Just Next Door
An OTH Jaley Short
By AlexB
One
"Ja-giel-ski! Ja-giel-ski!" The crowd around him chanted. He stood at the free throw line. The Ravens were down by two in the forth with seven seconds left on the clock. If he could make these shots, it would tie it and send the game into overtime. It would give them a shot. He could finally win something.
It got so quiet in the gymnasium that Jake could hear the sweat bead on his forehead. He shot the first free throw. It hit the rim. Bounced left, right, rolled to the back board, and slowly...went in.
The sound of the crowd was a roaring deafness in his ears. It was so huge; it felt like the ground was shifting around him.
Jake readied himself to take the next shot, and flinched as a small white ball clipped him; smacking him in the head. He barely got his hands up in time to deflect the next attack.
"What the...? He slapped another white ball down like a gnat. Dropping the basketball, he slapped down another and another. It earned him a rounding applause of "boo's and hisses." Wiffle balls, that's what they were, and they seemed to be coming from every direction. The crowd was throwing them at him now. His own teammates. His coach.
Jake couldn't duck them all. He took one to the temple. You would think that a little ball with holes in it wouldn't be able to do much, but the shot knocked him off his feet. Jake fell on his back like a ton of bricks.
The chanting started again.
"Ja-giel-ski! Ja-giel-ski!"
"Jagielski!"
His eyes shot open and he stared blindly at his bedroom ceiling. There was a hollow clicking coming from the direction of his window, which was letting in an ungodly amount of sunlight, even with the blinds closed.
Turning over completely, Jake burrowed deeper into his pillows, willing the sleep that had escaped him to come back. It was a no go. On eye cracked open, and he watched as the shadow, of what could only be a ball, slapped repeatedly on the siding above his window.
He chanced a look at his clock and cursed. His alarm hadn't gone off. He wasn't going to be late; he was going to be super late. And wouldn't everybody just love that.
Rolling out of bed, he pulled on the jeans that he'd worn yesterday and snatched a shirt from the desk chair on his way to the window, sniffing it as he went. Deeming it wearable, Jake pulled it over his head before he raised the blinds and opened his window.
He stuck his head out just as Haley let loose. The hard plastic hit him right between the eyes.
Jake grunted at the shot. She covered her mouth with her hand. Well, Haley thought, she couldn't take it back now, and no way in hell was Jake going to believe that she was sorry if the dared attempt to spit out the words. Why? Because she wasn't. And she hadn't been all the other times she'd clobbered him.
"Come on, Haley." Jake complained.
"Let's go," she called up to him. "You don't want to be late. And I'm your ride."
She was right. He didn't want to be late. Because of a particular player on the team, the whole squad had an 8 a.m. practice. And anyone who was late, or just plain didn't show up, would have hell to pay.
Good 'ol Haley. Always looking out.
His car had finally died on him, and instead of footing it the distance to the school, Haley was borrowing her dad's car to give him a ride. Like he'd said: Always looking out.
The engine was running, and the passenger door was open when Jake finally made it next door. Soon as his butt hit the seat, Haley was pulling out of the driveway.
"I appreciate this, Haley."
She lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. "No problem." She never minded helping friends out. It was what she did. Looking over at him from the corner of her eyes, Haley grinned, then asked. "Late night?"
Jake sighed, nodding. "Jenny's teething." He explained. "Every time I got her to sleep, it never lasted long. At about three in the morning, mom finally came in a took over. I don't get it." He spoke incredulously. "I did exactly what she said to the 'T', and nothing. Mom comes in and it's like…like…magic."
She smiled, laughing softly. "Jenny just needed a mama's touch. No offense." She added. Jake grunted, and Haley smiled again. "Babies are sensitive like that. They can sense when you mean well, but when they want their mama's, or grandma's in your case, they usually get it." When he said nothing to that, she glanced over at him.
His head was laid back against the headrest of the seat. He had fallen asleep on her. Poor baby, she thought. Jake was a high school student/father. And she had been there every step of the way.
When he'd found out that his girlfriend at the time was pregnant, it was she that Jake came to. He'd been scared to death. It was the first time that Haley had seen him cry.
"This is not happening," he'd sobbed. "What am I gonna do, Haley?"
She didn't know anymore that he had. So they'd sat there on her back porch and cried together. When they'd gotten it out of their system, she'd suggested that Haley would be an awesome name for a little girl.
When Jenny had been born, Haley had become a godmother. She'd been the first one outside of the baby's family to hold the little girl. She'd cried buckets.
They'd been friends for as long as she could remember. Haley couldn't pinpoint when it had happened, but somewhere along the line, she had fallen in love with the boy next door. And it was because of that love that she didn't stop herself when she reached out to brush a finger across Jake's cheek.
She caught her breath at the brazenness behind the act. Jake didn't budge. He didn't flinch, never moved. He kept right on sleeping. The rest of the ride into town, Haley made sure that she kept her hands to herself.
He was tired all the way down to his bones, and every muscles hurt worse than the one before it. The arms he had braced against the tiles of the shower wall threatened to fail on him.
Half the team was ready to bust the chops of the guy who had gotten them all in to this. Jake included. But he just didn't have the energy. What little brain power he could muster was focused on something else entirely. It was, and he was, focused on Haley.
Was it his imagination, or had she touched him? It couldn't have been real; he had to have been dreaming. Haley didn't see him like that. Did she?
No, they were just friends. She was his best friend. The only one, besides the coach, who knew his secret. She was his daughter's godmother. It couldn't be like that between them. He was a package deal now, and it wouldn't ask Haley to do that. He couldn't put all that on someone else's shoulders.
And although he loved his baby with everything in him, Jake couldn't stop wishing that he was a normal teenage kid with normal teenaged problems. Talk about being scared straight, he thought. He hadn't had sex since he found out that he had gotten someone pregnant.
"You gonna be in there all day, Jagielski?!" Coach Durham's booming voice echoed off the shower walls. Jerking to attention, Jake turned off the water that had gone cold. He barely made it into his own clothes, he was so tired.
Haley was waiting for him in the parking lot when he'd finally finished. She didn't speak when Jake slid, his body boneless, into the seat beside her. They didn't speak the whole way home, and for that, Jake was grateful. He just didn't have the energy to hold up his end of a conversation.
Concentrating on easing himself out of the car when they finally did get home, Jake didn't notice that Haley had followed him up the walk until they got to the door. "Thanks again, Haley." He said over his shoulder as he dug into his pocket for his house key.
She smiled and Jake about fell over. She'd smiled at him before. Many times in fact, but never had they effected him then the way that they did now.
He'd never noticed how gorgeous her smile was. How beautiful she was on the outside as well as on the inside. Her eyes weren't brown; they were amber with gold flecks. And her hair wasn't brown. It wasn't blonde either. It was like a...bronze-gold, or something.
Hell, Jake thought as he washed a hand over his face. He wasn't tired; he was out of his mind exhausted to be waxing poetic about Haley. She was his friend. That was all. Period.
"What would you do without me?" She teased, batting her eyes playfully.
Fall to pieces. "What are you doing?"
She lifted her shoulder in the absentminded way that she did and followed him into the house. Jenny, holding herself up in her playpen, hadn't even looked at him. She saw Haley and her little baby eyes got big as saucers. His girl went nuts. Her little feet stamped in place, and she screeched so loud Jake thought his ears would bleed.
He felt a wave of shame. It wasn't like Jenny never greeted him in the same way. She had what could have been a million times. But every time was like the first time. It galled him that he was seeing green because his baby was doing the same for Haley.
"Wanna come with me?" Haley asked Jenny as she lifted the baby from her self-imposed jail cell. "How 'bout you come hang out with me and the girls?" She went on. "I know mom just made some applesauce."
"Haley, you don't-" His words were cut short by the sound of Haley blowing raspberries in his daughter's neck. Jenny's squealing laughter made Jake smile, then laugh himself.
"It's just for a few hours." She was talking to him, but Haley kept her eyes on Jenny as she made faces. Jenny smiled, twin dimples flashed in her baby cheeks. Looking at him over her shoulder, Haley said, "Promise."
Walking toward girl and baby, Jake nodded. When he held out his hands, Jenny came to him easily and willingly, resting her head on his shoulder. Jake sighed. He knew what Haley was doing, and he was grateful.
Jenny patted Jake's cheeks with both hands, and he in turned kissed her one nose, and every other part of her face that he could reach. It was their game. When he leaned toward Haley, Jenny took that as her cue and went to her. Haley smiled at the little girl, then at Jake. He was looking at her funny. When he kissed her cheek, unbeknownst to him, she closed her eyes and savored it.
"Thank you." He whispered. She could only nod.
He helped her load Jenny's gear. She was only going next door, but even that was still a journey. From the porch he watched them. And it was at that moment, before the James' door closed that Haley looked back at him. Giving him that impish smile that was always on her face, Jake realized that he was in love with the girl next door. And also, that he would rather have her in his life as his friend than not have her in his life at all.