A/N: First off... Wow ScottyB, what do I say? Good guess? lol I don't think I'd ever have any strong female lead resort to "selling herself" in that way I guess? idk... This story has interesting turn of events and if you guys want I will post the full length story in in it's own section if you continue to like it 'cause it does go on as a full length story. Anyways, enjoy part two of Desperate Times!
I had a great time last night. T.'
"Oh my god, you're banging Tyler."
"You really need to rethink your whole relationship if you have that little trust in him," Jade fires back easily, grabbing the card out of Malia's hands and reading it again.
'I had a great time last night.' Somehow, she's absolutely sure Tori didn't even think of the dual meaning when she neatly signed what looks to be outrageously expensive piece of paper and put it in the bouquet, the size of which was toeing the line between charming and obnoxious. Jade squints at it, holds it up with one hand, barely hiding an amused smile. Lilies. The only type of flower that doesn't bring her the urge to shred it with scissors…. because she's allergic to the rest, as she's told Tori yesterday. She normal doesn't tell people about the allergic part.
So she's the type to remember things. Interesting.
"Yeah, and Malia," Cat pipes up from where she's lounging on Jade's couch, "Tyler was with you last night. The entire night. I know because we're roommates with really thin walls. Can I start looking for another apartment please?"
"Besides," Jade says again, eyes still on the card. "I have a boyfriend."
"Ah, yes," says Malia, plopping next to Cat onto the couch and eyeing Jade. "The one and only Beck Oliver, the love of your life."
Jade rolls her eyes before she puts the bouquet down on the coffee table carefully, and then sighs, turning to face her best friends since high school. Cat Valentine and Malia Hale, always up to no good, always in pair. Jade wasn't always the part of the trio. She remembers Malia hating her guts freshman year - a feeling that intensified when her older brother went through 'a Jade West stage', as Cat put it. She must have done something right when she turned him down, at least in Malia's eyes, since they've become tentative friends after that.
Not that she would've accepted Derek Hale's advances if Malia wasn't there. She was barely seventeen, and he was well over twenty four.
Now, she's almost twenty four herself. Time's a funny thing.
"So you finally dumping that dude?" Cat asks Jade.
I had a great time last night.
Would you have had a great time knowing why I was there in the first place?
"I," Jade rubs a hand down her face, smoothing it over her open button up red and black plaid shirt. She sighs. "It's complicated."
Cat and Malia immediately get their faces to express well-practiced sympathy. She thinks it's unnecessary. They all know she's the only one out of the three who's ever liked Beck enough to talk to him, let alone date him.
The reason she sighs is not because she's actually contemplating her relationship with Beck - it's because she was supposed to be telling her friends all about their fake break-up, but Tori's bouquet messed everything up and she slipped and said the wrong thing.
According to their plan - Beck's and hers - she actually doesn't have a boyfriend anymore. It makes sense. Perfect sense.
She had to go and complicate everything further.
"She's just a friend," Jade says, and it takes tremendous effort not to slap her own forehead as soon as the words are out of her mouth. This is not going according to plan at all.
"She."
"She?!"
Jade takes in Cat's excited smirk and Malia's shocked face. "Yes." She swallows a painful lump down her throat before continuing. "Her name is Tori."
Cat blinks. "Tori. Like Tori Vega?"
The moment of truth, Jade thinks. She gives a slow nod, sitting down next to a gaping Malia. "Actually. Exactly like Tori Vega." When her friends continue to blink at her, she sighs and runs her hand through her hair. "It's that Tori Vega."
Cat's smirk grows smaller. "Beck works for her," she says to no one in particular.
"Yes."
"And she's sending you flowers."
"I'm not - this is not what you think." Jade tears her gaze away from Cat, and it falls to the lilies, still beautiful even when carelessly tossed on the table. "I'm not cheating on Beck."
"Not if she's just a friend, you're not," Malia speaks up, her eyes back to her normal size.
Jade really backed herself in a corner with this one. "I'm not sure she's just a friend."
"But you just said-"
"I know what I said, Cat," she snaps and immediately regrets her tone. It's not Rae's fault. It's not anyone's fault, really. "I'm sorry, I... Beck and I are on a break."
Her friends only glance at each other. The tiny spark of glee running between them doesn't escape her. She doesn't think she particularly cares. "Wait," Malia says. "Ross and Rachel break, or break break?"
"I went on a date with Tori," Jade chooses to say instead. Staying on the topic of Beck is uncomfortable. It gnaws at her, somewhere between her chest and her stomach, carving out a tiny bleeding hole not quite in her heart, but under it, close to it. So she switches to something she knows her friends won't resist jumping on. "It was nice."
"But," says Malia, "she's a girl." At Cat's pointed stare, she shakes her head. "I don't mean it's bad or anything, but - Jade's straight."
"Sexuality is fluid," Cat speaks before Jade gets a chance to. There's an undercurrent of agitated impatience running through her voice, like they've been over it with Malia already, and she's tired of saying the same thing over and over again. "There's also compulsive heterosexuality most bi people struggle with. Most people, period."
Jade can feel the color drain from her face. "I'm not - I don't think I'm ready for any labels yet, Cat." She's really not. She never anticipated how scary having her identity questioned could be, but it's not only that. She'll have to fake coming out. She's already on her way there, with Malia giving her a shocked stare and Cat smiling encouragingly. She's going through it when she has absolutely no right.
She feels sick.
"It's cool, Jade. Figuring yourself out can be scary, but we're here for you, okay?" Cat gives Malia what she hopes to be an inconspicuous nudge, and the girl shakes her head once again, her sandy-blonde Hale hair falling on her eyes. "Right," she says. "I'm sorry for being this shocked, it's just - you were always so into guys. I mean. And guys are really into you. You went through them like crazy-"
"Malia."
Jade is immensely grateful for Cat's presence.
"Right. Sorry. We support you, one hundred percent. Whatever you might be." Jade watches Malia wet her lips, still very clearly astonished. "But - it's Tori Vega."
"Yup." The conversation has barely started, but Jade is already exhausted.
"She's Beck's boss, isn't she?" Cat poses her previous statement as a question everyone knows an answer to. Jade also knows - can practically feel on her fingertips - what Cat isn't saying out loud. Complications and things bound to get messy.
"Yeah." She doesn't give them anything more than that. Let them ask, she thinks.
And so they do. "Jade, you know I'm behind you and your explorations of your sexuality," Cat begins, "but we really need the full story. What - I mean, how? We all heard Beck's stories. She really doesn't like him. Are you like, her trophy or something?"
"Aren't all of her girlfriends trophies?" Malia adds helpfully. They both study Jade, eager for details, for an explanation she doesn't quite feel she owes them. Irritation prickles at her skin, shoots through her spine up to her shoulders, and she shivers with a slight grimace.
"No," she says, and her defensive tone is a surprise to everyone in the room. "I don't know about her girlfriends - actually, I don't know much about her. We know her through Beck's stories and I think we can all agree it's not a completely reliable source."
Her friends nod at that, but the apprehension is still there. She can read it on their faces, and her irritation only grows. "Look," she says, letting out a heavy breath to calm herself down. "it's not like I'm getting married to her." Hopefully. "It was just one date. And she has no idea I'm dating one of her employees. We met last Friday. By chance. She asked for my number. It was my decision to give it to her. So this isn't her personal vendetta against Beck or whatever else you guys might think." This is me being a horrible human being to save the person I love the most in this entire fucking world.
"Okay," Cat is the first to sense Jade shouldn't be pushed right now. "You're right, we don't know her. We were being stupid. Right?" She asks Malia, who nods. "It's great that you're getting out there. Meeting new people and, uh, mingling." Once again, Jade knows what Cat isn't voicing.
We're glad you're moving on from losing your brother. Because, to them, to the world, Jake West is as good as dead. They don't have money for treatment; they barely have enough money for him to stay on life support this month. And then - but Jade doesn't want to think about then.
Tori had a great time last night.
"Good," she says. "Because I'm seeing her again."
If her friends have anything else to add, they decide to keep it to themselves.
She calls Tori two days later. It's either highly courteous or highly diabolical of Tori - letting her make the next move. She gracefully passed the ball to her court with a gentle kiss pressed to her cheek and a whispered goodnight. Jade still doesn't know if this freedom of choice is artificial, but it's not like she actually has a choice, either, is it?
(It's not like Tori knows about it, though.)
"So," she says when the phone is answered after three long, calculated rings. "You really don't take risks, do you?"
Tori chuckles on the other end. The sound, deep and pleasant, stirs something up in Jade's belly. Not arousal - not quite, at least, she doesn't think so. But - it's pointless to deny Tori is attractive. Infuriatingly so. She's attractive in everything she does.
There is just something to her, and, as much as Jade doesn't want to dwell on it, she also can't ignore it.
(Is her charm as artificial as Jade's freedom of choice?)
"There is risk, and then there is recklessness," Tori says, jarring Jade from her thoughts. "If I sent you anything other than lilies, you could have had an allergic reaction. Doesn't really make someone want to have the second date, now does it?"
Jade feels her eyebrows go up teasingly, even though Tori can't see her. That's another thing about this whole… thing. Banter comes excitingly - terrifyingly - easy. Naturally. She doesn't know what to make of it.
For now, she just goes with it. All according to plan, she tells herself. "Pretty sure of yourself, are we?"
She can practically feel Tori's smugness through the phone. "Maybe."
Jade suddenly wants to rattle her. She hates arrogant people. Except - that's the fucking thing, she thinks bitterly. Tori isn't arrogant. She's quietly confident. It seeps through her pores, manifests itself in everything she does and says. She's got nothing to prove. It's already proven.
Tori Vega is the top dog, and it's a goddamn fact.
She still wants to shake her up, just a little bit. "I could be calling to tell you to get lost, you know." It comes out teasingly, not harsh enough, not sharp enough, and Jade curses inwardly, biting her tongue. Goddamn you, Vega.
(She hates that she's genuinely having fun talking to this woman. It makes her plan all the more awful. It makes her all the more awful.)
(Several thousand dollars a day.)
"Are you? Calling me to get lost?"
She's silent just a second too long before, "No. I'm - thank you. For the flowers."
"While there's obviously a practical reason for my choice," Tori says, and Jade can hear a smile in her voice, "I also tried to find the most beautiful ones." Jade wonders if she's itching to add a corny 'like you'. Or 'for you'. To her relief, she doesn't.
"Well," Jade starts, dramatically. "I mean. You tried."
Tori's laughter is unexpectedly melodic. "My best, too. Just so you know. Appreciate it."
"Yeah, well. I'll try."
She hears her laughter again. "No promises, right?"
What a simple phrase - but it's like a punch to her stomach and she can't breathe.
"Right," she chokes out, hoping Tori doesn't hear the slight hitch.
(These emotional rollercoasters she's been on lately are getting real old real fast.)
Just breeze through it. "What are you doing Friday night?"
She imagines Tori raising an eyebrow at that. "Straight to the point."
"That's me," she says and cringes at her unintentional pun. Tori makes everything worse.
"Hopefully not."
Someone shoot me. "Obviously not. So," she hurries to change the topic of her sexuality they somehow ended up with. "Friday night?"
"I'm assuming I already have plans that you made for me."
"That Yale education didn't go to waste, I see."
Tori's smirk is palpable in her voice. Her suddenly purring, low voice. "Obviously not."
"I'll pick you up at 10," Jade says, refusing to gulp. "Let Jackson go. Oh, and - wear something… not nice."
"Not nice," Tori repeats, incredulous. "I'm afraid I require a definition that's a little more detailed. How not nice are we talking, exactly?"
"Think of something you'd wear to an important business dinner," Jade says. "Wear the exact opposite." She's flying by the seat of her pants here, but a plan is coming along as she speaks. Tori, a bar, and tequila. A lot of tequila. She has to make this woman fall in love with her. And everyone claims to be in love with Jade West the party animal.
That, and she thinks she needs their second date to be a little more drunk and a little less personal. She can't afford to not see Tori at all - time is running out - but she can make it so she doesn't have to talk to her much.
If they talk too much, she might slip up, and Tori is dangerously smart. But - no one is too smart when Jade's wearing a low cut top.
Tori, a bar, and tequila. Perfect.
"Okay," Tori says slowly. Almost lazily. "Not nice. Are you taking me someplace bad, Miss West?"
Jade thinks it would be appropriate to smirk right now. She doesn't. "The worst."
This is the worst idea she's ever had.
Tori's wearing black skinny jeans and a soft-feeling hard-looking black leather jacket over a black v-neck. She's the furthest thing from nice, that's for sure. Even her soft lips and soft eyes don't help balance it out.
She looks dangerous. It's exhilarating.
She looks dangerous and bad in the best way, and her breath is hot on Jade's neck.
This is the best idea she's ever had.
It's not arousal. It's not. It's just - she hasn't seen Beck since the night she met Tori, and she hasn't had enough time to tend to her needs herself, and Tori is objectively attractive. Objectively.
Tori is also drunk.
And Jade is fucking wasted.
"I don't," Tori whispers against her neck, "I do not want to make the wrong impression, Jade." Even in her inebriated state, she doesn't slur her words. Jade kinda hates it. How put together she remains even after an hour of pounding shot after shot and grinding against each other in a less than appropriate manner.
"You - you, uh," Jade stammers, "you got me pinned - fuck - in a dingy alley - I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as the wrong impression anymore." She doesn't think she's making a lot of sense. She doesn't think she cares.
Jade just wanted to get some fresh air. That's it. She's still not sure what prompted her to grab Tori's hand and drag her outside with her. They stumbled through the backdoor, into the small alley, and Jade narrowly escaped crashing to the ground. Well. With Tori's help. She caught her around the waist and tugged her back, propping her up against the wall so she wouldn't slide down. Hence the pinning and Tori's breath on her neck and soft lips brushing her skin just barely enough to seem like they aren't there at all.
So maybe it is arousal. Okay, fine - she's horny. It happens when she's this wasted, and - she's never experimented, but apparently gender doesn't matter when she's like this. Drunk and just a little lost and aching for a touch.
Tori's touching her all over, with her body pressed to hers, but it's not enough. She knows nothing will be enough until she's filled and stretched and aching for an entirely different reason.
Fuck. "Fuck," she voices her thoughts, rather straightforward. "Tori."
Tori's still breathing on her neck. She's frozen in place; Jade thinks if she tilts her head down just slightly, a little to the right, her lips will find Tori's pouting ones. She wonders if it'll feel any different. Than a guy. Wonders if Tori's fingers will be enough for her - she's enough far gone for her thoughts to venture into that territory. She wonders if Tori will be fast, slow, rough, gentle. If she'll be able to tell Jade's never been with a woman before. If she'll huff in frustration and quickly get her off before kicking her out of her bed and finishing the job herself.
(That's way too detailed and way too anxious for a second date.)
She's not sure, but she thinks she feels the tiniest kiss being pressed to her jugular before Tori pulls away, keeping her arms around Jade, but putting some distance between their bodies. "This is not something you want," she says, and Jade's mind clears, fast and scared.
How did she-
-oh, but how wrong she is-
"I… What?" She manages to croak out, her fingers still clutching the the nice leather of Tori's jacket. "What?"
"We're drunk, Jade," Tori whispers. She can smell whiskey on her breath, can smell smoke on her jacket, her expensive perfume, subtle and masculine. How is she so - why is she so-
"We're drunk," Tori repeats. "It's our third date."
"Second," Jade corrects, automatically.
Tori shakes her head, and Jade watches her curls fall down her face, shoulders. Pretty. "No. Coffee shop. First time."
She scoffs, alcohol adding sharpness to it. "That wasn't a date."
"We are not having sex tonight," Tori chooses to say in reply, and Jade almost chokes on her tongue. There is a feeling that comes crushing down on her, and she doesn't know if it's relief or disappointment or both.
"Okay," she says meekly, because what else is she supposed to say? "Thank you." Well. Not that, obviously. "I… I'm not sure if I can - if I want… I think I'm scared."
What the actual fuck, Jade?! she thinks loudly at herself, but it's in defeat rather than surprise. Drunk Jade gets frank. That's something she conveniently forgot about when she took Tori to a bar.
Tori doesn't struggle with focusing her eyes. Jade's a little afraid she might be less drunk than she's letting on. Tori's too calculated to lose her control like that. "Are you scared of me?" She asks, leaning in. Jade doesn't know if it's meant to console or intimidate.
She shakes her head. "No," she says, surprised to realize it's true. She's not scared of Tori. Maybe she should be. But she's not. Not when Tori's looking at her like that, with her eyes vibrant brown and too tender for someone who's only known her for two weeks.
Tori's hand trembles when she reaches up to touch Jade's cheek, and suddenly Jade thinks fuck it. "I've never done this before." The silence that follows is - it's not deafening. It's not silence at all. It's full of city sounds and their breathing, ragged and loud.
"You mean," Tori shakes her head, sloppily, and her hand falls back to her side. "You've never - you've never done what, exactly?"
"With a girl. A woman." Jade is horrified at each word that comes out of her mouth, but it's like she can't stop it. She has to get it out. To get the truth out, at least some of it, at least partially, however mangled and twisted it might be. "I've never - I'm not really sure who I am anymore," she admits. Tori's gaze is sharp. Too sharp for someone who's supposedly drunk.
Yet, there's no trace of judgment. "Am I experimentation?" She asks. Her tone - God, she might as well be asking about the weather.
"No," Jade says. Lies. Well - she's not lying. Tori isn't an experimentation. It's a little worse than that.
Just like that, Tori accepts her answer. "Okay," she says easily. "Then we are definitely not having sex tonight."
That's it?
"That's it?"
Tori chuckles. It's a little sloppier, a little higher than her usual timbre. "What were you expecting?"
She doesn't know. "I don't know."
Tori takes a small step back, helping Jade stand upright with a careful hand under her elbow. "You know we're too drunk to be having this conversation right now." It's not a question, but it's not her dictating, either. It's stating a fact. A fact Jade completely agrees with.
"Yes." She shivers when the wind blows, only now realizing how chilly it is and how underdressed she is in jeans and a top. Tori places a jacket around her shoulders before she can protest.
It smells like her. She wouldn't go as far as to say it's soothing, but it is familiar and pleasant. "We should probably get home, right."
"Right." Tori smiles. "Good thing I never let Jackson go."
"Tori." Jade frowns. "It's past midnight. On a Friday."
"Jade." Tori says, her eyes sparkling with silent laughter. "I'm joking. I do that sometimes. Admittedly, rarely. No one will ever believe you. You have no proof."
Jade really tries, but she can't hold her laughter in, and it spills, loud and strong.
"You're in Forbes lists," she says. "You're in Forbes lists and you own half the fucking companies in this country. Do you realize that? Right now, standing in a dirty alley with a girl who won't have sex with you?"
"I'm the one who won't have sex with the girl," Tori points out. She's still smiling, but it softens now, fades into something that's barely there, but infinitely more valuable.
"Tonight," Jade points another thing out and watches Tori's eyes darken ever so slightly.
"Tonight. Yes." Tori clears her throat. "I also don't own 'half the fucking companies' in this country. I hardly own a quarter." She says it like it's not a big deal. Like it's nothing. Perhaps, to her, it isn't.
Or, perhaps, Tori measures things and their importance differently, and Jade can't see it yet.
"Hardly," she scoffs at Tori's words drunkenly. "Okay. Let's get out of here before I start finding you annoying."
"And how do you find me now, then? I'm just curious."
Jade squints. "Almost annoying."
She makes Tori laugh for an umpteen time that night. "Perfect."
"And what happened next?"
Jade closes her eyes, licks her lips. Turns her head to look at Beck, barely covered with a thin sheet. "We split a cab. She let me pay for my half of the ride."
Beck scoffs. "What a gentlewoman."
"She kind of is, yes." She watches him blink and briefly lock his jaw before forcing himself to relax.
"I don't know if you made the right thing coming clean about this," he says. His hair falls on his eyes when he rolls over and props his head on his hand, and he brushes it away impatiently with his other hand, looking down at Jade.
She shakes her head at him. "That was the only sensible decision I've made this week," she says. "Tori's smart and experienced. She would've immediately known I've never been with a woman before."
Beck shrugs. "Yeah, or - or that you're just bad in bed."
"Please." She smirks, and it's hollow. "I can't be bad in bed. Not even hypothetically."
"Oh, I know," he drawls, his fingers lazily playing with the sheet covering Jade's bare chest. "But - Tori doesn't."
"It was the right thing to say," she presses on. "For several reasons. One," her hand slowly reaches up to his face, one finger lazily tracing his jaw, "I'm even more of a challenge to her now. Two," that same finger travels south, to his chest, and she watches him watch it with a slow smirk forming on his lips. "She won't expect sex from me - or, she won't expect me to be good at it. And three…" now, her hand stops at his flat stomach, pressing against it briefly before venturing lower. She watches his mouth fall open when she reaches her destination, dragging her nails across hardening flesh. "Now, I control the situation. Entirely. Absolutely."
"Genius," he breathes before he rolls them over and presses a demanding kiss to her mouth, and she welcomes it.
She just wants to forget - or, rather, doesn't want to think about the fact that she wanted Tori last night. She honest to God wanted her. Wanted her on her lips, in her bed, on her, in her - God. That's something she should probably deal with. Later, yes. But she'll have to.
But will she? She was drunk. Both of them were. She was curious - it's only natural. Better that than getting through the inevitable night with Tori with her teeth gritted and her eyes shut.
Anyway. Beck doesn't need to know her slip-up wasn't planned. He doesn't need to know it wasn't her idea to begin with. He doesn't need to know it was Tori's stare and Tori's quiet softness that made her crack.
She thinks she'd be happy to un-know it, but she can't. It's her cross to bear. So she kisses her boyfriend and lets her mind go blank.