Val walked into the common room of the EMT station to find Jamie sprawled across the couch. His eyes were closed, and he had his leg hanging over the side of the couch. His hair was tousled; a considerable change since he normally took extreme care with his hair, and his shirt was unbuttoned revealing a simple white undershirt. Val had never thought of Jamie as the "undershirt" type. He still hadn't noticed she was there, and she took the moment to study him. She'd had a "thing" for Jamie for a couple months but had, thankfully, kept anyone from finding out, including her best friend, Caitie. His dark hair, dark eyes, mischievous grin, not to mention his sense of humour, were all attractive in Val's opinion. Val smiled to herself as she allowed herself to remember exactly when she started having feelings for Jamie.
It was pouring. Val, Jamie, Tyler and Hank were all at the station, each focused on a different task. Tyler was taking inventory, Hank was muttering to himself over his French book, Jamie was staring at his History textbook – periodically throwing things at it, and Val was attempting to do math. Math was her worst subject, she was oddly jealous of Jamie simply because she would rather write a history test then a math test. After trying to solve a particularly difficult problem Val had thrown her calculator down on the table and muttered,
"Do I really need to pass math? If I failed would it really matter that much?" She'd forgotten that Jamie was sitting across from her until he said,
"Well, you would never forgive yourself." His eyes were sparkling, he was laughing at her.
"I don't have to be perfect at everything you know."
"Do you want help?"
"You understand this?" He shrugged.
"Sure it's easy." Val rolled her eyes,
"You don't mind?"
"It'll give me a break." He stood up and moved into the seat next to her. As she listened to him speak, she realized that she'd never been this close to him before unless they were on a call. He'd smelt good, some faint wisp of cologne, and that had distracted her. She watched him as he spoke and realized with a shock that Jamie was very good looking, and smart, and funny and… well maybe some of that had come later.
"Val?" She didn't even realize she had been staring at him, and was trying desperately to think of an excuse when the alarm went off.
Jamie lifted his arm and passed it over his eyes, Val realized she was staring, and quickly crossed the room to the fridge. Jamie opened his eyes and muttered,
"It's so damn hot in here."
"That's because the air conditioning's broken."
"Val! When did you get here?" She ignored his question and opened the fridge.
"Why is this thing always empty? All I want is some water." She said, more to herself then anything.
"Uh…I kind
of had the last bottle already, sorry."
He grinned sheepishly at her.
She glared at him,
"Jamie! It's 100 degrees outside, and
at least 110 in here!"
"Sorry Val, I've been here for half an hour already, and it's hot!"
"Fine, whatever. I just hope we don't get any calls, since Tyler and Hank aren't here and we're really understaffed." Val threw herself into a chair and started flipping through a magazine, wiping a thin layer of sweat off her forehead.
Jamie watched her for a minute unnoticed, thinking, 'why does she have to be so beautiful?' His crush on Val had surfaced a few months ago, and ever since Caitie had told him she didn't like Tyler anymore it had become harder to suppress. He knew she wasn't really angry with him, because he knew Val and she didn't get angry that easily. He loved watching her, not just because she was beautiful but because everything she did was so distinctly Val. He let his mind wander as he watched her, back to when his crush had started.
He'd given her a ride home from work one night. She had insisted she could walk but it was after midnight and there was no way anyone was letting her walk by herself. Tyler had offered, and so had Hank, but she'd refused them both because it was completely out of their way, and she didn't want to bother anyone (so like Val, putting everyone else before herself.) He had spoken up, mainly because Tyler was glaring at him (after being refused five times), but also because he didn't want her to walk home by herself.
"I can give you a ride, you don't live that far away from my house actually, it's on the way." The way she'd looked at him had made his stomach flip over.
"Are you sure?" When he nodded she continued, " I can give you gas money."
"Val
it's ok, dropping you off is literally on the way to my house."
"Alright, thanks Jamie." The drive was
fairly uneventful, except Jamie had noticed for the first time how beautiful
Val Lanier was. And how funny and sweet
and easy to talk to. That was the night
Val had unknowingly stolen his heart.
She looked up at him and caught him staring at her.
"Are you ok?" He panicked momentarily, hoping she hadn't noticed how he had been looking at her, how he felt about her. "Jamie?" Her voice broke thought his thoughts again and he grinned at her.
"I'll be right back."
Val watched him leave, and wondered vaguely where he was going. She wished that when he smiled at her, her stomach hadn't flipped over. She hated that she liked him so much, that she thought about him all the time. She wasn't supposed to like Jamie; she was supposed to like Tyler, they were supposed to be the perfect couple. But Tyler was boring. Jamie was fun and intriguing, she loved that he didn't care what people thought of him, and he looked great in that leather jacket.
When Jamie walked back into the station he saw that Val had taken his spot on the couch. She had taken off her uniform shirt and was wearing a black tank top that was riding up slightly exposing her stomach. Jamie gulped and looked down at the two ice-cold slurpee's he was holding, then back at Val. Smirking, he held on of the cups on her bare stomach. She screamed and sat up.
"Jamie!" When she noticed the drinks she gasped loudly. "You're amazing!"
"I know, you can thank me later." He handed her a slurpee, which she immediately started drinking.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." Jamie looked at Val, with her hair falling out of its ponytail, shirt turned slightly sideways, eyes closed and drinking a slurpee. He thought she'd never looked more beautiful, and he'd never wanted to kiss her more. She looked up at him and smiled, which he returned. He spontaneously reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Which brought them much closer together.
Val's heart fluttered and she thought quickly 'is he going to kiss me? I really want him to kiss me." He leaned closer, and she met him halfway.
Jamie noticed that Val tasted like chocolate, and her mouth was cold from the slurpee. The kiss was impulsive, and was over far too quickly in Jamie's opinion, but kissing Val gave him butterflies, and all he wanted to do was kiss her again.
The first think Val noticed was that Jamie tasted like snowflakes, when she used to catch them on her tongue as a kid. The second thing she noticed was that he was doing something amazing with his lips. When he pulled away it left her wanting more. Jamie broke the silence,
"I've been wanting to do that for months." Val grinned,
"I've been waiting for you to do that months."
"Guess you won't mind if I do it again?"
"Shut up and kiss me." He grinned and started singing softly,
"You think I'm sexy. You want to hug me, kiss me and – " Val cut him off by kissing him soundly on the lips and pushing him back onto the couch.
