So, that was that.

Except that...it wasn't.

Because maybe Jess felt better now, but Nick was left with a discontent that niggled at him for days, until he was finally forced to face it:

The guys were right. And although they'd been joking, they'd put into words something that had been vaguely eating away at the edges of his ego ever since That Night With Remy.

And he finally got up the nerve to ask Jess about it.

When he knocked on her door, he received a strangled response that sounded like she'd either come down with lockjaw, or was possibly in need of the Heimlich maneuver. Either way, he thought he should just go on in.

The loud THUNK on the other side of the door just confirmed it.

"Good grief Jess...what the...?!"

She was sprawled ungracefully on the floor, a hat with a giant plume covering half her face, and what appeared to be a peg leg jutting out from her actual appendage at a bizarre right angle.

"Pirate Week at school," she informed him happily, flinging the hat towards her bed while he helped her up.

"Yeah," he grunted, sitting on the edge of her bed and helping her unbuckle the peg leg, "When this went on for more than a day or two, I figured it was an actual event of some kind, and not just a passing mood."

Because one never knew, with Jess.

As if she could read his thoughts, she gave him one of her sassy "happy to be me" smirks as she leaned contentedly back against her pillows and asked, "What's up, Nicholas?!"

Nick was beginning to suspect that maybe this wasn't the best time to broach this subject after all, but fearing that if he didn't do it now he'd never find the nerve again, he forged ahead.

"Jess...can I ask you something?"

"AYE, lad! Do you wish a reprieve from yer plank walking?! Seein' as how ye just saved me life in an heroic act of bravery, REPRIEVE GRANTED. I see that yer now a man, and I name you my first mate..."

"No, seriously, can we talk?!"

"Aye, what arrrrrre ye waitin' on?!"

"LIKE REAL PEOPLE, Jess!"

"Sure Nick, what's up?" She dropped the pirate accent with happy fluidity.

"I just...there's something that's been...WITHOUT THE EYE PATCH, please?!"

She moved it to her nose.

"Jess..."

She moved it to her mouth.

"JESS!"

"Speak no evil," she mumbled.

"OKAY, that's it...another time maybe..."

He threw up his hands and started to get up, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.

"No Nick, I'm sorry, I'm just a little over-excited about...you know..."

"Pirate Week," they both said in unison, smiling at each other.

"Is something bothering you?" If she wasn't being a real person at the moment, this was a pretty good imitation, so he took a deep breath and dove in.

"Well, I've been thinking about the Remy thing..."

"PLEASE don't tell me you want to have him over again!" They shared another understanding smile, and he continued warily, "Soooo Jess...why did you stop things with him when you did?"

This time she looked trepidatious when she asked, "Oh God, DO you want to have him over again?!"

He waved a dismissive hand at the ludicrousness of the very suggestion, and continued to try to figure out how to word the issue that was concerning him without completely losing all dignity. But increasingly that was seeming like it was going to be an impossibility.

"The thing is...you seemed totally determined to go through with it..."

"Oh Nick! You know neither one of us were ever going to go through with it! It was just a matter of who waved the white flag first!"

"Yeah, but sometimes...and don't take this the wrong way...but sometimes I think that if Remy had been the first one to try to kiss you, you wouldn't have stopped him." So, he'd said it. And he almost held his breath while waiting for her reaction.

She made a disgusted face, but took the implied question seriously, with a thoughtful cock of her head. "Wellll...now that you mention it..." she answered slowly, "You're probably right. I probably wouldn't have stopped him."

He didn't know what he was wanting to hear, he just knew that THAT was definitely not it. And even though she'd made another grossed-out face with the admission, it didn't keep him from flopping back across the foot of her bed with a decidedly UNdignified, "Oh GAWD, Jess!"

She sat up and leaned forward over crossed legs, with a look of fascination, "Yes...I see why this has been on your mind, Nick! It makes a really interesting point!"

"INTERESTING is not exactly the way I would phrase it, Jess! Look, I know I'm completely emasculating myself by continuing to pursue this, but let me just get this straight. Just so that when I'm laying in bed feeling suicidal tonight, I have a clear understanding of why. SO: you couldn't stand the thought of kissing ME...you LAUGHED when you saw my penis..." his eyes widened as a horrible new thought occurred to him, and he interrupted his own train of thought, "WAIT! would you have laughed at Remy's penis?!"

She gave a horrified grimace, "GAWD, Nick, NO!"

He covered his face with his hands. "Shoot me now...just...shoot me now..."

"What's wrong?!" Jess honestly looked confused, and Nick thought for maybe the millionth time that perhaps, just perhaps, growing and carrying around all that hair took so much energy and effort that it sucked the power straight away from her brain, sometimes.

"Again...and to my utter humiliation...I reiterate: You would rather have kissed Remy, than have kissed me."

"Yes!" She answered with a head-bob of assurity.

"And you're asking me WHAT'S WRONG?! Wouldn't kissing Remy have been a little...gross?!"

"Oh, the GROSSEST!"

"But kissing me would have been MORE gross?!"

"Wait...what?! NO! I never said that!"

"When I started to kiss you," he belabored the point relentlessly, "you freaked out. But you said that if Remy had started to kiss you, you would have gone through with it."

"Well, I'm not proud to admit it, but yeah, I probably would have been just that stubborn."

He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Never mind, hand me a gun and I'll shoot myself."

She leaned forward over him until her hair fell in his face, and he had to spit it out and bat it away."

"Don't you see, Nick?! It's totally clear to ME...what are you not getting?!"

"It's totally clear to me that I'm a less appealing prospect than REMY THE LANDLORD, and if you can direct me towards the planet you're from where that's not a reason to stop wanting to live, I'll be moving there now. Thanks."

"Nick!" she swatted at him in aggravation. "You keep saying that. I never said that."

"Said...what?!"

"That...that you're less attractive than Remy," she said with a sheepish eye-roll.

He, however, was just depressed and exhausted by the whole thing. "Jess, I'm just going to lay here and stop trying to figure you out. Don't bother bringing me food or water...death will be a kind mistress."

She rolled her eyes in exasperation this time, and shook him in frustration. "Okay then, let me spell it out for you: Kissing Remy would have been completely disgusting and meaningless."

She paused to allow him to respond, but determinedly he did not. So she continued, "But kissing you...kissing you..." she paused, and he couldn't help opening one eye to look at her. She was blushing as mumbled, "Wouldn't have been."

A hopeful light began dawning in the back of Nick's mind. "Wouldn't have been...?"

"Wouldn't have been...you know...been." She gestured with frustrated embarrassment. "GAAAH! You know! Gross. Or disgusting. Or..." she looked down, suddenly preoccupied with pestering a hangnail, as she finished softly, "...meaningless."

He half sat up, feeling like maybe he might have the will to live, after all.

"So...and it might take me awhile to sort all this out still, but...that's why you would rather have kissed Remy than me? Because with me...you might have actually liked it?!"

"I'm pretty sure I would have," she half-sang through her teeth, looking everywhere in the room except at him.

"And that would have been...a bad thing?!"

"Well, on that particular night and under those particular circumstances...yes. I mean...can you imagine?! In front of Remy, and...UGH!" She shook with revulsion. "And besides," she added a little more quietly, "You're with Julia right now. Right?"

He paused. "Right." He had to pause first, because it took him a second to remember who Julia was, and if they were still together or not. It was kinda hard to remember much at all, when his brain was currently buzzing with the heady new knowledge that Jess might have LIKED to have kissed him, on a different night, and under different circumstances.

"Soooo..." she said, to fill the awkward silence.

"Soooo..." he agreed, without really knowing what he was agreeing with.

"Is that what you wanted to know?"

Actually, yes, yes it was. It was more than he'd even known he wanted to know...more than he would have ever dared hope to know...but now that he knew it, he knew that it was exactly what he would have wanted to know, if he'd only known.

And now he did.

And suddenly he felt something unfamiliar bubbling up inside him...a happy euphoria that he couldn't have named, if he'd tried...but he felt care-free and giddy enough to suddenly tease her, "But just to verify one final thing...if you'd seen Remy's penis..."

"EEEEW, Nick, just STOP!"

"It would have been gross, right?!"

"YES!"

He stood up and gave her a mischievously suggestive look, "Aaaand...my penis?!"

"GET OUT!" she yelled, laughing, and the pillow she threw at his head made a soft thud as it hit the door he'd quickly pulled shut behind him.

And as he readied himself for bed, his mind was fairly effervescent with the potential of a whole wondrous new set of imaginations to explore. Optional ways that that night might have gone. If Julia hadn't been in the picture. If Remy had been conveniently called away to do some emergency landlording. If Jess hadn't pulled away when he leaned in with her name on his lips.

Because kissing Jess would definitely not have been gross or disgusting. In fact, truth be told, it would have "meant something" to him. And for once, he wasn't too scared to acknowledge that to himself...because she'd admitted that it would have meant something to her, too.

And Jess's earnest white face floating before him again as he drifted off to sleep definitely made mentally revisiting that night worth risking Remy's return to his dreams.

But this time, he never showed up.