III. Downpour
"Do you have stealth mode or something? You have to be the hardest person to track down, and I used to think that sort of stealth was reserved for Adam and Adam alone." Jade didn't even start the conversation with a polite hello. Instead, where there once was half of an empty table across from him in the quiet of the bistro, there was now a purse and a slightly damp overcoat. And he couldn't of course ignore the slightly damp blonde that glared at him as she claimed the other side of his booth as though it were his fault that it was raining and she got caught without an umbrella.
"Hello, Jade, I'm fine, thank you." He inched his notebook closer to him and out of reach of the overcoat that was now dripping onto the table. As a belated thought, he grabbed a handful of napkins and plopped them on the table in front of his fellow Tomorrow Person.
Jade rolled her eyes at his response, but took the not so subtle hint with the napkins and after tugging her coat off the table and onto the seat beside her, began to wipe up the errant water. "You've been avoiding me."
"No, I've been busy."
"Yes. Busy avoiding me."
"Jade, why would I avoid - "
"Laura wants to know why you haven't called her back."
Kevin sighed and shook his head. "Never mind, I just remembered why I would avoid you." Realizing that with Jade present he would get no further work done, he closed his notebook. "And for future reference, there are easier ways to contact me that don't involve stalking me across the uni."
"I was not stalking you, and besides," Jade stopped her clearing of the rain water and instead began to blot at her hair, switching from aural communication to telepathic, [You have this annoying habit of just ignoring people if they say something you don't want to hear when they 'path you.]
Kevin couldn't resist a blank gaze in her direction. [What was that?]
"Now you're just being an ass," Jade accused. "So?"
"So?"
"Laura?"
Kevin reared back and banged his head against the back of the booth. It really didn't serve any purpose other than rattling the booth, stinging his head, and stopping him from screaming at Jade about yet another one of her unwanted and failed attempts at matchmaking. He was perfectly capable of finding and getting a date, if he wanted one, which currently he did not.
Of course both Jade and her currently absent fiancée had difficulty buying that.
"You didn't like her," Jade made it sound like a personal affront.
Sighing, Kevin lowered his head and met her petulant gaze. It was both childish and comical, but it was also charming and sweet and a very good explanation of how she finally managed to wrap Megabyte Damon around her little finger and also how she always managed to rope Kevin into a blind date that he didn't want to go on in the first place. "I liked her. She was," he waved his hand, searching for a word that wouldn't induce more petulance in Jade and failing miserably settled for, "nice."
"Nice." Jade repeated the word as though she had never heard it before. "She was nice. Kev, it's no wonder you don't have a girlfriend; there's nothing a woman likes to hear more than the fact that she's 'nice.' "
"I didn't want to go out with her in the first place, Jade, it was all your idea."
"What didn't you like about her?"
He felt the beginnings of a headache. This conversation was so familiar that it was almost comical. Time and time again, 'round and 'round the same circles they went all because Jade felt that Kevin would feel horribly alone if he was the sole groomsman at her wedding without a date. That in and of itself wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't somehow convinced Megabyte of the soundness of her reason and that Kevin going alone was an all around bad idea.
Because weddings were an absolutely terrible place to meet single women.
"She just - she wasn't my type, Jade." Neither was Camille, or Mary or Heather, but Kevin sorely hoped that he and Jade weren't going to rehash that conversation again. All right, so he had survived a brief engagement that ended rather explosively and fantastically, but everyone seemed to be of the assumption that because he wasn't dating that he wasn't over Anna.
That simply wasn't the case, but no one was listening to him.
"And what is your type?"
"I don't know," Kevin shook his head, "But when I'll know when I find her."
"Did you even try with Laura? She really liked you, Kevin."
"And she was really ... nice." There was that word again and he hurried on as Jade's eyes narrowed at him, "It wasn't that I had a horrible time with her, I didn't. But, if I'm going to have spend four hours with a woman dangling off my arm, I'd like to really, really be enjoying her company. And, Jade, I know that we've been over this a hundred times already, but I'm going to say it again: I'm not looking for a girlfriend. I'm not even looking for a date to your wedding.
"I really am happy just being single."
"Happy?"
Touché, points to the Weston woman. Sometimes Kevin slipped and forgot that for all her dramatics and what she seemed to present to the world at large, Jade was not for one minute the pretty, shallow type who didn't notice what was right in front of her. She was observant and aware and noticed things that she often didn't comment on, but rather stored those observations away to be called upon later. It was a talent that was going to turn her into a masterful lawyer when she finished up her law degree.
Kevin would not allow himself to be backed into a corner. "Satisfied, then."
"Mmm-huh." The lift of one perfectly arched eyebrow told him that she didn't believe him for one moment, luckily he was temporarily spared any further chastisement by the arrival of their server who politely inquired after Jade's order. The reprieve, however, only lasted long enough for Jade to order a cup of tea and a bowl of soup and when the server swept away, she turned her all too thoughtful gaze back on Kevin. "So, then, what have you been up to lately? How are classes going?"
He hesitated. He knew Jade well enough to know when there was a fishing expedition going on. "Considering that the semester only just started, it's a little hard to tell. I'm pretty certain that half of the first years think my courses are going to be a breeze; the other half are wisely still sizing me up."
"They don't know how lucky they are to have you as history instructor. No one knows western civilization inside and out like Kevin Wilson." Jade spoke from personal experience, having audited his class last semester on a whim. She proclaimed afterwards that she thought some of her professors could learn a thing or two from Kevin's teaching methods. Part of that had been a true compliment; the other part had been an attempt to butter him up for his first blind date After Anna.
He was over Anna; at least in the sense that he was no longer moping and pining after her, but she had been such a significant part of his life for a full year before, as Megabyte so eloquently put it, "The shit hit the fan." That year of his life made everything since then fall into one of two areas: Before Anna and After Anna. Neither one was any better than the other, he didn't long to be back in the days Before Anna and he certainly didn't regret After Anna, that just happened to be the way he thought about things.
Giving himself a mental shake, Kevin pushed those thoughts aside and focused on Jade. He didn't know what exactly she was fishing for, but he didn't intend to be caught unawares. Caught unawares, like that proverbial deer in the proverbial headlights was what got him roped into the date with Laura. "Well, the photographic memory helps."
"You do know how much I hate you for that, don't you?" Jade asked as her tea and soup arrived. She smiled politely at the woman serving, assured her that this would do, and immediately swung her attention back to Kevin. "I mean, I really hate you."
"So much better to rub your nose in it then," Kevin smirked.
"What are you doing for dinner tonight?" The question came innocuously enough, teacup lifted to her lips, bright blue eyes shining out with naïve schoolgirl innocence. "I'm having this impromptu dinner thing, as in several of us decided to have dinner after meeting with Professor De Sade today and I decided to offer to cook. So, if you're not too busy, why don't you stop by? I'm sure Megabyte would love a reprieve from the 'estrogen brigade.' "
"Jade, that was nowhere near subtle," Kevin remarked.
"What? It's not like I'm trying to fix you up this time. It would just be an opportunity to talk to Laura again and you could meet Beth and Diana. They'll be at the wedding –"
"No, Jade. No."
Jade frowned and set down the teacup, innocence fading to studiousness in the blinking of an eye. She studied Kevin as though he were on the witness stand and she was about to ask the pinnacle question that would turn the tables of the entire trial in favor of her client. Although in this particular instance, he had to wonder whom exactly her client was. "All right, Kev, I'm going to be completely honest with you. We're worried about you."
"Because I'm not dating?"
"Because you don't get out enough. And no, going to the pub occasionally, by yourself, and drinking a pint or playing darts with some old guy does not count as getting out. You're turning into a hermit."
"I like being a hermit."
"Kevin."
"Even if I didn't enjoy my cave-hermit-like-existence, I'd still say no to your dinner invitation," Kevin continued as though she hadn't attempted to interrupt him. "I have plans tonight."
"You have a date?"
Kevin cocked his head, "Did I say I had a date? I said I have plans. I'm having dinner with a friend."
"Really?"
"Really." Kevin laughed and shook his head, "Blimey, Jade, I would do many things to avoid being fixed up by you, but I have yet to resort to lying about my plans, all right?"
"Female friend?"
"Yes, but it's not like that, so don't go getting all sorts of ideas in your head. She's just a friend." A quick glance at his watch and he began gathering his notes and folders. "And as much as I'm enjoying this, I have a class that I have to go teach."
Jade said nothing, just watched him speculatively and sipped her tea while he closed up his laptop and stashed it in the carrying case. She ate a spoonful of soup, still watching as he slipped his folders into his bag, and her forehead began to furrow a bit.
"What?" Kevin demanded.
"What?"
"Don't. You've got that look on your face that says you're about to ask me something that I'm not going to want you to ask me."
A beat. A sip of tea, but no denial. The cup clanked loudly against the saucer, or maybe it only seemed very loud in the dead silence that seemed to follow her question, "How is she?"
Jade was the only one who asked; then again, Jade was the only one who knew that she kept in touch with Kevin when she let all the other ties fall away. Or maybe she had wanted all the other ties to fall away; Kevin was never one hundred percent certain what Ami thought about the rest of the Tomorrow People anymore.
"Typical," Kevin shrugged, because really, it was the only answer he could actually give that didn't go into a psychological overview.
"We haven't had tea together in a long time," Jade continued. "We used to, and then she just stopped ringing by anymore. And I read in the tabloids about Robin getting remarried . . . we miss her, you'll tell her that?" There was a lilting sadness to her voice, the sound of someone whom had lost her best friend, which about described the situation pretty accurately.
"I think she misses you too, Jade. But, it's not easy to come back after cutting ties."
"You did it."
Leaning forward, he gave Jade a quick hug of reassurance. He wondered for not the first time, if this was the sort of sadness and loneliness that his abrupt departure all those years ago instilled in his closest friends. [And I know exactly how hard it is.]
Then he left her with her tea and her soup and headed out into the strangely appropriate downpour.
"Do you have stealth mode or something? You have to be the hardest person to track down, and I used to think that sort of stealth was reserved for Adam and Adam alone." Jade didn't even start the conversation with a polite hello. Instead, where there once was half of an empty table across from him in the quiet of the bistro, there was now a purse and a slightly damp overcoat. And he couldn't of course ignore the slightly damp blonde that glared at him as she claimed the other side of his booth as though it were his fault that it was raining and she got caught without an umbrella.
"Hello, Jade, I'm fine, thank you." He inched his notebook closer to him and out of reach of the overcoat that was now dripping onto the table. As a belated thought, he grabbed a handful of napkins and plopped them on the table in front of his fellow Tomorrow Person.
Jade rolled her eyes at his response, but took the not so subtle hint with the napkins and after tugging her coat off the table and onto the seat beside her, began to wipe up the errant water. "You've been avoiding me."
"No, I've been busy."
"Yes. Busy avoiding me."
"Jade, why would I avoid - "
"Laura wants to know why you haven't called her back."
Kevin sighed and shook his head. "Never mind, I just remembered why I would avoid you." Realizing that with Jade present he would get no further work done, he closed his notebook. "And for future reference, there are easier ways to contact me that don't involve stalking me across the uni."
"I was not stalking you, and besides," Jade stopped her clearing of the rain water and instead began to blot at her hair, switching from aural communication to telepathic, [You have this annoying habit of just ignoring people if they say something you don't want to hear when they 'path you.]
Kevin couldn't resist a blank gaze in her direction. [What was that?]
"Now you're just being an ass," Jade accused. "So?"
"So?"
"Laura?"
Kevin reared back and banged his head against the back of the booth. It really didn't serve any purpose other than rattling the booth, stinging his head, and stopping him from screaming at Jade about yet another one of her unwanted and failed attempts at matchmaking. He was perfectly capable of finding and getting a date, if he wanted one, which currently he did not.
Of course both Jade and her currently absent fiancée had difficulty buying that.
"You didn't like her," Jade made it sound like a personal affront.
Sighing, Kevin lowered his head and met her petulant gaze. It was both childish and comical, but it was also charming and sweet and a very good explanation of how she finally managed to wrap Megabyte Damon around her little finger and also how she always managed to rope Kevin into a blind date that he didn't want to go on in the first place. "I liked her. She was," he waved his hand, searching for a word that wouldn't induce more petulance in Jade and failing miserably settled for, "nice."
"Nice." Jade repeated the word as though she had never heard it before. "She was nice. Kev, it's no wonder you don't have a girlfriend; there's nothing a woman likes to hear more than the fact that she's 'nice.' "
"I didn't want to go out with her in the first place, Jade, it was all your idea."
"What didn't you like about her?"
He felt the beginnings of a headache. This conversation was so familiar that it was almost comical. Time and time again, 'round and 'round the same circles they went all because Jade felt that Kevin would feel horribly alone if he was the sole groomsman at her wedding without a date. That in and of itself wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't somehow convinced Megabyte of the soundness of her reason and that Kevin going alone was an all around bad idea.
Because weddings were an absolutely terrible place to meet single women.
"She just - she wasn't my type, Jade." Neither was Camille, or Mary or Heather, but Kevin sorely hoped that he and Jade weren't going to rehash that conversation again. All right, so he had survived a brief engagement that ended rather explosively and fantastically, but everyone seemed to be of the assumption that because he wasn't dating that he wasn't over Anna.
That simply wasn't the case, but no one was listening to him.
"And what is your type?"
"I don't know," Kevin shook his head, "But when I'll know when I find her."
"Did you even try with Laura? She really liked you, Kevin."
"And she was really ... nice." There was that word again and he hurried on as Jade's eyes narrowed at him, "It wasn't that I had a horrible time with her, I didn't. But, if I'm going to have spend four hours with a woman dangling off my arm, I'd like to really, really be enjoying her company. And, Jade, I know that we've been over this a hundred times already, but I'm going to say it again: I'm not looking for a girlfriend. I'm not even looking for a date to your wedding.
"I really am happy just being single."
"Happy?"
Touché, points to the Weston woman. Sometimes Kevin slipped and forgot that for all her dramatics and what she seemed to present to the world at large, Jade was not for one minute the pretty, shallow type who didn't notice what was right in front of her. She was observant and aware and noticed things that she often didn't comment on, but rather stored those observations away to be called upon later. It was a talent that was going to turn her into a masterful lawyer when she finished up her law degree.
Kevin would not allow himself to be backed into a corner. "Satisfied, then."
"Mmm-huh." The lift of one perfectly arched eyebrow told him that she didn't believe him for one moment, luckily he was temporarily spared any further chastisement by the arrival of their server who politely inquired after Jade's order. The reprieve, however, only lasted long enough for Jade to order a cup of tea and a bowl of soup and when the server swept away, she turned her all too thoughtful gaze back on Kevin. "So, then, what have you been up to lately? How are classes going?"
He hesitated. He knew Jade well enough to know when there was a fishing expedition going on. "Considering that the semester only just started, it's a little hard to tell. I'm pretty certain that half of the first years think my courses are going to be a breeze; the other half are wisely still sizing me up."
"They don't know how lucky they are to have you as history instructor. No one knows western civilization inside and out like Kevin Wilson." Jade spoke from personal experience, having audited his class last semester on a whim. She proclaimed afterwards that she thought some of her professors could learn a thing or two from Kevin's teaching methods. Part of that had been a true compliment; the other part had been an attempt to butter him up for his first blind date After Anna.
He was over Anna; at least in the sense that he was no longer moping and pining after her, but she had been such a significant part of his life for a full year before, as Megabyte so eloquently put it, "The shit hit the fan." That year of his life made everything since then fall into one of two areas: Before Anna and After Anna. Neither one was any better than the other, he didn't long to be back in the days Before Anna and he certainly didn't regret After Anna, that just happened to be the way he thought about things.
Giving himself a mental shake, Kevin pushed those thoughts aside and focused on Jade. He didn't know what exactly she was fishing for, but he didn't intend to be caught unawares. Caught unawares, like that proverbial deer in the proverbial headlights was what got him roped into the date with Laura. "Well, the photographic memory helps."
"You do know how much I hate you for that, don't you?" Jade asked as her tea and soup arrived. She smiled politely at the woman serving, assured her that this would do, and immediately swung her attention back to Kevin. "I mean, I really hate you."
"So much better to rub your nose in it then," Kevin smirked.
"What are you doing for dinner tonight?" The question came innocuously enough, teacup lifted to her lips, bright blue eyes shining out with naïve schoolgirl innocence. "I'm having this impromptu dinner thing, as in several of us decided to have dinner after meeting with Professor De Sade today and I decided to offer to cook. So, if you're not too busy, why don't you stop by? I'm sure Megabyte would love a reprieve from the 'estrogen brigade.' "
"Jade, that was nowhere near subtle," Kevin remarked.
"What? It's not like I'm trying to fix you up this time. It would just be an opportunity to talk to Laura again and you could meet Beth and Diana. They'll be at the wedding –"
"No, Jade. No."
Jade frowned and set down the teacup, innocence fading to studiousness in the blinking of an eye. She studied Kevin as though he were on the witness stand and she was about to ask the pinnacle question that would turn the tables of the entire trial in favor of her client. Although in this particular instance, he had to wonder whom exactly her client was. "All right, Kev, I'm going to be completely honest with you. We're worried about you."
"Because I'm not dating?"
"Because you don't get out enough. And no, going to the pub occasionally, by yourself, and drinking a pint or playing darts with some old guy does not count as getting out. You're turning into a hermit."
"I like being a hermit."
"Kevin."
"Even if I didn't enjoy my cave-hermit-like-existence, I'd still say no to your dinner invitation," Kevin continued as though she hadn't attempted to interrupt him. "I have plans tonight."
"You have a date?"
Kevin cocked his head, "Did I say I had a date? I said I have plans. I'm having dinner with a friend."
"Really?"
"Really." Kevin laughed and shook his head, "Blimey, Jade, I would do many things to avoid being fixed up by you, but I have yet to resort to lying about my plans, all right?"
"Female friend?"
"Yes, but it's not like that, so don't go getting all sorts of ideas in your head. She's just a friend." A quick glance at his watch and he began gathering his notes and folders. "And as much as I'm enjoying this, I have a class that I have to go teach."
Jade said nothing, just watched him speculatively and sipped her tea while he closed up his laptop and stashed it in the carrying case. She ate a spoonful of soup, still watching as he slipped his folders into his bag, and her forehead began to furrow a bit.
"What?" Kevin demanded.
"What?"
"Don't. You've got that look on your face that says you're about to ask me something that I'm not going to want you to ask me."
A beat. A sip of tea, but no denial. The cup clanked loudly against the saucer, or maybe it only seemed very loud in the dead silence that seemed to follow her question, "How is she?"
Jade was the only one who asked; then again, Jade was the only one who knew that she kept in touch with Kevin when she let all the other ties fall away. Or maybe she had wanted all the other ties to fall away; Kevin was never one hundred percent certain what Ami thought about the rest of the Tomorrow People anymore.
"Typical," Kevin shrugged, because really, it was the only answer he could actually give that didn't go into a psychological overview.
"We haven't had tea together in a long time," Jade continued. "We used to, and then she just stopped ringing by anymore. And I read in the tabloids about Robin getting remarried . . . we miss her, you'll tell her that?" There was a lilting sadness to her voice, the sound of someone whom had lost her best friend, which about described the situation pretty accurately.
"I think she misses you too, Jade. But, it's not easy to come back after cutting ties."
"You did it."
Leaning forward, he gave Jade a quick hug of reassurance. He wondered for not the first time, if this was the sort of sadness and loneliness that his abrupt departure all those years ago instilled in his closest friends. [And I know exactly how hard it is.]
Then he left her with her tea and her soup and headed out into the strangely appropriate downpour.