Moments
A Jake & Cassandra Story
By Brown Eyes Parker
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For pixarcarsqueen
i. dance
Jake watched Cassandra dancing with Ezekiel. She laughed a little bit when the younger man stepped on her feet and put some distance between them, always the patient one.
The song ended and they came back to the table, Ezekiel sat down right away and ordered another beer while Cassandra pulled her hair off of her neck and smiled at Jake as a song about not dancing because the singer knew he'd fall in love if he did, started to play.
"Would you like to dance?" She asked.
"Are you talkin' to me?" Jake replied, pointing to himself and furrowing his eyebrows.
"Yes."
"Aw, I dunno Cassie, I'm not much for dancin'," Jake answered, rubbing the back of his head and trying to avoid looking at her. "I have two left feet."
"It's a slow dance though!" Cassandra answered. "All we have to do is hold each other up. It isn't rocket science or anything."
"Go and dance with her, mate!" Ezekiel prodded, smiling at them like he knew something they didn't.
Jake took a long sip of beer and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth as he swallowed. "Fine! I'll dance with you, but just this once. Don't expect it to become a regular habit or anything."
Cassandra beamed and shook her head. "Of course not!"
He stood up and took her hand, leading her back to the dance floor. She placed her arms around his neck and he put his arms around her waist, looking anywhere but her eyes as they started to sway to the music. He closed his eyes and tried not to breathe in too deeply, having her in his arms was so intoxicating.
The way she smelled, the way she felt so warm and real pressed up against him, her hair brushing against his cheek. Her hands stroking his neck on their own accord.
He knew that dancing with her wasn't a good idea.
Having her in his arms made it so very hard to ignore the reluctant crush he had been developing on her ever since the day they had first laid eyes on each other.
ii. poetry
Sometimes when her headaches were really bad, he would sit in a chair beside her bed and read to her, talking quietly so he wouldn't make the pain worse. She liked everything from the Song of Songs to Mark Bibbins. It was easy to find something to help her forget for a little while, to ease the tension between her brows. She found comfort in his voice, in the way he dropped 'ing' from his words. She said it worked better than any painkiller ever could.
So, he whispered to her in the dark. Lulling her to sleep with beautiful words.
Words of love penned by a wise king thousands and thousands of years ago. Behold you are beautiful my love, behold you are beautiful.
Words of a modern poet, written less than a year earlier. We said despair; we meant the strings of impossible.
Words of his favorites, like Lord Byron and Robert Frost. The ones that weren't depressing because he didn't want to invite bad luck.
He read to her and recited to her and he fell in love with her without even realizing it.
iii. sleeplessness
Jake was having trouble sleeping.
Cassandra was keeping him up nights. She was racing through his head and driving him crazy.
He would lie in his bed wide awake and all alone, thinking about her. About the things she had said that day, about the way she had smelled or what she had been wearing.
He would lie in bed and think about the way her hair fell across her shoulders, what it would like to be to kiss her on the mouth.
He would toss and turn and wonder why thoughts of her were torturing him, beg everything holy for just a little bit of sleep.
Even though he thought about her in his dreams too.
iv. hug
He hugged her after a particularly hard day just to know that he was alive, that she was alive, that everything was going to be okay. Her arms around his waist, her scent in his nose was all the assurance that he needed.
Cassandra pulled away from him and smiled at him, saying everything he needed to hear with her eyes and a gentle touch on his shoulder.
Jake released a deep breath that he hadn't known he had been holding in.
"Thanks," he managed as he returned her smile and went to get cleaned up, leaving her to watch him leave without noting the look of confusion on her face.
v. kiss
Their first kiss was so different from any other first kiss he had ever experienced. It was sweet, not sexy even though it had the potential to be just that. He was clear-eyed and thinking straight and they weren't outside a bar with country music pouring outside, the encounter wasn't fueled by alcohol or the desire to be like every other cowboy around town.
He didn't have to pretend he was someone he wasn't with her. Cassandra knew the real him, Cassandra loved the real him.
As soon as he kissed her, he knew whatever it was between them was the real deal. It was the kind of love that he had believed in since he was a little boy and hadn't dared dream that he would ever find even after he had met her.
"Jake. . ." she whispered when they had broken apart, her eyes still closed. "Jake I thought that you didn't. . ."
He silenced her with his mouth before she could finish, letting her know without words that whatever she had thought had been so, so wrong. Allowing himself to realize everything he had been missing out on for so long by avoiding his feelings for her.
"Don't," he whispered back when he pulled away. "Don't even think like that Cassie. I'm sorry for ever makin' you believe whatever it is that you believe right now."
Cassandra swallowed and nodded, changing the subject. Changing her words, a little braver than he was at that moment.
"I love you," she told him.
Jake couldn't help the smile that spread across his face. "I love you too," he answered.
_The End_
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Author's Note:
I hope you guys all enjoyed this, especially YOU pixarcarsqueen. Have a very Happy Valentine's Day or Galentine's Day, or whatever it is that you're celebrating.
Love,
Holly, 2/14/2015_