A/N: As always, a big thank you to everyone reading along.
The one benefit that he can see to being unemployed and completely finished with Greendale is that he's got plenty of time to work out.
In fact, he may actually be in the best shape of his damn life since he's managing to get in three sessions at least five days a week these days.
He's just finishing up a set of crunches when his phone rings – he's planning to ignore it until he sees that it's Annie on the other end of line.
She's probably got another kind of workout in mind and he's more than amenable to burning a few more calories with her before the day's over.
"Troy and Abed wanted me to invite you over," is what she says, though, and he can only laugh.
"Oh, really? Troy and Abed are dying to see me, huh?" he asks, amused. "This is like the Tom Cruise thing, isn't it?"
She lets out an indignant sigh, and somehow, the effect isn't ruined by the static-y phone connection.
"I don't know what you're implying," she huffs. "I'm making dinner and they've got 'Skyfall' all cued up. They say you love James Bond movies and they thought you'd want to watch with them. It was all their idea, I swear."
It's his turn to sigh now because his evening of hot sex has gone up in a puff of smoke.
"Listen, I appreciate the invite, but I'm not really in the mood for movie night with the guys. It'd be…"
He doesn't know what exactly it would be – awkward, uncomfortable, annoying, tempting – but sitting in a room with Troy and Abed between he and Annie doesn't sound like much fun to him right now.
Annie's silent for a moment, and he wonders if she's offended that he doesn't want to come over because he's not going to get sex or if she disapproves that he's blowing off Troy and Abed or if she's just disappointed that they're not going to see each other – any of the above, all of the above probably.
"Jeff," she says finally, and she draws his name out in a way that makes him tighten his grip on his phone just a bit. "Could you… It's just… I kind of wanted to talk to you about something."
If he wasn't already dripping wet from his workout, he's pretty sure that he'd be breaking out in a cold sweat right about now.
No good ever comes from women wanting to talk about something; he knows that from firsthand experience. He runs through the possibilities in his head – Christ, what if she wants to tell him that she loves him? He's got absolutely no response for that, and he can already imagine how her face will crumble when he just stares back blank-faced at her declaration. Or Jesus, what is she's pregnant? They've been sleeping together for over four weeks now, so if it happened right away, she could know by now.
But we've used condoms every time, he reminds himself, and she's on the damn pill.
It's probably something else.
It's got to be something else.
"So talk," he says kindly, hoping he doesn't sound as crazed as he feels.
"No," she insists. "Not over the phone."
Which is how he finds himself hurrying through a shower and throwing on fresh clothes and racing to her apartment when the absolute last thing that he wants to do is watch James Bond with the guys.
Annie can be a drama queen sometimes, he tells himself as he drives to her place. So maybe she just wants his help with a paper – okay, that's ridiculous; she has never needed his help with anything scholastic and she never will. Maybe she's gotten herself into some kind of legal jam and she wants to put his expertise to good use.
It could be anything.
It's probably nothing.
Abed opens the apartment door with a bowl in his hand.
"Annie made rigatoni with vodka sauce," he announces, forgoing a greeting all together.
He tilts the bowl, so Jeff can see the steaming contents.
"Looks great," he says non-committally.
"It's whole wheat rigatoni," Annie calls from the kitchen. "So, you know, less carbs."
Jeff actually laughs, which may be because she knows him so well but is probably the result of nerves more than anything else. Abed settles back in his recliner beside Troy, who takes a break from shoveling pasta into his face to spare Jeff a half-hearted wave.
"Can we start the movie now?" he asks. "We've already been waiting for-ever…"
"Just a second," Annie says, breezing into the room with a couple of bowls that she sets on the table. "I need to get drinks."
Jeff sits down, and Abed leans over the edge of the recliner to look back at him at the table.
"Find a job yet?"
There's no ill will or even judgment in his tone, but Jeff still feels his hackles rise.
"Weighing some options," he lies smoothly.
Abed nods, willing to let the topic go, and Annie returns with a bottle of beer and a bottle of water, holding them out for him to choose. He goes for the beer because he's pretty sure that he'll need at least a little booze to get through this night. She sits beside him, so she can see the TV and Troy quickly hits the play button on the remote to start the movie before anyone can object.
It's kind of ridiculous – Troy and Abed eating their dinner in front of the television like kids, while he and Annie eat at the table like actual adults. He watches her out of the corner of his eye to try to get some sense of her mood – she's watching the movie pretty intently, looking away only long enough to spear a piece of rigatoni on her fork every so often, so it doesn't seem like she's too upset. She realizes that he's watching her after a few minutes and turns to smile at him.
"It's really good," he tells her lamely, gesturing toward the pasta with his fork.
"Thanks. I've been watching the Food Network a lot lately. This is one of Giada—"
"Shhhh!"
Troy and Abed turn in unison to shush them, fingers raised to their lips like annoying school marms. Jeff glares at the back of their heads because he couldn't care less about this damn movie, not when he just wants to talk to Annie so he can figure out exactly how much trouble he's in.
But they watch the rest of the movie – more than two damn hours to be exact – in silence.
He must be acting pretty antsy too because Annie lays her hand on his knee beneath the table at one point, squeezing gently, like she's trying to settle him down. He stops bouncing his knee then, and tries to focus on the warm weight of her hand for the rest of the movie.
As soon as it's over, Abed and Troy start arguing about what to watch next – Abed wants to go old school with 'Goldfinger', but Troy's pushing hard to go the parody route with 'Austin Powers.' Jeff is as sneaky and crafty as a son of a bitch can be, but he can't figure out a way to get rid of these two. He's ready to kick himself for not insisting that Annie just come to his place where privacy isn't a premium.
Until she stands suddenly, smiling big and bright.
"You know what I have a craving for?" she asks.
Troy and Abed look at her in confusion, while Jeff starts to sweat all over again - he may not know much about pregnant women, but like Abed, he's seen enough sitcoms and romantic comedies to know about the food cravings.
"Mint chocolate chip ice cream," she declares after a moment, when it's clear no one is going to guess. "And I think since I cooked dinner, the least you guys could do is go pick up a carton."
"Why can't Jeff?" Troy whines. "We're trying to figure out what to watch next."
"He's our guest," Annie says primly. "We can't make him run errands."
Jeff bobs his head in emphatic agreement.
"Fine. We'll go get your damn ice cream," Troy pouts, standing up. "But I'm getting Chunky Monkey and you can't have any."
Abed's more good natured about getting stuck with ice cream duty and smiles as he follows Troy to the door.
"Any requests, Jeff?"
"Mint chocolate chip is fine," he says, wanting them gone yesterday.
When the door closes behind them, Annie sinks into one of the abandoned recliners so he sits in the other one, angling himself so he can see her face.
"You wanted to talk," he says as gently as he can manage. "Is everything okay?"
She twists her hands together in her lap anxiously, and he goes from uneasy to terrified in three seconds flat.
Maybe she's having fucking twins.
"My mother called this morning," she says. "Well, she left a message actually. I didn't answer."
He cocks his head, trying his best to follow along.
"Okay. And that's a big deal because?"
She looks up at him, like she's debating exactly how much to tell him.
"It's the first contact we've had in almost four months."
He's surprised, though he tries his best not to show it. He knows that there's some sort of dysfunction in her family tree and that she's lived on her own as long as he's known her, but she's spent holidays with her mother in the past so he assumed that it was the kind of passive-aggressive tension that simmered just below the surface. He never figured that things were this rocky.
"Really?" he says inanely.
She nods.
"We had this really big fight back in the fall when I decided to switch from healthcare administration to forensics. It's not like she's ever been particularly proud of anything I've done at Greendale because, you know, it's just community college, but apparently this was the last straw or something. I'm too much of a disappointment now to even call on my birthday."
He thinks back over the past few months, trying to see if he can find any hint that she was carrying all of this around with her. It seems impossible that he wouldn't have picked up on it, but then he was so caught up in his own baggage that he probably wasn't paying much attention to anyone else.
"I know she's your mother," he says. "But you know that's all bullshit, right? You'd be kicking ass wherever you were because that's who you are, Annie. Everyone else at Greendale may be out of options, but that doesn't mean you are."
She shakes her head almost defiantly.
"That's not… I didn't ask you to come over here because I wanted you to compliment me or make me feel better about myself."
"Okay. Then why did you?"
Annie tilts her head, and her eyes are all liquid-y and soft like she might cry at any moment, and God, he'd never hit a woman but if he ever found himself face to face with Annie's mother, he'd be seriously tempted.
"I was wondering…" she says hesitantly. "I just wanted to know how you got up the nerve to see your father. I know it's not the same thing because he left you when you were just a little kid and this stuff with my mother is only a few months old, but …"
He knows that's not the truth – she's got years' worth of issues with her mother that he's willing to bet would have Dr. Strome filling up legal pad after legal pad with insightful notes.
"Annie, I don't—"
"I'm not trying to pry or anything," she says. "I don't want to intrude. I just mean, generally. How did you do it?"
He sighs, feeling very tired all of a sudden.
"The thing is, it wasn't really about him. Yeah, I was curious about what he was like, but really, I went to see him because there were things that I needed to stay to him if I was ever going to get over it." He shrugs, like it was seriously that simple. "So I did it."
She nods, taking each and every word to heart.
"And it made you feel better?"
"I don't know if better's the right word," he says. "But I didn't feel as bad anymore."
"There are probably a lot of things I need to say to my mother. But the thought of actually doing it is just so exhausting."
"No one says you have to do it now," he tells her. "On your mother's timetable. You do it when you want to. She's your mom … she's always going to have to listen to you."
Annie bobs her head, like she might honestly believe him. He's not known for giving this kind of touchy-feely advice, so he's just glad that he didn't blow it completely.
"She put a lot of pressure on you, huh?" he asks. "Your mom?"
She laughs humorlessly.
"I became addicted to pills at 17, Jeff. That doesn't happen because your parents are all warm and fuzzy."
"No, I guess not. What about your dad? Do you talk to him?"
"Not really," she sighs. "I mean, every now and then. And every few months, I get a check in the mail for like $400 or $500. But I haven't cashed any of them - there are like 12 or 13 sitting in my desk drawer right now."
He smiles, reaching out to snag her hand and slide his fingers through hers.
"Let's cash 'em," he jokes. "Then hop on a plane to Vegas and let it all ride on black."
She huffs out a sad, little laugh.
"It's nice that he's still trying to look out for you, though," Jeff points out. "Right?"
"I guess. But it's just so typical. Whenever my mom would yell at me when I was little, my dad would sneak out and buy me something like a teddy bear or earrings. He wouldn't ever stand up for me or tell her to lay off, but he could rack up credit card bills with the best of them."
Jeff lowers his head, not knowing what to say. He rubs his thumb across the palm of her hand, and she curls her fingers around his.
"Com'ere," he whispers, tugging on her hand to pull her toward him.
She giggles, but falls into his lap easily, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
"I'm sorry," she says. "You probably thought I asked you to come over because I wanted to…"
She cocks her head back and forth.
"Honestly? I was terrified you were going to tell me that you were pregnant or something equally horrifying."
She laughs, smacking at his chest.
"You're off the hook. I'm actually PMS-ing big time as we speak. It's probably why my mother's message got me so worked up."
"Ah, I see," he says, nodding thoughtfully. "Can I get you anything? Godiva? Midol? Abed's copy of 'The Notebook'?"
She smiles, toying with the open buttons at the collar of his shirt.
"Is it weird that I talked to you about this?" she asks.
"About your period? Come on, Annie. I'm a real man – I can say the word uterus without even flinching."
She giggles again, vibrating against him in a way that is seriously distracting.
"Not about that. About my mother. Did I make you uncomfortable?"
He frowns because he's not quite sure what she's getting at.
"Why would I be uncomfortable?"
She shrugs, and goes back to playing with the buttons on his shirt to avoid eye contact.
"You know, because we're sleeping together now and this is kind of personal…"
"Annie," he says, sliding his fingers under her chin to tilt her head up so she meets his eyes. "We're friends, right? You can talk to me about whatever you want. That hasn't changed just because we found out that we're seriously sexually compatible."
She smiles, but it's tight and forced. He can feel the tension in her body against his too, like she's trying to keep herself in check.
"I just don't want you to think that I expect anything because things are different between us now."
If she were talking about her relationship with any other guy, he'd tell her that she has every damn right to expect something, that she shouldn't settle for anything less than everything. But he knows himself and he knows what he's capable of and she's right to be so hesitant – and he also remembers how he downplayed every single moment that ever happened between them when she finally had the guts to call him on his crap. She's not about to put herself out there, so he can shoot her down again – and he understands why.
He can't tell her any of that, though.
"You've made me feel kind of guilty," he finds himself saying.
She lifts her head from his shoulder to meet his eyes.
"About what?"
"My mom calls me all the time," he tells her. "I send her to straight to voicemail like nine times out of ten."
Annie frowns, tapping her fingers against his bicep.
"Why?"
There's no story of pressure or disappointment to share, no childhood of neglect or inattention to explain any of it away. It's a lot simpler and a lot more complex than all that.
"I don't know if you've noticed this about me," he says lightly, sliding his hand along her thigh. "But I'm much more comfortable arms-lengthing people."
"Even your mom?"
"Especially my mom." He twists the hem of her skirt between his fingers. "Or, you know, anyone who actually means something to me."
She shakes her head, almost sadly, and runs her fingers along his jaw.
"That's really silly," she whispers.
She leans in to kiss him, and he fists a hand through her hair to keep her close as he changes the angle. She kisses him breathless and senseless, so he has to drop his head back against the recliner's cushion and get himself together. Annie lays her cheek against his shoulder, her fingers tracing small circles over his chest.
They stay tangled together in the recliner like that until they hear Troy beat boxing in the hallway and Abed's keys in the lock.