Kylie had been pestering Amy ever since she got home, which was a good hour ago. She reigned herself in until Amy told her that Jake had made fun of her room (which she was hoping to get an encouragement on how her room really wasn't that bad, even though they both knew that wasn't true). Instead she got grilled about if he pressured her (to which Amy had to assure her that he didn't, and that he was sweet and respectful, and that she was an adult who could make her own decisions, and that she was totally overreacting) but then she had to assure Kylie that she wasn't lying about it because she thought Kylie was overreacting (because she wouldn't accept that she really was). After a while she had finally calmed her roommate down, but she could still see the suspicion in her eyes.

"He's charming," Kylie admitted while she fanned her face with her hand. "Almost sets my heart aflutter, and he doesn't even look at me like that," Implying that Jake looked a certain way at Amy that she had just never noticed before. "I can't imagine what he does to you," she added with a lewd voice.

Amy just rolled her eyes. She was too busy trying to remember the way Jake looked at her (and if there really was anything different than with other people) so she didn't deem it with a response.

"Can I borrow your car on Saturday?" Marco asked in his sweetest voice with puppy dog eyes, but Amy knew she couldn't trust him.

"How do I know you won't ruin it? Might I remind you the reason your car is in the shop right now?" She reasoned, and knew she had him on that point. He was never good with cars, but his most recent screw up had been the worst when he reversed the jumper cables which luckily only caught on fire and decimated his battery. She was quick to remind him that it could have been a lot worse, besides giving him the regular hassle.

"Louisa's coming, and she'll make sure I don't screw up your piece of junk car. Seriously Amy, you need a new one. You've had it since before my youngest sister was born, and she's 10 now. But you know Louisa is the responsible one in my family, so you're awful car will be safe. Please Amy."

She knew he meant well, so she had to give in to his absolutely pitiful puppy dog eyes.

"You owe me. And I will come after you if you do any damage whatsoever. Don't make me regret this."

Marco promised he wouldn't, and she should have know that that would turn out to be a lie.

Her and Jake's telephone conversations seemed to get longer and longer each day. He always tried to work around her schedule and swore that he tried to get up early to talk to her in the morning (which she didn't doubt) but his sleeping schedule refused to comply. It was a blessing and a curse for him to go to online school, and at least part of the reason he stayed up so late was because he knew he could sleep in as late as he wanted. Jake swore that the fault lied in his circadian rhythm (his choice of words were 'that brain body thing that says "Nah, you stayed up late two nights in a row and this is your life now').

He seemed pretty reluctant to let her meet his friends, but eventually she found the courage to ask him about it.

"Why do you not want me to meet your friends so much? Afraid they won't like me?" Amy tried to play it off as a joke, and hoped that her voice didn't betray her. If they were talking in person, he would instantly realize how serious that question was, and how afraid she was of the answer.

"No..." Jake sighed, and she knew he was running his hand through his hair at that moment. "I'm just prolonging it because they tend not to make the best impression, and I wanted to wait until you had more reasons to ignore what a deal breaker they are."

She didn't know how to express how ridiculous of an idea that was, because she was positive that if they were his friends that meant they were good people. She wanted to tell him not to worry, but instead the only words that came out of her mouth were "I really want to kiss you right now."

She knew he was about to respond before someone yelled out on the other side of the phone loud enough for her to here.

"Hey sleeping beauty! Today's your day for cleaning!"

"I know! Patience is a virtue!" Jake yelled back to the person addressing him. He had moved the receiver away from his mouth and had likely put a hand over it, but it didn't do much.

"Sleeping beauty?" Amy asked with a huge grin when she knew she had his attention back.

"Rosa thinks it's an insult, but I take it as a compliment."

When Marco returned her car she did a preliminary check and took it around the block, but everything seemed to be in order. Seemed being the operative word.

Amy supposed she should be glad her car lasted as long as it did. She was on her way to meet Jake's roommates when it gave up on her. She was only about 25 minutes away from Hudson, and luckily she had enough warning from the steam coming from under her hood to pull off to the side of the road before it all gave out on her. She mentally screamed expletives when she popped the hood and it became clear that her car wasn't going anywhere. She pulled out her phone and tried not to yell at the person who she knew caused the whole thing.

"Marco, what did you do." She seethed, and it was clear that it was a statement and not a question.

"What? Nothing? What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about. I'm on the side of the road because my car is smoking. So what. Did. You. do."

"I may have driven half an hour on the freeway in first gear," Marco tried to play it off as if it was no big deal, but he knew exactly how much trouble he was in.

"What happened to Louisa watching you? Why didn't you tell me?" She tried to keep her voice steady, but her effort didn't seem to do much good.

"Okay, first of all, your car sucks. Like every automatic car from this century has a warning light that flashes when you screw up, which yours didn't, so me and Louisa didn't know what to look for. I didn't tell you because I looked it up on yahoo answers and everybody said it wasn't a big deal, so I didn't want you to get mad for no good reason."

"You're an adult. You do not make important decisions from advice on yahoo answers. And now I am pissed at you for a very. Good. Reason."

She was more than happy to accept a ride from Jake because just being near him calmed her down. She hoped it wasn't obvious how nervous she was. Of course it was Amy who had been pestering him to set up a meeting, and she really did want to meet his roommates, but it was easy to plan to do that days in advance when she was 2 hours away. Now that it was actually a reality, she remembered how horrible she was with people. The wonderful thing about her boyfriend (it still felt strange calling him that, even in her own head) was that he made her feel normal for once. But it was always jarring to be brought back into reality where she had crippling social anxiety and could not handle anything like this.

"What are they like?" Amy asked, hoping she might be able to prepare herself a little bit more, even though she was sure it was no use.

"I think the only word to describe Rosa is intimidating. When she's at her absolute happiest, the only way you can tell is because she's not frownin. But she's actually a good person even though she'll try everything she can to hide it. Charles is the human version of a dog with separation anxiety that tears apart the house when you're away and but when you get home he's so happy to see you that you can't stay mad at him for long. He's definitely the nicest out of all of us, and maybe even one of the nicest guys in the world. He's been begging me to meet you more than you have. And Gina... she's the one I worry about the most." He took a deep breath and looked around the car like someone could be listening in, and then leaned and whispered conspiratorially in her ear "I secretly think she's the smartest one of us all."

Amy couldn't help but laugh. She was expecting to hear something at least semi serious by the way he phrased the transition, but definitely not that.

"I'm serious though. I've got evidence, even though it's all circumstantial as of yet. She comes off as self absorbed and the bad kind of crazy, but I think it's all an act. She changes her major every few weeks, but she always keeps her minor in forensic science with us, and her score never goes below a 73 or above a 75. I mean, that's gotta take effort, right? That kind of precision? It's like she's a secret genius who's orchestrating her bad grades for some unimaginable reason. Because it's easy keep your grade up when you always get good grades, but when you're always that close to failing and your grade barely wavers no matter what happens, that has to been intentional. And when none of us get a concept we all go to her and she explains it in some weird analogy about shoes or some actors twitter battles or other pop culture stuff. We usually have to google what she's talking about to find out why exactly so and so designer is fighting with such and such clothing store, but once you look up the basics, it always makes sense. And you have to actually understand something to be able to dumb it down for other people, don't you?"

"It's actually kinda a good thing your car broke down cause I was really hoping to talk to you first," Jake began when they were probably 10 minutes out. The whole ride had been comfortable conversation until then, but something about the way his voice sounded made her turn to him. She gave him a hum to signal she was listening and he spoke up again.

"I said something about you to my friends, and I just want to tell you in case the repeat it."

And with that simple sentence it was like the rug was pulled out from under her. More like the whole world was pulled out from under her. Maybe if she would have thought about it for a second she would have realized that he wouldn't do that based on what she knew of him, but it was more like a visceral reaction. From all of her previous experiences with jerks and all the other bad names in the books. All that was running through her head was that she had completely misjudged him because she never thought he would bad mouth her to his friends, or make fun of her behind her back or whatever awful thing he was going to tell her. She was running through all of her options to get out of the situation, but her mind was too cluttered to concentrate on any one thing. She could feel her panic revving up, the familiar fight or flight response, but she had never been much of a fighter. Really, her only option was running.

"You make me forget," Jake said simply, and she almost choked. It wasn't what she was expecting, but then again she didn't even know what it meant.

"What?" Amy tried to hide the quiver in her voice. Her head was bent as she stared at her lap because she was too afraid to look at him.

"Never mind, it was just some sappy stuff," he tried to brush off, but she couldn't let it go.

"Tell me."

"Forget about it. It was just corny and stupid, it's not important."

"Jake, tell me," Amy ordered. She wasn't sure if he could hear the seriousness in her tone, or feel the gravity of the situation, or could just tell how desperate she was- but he gave in.

"I don't know. It was something like you make me forget. Like I forget anything else is happening but you. And then I might get worried that I'm gonna screw everything up, but before I do you make me forget again. Everything that's happening and everything I'm worried about... Or something like that. I told you it was stupid," he shrugged of the end of his speech like it was unimportant, but his voice grew softer and smaller by the end, and it was obvious that he didn't think it was just nothing like he claimed.

"Did you mean it?" Amy asked with her eyes on her hands, and this time it was his turn to be surprised.

"What?"

"What you said. Did you mean it?" It took him a few seconds to respond, but it was just the right words.

"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it."

There was a heavy silence between them for a moment, which was broken by her yelling at hitting his shoulder as hard as possible.

"Damn it Jake! Don't do that! You scared me!" He looked at her absolutely perplexed at her stern scolding, and while trying to defend himself single handedly with the other on the wheel.

"What? I didn't think it was bad enough to deserve this reaction. I'm sorry. That's why I didn't want to tell you." God, her boyfriend could really be an idiot sometimes.

"I thought you were insulting me to your friends," she explained, not quite expecting his reaction.

"What? I wouldn't do that. Why would you think that?" He looked confused and maybe a bit sad, but most of all there was hurt written all over his face, like her words literally stung. And it was gut wrenching. If she would have just taken a little more time to think, she would have realized that she knew Jake better than that, and that he wouldn't hurt her. And she had just hurt him.

"I'm sorry," Amy said, trying to work out how to make the whole thing better, because she really was the one who screwed it up. "I know you wouldn't do that. It's just... I always assume the worst because it's always been the worst. And I'm still getting used to the best with you, and when you use the most awful choice of words I kinda go into panic mode without thinking. Though, in my defense, that is what people exclusively use that phrase for. When they're talking bad about someone behind their back and they're afraid it will get back to them. That is literally the only time people use it, so at least some of this was your fault," she tried to get back to the lighthearted place they were minutes before, and even though she couldn't tell if it was working, she placed her hand on top his his on the gear shift and was comforted by the fact that he didn't pull away.

"That's totally wrong. It's used in lots of other ways like-" and he paused trying to find anything to back up his argument, but ended up with nothing. "Oh shit, you're right. Crap. I'm sorry."

She could tell his apology was genuine, and she just wrapped her hand around his shoulder to show him that they were okay.

"And don't be afraid to tell me stuff like that," Amy instructed, still tracing her fingers up and down his neck and enjoying the way he leaned back the slightest bit into her touch.

"Hmmm?"

"Sappy stuff. You should always tell me stuff like that. No one's ever said sappy stuff about me before. It's nice."

"Really? Cause I can go a lot sappier," he said with a grin in her direction. And it was lovely to see that grin directed at her again, and she felt like she hadn't seen it in years.

"But you have to mean it!"

"Every word," he promised as he crossed his fingers over his heart.

The introductions went well enough, and better than Amy expected. She found all of his descriptions pretty accurate.

Charles seemed absolutely thrilled to meet her, which was a nice contrast to Rosa's reaction. Whenever Amy offered her hand, she stared down at it with clear disapproval until she informed her that she didn't "do handshakes". Gina seemed to be in between the other two's reaction, not overtly happy but not extremely displeased-more apathetic than anything. So it seemed to be going alright until Rosa got what was probably her version of a smirk on her face.

"Did you tell her about your test results?"

"Yeah," Gina pipped in with a mischievous grin. "Don't you still have to call all your old girlfriends?"

She noticed Jake's jaw dropping out of the corner of her eye, even though it was more than obvious what they were doing. Kylie's version of it was moaning as loud as possible in her best imitation of a porn star when she realized Amy was on the phone with her parents or anyone from student housing. It was all Amy could do to shut her up or hide somewhere her voice wouldn't carry to.

It looked like Charles was about to join in when Jake started dragging her (in the gentlest sense of the word) down the hall and into a room. She took the few steps into it (his bedroom by the looks of it) and Jake slammed the door behind him and leaned up against it.

"I hate them. I really do. I told them not to be stupid. I'm gonna kill them. I swear that's not true. They're just horrible, awful people. I'm not even going to look at them for the next 2 weeks." Jake had developed the most adorable blush on his face that she had ever seen. He was so mortified that she almost laughed, especially when he gave her a puzzled look at her apparent random comment.

"You're cute when you're embarrassed."

"What?"

"Your blush. It's cute," she informed him in no uncertain terms so he was sure to get it that time. She was a few feet away from him, but it was immensely satisfying how his cheeks got pinker and pinker with every step she took closer to him, until it peaked when she lifted his hand to his face and kissed him. When Amy pulled back she was a little disappointed to find that the redness in his face had gone down, but she was sure that she would find more ways to bring it back.

"You really think you're the only one with friends who try to embarrass you at every possible chance?" He scratched the back of his head sheepishly and she turned to get a good look at his room while she had her chance. "I didn't know it was so easy to embarrass you," she teased because she just couldn't resist.

"Shut up," he grumbled in his best pouty voice in an attempt to sound upset, but he couldn't hide the fact that he wasn't bothered at all

. And his pseudo-order gave her the perfect opening as she spun on her heals to give him a big smile and a challenge.

"Make me."

AN: Yay, new chapter uploaded! I'm sorry it took so long to get out! I'm totally not abandoning it, and if you are ever concerned about when and if I'm gonna update one or any of my fics (or just other questions) drop me a message and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Thank you so much for the incredible response, I am just blown away by how nice you guys are.

I also realized that one of the jokes in the last chapter could be misinterpreted. When Jake jokes about finding a bible in her nightstand, it was referring to how much her room was like a hotel room. In the US there's this organization that gives out free bibles to hotels (that are almost always in the drawer of the nightstand so it's unassuming) and you're hard pressed to find a hotel that doesn't have them because they're just everywhere. Does that happen in other countries too? Or with like other religious texts?