Hai.
Yes. It's me. Yes, this is a REAL chapter. No, this is not a drill.
It's been a while, I know, and so I went through and updated the previous chapters to bring myself back up to speed. I'd forgotten how much fun this story could be. I'm a little rusty - I honestly haven't written anything since the last time this story was updated a few years ago - so try not to concentrate too hard while reading. Hopefully I'll see you all again in the next chapter :)
Thank you for your support thus far.
She had a 'fun' time trying to convince Jasper that what happened in the janitor's closet was all part of a bigger plan, that her feeling him up had just been a ruse to make him appear flustered when they emerged from the room.
The actual truth didn't need to be spoken.
Thankfully, he seemed to take her bait and with some strategic high fives and suggestive gestures to the baseball team, Jasper managed to neutralise the situation from yesterday.
On his end, at least.
His voice broke through her brain fog all of a sudden. "I thought we were here to be seen," he remarked, looking at the sea of empty tables sprawled out in front of them.
There were only two other people besides themselves in the library, and they sat well apart from each other. There was no sign of either Lauren or Jessica.
Alice noticed the lack of civilisation too. "Apparently we are here too early for the rest of the world..."
"Don't you know that raves only happen after six?"
Alice smacked Jasper's closest arm with her notebook.
At the noise, he checked over his shoulder for any angry librarians that might come storming out from the shadows. He knew from experience that that's what they. "Shh," he whispered loudly, "you're disturbing the peace."
"Your face is disturbing the peace."
The two of them stood on the outskirts of the open study area, prematurely calculating the possible rate of success of this plan.
It wasn't working in their favour.
There were dozens of tables scattered around the room nonsensically with mismatched chairs filling every available space. Anyone with a single ounce of design ability would have found it painful to look at.
"Where do you want to sit?" Jasper asked, also running through the pros and cons of each spot in his head.
Alice pursed her lips momentarily. "We should probably sit in a corner somewhere. Then it looks like we're hiding." She gestured with a hand to the furthest corner of the room.
Jasper made a move first and she followed suit.
They walked around the edge of the room, slipping past rows and rows of curated shelves.
"These books are all so dusty," Alice whispered harshly. "They probably haven't even been touched since 1995..."
"Probably," Jasper agreed.
Beyond its heritage exterior, there was nothing remotely spectacular about their local library. Inside was an outdated mess of 80s dark wood and mustard yellow topped off with the occasional white ceiling fan that jiggled as they spun. The smell coming off the books was not the usual nostalgic kind.
Jasper picked out a pair of seats close to where Alice had pointed earlier. "How's this?"
She looked around, trying to gauge how easy it would be for others to see them. "Fine."
She sat down and pulled out her laptop and they settled in for the evening. With an unspoken agreement, the two pulled out papers from their bags and exchanged them for reviewing purposes.
Each silently read over the others' answers, meticulously analysing every word with the squint of an eye.
Alice fidgeted about while she read, shifting position every few sentences. She didn't realise it, but her fingers ran back and forth over her lips religiously. If she'd known she was doing it, she would of stopped out of fear it was suggesting something to the boy beside her.
Without looking at each other, the pair pulled out a pen - Alice from behind her ear, Jasper from his bag - and made a few markings on their respective papers. Then they began to compare answers, taking turns to share their opinion.
Jasper's phone vibrated against the table top then and the noise caused them both to look down at it.
Being curious enough, Alice concentrated on the illuminated screen and saw it was a text message from Maria.
Defensively, Jasper also noticed her prying eyes and quickly slid it from her view.
What came out of her mouth next, she couldn't control. "Isn't that your ex-girlfriend?"
Did that sound as over-protective to him as it did to her?
It took a moment of him mildly scrutinising her face before he responded, "yeah..."
"I thought that-"
"We're not together," he finished abruptly, shaking his head and dropping his eyes down to the screen. His fingers began to type back furiously.
"That's not what I was going to say."
He stopped, looked up at her, and silently asked her to elaborate.
"I thought you were supposed to... not be talking to her?"
He continued to stare, almost quizzically. She noticed his thumb moved blindly over the send button.
"W-" she stumbled. "According to Emmett."
Jasper rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, pixie sticks. I have too many brain cells left to go back to her."
"I find that hard to believe."
They shared a sarcastic smile.
Feeling like she was on a roll, Alice decided to continue anyway. "So… what happened?" She gestured her head to the phone. "With you and her?"
"Uh…" Jasper, clearly uncomfortable, rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and placed the phone screen-down on the table. "She… was… a little crazy."
She knew that that was a deliberately abridged version of the story, but, for some reason, she didn't want to let it drop that easily. "That's saying something, coming from you."
"Exactly."
"So, why are-"
He cut her off again, politely but firmly. "I kind of don't want to talk about her anymore."
Alice looked around at that moment, knowing she couldn't press it further tonight. Then she saw them. "Shit. When did they come in?"
Jasper followed her line of sight and saw that the two school gossips were indeed already sitting on the other side of the room, in their direct line of view.
"Do you think they saw us?" she whispered.
Lauren and Jessica were huddled closely as they engaged in conversation. Their bags weren't unpacked yet, so maybe they had just arrived.
"Well, it's not like we're mixed in with a whole lot of other people..." Jasper reasoned, gesturing to the six other people now in the room.
Alice resisted the urge to put a fist to his bicep. "Should we do something?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know!"
He let out a small breath with his smile. "This was your plan, Tweedledee."
"The plan," she clarified, turning her stare back towards his smug face, "was to get seen by them. We've already done it. Mission accomplished."
Jasper sighed in amusement and shook his head. Surely, she's not that naive? "You really think that's all it will take?"
"What do you mean?"
"They know we're partners on this assignment. Being seen at the library is hardly a smoking gun."
Alice bit her lip. He was right. In a huff, she turned back to the work in front of her and opened up her laptop. She needed to think on this; she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of being right.
As she moved, she caught sight of the two girls eyeing her and Jasper suspiciously. They darted their heads away when their eyes met and began whispering to each other furiously.
Alice began to freak.
She couldn't go back to being the laughing stock of the school; she'd worked too hard to make sure that didn't happen here, to make friends and not have to hide during lunch. In her mind, it was a slippery slope from where she now sat on the social ladder to the bottom of the food chain, and she just couldn't let that happen again. In a moment of panic, she turned her whole body to face Jasper.
He looked back at her expectantly.
She took a quick, deep breath in. "Don'ttakethisthewrongway," she said as she closed the gap between them and planted her lips clumsily to his.
The tingles flared up at that moment, tickling deliciously along the lower curve of her back. She tensed her muscles to try and lower the sensation, but it was of no use. After only a second, she had to pull back for fear of her spine collapsing into a pile of useless jelly.
It no longer mattered if Lauren and Jessica were still looking.
Jasper stared back at her, eyes glazed over and not able to focus on anything in particular. He, too, was fighting the flames that danced around in his stomach and could only think of one way to settle them.
Their kiss had been brief, and a little awkward, which told Jasper that it was probably neither photographable nor believable. Seeing the uncertainty in her eyes, and sensing that Alice didn't know what she was doing, he took control.
"Let's do this properly," he said hungrily, a hand gently tipping her chin upwards.
She wanted to question it, but anything in her body that related to coherent thought and speech was now rose-coloured mush. More importantly, she wanted to be mad at herself for being so pliable and eager. But, she was just incapable of rational thought with him so close.
He leaned in to her, luring her over the small gap remaining between them.
"We do have a bet to win," she agreed as his lips brushed hers.
And just like that, the assignment was halted for the night.
...
"Alright. Fine." Emmett pouted. "You win. Jeez."
Emmett, Bella and Edward stood crowded around Rosalie and her phone, gawking at the latest photo being sent around school. Alice and Jasper playing lusty couple at the public library had the whole school abuzz by Friday afternoon.
As it turned out, Alice really did know a thing or two about spreading wildfire.
Jasper sat with his arm draped across the back of her chair. The two of them shared an identical smirk, casually watching their friends' faces on the other side of the table.
"Easy. As. Pie." Jasper remarked.
All eyes turned simultaneously up to look at the couple.
"Not as easy as the man-whore here, but yes," Alice agreed hastily, sensing the need to add to the conversation.
Edward coughed into the silence, almost as if to remark on their united front. "This looks pretty legit to me..."
Rosalie nodded in agreement, raising a brow.
"No shit, Sherlock," Jasper scoffed harshly, withdrawing his arm. "It's supposed to."
Alice prayed that there was no hint of a blush creeping up to her face at that moment. She had spent all night thinking about their session at the library. What they hadn't told the group was that they had actually been kicked out at the end of the night because they had completely lost track of time.
It was kind of cute in Alice's mind.
But Jasper's tone of voice as he dismissed their tryst shattered the illusion slightly. His sudden coldness made her question whether she had misinterpreted everything - the tingles, the fire, the lust. Maybe he had spent the night just playing the part, while she was the fool being taken for a ride.
She had to remind herself that while she may have enjoyed her first make-out session - and lost sleep over the dreamy replays of it - she was probably being ruled by hormones. She knew from books that girls had a tendency to get caught up in thinking their first love was more special than anyone else, but she thought the knowledge of this would make her immune to such a senseless fail.
Not that Jasper was her great love or anything, she corrected, but maybe she was starting to understand just what all those books were talking about.
After all, Jasper was simply acting this way because of a dare. And there was no secret about it.
How had he gone from the most irritating boy she'd ever met to the boy with whom she was now sharing kisses with?
With a heavy drop in her heart, she realised that she'd started to buy the lie she was selling.
She felt like the biggest idiot in that second.
"I would do anything to see Emmett fuck up graduation," Jasper smirked, oblivious to the complete 180 that Alice had just done in her head. Then he delivered the final blow, the thing that confirmed all of Alice's newly ignited fears. "I'd even pretend to like this one," and he gestured with a thumb to Alice.
The group gave a light chuckle, expecting her to retaliate like she usually would at his smart quips. But, she didn't.
All she heard was how she had made herself the butt of the joke.
How had she lost sight of the fact that this was just all just a game? She'd let herself become carried away with a guy who was only fulfilling a dare.
"At any rate," Jasper added. "A deal's a deal. We still have a week left."
"I said you already won," Emmett reminded him.
But, Jasper was resolute. "Nuh. A deal's a deal. Right, Shortie?"
He nudged her shoulder at her lack of response.
"Huh?" she asked quietly, refusing to look at him anymore.
"We're going to honour the rules of the dare and stick this out for another week, right?"
She darted her eyes back and forth meekly, still avoiding him. "Sure," she agreed dejectedly.
She didn't see him furrow his brow at her.
"Yawn," Rosalie interjected after an awkward moment's silence, thankfully changing the subject. "What are you all doing tonight?"
"We're going to the movies," Bella offered, settling in next to Edward. "Do you guys want to come?"
Everyone agreed to it, one by one, except Alice.
Barely registering that they were making plans in front of her, she was lost in a storm of thought.
She was embarrassed because she'd made herself the spectacle in all of this. She had spent years running away from social ridicule at her last school, but this time she had put herself in the line of fire. On purpose.
Psychologists should study her.
"Alice?" Bella asked. "How about you?"
She felt all eyes on her all of a sudden and felt like she just wanted to disappear into the floor. She didn't even want to guess at what they might be thinking about her.
"I... have to work tonight," she lied.
...
"I'm still waiting for my thank you."
Jasper looked up quizzically from his half-written essay, over at the phone beside him. "Uhh..." he said. "For what?"
"For hooking you up with Alice."
Unbelievable, Jasper thought. Emmett thinks he's doing me a favour. "We haven't hooked up," he clarified, pulling an exaggerated face that wouldn't have fooled anyone. "It's for your bet. Remember?"
He couldn't help his mind wandering back a few nights to the library when he kissed Alice again. Though that evening had gone much further than he would have ever anticipated, he'd be lying if he said he didn't like it.
Or that he tried to stop it.
There was something so excitingly unnerving about her. Whether she was throwing tennis balls at him or shying away from a social situation, he never seemed to be able to act the way he should around her. And that fascinated him. She fascinated him.
Emmett groaned dramatically on the other end of the line. "I only made that dare up so you could make a move on her."
"Excuse me?"
"Bro, I know you. You've been checking her out since day one. You were too chicken to do anything about it, so I just wanted to help you out."
"Don't make shit up," Jasper scolded, incredulous that Emmett could possibly have been even remotely perceptive about the situation. "You haven't done anything except find an excuse to streak at graduation."
"Haha. And what about you saying you need another week for the dare? Sounds like you were just looking for an excuse to hang around her."
There was no way Jasper would admit to that one. Even to Emmett. "A deal's a deal," he repeated. "You dared us to do it for two weeks and I am not going to break the contract."
"Come on - I saw you come out of that janitor's closet on Wednesday. You were not playing cards in there."
"We may as well have been."
"Yeah right," Emmett crooned.
"Nothing happened!"
"Yeah right."
"Nuh-thing."
"Yeah. Right."
Jasper threw the pen in his hands against the table. "Fuck."
"I knew it!"
"No- I just meant that-"
"Why won't you just admit it?"
"Admit what?"
If you listened carefully, you could almost hear the stifled laugh. "You like her."
Jasper didn't spit out his response straight away. No one had ever rivaled him in his shenanigans before - besides Emmett, of course - and he rather enjoyed having an equal. Platonic or not, his relationship with Alice was fun. But his attempt to deflect that question backfired. "She hates me."
"Aha! Finally." Emmett cried triumphantly. "And no she doesn't. You're an idiot."
"That's rich."
"Why don't you ask her out? Like, for real?"
Because he didn't feel like making a fool of himself, that's why.
Jasper toyed with the corner of a piece of paper sticking out from his usual stack beside him. It was a darker grey than the rest of his papers and so he curiously pulled it out to inspect.
'Have you been bad?' the headline read. He couldn't help but smile fondly at the flyer Alice had made about him. It was probably the highlight of his year.
"You are killing me here," Emmett's voice said into the reverie. "Watching you two is hilarious - don't get me wrong - but I want you to start getting some action again."
Looking at the flyer in his hands, Jasper got up from his desk and went over to pin it on the photo board above his bed. He stared back at it a moment.
"Don't get it twisted: I'm just trying to win a bet," he lied.
As usual, thanks so much for reading!