XIV

September 10th, 2010 – Brooklyn

Jesse raked his fingers through his hair as he watched Felicity get up to get the door. What the hell was he thinking? They hadn't seen each other in ten years and he was going and ahead and kissing her? He felt like a complete idiot. Not only that, but he had somehow imagined he was kissing an entirely different person. That would obviously bode well with her. Jesse slumped back into the sofa, letting out a deep sigh.

Meanwhile, Felicity took a deep breath, smoothing out her hair before peering through the peephole of the door. On her doorstep stood a familiar man, clad in a dress shirt and pants. Felicity bit her lip. After going to so much effort to keep Jesse from learning more about her current lifestyle, the very man who started it all had to come knocking on her door. Slowly, Felicity opened the door and chuckled sheepishly.

"Well, look who the cat dragged in," she commented, smiling. "Come in."

"I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time – it's not too late is it?" the man asked.

"Oh, it's never a bad time when you're around. It's only six o'clock, don't worry," Felicity reassured, closing the door as he entered her house. "So, what's up Tony?"

Antonio Barilla was the owner of the Lucky Fox bar and he just so happened to be the first person Felicity ever extracted. He also happened to me the man that convinced her to make a business out of it as well. He and Felicity had been working together for about three years. His real name was Paulo Mendez, an ex-pimp who was looking to make a change in his life. He stood tall at six feet and had medium length black hair. His skin was tanned and his eyes were a golden brown. Tony was a great negotiator which was one of the reasons he had become such a good businessman and despite his past occupation, he was quite a nice guy.

"Nothing, really. It's just that I haven't seen my favourite girl in a week or so and I wanted to drop by to see how you were doing," he shrugged.

Felicity rolled her eyes.

"Charming as ever I see. Well, to be honest, I have company but I'm sure he won't mind meeting one of my friends – as well as my boss," she laughed, trying to push the image of her and Jesse kissing out of her head.

She led him into the living room where Jesse was sprawled out on the couch, fiddling with one of the controllers. Felicity cleared her throat and he snapped to attention.

"Uh, Tony, this is my friend Alex, Alex, this is Antonio Barilla. He owns the bar I work at," she introduced. "Alex is one of my family friends. Our moms used to do the whole Tupperware party thing before I moved to Albuquerque."

For a second, Jesse forgot that he was supposed to be Alex. He waved feebly at Tony.

"Hey."

"Very nice to meet you, Alex. I'm sure you've been enjoying Felicity's fine company," Tony crooned, slipping an arm around Felicity's waist. She yelped and let out a small giggle. Jesse raised a brow, never having seen Felicity act this way around a guy before – not even Ryan Prescott.

"…Yeah, we've just been catching up and stuff, I guess," Jesse mumbled, not really sure what was going on between them.

"Oh, well if that's the case, I'd hate to interrupt," Tony said, pulling away from Felicity for a brief moment.

Her eyes widened slightly and she shook her head. Placing a hand on his chest, she chuckled.

"No, no, don't worry! As a matter of fact… Why don't you stay for dinner?" she offered, shooting a quick look at Jesse.

He had obviously fucked up pretty badly. Jesse was a tad thankful for Tony's arrival as it saved his ass from having to deal with Felicity. However, it didn't mean he was home free. He really had no idea how she was going to react. He was definitely not in a good position to have her completely blow up at him, that was for sure. Felicity practically had him wrapped around her finger. While Jesse was pretty sure that she would never go to those lengths out of anger, he was still afraid that it would put a major kink in their relationship. That was one of the last things he needed. She was the only other person he knew in this city and after all, they had only just become reacquainted with one another. Maybe a bit too much.

"Well, if Alex is fine with me staying a while, then I would love to," Tony said, turning towards Jesse.

Jolted out of his thoughts, Jesse furrowed his brow for a brief second before nodding vigorously.

"Yeah, sure, go ahead, yeah," he spoke quickly, making eye contact with Felicity. Her chin dipped ever so slightly into a nod of satisfaction.

"Wonderful, then I suppose I'm staying for dinner," Tony announced, tugging Felicity closer to him once more.

Jesse felt a surge of misplaced jealousy course through him. She did not belong to him and never did. There was no reason for him to feel any sort of negative emotion towards Tony. For all he knew, this was just how they were all the time. Even if Felicity said she wasn't in a relationship with anyone, that didn't exactly mean she could be interested in someone. Regardless, Jesse found himself incapable of supressing a small scowl as she let herself be coddled by the dark haired man.

"Well, then I suppose I should pull something together. I'm sure you two can play nice?" Felicity questioned, looking between the two men.

There was no missing the sour look on Jesse's face even if it had only been there for a fleeting moment. Still a bit shaken by what had transpired between them earlier, Felicity was glad to have a distraction in the form of a tall, dark and handsome man by the name of Antonio. She knew she was going to need to talk to Jesse some time. What had happened was a mistake. It was obvious that some part of Jesse was still living in the past. Felicity could understand that, considering what he had been through. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she had little to no idea what exactly had happened to him. Initially, she was fine with being in the dark, figuring that he would tell her when he was read but with what had happened, Felicity couldn't help but be a bit curious.

"Of course, don't worry about us, we'll be fine, won't we?" Tony answered, extending a hand out to Jesse.

"Yeah. Fine," he agreed stalely.

"Cool, alright, then sit tight, I won't take too long," Felicity said, tearing herself away from Tony to escape to the kitchen.

Antonio watched after her with some sort of admiration in his eyes before looking back to Jesse. He flashed him a wide grin.

"Well, what brings you to Brooklyn?" he asked, sitting down beside him.

Jesse gulped, his mind racing to come up with a viable lie. He knew the power that lies had and he also knew that he had to come up with something that he could live with. Jesse would have much preferred to go through this step of his new life slowly, giving him time to come up with something solid but it seemed like today just was not his day.

"Looking for a job," he said coolly. "I used to work in a factory before I got laid off."

"Oh, so you're from around here, then?"

Jesse's breath hitched for a split second before realized Felicity had once again saved his ass.

"Our moms used to do the whole Tupperware party thing before I moved to Albuquerque."

He had known her for so long that he had forgotten that he had initially met her when they were eight years old when she had moved there from Brooklyn. With that one little sentence that she had only mentioned casually, she had set Jesse up to be able to move himself even further from his dark past.

"Yeah," Jesse replied.

"I see… I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I'd love to help a friend of Felicity's any way that I can. I can do my best to see if anyone I know is looking to hire," Tony offered, clapping a hand over Jesse's shoulder.

He seized up briefly before relaxing, letting out a small chuckle. Maybe Antonio wasn't as bad as Jesse thought he was. He figured that any animosity that he felt was due to his misplaced jealousy. If Felicity was friends with him, he couldn't have been that bad of a guy, after all. Jesse wouldn't get anywhere in this city if he didn't at least try to make friends with people.

"Thanks, man, I really appreciate it," he thanked genuinely.

"No, no, don't worry, I understand how hard it is to start from scratch, believe me," Tony explained, leaning back onto the sofa.

Jesse felt his breath hitch. What did he mean? Did he recognize him?

"I was laid off a few years back as well," he finished.

Jesse let out a heavy breath, realizing that there was no way that he could have known who he was. He would have said something about it by now. Jesse needed to learn how to be less paranoid.

"If it weren't for a last minute investment, I would probably still be out of work, to be honest. And it's thanks to that same investment that I managed to meet Miss Scott, over here," Tony explained, lips curling into a smile as Felicity popped between the two men.

She came bearing two cans of soda, already open and slightly dripping from the condensation. Felicity wore a wide grin on her face as she dangled the bottle before Jesse's face. He shot her a confused look and took it, throwing back a large sip as he watched Tony place a hand over hers, allowing it to linger for a hair longer than he would've deemed acceptable. Felicity didn't seem to mind as she straightened her posture.

"Ah, thank you very much," Antonio cooed gratefully.

"You two doing okay? Just a heads up, I'm making pasta for dinner," she informed.

"I think we're doing pretty well, don't you agree, Alex?" Tony questioned, pointing the butt of his bottle towards Jesse.

He nodded slightly.

"Sweet, okay. It won't be much longer," Felicity said, quickly withdrawing back to the kitchen.

The golden skinned man turned back to Jesse and let out a small chuckle, shaking his head.

"She sure is one of a kind. The customers love her at the bar. Smart, pretty – and pretty fiery if she feels like it," he drawled.

Despite Jesse's attempts to see Antonio in a better light, he still couldn't help but feel slightly irritated with the way that he looked and talked about Felicity. Of course, he still had no idea about the context of their relationship, but that seemed to be a moot point. He did his best to push the thoughts aside, attributing them to his previous inappropriately placed jealousy. Tony had been nothing but kind and courteous thus far, even if he did seem to cross the line with Felicity.

"Yeah… She's cool," Jesse mumbled, not really knowing what to say. Obviously, all of those things were true but he wasn't about to start objectifying her or something.

"So, you say you guys go back to when you were kids? That must have been interesting," Tony remarked.

A small reminiscing laugh escaped Jesse's lips.

"It really was, actually… Shit, Felicity used to be such a pain in the ass," he admitted, suddenly feeling a lot more comfortable now that he was talking about something that he didn't have to completely lie about.

"Really, now? Well that's sort of surprising. She always struck me to be more of the…. Calm cool and collected type, well – most of the time that is," Tony chuckled.

Now that he was treading on familiar territory, Jesse was more at ease. He didn't have to make stuff up on the spot and he sure as hell has a surplus of stories about his adventures with Felicity as a kid.

"We used to call her 'Pissy Fissy' so that should be a pretty fuckin' huge hint of how annoying she was," Jesse laughed. He knew that he couldn't exactly start divulging information about Felicity in high school or anything because as far as Tony knew, they had only been friends until she moved from Brooklyn. He figured he could at least pass for telling stories about when she had first moved to ABQ.

"She had this huge German shepherd, right? Its name was… Bunbun or something like that… And okay, so get this, we're riding our bikes down the street and suddenly this gigantic wolf dog – because we were like… I dunno, seven or eight? I don't know, we were little kids – anyway, so this giant dog comes barreling down the street…"

He had no idea how much time had passed but sooner or later, Felicity called the two men to the dinner table. Three plates were set out, all with heaping piles of spaghetti on them accompanied by garlic bread. Various drinks were laid out on the table as well.

"I hope you haven't been saying too many bad things about me," Felicity chided, turning to look at Jesse.

He shook his head.

"Oh, no. I wouldn't dare," he snickered.

It seemed as if any animosity that he once felt towards Antonio. All it took was a little common ground. He seemed to enjoy listening to stories about his employee in her earlier years and the trip down memory lane made Jesse feel a little better. It also seemed as if any tension between him and Felicity had also died down.

"If it's bad things you want to hear then maybe I should start telling him about what you've done since I met you," Tony spoke up.

Jesse cocked a brow.

"Hm? Now that sounds interesting."

"Don't you dare," Felicity scolded, glaring at Tony.

He laughed smugly.

"Where do I even begin? How about that one Christmas party? 2007? If I remember correctly, it ended up with you somehow wearing your bra on the outside of your shirt and walking around with tinsel stuck in your pants," her boss chortled.

"Jesus Christ, Felicity. I never thought I would hear about you doing something like that," Jesse gasped, pretending as if he had never once experienced a party with her. The lie came easy.

"Shut up and eat your food," she shushed, pouting.

The rest of the meal went as such. All three of them took turns trying to out embarrass each other with Felicity eventually coming out on top with the best and most embarrassing dirt on the two of them. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Jesse was guilty of being quite a deal more reckless than Felicity, therefore she had a full arsenal of stories to tell.

When the dishes were all put in the dishwasher and the table was cleared, Tony announced that he should probably be getting home. The trio stood in the foyer as he slipped on his shoes.

"So, Alex, you're going to be at the party tomorrow, right?" Tony inquired as he stepped out the door.

"Party… Oh! Yeah, sure man, I'll definitely be there!" he informed, surprising Felicity.

"Great! I'll see you then, it was a pleasure meeting you," Antonio said, extending a hand out for Jesse to take. He took it and gave it a firm shake.

"Same here, dude," Jesse chuckled. To think he had spent the first half of the night being irritated with him. As it turned out, Tony was a pretty cool guy. Jesse just needed to give him a chance.

"And I will be seeing you tomorrow as well, yes?" he asked, slowly turning his attentions to Felicity.

"Wouldn't be a party without me, would it?" she countered as she pulled him in for a hug. Her arms wrapped around his neck as she kissed both his cheeks and he did the same. Once again, he held her for a moment longer than expected before releasing her.

"This is true. Ha. Anyway, thank you for dinner and I'll be seeing you both tomorrow."

With that, Tony ducked out of Felicity's house and unlocked his car.

As Felicity shut the door behind him, she leaned back against it and offered Jesse a nervous smile. It seemed as if Tony had taken the positive atmosphere with him when he left.

"About earlier…" he started.

She simply pushed past him and into the living room where she began to straighten up various things on the coffee table.

"It was a mistake," she spoke suddenly.

"Uh… Yeah, I guess it was," he agreed, slightly taken aback by her abruptness. It wasn't like they hadn't done stuff before. But he figured in the end, she was still right.

"I shouldn't have let it go that far in the first place," Felicity admitted. "I mean it was really insensitive of me, considering all the stuff you've probably got on your plate right now."

Was she really blaming herself for what had happened? If Jesse remembered correctly, he was the one who initiated it in the first place.

"But-" he interjected.

Felicity just put a hand up to silence him as she centered a cushion on the couch. A small hollow smile formed on her lips.

"Look, just drop it, okay? We've dropped stuff like this before. Just because we're older doesn't make it any different. It'll be fine," she reassured. "It's getting pretty late. I'll drive you home."

Jesse opened his mouth to say something but he figured he would only make things worse. He nodded in acceptance and watched as she drifted out of the living room and back into the foyer. Following after her, he couldn't help but wonder what was going through her head.