Chapter 6

"Oh my god!" She opened her eyes and got up.

He got up too and started putting on his clothes.

"Calm down"

"Calm down? I just slept with you!"

"Yeah and you might wanna shout it a little louder, I don't think all of Audrey's neighbours heard you properly…"

Joey shot him an angry look.

"This is not a good time to be a smart-ass"

"Look, it happened. It was bound to happen and you know it. Now we both got it out of our system and it's not gonna happen again. It's pretty simple."

He seemed so calm about it. Too calm. As if she was just another woman in his bed. Joey almost felt hurt.

"Maybe it's simple to you, but to me it isn't. I am a married woman. It's not like I go around sleeping with the first good looking guy that comes my way."

"Ah, so you admit I'm good looking…"

"That is not the point!" Joey shot him a dirty look.

"That may not be but it's good to know since you let me know of your anti-feelings for me pretty much as soon as we met. Or was that just a cover up?"

"Why are we even talking about this? I am a married woman. I am not allowed to have feelings for someone besides my husband!"

"Will you cut the nineteenth century lines? You're married. So? Everybody makes mistakes. A marriage is a normal relationship, the only difference is that there's actually a piece of paper to state it."

"Are you saying my marriage is a mistake?!"

"Your marriage is none of my business but my own personal opinion is that you guys shouldn't be anywhere near each other."

"Your own personal opinion is of no interest to me" Joey finally decided it's time to get dressed. She started putting on her clothes.

"I don't think I'm alone in this opinion. You're so beautiful and smart and he's such a… nulity!"

"Says mr. 'inbetween jobs' himself"

"First of all, the job does not make the man. Second of all I never claimed to be anything better. I'm just a one night stand and I don't have any claims on you. But the guy is holding you back. You take so much time taking care of him that you forget about what you want."

"You've barely seen us together once and you've reached this marvellous conclusion… how?"

"It takes one to know one, I guess."

"One what?"

"Nevermind. It's none of my business"

"You're right, it's not. So why don't you get out of my room. We're supposed to leave in an hour anyway."

-------------------------------------------

"Jo!" Dawson hugged her happilly. "I missed you"

"I missed you too…" she kissed him.

"You look… tanned…"

"Yeah, well, I spent most of my time on the beach, I suppose it's pretty normal."

"So what else did you do?" He said while she took her coat off and headed towards their room to unpack.

"Uh, not much… We basically just spent time together, didn't do anything fancy… Oh and Jack proposed to Jen."

"Already?"

"What do you mean already? They do have a child together you know."

"Yeah but they've been together for, what? Two months?"

"They were together a long time before that, they just took a break and everything."

"What about Pacey?"

Her heart stopped. Did she really have it written all over her face? In the morning she had felt like everyone was looking at her, like everyone knew. OK, so maybe not everyone but Jack knew. She didn't know him very well, but the way he looked at her… He had that almost sympathetic look on her face. She wasn't sure whether he felt sorry that she slept with Pacey or that she slept with Pacey while being a married woman.

"What about Pacey?" she tried to answer naturally but her voice did tremble a little.

"How does he feel about Jack proposing? I take it Jen said yes…"

"Of course she said yes and Pacey is very happy for them" She suddenly realized what he was talking about. "You gotta be kidding me. You're not still stuck on that theory about him and Jen…"

"Well, ok, so I only saw them once, but I didn't think it was as unbelievable as you make it sound"

"Trust me, I've seen them both all day long while I was in Florida. They are nothing more than friends. Very good friends, true, but nothing more. Jen is so wrapped up around Jack that I don't think she knows there are any other male specimens out there."

"That's very hard to believe. I mean, she meets two best friends. One of them is Pacey and one of them is Jack. Why would she go out with Jack? I mean, for god's sake, I'm a guy and even I am aware that Pacey's the good looking one in the combination."

"Love is not about good looks. Attraction is about good looks, love is so much more than that" Joey stopped in her tracks remembering her conversation with Jen. Attraction was important for Jen.

"Come on, this is Jen we're talking about. I may not know her as well as you do but I've seen enough to know that for her there is no love without attraction. And when you've got two guys, one more good looking than the other, you're attracted to the good looking guy. And when the two friends are attached at the hip like they said they were you can't have one without the other… it's not like there's time to realize whatever great personality Jack's got when you've got Pacey's good looks rubbed in your face"

"OK so that makes a bit of sense"

"That makes perfect sense and you know it"

"But love is not about sense. Maybe she met Jack first. Maybe she really didn't like Pacey's personality…"

"It's pretty obvious that she likes it…"

"Maybe she just likes Jack's better! Because after all it's not like Pacey's good looking and Jack's not. Jack's good looking too. Actually Jen talks for hours of how much of a sex god he is. Maybe Pacey's good looks are not exactly her style… God, I can't believe we're even discussing this. You watch too many movies, I tell you…"

Dawson smiled.

"Whatever. I don't care about Jen's sex life anyway… Her best friend's sex life, though, might be something I care about though…"

Something about the way he said it made Joey think about Pacey. Again. Oh God. Wasn't he supposed to be out of her system by now?

"I'm tired, Dawson… why don't we just go to sleep?"

----------------------------------

"How's adjusting to real life?" Jen called her at work the next day.

"It's working… sort of" Joey mumbled. "I've turned the heater up to the maximum but other than that I'm doing pretty good."

"Aha, side effects… gotta love those…"

"How's you?"

"Me's great. Just thinking I got a wedding to plan and everything" Joey could almost feel her grin through the phone.

"Aha so I take it Jack didn't change his mind once he got back to the cold streets of Boston"

"Byte your tongue girl, cause if he changes his mind I'm gonna have to stalk him to the ends of the earth! I got him and I ain't giving up!"

Joey laughed and then remembered her conversation with Dawson from the previous night. That was so silly, if he had heard the way Jen talked about Jack he wouldn't even consider such a thing.

"Good. So I take it you need help or something?"

"Help? From you? At my wedding? I don't know, Jo, do you have any experience…?"

"Well it might not matter much but I did go to a wedding myself…"

"Really? That's interesting… did you just go to it or did you actually plan it and everything?"

"Uhm… I might have decided the colour of the dresses for the bride's maids…"

"Oh, big decision. You do have experience."

"Yeah I do. So you want me to come over or something?"

"Today? Wouldn't that be a little, desperate? You know, planning the wedding a week after being proposed and while having no date set yet…?"

"You planning on waiting long?"

"Hell no! The sooner he promisses to worship me for the rest of my life the better. With guys you never know… I wouldn't want some sexy blonde to steal him from right under my nose…"

"Jen, you ARE a sexy blonde…"

Jen giggled:

"That I am. Still I can't take any chances… so, meet me for dinner at 'George's'?"

"What's wrong with your place?"

"Pacey and Jack are watching a football match"

"Pacey? That guy's still there? You guys adopted him or something?"

"Well, uh, he didn't have any definite plans, you know, he's just hanging around and stuff… Jack loves to have him near and so do I"

"You three are weird… I mean why would you want someone else around when you got Jack? Wouldn't you like a bit of privacy?"

"Oh trust me I have that too. Pacey's not an intruding type of person… anyway, my boss is throwing evil glances my way, I think impure thoughts have crossed her mind by now so how about I hang up and meet you at seven?"

"Sounds good to me. See you there"