Jesse woke up to the sound of his cell phone ringing. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he reached for the phone and grabbed it from the nightstand.
"Yeah?" he spoke in a low voice to avoid disturbing Beca's sleep.
"He's not dead," the other person said, their voice sounding a little far.
"What do you want, Adam?" Jesse questioned and glanced at the time. "It's Saturday and it's barely eight, go back to bed."
"I've been trying to reach you since yesterday and you wouldn't pick up the phone. Chloe thought you're dead. I told her I would have sensed a disturbance in the force if you were, in fact, dead: she didn't believe me."
"I've been busy," Jesse told him as he scratched his stubble. He had quite the day. Beca had told him she wanted to know her limits i.e. how long she could go before exhaustion kicked in and so they arranged a sex marathon … she was far more energetic than him but he managed to keep up with her until she fell asleep.
Her enthusiasm was infectious and kept him going—that and hydrating, having good stamina, and eating food high in zinc.
Falling asleep first determined who lost and who won: he couldn't wait for her to wake up so he could rub it in her face that he won the marathon that they both assumed she'd win.
"Here's Chloe, she wants to talk to you," Adam told him.
"Hey, Jesse," Chloe greeted.
"Morning, Chlo," he smiled at the sound of her voice. "How have you been?" he asked.
"A little tired but overall great," she sighed. "Birthday preps are going great." She paused and it was his turn to sigh. "You're coming, right?" she hesitantly asked.
"Of course I won't miss it," he assured.
"Awesome," she beamed. "So, I've been getting the guest list together and wanted to know who you're inviting from Barden and like if you made new friends you'd like to invite."
"This is why I'm awake at eight in the morning." Jesse heard Adam holler and chuckled.
"It's your birthday, too, Adam, stop being such an ass." He heard Chloe say next. "So, how many people I don't know are you inviting?" she then asked him.
"I really don't know," Jesse honestly said. "I don't know if I'm inviting anyone to be honest."
"Oh, that's okay," she sympathetically said. "I'll email you the guest list before I email people invitations to your big three-o birthday party."
"I'll make sure to check it out and get back to you," he told her and tilted his head to look at Beca who had woken up.
She was stretching when he hung up the phone.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," he said as he placed the phone on the nightstand.
He grinned when she rolled her eyes. "I had morning classes and I came over right after Bellas practice," she told him. "You had just woken up from a nap when I got here."
"Excuses, excuses, excuses," he sang.
"Shut up." She threw a pillow at him.
He laughed, catching the pillow.
"Name your prize?" She rested her weight on her elbow as she turned to face him.
"Breakfast and a back rub," he decided after giving it some thought.
"Breakfast and a back rub?" she echoed in response, surprised with his choice.
He nodded. "I want pancakes and I think I still have orange juice so that too." He paused. "And I want it in bed. So breakfast in bed with you and back rub... also a neck rub."
"Okay," she sat up while holding the duvet close her chest.
He thought it was weird that she always tried to cover up when they weren't engaging in sexual activity but didn't comment. She was weird about a lot of things. One of the weirdest things she did was leaving once he fell asleep, he couldn't understand why she'd sneak out almost always but he never brought it up.
Her clothes didn't make it to the bedroom. He didn't want her to feel uncomfortable so he climbed out of bed, not having a problem with walking around nude, and grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs from his wardrobe for her and got himself a pair of boxer shorts.
"Thanks," she thanked him, accepting the clothes.
He busied himself by wearing the boxer shorts to give her some privacy so she'd get dressed.
"If I burn your apartment down, it's your fault," she told him and hopped off the bed.
Jesse sat up when Beca walked into his bedroom holding a tray. "Thank you," he thanked her as she placed the tray on his lap.
"Is it weird that I only orgasm from oral?" she asked breaking the silence they got in as they ate breakfast. "We've had a fucking marathon and it didn't happen from penetration."
"No, it's not weird," he told her after swallowing. "You're perfectly fine. A high percentage of women only orgasm from simulation… And don't think too hard about it, you're only eighteen." He shrugged.
"Nineteen, actually," she corrected.
"When was your birthday?" He tilted his head to look at her.
"Back in November. The day after I ran into at that gay bar," she informed.
"Why didn't you say something? I would have gotten you a drink at least." She shrugged in response.
"I believe a massage is in order," she stated having finished eating breakfast.
"Yes, please." He placed the tray on the nightstand.
"Right, how do I do this and not accidentally break your neck?" She cracked her knuckles after getting on her knees.
"You try not snap my neck as tempting as it gets because you know you still need me around for sex and alcohol," he replied, as he reached inside one of the drawers of his nightstand and pulled a bottle of coconut oil.
"Fancy. You use coconut oil instead of vaseline to masturbate," she noted.
"You're hilarious." He handed her the bottle and laid on his back.
"You really don't know how to give a massage?" he said in surprise, realizing she wasn't kidding because what she began to do actually hurt.
She shook her head when he tilted his head to look at her.
"That's okay." He shrugged. "You're a really fast learner," he told her. She snorted so he said, "No, really, you learn quickly." He was impressed with fast she learned to give excellent blowjobs: all she needed was some guidance and voilà.
He then went on to walk her through it, and just like he thought she figured it out—it wasn't Rocket Science after all.
"Your turn," he announced as he pushed himself up and rotated his neck.
"Dude, you won and that was your prize," she stated.
"Well, I want to give you a back rub," he retorted. "Unless you don't want one...wait, I know that look," he noted then grinned when she rolled her eyes. "I know what you want," he confidently said before he leaned in and pressed his lips against her and laid on his back when she gently pushed him then got on top of him.
It had been a month since they started hooking up with no strings attached. Things were too good between them and he was waiting for something to happen and messed it up.
Beca wasn't a fuck buddy, she was a friend, a friend who he got to have sex with. Their relationship was based on mutual respect and was purely physical.
He wouldn't exactly call her mature because, fuck that, no nineteen-year-old is mature. She was, however, smart.
"Wanna take it somewhere else?" she asked pulling away to catch her breath.
"Where do you have in mind?" he asked.
"The shower," she answered. "Or not, I heard it's overhyped," she added when she clocked the discomfort that mentioning shower sex brought on his face.
"No, no, I'm down," he assured her. "It's just that last time I tried to have sex in the shower I fell and almost broke my neck."
"Then we're definitely not gonna do that," she figured.
"Hollie is five nine, I'm five ten, and we tried a position that wasn't for people who are close in height," he told her, sighing at the memory. "You're significantly smaller than me and weigh nothing, shower sex with you can't go wrong," he confidently said, leaning up.
"You sure?" she checked as their noses touched.
"Yeah," he nodded and pecked her lips. "Besides, I have a shower mat. No more falls in the shower for this guy."
When Beca left, Jesse decided to watch a movie but ended up napping instead which wasn't unusual ever since he and Beca started hooking up—She drained him and he had no complaints.
He had been napping for what he thought were a few hours when he woke up to his phone ringing for the second time today.
"Hey, Becs, what's up?" He stifled a yawn.
"Sorry for waking you up," she apologized. "I haven't gotten used to the fact that you sleep more than a freaking sloth yet." He heard her deadpan and smiled.
"It's okay. Need anything?"
One of the things he liked about Beca was how direct she was. If she wanted booze she'd just ask for it, same goes for sex. However, she did act weird when asking if they could have sex which was why she avoided asking over the phone and usually texted him 'Are you free?' so his guess was alcohol.
"I found an abandoned kitten and I don't know what to do with it. It's late there aren't any shelters open."
He realized then that it was around eight pm and that he had slept through the day.
"I can't leave it outside 'cause it's gonna rain and I don't think it's old enough to survive the night." She was worried about the kitten and it was too freaking adorable coming from a girl who constantly masked her emotions with sarcasm.
'Bring it over,' he automatically wanted to say. "Hold on, are you sure its mother didn't just leave to get food?"
"I'm pretty sure its mother left for good. I've heard it meowing yesterday when I left campus, then again today around two. And, I just left my dorm room to grab dinner and heard it again so followed the meowing and found it."
"Okay, bring it over," he told her and pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Did you have dinner?" he asked before she could hang up.
"No," she answered curtly.
"Pepperoni pizza?" he suggested.
"Yeah, sounds good."
"I wanna make a joke about the fact that you're soaked wet and holding a pussy but I won't because I have a feeling you will probably kick me in the nuts," Jesse said as he let Beca into his apartment.
"Wise," she said, sniffling.
"Gotta give this guy a warm bath," Jesse was saying as he took the small meowing black kitten that had white paws and chest from her. "He's freezing," he added after lifting the tiny kitten just enough to see its sex.
"Change into something dry," he then told Beca. "And put your clothes on a radiator."
"Okay," she nodded and followed him into his bedroom.
He left her alone to change and went into the bathroom and soon realized he didn't know how to give a really tiny kitten a bath and not kill it. He walked back into the room to grab his phone from the bed where had previously left and quickly googled how to bathe a kitten then tapped on the first result.
The article provided a lot of useful information on how to clean the little animal up but recommended using cat shampoo, so he looked up DIY cat shampoo and hoped to find something useful. The replacement was dish-washing soap.
"Hey, Becs, could you go grab the dish-washing soap? It says here on a forum that it's what we should use to bathe him." He looked up from his phone and, man, did she look good in his clothes.
"Sure," she nodded and paced out of the room.
She came back in less than a minute later. "Here you go." She placed the bottle on the sink. He stepped aside from the sink and said, "Wash your hands, dinner was delivered like five minutes before you came," he told her.
"You don't need help?" she asked.
"No, I'm good." He shrugged.
"I looked up how to tell his age," Beca said as she watched Jesse take a seat on the floor and next to a radiator while he held the small animal in a towel.
He lifted his head and watched her make her way to him while holding a pizza box.
"What color are his eyes?" she questioned.
Jesse looked down at the kitten and answered, "Blue."
"Okay, so he's still under five weeks." She nodded to herself and sat down Indian style next to him and put the pizza box between them. "Can you get him to open his mouth?" she asked while scrolling down the article she found.
"Yeah," he nodded and went on to gently part the kitten's mouth. "What are we looking for?"
"Baby teeth, the incisors," she mumbled biting into the slice of pizza she was currently eating and leaned in to see for herself. She couldn't see anything because Jesse was feeling the kitten's gum with his index finger
"There's more than the incisors teeth, Bec," he told her. "I can feel his canines."
"According to this article, which seems legit, little dude is between three to four weeks," she told him.
"Well, little dude is hungry," Jesse said while pulling his index finger from inside the kitten's mouth.
"I'm looking up an emergency replacement for his mama's milk right now," Beca told him while typing on her phone.
"So apparently cats are lactose intolerant," Beca said. "But for emergencies, we can feed kittens cow milk mixed with vegetable oil and raw egg yolk," she informed. "Do you have these?" She looked up.
"Yeah," he nodded. "Here, keep him warm, I'll go make it." He handed her the meowing kitten that was folded in a towel then took her cell phone to follow the recipe and paced to the kitchenette.
"Do you think he'll make it?" Beca asked as she leaned against the couch while Jesse held the kitten close to him and fed him the DIY milk through a syringe he found in his first aid kit.
"I hope he does," Jesse answered without looking up. "Because I'm keeping him." He was a goner from the moment he saw him.
"He's so soft," Beca noted as she ran her hand over the now dry kitten she then picked him up once Jesse put the syringe on the coffee table.
"What are you gonna name him?" she wondered.
"I was thinking Thor given the circumstances you found him in." He tilted his head. "You know Thor?" She shook her head. "He's the Norse God of lightning and thunder."
"Thor is nice." She hugged the kitten giving him more warmth as he dozed off.
"Gotta a middle name in mind?" he wondered. "You found him, you're entitled to give him a name."
She caressed Thor while thinking. "Oreo."
"Thor Oreo," he said then chuckled. "He's black but has white fur in the middle. Perfect." He paused. "I'm gonna called him Thororeo instead of just Thor."
"Thororeo is cute," Beca mumbled.
"Do you wanna go to the pet store to shop for Thoroeo with me tomorrow?" Jesse asked, tilting his head to look at Beca. "He's basically our baby, Beca. He's our ultimate STD… just a little furry," he said, referring to what Beca called babies when they talked about birth control.
"A lot furry." She sighed. "He's your cat. I was planning to take him to a shelter," she clarified. "I'll go with you shopping as a friend." She watched him grab his cell phone from the coffee table.
"C'mon, we're taking a family picture," he told her, ignoring what she said.
"Dude, no, I look like shit," she refused.
"Nonsense," he disagreed as he tapped on the camera icon and changed it to the front camera before he scooted closer to Beca.
"We don't have pictures together," he told her when she pulled her head back. "I need proof that you exist so I can brag about banging a nineteen-year-old to my brother," he told her.
"You have a brother?" she asked in surprise.
"Yeah, a twin actually," he informed. "But we're not identical, we barely look alike."
"Why am I just finding out about him?" she wondered.
"The topic of siblings never came up." He shrugged.
"How many siblings do you have?" she asked next.
"Two," he replied. "Adam and Sarah. Sarah is thirty-five. Now get close and let's take a picture, please?" He gave her puppy eyes.
"Fine, but you'll delete it if it's awful," she said giving in.
"Okay," he agreed and went on to tuck the hair that fell on her face behind her ear then tilted his head to look at the camera.
She pulled the hoodie over her head because she was feeling a little self-cautious over the state of her air-dried hair then held Thororeo up and couldn't help the grin that made its way to her face when Jesse grinned while pointing at the sleepy cat.
"It's cute, right?" he asked, tilting his head to check with her after taking a photo.
"Yeah, I guess I don't look like I'm hungover," she shrugged. "Because that's how I usually look without makeup."
She thought they actually looked cute as fuck but wasn't going to tell him.
"You look fine. You have nice skin," he complimented. "For a teenager," he added and got shoved in the shoulder.
"God, he's so adorable," Beca gushed, which was so out of character. She was usually meh about everything. Jesse wanted to point it out then figured it was best if he didn't because she then would realize how much she had let him see of her mushy side that was hidden behind the hundred layers of apathy and sarcasm.
He instead sneaked a photo when she rubbed her cheek against the fury small animal. He knew she was going to notice that he noticed the fact she had let her guard down because he had a wide ass grin on his face.
'I need a distraction,' he thought to himself and took a look at him before he stood up and walked to the radiator across the room. He grabbed her clothes and a t-shirt of his that were getting heated up on the radiator and made his way back to the couch. He put her clothes near him when he sat then picked the empty shoebox that was going to serve as a temporary bed for Thororeo.
He neatly placed the t-shirt, which Beca recommended he warmed up a little before he put the kitten to sleep on it, inside the box. "Sleep tight, buddy," Beca said then gently put the kitten in the shoebox and watched him curl up.
"Do you want some milk before you go to bed?" Jesse randomly asked as he folded her clothes busying himself.
"What am I, a four-year-old?" she snorted.
"You haven't hit your twenties, you still need your calcium for growth," he shrugged and placed her folded jeans, t-shirt, bra, and jacket on the coffee table.
"No, I'm good," she told him and rotated her neck. "I made peace with my height and know for a fact that this is it for me."
"Tea then?"
She shook her head, stifling a yawn.
"Alright, suit yourself." He got up. "I'm making tea for myself."
She curled up in the fetal position and pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt before she rested her cheek against the back of her hand.
It felt weird to share a bed with him without the intention of having sex so she pretended she had fallen asleep when he walked back to the living area. She felt him watched her for a few seconds then heard him walk away only to come back less than a minute later to put a comforter over her body.