Remember the whole 'comments another chapter, faster' deal?
It worked! I can have another little something up by tomorrow night if I get some comments.
Everyone reading and commenting -- Thanks so much. It means so much to me to know what people are thinking of my writing!
I was awakened the next morning by a series of light pokes to my side. I groaned loudly and turned to face the one poking me, obviously not remembering where I was. Jay stood over me, looking much cleaner than he did the last few times I'd seen him. He almost looked like he'd showered. That, though, seemed unlikely.
"Jay," I breathed more than whispered, yawning. "Hi."
Then, and only then, did I remember what happened the night before. Deciding that telling Jay what he didn't remember would only incite panic and chaos amongst my people, I kept a calm face.
"Morning," he said, with a small smile. "Why didn't you sleep in there with me, last night?"
This was my specialty, making up on the spot reasons and excuses for things. I was damned good at it. In the face of pure childlike confusion as was written all over Jay, I had trouble letting my creative juices flow.
"Uh," I stammered, "You were acting strange. I thought you might throw up." He seemed satisfied enough with that answer. I sat up and allowed him room to sit down on the couch. He did so and stretched out a little, resting his feet on me.
"Rough night?" He asked me, grinning. I guess he thought I'd been the one to stay out and party all night.
"Nah, I came home way before you did," I said, shaking my head with a light laugh.
"Oh, really?" He asked, a tad hesitantly. "I was just with some friends, is all."
He was sheepish about his behavior with the girls the night before, I could tell by the flush rising to his cheeks. Jay was weird in that way; he'd usually pretend to be bold and unyielding, but honestly, he got a little embarrassed of himself sometimes.
"You seemed to have had a very good time with these female friends by what you told me last night," I said, grinning somewhat evilly. His flush grew darker.
"Uh, yeah, well…" he paused to look for something good to add in, "Yeah. I did. It wasn't all that good, though."
He was bordering on giving me more details than I needed, I could tell. Still, I sat quietly, determined not to do the same thing he had -- act jealously with no reason for the jealousy itself.
"There was like three chicks, right? And the were all over me… one's face was kinda busted, but the other two were hot. So I was getting really close with this one girl, like she was all over my zipper, taking off my pants… then the other two start making out and I'm like… 'whoa!'" he paused here to do these crazy hand motions, much to my chagrin.
"And it could've been hot but it was the one chick with the face. So I just uh… did the job with the one chick and her friend, not the one with the face." All of this was explained in Jay's excited, rushed way he always told stories.
I had no reason to feel the way I did, but I had this overwhelming sense of frustration with him. Perhaps I wanted him to remember what he'd said to me, perhaps I'd even wanted him to mean it. In the back of my mind, I knew I just wanted Jay to want me. I didn't want to reciprocate the feeling, just to be wanted.
"Ah," Jay said, breaking the minute or two of silence that fell between his Penthouse Letter of the Month entry of a speech and any response that might have been (but was not) coming from me, "I said too much, didn't I?"
The good, friendly Lily might have said, "Oh, of course not, Jay! Were her tits symmetrical?" But, alas, I was not that Lily.
"Perhaps you should've stopped at how it wasn't that good," I said, shrugging. He rolled his eyes and grinned, throwing his arms around me.
"Aw," he buzzed, "Someone not get any Peralta after she left?" I shoved him off of me with a noise of exasperation.
"You didn't even want me to go see Stacy," I reminded him, some frustration creeping into my voice. He blinked at me several times before thinking of anything to say.
"C'mon, Lil, you're not still mad about that…" He said, working his best puppy dog eyed magic on me. It wouldn't work, this time. I was upset that I couldn't even remind him of what he'd said the night before about me making him jealous, calling me 'baby', telling me he loved me…
But, I couldn't. And I was mopey about that.
"I was being a dick because I wanted you to stay," he explained, still trying to drown both of us in his charm. I'd grown a certain resistance to his ways, you could say.
"I'm sorry," he said, diving for another hug. "I love you, Lily."
The last part of the sentence struck a nerve. I think that, at that moment, I wanted a reason to be upset with Jay, just for him being ignorant. I suppose I visibly tensed up.
"Do you now?" I remarked, sarcastically. His eyes grew wide.
"Whoa, Lily, what did I do wrong?" He asked, taking my hands and forcing me to turn towards him. He didn't even look like he really cared.
"Nothing," I said, sharply. I stood up and headed for his room, to find my clothes. I didn't really feel like staying there again. I'd just deal with being home alone or find somewhere else to crash.
Being Jayboy, though, he followed me.
"Lily Cantessa Ingram," he warned, calling me by my full name, "tell me what is wrong with you, right now, before I stop caring." That was his grand master plan to get me to talk?
"No, because I don't care if you care or not. You're a dick, Jay, you really are," I said, pushing past him with my clothes in hand. I shut myself in his bathroom and quickly changed. When I opened the door, I was met face to face with Jay, who shoved his way in and shut he door behind him.
Great, I thought, now I'm in a tiny, enclosed space with the one person I currently can't stand.
"What in the blue hell is going on with you, Lily? What did I even do?" He asked, getting close enough that I had to sit on the toilet. His bathroom was hardly built for one, let alone two. Standing room for two people meant that you couldn't look anywhere but a that person, as you were literally nose to nose with them.
I looked away from him, gazing out the window with the decorative glass that sat about eight feet in the air on the wall. I couldn't see anything, but it was better than talking.
"Why do you care?" I asked, finally meeting his somewhat genuinely worried eyes.
"Because… you're so damned mad at me…" he said, sliding into a sitting position against the door. "Did I say something when I was drunk? Is this still about the Stacy thing?"
"I was never really all that mad about the things you said when I went to see Stacy," I said, quietly.
"That leaves when I was drunk. What did I say… or do?" He asked, wincing with what was probably anticipation.
"A few things," I told him, realizing that I'd unfortunately opened my mouth too far to go back on telling him what happened.
"Tell me," he demanded, seriously. I took a deep breath.
"You," I started out slowly and steadily, "May or may not have said some things while you were drunk that were out of the norm. You called me 'baby' while asking me to go to sleep, then told me that you loved me, after you kissed me."
There it was. All out in the open. The whole situation wide open for his thoughts and explanations. I had none, really, of my own that I hadn't already rehashed to shreds in my mind. The version of things I was currently trying to stick to was that I just wanted to be pined for, not that I wanted to be with him, and he had been drunk out of his head.
"Fuck," he mumbled under his breath.
I waited patiently, scanning him for a pre-response. Unfortunately, there was none to be found. Just a stone faced expression directed towards the linoleum. I was sure that, if he could have, he would've been burning a hole into the floor.
"I'm… sorry?" The statement seemed to have the inflection of a question.
"I'm not sure what else to say, Lily. I can see why that must've, uh, confused you a little," he said, running his hands backwards through his hair.
"Yeah," I nodded, feeling a little more confident in my next sentence. "I've been thinking, Jay, and we spend a lot of time together… People have said that I take care of you more than I need to, since I'm just a friend." I tried to pose the whole thing delicately.
"By people, you mean Stacy," he interjected. I ignored him.
"And I do, Jay. I spend a lot of time taking care of you only to watch you go off with other girls who you get tired of then come back to being all cuddly and cute with me," I continued. I could hardly believe what I was saying. The way I felt just kind of poured out of my mouth, much to the discomfort of Jay, who sat there, watching me with wide, vaguely hurt eyes.
"Lily," he said, exhaling while speaking, "I-I don't know exactly what to say to that. Mostly 'cause I know it's true, but still… I didn't know you felt like that."
"How am I supposed to feel when you blow up at me because you think I like Stacy, you know? I watch you go after everything that catches your eye and never say a word. I seem a tiny bit interested in a guy who you know damn well would be good for me, and you flip your lid!" I couldn't help but raise my voice at him. He'd been so unfair to me for so long, it had really taken a toll.
"Stacy," he yelled back, "is not as precious as everyone would like to think!"
"Oh yeah?" I countered, hands on my hips.
"Yeah," he retorted. "Pretty Boy Peralta's got a job and a car and shit, but he's no saint, Lil."
"But why do you care if I like him?" I asked, my voice cracking a little. I didn't yell very often.
"Because," his voice got quiet, "Like you said, you've watched me go after every girl and you've never said anything. I've tried, Lily, I've tried to show you that, damn it, we could be something. But my bullshit doesn't work with you. You didn't like me, so you weren't fascinated with my charm much."
I just sat in awe of what was happening.
"Maybe I mostly got over the fact that you were only ever going to be my friend, a very close, comfortable friend, but when you turn around and want to just marry Peralta, it pissed me off. He's known you just as long, and you all aren't even as close as we are."
He balled his hands into fists and rested them in his lap. "The way you look at him… you never gave me a look, let alone a second look, like that."
I was shocked; he looked so angry, yet so hurt at the same time. There was this flash in his blue eyes, the same way there always was when he was mad. He overestimated the way I felt about Stacy and my tolerance for his certain something he turned on around women. I could recall a time that I very much looked at him the way I was supposedly looking at Stacy,
"Jay, you're crazy," I said, shaking my head. "I used to. I used to look at you probably much differently even. I liked you in that way," here I paused to draw in a deep breath, "when you were dating Mary."
Mary had been the girl who was mentioned before, the one Jay really had feelings for. That probably explains why I didn't make any sort of move. I wondered, for a second, where we'd be now if I had.
"Jesus Christ," he sighed. "We're a mess, you know that?" I nodded.
He just stared intently at me for what seemed like a very long time. Slowly but surely, he reached out to rest his hand on my head, running his fingers through my hair. I silently protested, hoping that my tongue would work well enough to call his name and tell him to stop. It didn't, of course. He moved forward to sit on his knees, inches from my face.
This is happening just like last night.
Then, with his usual graceful confidence, he pressed his lips to mine, gently. It was more insistent than the night before. This time, my mind did not flag it as taking advantage of his state, and the weaker part of me kissed back, for a moment.
Breaking the kiss as soon as I was physically able, I rested my forehead on his.
"Jay," I said, pausing to make eye contact for a second, "Stacy…"
He growled in frustration and sat back quickly, smacking against the wall.
"Lily, why?" He said, his voice strained. "You just kissed back and you're still worried about that fucker… I thought you wanted me."
My head hurt. I knew that what I just did was terribly misleading if, in fact, I didn't want to be with him. After the whole conversation, though, I wasn't sure what exactly I wanted. Here I had Jay Adams, willing surrendering his tough, careless exterior to me. I also had Stacy Peralta who was far more dependable and trustworthy than Jay, ready to take a chance with me.
Damn it, stop thinking like they're just options, Lily, I mentally reminded myself. These were my friends, my family basically. Boys who I loved as brothers and who loved me as a sister. Yes, there was a potential flame resting with both of them, but that didn't convert them into interchangeable choices. Either way I went, I would hurt someone close to me.
I suddenly felt like the biggest bitch on the face of the earth for even getting involved in the situation at all. I wasn't even sure if I had real feelings for either of them and I was getting far too deep into conversation with Jay not to be sure.
"Jay," I said, feeling as though tears might spring any moment, "I really don't know what I want. You're not like Stacy, but he's not like you, either… Can I even trust you in a relationship?"
The feeling of being a bitch quickly switched to the feeling of being an adult talking to a child. For some reason, it felt like I was using bigger words than he could grasp. I got that a lot with Jay, not so much with Stacy.
Jay looked more pissed off than before.
"Can you trust me?" he snapped. "What is that even supposed to mean?"
I could remember many instances where being Jay's girl would have been a hard situation to have dealt with. He'd stolen Stacy's girlfriend on one occasion, recycled both Stacy and Tony's exes many times, cheated several times, left a girl for no reason quite a few also. Mary was probably the only girl who hadn't dealt with some sort of unpleasantness while with Jay, even until the end he doted on her incessantly.
"You've not been the best boyfriend to other girls in the past," I told him gently, "and I don't want to ruin our friendship over something that you're not going to take seriously."
He looked at me, very plainly in the eyes, and asked in a serious tone, "What if I told you I've never felt like this about anyone but Mary, and even with her, it should've been you?"
My heart caught in my throat; I couldn't differentiate between what Jay was saying being what every girl wants to hear and how truthful it was.
"I think I love you, Lily," he said, pulling close for another kiss. Thank God he had my lips busy because I had no idea what I was going to say, next.