Her keys hit the table and her backpack fell off her shoulder and landed with a noticeable thud on the ground, "Mom, I'm home."
She heard the familiar pattern of Molly's paws hitting the hardwood floor of the kitchen, turning into the hallway. Her slobbery mouth drooling and panting as she ran towards Jade. She braced herself before the eight year old, German Shepard jumped up with her front paws landing on Jade's belly.
She patted the dog and told her down, laughing a little bit. Jade scratched the dog behind her left ear and Molly instantly calmed down. She kissed the top of the dog's head and started walking up the hallway and into the kitchen, and Molly followed right beside her.
"Hey Mom," she said. Her mother was fiddling around the kitchen with a piece of paper in her hand, opening and closing drawers in frustration. Jade watched as she went up to the Island that stood in the middle of her huge kitchen. No wonder her mother still had trouble finding things in here. Jade took a seat on one of the bar stools, "Mommy?"
Her mother let out a startled scream and turned around with a hand over her heart, "Jaden Leigh, you just scared the shit out of me."
"I"m sorry," she said with a small smile. The dog laid down on the ground next to Jade's feet. "Is dad not coming home tonight?"
"He had to stay late because his general manager flaked, yet again," her mother said with annoyance. She opened another cabinet, only to slam it shut again in frustration. "You would think that I would know where your father put everything in this stupid kitchen by now, but no. He has to leave me things to make for dinner that are completely different from the last one, so I still know where nothing is."
"That's the life of being married to a chef," Jade said. Her father was quite a successful restauranteur, that's what really made the decision to move from Calabasas to Hollywood a reality. There had been a few offers from different people who were looking to sell their restaurants.
Her father had decided to take on two different restaurants in the process, one open from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon, and the other was opened from five until two in the morning. The one open at night was about a half an hour away from the other, making it almost impossible for Jade to ever see her dad unless it was on a weekend, when the early restaurant wasn't open. Luckily for her, it was Friday.
"Your dad left instructions on how to make this weird tuna thing," her mom said going to the fridge. She opened it and screamed. Jade jumped out of her seat and yelled too, causing the dog to bark and growl. It was quite the chain reaction.
"What the hell?" Jade yelled at her mom.
She had a disgusted look on her face as she reached into the fridge hesitantly. She pulled out an entire, fully together tuna fish. Jade could smell it from where she was sitting. Molly walked up to the fish and started sniffing. Some of the fish slime dropped down to the floor, and the dog almost licked it up, but Jade's mother yelled 'no' before she could get away with it.
"I'll find the take out menus," Jade stated, going into the drawer behind her….
Her stomach was full of house fried rice and crab Rangoon by the time the clock struck eleven. All in all, it was a nice night spent with her mother. They watched two different movies and talked about how she got the part in the play, about her day, and about her mother's new art exhibit in the local museum. Her mom's art work was world renown, being sold in all of the fancy European art stores. That's how her mom could afford not to have an actual job like her dad.
She was thankful for her mother having that talent though, it made her well rounded in the long run. The natural ability to turn whatever she had in her head go onto paper in art, and she could make anything she wanted to in the kitchen from all of the lessons her father had forced her to take.
Molly was following her up the stairs, bound for bound. Jade could over hear her mother talking to someone on the phone, "But I don't understand why you're so lenient with your employees? They wouldn't miss this much work if you were more strict… no, I'm not talking about that right now. I just… I just miss having you home. Of course I'm proud of you! You should know this by now."
Jade ignored the rest of the conversation. If she's heard them fight once, she's heard them fight a million times. They weren't ones to argue all the time, but when they had fights, they had fights.
She walked the rest of the way down the hall to her room in the corner on the right. The door covered with posters, drawings, and things her friends had given her over the years. Thank God she had the room all the way at the end. Some of the pictures Lily had made her were narcotic related. She couldn't count how many times she had gotten a characterized mushroom handed to her in the middle of class. She still had almost all of them in a box under her bed.
With her backpack over her shoulder, she entered her humble abode, avoiding the clutter that crowded the floor. She threw the messenger bag onto the queen-sized bed, along with her cellphone. Then she reached up to her fan, clicked the shortest string twice, and the longer one once, flicking on the light.
Jade's room was painted black and red, with her name painted on the black wall that her bed was pressed up against. It was painted in purple, sliver and red, with a metallic outline surrounding it. She went over to her dresser, taking off her silver rings and her zipper style earrings and putting them all in her jewelry box.
She stripped down her clothes, piece by piece, replacing them with her favorite black sophie shorts and a black tank top. She threw her dirty clothes into a cardboard box that was over by her closet.
She grabbed her remote and took a seat on her bed. Before she could even think about laying down, her body decided to collapse and attack the bed with her weight. Her silky, black, pillow top comforter felt so cool under her, all she wanted to do was sleep. Her fingers seemed to have a mind of their own, and put the T.V on the
That's when she heard the familiar sound of her phone getting a text message, followed by a vibration that coursed through her bed. A part of her thought that she should just ignore it. That was before she remembered Beck.
Jade searched frantically over her bed, searching for where the vibration came from. She found it on top of her pillow, next to her nightstand. She slid her finger across the bottom of the screen, opening the text message.
It was from Beck, I was thinking we could try to get some things done tomorrow, around mid afternoon, does that work for you?
She thought about that for a minute. The thought of hanging out with him made her happy, but she wasn't sure if it was smart. If she was trying to avoid making her feelings stronger for the man, the last thing she needed to do was spend more time with him.
Sure. That'd work for me. What time specifically? Jade wrote back.
She put her phone down and sat up, finding an all new amount of energy to keep herself awake. She flipped through channel after channel, trying to find something to watch to keep her mind off of the time it was taking for him to text back. He was probably on the phone with his bimbo.
Jade huffed. That's actually exactly what she assumed he was doing right now. It was late on a Friday night, why wouldn't he be wishing his girlfriend a good nights sleep?
She needed to start remembering some of her lines. Since this was a school of the arts, she had to step her game up to keep the part before they found someone else. The songs would be easier to learn than her actual lines. She really needed Beck to get the full effect of the character.
Her phone went off as she pulled her script out.
I was thinking we could start around two or three? It's the earliest I can get over there, and when it comes to leaving… well, I'll leave whenever you kick me out, lol. Beck wrote back.
She smiled at the second sentence. Sounds good, I'll see you then.
His reply was almost instant, which made her have a little more hope that he wasn't talking to his girlfriend. I can't wait. (:
She didn't know what to say back to him. Maybe this was exactly what she needed to do to keep him wanting more from her. Torturing a boy was something she really missed. The way she knew how to keep them guessing, wanting more, and teasing them, especially when she didn't want to actually be with them.
And she didn't want to be with Beck... as far as she knew. He was just an attractive guy she happened to be flattered by. That was it. Besides, he had a girlfriend who he actually liked to be with, as weird as it was.
Her phone went off again. She read his name and couldn't help but smirk, so... How was your night?
She started to text back a very vague answer, knowing all too well how to play this game. She told him about the fish and the movie she watched with her mother. He kept asking questions and she kept answering until it was almost three o'clock in the morning. Her vision was getting blurry and she was actually quite tired and hardly paying attention.
Sadly, she wasn't coherent enough to realize who the next text was from... and it wasn't Beck.
Goodnight, Jade. I love you...
You... you love me? Jade texted back frantically. She reread the text over and over again. That's when she realized that she wasn't texting Beck, but she had accidentally replied to Justin instead. She shut off her phone in a panic. How could she have been so stupid? She was supposed to be dead to him, to never speak to him again. Why did this have to happen now, or all times?
She was finally focused on other things. Her major part in the play, her day that was going to be happening in just a few hours, and how she was actually happy being in the new town. Of course, one mistake can remind her just how much she missed about her old town.
Her head hit the pillow with exhaustion, and she was out like a light...
Molly's barking shot Jade out of her quiet and peaceful slumber. The doorbell rang, and someone knocked shortly after.
"Fuck..." Jade grumbled, picking herself out of bed with every skin cell pulling her back towards the soft, silky, comfort of her messy bed.
Her door was thrown open with force as she exited out into the hallway. The door to her parent's room was open, and it was in perfect condition, but lacking two important aspects: her parents. She assumed they had left her a note somewhere in the house, but another light knock on the door made her change her plans of finding it.
The steps hardly touched her feet as she bounded down them with a slight hop in her step. She wound up at the door within seconds of getting off of them. Molly was still barking protectively, and Jade shushed her, pushing the dog away from the crack in the door.
Jade opened it only to be blinded by the evil sun reflecting off her front porch and sidewalk. Her eyes started to water as they adjusted to how much brighter it was outside than in her cool house.
"Were you still sleeping?" a young man asked with humor.
She knew that voice, "Beck? What're you doing here so early?"
"Early? Have you looked at a clock today? It's already three in the afternoon."
Jade's eyes shot open as she leaned back into her house. Sure enough, the digital clock on the wall in her living room read three fifteen in the P.M, "Shit... I'm sorry. I guess I forgot to plug my phone in or something."
"It's cool. It's not like I was waiting very long. I only knocked three times," he said, giving her a reassuring smile.
She moved by and let the man inside, holding Molly a little bit to prevent the jumping, "Sorry about her. She jumps... kind of a lot."
Beck surprised her by kneeling down on the floor next to the dog. Molly instinctively fell to the ground with her belly up. He scratched her stomach, watching her leg kick back and forth and her eyes close, "It's fine. I like dogs. I wish I could get one, but my mom's allergic."
"I'd give you Molly, but she's mine," Jade said with a laugh.
Beck stood back up and faced Jade, closing the door finally. "I'm more of a Rottweiler guy, myself."
Jade shook her head in approval. Then silence.
"So..." Beck started off saying, finding Jade's eyes with his own, "should we maybe walk away from the front door, or are we going to stand here all day?"
"Oh! Right. Sorry." Jade said. She felt her cheeks heating up, so she turned on her heel and started up the stairs, with Beck following behind her with Molly by his side.
He walked behind her up until she got to her room. That's when she remembered how messy it had been from the previous night and month she hadn't cleaned it for, "Um... my room's a mess. Just so you know."
"I'm down with the mess. You should see my room," he huffed.
Jade rolled her eyes and opened the door. Beck was in awe at the walls. Not only was her name painted beautifully on, but she had posters of some of his favorite bands and art that caught his interest the instant he saw it. The ink went over the paper so smoothly, and it looked like there wasn't a line out of place.
He walked to the opposite side of the room, passed Jade on his way around her bed and stared at the poster that covered her wall next to a window. A portrait of a girl was drawn on it with an ink pen. The hair of the girl was traced, every single strand stood out. Her eyes were colored in with vibrant water colors, and so were her lips, neck, and the bottom of her hair.
"Who drew this...?" Beck asked, turning back to Jade. She was trying to clean while he was distracted.
"I did," she said. Jade walked over to it, standing almost directly behind Beck. She wasn't very prepared when he turned around.
"It's... beautiful," he broke down into a whisper.
His face was mere inches away from her own, with his watermelon scented breath coating her face. Their eyes locked and each of them felt their hearts stop. Jade had a chill run down her spine, while Beck felt goosebumps travel along his arm and down his sides.
She felt her pulse start back up an an alarming pace as his head tilted to the side, and his eyes glossed over. His eyes shot from hers, down to her lips and back.
Jade knew he had a girlfriend. She knew that this could ruin the game she was trying to play. She knew the consequences in their entirety, but right now... she just didn't care.
AN: To kiss or not to kiss, that is the question... is that really a question?
VVV ;) VVV