Author's Note: Quick update. Sorry the holidays are a really busy time, and I'm trying to wrap up my business for the year so I can close the books cleanly and get a fresh start, and life's just been a blur of work, parties, booze and cookies. Very little time for writing, but I appreciate reviews, so here's a quick unedited chapter.
"Hey." Paige tried to hide the disappointment in her voice when she looked up to see the housemate knocking on her doorframe was not the one she hoped. Jakes if he noticed it, ignored it and leaned against the door frame casually, observing her actions.
"Getting rid of some pills huh? Not strong enough for that freakish tolerance of yours?" Jakes grinned. He always liked to make fun of Paige for being the skinny little white girl with an inexplicable tolerance to alcohol and drugs. He had watched her once drink three 300lb line backers under the table and then ridden a bicycle. Not particularly well, but it was still impressive to this day.
"No, they knocked me right out alright, but gave me really strange dreams. I woke up feeling like shit this morning." Paige explains. "It's au natural from here on out."
"And by that you mean alcohol?" Jakes asks wisely.
"You know me so well." Paige grins.
"Well if you don't want them, can I have them?" Jakes asks, leaning down and picking up the bottle from the trash can.
"Sure, but fair warning, they're strong. You're so low key anyways, you take one of those and your heart may stop." Paige teases. She gives him a concerned look, "You having trouble sleeping?"
"Nah, but sometimes Johnny gets so annoying that I just want to slip him something to calm his ass down." Jakes jokes, slipping the medicine bottle into his pocket.
The real reason is Jakes had been undercover with an extremely amorous smuggler recently, and if he could slip the girl one it would make searching her house a whole lot easier. She had no problem bringing him back to her place but never wanted to sleep. He had no doubt Paige would appreciate the story, and laughing at his expense, but he didn't want the whole house to know he was unable to investigate a small time latina trafficker due to his irresistible body.
"He's not that bad." Paige rolls her eyes, defending her housemate. It seems like Johnny and Jakes are always at odds, and Paige adores them both.
"Yeah, he's better recently. With you and Mike off doing your own thing together, there's no one around to rile him up." Jakes says, "Where is the rat anyways?"
"Don't call him that." Paige scolds, though she's not sure why she's defending Mike right now. She is still mad at him from their fight the other night. She can't believe he didn't come to apologize after she had stormed out of the kitchen. In fact she hadn't seen him all day. That jackass. Still just because she can call him names doesn't mean anyone else should. "And how should I know? He's probably off rescuing kittens from trees or something."
"Everything ok with you two?" Jakes asks.
"Do you care?" Paige says point blank. Jakes rarely gets involved in house drama, and he's made it pretty clear from the beginning he does not approve of Paige hooking up with Mike.
"I care about you. So what's going on with you two? Spill." Jakes says honestly. Her and Jakes have always had a level of respect and understanding between the two of them. Sure they fought sometimes, as roommates always do, but she respected Jakes. Currently as the only two agents in the house who weren't FBI, that had grown stronger. Jakes was a good man, and Paige considered him family.
"I thought you didn't get involved with house drama."
"Yeah, well. Now I am." Jakes just shrugs patiently and takes a seat on Paige's bed tossing the pill container up and down in his hand like a baseball. When Paige still doesn't speak, Jakes decides to. "You know when you didn't show up that day I was mad at you? I thought you'd stood me up. Levi figured it out first. Man, when you were gone... I have never seen a man that determined before. He would have moved heaven and hell to get you back. Crazy bastard didn't care he was going to get himself shot. He was going to save you no matter what. You just don't find that every day you know."
"I had no idea you were such a romantic Dale." Paige teases, when Jakes just gives her a knowing look she sighs, "It's not like that. Mike likes being the hero. We're just friends. Things are just a little confusing right now."
"The two of you seemed pretty cozy at the bar the other night for being just friends. Don't think I don't know what you were doing when you spilled my drink." Jakes calls her out.
"Yeah, well I was really drunk, and for your information he turned me down. He just doesn't see me like that anymore." Paige says, her pride hurting at admitting it. "Apparently he only dates brunettes with bambi eyes."
"He turned you down? You're sure? Maybe he didn't understand the question."
"Believe me, I'm sure. He chose to sleep on the fucking floor the other night rather than with me."
Jakes just laughs. "Oh Agent Warren. Idiot."
"What's so funny?"
"He's a good man. A stupid one, but a good one." Jakes sighs, still laughing. "He's slept on your floor? He has a bed down the hall. Admit it, the kid has it bad."
"What he has is a martyr's complex. He's protecting me from the imaginary bad guys who are going to break into Graceland to kidnap and gangbang me again." Paige rolls her eyes as she continues to tidy up her room. "He can't protect me from all the monsters all the time."
"Go easy on the boy. He's overreacting, but can you blame him?" Jakes's voice gets surprisingly serious as he remembers the fear that overtook the house when Paige went missing. "You didn't see him when you were kidnapped. We were all worried, but he was obsessed."
"Look I know ok? But it's just Mike. That's who he is. You saw how he got when Briggs was a fugitive. He obsesses."
"Not like this." Jakes shakes his head as he remembers the pale shell of a man that haunted the house the entire time Paige was gone. "Look you're a smart girl. You'd have to be blind not to see the way he watches you, so you're clearly in denial about his feelings for some reason, and nothing I say is going to change that."
"He watches me because he doesn't trust me to take care of myself. He's somehow appointed himself as my fucking savior, and that includes saving me from him! I'm just sick of it, Dale. If he wanted to be with me, that would be one thing, but he doesn't. He wants to put me in a box where nothing can touch me and just walk away." Paige sighs. She knows there's something there between her and Mike, but it's not what she wants. It's pity. And it's worse than indifference.
"Speaking from experience, sometimes when you love someone, you walk away because you love them. It can be a mistake, but it comes from a good place." Jakes says sincerely.
He doesn't know why he's fighting so hard to defend Mike to Paige. He doesn't even like Mike half the time. Jakes is convinced Paige could do better than Mike, and if she's walking away from him because he's a pain in the ass he supports that decision. However if she's walking away because she thinks he doesn't love her, she's just flat out wrong.
"Yeah well speaking from my own experience? When a naked girl throws herself at a guy, if he's interested, he fucks her." Paige spits back sarcastically.
"Ok, now see that? Oversharing. I don't want to hear about that." Jakes says, throwing his hands up in frustration. He did not want to think about any of his roommates in a sexual way. "Boundaries people. No one in this house has them."
"It doesn't matter now anyways, I may have messed it up." Paige shrugs, turning to clean up the rest of her pills. She knows Jakes is trying to give her hope, but that's exactly what she doesn't need right now. What she needs is to get over this rollercoaster of drama with Mike, and get back to the carefree way she was before.
"So go fix it. That boy would do anything for you." Jakes says simply. "I mean he's a freak, but if you like that sort of thing..."
"I'm not sure I can fix it." Paige admits, thinking of Mike's reaction the other night, the way he called her a slut. "He's really mad at me."
"What did you do?"
"It's not so much a matter of what as of whom…" Paige admits.
Jakes laughs again.
Paige gives him an embarrassed smirk.
He knows her too well.
She doesn't need to say more.
"Well I'm sure you two will make up, but remember, you're not alone. We're all here for you." Jakes says, standing up and giving her shoulder a supportive squeeze. "I mean I'm not willing to give up my bed to become your new bunkmate like Levi or anything, but whisky I've got if you need a drinking partner."
"Aw, you wouldn't do a sleepover? We could braid eat popcorn and each other's hair. Johnny would be so jealous."
"Yeah, well I might be more agreeable if I weren't afraid some jealous crazy white boy wasn't going to kill me in my sleep." Jakes teases. "You tell whoever your mistake is that he's probably better off getting out of town?"
Paige rolls her eyes, "Mike's not that bad."
"Well he did kill the last five men who slept with you." Jakes says.
As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Jakes worries he might have crossed a line by joking about the ordeal, but Paige laughs heartily. She likes making jokes about her shitty experiences. It makes them more bearable.
"Go take a nap sleeping beauty." She throws a pillow at him jokingly. He stands up to leave her room, glad to go back to his more comfortable emotional distance. "Hey Dale?"
He stops in the doorway, and looks back at her.
"Thanks." She says shyly.
"Your welcome." Jakes says. As he walks out the door he sees Mike pacing in the alcove, talking to himself and obviously trying to work up the nerve to approach Paige's room. When he sees Jakes come out of it, Mike freezes like a deer in headlights having been caught. He looks so pathetic Jakes for a second feels sorry for him, but it's quickly replaced by annoyance that the two of them can't just work their issues out.
"You two." Jake grumbles, brushing by Mike. "This is why I don't do house drama."