Thanks to jenbachand for her beta and trusty input.
It strikes her now, how she knows all of his stories, how she knows everything. About. Him. It's disconcerting, this fact, because she's never known everything about anyone, including herself. She doesn't even know which she likes more, Cherry Garcia or Half Baked.
She knows Jack likes Half Baked because he always eats a pint of it after Bianca's lawyer calls. Jonathan stocks it for him, just in case (she wishes someone did that for her).
All of this, everything makes her agitated. It doesn't make sense, that she knows so much about him but she can't forget the things she knows and she know-knows them, like... deep down, so much so that she could spout them in conversation nonchalantly. And this is also bad because nonchalant is definitely not her thing.
She's more the freak-out-and-yell-about-it type, but that's beside the point. This is about knowing everything about him, and kind of finding it not appalling.
Listening to music isn't the same anymore because she finds herself doing that annoying thing where she associates songs with her feelings and with him and what would happen and displacing the lyrics onto other similarly annoying things; he's getting to her in too many ways and it would be annoying if Liz didn't find it so creepy.
A thought came to her one morning and she considered drawing up a list of pros and cons on Jack Donaghy, but realized that the word 'crazy' would be used too many times and therefore make the list completely null. There was no point at all to harping on the fact that her stomach did weird things when he looked at her a certain way, or the way his voice dropped when he said something that was supposed to mean something.
Did it mean something? Was it nothing? And how the hell was she supposed to know?
All she does know was that when she is digging a spoon into an overly-hard Ben and Jerry's (who keeps their freezer this cold, honestly?) she thinks of how he should be telling her that the ice cream would be going straight to her thighs and how she would be thinking about how he was thinking about her thighs.
It's too much to think about, the possibility of all of those strange fantasies that everyone has; subordinate and boss, a younger woman and an older man,. Liz and Jack... and when she thinks about that it makes her nauseous and not in the bad way. Not that it could ever really work; he has expensive tastes and she buys whatever Lean Cuisine is on sale that week. She still eats Benny's Burritos but only when she can't get him off of her mind and...
Why does she always come back to food?
She wonders if he'd ever be amenable to chocolate sauce or honey-oh! Honey (so good on chicken McNuggets)! He probably has an incomprehensible amount of chest hair, all that gooey stuff wouldn't work. Great idea Lemon (she always reconsiders herself).
When he hands her an invoice pondering where thirteen thousands dollars has been lost... Liz reminds herself that this is a crazy thing that she has to get over. She can't really be into someone who is probably wondering if she knows of someone who might be attempting a massive case of fraud. She can't be into someone she knows is probably still into his ex-wife. She can't be into someone who thinks that the Golden Girls is only probably a classic television show.
Bea Arthur, it's not even a question.
Then would come the whole process of the hypothetical getting over him, a whole process that required more thought and ice cream that she could fathom. She'd have to rid her home of TV Guide because he'd commented how many of the writers were including anagrams of "Jack Donaghy is a tool" into their columns and program descriptions; that wasn't going to happen, those were the only crosswords she could do. She would have to stop purchasing Fruity Pebbles because Jack claimed the left over milk looked exactly like the stone in the bracelet that he'd given Bianca for their third anniversary; that wasn't going to happen because Liz loved Fred Flintstone, plain and simple.
So the possibility that she probably won't get over whatever it was that lingers between them fixes itself in her mind. This is okay, she supposes, because she tends not to get over things so much, as lets them die out. And yet every time he breezes into her office without notice, she wants to smile. And whenever he reprimands her for some sketch of some ridiculous stunt that Tracy pulls, she wants nothing more than to slap him... and then maybe find out what it's like to kiss him.
But only a little. And only a little to all of the above... to all of... that...
She thinks he probably kisses like he wants to get something out of it, like it's beneficial to him, like it will lead to something better for him. Then again, when he looks at her, softens his gaze and lets his business grin into a simple smile, she thinks that maybe he'd kiss her like she's always wanted to be kissed. That requires a lot, this she knows, but sometimes, when she's not thinking about what's wrong (and there are many, many things wrong with that man) with the entire notion of being kissed by him, she thinks of the possibilities.
But really, when she thinks of anything like that, she's on top, pretending not to be nervous and when she's done, they both spoon from a pint of Americone Dream.
And that will never happen, because Jack knows that the ice cream would go straight to her thighs.
Liz resolves on a Thursday (she knows it's a Thursday because CSI is on and she wonders what the hell is really going on with Grissom and Sara) that she won't get over him, that there's no point. She thinks that she doesn't care about the size of her legs because she really, really knows that he doesn't care all that much, he just enjoys working her into a lather.
She's pretty sure of some other manners in which he can make a lather work for him; she never mentions them.
What she does mention, one late Sunday (who's in the office on a Sunday, anyway?) in his office, partial script in one and a beer in the other-not light, and she loves this fact-is that she hates the decor in his office, always has. She fixes her face like she's sticking it to him, she states another little factoid, that she can sort of stand him and thinks his choice in movies is despicable (Blade Runner, really?) and that he should give her brand of pinot grigio another chance and that she has too many questions as far as he's concerned and that yes already she is kind of attracted to him...
Really attracted to him...
She places the beer, rests it in the crook of one of the visitors chairs and worries her hands at her waist, along the crease of the dress that she swears to herself that she didn't wear for him (she totally did). Aloud, for the first time, she really manifests something that's real to her, not just confessing an attraction but, "I kind of want to kiss you."
"Kind of, Lemon, have I not reminded you about Kate Moss and that Spice that no one pretended to like but did-"
"Jack." Liz, now, right now and it's so, so, oh my god so frightening can't remember a time when she said his name in a voice like that, so thick. She's never been more ready to halt the witty, sarcastic comeback that will bubble into her mind. She's never been more ready to take charge of the entire situation. And it's Sunday anyway, and no one's around, and the door is closed and he's so close that she can smell that slight tang of aftershave and after-work that lingers about him.
What is there to lose? (her job and the bells clamor in her mind like thousands of hand bells at Christmas)...
"I can't do it," she continues from her earlier tangent and resists the urge to twist her fingers in her hand, resists the urge to rush home and find some old episodes of What Not To Wear. "So you should," and this is her conclusion. An absurd, absurd, really fucking ridiculously absurd conclusion. In her mind, she's actually wracking up a list of places that will hire her after she's fired by Jack.
She crossed Arby's right off of the list.
Her lips do that slight quirk thing that she hasn't managed to get rid of, when he takes a step towards her and every coherent thought about collecting unemployment flies right out of her head. He's this close, this close and it's kind of hard to remember to breathe. But then, she does because well, she has to.
She reminds herself that she was never this woman. She's had doe eyes in the past, but had never lost her breath when someone was this close to her; it's kind of annoying actually. Liz is about to tell him this when he finally speaks.
"Putting your heart on your... sleeve... like that, Lemon?" His voice does that tender thing again and she wants to roll her eyes and she wants to believe he thinks that she's putting a teensie piece of her heart out on the line here.
Oh Liz thinks about all of the times her heart was broken, slightly fractured, rocked by an aftershock: out at the lake, when Jason Lemon (yes, Lemon) was trying to get with another girl; in high school, twice with Raoul Stevens, the man whore; senior year, Christian Ferrier, before he realized that Jason (yes that Jason Lemon) was the love of his life, and that string of Eric's in college. And that string of Paul's in Chicago. Justin, Conan, Sung-Hwa, Jerry, Boris, Dennis, Floyd...
She loves too much, she thinks and then thinks to fuck it all and says, "What does it matter any more?" She's in her thirties, no man on the horizon and she really can't sleep without thinking of this man; it's never been like this.
Of course he ignores her, of course. Of course he swoops in breathes against her lips, hot breath puffing against her skin; it takes all of her willpower not to shiver. "It matters quite a bit to me Liz..." and she's stunned by this, the use of her first name, until he whispers (fucking whispers! She's goo, there's no denying it, how could she, when she shivers like that?) "Lemon."
Surprisingly, when he pulls back-oh dear is she shaking-he isn't smiling, but staring at her, rather intensely.
...This was a bad idea from the beginning. She should be at home with her ice cream and her documentaries and her sweats that encase the thighs that are 'too big to be healthy.'
"You won't do it," she dares, (way to be petty). Liz almost rolls her eyes at herself but she can't anything else to say.
He pulls back, like he was never there, like the move was pre-planned. "No, not now." Jack still looks different, his eyes are darker and there's a strange smile playing at his lips; it's not a smirk, not a grin, but something that's calmer, something that makes her stomach go topsy-turvy in that nervous-way-that-wasn't bad. "Maybe tomorrow when I take you out to dinner."
He says it in a tone that means the conversation is done, but then again, that only means he's up for a challenge.
She thinks that it he's serious she'll wear that dress she got on clearance at Ann Taylor and listen to him rant how she shouldn't shop the clearance section...
Ever.