.

"Probably a good idea," Jess says, and snaps the bracelet again. Neither of them flinch.

"You can call me Peter if you want," Jess offers, his teeth on her neck. Claire jerks beneath his hands, moaning.

"God," Claire says, spitting it out through gritted teeth. "Let's just - let's not go there. This is fucked up enough, okay, can we just - "

"I'm just saying, I won't hold it against you," Jess says, leaning harder into her body. Her shoulders are pressed flat against the mattress; she's so fucking small, really, but there's solid muscle in her thighs, and her abs are just insane. She's got a better six-pack than he does. "Did you play softball in high school? Or were you one of those bitchy volleyball girls?"

Claire hitches one of her legs a bit higher on his hip. He can feel the coiled strength in it through his hand; it's surprisingly hot. "I was a cheerleader."

"No fucking way. Are you serious?"

"Of course I'm serious. Cheerleading is very serious."

Jess snorts, pulling up on his hands to look at her. She'd insisted on leaving the lights on, which could be either vanity or concern for Jess' coordination, he couldn't really tell. Either way, it's working out great for him, because the faces she keeps making are just ridiculous, stuck halfway between sexy and cute. Best of both worlds, really. "This isn't a lead up to some kind of weird roleplay thing, is it?"

"No way! You know, the only men who think cheerleaders are sexy are like..." Claire pauses to consider. "Not the kind of men that any sane girl wants to sleep with."

"I've always been more into the sexy librarian thing, myself."

"Of course you are, nerd," Claire says, too affectionate for it to be real. Jess considers offering to let her call him Peter again, but that seems a little too cruel, even for an encounter like this. "Aren't you gonna ask what I like?"

"What do you like?" Jess asks obediently, setting down and making himself comfortable between her little Amazon legs.

Claire spreads them wider beneath his weight, grinning madly, her hair a messy cloud on the blanket. "Superheroes."

Jess laughs out loud. "Of course you do."

"Only the sexy ones. You know, who are all angry and conflicted, always getting beat up. 'I must protect my city,' all that crap." Claire giggles, squirming a little beneath him. Jess leans down and runs his nose up and down her jawbone, up to the curve of her ear, and she giggles some more. Foreplay is the key to lightening her up, apparently. "The spandex crowd...nah. Not so sexy."

"Let me guess, you read a lot of conspiracy theories about the meteor explosion in New York," Jess says.

Claire pulls back to look at him closely, and Jess kindly brushes some hair out of her face so she can get a clear view. Whatever she sees seems to be enough, because she smiles, after a second.

"'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,'" she says. "Isn't that how it goes?"

"I can't remember," Jess says, and kisses her. Claire kisses him back roughly, biting viciously at his lip. Jess lets her, head swimming.

"Yeah," Claire slurs, when they finally break away for air. Jess blinks down at her, his mouth throbbing, and she reaches up and touches his chin with her index finger, so lightly he barely feels it. "Yeah."

"I knew it," Jess says mindlessly, having forgotten what they were talking about. He knows something, he's sure of that much, at least.

Claire's answering smile is almost condescending. "Yeah," she says again, and tugs him down.

Jess is so drunk it doesn't matter, drunk enough that nothing matters. Claire's a knock-you-out kind of girl, and knocks him so hard his brain melts into a puddle on the floor next to her bed. It's a good night.

"You can be rougher next time," she tells him, now that the lights are finally off.

Jess already drank both bottles of water she gave him earlier, and has started in on hers. She's not even sweating all that hard; it's fucking unreal. She's a robot. "Next time?"

"Well, how long are you in town?"

Jess has to think about it. "Uh," he says, "I've got a thing...Thursday, back in Philly."

"You're not staying at the Doubletree, are you? You know that place never changes the bedsheets."

"Well, I know now," Jess says, grimacing into the dark. He's still drunk, sort of. Mostly he's just tired, and fucked out, and a little weirded out, too. Or maybe he's just dehydrated. "I just have one more workshop at the school tomorrow afternoon, and then that's it."

"You'll stay here, then," Claire says, like it's decided, and flops down against his side. She reaches up and touches the gigantic bite mark she'd left on his shoulder, which is still throbbing angrily. Jess really should get tested, after this. "I don't have work until Tuesday night."

"Okay," Jess says, bemused at this turn of events. He hadn't even expected to be allowed to stay the entire night, frankly. "Rougher, huh?"

"You can't hurt me," Claire says.

"Really," Jess says flatly.

Claire shrugs. She's still wet; he can feel her against his thigh. Her skin is kind of clammy, the way skin gets when sweat has dried and cooled. It'd felt that way when they were fucking too - like the only parts of her that stayed warm were the parts that he was touching, the places where she let him inside. Her mouth, her cunt - that's it. Everything else just felt cold. "Sometimes I just...I just like to really feel it, you know?"

Jess moves his knee, presses his thigh against her firmly. She's definitely still hot for it; that's more than just aftershock. "You have trouble feeling it normally?"

"Yeah," Claire says, like she's admitting something, and grinds against his leg. Jess reaches down and touches her waist, that elegant curve between her ribs and her hips. Watches her face as he presses harder, and harder, and then harder even still. She still doesn't flinch.

"Me too," Jess says, and moves his hand up, to the back of her neck. Claire tilts her chin up, fitting her head into his palm, her eyes fluttering shut.

He can see her mouth move in the dim light from the streetlight outside, her lips pursing around letters that he knows don't belong in his name. He tugs at her hair and doesn't think about it, scrapes his teeth across her breasts and doesn't care. It's not her name he was saying, either.

"I'll stay," he says, rolling onto his side so he can get both hands on her. Claire goes limp, mouth wide open, throat flexing hard beneath his knuckles. "Since you asked so nicely."

"Great," Claire says, strained.

"You can't hurt me either, you know," Jess says, pulling his hands back after a second. She gasps as soon as they're gone, her pupils blown and her face flushed. He slaps the side of her ass sharply, and she moans loudly, both of her legs clenching around his.

"I thought I told you not to lie," Claire says, after a breathless second.

Jess considers her in the dim light, feeling very, suddenly sober. "I don't think I am."

"Yeah," Claire says hoarsely, swallowing hard. Her blush goes all the way down to her navel, and her body is warm now, warmer than it was before. Jess sinks into it, his eyelids heavy. "That's the complicated part."

"Whatever," he says, and kisses her again. His lip still hurts.

"I'm just saying," Claire mumbles, against his open mouth.

Jess ignores her, bites down a little harder. He doesn't care.