Chapter 19

Out of all the places Elizabeth imagined Lulu would ever take her, Jake's was at the bottom of the list. It was dirty and smelled like aged whiskey, and there were peanuts on the floor. Surely Lulu couldn't walk across the floor in her designer shoes and allow the bottom of her fancy, pressed skirts to touch a filthy stool. This was exactly why Elizabeth found herself stopping the blonde before she opened the door.

"Is something wrong?" Lulu asked, raising her eyebrows at her.

Elizabeth had never been more skeptical of the woman in that moment. Lulu wasn't overly secretive, but she was hiding something, and she just didn't know how to feel about that.

Even after she had insulted her dress, called her seamstress a stabbing whore, and told her she couldn't handle dealing with anything wedding related for the rest of the day, Lulu invited her for a girl's night out.

She imagined to Lulu such an evening meant getting nails done and drinking frothy, girly drinks while giggling over dirty things that weren't really dirty things. Maybe that was why when Lulu asked where she liked to go, Elizabeth instantly named the bar. Much to her surprise, the woman seemed overjoyed at the idea of going there, and her head filled with all the amusing possibilities.

"Maybe we should go to the MetroCourt," Elizabeth murmured, suddenly feeling guilty for picking this hole in the wall.

Granted, Lulu was the most annoying woman she'd ever met, and she'd love to see her reaction to a place like this, but she just couldn't do it. If Lulu could barely stand Johnny from the first time they met, then there was no way in hell she could take the come-ons and the winks, not to mention Coleman.

Oh, Coleman.

Actually he was worth the trip.

"I've heard about this place," Lulu said, giving her a smile. "John always talked about how you all came here to celebrate important moments in your lives, and well, you have your art opening tomorrow…You've also been so good with helping me, which I know hasn't been easy. I figured a good drink and night of relaxing is what you needed."

She almost replied with a story entailing exactly what a celebrating at Jake's entailed; sometimes a bar fight, sometimes dancing on tables with a shirt on, and almost always being carried out of the bar or having to carry one of the boys out.

But she had a feeling Lulu wouldn't fully appreciate said moments.

"If you insist," she murmured, motioning for her to open the door and imagining what the first words out of Coleman's mouth would be.

Lulu was dressed like she always was; a designer pencil skirt and an over-starched blouse, her hair perfectly coifed in ringlet curls. Elizabeth felt drab standing next to her in a pair of snug jeans and a flimsy camisole, but she hadn't had the energy to really do much with herself. Besides, she knew that tight jeans and a head of messy curls were enough to get her a free drink or two at the bar.

"Good, let's have some fun," Lulu squeaked, opening the door and eagerly hurrying inside.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes at her enthusiasm and followed her down the tiny hall that led to the bar, stopping in the doorway when she saw how packed the bar was. Her cheeks flushed when everyone started to hoop and holler in her direction, and her eyes quickly roamed over the faces of nearly everyone she knew; the men from the warehouse, her co-workers from the gallery where she worked downtown, Johnny, and Jason.

Jason.

She felt a lump in her throat the second she saw him leaning over the bar, his back towards her, and a beer in his hand. Tension consumed him, his tightly drawn shoulders and his bowed head letting her know that he'd rather be anywhere but here. Suddenly his head lifted, turning over his shoulder to meet her eye, and she wondered if he'd felt her looking at him.

"Elizabeth?" Lulu asked, poking her in the arm.

"Yeah," she murmured, reluctantly breaking Jason's gaze, and feeling terrible for how abrupt she'd been with him the night before.

"I hope this is okay. I wanted you to have a chance to celebrate your first opening, and…"

"No, it's fine," she replied, shaking her head, shifting her eyes back to Jason, who had turned back to the bar. "I, uh, I…." She forced a smile at the blonde and nodded towards the bar. "Let's get a drink."

Or several.

"Still haven't worked things out?" Johnny asked, shaking his head as he leaned against the bar and gave Jason a scolding glare.

"I came," he replied, finishing off his beer and waving the empty bottle at Coleman who was standing at the other end of the bar, no doubt flirting with Elizabeth and Lulu.

He shifted his eyes back to Johnny's before Elizabeth noticed him staring at her, not sure why he didn't want her to know he was. It wasn't like she wasn't looking at him from the corner of her eye every five minutes and pretending not to be when he looked back at her.

"I don't know what happened," O'Brien muttered, shrugging as he glanced down the bar at the women. "But I do know if you tell her she looks pretty and you buy her a drink, it's a start."

Jason rolled his eyes and slid money across the bar to Coleman as he held him out a fresh beer. There was no way in hell he was going to take Johnny's advice, especially when it was the damn asshole's fault that everything was this messy.

He just had to come back to town with Lulu in tow.

Frowning, he took a sip of his beer and wondered if things would have been different had Johnny come home alone. Would he have still told Elizabeth it was a mistake? Or would he have just taken her to bed without thinking twice? And would Jason have really given a shit about anything that happened?

"Just buy her a drink and-"

"Drop it," Jason interrupted, watching her move throughout the bar in the mirror lining the wall.

She was holding a mixed drink in one hand, probably a Long Island Iced Tea, and a dark shot in the other. She drank those when she felt like she had to drink to be comfortable and a few of them usually did the job. The shot was most likely whiskey, and he could already see where this night was going.

"Tell her she looks pretty," he finished, cowering away before Jason could tell him to shut the fuck up.

She did look good, but then again, when didn't she?

The thought passed through his head most days when he saw her, be it in wrinkled pajama bottoms or a pair of blue jeans, Elizabeth always looked good. He'd just never been in the position to appreciate it, and he assumed after how forcefully she kissed him and how hard she was trying to avoid him, he was definitely in that position now.

He raised his hand at Coleman when Ritchie approached her, his arm settling around her waist, and his hand not so subtly smoothed over her ass. Elizabeth leaned into him, nodding as he whispered into his ear and letting out a loud, lively laugh. She pulled away from him, shaking her head, and he knew that the man had most likely said something very dirty.

The son of a bitch.

Ritchie was officially fired.

Oh, seriously, what the fuck was wrong with him?

"What can I get for you now?" Coleman asked, leaning against the bar.

Suddenly Elizabeth caught his eye in the mirror, and she gave him a pained, crooked smile, and he immediately dropped his eyes to his barely touched beer. It was just too hard to look at her. "Get rid of this," he said, sliding the bottle over to the bartender. "Something harder, and keep it coming."

Elizabeth stationed herself next to the jukebox, trying to pull herself out of the chaos from the packed bar. She'd never seen so many people at Jake's before, and she was touched that Lulu had actually pulled the entire night together.

Granted, most of the people were probably there for the free booze and had no idea that the following evening she was publicly showing her artwork for the first time. She'd dropped her last painting off that afternoon, and her stomach had been churning ever since. It took every bit of fight inside her not to go to Jason's, knowing he was the one person who'd be able to get her to relax.

The one person she wanted to see and the asshole had yet to walk over and say hello to her. Sure, he was feeling awkward and out of place, just like she was, but it was a party in her honor, and it was rude not come at least acknowledge her.

Sneaking glances from the corner of his eye and acting as if he was annoyed when he caught her looking at him did not count as acknowledgement.

"Why don't you just go over to him?" Lulu asked, appearing at her side with some girly drink clutched in her hand. She'd barely touched it and spent most of her time swirling the pink umbrella around in it.

Yes, an umbrella.

Like they were at the fucking beach.

Elizabeth thought Coleman was going to die on the spot the second Lulu asked for one of those frothy, umbrella drinks, and it'd taken him twenty minutes to find an unopened packaged stashed beneath the bar. They were dusty and old, but managed to bring a smile to the blonde's face.

"I don't know what I did," Elizabeth admitted quietly, which was only partly a lie. "He'll come around…" She swallowed hard, watching him toss back his third shot of whiskey, one more than she'd taken, and she knew she needed another if she was going to keep up.

"I bet it doesn't matter," Lulu murmured, taking a tiny sip of her drink and failing to hide her grimace.

If only she knew just how much tequila Coleman had poured into the blender. Elizabeth knew it was his way of paying her back for sending him on a search. He was a lazy bartender; a beer bottle opener and a shot pourer. Anything else pissed him off, and she only got by with her Long Island because the base was a pre-made bar mix.

"It does," she hissed, pushing her way past Lulu, knowing that she could never take back kissing him, or wanting him.

Or the simple thought that she didn't want to take any of it back.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped up to the bar, keeping several stools between her and Jason as she shouted for Coleman to pour her a couple shots.

Nothing like a little liquid courage.

"Don't you think you're both being ridiculous?" Johnny asked, motioning at Elizabeth, who sat several stool downs, sucking down shot after shot.

Jason long ago gave up on getting drunk, mostly because the hangover he suffered from the other night at the MetroCourt still haunted him.

And to silently answer O'Brien's question, it was very ridiculous.

He wanted to find comfort in the possibility that she was just as screwed up from all this as he was, but he had no idea what she was feeling. The sound of her hanging up on him still rang in his ears, and it was clear that she just didn't want to talk about it, which would get them nowhere.

All this over a stupid fucking kiss, but a kiss was never just a kiss, and their's had hardly been stupid.

"She'll get over it," he muttered, rolling a peanut around in his palm before flicking it to the floor.

"It's kind of funny," O'Brien chuckled, setting his beer down on the bar and sliding it back and forth between his hands.

"What?"

"You and Elizabeth, you never talked – I mean, you did, but not really– and then I come back home, and you two are all buddy-buddy, but suddenly you're not talking again."

Jason arched an eyebrow as if to say, maybe you're the fucking reason, you asshole, but he bit his tongue. "It's hilarious," he muttered, shifting on the stool.

"It's a good thing you two finally did start talking because after everything…" His voice trailed off and he shook his head. "I wondered if you two would ever get close again, and the other night, still, just really freaked me out."

"Why?" he asked flatly, feeling like he should humor Johnny for some reason.

He shrugged, narrowing his eyes intently at his beer. "It was like seeing…"

"Seeing what?" he demanded, needing to know.

"Elizabeth and Jason Quart…." His voice trailed off again, and he didn't bother to finish it.

"Oh," Jason muttered quietly, that being the last answer he expected to hear.

They sat side by side in silence for a few minutes, neither of them sure how to break the tension that came from breaking the unspoken rule about Jason Quartermaine. Sometimes he wondered if forbidding anyone to talk about who he was before the accident did more damage than good.

"So, uh, do you two always fight like this? You know go from making out on dance floors to nothing?" Johnny asked, sipping his beer, and winking at Lulu as she slid onto a stool beside Elizabeth. He knew his friend was just trying to get back to the topic at hand, but it only pissed Jason off even further. "'Cause if you do, I hope the making up is-"

"None of your business," Jason interrupted, tensing up at the idea of O'Brien even referencing him and Elizabeth in bed together.

Sadly, it wasn't because they hadn't slept together.

Well, technically, they had plenty of times. He was used to Elizabeth crawling into bed with him when it stormed or she was drunk and needed to talk herself to sleep, and it had never been uncomfortable the next morning. It was almost natural to wake up with her curled beside him, his arm slung around her waist, and her face pressed into the crook of his arm.

Until now; until Jason Morgan post kissing Elizabeth Webber.

Because he wasn't sure he could have her crawling into bed with him without wanting her curled up beside him – preferably without clothes, his arm slung across her naked body, and her face against his pillow, just inches from his.

All thoughts he should not be having about his best friend.

He was completely and totally fucked.

"Coleman," he growled, Johnny raising his eyebrows at his tone. "Shots, now."

"Men are jerks," Lulu muttered, though she couldn't sound further from believing the statement. Elizabeth almost wanted to thank her for such damnation though. "Seriously, you got all dressed up and the least he can do is tell you that you look nice."

"I'm not really dolled up," she said quietly, tapping her fingers against her overturned shot glass. She'd lost count as to how many she had and knew that once she stood up, it was all going to go to her head. "Just jeans and a t-shirt."

"Which he seems to like," she replied, nudging her with her arm as she continued to nurse the damn umbrella drink. "He's been watching you all night."

"Yeah," she murmured, knowing this and not needing to be told this, because the last thing she wanted to do was focus on how Jason was looking at her, but not looking at her.

God, she hated him.

She was half-tempted to stick him in the eye with the damn pink umbrella. No doubt he would talk to her then.

"Can I ask you something?" Lulu asked, taking another sip of her drink which, like everything else in the bar, annoyed the hell out of Elizabeth.

She kept thinking about grabbing the blonde by the back of her head and holding her backwards as she forced the drink down her throat, but that wouldn't be very nice, especially when none of this was her fault.

Or maybe it was, seeing as she had put the entire evening together, forcing Elizabeth to mix and mingle. As well as to get felt up by Ritchie over her stupid promise; he'd muttered something about already having a room for her upstairs, and she'd laughed and hurried off before she did something really stupid.

Like get so plastered she actually went upstairs. Yeah, that would really piss Jason off. Or would it? Or did she even want it to?

She was seriously fucked.

"What's your question?" she asked, when Lulu grew quiet as if she'd offended her.

"You and Jason," she replied, laughing to herself. "I mean, I know that you all were friends before the accident, but that's pretty much it. John doesn't talk about it much, and I was just curious as to how you and Jason found your way back to one another." She paused, twirling her umbrella in her glass. "You know, after Jason Quartermaine."

"Oh," she murmured, wondering how to answer the weighted question.

"You don't have to talk about it. John says it makes everyone really uncomfortable, and I don't want to upset you. I was just curious," she shrugged, taking an actual gulp of her drink. Elizabeth assumed it was just because she was nervous. "After all, it's sort of sweet and romantic in theory."

"Well, we don't talk about it much. Jason doesn't like to hear about him," she answered slowly, suddenly feeling unsure about discussing the topic. "I guess…Well, when Johnny left, I needed a friend, and I started to depend on Jason more."

"And before that?" Lulu asked, tipping her head and looking at her.

"We were friends, but not really. It was hard, especially for me because of Jason Quartermaine," she confessed, swallowing hard and blinking back tears. It was the first time she'd ever made such a confession aloud, and to think she was talking to Lulu of all people.

"I can't imagine how difficult that was," she said sincerely, surprising Elizabeth as she sucked the rest of her drink down.

So, she drank when she was nervous. Elizabeth would have to remember that.

"I mean, to lose someone like that, and then to what, walk into the hospital and have him not remember you," she continued, shaking her head as she closed the umbrella and pushed her glass away. "I'm not sure if I could handle it."

"I was, uh, I was there," she replied, feeling like she could correct Lulu's take on things.

"There?" she asked confused, craning her neck as she looked down the bar for Coleman.

Yeah, when Jason woke up," she said softly, taking a deep breath. "I was the person sitting beside his bed."

"And he looked at you and didn't remember?" she asked, a faint smile spreading across her lips, and Elizabeth almost felt offended.

"Not a thing," she replied, desperate for Coleman to make his way down to their end of the bar, really needing another shot or drink of some kind.

Anything with liquor.

Lulu grinned, her eyes turning glassy, which caught Elizabeth off guard. "I change my mind. It is very sweet and romantic."

"What?" Elizabeth asked, clutching the shot glass in her fist, not exactly sure where she was going with this.

"The fact that you and Jason are together, that you found your way into some kind of beautiful romance after you lost who he was before. Yeah, he's not the same person, but still...," she answered, shaking her head as if she were mesmerized. "It's like something from a book or a movie – to have found love after everything, especially after being the very first person Jason Morgan ever saw."