A/N: I don't know when I will get this up because I have a really busy period of time coming up, and I can't guarantee that I will have the time to finish this as quickly as I might want to. I have updated all five books including this one that I am writing so that they all now have two chapters, so you should definitely go and check them out. I wanted again to thank you guys for the continued support that I have been receiving, and I want to remind you guys that I will appreciate all feedback especially areas where I can improve. With that being said, let's move on to the third chapter of my Cougar Town prequel novel:
Chapter 3 – Andy
I hear the door knock, and look at my roommate, Joe, with an expression that's somewhere between confusion and curiosity. He nods at me as his cue to go ahead and open it, and I go even though I'm expecting whoever's at the door to want to speak to him and not me.
I open the door, and I see Jules and Ellie. I am really shocked to see them, since they had never had any more than polite conversation with me, so I'm seriously questioning why they want to speak to me. There are a couple of awkward seconds between us, until Jules speaks.
"Ellie wanted to talk to you," she said, taking a step back so that Ellie was in front of her.
I look back inside, and am reminded that Joe is still in our room. "Do you want to go somewhere else?" I asked. "It's just my roommate is in here with me right now, but we don't have to be in here if you want things to be just between us."
Jules speaks up for Ellie. "Our room is free, and I can go study until you two are done," she says, sounding very set on the idea becoming a reality.
I hesitate. "Thanks Jules, but you don't have to…" Jules cuts in as I am starting to lose the flow of what I wanted to say.
"No, no," she says, pretty sure of it being okay. "It's fine. Really."
She leads Ellie and I down the hallway towards their dorm. There's an awkward silence between us, and I can't tell whether it's just because of the fact that the conversation is so unexpected, or if there's another reason behind it. I don't even know for myself.
Jules opens the door for us, and ushers us in. "You can sit on my bed, Andy," she says, smoothing out the comforter that's on the bed. I sit down as commanded, and Ellie shuffles awkwardly onto her bed so we're facing each other. "I'll leave you guys to it," she said, as she grabbed her bag that she was taking with her to study and left.
Once the door is shut, I turn to Ellie. "So what brings you here?" I ask, trying to come across as casual as possible, hoping that that will diffuse the situation of its awkwardness a bit better.
"First of all, it was Jules who forcefully persuaded me to come here," Ellie said, and I laugh because from what I've just experienced of Jules and what I knew of her before today, it doesn't surprise me that this wouldn't be her kind of idea. "And second of all, I don't quite know."
"That's always helpful," I reply, and Ellie laughs slightly at my shitty attempt at sarcasm. I play back the laugh in my head again and a realisation suddenly hits me like a lightning bolt. I have a strong inkling that I know why she's here from my own past experiences being around people in love. It also explains why she was kind of weird around me when I saw her on her way to get coffee, and explains also why I couldn't shake that moment from my mind earlier.
I don't know what to say next. She doesn't seem to know either. I decide to take a stab at saying something else. "So, you sure that you just came to chat with me without something in mind to talk about?" I end up saying, hoping that I am making it even slightly easier for Ellie to be able to admit her feelings.
I can see that Ellie is really squirming under my spotlight. I don't want to force her in anyway, but I was desperate to tell her that if she wanted something to be going on between us, I wouldn't say no. I decided to just sit back for a little while, and let her speak. In the meanwhile, I focused on her stunning her hair and make-up were making her look, and wondering how I hadn't started paying closer attention so much sooner.
After about five minutes of what I could fondly dub Ellie-gazing, I could tell that she had plucked up the courage to say something.
"I never ever say anything like this," she said, sounding more confident than before, "so you might want to catch this on camera or something."
I had to stifle the urge to laugh as I didn't want to put her off, but she had really hit the nail on the head with that attempt at humour.
"I didn't quite tell you the truth when I said that I didn't know why I came here. Something happened when I saw you in passing earlier, and it completely blew me off at first. I had no idea what it was until I told Jules about it literally just for like the last hour, but now after a lot of thinking, it makes logical sense," she said, and I didn't want to interrupt but I was now 98% sure that I knew what was coming next. "Even if I had no clue at first," she repeats.
She takes a deep breath, and I could cut the tension literally with a knife. "I think that I have a crush on you," she says, heaving a huge sigh almost directly afterwards.
"It was fairly obvious," I said, and she looks surprised.
"Really?" Ellie asked, seeming to be in genuine disbelief at what I said. "If only it had been like that for me." She laughed nervously.
"The fact that you could barely speak to me earlier when I was just making polite conversation usually says a lot in these kind of situations," I say, and Ellie laughs again.
"Sorry that I'm so awkward," Ellie says, looking really vulnerable to the point where I can tell that, not only does she genuinely care about me to the point where I think she's already past the casual 'crush' stage, but also that she rarely is ever this honest or sentimental with people. It also checks out with my knowledge of the kind of person that she is from seeing her around the campus before and the reputation that she has built for herself. "I'm just really terrible at doing stuff like this."
"Again, that was pretty obvious," I say, grinning.
Ellie looks defeated. "How can I still bear you enough to even use the word love to describe how I feel about you when you've been exactly right twice and I never sacrifice my pride for just anyone?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Maybe I'm one of the exceptions," I said, and Ellie didn't try to fight her smile this time.
"I guess so," she says, looking genuinely happy. "So, what are we going to do about this situation?" she asked, turning back to her serious, business-minded self that I realised that I really loved.
I shrugged, and Ellie glared at me as if she needed an answer right here, right now. "Whatever you want," I said, dodging the second glare.
"That's so unhelpful of you!" she exclaimed, and then took a moment to compose herself before starting to talk again. "I think that we should try things as just friends to start getting to know each other better, and then we can go from there."
"That's sensible because it would suck if we rushed straight in and decided that we hated each other's guts before we got a proper chance with each other," I said, feeling satisfied that this conversation was going in a direction that we both wanted. "Shall we call it a day, then?"
"Yeah," Ellie said, "unless you wanted to hang out for a little longer…" I could see in her expression that she was hoping that I would say yes, and I was so tempted because I was desperate to please her. I decided that I would still mention the only reason that I could think of that would stop us from going ahead with the plan. "Don't you have plans with Jules?" I asked, realising that I actually pretty desperately wishing that they didn't have plans, for my own benefit as well.
Ellie was surprisingly quick to answer. "Honestly, no," she said. "Jules and I usually just hang out because she's my only friend, but since that you seem to be free, I don't see why we couldn't hang out. Jules will want me to anyway, since she set me up to even speak to you."
"True," I said, feeling unable to hide the happy and relieved expression my face but knowing that there was no need to hide it any more. "Have you got anywhere in mind?"
Ellie shrugged. "I've already had coffee today, and I'm broke, so Starbucks is probably a bad idea," she said, and I couldn't help but chuckle slightly. "The library will be too quiet… why don't we just walk around the campus, talking?"
"Yeah," I nodded in agreement. That was actually a much better idea until I realised how much that I would get teased by the guys in my classes if I was seen walking around with a girl. At least, if Joe commented, I would know that he was jokily teasing me unlike the others. "Let's go do that."
"Do you want to go back to your dorm to grab a jacket?" Ellie said, looking me up and down. "I just don't want you to get cold."
"I don't either," I chuckle. I walk out of Jules and Ellie's room and back into mine and Joe's. He looks up from the paper he's writing.
"You look happy," he says, and I can tell that he's referring to the conversation with Ellie. "You want to spill what happened?" he added, giving me a look that was somewhere between curiosity and somewhere between just simply wanting to know whether I had got laid or not.
"Not now, mate," I said, grabbing my jacket off of the coatstand. "I'll be back in about two hours, but if I am not back by then, don't come looking."
"Sure," Joe mumbles, already engrossed in his work again after the short interruption.
I shut the door quietly behind me, and pocket the key. When I arrive at the girls' dorm room, I make a mental note to remember exactly where it is and the number because I know that it will come in handy later as I figured that I would probably be spending a lot of time around here now. The door is slightly ajar, so I assume that it's okay just to walk straight in.
Ellie is just wrapping a scarf around her neck and already has her jacket on. "Oh, hey," she said. "I'm just finishing getting ready."
"You look so good even now," I say, and Ellie blushed.
"Thanks," she said. Then she seemed to hesitate, and added, "I'm sorry if I act at all distant or sound ungrateful, I'm just really not used to being complimented so much."
I walked up to her as she was now ready, and put her hands on her shoulders. I looked her in the eyes, and said, "That's because no one sees you the way I do, but I understand. You mean the world to me already, and I really don't see how that could change any time soon." I could see how much this meant to Ellie in that moment, even though she wasn't speaking a word.
"You'd never stop loving me because I am an awkward, horrible bitch, right?" she said, continuing to keep eye contact with me.
I was scared that this would ruin the moment, but I couldn't help but laugh. "I like you already despite those things," I start to say, "so I would hope that that would answer your question." I watched the worry from Ellie's eyes disappear, and transform into pure adoration.
"Shall we get going?" Ellie said, starting to walk towards the door, and takes the key out of the lock. I follow her into the corridor, and she locks the door after us. We start walking down the stairs down to the entrance to the dorm rooms, and end up at the foot of them pretty fast.
"Any particular direction you'd like to go?" I say, and Ellie shrugs. I take the lead, and start walking towards the sports pitches behind the main buildings of the college. "So tell me more about yourself," I said, almost immediately regretting it because I wasn't sure whether Ellie would feel comfortable enough to open up so quickly.
She takes a heavy high, which I couldn't quite tell whether it was because of the cold air as it was fall or nervousness. "My full name is Elisabeth, I have a bullshitty mother called Betsy, and want to be a lawyer when I graduate," she said. "That's all I've got that's really of any interest. What about yourself?"
"I'm a nerd," I say, "hence why I am majoring in economics and finance. I am also Cuban, and have a huge family, most of whom I don't speak to. Oh, and I am frequently tortured for my inability to hold a successful relationship here by the rest of my classmates."
"Even by my standards, that seems a little mean," Ellie said.
"It's pretty brutal," I said, shrugging it off like it was no big deal. I didn't expect to then have Ellie take another look at me, and was confused a little.
"You're not as okay with it as you make yourself out to be," Ellie says, stating it as if it were a fact.
"You're right," I admit. "At least now I don't have that problem because this situation makes the perfect decoy."
Ellie grinned. "You're a genius," she says.
"No, you are," I say. "After all, you were the one who made the move, and even if we aren't any more than friends right now, we're closer to a future than we would've been if neither of us had plucked up the courage to say anything."
Ellie nodded and I could see the happiness radiating from her expression. "I'm so happy right now," Ellie said.
"I am, too," I said, giving her a genuine smile. "You're the prettiest woman I have ever met." Ellie blushed more, and I suggested that we sit down as we had approached one of the benches that was around the school.
"You're one of the most gentlemanly men that I have ever met," Ellie replied, giving me a sincere look that melted my heart because I could tell that she meant every word.
"Let's scrap the getting to know each other part before getting together," I say, "since we already seem past it."
Ellie looked at me, with a serious expression on her face. "Hold your horses, tiger," she said, and my heart fell a little. "I'm still not going to rush into everything with you, as much as we may want to."
"Fine," I say, trying not to sound too disappointed but I think that Ellie could still sense it.
"It's not like I'm going to be ghosting you," Ellie said, and I could tell that she was trying to make me feel better. "We can still hang out all the time together, I just want it to be without any of the serious relationship part first."
I nodded. "That's true," I said. "After all, I really want this to work out."
"Likewise," Ellie said. "You really shouldn't worry because we want the same thing out of this."
"I know," I say, and now I can't help but turn and smile at Ellie. "You're still the best," I say, and Ellie smiles back at me.
"You are too," she said. She stopped to look down at the watch on her wrist, and said, "Shall we get back to the dorms? We've just been out here talking for far longer than I had expected, and I don't want Jules or Joe to get worried about whether we're safe or not."
I felt surprised that the time had passed so soon, but then I remembered the old saying 'time flies when you're having fun' and everything started to make a little more sense. "Let's go back," I say, standing up and starting to lead towards the dorm building.
Ellie agrees, and follows me back. Her hand finds mine, and lock together. I gaze into the horizon as we walk, feeling contented. I can't believe that I have found someone like Ellie. She still blows my mind, but not at all in way that's so crazy that it feels weird or uncomfortable. It just feels…right. Immediately, I feel annoyed with myself that I couldn't have chosen a more sophisticated word to describe the moment. I take another look at Ellie and how happy she looks, and decide that she doesn't seem bothered and so it's another irrelevant thought. I was overwhelmed with happiness.
A/N: Here's the third chapter to my Cougar Town story! I hope that you guys like the development of Ellie and Andy's relationship, and that it's believable. Make sure to continuing reviewing and suggesting ideas for improvements as they're always helpful to me, and I hope that whilst you're at it, that you might check out the other books I have written which are the Familiar Faces Trilogy set in the Friends world, and my crossover fanfiction with Friends and Cougar Town. Thank you again for all the support that you guys have already given me because it means the world that people would care enough to read the ideas that I have, and I am so humbled by it.