Yeah, I'm back for a second story in a record 48 hours... This one was actually written before my other story, because I re-watched "Fluffer" the other night and couldn't believe Winston's quote hasn't been brought up nearly as much as I expected after "Cooler."
This takes place roughly two years later, and although I'd hate to see (or think of) the roommates leaving each other in any way, shape, or form, I'd definitely be happy with this arrangement, haha.
So, again, I own none of the characters.
You will not build her that dresser. It's furniture. It implies that one day you will share it with her and that's not going to happen. -Winston, "Fluffer"
"Hey Jess…"
Nick carefully opened the door to the house, walking into what he could only describe as semi-organized chaos. Boxes were scattered across the living room, some piled to about the height of his girlfriend, who had earlier assured him that there was a 'method to her madness,' whatever that meant. Still, he had never realized exactly how much extra stuff two people could accumulate, even though they had technically already been living together for three years.
This little place, though, was different… It was theirs.
He was still wrapping his head around the fact that they'd turned in the keys to the loft that morning. Although he felt that twinge of longing for the two missing from this place, he remembered Schmidt's words in the weeks before their lease at the loft was up.
It's just time for all of us to move on, you know?
From somewhere behind the boxes near the kitchen, Jess stood up, staring down at a cupcake pan in her hands. Nick snapped out of his thoughts, struck by the sight before him. Her dark curls were pulled back in a low ponytail, with her glasses resting low on her nose. He was pretty sure that she was also wearing one of his old jackets.
Not that he minded.
At all.
"Well, I think the more pressing issue is that we somehow made off with one of Schmidt's pans," she held out the object as Nick approached. He took it from her and smirked.
"And what exactly makes you think that this is Schmidt's?"
Jess looked at him quizzically. "Because it's not mine?"
Nick said nothing, rocking back and forth on his heels, hiding a smile, while he let the gears turn in her head. His smile broadened when her blue eyes widened in disbelief.
"This is yours?" Her gaze flickered between the pan and Nick, as if unable to mentally connect the two. "How have I been living with you this long and not know that you, Nick Miller, owns one of the essentials of frivolous baking? All this time, I thought you were such a minimalist… With absolutely no talent in the kitchen…"
"Whoa, now," he cut in, wrapping his arms around her waist, "I'm not a total failure in the kitchen!"
Jess sank into his embrace. "So you've just been pretending that for three years? I mean, setting that grilled cheese on fire was pretty convincing…" She mumbled the last part into his shirt. He could feel her smiling against his chest. After all this time, the sensation still sent warmth through him.
He chuckled, putting his lips to her ear. "Maybe in all this extra alone time I can find a way to convince you otherwise…"
Jess giggled, knowing full well that his suggestion had little to do with actual cooking. The hair on his chin tickled her cheek, and she lightly pushed him away. She was not going to let go of what little self control she had on their first full day in the new place.
Nick frowned, almost pouting. He made sure to be extra "turtle-like," as Jess liked to call it. She loved it, and he knew it.
"Not fair, Miller," she said, putting her hands up, "weren't you just saying that we've got tons of stuff still on the truck? We're burnin' daylight!"
"Okay, so tell me how exactly you got this thing in here?" Nick scratched his head, looking at the last object inside the small moving trailer. It was the frame for a dresser, fit so tightly sideways against the front that Nick almost took it for a poorly made shelf, built into the rental.
Jess shrugged. She was somewhat curious as to how she managed it, too. "It wouldn't go in right side up, so I turned it over and had at it."
The mental image of this had a quirky factor that surpassed Nick's capability to refrain from laughing.
"Hey now," Jess replied, tugging on the edge of the frame, "I'm stronger than I look!"
"Oh, I believe it," Nick walked up beside her, pulling up on the dresser while Jess coaxed the frame to the front. "I distinctly remember you giving me a black-eye once."
Jess replied to that in the only way a mature adult could – by sticking her tongue out at him.
He tried to hide his smirk with an eye-roll, but didn't do a very good job of it. He knew that Jess saw it, but it didn't bother him. She usually saw right through him anyway.
For the next few minutes, they worked together silently in their efforts to free the dresser. With a grunt and one final tug from Nick, the frame slid free and they pushed it right side up.
Nick got ready to pull it to the door, his hand skimming over a screw sticking out from the inside of a joint where a drawer went, like it's position was just slightly off. Like someone with an average aim with a screwdriver had put it together.
And then he remembered.
"Jess, is this the dresser that you bought at IKEA?"
She smiled, her enthusiasm evident. "Yeah, I thought we could put it in our room. You know, since all of your furniture smells like a guy."
Nick lost his train of thought at the mention of their room, and completely missed the last part of her teasing.
He was definitely a goner.
Hours later, Nick found himself perched on a pile of bed linens in a cluttered little bedroom, watching a very feminine shadow dance out of the closet.
"You know, you could actually attempt to make the bed, instead of just opening the entire bag and dumping it onto the mattress." Jess reappeared from the closet, pointing a hangar menacingly at him.
He smiled coyly. "Only if you promise to join me as soon as it's done."
Jess tried not to laugh.
"Oh what a difference," she replied, dropping her hanger, "that picking out a bedspread did to your confidence level." She walked to his side, sitting down beside him on the bed's edge. "I kinda like it."
"Oh really? Only 'kinda?''" He teased, pulling her closer. Reciprocating the gesture, she rested her forehead against his.
"But you know what I would really like?" She asked, her voice low. Her fingers found his, tracing circles with her thumb…
"What?" He replied, closing his eyes for the kiss that was sure to follow.
"I would really like," she continued, her lips just brushing his ear, "for all this stuff to be put up before I go to bed tonight."
Then, with a quick kiss, she pulled him up and motioned at the empty dresser, it's preferred contents spilling across the room.
He groaned, trying to pull a giggling Jess back into his arms.
She evaded his arms, shoving a box of clothes towards him. "I told you that the faster we get this done, the more time you have to enjoy your day off tomorrow!"
Grumpily, Nick admitted defeat with a loud sigh and began his task. He supposed living with a girl and living with a girl were still two entirely different matters, each requiring a specific learning curve. He'd figure this one out soon enough…
Hopefully.
The drawer he claimed for his 'closet rejects,' as Jess had referred to them all day, was easy – it was only a matter of dumping the bag of socks, boxers and sleeping shirts into it. The rest of them, however, were a different story. It took him a solid hour to just figure out what all she wanted to go back in the dresser.
"So what exactly do you want to go in the top drawer?" He asked, realizing that all of the clothes had been put away, still leaving one slot empty.
Jess poked her head out of the closet, still in the process of hanging up Nick's work shirts. "Um, there should be a bag of my pajamas somewhere around here…"
"No," he replied, "I already got those."
"Then what about socks?"
Nick grinned proudly. "All in the same drawer!"
Jess looked at him, horrified. His smile faded.
"What?"
Wordlessly, she strode over to her dresser, pulling open the drawer he indicated had everything all in one place. A few pairs of socks tumbled over the edge when she was finally able to tug it open. Jess sighed dramatically.
"Pajamas and things to sleep in deserve their own drawer," she explained, pulling a pair of flannel bottoms from the mess.
He scowled. "Figures this damn thing is still causing me problems"
"What thing?" She asked.
"This," he motioned the length of the dresser, "has been teaching me life-long lessons since the day I built it for you."
"Life-long… lessons?" Jess repeated, arching an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Nick reasoned. "Like how building furniture for a girl is somehow a sign of long-term commitment. And, apparently, how pajamas deserve their own drawer. Who knew?"
"You got all of this," Jess said slowly, "from building me a dresser?"
Nick realized exactly how stupid this sounded by the way Jess – who spent her days with the logic of seven-year-olds – looked at him.
"Did you know that Winston gave me hell for building this for you?" He blurted out quickly.
Jess thought about this for a second. "The boys always hassled you about me, though."
"This was different," he responded. Taking Jess's hands, he looked her straight in the eyes. "Winston told me that if I built that for you, that I was sentencing myself to something. And it terrified me."
"What would that be?" Jess asked, now whole-heartedly confused.
"That by building furniture for you, I was implying that I'd one day share it with you," he replied softly, his hands moving to hold her waist.
She wound her arms around his neck; this deep, new confession igniting a spark between the two. "Funny how those kinds of things turn out, huh?"
Nick wasn't sure who closed the gap first – he'd like to look back and say that he'd taken charge, his entire being wrapped up in her, but he wasn't sure. Jess was pretty quick to respond herself.
Maybe they even met in the middle. But when their lips finally met, it wasn't forbidden like their first, passion-crazed like their second, or even hidden like all of the others that they snuck around their roommates; it was sweet, effortless, and left Nick with a tingling that filled him all the way to his toes. She let him kiss her with the emotion that they had tip-toed around for so long, and even after all this time, it still brought a sense of wonder to Nick.
He put his arms around her, picking her up from the waist. She pulled away, those blue eyes staring straight down at him.
"I think this can work out very well, dresser-arranging skills aside."
Nick grinned sheepishly. "We'll figure it out."
"I hope so," she giggled, "because until then, I'm not going to bother with your drawer."
"Perfect," Nick mumbled, catching himself before quickly adding, "I mean, you know, wouldn't want you to have a heart attack. Or anything…"
Jess, still caught in the moment, smiled down. "Put me down and we can get ready for bed?"
"Oh, uh, sure," he stammered, letting her down. She kissed him one more time before resigning to the bathroom.
That was close.
It was hard to contain his excitement, knowing that he now had a good spot for a certain little black box. It was currently nestled in a laundry bag labeled "Nick's Old Clothes," which was the only thing Jess had refused to touch upon move-out.
She couldn't find it. Not yet. Hiding it from her had been tricky enough.
As Nick got ready for bed, he thought of that very ring, sent all the way from Chicago last week – one of the many things his uncle had left his old Aunt Ruthie before he died. His uncle always hated the fact that, when he and his great aunt got married, they didn't have the money for a proper wedding ring. But his aunt still insisted on wearing the little gold band, no matter what baubles his great uncle had managed to acquire in his years working under a jeweler.
This ring was one of them, and in an odd moment of sanity from his crazy aunt, she'd sent it to him with a note reading, "I like her. Bring her back with this next time."
Nick planned to.
As he began to untangle the pile of sheets on the mattress, he couldn't help but think that Jess deserved more than anything that he could give her, and so he wanted to feel when the moment was perfect for her. He couldn't give her the big house like Russell, or any kind of fancy car like Dr. Sam, but he did want to do this right.
"Look at you!"
Jess interrupted his thoughts, with a hop and a skip back into their room. "Making a bed and learning life lessons from dressers. How did I manage to get in on this lucky deal?"
Nick chuckled and climbed under the sheets. He opened his arms, beckoning her in. Gladly, she flicked off the lights and slid in on the other side, finding her place in his embrace.
"I feel as if I lucked out more on this," he admitted. Her hair spilled over the covers, the lamp on their bedside table casting shadows across her face. This was what he wanted to look forward to for many years to come.
Jess sighed and put her head against his chest. She could only hope that one day he'd realize that she needed him just as much as he needed her.
"Maybe we both did."
I just love these two together, even if I can only seem to manage anti-climactic endings... Oh well, as always, constructive critique is welcome and I love to hear feedback on how I did!
Thanks for reading!