I feel evil. I left you all with a horrible cliffhanger on Reunited, and now I'm updating this. But it's okay, I won't make you wait THAT much longer. Haha.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I'm broke.
Identities
Chapter 6 - You Just Hit the Jackpot
--
Cindy swore that she wasn't drunk.
Just because she couldn't exactly walk or see straight didn't mean she was intoxicated. Sure, she had to latch onto Jimmy's arm for dear life because she was afraid the sidewalk was going to slide out from underneath her and she was going to fall into a big black hole of doom.
And as she told Jimmy this, she couldn't stop laughing the entire time.
And Jimmy, who had drank but could obviously hold his liquor better than she could, had just rolled his eyes and laughed.
She didn't know where they were going ("THE LITTLE SIGN HAS A MAN ON IT, JIMMY!"), but she knew that if they were going to her parents' house ("Jimmy, I don't have a place to LIVE!"), she was going to to get her ass kicked. She had amnesia and just got released from the hospital about two days ago. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to be drinking.
But wait a minute, wasn't she old enough to make her own decisions? She was twenty-four years old, and that is definitely old enough to be able to do whatever she wanted. Screw the parents!
Cindy giggled again.
They had stopped, and she could feel grass and cold concrete under her feet vaguely as she tried to control her laughing. There were a few strange sounds before a strange female voice said, "Password correct. Access granted. Welcome back, Jimmy Neutron."
Cindy looked around, amazed, her eyes wide with shock. "What was that?!" She whispered, as if disturbing the strange voice would bring horrible consequences.
And he just smirked at her, a strange glint in his eye.
And then, something unexpected and terrifying happened.
It was just like what Cindy had felt earlier - the ground had slipped away from under her feet and she was falling, and she couldn't even feel Jimmy anymore. What was going on?! And why did it feel so familiar...
And then she was done falling, it seemed, and instead of meeting cold, hard ground, she met soft arms and toned muscle.
Nice.
She looked up, meeting Jimmy's eyes, and she tried to laugh, to smile, but she couldn't. Her breath had been taken away, and it wasn't just from the trip down...
Jimmy put her down, holding onto her until she was steady again.
"Wow. That was...different. Yet, familiar." She was confusing herself.
"It's familiar because you've done it before." He was sitting in one of those huge black chairs that spin, and it looked really comfortable.
"I have?" He nodded in reply.
"Oh. That explains it. So, um. Where are we?" She looked around the area slowly.
"My lab." His calm, casual answer made her laugh.
"Your lab? I hope you know that the fact you have a lab makes you sound like some sort of evil, freaky genius of something..." She trailed off, deep in though. "HOLY HELL, YOU ARE AN EVIL, FREAKY GENIUS!"
"Well, I'm not so sure about the evil and freaky part, but yes, I'm a genius." Jimmy answered, smiling at her.
Cindy gaped at him.
"Wow. I'm hanging out with a real-live genius." She breathed.
Jimmy burst out laughing. "You know, back when we used to hang out, that's not the reaction I got from you." He continued to laugh.
She smiled, a little embarrased. "What kind of reaction did I give you?"
He smiled, and she could see a hint of sadness in his eyes. "It wasn't exactly a good one. But really, I think that you secretly liked me."
She flushed, slightly and mumbled, "Yeah, sure, that's what you think." And he laughed again.
"But really, we had our moments." He shrugged. Cindy raised a brow.
"What kind of moments?"
He rolled his eyes. "Leave it to you to ask." He murmured. "Well, it's kind of hard to explain. I guess you could say we had a sort of, love-hate relationship, if you will."
Her eyes widened. "No. Way."
He mocked her by widening his own eyes, nodding, looking very serious. "Yes way."
She sighed. "What changed?" But she knew the answer.
He smiled bitterly. "I told you: we graduated, you start dating Nick and hanging out with Betty. You were the one who changed."
"You know, I'm starting to get the feeling you're blaming me for this whole thing." She said sharply, startling him.
He stopped what he was doing before - which happened to be spinning in his awesome chair - and looked at her warily.
"I'm not blaming you for anything, Cindy. It's true that you changed, but I've changed, too. I could've kept in contact with you, tried to change things. But I didn't." He wasn't even looking at her now.
Cindy sighed. "So we're both screwed-up losers."
Jimmy nodded solemnly. "I guess so."
--
Cindy couldn't believe what a crazy night it had been; first, she had went out with Betty, running into Married Man, running into Libby, running away from Betty, Libby, and Married Man, finding Nick, leaving with Nick, seeing Jimmy, running once again into Married Man, finally talking to Jimmy, having drinking contest with Jimmy, leaving with Jimmy...
Ah, the drinking contest.
They had talked, for awhile, and then they started to order drinks and shots. Then, they had gotten into a mini competition involving several shots, a lot of people cheering them on, and an intoxicated Cindy and one amused Jimmy.
But she had been the one to challenge him after all...
"Oh man, I LOVE this song! You wanna dance?" Cindy was already slightly drunk. And how did she even remember this song?
"No. I don't dance, sorry." Jimmy shook his head.
She pouted. "You're such a kill-joy, you know that?"
He looked at her with one brow raised. "Oh, I'm a kill-joy?"
She nodded. "I bet if I challenged you to a drinking contest RIGHT now, you would refuse because you're a prude and a kill-joy." She stated matter-of-factly.
Jimmy shook his head and Cindy nodded, smiling smugly.
"Okay, then do it!"
"Do what?"
"Challenge me!"
"Oh, okay. I, CINDY VORTEX-" She started loudly, sitting up straight in her seat. She was getting attention from everyone else in the bar now. This was going to be good. "CHALLENGE JIMMY NEUTRON - THE ULTIMATE KILL-JOY - TO A DRINKING CONTEST!"
There were some cheers from the crowd and Jimmy turned to the bartender and said, "One round of shots for us, please." Then he turned to her, smirking.
"You're on."
But he wasn't so innocent, either! It wasn't entirely her fault! If she had known that he could hold his liquor well, then she wouldn't of even challenged him.
Okay, maybe she would've. But that didn't matter now.
Now, she was sitting in the very comfortable-black-chair-that-spins, feeling very happy and bubbly. She definitely wasn't sober yet. She didn't know where Jimmy went, she just saw him disappear a little bit (giving her a chance to steal his chair!) to a different area of his "lab." The thought made her giggle. Evil, freaky genius. Another giggle.
And then, she was bursting out laughing. She just couldn't hold it in anymore.
Jimmy poked his head into the room and stared at the giggling woman. "Uh, are you okay?" He asked.
Cindy shook her head no.
"Well, when you're done with your laughing fit, come in here. I want to show you something." Then he disappeared again.
Calming down a bit, she slid out of the comfortable-black-chair-that-spins and walked unsteadily out of the room. Then she gasped.
There, in front of her, was a huge glass window, one that practically covered the whole wall. It showed the dark night sky, which was full of stars. One of the panels of the window was opened, and the end of a large, black telescope was sticking through it.
Stargazing. He was going to stargaze with her.
She giggled.
--
There was only one seat in front of the telescope, and Jimmy let her have it. He stood beside her, pointing out random planets and stars and constellations every once in awhile. So it wasn't completely romantic, but she had a feeling that that hadn't been Jimmy's true intention anyways. It's not like they were going to end up dating or anything. No way.
But when she looked up at him, and saw him just staring at the sky with this nice, thoughtful look on his face, the thought of dating him wasn't that bad. But then, she would shake her head and look away, because it was probably too late now. Any feelings that he had hinted at having for her were probably long gone by now. She didn't know for sure, but why take a gamble?
So she just put her eye to the telescope again and asked, "Have I done this before? It isn't all that familiar to me. I mean, this is really nice, but I don't ever remember-"
Cutting her off, he Jimmy replied, "Well, I put this window in during the summer when I was nineteen. At first I didn't plan on putting the telescope here, I just put the window in for the heck of it. I just got the idea for the telescope a couple years ago. So no, you've never done this before." He was still staring at the sky.
She nodded, even though he wasn't looking at her. "I thought so." She murmured.
After a small moment of silence, Cindy cleared her throat and her previous thoughts (which had been about Jimmy again - go figure) and said cheerfully, "Well, this was nice of you, anyways. Thanks for showing me this." She smiled at him.
And he smiled back, and said softly, "No problem."
Cindy could feel that something in the air had changed at that moment, because she was staring into his eyes and he was staring back, and she could feel herself moving closer to him and him doing the same...and now her eyes were slipping closed and she could his lips on hers gently-
Maybe she had been wrong about him, after all. Maybe he still did have feelings for her, if he ever had them in the first place, and maybe she had feelings for him. Maybe this stargazing thing was supposed to be romantic. Maybe they would end up dating, because she guessed that wouldn't be so much of a bad thing.
Maybe taking a gamble wouldn't be that bad, either.
--
It it's still short, I'm sorry. But, um, please review?
I also want to thank all of you that have reviewed and review through every chapter, because you guys really motivate me and make me feel better about my writing. -smiles- So again, thanks and keep reviewing!