Sparks, Flames, Embers
Chapter 2: Overcoming Baggage
Jack: Feeling frisky? Round 2. My place.
Peggy stared at the text dumbfounded.
She knew that he was a cocky bastard and so it should not surprise her that he would be such a bold, brazen son of a bitch and booty-text her. But somehow it did.
She snuck a peek at it again. Yep, it was there.
Was he playing games with her? Or was he that full of himself that he would think she would want to have a go at him again? If she replied 'yes', would he revert back to his 90s childhood and reply 'Psych! Ha ha'? Did she want to inflate his big head more than it already was? It might fall off, which would be a shame (in either sense of the word). If she replied 'no' or some other sassy retort as soon as she could come up with one, did she want to risk the chance of closing the door on a potentially mutually satisfying relationship?
While she debated with herself, she half-listened to Howard's and Jarvis's own hushed debate.
"No, a flamingo is not a suitable pet. For one, it is illegal…"
Yeah, not something she needed to contribute to. She pretended to be reading through her class notes just in case they glanced her way, but they were more concerned about attracting the notice of the militant librarian Mrs. Frye than anything else.
Normally, she didn't do no-strings-attached relationships. Sex changed everything, at least in her experience. But with Jack, to her amazement, it hadn't.
The Tuesday after that weekend, she had flown to London to join her parents who were visiting her mother's family for the holidays. She had endured for a week her mother's laments that it looked like she wouldn't be having grandchildren anytime soon seeing as she was boyfriend-less (thank God she had never told her about Jason) as well as her complaints about her changing her major from pre-Law to criminal justice ("It's just a far less lucrative and more dangerous career path, my dear!"), and then she had escaped to (well, er…flown back for) her winter classes.
She shared one of those courses with Daniel, Jack's dorm-mate and her friend. As was their custom, they teamed up on class projects, and when she had gone over to work on it with him, Jack had been there.
He lounged. He annoyed. They exchanged their usual insults. He called her 'Velma'. She equated him to some obscure British literature character that insinuated that he possessed below-average intelligence and that he would no doubt have to Google later, and Daniel told them both to 'give it a rest already'. It had almost been comfortable in its familiarity.
"Hey, Peggy, whatcha thinkin' so hard about over there?" Howard cut into her reverie, apparently, finally conceding to Jarvis' request to return the flamingo hatchling that he had won at an underground card game in Vegas.
Without thinking, she replied honestly, "Why is it again that we all detest Thompson so much?"
If it was quiet in the library before, one could hear a pin drop in it now, and if she hadn't been berating herself for her stupidity for asking such a question, she might have laughed at the almost cartoonish matching bug-eyed expressions the pair of them had.
"Uh…I don't know, Peggy. Is it because is it because he is a smug son of a bitch? A male chauvinistic bastard? A brown nosing glory hound? If we're not judging him by his character attributes, then how about his actions? How about he doesn't know when he's crossed the line and taken a prank too far or playful banter to truly insulting? How about he holds one hell of a grudge that he not only nearly got me kicked out of the school with his accusations of unethical behavior but he also tried to take you down with me?"
And when Howard finally paused in his rant for breath, Edwin interjected, "And let us not forget how he tries to sabotage you at every turn so that he can knock you out of the running for that internship."
"Oh right, yeah. Thanks, guys," she conceded, not really having anything to say to counter their mostly valid points.
In her sophomore year of undergrad, she had changed her major from pre-Law to Criminal Justice. After Steve had been killed by terrorists, her career goal had become being an F.B.I agent in its counter-terrorist division. (She wasn't so revenge thirsty that she wanted to make the leap into the deep dark side of the intelligence community, a.k.a. C.I.A.). The best way to get on the fast track for that division was to be nominated by the Dean and the Criminal Justice Department-head for the junior year summer internship at Quantico.
It was an internship for one, and Jack Thompson had been favored for that honor by Dooley since day one in Intro to Criminology, or so Daniel had told her. Thompson had sensed from the start that she would make him work for it and had not liked it one little bit, especially when she began to show him up in classes. He went on the offensive the best way he could – by ostracizing her further from her peers who were disproportionately all male by demeaning her insights as "only women's intuition".
Howard in retaliation had broken into the Sigma Sigma Rho fraternity house during pledge week and made a fool out of Jack in front of the pledge class.
Thompson had seized his moment of revenge when he had thought that he had found evidence that Howard was hacking into professors' files, stealing their exams and answer keys, and selling them to classmates. The icing on the cake had been when Daniel had informed his roommate that he had seen her talking to one of the suspected cheaters. Thompson had then accused her of intimidating people who could implicate Howard.
She had in fact been investigating on her friend's behalf. Eventually, she had been able prove his innocence by supplying enough evidence that it had been one of Howard's many female conquests who had stolen his code and used it for her personal gain. She had never been able to sufficiently prove which one though, especially since she (*cough* Dottie *cough*) was protected by Professor Fennhoff, whom she was a research assistant for.
Nevertheless, the unfounded accusations and the poor sportsmanship (on his part) of their rivalry were two things that Howard, and Edwin the loyal dear, could never forgive him for. She herself was still struggling with it, now that she thought about it all again.
Her walk down memory lane was interrupted by the inevitable question: "Why do you ask?"
"Yeah, what he said," Howard seconded, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
She shrugged, "Eh, he was surprisingly nice to me the night that Jason broke up with me, at the frat party. I was just wondering if maybe I wasn't giving him enough credit."
Her pity-me ploy worked like a charm. Jarvis looked sympathetic at the reminder of her return to singlehood, and he did not press further.
In fact, when Howard scoffed: "Ha! One act of kindness does not make a decent human being," Jarvis cut in with: "Just like one shiny bobble does not make up for your Wham-Bam-Don't-let-the-door-hit-you-in-the-arse-as-you-let-yourself-out-ma'am approach to dating?"
And just like that, they were off again.
As she listened to Howard vaunt the benefits of no-sentiment casual dating, she thought about all of her past relationships and wondered if she had been missing out.
There had been Fred, her high school sweetheart. He had popped the question after graduation and had planned out their future together. He had resented it when she had said that she wanted to go back to America for school. He hadn't wanted to wait for her. Good riddance.
She had sworn off men after that heartbreak, but then sweet earnest Steve Rogers had come along. He had been the shyest, most socially awkward American-football Quarterback there was, but so passionate in his defense of America's troops in their speech class together that she had decided then and there that he would be worth the risk if he ever asked her out. He had (eventually), and she had said yes.
Their time together had been short and terribly brief. In March, he had gotten word that his best friend Bucky who had joined the Army was missing in action somewhere in the Middle East. That spring break he joined up. That summer he went through boot camp. That fall he shipped out, and by New Year's the heroic idiot was throwing himself on a grenade to save his unit, or at least that's what his fellow commandos had been willing to tell her.
One would think she would have given up on happy endings by then. But no, there was Daniel and Jason after that.
No need to dwell on Wilkes. Daniel though...
Daniel had been one of the few welcoming classmates in her new department. Despite being roommates with Jack, he hadn't minded partnering up with her on projects and seemed even willing to jeopardize his standing in the fraternity to socialize with her persona-non-gratis self.
They had gone on a few dates, but except for a few hot and heavy make-out sessions, they had gone nowhere. They both had sensed (mostly Daniel) that she was trying to force the relationship to happen, mostly because he was the kind of guy she thought she 'ought' to go out with – sweet and smart and endearing.
As soon as Peggy had this thought, she wondered what in the hell she had been doing with Wilkes. If Daniel hadn't worked out because she was too fixated on a Mr. Right Checklist, then why in the world had she thought going out with Wilkes was a good idea?
She stared down again at the message.
Sweet and endearing, Jack was not.
Mr. Right material, he most definitely was not.
Screw it. Why not?
And with that she stealthily replied: B ther n 1/2 hr.