Just as math did, the rest of the day went by in a complete blur of excited girls chatting at Carlos and Jane and Jane holding his hand, kissing his cheek and pulling him into tight embraces at every opportunity. Carlos couldn't help thinking this was maybe another level of his punishment for kissing Jane as it was impossible to notice that Carlos wasn't exactly a touchy person and public displays of affection were especially not his thing.

Lunch was the worst. Carlos thought he would be able to grab his normal table with his normal friends and have a normal conversation that wasn't about how cute him and Jane were and what they were going to wear to cotillion in order to match. However, this wasn't the case as Jane beckoned him over to her table to giggling girls as soon as she saw him. There, he sat and let himself zone out whilst all the girls talked about whatever they talk about and Jane answered every question that was posed as to not have an unnecessary outburst of truth from Carlos. He just ate his lunch and sat quietly, smiling on cue whenever he felt he needed to and giving a small chuckle every once in a while.

"Where's Carlos?" Jay asked Evie and Mal as he took his usual place at the dining table occupied by his friends.

Mal looked up from the notepad she was doodling in and nodded over to Jane's table where Carlos was sitting next to her, looking about as interested in the conversation as Jay looked in math class. Jay just scoffed and took a bite of his sandwich,

"Jane's got him on a tight leash I see."

"Jay!" Evie snapped, turning away from Doug to look at Jay, "don't you think that's a bit… insensitive? You know who his mother is, why would you say that?"

"Oh God, yeah, I didn't think… sorry." Jay said, realising that he probably should have minded his words a little better.

"Anyway, I think it's sweet that they want to spend time together." Evie said, cheerfully.

Jay let out a small laugh again and shook his head,

"Sweet? It's not even been one day, and he already looks bored out of his mind over there, look." He said, nodding in Carlos' direction.

Evie and Doug both turned their heads to look at the couple and couldn't help but giggle slightly at the sight of Carlos basically falling asleep into his pasta, looking a million miles away from the conversation that was happening right in front of him.

"Well I can't imagine they're talking about anything particularly thrilling. Cotillion this, pink dresses that, not really Carlos' thing, is it?" Mal added, not even looking up from her art work.

Jay laughed at this,

"Exactly. I just don't see why they have to be together every second of the day is all… and by the looks of things, I think Carlos would agree with me."

"Jealous?" Evie asked, mockingly.

Jay chuckled and shook his head, brushing off the joke and getting back to his lunch. Everyone at the table thought the conversation was over then and so got back to conversations, homework or whatever else they were doing before, until suddenly, Jay piped up again, his mouth still full of sandwich as he spoke,

"And she's so touchy! Like come on, how many times do you need to kiss someone on the cheek in the space of half a day? It's just no-"

"Oh my god, enough! First of all, chew your food, swallow and then talk! Second of all, if you're sooo in love with Carlos, you should tell him, instead of sitting here, complaining to us about him and his girlfriend!" Mal exploded, cutting Jay off and stunning everyone at the table who just looked at her in shock as she ranted.

Before anyone had the chance to say something, Mal stood up, collected her things and stormed off, out of the hall without saying another word. Doug and Jay looked at Evie for some answers, presuming that her best friend would know something about what was up.

"Is she okay?" Doug asked.

"Yeah, what the hell was that?" Jay added, still a bit in shock.

"Umm, she's just a bit stressed at the moment. All this lady of the court stuff and Ben and her lizard Mom… it's just getting to her I think. If you'll excuse me, I should probably go after her. Bye Jay, bye Doug." Evie said calming and quietly, giving Doug a peck on the cheek and reassuring squeeze on the shoulder as she passed him.

"Well, on that note, I have chemistry club, so I'll see you later, Jay." Doug said, getting up from the table and leaving Jay alone.

Now that he was alone, Jay had a chance to reflect on the conversation that had just unfolded between him and his friends. Mal and Evie had said similar things (even if Evie had said it a little nicer that Mal did when she blew up) and honestly, he hadn't taken much notice when Evie asked if he was jealous, it was a joke. Just a joke. Or was it? And had there been some weight to Evie's question? Was he jealous? Not of Carlos, he had no interest in Jane at all – he knew that – but could he be jealous of Jane because she was with Carlos now? I mean, they were best friends and it sucked to see him spending so much time with someone else, especially after what had happened the day before. He glanced over at them again and looked at Carlos; his lips involuntarily twitched into a sort of smile. He wondered briefly why that was, why he couldn't resist smiling whenever he saw him. That was until he then saw Jane put her arms around him and lean her head on his shoulder. He couldn't quite put his finger on what really bothered him about Jane and Carlos, but he knew that something did. He hadn't even really realised until he had time and opportunity to rant about it with people but now that he had, his mind was obsessed with it and he kept coming up with more things that bugged him about the whole situation the more he thought about them.

Eventually, Jay couldn't take looking at them or being alone with his thoughts about the situation, so he quickly finished his lunch and hurried off to find Chad or someone – anyone – else who could occupy his mind and make him think about something else. He took another quick glance over at Carlos as he walked past, catching his eye and getting a small smile that didn't quite meet his eyes. Jay thought about smiling back, almost as a reflex but didn't, deciding instead to put his head down and keep it that way until he was outside. Once out, he took in a deep breath and let it out, trying to stop being angry at Carlos over something so stupid that really had nothing to do with him and was doing no harm, he should have been happy for his friend that he had got himself a girlfriend. But he wasn't. He was hugely and undeniably annoyed.

Carlos thought he was actually going to die right there and then of boredom as he sat at his lunch table with his new 'girlfriend', nibbling on his sauce-covered pasta that he couldn't even really taste at that point. He snapped out of the gaze he was in at just the right moment though as when he looked around, he saw Jay walking past, taking small and uncertain strides. At last, Carlos had a real reason to pay attention to something for the first time in hours; just the sight of Jay made him happy and a lot less bored. He looked to his face and they made eye contact. Jay's expression was slightly cold and unreadable, his brows knitted together ever so subtly. Carlos gave a small, pained smile, as if to signal to Jay what he already knew, he was suffering and needed help. He expected Jay to make some joking gesture or at least smile back. But he didn't. Instead, he put his head down and picked up his pace as he left the hall.

Carlos looked after him, confusion obvious on his face. He wondered if Jay had seen him, but it was clear that he had, they were looking right at each other. 'Great.' Carlos thought, 'he's mad at me again. What did I do this time?' He shook his head and tried to catch up with the conversation he had been supposed to be listening to between Jane and the other girls at the table but it was more difficult than he thought it would be to understand all this girl talk and when he heard the words, 'lace bra', he decided enough was enough and he would try and catch up with Jay.

"Jane, I'm gonna get going, I'll see you later." He said, as he stood up to leave.

"Oh, okay. Are still on for our walk after dinner? We need to decide what colour we're wearing to cotillion and pretty much everything else!" Jane said in her usual quick and chipper voice.

"Yeah sure."

"Great!" Jane said as she stood up and wrapped her arms around Carlos as a way of saying goodbye.

Once he was released from Jane's embrace, Carlos quickly walked towards the doors of the grand hall and exited, trying to see if maybe Jay had stuck around or if there was any sign of him. There wasn't but there was a small crowd of girls standing outside that like to keep tabs on Jay and might have seen where he'd gone so Carlos thought they would be his best bet to ask. He approached Ally, Alice's daughter and asked,

"Hey, Ally, did you see Jay go past here?"

"Oh hi Carlos! Yeah, he went that way, towards the field like two seconds ago. Congrats to you and Jane by the way! How wonderful!" She replied, dreamily.

"Thanks." Carlos said shortly before running off in the direction that Jay had supposedly gone in.

It wasn't long until Carlos could see Jay up in front of him, walking quickly, almost but not quite at a jog, his fists clenched as if he was mad about something. Carlos hoped it wasn't him.

"Jay! Wait up!" Carlos called, catching the attention of his friend who stopped and turned to look at him.

Jay contemplated turning back around and running off, but he didn't, he stayed. Something about seeing Carlos running towards him made him feel good and he subconsciously unclenched his fists and felt himself calm again. He couldn't help but give Carlos the smile that he'd denied him before. Carlos grinned back as he jogged over, and Jay momentarily thought about how he surprised he was that he didn't get blinded by Carlos' dazzling grin. If he had a second to think about that, he probably would have come up with some explanation to why his brain made that thought cross his mind, but he didn't as Carlos was standing in front of him less than a second later and saying hello.

"Hey, man." Was Jay's reply, cool and nonchalant.

"Are you okay?" Carlos asked, still wondering about what had happened in the hall but not wanting to outright ask why he didn't smile at him before; he might as well write 'I'm in love with you' across his forehead.

"Yeah… are you? You looked like watching paint dry would have been more entertaining than sitting with those girls back there." Jay chuckled lightly but was also serious underneath that and wanted to know what Carlos was thinking.

The two had fallen into step now and were just walking, even though neither of them had any clue where they were going.

"Yeah it was pretty boring. I don't know, I wasn't really listening to most of it. I wanted to come and sit with you guys, but Jane wanted me to sit with her I guess." Carlos told him, being completely honest with Jay without having the truth gummy pulling at his brain and words for the first time since the previous day when he'd taken it.

He still had a few hours left and wasn't particularly pleased with it making him tell Chad he thought him having a cape for cotillion was dumb or Jordan that genies were mostly kind of evil tricksters that couldn't be trusted. He just couldn't help it. Plus, Garret hadn't spoken or even looked his way other than to glare at him since he's been given a good dosage of truth that morning. But being there and able to talk to Jay and tell him things without twisting his words or avoiding the question, laughing and joking with his best friend felt normal and put an end to Carlos' fight or flight response that he was pretty sure had been on full alert for almost 24 hours.

"And here I was thinking make-up and dresses and hair styles were just your thing! How could you not be listening with those thrilling conversation topics?" Jay said, both boys laughing.

"Don't forget which lace bras they all want to buy!" Carlos added, making Jay snort with laughter.

It was something he didn't think he should have told Jay and so technically a truth that had slipped out, but he didn't try to stop it and didn't mind so much, he liked making Jay laugh like that.

"What? Didn't you want one? I'm sure a nice lavender one would go great with your complexion!" Jay said through fits of laughter, turning to touch Carlos' freckled cheek with his hand, giving it a slight pinch.

Carlos felt this touch through his whole body but didn't want to be weird so playfully pushed Jay's hand away before he wanted to and punched his shoulder lightly, the two of them still chuckling softly together as they walked. Eventually, the laughter died down and the two began to walk in silence together, just appreciating one another's company.

"So, I take it you and Jane are going to cotillion together?" Jay said after a few minutes, breaking the comfortable silence.

Carlos sighed, "yeah, she wants to go on a walk or something after dinner to talk about the colour scheme we're going with and what we both are going to wear. I mean really, I think she's already got a dress, so she'll just be telling me what I'm doing."

"I thought you were going to help me with the math homework after dinner?" Jay said, stopping in his tracks suddenly, forcing Carlos to end up a few steps ahead of him, turning around to look at him.

"Oh yeah, I completely forgot. We could do it tomorrow?" Carlos offered, wanting desperately to be doing Jay's math homework instead of going on this walk with Jane but being afraid of her exposing his secret if he didn't go.

"It's due tomorrow, Carlos." Jay replied, more hurt than he knew he should be.

"I'm sorry, I-" Carlos began before Jay cut him off,

"don't even worry about it, you have a girlfriend, I know where your priorities lie now, it's cool. I can get Evie to help me out."

Jay turned to walk away in the opposite direction but was held back by Carlos' hand on his arm and him saying,

"Jay, wait."

Jay didn't turn back to look at Carlos and just closed his eyes and shook his head in disappointment. He knew it was important to be there for your girlfriend – or at least that's what he'd heard, he'd never had one before – but he thought loyalty to your friends was more important, especially after the argument they'd had the day before. It wasn't cool, and it upset Jay in a way he couldn't quite understand. He pulled his arm out of Carlos' grip and continued walking away, not bothering to look round and only giving him a small "it's fine" as he did so.

Carlos stood there, watching Jay walk away and feeling immensely guilty. He knew what promises meant to Jay and how much he struggled in math no matter how many times he'd tried to teach him how to do quadratic equations, he shouldn't have agreed to go out with Jane. But, as much as he knew Jane was a nice person, she had this big, looming secret over him and it terrified him. Loosing his friendship with Jay was even more terrifying though and Carlos just felt stuck, making everything even more overwhelming. Carlos took his phone out of his pocket and text a quick message to Evie, a calming force in his life whom he knew would have some, usually perfect, advice on what to do,

To: Evie

So Jay hates me again

for ditching him for

Jane. I don't know

what to do, what do I

do? Send help!

A reply came back only a few seconds later,

From: Evie

Tell him! I think you'll

be surprised at how

he reacts, he's definitely

jealous of you and your new

gf. If he doesn't feel the

same, at least it's out there

and you can stop being

miserable!

Carlos sighed and let out a low moan in frustration. He knew Evie was right; even when Jay didn't return his feelings, at least Carlos could put them out there and be free of the weight of the big secret and maybe work them out a little easier. He would also be free of Jane and her non-stop girl talk.

On the other hand, if he just waited a few more hours, the truth gummy would have worn off and there wouldn't be so much pressure to tell Jay and then if he just waited a few more weeks, cotillion would be over and him and Jane would be over with it and then the whole thing just disappears. The second option sounded a lot more appealing to Carlos in that moment and he decided to go with it, even though he could feel Evie's text burning the back of his mind and the fact that she was, as usual, completely and utterly right. He tried not to think about it. Instead, Carlos stopped standing around like a spare part and began walking towards the classroom for his next lesson, trying not to think about the options he'd been presented with.

After his final class, Carlos managed to avoid Jane and her barrage of sweet comments and cheek kisses and got back to his room, glancing at the clock on his wall and noticing he only had twenty more minutes of truth gummy effects left and was suddenly relieved for the first time in almost 24 hours. He paced back and forth for a couple of minutes and kept checking the time as he grew more and more anxious to be free of the potion. Just under fifteen minutes passed by slowly as Carlos paced and sat and looked at his phone and paced again. Just when Carlos thought he had gotten away with not seeing Jay and getting into things whilst still under the gummy's effects, he walked in to the room, closing the door softly behind him and tossing his backpack onto his bed carelessly. Carlos stopped pacing in his tracks and didn't say anything, just looking at Jay from where he stood across the room. Jay was shuffling through something in his bag and had his back to Carlos and also didn't say anything, still visibly annoyed at their argument at lunch.

"Hi." Carlos finally said to end the awkward silence that had fallen between the two.

Jay glanced over his shoulder and gave a small but hostile, 'hey'.

"Did you… did you still want to look at the math homework? I have some time now, I'm sorry I-" Carlos began.

"Don't do me any favours. Doug said he'd give me a hand at dinner so don't worry about it. Shouldn't you be with Jane right now anyway? Or did you finally sever whatever was joining you two at the hip?" Jay said harshly, cutting Carlos off, still not turning to look at him.

Jay didn't want to be snapping at Carlos, if he was honest, he didn't really know why this was bothering him so much. It was stupid. He should just accept that Carlos was busy and that he had a girlfriend now and sometimes he had to prioritise. God knows how many times he'd had to do the same because of a tourney game or practice. He just couldn't shake off his bad mood or what Evie and Mal had said to him at lunch.

Carlos felt a wave of guilt wash over him again and once again froze where he stood, not knowing what the best or right move to make was. He took a deep breath and made the decision to be bold and brave and tell the truth like he should have done when they had the original argument the day before. He just didn't know how to do it. He felt himself starting to form words in his head and his mouth would make some effort to get them out, but he just ended up looking like a goldfish, opening and closing his mouth dumbly. He thanked God that Jay still hadn't really looked at him since he walked in and so didn't see the theatrics going on behind him. Carlos began to panic; he had a under four minutes to tell Jay the truth before the truth gummy wore off and he knew that if he did not do it in that time, he probably wouldn't be able to at all.

"Jay." He said finally, his brain and mouth working together.

"What?" Jay asked, still not looking at Carlos.

"I need you to ask me some questions. About me and Jane and yesterday. Simple questions. And you need to do it quick." Carlos said hurriedly.

"What?" Jay turned around then, startled at his friend's strange request and tone of voice.

"Look, I know you want to know what was up with me yesterday for real and I can tell me spending so much time with Jane is bugging you so here's your chance to get to the bottom of it. But hurry, okay?"

Jay thought for a moment, he didn't know what was wrong with Carlos, but he was right, he did want to know what was going on with his friend.

3 minutes.

"Please? I'm trying to… tell you something but I need… I need you to just ask me and I'll tell you the truth." Carlos pleaded, suddenly very aware of the second hand of the clock ticking.

Jay took a step towards Carlos and nodded, folding his toned arms across his chest as he did so.

"Alright... Do you like being with Jane all the time?" Jay asked, getting straight to the point.

"Not really, her and her friends are annoying with all their gushing and girly conversations." Carlos responded truthfully.

"So why are you with her so much?"

"Because we're a couple... and I just thought that was what couples are meant to do."

"Do you even like being a couple with her though?" Once Jay started asking questions, he got into it and it wasn't so hard.

"No."

"So why are you with her?!" Jay asked exasperatedly.

2 minutes, 15 seconds.

"Because I kissed her, and I felt bad and she wanted a date for cotillion to get her mom off her back."

"Do you even like her like that?"

"No."

Jay let out a frustrated sigh,

"So why in the world would you kiss her?" he scowled at Carlos and didn't move from his closed off posture a few feet in front of him.

"Because I didn't know what to do… I thought it was what I wanted but it's not! I didn't mean to do it, it just happened and I… I told her something that I shouldn't have, and she was just talking about it and it made me confused and I just… kissed her." Carlos rambled.

"What did you tell her?" Jay asked, adjusting his position so he no longer had his arms crossed.

"That I liked someone else." Carlos looked down at his feet and shuffled uncomfortably on the spot.

1 minute, 30 seconds.

There was a moment of silence whilst Carlos braced himself for whatever Jay's next question was going to be and Jay tried to put together all the information Carlos had just given him, having a hard time figuring out the point in all of this.

"I don't understand. This doesn't make any sense, Carlos, you're acting so weird! Even worse than yesterday; what is going on with you? Just tell me." Jay said harshly, frustrated at his friend who was making zero sense and weirding him out.

Carlos glanced at the clock on the wall. From what he could guess, he had about a minute left to tell Jay everything or forever hold his peace. He didn't want to just come out and say it without prompt but the questioning seemed to be getting nowhere other than Carlos just blurting a load of random stuff at Jay, confusing and complicating the matter further. He took the opportunity Jay had presented in asking him another – if rhetorical – question and just let the truth gummy do the talking, hoping he would have enough time to get it all out.

"Okay. What's going on with me is that yesterday, Mal gave me a truth gummy and I ate it, hoping that it would make me come clean to Jane without having to think about it. I thought that I liked her and wanted to go to cotillion with her and everything else. But when I went to try it out, I ended up telling Jane something completely different. I didn't realise what I was saying until I'd said it, but I told her I didn't want to go with her, I wanted to go with… someone else because I liked them. I may have also used the word love but that's not important." Carlos blurted as quickly as he could.

"Carlos, I don-" Jay started.

45 seconds.

"I don't have much time, just let me finish." Carlos interrupted him, "then I went and hid with Mal. She spoke to Jane who said she didn't hear what I'd said but she cornered me on my way back here and had worked it out. That's when I kissed her. Because she started asking me about it and I didn't even realise I felt the way I did until the truth gummy made me realise it and I didn't want it to be true. I didn't want to change or ruin anything. I just wanted to like Jane and be normal. So, I kissed her and hoped it would change my mind. It didn't. I just made her mad. I felt guilty, so she said I could make it up to her and she would keep my secret if we pretended to date until cotillion. So that's what we agreed to do. But I couldn't talk to anyone properly for twenty-four hours because I was scared I would blurt out some awful truths to them."

"But why couldn't you just tell me? It's not that big of a deal, you told me when you liked Jane, why was this different?" Jay asked, a perplexed expression on his face.

15 seconds.

"Because… I…"

Carlos, despite wanting the truth out, tried to hold back the truth gummy niggles for the last few seconds. He didn't know why, he'd dug the hole too deep at this point anyway. But he was scared and the thought of finally telling Jay how he felt was terrifying to him, even if he all he had to do at this stage was give in to the force, trying to pry his mouth open to move and say the words.

8 seconds.

"Because…" he tried again

5 seconds.

"Because I like you! Okay? I like you! I told Jane that I liked you!"

He'd finally said it. He'd finally told Jay the truth.

A/N - Sooooooo it's finally out there. I know it's been far too long since I updated last but here's a nice long, hopefully not disappointing chapter in which all the stuff goes down! I really felt like I just repeated myself a lot in this so I'm sorry if it reads like that but I needed to get across what Jay and Carlos are thinking because it's important that plot points don't just come out of no where loll okay so I hope you like this and the way I had Carlos tell him.

ALSO! THANK YOU ALL SO SO MUCH FOR OVER 1000 VIEWS! 3 honestly that might not be a lot to some people but to me, that's huge and I'm so glad people are actually reading and enjoying this (at least I think you are?) so yah, thank you! Enjoy!

I still don't own Descendants btw :)