FF: #174 Amnesia

Part 8

For the first time since Jason could remember, he was nervous. Waiting for Elizabeth to either agree or turn his offer down was making him… nervous. It was a strange feeling, and it was something that he never really wanted to feel. He couldn't quite look her in the eyes, and there really wasn't anything left in her apartment to occupy his attention so he had no other option but to stare back at her as she looked at him with a blank expression.

When she began to laugh it made his nervousness grow.

It wasn't like any of the other laughs that she had granted him with. This laugh was taking over her entire body as tears streamed down her face. She obviously found his offer hysterical.

He felt like an ass.

"Move in…" she couldn't stop laughing to finish her sentence, instead she just pointed at him and laughed some more. "You want me…" Finally, she began to calm down enough to finish a thought. "Did you just ask me to move in with you?" She asked the question as she wiped tears from her cheeks and chuckled.

"Why is that so funny?" He really didn't mean for his question to be spoken so harshly, but he felt a little on edge after just being laughed at.

When his harsh voice registered through her funny haze, Elizabeth quickly stopped her giggles and stared at Jason with a worried expression. "You were serious?"

"Doesn't matter."

If she didn't know any better, if she didn't know Jason to be a man who showed little to no emotions, Elizabeth could have sworn that she saw his cheeks redden a bit. Could it be from embarrassment? "You were serious." This time, it was a statement.

And this time Jason didn't answer her.

"Oh, Jason, I-I didn't mean…" Now it was her face that turned red, only her cheeks gave off a more noticeable red glow, making it impossible to mistake her blush for anything but embarrassment. "It's just that when you told me to move in with you, I thought you were only joking." She smiled. "Honestly, can you imagine me and you living in that one room above Jakes?"

"We wouldn't live at Jakes."

"Oh." That was all she could think of. She honestly could not understand where this conversation was going. Everything was just way to confusing.

Jason could see the confusion written across the scrunch of her forehead. "I have a room above Jakes for when I'm there. I don't live there, but the room is always kept for me. I live in the penthouse across from Sonny's."

"You do?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Jason broke eye contact with her and stared across the empty room and the wall that used to hold a painting that he could never make out. "It's nothing like Sonny's penthouse, I just live there."

He glanced back at her and couldn't decipher the expression that was on her face. It didn't look quite like disappointment, but it bordered there. "What?"

She hadn't realized that she was staring at him so openly until he snapped her out of her study with his question. "I don't know. It just seems like Jake's fits you more. I guess I just never really pictured you living in a place like Sonny's."

He shrugged his shoulders again. "Like I said, it's just a place to live. I don't need that much."

That she knew. Elizabeth didn't know Jason for a long time, but from the little time that he had been guarding her, she could tell he was a very simple man. Her whole life everything she could think of was made to be more than it was and she had always dreamed of a simple life. Looking at Jason, she realized that simple was the way to go.

He cleared his throat, looked at the empty wall once again, and then finally looked back at Elizabeth. "So what do you say?"

"Huh?" That was the second time in three minutes that she lost all train of thought and just stared at him. She would never get tired of staring at Jason, he was quite a sight and she was always finding something new about him. Like the tiny scar that slashed through his right eyebrow, or the slight dip in his nose, or the slight gold specks in his bright blue eyes… Damn, she did it again. "Say about what?"

"Moving into the penthouse."

"Oh, that." As tempting as it was, there really was no way. "I can't Jason. My parents have finally proved that I need them and can't make it on my own. There is no use to lagging out the inevitable."

His forehead scrunched as he shifted his body on the floor to turn to her more fully. "You're just going to go home?"

"What other choice do I have?" Her voice was whisper soft and full of sadness when she spoke. It was a tone that bothered him and he didn't know why.

"You could move into the penthouse and start over."

A long sigh escaped her lips before she turned and mimicked his position on the floor. Their knees bumped but neither moved. "I've lost everything Jason, my home, my furniture, my clothes. They found a way to close my account so I have no access to my money. I have nothing."

Her head dipped as she stared at their knees as they touched. A tear escaped from beneath her lashes and she hated herself for being so weak. Her eyes closed tightly in an attempt to keep her tears locked away, but when Jason's rough hand cupped her smooth cheek and nudged her chin with his thumb, she looked up at him and almost broke down in tears at his soft expression. "You haven't lost everything. You just lost things, possessions. Everything that you said can be replaced. We will get you new clothes," he placed his thumb over her full lips to silence her when she was about to argue. "You can pay me back if you want to."

When he finally removed his hand from her cheek and his thumb from her lips she immediately missed his warmth. Pushing that aside, she asked the one thing that plagued her the most. "Why do you want to help me so much?"

Because he didn't like the detached look that overcame her when she told him she would have to go home. Because he didn't want her to have to face her parents when everything she told him about them ended with her being sad. Because he didn't want her to leave. All the reasons that popped into his head made no sense to him. He couldn't sort out why those were the immediate responses he had to her question and if he didn't even know why he felt that way he sure as hell wasn't going to say them out loud. "Because I still don't know who tried to take Kristina which means your life is still in danger." It was a logical reason, one that made sense, and one he felt comfortable saying out loud.

"Oh." So his concern for her was nothing more than what their entire relationship had been. She couldn't even call what they had a relationship; she didn't even know what to call it. But she know knew that his wanting her to move in with him meant nothing more than him guarding her and keeping her safe. Just like the past couple of days. "You think that even if I move back home, I'll still be in danger?"

"Yes. One of the men who tried to take you and Kristina is dead, and the other one is…" He shouldn't have said that much, but he wasn't going to tell her that he was being kept in a safe house practically being tortured until he talked. He cleared his throat to cover up his pause. "He's not talking. We don't know who is behind the attempted kidnapping so we don't know how dangerous the situation is." And an unknown threat is usually the most dangerous.

He made a lot of sense, but to actually move in with him? Sighing, Elizabeth actually thought about the situation. They were practically living together for the past three days as it was. He was staying on her couch, and they spent every moment together. It might work. "If I move into the penthouse with you, I'm going to look for a job and start my life over. I am going to figure out how my parents were able to close my account when I was the only one who had access to it, and then I am going to move out once I figure out how to open my account again." She spoke to him as if she was laying out ground rules, but everything she said to him he figured as much.

"Ok."

"Ok."

They both just sat there and stared at each other for the longest of moments before Jason stood up from the floor. She placed her hand in his without any hesitation when he offered it to her to help her get off of the floor. He pulled her up with an ease that amazed her because of his strength. Her life had been in danger since the moment she met him, but she felt nothing but safe when she was with him. She stared into his eyes for a moment before she let out a rush of air, causing her chest to rub against his hard chest. "It's just temporary." She didn't mean to voice that reassurance to herself out loud and didn't know she did until he repeated her.

"Just temporary."

He hadn't been lying when he told her the penthouse was just a place to live and nothing like Sonny's. Her entire life had been filled with the most expensive things, the most extravagant things. Her parents wouldn't have it any other way. But when she had been sitting in Sonny's penthouse the day she was kidnapped, Elizabeth felt like she didn't belong in the expensive penthouse. It was the nicest place she had ever been to. The Jackson's estate—which was the most expensive estate on her block growing up—didn't even come close to comparison to Sonny's penthouse. So when Jason had casually mentioned that he lived across from Sonny, Elizabeth automatically thought that Jason's home would be filled with outlandish items like Sonny's had. But she was wrong.

His penthouse was as simple as he was. There was a desk, a leather couch, and a pool table in the living room. Nothing else. Just a simple living room to accommodate everything that Jason needed.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

Obviously Jason and Sonny were as opposite as the clothing that they wore. Where Sonny dressed in suits, Jason dressed in jeans. Everything about them was different and Elizabeth couldn't help but smile at the friendship that she had seen between the two of them. It amazed her that two complete opposites could be the best of friends. She stared at Jason's back as he walked through the living room before her and felt like she was learning yet another thing about him. A smile tugged at her lips and spread when he turned around to look at her. The question was in his eyes but he didn't voice it.

She answered his look. "This suits you." His eyes narrowed in confusion and trepidation at her insight of him. "Never mind." That blush was back with full force. She could feel her cheeks heating.

Jason could see her cheeks turn red, and knew from the day before that her blush ran down to her chest where it was revealed from the neck-line of her tank top. He knew he shouldn't look, but he did anyway and called himself an ass for it. He tried to tear his eyes away from the gentle swell of her breasts and finally did when he realized that he was staring at her for way too long. It was a good thing she felt a bit embarrassed and was looking away or she would have seen him staring at her.

He cleared his throat. "I could show you to your room." He realized that that was a bad suggestion to go along with the thoughts that were running through his mind. "Did you want to take a shower or anything?"

Great, now he was thinking about her in the shower. Naked.

"Actually, that would be great. I was going to take a shower when I got home this morning, but the movers were already there so I never had a chance."

"Right." Clearing his throat once more, Jason tried to shake himself out of his thoughts of her, naked, in his shower. "The only shower that is working right now is the one in my room. The shower in the guest bathroom is backed up and I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. There are towels under the sink. Everything should be there for you."

"Thank you." When she didn't move but just cast a quick glance at the stairs and back at him he realized she didn't know where to go.

"It's the first door on the left."

She gave him a smile that had him rubbing his chest. She did things to him and Jason didn't know if he liked that at all. What the hell was he thinking asking her to move in with him? Just as that thought passed through his mind, Sonny passed through the opening of his front door.

"Hey man, what are you doing here?"

"I live here."

"You own this place, but your hardly ever here." Sonny corrected with his dimples shining through.

Jason shrugged his shoulders as he placed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He looked away before he looked back at Sonny, the expression on Jason's face telling Sonny he really did not want to explain why he was there. He finally sighed and looked away as he explained. "Something happened with Elizabeth's apartment and account. She says her parents found a way to close her bank account in order to force her back home. She lost all of her stuff and her apartment. I offered for her to move into here until we can figure out everything that is going on."

Sonny tried to cover his smile with the palm of his hand. But when Jason's gaze darkened with the promise of a threat, he couldn't help but let the chuckle pass. "She needs a place to stay until we figure out who is behind trying to kidnap Kristina. Elizabeth's life is still in danger. She is just staying here for a little while."

At the mention of his daughter's close call to being hurt because of his business, Sonny's expression faltered. He thought about his little girl and the scare she must have gone through that day. He hated that his life was such a danger to innocent people like Kristina and Elizabeth. Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Sonny turned back to focusing on Jason and trying not to laugh at his enforcer's grim expression.

"You can probably stay at Jake's still now that Elizabeth is staying here. You won't have to stay here since the building is protected. You'll still guard Elizabeth, but you won't have to sleep here since I know how much you like Jake's better."

Just as Sonny had finished his sentence, Elizabeth's voice was heard at the top of the stairs. Both men looked up as Elizabeth called Jason's name, unaware that Sonny was standing there. "Jason?"

When she came into view, the sight that met Jason's eyes stole the breath right out of him. Elizabeth was still too busy securing the towel under her arm to notice Sonny standing there; it wasn't until she finally looked up that she realized Jason wasn't alone. That blush that Jason was becoming so accustomed to appeared on her cheeks again, flowing right on down to her chest. When he noticed Sonny staring at her with as much appreciation as he was, he grew agitated, at himself for being agitated, at Sonny for looking at Elizabeth, and at Elizabeth for walking around with nothing but a towel on.

"What?" His question was harsher then he intended.

A nervous laugh escaped her lips as she tucked her dry hair behind her ear. "Sorry to interrupt, I didn't mean to-"

She was distributing her weight back and forth from one leg to the other in such nervousness that Sonny took pity on her. "You weren't disrupting anything." His dimples were in full force and Jason felt like punching him.

"Oh, ok." She smiled at Sonny as the tension in her bare shoulders relaxed and turned towards Jason, not being able to read his expression. "I don't have any clothes." The statement was blurted out because of her uneasiness she gathered from his glare. "I-I don't have anything to wear when I get out of my shower."

Sonny looked on with a bit of confusion, but Jason's expression seemed to relax as he nodded in understanding. "There are some shirts and sweat pants in the first and second drawers on the right in my dresser. Just grab one of those and I'll have Max go out and get some things for you."

Her thank you was quick as she dashed back towards his room and out of sight.

Sonny looked at Jason and smiled an all knowing smile. "I have a feeling you're not going to be staying at Jake's anymore."