Hallo :)

Thanks again for the reviews and follows. You're the best! :)

I've been fighting with this chapter for 3 days now and it still doesn't do what I want, so I'm just gonna post it now.

and guuuys, the last episode! Feelings! Am I right?! :D

"And the most important thing..", Nick ended his little tour through the bar in front of the fridge and opened it, "The beer. We have bottles and cans. The bottles are served as they are but the beer in the can is normally poured in a glass first, because you know, it looks better"

Jason nodded.

"But", Nick continued and pointed a finger in the air, "Lenny only drinks his beer out of a can. If you give him anything else but a cold beer in a can, he will throw it right back at ya. So, don't do it"

Jason started laughing, but when he saw Nick's straight face and realized he wasn't joking, he went silent and nodded again.

"I will show you who Lenny is later. He's here almost every day. So is Frank. The thing about Frank is...never give him more than 8 beers. He's totally harmless with 8 beers. But one more and he turns into some kind of hairy white Hulk", Nick rubbed his hands together and leaned against the bar, "I guess that's it. Any questions?"

He shook his head. "You know a lot about this bar, huh?"

"Well", Nick shrugged, "I work here long enough"

"Yeah? Since when?"

Nick groaned inwardly. He was not really interested in talking to this guy. "Since 2006"

"Wow. That's over six years. So, what are you doing? Are you studying or...?"

Nick pulled a huge turtle face. "I'm a bartender"

Jason's eyes widened and he flushed a little. "Oh! I'm sorry. I just thought...Well I'm just doing it to earn a little extra money, so I thought...you know?", he stammered and when Nick made no move to say something, he finished with, "I'm at business school"

Of course he was. Nick took a deep breath and ran his hand over his face. "Good for you"

"My parents support me with a little bit of cash, but you can never have enough, am I right?", he laughed awkwardly, obviously trying to lighten up the mood.

Nick let out an ironic laugh and opened the fridge to grab a beer. He had this odd feeling, that he would need it.

"Want one?", he asked with a glance in Jason's direction. He looked back with a confused and slightly judgmental expression on his face and shook his head.

Nick just shrugged, opened the can and took a gulp, enjoying the few seconds of silence, before Jason started to talk again. "So...as a barkeeper you sure can pick up some hot girls, huh?"

Nick took another sip. "I guess"

"Not your thing?"

Nick sighed. Obviously it was useless to try to escape this conversation, so he caved in.

"No, I'm not the kind of guy anymore who picks up drunk women and besides, I have a girlfriend", a little smile played on his lips, when he said the last word.

"Oh, sweet. What's she doing?"

"She's a teacher", he said proudly.

Jason raised his eyebrows. "A bartender and a teacher? That's an odd combination"

There was a shift in Nick's mood and his face hardened. "Why?"

"I don't know. I just thought a woman who works with kids is more into...you know..the steady kind of guy. A teacher himself. Or a nerdy scientist. Not someone whose job is to make people drunk", he laughed.

Nick felt his body stiffen and the well known feeling of anger boiled up inside of him. He knew that it wasn't Jason's intention to offend him or anything, but he couldn't help but feel insulted by his words. And that made him made.

He was mad at Jason for saying that. Jason didn't know Jess. Or him. He was not in the right to judge.

He was mad at himself for caring about what he said. He just met him an hour ago. It shouldn't bother him, what he thought.

But most importantly he was mad that sometimes, he thought the exact same thing.

He clenched his fists and tried to control his temper. "I'm gonna clean up the storage place. If you need me, call me", he hissed through his teeth and walked away.

"Hey Jess. When you hear that...can you please call me? On the work phone, because my phone is broken...as you know"

He broke it, when he wanted to prove his roommates that old phones are much more robust than these new smart phones and that he could even use it as a bottle opener without breaking it. Turned out, he couldn't.

"I was just wondering, if you're okay...so just call me. See ya..I guess", he stammered. He hated talking to voicemails. Always sounded like an idiot.

Jess hadn't shown up for lunch, which was okay because she only said she would try to come. But she also hadn't called him to cancel, which was a little bit weirder, because normally she would do that. And he had tried to call her multiple times but she had never picked up.

He wasn't the type of guy who went crazy just because he couldn't get someone on the phone. It was the combination of Jess not coming by for lunch, Jess feeling dizzy this morning and him not reaching her, that made him worried.

He could feel that Jason was watching him. Since Nick came back from the storage place, Jason had left him alone. But Nick could feel how hard it was for him not to speak.

Once more Nick looked at the clock on the wall. It was 5:30 pm. His shift would be over in half an hour, but maybe he could leave early. There weren't much people here anyway.

He walked over to Jason, which apparently he took as a permission to speak again.

"Hey man. I'm sorry if I said something that offended you"

Nick waved it off. "Can I leave you alone until Bob is here? My girlfriend won't pick up her phone and I'm getting a bit worried"

"Sure", he just said, "I hope everything is okay"

"Thanks man"

Maybe he was bearable...

"Jess? Are you at home?", Nick yelled through the loft, first thing after he opened the door.

He could hear a sound coming from her room and a few seconds later she stood in the floor and looked at him with big eyes. A feeling of relief washed over him.

"Jess. Where have you been? I called you like five times", he said a little reproachfully.

"I'm sorry. I left my purse plus phone at school", she explained in a unusual flustered voice.

"Why?", he asked confused. Normally she went nowhere without her weird bunny thing.

"There was a little incident", she started.

He looked at her questioningly, giving her a silent demand to continue.

"I blacked-out in the teacher lounge. Full frontal crash with the floor", she tried to joke, but neither of them was laughing.

"God Jess", he took her face into his hands and looked at her worried, "Did you get hurt?"

She shook her head and stepped back a bit so that Nick had to drop his hands again "I'm okay. I went to the doctor. He gave me some meds. I feel better now", she explained hurried.

Nick frowned. He didn't know what, but something wasn't right. Jess seemed so nervous and unsteady and she could barely look him into the eyes.

"What is going on Jess?"

"I..", she started and gulped visibly, "I have to talk to you, Nick"

"Okay", he chuggled awkwardly and his heart started to beat faster, "That sounds serious"

A million scenarios were rushing trough his head, in most of them she was going to break up with him even though he couldn't find the connection to her black-out.

But she didn't say anything. Instead she was looking at him with a strange expression in her eyes. She almost seemed a bit frightened.

"You're scaring me Jess. What is it?"

She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath, before she looked up to him. "I'm pregnant"

For a second or two, he just stared at her until the meaning of her words finally sank in. And when it did, Nick's lungs tighten and he had the feeling, the whole air was sucked out of the room. He couldn't understand. Of course, he knew what her words meant, but still. He couldn't understand. His head started to spin and his knees threaten to cave in but at the same time his body felt weirdly stiff.

He didn't know how long they had been standing there until Jess opened her mouth again.

"Say something", she almost begged.

But he couldn't. His mind was completely blank and even if he knew what to say, his throat was suddenly so dry, that it was impossible for him to form words.

He didn't even realized it, when his hands went up to pull his hood over his head and his feet slowly started to slide backwards.

"Nick, no!", her voice sounded hollow in his ears like it was coming from a far distance.

"Nick", she said one more time, but he had already reached his room. His hand went up to the door and gave it a little push.

"NICK!", he could her her voice coming through the walls, while he was just standing there, staring at the closed door.