After Becky had sat and accompanied me for just over 4 hours, I was left alone in Jacobs ostentatious, yet homey, place. I ended up staying in the guest room. The layout of the room was spacious and partly cold. There was a queen bed that took up half of one wall, and about one-eighth of the space. The walls were crips white and high, with one grey feature wall that had a chest of draws, desk and television set. The was one large floor to ceiling window, that was daunting if one was to stand on the edge of it. Looking down bellow, into a sea of people, who look small and microscopic, but still hold more power than myself. The window was cut off at the corners by grey drapes. After about three hours of continuous work, I set my laptop aside and check my phone for the 12th time. There were no calls or texts, with the exception of my caring mother, who was worried sick by my accident. But I secretly knew that she was glad that Jacob was looking after me. She had told me that she's seen the movie spark in our eyes when we looked at each other. She is hugely into an unfolding irrevocable love that, in my opinion, is over-cliched by films. I mean, is a person really supposed to believe, that in this universe that there is one person, you can love more than you self? A love that consumes you? It seems...fictional. Could it just be innate human narcism, that human beings believe that loneliness, is fiction of the mind? My thoughts are tamed by the loud interruption of my ringing phone. "Hello?"

"Can you please yell at your doorman to let me in?" It was Spencer.

"Sure, one moment."

Several moments later, from the guest room, I could hear the elevator door open, and in walk Spencer, "Darling, where are you?"

"Here!"

"Where!?"

"Marco!" I yelled.

"Polo!" He responded

"Marco!"

"Polo-Oh, hey," he greets me as he walks into the room, and hope into the bed. "How are you feeling?" he asks disinterested.

"Oh-please, I know you didn't come here to ask how I am."

"You know me too well," he admits giddy. "I came to get all the tea about you and Jacob."

The term 'you and Jacob' was so casual, yet I found the most delight in hearing it. It feel wrong and, peculiar, telling Spencer first instead of Becky. But of course, I can never tell Becky. He gets under the covers, turns on his side, and listens like a moth attracted to a flame. I told him about how he makes me feel, and what happened between us. But then he only dove into the deeper stuff. When he asked, I assumed that I wouldn't even be able to disclose what happened, but in this moment, I had felt that there was absolutely, nothing I wanted to conceal from him. So, we began to talk about, the kiss, then the sex. The hour-long, drilling, marathon sex. After we had exhausted all areas of conversation surrounding my relationship. We went on to his relationship, he was on the topic of infidelity, when Jacob walks into the room and says "Hi baby-" When he looks up and see's Spencer, he quickly stutters, "Becky, Becky's friend. Hi Becky's friend."

"Babe," I laugh, "It's ok. Spencer knows everything."

"Oh." A rainbow of emotions surpasses his, confusion, scepticism, flush, embarrassment, pride and the my favourite...adoration. He walks around the bed to my side and I gasped as his mouth softly enters mine, the kiss deep and silky.

"Did you have wine?" I ask, and he nods, "You taste like it."

Spencer interrupts, and again I remember he was there, "I'm so jealous. Your like a teenage married couple. Sexual, in love, and extremely dysfunctional. But I getting this marriage forever vibe."

I laugh deep. "Marriage! No..."

"Does marriage not appeal to you?" Jacob asks, taking a slightly serious tone.

"Yeah, but not now! I'm 19."

His lips curved in to a smile, and again he offered his mouth up to mine, he smelled so good, and his face was warm to my touch. He touched my cheek, his eyes soft. He searched my face, searching me, understanding the content I felt in this moment. His pose was loose and relaxed, but I could see the residual stress from a long days work still bubbling within him. "What do you want for dinner?" he ask me.

"I'm craving Mexican," I exaggerate.

"Period?"

"Yeah," I admit. Impressed that he remembered from our conversation after we talked about healthy sex drives but before we talked about joining a gym together. Wow, we really did cover a lot of ground.

"You're on your period?" Jacob ask quietly and worried for me.

"Yeah. I'm fine though." He pulls out his phone and punches a message into it, before sitting on the bed facing me, holding my hands. "Do you have to work?" I don't what to take him from his work, or disrupt his life more than I have. I know that he's taking a huge gamble dating, and I don't want to scare him away with too much change. But what about me? I need things from this relationship, things that I want to take...but can't.

"No. I want to spend time with you," he cooed into my ear.

"Are you sure?" I encourage trepidatiously.

"Absolutely. I already had to spend hours thinking about you, now I finally get to be here."

"Awww, baby," I chortle.

"Alrighty," Spencer retorts, breaking the mood, "I'm starving so what do we want to order for dinner?"

Jacob looks towards me and asks, "What would you like?"

"Mexican please," I answer, annunciating all phonemes.

"Sounds good," he says, and lays kisses along my jawline, like a trail on a map to treasure. He bent down on the bed with his arms the powerful activation of muscles beneath his shirt and the inherent gracefulness in the way he moved sent a delicious sense of contentment sliding through me.

When he left the room Spencer groans and says, "If you ever don't want him...I get first dibs."

I laugh, and say, "Nah. I think I'll keep him for a while."

Just before the food arrived, Jacob set the glass coffee table, and carried me honeymoon style to the white-cloud sofa. I giggled and he pressed his lips to my temple. When he placed me gently onto the couch, his phone intrusively buzzed in his pocket, and he rolled his eyes and checked it. After typing a quick reply, he walks over to the elevator and just as he reaches it, the doors open to reveal a striking woman. Her skin was porcelain, without any blemishes, doe-eyes that are large, brown and round. Her fawn coloured hair was pulled back into a bun and her mouth was pulled into a tight line, that crinkled the blood-red lipstick she wore. Which boldly contrasted with her white and grey pantsuit. In one hand she carried he phone-in true GenZ fashion- and in the other a bag from Walgreens. "I am very tazzled by you right now!" She huffs as she exits the confines of the elevator. My mind is racing with questions, one of them being, how many stunning women is Jacob friends with? And what was with the word tazzled?

"Hello Amalia," Jacob greats over enthusiastically and grabs the pharmaceutical bag out of her hand.

"Oh-Yeah sure. You're welcome!" She said sarcastically. "You are supposed to go to 'Bruce Investments and Shares' charity gala later tonight with Ava."

"No I wasn't. You just made that assumption."

"I told you to go with her."

"Nobody can make me do anything," he quips. I think to myself, 'We'll see about that.'

"No. You're right. But I'm your publicist, and you pay me a lot of money to make your life easier. So let me let you make your life easier, but making my life easier and listening to me. Instead of being at the gala... you're here, telling me to go shopping for 'period stuff'?"

She suddenly notices me and Spencer behind him, but Jacob just moves his body blocking us from her view. Was he ashamed for people to know we were together, or was he protecting me. Either way, it set of an unsettling feeling in my gut, like a rock suddenly weighing me down and feeling worthless. "That's all Amalia, you can go now." He said sternly. Clearly by her face she had questions, and by his face, you could tell he didn't want to hear them. While she walked backwards into the elevator, he didn't even seem to watch her leave, he just turned back to face me, and I could tell he was searching my face for how I felt. It even appeared he knew what I felt before me, becuase frankly, I didn't know how to react.

"Are you ready to eat?" Spencer awkwardly breaks the silence.

"Sure," I responded melancholically, and for the rest of the evening, awkward seemed to be the mood for the rest of the dinner.

That was until Jacob huffed and said, "What the fuck Emma?"

"Pardon me?" I say startled by his outburst.

"You heard me. I've done nothing wrong, and yet your still mad at me?"

"I'm not mad." I answer stubbornly.

"Hell if you aren't mad. You haven't spoken at all, and you haven't looked at me all night. What the fuck up with that?"

"Can you please not in front of my company?" I respond spitting my words.

Jacob tuned to Spencer and said, "Would you like to go?"

"Don't talk to him that way!" I shout.

"I really don't mind staying," Spencer mocks, which only angers Jacob more.

I sigh, "I'll see you tomorrow Spence."

"You sure darling?" he searches my eyes.

"Yeah...I'm sure."

I stand up and take him into a hug. I do notice that despite Jacob and I currently fighting, he stands up behind me and spots me. Once Spencer walks to the elevator, I give him him a final smile as the doors close. When I turn around I'm startled to find Jacob only inches away from me. When I try to step around him, he only moves with me, like a magnet. I move he moves. "Please let me through."

"So now you're speaking to me. Was it really so hard?"

I didn't answer him, and instead made my way to the living room and picked up Jacobs already half drunk scotch. I eyed the amber liquid and the golden glow of the glass-like cubes. I poked them with my messy short white-acrylic manicured nail to hear them jingle in the pre-dusk silence. I watch entranced as they bounce back up- remaining mostly submerged like mini icebergs. I wrap my long fingers around the glass, and I feel my body heat leach into the drink. Just as I raised the glass to sip, Jacob take it out of my hand. "You know that you can't mix you're medication with alcohol."

"One sips not going to do anything." But before I can even argue further, he drowns the contents of the glass in one powerful gulp. "Jacob!" I yell mad.

"Tell me why you're mad at me," he says challengingly.

"I'm not mad!"

"Yes you are." He replied calmly, which only set of my temper further, "You were mad when you saw Amalia, and then mad when she left."

"Well since you're such a bloody detective, you tell me why you think I'm mad, becuase I'm not!"

"Baby," he says calmly but warningly, "just tell me why you're mad at me."

"I'm not mad, just disappointed."

"Now we're getting somewhere," he says sweetly and guides me back to the lounge.

We both sit and I say, "When you didn't introduce me and didn't want you're publicist knowing that you were here with me, it confused me, and made me realise that I can't have this." I gesture to the space between us, "I can't have this distance that we are always going to have becuase nobody can know that we're together."

"Don't say that." He says bluntly.

"I don't blame you, we gave it our best shot, but I realise that for the first time, I need more than just physical intimacy, and without the emotional intimacy, I'm not happy." I crossed my arms. "Let's just get this over with. I don't want to see you anymore."

Jacob shoved a hand through his hair and exhaled harshly. "You don't mean that."

I was suddenly very tired, exhausted from fighting with myself over him. "I really do. You and me...it was a mistake."

His jaw tightened. "No we're not. There's nobody else for me. You're the only person I want to live life with."

I stared at him, startled by the fierceness of his denial and his heartwarming confession. But it still wasn't enough, "I wasn't talking about a lack of chemistry, Jacob. Clearly we have that. I'm talking about my agreeing to this crazy strangers-with-benefits deal between us. You said at the beginning you wanted physical intimacy, and for my benefit you placed the boyfriend, girlfriend title on whatever fucked up thing we were doing. And out of my own self-weakness and self-disrespect I allowed myself to get into this fucked up situation."

"Do you want to be with me, Emma?"

"Are you deaf or ignorant. I seriously can't tell? No. That's what - "

"Not like we were before. I mean more than, 'Private?'"

My heart started to pound. "What are you talking about?"

"Everything." He left the bar and came closer. "I want to be with you. Even if that means actually risking falling for you."

"You didn't seem like it with Amalia." My arms tightened around my middle.

"I was...doing what we agreed... keeping this private"

"The second we go public, my life implodes."

I watched him squirm and felt a flare of hope. "Then we'll pick up the pieces and fix it. Together." he takes a moment and then says, "I'm use to having control. Before you, my life was boring, but it was scheduled. But the second I realised that I see you more than just I friend, I knew that life would never be the same. But I got through it. Because I knew that as long as you were in my life, I would have a chance." "Emma." He leaned closer to me. "I've never experienced anything like that. I didn't think it was possible for me to. Now that I have...I've got to have it. I've got to have you."

I stared at him, trying to figure out what he was doing and where this was going. "What do you want, Jacob?" I asked painfully.

He caught me to him and cupped my cheek in one hand. "I want to keep feeling the way I feel when I'm with you. Just tell me what I have to do. And give me some room to screw up. I've never done this before. I'm learning. God damn it I'm trying."

"You've been in a relationship before," I reminded him.

"No. I was in a mutual agreement with a girl to have a connection that was more than friendship. I would hardly call what Ava and I had a relationship."

"That's just fancy words used to hide the truth."

"I just want to spend as much time with you as possible. Both privately and publicly."

The rush of delight that swept through me was ridiculously powerful. "Do you understand how much work and time a relationship between us is going to take, Jacob? I'm already exhausted, we're both going to get so many intrusive opinions about us, and Becky. How am I going to do this to my sister." My eyes begin to glass over with a thin layer of water, and he turns me around so that my back is on his chest and he leans back so that I lean on him.

"It's ok." he consoles me. "We'll figure it out."

"You say that like it will be easy."

"Easy's boring."

We sit in silence for a moment of silence, and for once, I let my heart take over from my head, "Let do it."

I can hear his heart race in his chest, and I can't help but smile at what will come for us.

"Really!" he says, and help me sits up.

"Tonight." I add. "Let's go to that fundraiser."