Thank you for the comments, my darlings. :) Keep 'em coming, they make me feel loved! Teehee.

I hadn't anticipated Stacy reacting that way; he was usually a little more reserved than that. It killed me, it really did. That must've been hard to believe because it was my choice that had spawned the whole thing, but it hurt me to see him upset. In a lot of ways, my sudden contract of love with Jay left me feeling a lot like Juliet felt about the whole thing in her day -- rushed, reckless, and unplanned. I knew that what I had done was probably not the best choice, to go into something so quickly like that, but I was giddy and I'd let that get the best of me.

There was nothing to be done about it then, at any rate.

I made my way back down to the shop where Jay still waited for me. He pulled me into a hug, then let me go to look at me.

"He's pissed?" He asked, knowingly. I nodded. "It'll be fine, Lil."

Jay had taken the stance that it didn't matter what anyone thought of us, whether they were hurt or pleased by it. Neither was supposed to matter to us, though I think he knew it would matter to me.

"Jay, he's your friend, why don't you care?" I asked him, a touch angrily. I didn't have an actual reason to be mad at him, but I needed to vent somehow.

"Because this was your choice and you chose. It would be different if I stole you from him," he rationed. He was right, but wrong at the same time. It was my choice, but Stacy knew that I had almost been his, and I knew it, too. But Jay'd been so sweet and so lovely that I couldn't have said no if I tried.

"You're right," I admitted, looking away. He tilted my chin back up to look me in the eyes.

"If this isn't what you want, fucking tell me now," he said, voice wobbly, "because you're not going to flip-flop between me and my best friend…" There was that flash of anger that flew through Jay's eyes from time to time. I could tell I'd touched on something that he didn't like the look of when I acting so concerned.

"Jay," I said, touching his face gently, "Calm down." Perhaps I should've offered some words of reassurance here, but none sprang to mind. That was probably a bad sign. His face only grew more frustrated and he swatted my hand away.

"Don't tell me to calm down, Lily," he pouted, sitting down on the stool behind the counter. "You're not even denying that you want to be with Stacy…"

I felt stuck, frozen. I wasn't used to the Jayboy who you couldn't just pacify with a joke. He was serious and he had every right to be, but I didn't have an answer for him. So I said the only thing that seemed like it would please him in the situation.

"I don't want to be with him. I want to be with you," I smiled, giving him a small kiss. It took a minute for the icy expression he wore to melt, but it did. I felt bad for what I'd said in a small way, knowing that I was continually digging a deeper grave for myself.

"I hope that's the truth," he said, hopping down off the stool. We went back outside without much dialogue and he continued to skate for a while. They had another big show coming up and Skip was being a slave driver about the whole thing. He loved the team and he just wanted them to do well, but the guys were stubborn and some of them were a little lazy.

I watched for a while, sitting on the sidelines with Tony's sister, Kathy, and her friend Melissa. As could be expected, Tony's dislike of me had somewhat transferred over to his sister. Melissa was Kathy's little plaything, so of course, the hate rested with her, as well. The silence was awkward between us until Kathy finally spoke up.

"So," she smiled, snarkily, "what'd you do to Stacy? I saw him run off." I rolled my eyes. It was a classic opening line for some big, catty, dramatic thing. That just wasn't my bag.

"Nothing. He just felt like going, I guess," I said, giving the answer Stacy himself would respect. He didn't leave things like that out in the open much. She didn't seem satisfied with that answer, though.

"Ah, so, are you and him an item?" Her voice was so annoying. Had I never noticed how annoying it was? When she talked to anyone else, it seemed pleasant enough. With me, it was this plastic, sugary thing that dripped fakeness.

"No, we're not. Jay and I are, though," I said, unsure of exactly why I was sharing that with her. Perhaps it was because it was bound to get out sooner or later and I knew she'd always had some sort of thing for him. Kathy had a thing for a lot of guys, to be blunt. Melissa just stood there with a blank expression, nodding when appropriate, glaring when Kathy glared. She amused me terribly. Both of their mouths dropped open in what appeared to be disgust that they attempted to hide with their rehearsed eyelash batting.

"Oh, really?" Kathy said, clasping her hands together. "Isn't that just so cute? Jay Adams with…" she looked me over, "Lily Ingram."

"Very cute," Melissa echoed with a laugh.

I could never, for the life of me, figure out what I'd ever done to Tony or his sister. They weren't even avoidant of me, they were just rude and nasty whenever they could manage to be. Civility was lost on them, for whatever reason.

"Yeah," I mumbled, hoping Jay would finish his session soon so we could leave. He liked to live in a dream world where I'd magically get along with the Bitch League if I was dating him. He didn't quite grasp that me having something that they wanted would only worsen the problem, but that was his logic for you.

Jay finished within twenty minutes, though that didn't seem to be soon enough. He skated over to me, popping over the edge of the ramp and next to me. Quite an impressive move that garnered him some flirty smiles from the girls, though they turned into glares when he kissed me quickly on the inside of the neck. I couldn't help but smile inside as the girls scoffed at him snaking his arms around my waist.

"Ready, babe?" He asked, breathy and sweaty. I smiled and pulled away from him. He looked so adorable in this rugged, manly way. It felt good to be able to openly critique the attractiveness of someone that I'd tried to suppress those thoughts about before. Him with his little fedora and boxers peeking out above his pants. It was just messily adorable.

"Ready when you are," I said, hand in his.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the way those girls looked at me. So yes, some part of me knew that looking at Jay's love like a status perk was a bit wrong, but I'd been talked down to by those crummy whores for five long years. A single moment of payback wasn't so much to ask, was it? It wasn't as though I'd thought out the benefits of being with him beforehand, so I decided it wasn't actually wrong.

"Coming back to my place?" He asked as we walked in that direction. My mother had just left again, as I'd said, so I always had the option to make the Adams' house my residence for a while, but then again, I had the option not to. Sleeping in bed next to Jay after the relationship change seemed a bit awkward to me. I wasn't sure how that'd work. It wasn't that I thought he'd try anything, it was just that I liked to maintain some level of ladylike behavior and the two didn't mesh.

"For a while, I s'pose," I said, figuring it'd be a good compromise.

The compromise seemed fine for the night, until it came time for me to leave. I didn't want to walk home alone, so around ten, I asked Jay to walk me.

"Why're you leaving? Your mom is out of town…" he whined, pulling me back down onto the couch. It looked like such a cheesy situation that would turn into one of those, 'No, Johnny, let's wait for marriage' scenarios all too quickly. Jay was a patient guy, but nevertheless, he was a 'horny motherfucker', as Tony had so eloquently put it once.

"I don't think I should be sleeping next to you when we've been dating less than a week, Jay," I laughed, ruffling his hair. He looked mildly hopeful for a second.

"So when we've been dating a week…" He suggested, wiggling his eyebrows. "No, I'm kidding, but why not, Lil? You've known me for years…"

He had a point, but I had to decline.

"Jay, no.. I'm sorry, but I wanna do this right." He nodded and said he understood, and he walked me all the way home, which was not very far. Still, I had a phobia of walking around after dark without anyone, though I'd been there long enough to consider myself somewhat of a local. I'd did a fair amount of growing up in Dogtown.

"Goodnight," I said, hugging him at the door. He kissed me firmly on the lips a few times before he pulled my lower lip into his mouth in a bold, sexy move that I'd expect from him. I pulled it back as soon as I realized that my feet were still planted where gravity existed.

"Jay," I smacked him on the shoulder playfully. "Cool it."

"I love you, Lily," he said, giving me yet another hug. He kissed me again, a very vanilla kiss this time. For that, I was grateful. I didn't know what to say, still, to him saying he loved me. It hadn't happened since the first time he'd said it and I had no good response formulated. Telling him that I loved him when I was not sure of it was completely out of the question. There was leading someone on a bit and there was being a manipulative bitch. I was aiming for neither, but nearer to the first if I had to choose.

"You don't have to say it back, I understand," he said, sweeping hair from his face to reveal his sparkling eyes. "I just want you to know."

I was glad that Jay was so understanding, I just wished some of that wisdom might rub off on me, for once.

"Thank you," I said, burying my face into his shoulder. He smelled so good when he just let himself be. That might sound gross, but as I'd said, there was this natural cologne that he possessed and I was hopelessly addicted to it. I always had been.

"Bye, babe," he said, jumping down the three stairs off my porch. He turned and blew a kiss before running off towards his house. I sighed reverently and wandered into the darkness of my own house.

That night, I slept better than I had in ages, alone and quiet. It was an amazing, deep sleep that erased my worries about any boy, anything, anyone. It was probably going to be a long week, but within the half hour of getting home, I was too out to care.