Chapter 4 : Rehearsal Dinner

The following morning, Jemma is woken up by the sound of the shower. Since her alarm clock was about to go off anyway, she decides to get up and takes her phone out to check her emails and messages while she waits for her turn in the bathroom. Unsurprisingly, she has three text messages from Skye asking if she's seen Fitz again or if she's met someone else already. She texts her that it's only 8 in the morning where she is and that the actual wedding is not until the next day. She also tells herself that she will most definitely never tell Skye that she will be sharing a room with Fitz all week-end.

Ten minutes later, Jemma is focused on the email she's writing and doesn't even notice when Fitz gets out of the bathroom.

"Good morning Jemma. Bathroom's all yours."

"Oh hello Fitz" It's only then that Jemma lifts hers head to look at him and notices the fact that he's only wearing his jeans.

Well that's a nice sight to wake up to!

Just as Jemma expected, Fitz' torso is just as pale as his face. Not that she'd admit to expecting anything because that would mean she actually already thought about it. But what she didn't expect is him being so well muscled. He's not big but his shoulders are definitely broader than they look under his clothes and even if he doesn't have those show off kind of six packs most women like, he does have nice abs she wouldn't mind getting her hands on.

Wow, it's getting worse... No it's alright, it's just an objective observation. Nothing wrong with noticing an aesthetically pleasing body. Yes, now play it cool Jemma.

"Is this what you plan on wearing at the rehearsal diner ? I know they said the dresscode was casual but you still might be a little underdressed ..." She asks with a satisfied grin.

"D'you like what you see?" He replies with a cocky grin, then turns his back on her to reach into his suitcase to grab a shirt without waiting for her answer.

Yeah I definitely do.

She rolls her eyes at him while she tries to find a smart retort. But her mind remains blank as she can't help but notice that the view is not so bad from the back either. She starts to blush furiously at the thought so she mumbles a few words and hurries to the bathroom.

Well done Jemma, real smooth.

Even though they didn't agree on anything, when Jemma gets out of the shower, Fitz is waiting for her to get to the breakfast room. They start their meal in a companionable silence but soon enough, they resume their conversation from the previous night. They go back and forth in quite a rapid pace and don't even notice that the breakfast room is emptying around them.

"You know, I just received an email this morning saying that my dendrotoxin was definitely approved, so now it's gonna need a delivery mechanism."

"Oh yeah, I received an email about that too. My team should work on it starting next week. Congrats by the way." He says with a sincere smile.

"Thank you. And you know since you're gonna be working on it anyway, I thought maybe ..." She starts with a small smile, but seems to hesitate to say the rest of her sentence so he gives her an encouraging look. '... we could try working on it together. It would be much faster and much more efficient. We could both make the adjustments as we go along and maybe end up with an even better product." She finishes with a tentative smile.

"Wow. I know we've both made big efforts since last night but do you think we could really do that? Work together like actual colleagues without wanting to kill each other?" he says, a grin starting to make its way on his face.

"Be honest with me, aren't you at least a little fed up with this stupid war? It's been a few years for me already and I'm getting really tired of it."

"Yeah I guess. Actually, Since the infamous meeting, I've been thinking about making peace with you but I never found the right moment." He says with a small smile.

"I know, me too. Always thought it'd be nice working with someone my age for a change. And now might be our best chance, we're on neutral ground and we'll have to be civil anyway. I don't know about Jaimie but Kara can be really scary." She says and they both chuckle.

"Yeah, you're probably right. And since you're almost as smart as I am, together we might come up with a kick-ass product. So you should send what you already have and we can talk about it later. Deal?"

With that, he extends his hand to her with a big grin on his face. She rolls her eyes at the "almost as smart" comment but choses to ignore it. She will not lower herself to this level. After a few seconds hesitation, she takes his hand and shakes it. After that, they remain in silence, stealing glances at each other. Just as Jemma feels that they've been doing this for a bit too long, her phone beeps and offers her a welcome distraction. She takes it out of her sweater pocket and lets out a big sigh when she reads the content of the text message she's just received.

"Is there something wrong?"

"Remember me saying that my mom was always trying to set me up with some guy every time i went home?"

"Yeah ..."

"Well, she just texted me that my friend Kara's big brother would be at the wedding and, I quote "still single and really handsome". Argh"

"Maybe it's true." He says trying to keep a serious face but clearly having fun with this.

"Well first of all, it's not, he has a cabbage head and only plastic surgery would change that. And second of all, he's an asshole."

"Really? So why would your mom try to set you up with him?"

"Because he's a big hypocrite, he's always been very polite to her. But he was an asshole to me when I was a kid, calling me a freak because i was much smarter than him."

"Charming" He says with a sympathetic smile.

"Yeah I know right? And then I didn't see him for years when he went to school in Edinburgh. And when i saw him again just before I left for the United States, I was sixteen and all grown up if you know what I mean, he suddenly started being all nice and flirty with me and he keeps doing it every time I see him." She finishes with a disgusted face.

"Wow, he does sound like a total douchebag. You can always say you've got a boyfriend back home. I've invented a few girlfriends to get out of embarrassing situations. I even contemplated paying someone so my mom would leave me alone."

She looks at him with a raised eyebrow and after a few seconds, he realizes what it just sounded like and starts blushing.

"No no no, that's not what I meant, I would never ..."

"I know, I'm just teasing. But believe me I tried that. It's not enough with him. He's all like "If you didn't bring that guy, it's not that serious between you two" and adds several winks and raised eyebrows. As if his innuendos aren't douchey enough."

"This guy gets better and better. I can't wait to meet him."

"Well you will tonight I guess." She says while rolling her eyes at the prospect.

As they've just resumed their previous conversation, the waiter comes to them with a slightly embarrassed smile and tells them the breakfast room will be closing soon. They both apologize, get up and make their way to the exit. Since they will both need to change before going to the rehearsal dinner, they agree to meet back at the hotel later that day and get to the restaurant together. They share a small smile and part ways to attend to their best man/maid of honor duties.

The Glendale Inn, not too far from their hotel and despite what the name suggests, is a very modern restaurant/lounge type of place but still manages to be quite cosy with its warm colors and very soft lighting. One half of the room is filled with tables and the other with a dance floor, still empty at this time of night. When they enter the restaurant, Fitz is almost immediately grabbed by his cousin James. Jemma catches sight of her friend Kara on the other side of the room but before she can reach her, a man with a very distinctive cabbage shaped head gets in her way.

"Well hello there beauty!" He says with a smile he probably wishes to come across as charming but is just extremely annoying and slightly creepy to Jemma.

"Hello Milton" She answers with a very tense smile.

Fuuuuuuck!

Ten minutes later, Fitz is trying to make small talk with Seamus, James' other best man, and from the raised eyebrows of the other man, he is clearly failing. As is often the case, what seems like a very casual topic to Fitz sounds like an alien language to most people. So when Jemma interrupts them and asks to talk to him in private about a work related issue, he is actually glad for the distraction and makes his way to a quieter side of the room with her.

"So did you get a call from Scitech or something?"

"No actually, that's not why i wanted to talk to you ... By the way, did I tell you how nice you look in that suit?" She says with a big smile while putting her hand on his shoulder. If he didn't know any better, he'd say she was flirting.

"No you didn't. Why are you being weird?" He answers in a suspicious tone.

"I'm not being weird!" She says, her voice going up a few octaves, thus contradicting herself. He doesn't say anything but raises his eyebrows and directs his gaze to the hand that's still on his shoulder.

"Okay, fine. I might have a really big favor to ask of you." She lets out with a big sigh while taking off her hand.

"That's more like it. I'm listening." He says leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms on his chest.

"Well like I mentioned earlier, Milton, Kara's brother, has been hitting on me every occasion he got for the past ten years. And, well, tonight makes no exception. The moment we got in the restaurant, he fell on me like some kind of disgusting predator." Fitz lets out a small chuckle at this. "So I said hello and tried to get rid of him as best as I could but he's really persistent, I'll give him that. And since he saw me walk in with you, one thing led to another and ..."

"I kind of told him you were my boyfriend."

"Bloody hell, is that Milton Jamison?" Fitz says pointing to Milton on the other side of the room. "Wait what? What did you just say?"

"Yes that's him alright. You met him earlier today, right? And yes I'm really really sorry, he was looking at me with those creepy eyes and I panicked. I mean one second I'm thinking "I hope Milton's not there yet" and the next he's in front of me. He's like Voldemort but worse, you don't even have to say his name out loud! Anyway, obviously I don't react well under pressure and I thought that if he thinks my boyfriend is actually physically here, he'll stop hitting on me. And like I said, since you walked in here with me ..."

At this point, Fitz' eyebrows have almost reached his hairline and Jemma's voice slowly dies mid-sentence. Of course, Fitz is extremely surprised about this turn of events. Only two days ago, he would never have thought that Jemma would rather have anyone think he, of all people, is her boyfriend to avoid someone else's attention. But Jemma doesn't know that there's another reason for his reaction. She doesn't know that Fitz didn't meet Milton today and that he probably knows better than anyone else how much of an asshole he really is.

"I didn't meet him today. I've met this asshole twelve or thirteen years ago when I was still in Edinburgh. We went to high school together for a time. He bullied me for being younger and so much smarter than him, made my life a living hell for months. I should have known you were talking about him when you mentioned his cabbage head. Although I'd say it's more like a brussels sprouts really." He says fisting his hands on his side.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry." Jemma says, embarrassment written all over her face. "When he seemed to know your name, I figured he met you earlier today with James. Wow he's even worse than I thought he was. If I knew what an asshole he was to you, I would never have told him that. Forget about that whole boyfriend story, it's not your problem, I shouldn't have dragged you into it. I'll find another excuse to try and get rid of him."

Jemma stops talking when Fitz literally bursts out laughing, and looks at him with a very confused look. When he doesn't stop after a while, she starts to get a little annoyed.

"What? What is it? What are laughing at? Were you making fun of me or something?"

"No, no, no, I'm sorry but think about what you just did. You told my worst enemy, the guy that made me hate school for months, that the pretty girl he's had a crush on for years is actually in a relationship with me. Don't you see? You have nothing to be sorry about, you just served me the best revenge I could think of on a silver platter!" He says with a growing smile.

"Oh ... Of course, when you think about it like that ..." She answers, a mischievous smile on her face. "So you don't mind pretending to be my boyfriend for a few days?"

"Well this week-end is getting weirder with every minute that passes ... but yeah I guess I can do that for you since you shared your hotel room and everything. Technically, we're already sleeping together so we wouldn't even have to lie that much." He says with a cheeky grin.

"Well that's a good thing because I'm terrible at it." She says giving him a small nudge on the shoulder. "But how are we going to explain that we didn't tell anyone we were together? Because there's no way Milton is gonna keep that to himself. And from the looks we're getting, he's apparently told a few people already."

"Easy! We got together very recently, we realized only a few days ago that we were going to the same wedding. And we didn't want to tell them to avoid the stress of having to reorganize the table setting for us. Also we didn't want to steal their thunder with our new love. That way, we come across as very nice people and he comes across as the asshole he is when he tells them. And then, in a few weeks, we just have to tell them it didn't work out between us." He says with a very satisfied smile on his face.

"That's harsh, you're already planning our break up. Wont you give our fake relationship a chance?" She asks with a teasing grin.

"Nah. But only because I'm too afraid of falling in love with you!" He says in a fake dramatic tone and she rolls her eyes at him.

"But anyway that's a good plan. I have to say, you're really good at making up elaborate lies in a very short time. As a boyfriend, it's not a great quality but at least, you'd make a great spy." She says with a playful smile.

"I know. It was my second choice of career. So for the second time today, do we have a deal?" He says extending his hand to her.

"Of course" She says with a small smile. But when she extends her own hand, instead of shaking it, he just takes it and intertwines his fingers with hers, smiling slightly when she doesn't hesitate to do the same. For some reason, a few chills make their way from his hand to his spine.

Well this should be an interesting night.

They remain in silence for a little time before walking to their friends as a couple.

"So you think I'm pretty."

"Shut up, Simmons"