Someone requested more Andre.
The fourth rule of having roommates: Stay Healthy.
"Beck. Beck, wake up."
Jade tosses her arm across her boyfriend's chest, effectively bringing him out of his sleep.
"What time is it?" He asks tiredly, bringing his hand up to rub his eyes.
"Two thirty," she informs him, already pushing herself to sit up in their bed. "But something's wrong."
Beck yawns and watches as the wheels of Jade's brain turn in silence. Despite his girlfriend's solidly characteristic habit of sleeping very deeply, she has a gut like nothing Beck has ever seen. Back in high school, Beck had once commented that her strong intuition was exactly what would make her a great mother—which, of course, earned him a quick sucker punch to the stomach.
Thanks to Beck's protective nature, he'd made Jade promise to him a while back that she would always wake him when she sensed something was off. It doesn't happen often, but it also doesn't come as such a surprise to him that they're getting out of bed in the middle of the night for a reason that has yet to be determined.
Beck follows her out of the bedroom, and it only takes a few seconds for Jade to discover exactly what the issue is. "Do you hear that?" She asks, spinning around to face Beck.
He furrows his eyebrows. "Is someone throwing up?"
"It's Tori," Jade insists, moving again to head in the direction of her roommate's bathroom. After knocking on the door and receiving a muffled "come in," Jade steps into the room to see Tori bent over in front of her toilet. "Oh, god. You have the virus, don't you?"
Tori grimaces and nods her head before spitting again into the bowl. "Kill me," she mutters. "I knew I should have moved seats when that girl in my English class started coughing."
Jade is about to reply when another voice comes from behind her, outside the bathroom. "Is she okay?" Beck asks, prompting his girlfriend to lean her head back out of the door.
"She'll be okay," Jade answers. "She picked up the virus that's been going around. You go back to bed—I'll be there in a minute." Beck nods and kisses her forehead before returning to his room and flopping back onto the bed. Meanwhile, Jade goes into the kitchen to get some juice and nausea pills to bring back to her friend.
When she arrives back in Tori's room, the brunette has brushed her teeth and crawled back under her covers. She graciously accepts the medicine and cranberry juice from Jade, thanking her before swallowing the pills.
"Those should keep your stomach settled for a few hours," Jade informs her. "Sleep in as much as you can—don't get up for Bio tomorrow. Just text me when you're awake and I'll come check in. Got it?"
Tori nods. "Thanks. I really appreciate it. Sorry I woke you up," she croaks.
"No worries," Jade promises. "Goodnight." Once she's back in her own room, she sees (not to her surprise) that Beck has been waiting up for her. Without saying a word, she climbs back into bed and curls herself into his arms. He drops a quick kiss to her hair, and both of them are back asleep within the minute.
The next morning, the couple wakes up to learn that Andre plans on skipping his classes for the day to take care of their sick roommate. Beck hands his girlfriend a glass of water before pouring one for himself. "Is Tori still sleeping?" He asks, pulling cereal out of the nearby cabinet.
"Yeah," Andre replies, "but she's gonna need one of us here to help her out, so I don't mind doing it."
"Agreed," the actor says. "I'm done around two o'clock—I can bring some soup home for her."
Andre almost replies, but is ultimately distracted by the look that Jade is giving him from where she sits at the kitchen counter. "You like her," she deadpans, a sly smile hinting on her lips.
"What? No, I…I don't," Andre sputters out—but he's always been a terrible liar and Jade and Beck are seeing right through him.
"You crushing on Tori, man?" Beck chuckles and takes a seat next to Jade. Andre's cheeks are getting hotter as he turns away from them to get himself an apple from the fruit bowl. "Hey, as long as it's not Jade, fall for whoever you want," he says, and his girlfriend silently chokes on her water for a split second.
One of these days that age-old, junior year secret is going to have to come out.
"Tori and I are friends," Andre defends himself. "We've been friends for a long time. I'm not looking to screw that up."
"But you are looking to screw…her," Jade adds, grinning. Beck laughs and Andre rolls his eyes, and it isn't until later that Jade gets a text proving the truth in her half-joke.
Text [incoming] - Andre
Pleeeeease dont say anything to Tori about our convo this morning
Jade laughs to herself in class and replies quickly.
Text [outgoing] - Andre
Why, because I'm right? ;)
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Text [incoming] - Andre
No
Text [incoming] - Andre
Maybe
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Text [outgoing] - Andre
HA. Knew it.
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Text [incoming] - Andre
Just dont say anything!
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Text [outgoing] - Andre
Well are you gonna do anything about it?
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Text [incoming] - Andre
I dont know yet. Trust me, ur just lucky to have Beck and already know who youre ending up with. I hate this stuff
Jade raises a skeptical eyebrow and re-reads the text from Andre. Has Beck talked to him about marrying her? On a different note, can she really deny that she probably will end up with him?
Text [outgoing] - Andre
Wait – who says I'm "ending up" with Beck?
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Text [incoming] - Andre
U know what I mean. Im pretty sure that if Beck proposed tomorrow you wouldn't say no...
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Text [outgoing] - Andre
Actually I would.
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Text [incoming] - Andre
?
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Text [outgoing] - Andre
Okay I wouldn't. But still - wtf does this have to do with you and Tori?
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Text [incoming] - Andre
My point is that you guys don't have to deal with all this complicated dating shit. Ur lucky. Just promise not to tell Tori
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Text [outgoing] - Andre
Fine. And you don't tell Beck that I'd say yes if he proposed. He already gets way too eager about that stuff and I don't want him getting any ideas.
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Text [incoming] - Andre
Deal
Despite her urge to think more about the conversation, Jade opts instead to tune into the lecture. She may not want to pay attention for herself, but Tori will expect the notes she missed in her absence.
It's just after two in the afternoon when Beck arrives back at the apartment, his arms full of things he'd bought on the walk home from class. He first sets Jade's coffee, which he'd picked up from Starbucks for when she arrives home in half an hour, on the kitchen counter. After dropping his backpack by the table, he walks over to Tori's room and knocks carefully on the door.
"Come in," the brunette calls hoarsely from inside—and so he does.
"Hey," Beck says. "Where's Andre? I thought he was skipping his classes today."
Tori lets out a gnarly cough before she can reply. "He just went out to get lunch for himself and pick up my antibiotics."
"Oh, nice. Well I brought back some soup. Jade said you like Chicken Noodle?"
"I do," she says, smiling weakly as she sits up slowly in her bed. She accepts the soup from him, along with the napkins and spoon. "Thank you so much."
"No big deal," he answers honestly. "How's your day been?"
"It wouldn't be nearly as bearable without Andre here," Tori confesses. "He's been so sweet—getting me everything I need, offering to help in any way he can…He's great."
Beck smiles and bites back what he could spill to her. He's a man of his word, though, and he's not about to break any promises (or get himself into the middle of anything at all). Drama—particularly relationship drama—is simply not Beck's forte.
Tori, however, has different plans.
"Can I ask you something?"
Beck gulps. "Uh, sure," he answers, a dopey, clueless look appearing on his face.
"You don't have to answer if you don't want. I don't want to trap you into girl talk or anything," she begins—and, even sick, Beck thinks she might be the nicest manipulator he's ever met. "But, I've been thinking lately. About Andre…and me. I know you guys are close, so I was just going to ask you if…maybe you could talk to him? I know this sounds so high school," she continues rambling, "but with him I'm just extra nervous about all of this stuff because we're such good friends and we're roommates, my god, and I wouldn't want to—"
"Tori," Beck interrupts. "I gotcha. I'll uh… I'll talk to him."
"Really? Because that would—"
"Really," he affirms, rising from the bed. "But promise me something." Her eyebrows rise and he looks almost desperate as the next words leave his mouth. "Next time, use the other girl in the apartment for girl talk?"
Tori holds back a laugh that she knows will hurt her sore throat, choosing instead to simply smile. Beck leaves her to her soup and Gossip Girl marathon, then, and plops himself on the couch to wait for Jade to arrive back home. Lucky for him, she comes ten minutes before she usually does due to her class's early release.
"Hi," he says eagerly, popping up from his seat. "You look beautiful, as always."
"You saw me this morning," Jade scoffs, accepting his kiss before placing her Starbucks in the microwave to heat it up.
"You looked good then and you look good now," Beck explains, still smiling. "How were your classes?"
"Class wasn't the interesting part, actually," she says, taking her coffee out and grabbing his hand with her free one. She leads him over to the couch, where she drapes her legs over his lap and curls her body as close to his as she can. His arms curve around her body, one laying over her thighs and the other wrapping around her torso. "Andre texted me," she continues, keeping his full attention. "And, of course, I was right."
"About the Tori thing?"
"Yup. He's got it bad," she says, hiding a smirk in the long sip of coffee she takes. Beck sighs and fills her in on his conversation with their sickly roommate. "Wait, so—"
"She likes him, too."
Jade sits in silence for a minute, and Beck is slightly bothered by the fact that he can't read her mind. "This could be good," she finally says. "This could be good, or it could be really bad."
"True…but what do you mean?"
"On one hand, I do not want to listen to the two of them getting it on from across the apartment," she says, and Beck lets out a chuckle. "But on the other hand…if they're busy with each other, they won't care or complain as much about our noise."
"Of course," Beck says, laughing. "Of course those are the first conclusions you draw from this situation."
"Either way," Jade says, gulping down another sip of coffee, "things are about to get interesting."
If you have any ideas or anything you want to see, just tell me and maybe I'll do it. I only have like three more ideas for this series anyways.