Summary: If sitcom characters had ever learned to lock their doors, half of the dramatic plot twists wouldn't have worked. But since they're all idiots… E/J slash
Sequel/Series: 2/4
Chapter 2: Inside
Jack:
"Oh my God…"
Eric and I jumped apart like we'd been electrocuted. Rachel was standing in the doorway of the apartment, keys in one hand, a bag of Chinese food in the other. She looked like someone had just punched her in the gut – her mouth was hanging open, and her eyes were already starting to fill with tears. I tried to speak, to tell her…I don't know. It wasn't what it looked like? We were rehearsing for a play? In the end, it didn't really matter what crappy line I was going to use – I opened my mouth and nothing came out of it. I guess I was still reeling from the kiss, and the part of my brain that handles the talking hadn't quite engaged yet.
"Oh God," she whispered again, before turning and running out of the apartment.
My first instinct was to follow her. I was already up off the couch and starting towards the door when it hit me – I couldn't run out on Eric like this. I didn't know exactly what had just happened between us, but I knew that when you've just been making out with someone, fleeing the room at the first opportunity is a little bit of a social faux pas. I turned to look at him, trying to work out what to do next. Luckily, Eric took the decision out of my hands.
"It's OK," he said. "Go, talk to her. You owe her that."
That's one of the things I really like about Eric. He can be stupid, shallow and monumentally self-absorbed when the mood takes him, but the rest of the time, he's one of the sweetest, most thoughtful people I know. The first thing to go through his head wasn't about either of us, or about what had just happened, but about Rachel, and how she must be taking this. I had the same overpowering urge to kiss him that I had felt just a minute or two before, but this time I settled for taking his hand in mine and holding it for a few seconds. Our eyes met, and I felt like my insides were melting. Where was all of this coming from? "I won't be long," I managed to say, then I sprinted into the corridor after Rachel.
The elevator had already started moving back down again, so I ran for the stairs instead. In a well-maintained building with modern machinery, I'd never have caught it, but since our super doesn't seem to have done any real work since sometime around 1972, and the elevator can't have been installed too long after then, I was able to make it down to the ground floor just as the doors were opening. Rachel stood inside, her arms crossed, still fighting off the tears. She raised her eyebrows, but didn't say anything as I stepped in with her, still trying to get my breath back. The doors closed behind me with a ping. Between wheezes, I began to choke out an apology.
"Look, Rachel, I want you to know that I'm sorry, and that –"
She sighed heavily, cutting me off mid-flow. "I'm not mad at you, Jack."
"You're…you're not mad?" This was the opposite of what I'd been expecting. Rachel and I had been doing the sorta-maybe-kinda-interested dance for weeks now, and even though there was nothing definite between us yet, it still felt like what happened with Eric was somehow cheating on her.
"No, I'm not. Well, OK, maybe a little, but mostly I'm just upset. What I saw back there…it caught me a little off-guard. But it wasn't totally out of the blue."
"It wasn't?" Now she had lost me.
"Jack, Eric likes you. As in, likes you likes you. And as far as I can tell, it's been going on since long before I moved in."
"Guh?" was my only response. Eloquent as usual.
Rachel sighed again. "Boys are stupid," she muttered to herself, and I couldn't really fault her. "What exactly did you think was going on when he kissed you?"
I was stumped. Less than five minutes had passed since it had happened, and I hadn't even begun to deal with it yet, let alone had enough time to sit back, analyse it and figure out who was thinking what.
"I…I don't know."
"This is going to take longer than I thought," she said, sitting down with her back against the door of the elevator. "Take a seat," she added, patting the floor next to her. I sat down, still trying to process what she had just told me.
"Look, before we do this, I have to know one thing. What I saw just now – how long has it been going on?"
"No time at all! Tonight was the first…" I trailed off, but Rachel had heard what she needed to.
"That's all I wanted to know. If the two of you had been lying to me and keeping things from me, then I'd be pissed; we're friends, and I'd rather you break my heart than lie to my face. But aside from that, you don't have any obligations to me – if you want to kiss someone, then I have no right to stop you."
I said nothing for a moment as I let Rachel's words sink in. Even though what she said made perfect sense, we both knew it wasn't that simple. But it seemed like she was trying to avoid making a Big Deal out of this, and I wasn't exactly complaining. Then something else hit me.
"You seem to be taking the fact that I was making out with another guy pretty well."
For the first time, Rachel's mouth twitched in what almost counted as a grin. "Well, yeah. I figured out a long time ago that Eric had feelings for you, and for a while I thought you might like him too. I mean, you're both so close, and there's just something between you that I can't quite put my finger on. But then when you seemed as if you liked me, I thought I was wrong. I thought we might be the two who ended up together." Her voice began to crack, but she quickly composed herself. "I guess not. But that doesn't really matter any more. What's important now is that you figure out what you're going to do next."
"I guess…I should talk to him?"
"That's a start. And tell him what, exactly?"
"I don't know." And that was the truth – this had been the weirdest night of my life, and I could barely think straight any more. "I don't know how I feel about him, or how I want to go on from here. I thought we were just friends, but now…I really don't know what to think."
"Look at it this way. You've got me sitting here and Eric waiting upstairs. Given the choice, which of us would you rather be kissing right now?"
I didn't reply, but the look in my eyes must have told her the answer.
"Then whatever this is, you should go with it." I knew she was right. Maybe I had already known deep down, but having someone lay it out for me made things a lot clearer. I had to see this thing with Eric through, find out where it was all headed.
"Rachel…thank you. I was supposed to be apologising to you right about now, and instead you're helping me out with my stuff. You're a good friend."
"Yeah, well, you can pay me back in chocolate at a later date. And besides, yours and Eric's friendship means a lot to me, too much to just throw it away over this. Right now, though, I think I'm gonna leave. I need a bit more time to adjust to this, and besides, I've kept you two apart for long enough."
"You're sure you're OK with this?"
She hesitated for a second, then smiled. "Yeah. I'm sure. If I'm going to lose you to anyone, I'm glad it's Eric." She reached over and hugged me, then stood back up.
"Will you be OK for a place to sleep tonight?"
"I'll go to Angela's – she'll let me crash on her floor. Don't worry, I won't tell her why – I'll just say it's roommate issues." She hit the door release button and started to walk out.
"Hey, Rachel?" She stopped and turned. "How did you know? I mean, about how Eric felt?"
She smiled. "Little things here and there. I'd see him looking at you a certain way, or laughing just a little too loud at a bad joke you made, stuff like that. And also the pie."
"Pie?"
"After I moved in, remember that big food fight we had? And how I made the mistake of taunting Eric, so he went and got that cream pie thing from the fridge?"
"Right," I said, flashbacks of the god-awful clean-up the next morning hitting me. "Except he smooshed it all over my face instead."
She smirked at the memory. "I knew right then. Don't you remember being in 4th grade, and how you could never tell a girl you liked her, so you'd do other stuff to try and get her attention. Trip her up in the playground, put worms in her hair, tell her she had cooties? Eric was doing the same thing."
I couldn't help but laugh. "You always pie the one you love"
Rachel laughed too, then walked back into the elevator to hug me again.
"Go talk to him. Tell him how you feel. And don't screw it up!" And then she was gone.
I headed back up to the apartment, all the way trying to straighten out in my head what I was going to say. I knew it would all fly out of my mind the second I saw Eric, but I wanted to be prepared anyway. I reached the apartment door and stopped. This was it. Probably the biggest step I'd ever have to take in my life. I steeled myself, opened the door and walked inside.