Chapter 15 Cassie: Jake's Question
I was walking to the door of Taco Bell when I saw Jake through the window. It was now or never. I had to talk to him, to clear my head.
I walked in the door and headed over to the table Jake was at.
"Hey, Jake." I said, nervous beyond belief.
"Hey, Cassie." He said, way too friendly. "What's up?"
"I, uh, just wanted to talk to you."
"About what? He asked, kind of confused.
"About our argument last night." I was shocked, had he forgotten already?
He was looking at me, kinda strangely. Like he was trying to figure out what I was talking about.
"Oh," He said, looking like a lightbulb went off in his head "I remember now. So?"
"So I wanted to talk to you about it. To figure what you were talking about. To see what I can do to help you."
"Oh," He said, "What about it? I'm fine, are you fine?"
"Am I fine?!" I yelled, a little too loudly. Now everyone was looking at me, great, I didn't want people listening to our conversation.
He spent five minutes yesterday yelling at me, and now he's acting like it's no big deal. What's up with him.
"Hey." He said, "I'm fine, I'm cooled off. I was just upset. I really didn't mean to blow up in your face. I'm ready to forgive and forget, If you are, I mean. You know that I would never mean to hurt you, you know that right?"
I was still shocked at how calm he was, he was just sitting there, eating a soft taco waiting for my answer. He didn't seem right to me. Maybe he wasn't actually okay with it. Maybe he was still mad, just pretending to be happy so it doesn't mess up the group.
Uh oh, I thought, had he told Marco? Because Marco can't keep his mouth shut to save his life. Hopefully he didn't tell anybody else in the group.
"Cassie?" He asked me, looking deep into my eyes. "Are you okay? Are you still mad? Because if you still are then,..." He paused for a second and reached over and took my hand, "Then I have an idea how I can make it up to you." He said with a grin on his face and a certain look in his eye.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked, shocked and hoping that he wasn't talking about what I thought he was talking about.
"I mean that my parents are going to be out of town for the weekend and Tom is going to a Sharing thing at the same time so I'll have the house to myself for the weekend if you wanna come over and talk about it." He said talk in such a way that I knew what he meant, I couldn't believe him, he yelled at me last night saying that he was breaking up with me and now he's inviting me over tonight when his parents and brother will be out of town to… to do what teenagers do when parents aren't around at night.
"Are you seriously asking me that Jake? Now of all times? I thought that we both agreed that we wouldn't, you know,... do that until we graduated and when this war was over. And didn't you have to have a conversation with Rachel and Tobias about this same exact thing when her family was out of town a while ago? Wouldn't that be hypocritical?"
"Well, what they don't know won't hurt them." He said with a smile. "And honestly," He continued, "I'm really wanting to take this relationship of ours up a notch or two. I also don't wanna die before I get a chance to wake up with you in my arms. Now, don't tell the others, but I truly think that we won't make it for much longer, too many close calls recently, we're out of luck. I just want one night Cassie, just one." He said softly as he squeezed my hand harder. "And if you don't wanna do more than what we've already done then I can't force you, but please, just come over tonight. I want to be with you just once."
"I don't know, Jake, I just don't feel comfortable with that right now."
What should I do? On one hand he yelled at me just yesterday and called us off and I don't know what to do about that. But on the other hand I have to admit that it was a tempting offer. Jake and I have never done anything more than kiss, hug and cuddle on the couch, but nothing like he was suggesting. Jake was always a gentleman about that kind of stuff, he'd never ask or expect me to do it if I didn't want to. But honestly while we made the decision to wait until we got married or at least until we graduated because we were both already seventeen, to sleep together I couldn't think of a single reason to say no to him, I've been really wanting to lately for some reason.
