Title: Just In Case
Author: Tote
Genre: romance, no angst
Rating: Incredibly PG, despite some wondering on Joan's part
A/N: thanks to everyone who reviewed 'Covering up the Truth and Other Things', I'm so glad you all liked it. This story was sort of floating around in my archives, before the whole Adam and Bonnie incident, so it has a nostalgic, sad ring to it when you think about what's to come. I do plan to write a sequel to 'Covering up the Truth and Other Things', just be patient and bombard me with reviews, they make me write faster…wink
I hung my head out my bedroom window, breathing deeply. My pulse slowed down and I rested chin on my hand. Sometimes it's like there's less oxygen in the air than usual. It's funny: I'd lived in this house for two years and I'd never noticed all the broken bottles littered on the ground below my window, even though it seemed like the garbage down there had been there awhile. In the mellow, orange sunlight, the little green chips of glass seemed to glitter like diamonds. I stood there for a long time, breathing in and out, inhaling and exhaling and not thinking about Adam.
Well, thinking about not thinking about Adam, but it still counts in my book. I mean, it's basically the same thing, right? Or not.
"Joan! You're going to be late for school!" my mom called, her voice strained from whatever of the recent Girardi tragedies were bothering her at the moment.
"I don't care!" I yelled back but I was already looking away from the broken glass diamonds and putting my bag over my shoulder. It was heavy from my big fat chemistry book and that, inevitably, brought Adam back again: Adam and his photographic memory, Adam studying with me, Adam walking away from me, Adam wanting a night to himself. Chemistry sucks.
I went to the kitchen, grabbing a cold piece of buttered toast on my way out, nodding and agreeing to whatever Mom was saying... I was halfway out the door when she grabbed my arm. "Hey, you okay?"
She frowned at me, the usual motherly love and parental concern but mostly impatience.
"Yeah, Mom, I'm fine. We're going to be late though." It was so easy: just like that, punctuality took precedent over any concern she had and we rushed out, driving together for once. On the way to school I ate the toast, even thought the butter wasn't completely melted and it tasted kind of gross, and I talked enough to keep her from freaking out and calling a therapist or whatever. I tugged at my necklace and felt it cut into the skin on my neck and I thought of Adam's lips there, right under my ear. I tugged harder, till it hurt. The car stopped and we got out.
"Mom, I gotta run, I'm gonna be late," I said over my shoulder as I hurried up the steps. I didn't want to give her the chance to ask me anything I might have to answer 'yes' to.
The halls were totally empty and I swore under my breath, wondering why I even bothered trying to be on time anymore. But I ran anyway and managed to get to the door just as Adam was. My breath caught and my heart stopped but I didn't stop walking.
"Hey, Jane..." I heard as I brushed past him, but I ignored it, only giving a weak, fake smile. Not to be mean, just because I didn't know how I'd answer that. Or what he'd say. Whatever, I didn't want to talk to him or look at his sad, beautiful eyes or hear him call me Jane. Jane had taken the day off.
The whole time during chemistry I felt him looking at me, looking at the side of my face, at my hand with my old homemade bracelet from crazy camp, at my hair. I itched from wanting to turn to him, to say something that said everything I felt and wanted but at the same time would make us, us again, before the concert, before the...camper.
"…actually, chemistry, much like sex, is all about opposites attracting…" the psychotic chemistry teacher's voice floated into my brain, making every muscle in my body tense up. Sex: Adam's weight on top of me, his face inches from mine, so I could taste his breath, the way his eyes looked so intensely tender when he was making out with me, that hand on my breast, wandering down my thigh, and back up, up to my belt…
"Hey, Joan," said Friedman, startling her out of the daydream, "what do you say? Want to study the magic that is chemistry together…see if opposites attract?" This, for Friedman, was a relatively minor disgusting thing to say, so I just gave him the 'Die, You Sad Little Man' look, satisfied when Glynnis slapped him and began to whine about his 'wandering eye'.
I felt Adam grasp my hand under the table and when I looked at him—afraid, afraid of what he wanted, what he meant by that—all I saw was infinite apology, as if he'd been reading my mind off my face and was sorry for my inner torment and crazed wanting.
Then he began to trace the lines of my palm under the table, as if telling my fortune. Strong, confident fingers: fingers that knew where to press, where to linger…fingers that knew my wrist got sore from writing everything by hand: all part of my ongoing battle against modern technology.
He pressed his callused thumb against the center of my palm, and then put it back in my lap. I looked down at it, seeing a smudged, inked imprint of a blue heart, like a tattoo. I looked at Adam, who was steadily avoiding my gaze as he began to draw a small sketch of the back of Friedman's head, adding devilish horns.
"Adam?" I am one crazy girl. I mean, I know this already, I do talk to God and all, but standing in the rain outside Adam's window at night and tapping at the window, 'cause he actually locked the shed for once (damn my luck) really did give my craziness a whole new dimension.
"Adam? Come on, wake up," I said, raising my voice as loud as I dared without the neighbors waking up and calling the cops on me. On second thought, Adam's neighbors probably aren't the type to call the police for any reason. That made me a little braver: "Adam! Adam, wake up!"
Through the distorted, rain-splattered window, I saw a figure break away from the shadows slowly, and then move fast to the shed's door. I quickly went over there and got there just in time for him to see me, soaking wet, framed in the doorway, as he swung the door open. "Hey, Jane," he said, apparently unsurprised. Well, he does know me.
"Hey."
He pulled me in out of the rain and shut the door in one movement, his arms on either side of me, keeping me from moving away. His face was close and in the split second we stood that way, I wanted to kiss him and let him take my clothes off, take his off, and kiss him again, on his shoulder and run my fingers through his hair--"What's up? Are you okay?" He stepped back as he spoke.
I sighed. "Yeah. Well, no. But I'm as not-okay as I usually am."
He nodded, frowning as he studied me. Then, his eyes widening he got up quickly and moved closer to me, then moved quickly back again, "are you cold? Do you need a…a blanket or something?"
"You have a blanket in here?"
"Uh, no, actually, I used it in my last piece." He frowned, his eyes going to the Goosebumps on my bare arms, briefly going to my breasts, then quickly looking further up: up my neck, to my jaw line, to my lips. His gaze was like touch: it sent new shivers down my spine, made me hyper aware of each part of my body he looked at, made me want to moan from wanting, all these wants I never satisfied, for reasons I wasn't even totally clear on.
He moved toward me again, his arms coming up and pulling me to him, pressing my body up against his. He put my head beneath his chin. He was rubbing my arms up and down before I got my breathing under control, realizing he was only keeping me warm, not making me hot. On purpose, anyway. I closed my eyes, inhaling and exhaling. He smelled so good: not like cologne or anything, but like smoke and metal, toothpaste and something else undefined and totally Adam. A thought came to the surface of my mind before I could really consider it: ask me and I will. Ask me, and I'll do it.
But he said nothing.
So I did. "May I sleep with you?"
His hands stopped mid-stroke on my arms for a second, then continued again, as he replied: "yeah, but I'll sleep on the floor, okay? Just in case."
"Just in case of what? In case I…"
"Just—Just in case," he said, interrupting gently, and kissed my lips lightly.
"Okay," I murmured, defeated and relieved at this same time, and my arms came around him, as I sighed happily with the knowledge that hey, we had time. Lots.