Okay, so here we go again. I was having a bit of trouble writing this one because my schedule is weird as shit lately. I literally get out of the army on terminal leave next month. So its been hectic, especially since the green weenie is getting all of its last thrusts in before I'm out entirely. I've had CQ and staff duty who knows how many times these last few weeks, it sucks.

But some good news, the plan to move to Alaska is still a go, what I'm doing is applying for anchorage pd first, and then hopefully after a few years apply to be a state trooper.

Also down to 1500 in this last student loan. So should be done soon. Selling my old truck to pay for a new jeep or truck, still debating to be honest. Also already found an apartment in Anchorage thats in my price range.

I'll be honest though, the closer I get to getting out of the army, I'm worried I'll end up missing the boys. Don't get me wrong, I hate the fuck fuck games, but I think I'll miss the camaraderie.

But only time will tell.

Needless to say, Nala was enjoying her new room. Ma and Pa seemed to have found all the things she had ever wanted in a bedroom of her own and she had been sleeping like a baby every night. Granted she would sometimes sleep in and forget that she wasn't in Remnant anymore and freak out thinking she overslept for work. But then it would make the fact that she was here even better. Jem completely understood that feeling, he had the same feeling when he got his dd214. And would freak out thinking he was going to miss PT, only for the hamster wheel in his head to start turning and realizing he never had to worry about that.

And then look at his dumb ass now, waking up early to go workout anyways. But he didn't mind, it was kind of nice. It was amazing what you wanted to do now that you didn't want to wake up each morning by giving a 12 gauge shotgun a blowjob.

For legal reasons, thats a joke.

Jem was on his morning jog. Only problem was he was getting distracted because he accidentally played the wrong playlist as he took the jog. And instead of the soundtrack to Doom Eternal blasting to motivate him for a run, he was listening to Special Olympics by Stephen Lynch. Everytime he heard this song he could only think one thing.

"I am so going to hell." He said as he knew the material was horrible, but the way he sang it was hilarious.

He was nearing the end of his run as he saw his parents driveway just about a few meters in front of him. He turned into it and checked the mail really quick to see if there was anything for him. He rolled his eyes as he saw his parents ordered more stuff for Nala from Amazon. Man they were really treating Nala like the grandkid they didn't have.

And Jem could only think of one thing.

Where the hell was all the toys and being spoiled rotten when he was a kid? He remembered as a kid, his dad kept a big ass leather belt on display to put the fear of god into them if they ever fucked up. Nowadays, his Dad would literally join Nala on her antics. Granted she was a good girl and only pulled harmless pranks, whereas him and his brother had some Gomez/Fester relationship where they loved each other but also tried to kill each other.

"Why is your brother missing two teeth?"

"He shaved my head in my sleep!"

"Alright, I'm whooping both your asses!"

Good times. Good times indeed.

"Why the hell is Alex calling me again?" He said as he noticed his phone was going off and checked the caller ID.

The called ID photo was a picture of Alex wearing a hooters tanktop his girlfriend got him. Jem face palmed as he remembered that Alex's girlfriend had paid him 50 bucks to have the caller ID image be that. Because for some weird ass reason, she was on that part of 4chan obsessed with Femboy hooters. Which he frankly found disturbing.

"The 50 bucks wasn't worth it." He answered the phone and brought his pace down to a light jog.

"Whats up?"

"Jeeeemmmmmmm, I just wanted to check in on you!" Alex said in his typical valley girl voice.

"Alex, most of the time you call me its usually to check in on your progress in the gym, or to tell me whatever gossip you heard, so which is it?" He asked wondering why he was calling him.

"Neither of those things! I just wanted to tell you that my honey bunny is talking to Melania again." At that, Jem's blood went cold.

"I thought I made it clear I didn't want to see that girl again!"

"Oh she's convinced you just need to try again."

"What part of no means no does she not understand?"

"Oh Jemmy, once women are convinced they're right, they'll do anything they can to prove you wrong, she's convinced you and Melania would be a good couple!" Alex said with a giggle.

"She handcuffed me to a bed, and tried to make me a furry, on top of that, she keeps making fake facebook accounts to stalk my page." Jem had gotten at least ten friend requests from fake profiles she had made.

"Well don't worry hunny, I got your back, Melania still doesn't know where you live at least. But my girlfriend did tell her your usual hangouts." Alex said as Jem groaned.

"Oh come on! The gym is my sacred space where I go to get away from all this bullshit!"

"Sorry Hun, but she blabbed to her, so might have to avoid her after work :(" Jem was not a happy camper.

"DAMN IT!" Jem said as he could have sworn he heard a giggle over the phone.

"Don't worry hun, I have a plan." The femboy of wisdom spoke.

"Alex I swear to god whatever you-" He was cut off by the boy again.

"Just take Winter with you to the gym now!"

"...Huh?"

"Jem, think about it, you and Winter already spend so much time together right?" Alex said as Jem didn't like where this was going.

"Well yeah but-"

"So just pretend she's your girlfriend until Melania leaves you alone! Eventually she'll get the message."

Jem thought it through for a second...

And just a second.

"No."

"Commmeeee on, why not?"

"Winter would never go for it." He said as he was standing outside his motorhome, unaware of who was listening.

"What makes you say that?"

"Look, Winter and I are finally starting to have a normal friendship, I don't want to make things awkward by saying 'Hey can you pretend to be my girlfriend so I can get rid of a creepy furry stalker?' I won't do that for a few reasons." Jem said as the person inside the motorhome was now blushing.

Winter could hear the whole conversation, and she would be lying if she said she wasn't listening intently to hear what Jem had to say.

"Oh come on, it wouldn't be so bad."

"That besides the point, I just can't do it!" Jem said as Winter felt slightly insulted.

"Oh come on! Why not?"

"Well it wouldn't be right, being in a pretend relationship, its not right." Jem said as Winter raised a brow.

"How?"

"Look, you know me, I'm old school when it comes to relationships, I don't like flings, and I don't like relationships you can throw away at any time. If I'm dating someone, I'm in it for the long haul, and sure even if I told her the reason for it and she agreed to it, even knowing she doesn't feel bad when it suddenly ends, to me it would feel like I'm lying to someone I care about." Now that made Winter stop for a minute.

"What does he mean 'care about?'"

"Awwwww, so you do like her!" Alex hit the jackpot.

"Not that way Alex! She's just turning into a good friend ever since we put our differences aside." Jem defended himself as Winter felt a bit disappointed.

"Look, my point is to me one of the worst things you can do is pretend to like someone, I've been down that road before, I know how it sucks to be the person on the receiving end of that, and I'll be damned if I do that to someone! Even though Winter doesn't like me back, its still against my own morality to pretend to like someone, that shit hurts!" Jem said as he hung up the phone and went inside the motorhome.

Winter thinking quickly, ran back to her part of the motorhome and pretended she was just waking up.

"Morning Winter." He said as he came back in and filled up a coffee pot and started to brew some BRCC.

"Morning Jem." She feigned being sleepy as she still pondered over what he said earlier.

"I'm surprised, you're usually up earlier." He said as Winter twitched a bit.

"Uhm, I felt like sleeping in today." She said as Jem raised an eyebrow.

"That sounds pretty sus for you." He said as her eyes widened.

Did he catch on?

"I mean shit, I've only seen you sleep in once, and you freaked out and tried to catch up on your daily schedule by multitasking." He said as she was worried he knew that she was snooping on him.

"Which can only mean one thing..." He said as he narrowed his eyes and got closer.

"IMPOSTER!" He said as he booped her nose and her brain went blank.

"...OH YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?!" She groaned as he made another reference to that damn game.

"Hey, you had fun last night." He joked as they all got together to play Among us.

"Only when I was the imposter! You kept killing me everytime you were the imposter." She grumbled.

"Yeah cause it was funny!"

"You're an asshole! You couldn't have killed the others first any of the times we played?"

"Well no, because you were the only one wanting to rage quit."

Jem just smirked as he did enjoy this banter with Winter.

"It didn't help that whenever I wanted to kill you, someone always called an emergency meeting so I couldn't do it." Winter was still salty about that.

"What can I say, I've always been lucky." He said with a smile on his face as Winter had been frustrated trying to kill him last night.

"Come on Winter, its all in good fun, here, heres some coffee." He said as he poured her a cup and she relaxed a little.

Believe it or not, Winter was actually enjoying the banter. While Jem could be an idiot at times, she was amazed at how fun it could be to just let your hair down and act silly from time to time. Granted, Jem took it to a whole new level, especially if his buddies were around. Winter took a sip and contemplated how she was going to ask Jem about the conversation he just had with Alex without making it obvious that she was eavesdropping.

"So...you seem frustrated? Was the run rough?" She said as Jem looked confused.

"Nah, just some shenanigans popping up again." He said as he took another sip of his coffee.

"Like what?"

Jem hesitated for a bit.

"Uh, you know that one creepy girl Alex's girlfriend tried to hook me up with?"

"Yeah what about her?"

"Well, Alex is trying to convince me I should get a pretend girlfriend so she'll stop stalking me." He said as Winter pressed further.

"So? What did you say?"

"I told him no, simple as that." Jem said as Winter slightly narrowed her eyes.

"Bullshit, he suggested me and you wouldn't." Winter had no idea why she felt insulted.

"Why not?"

"Well...its kind of personal."

"We have time, besides its just me." Winter said taking a sip after she added some cream.

"Well, I just don't think its right to get into a pretend relationship." Jem said as she knew that much.

"Why?" She asked as Jem hesitated for a second.

"Well, because I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of that, and I also know how it feels for it to go horrrribbbbly wrong." Jem said as he looked lost in thought.

"Like?" Winter was genuinely curious now.

"Thats a long story." Jem said as he wasn't sure about telling her this.

"I have time." She said with a small smile to try and reassure him.

In reality, she was just digging for more information as to why he didn't want to even pretend date her.

"Well, back when I was in high school, I was a really shy kid. Like really shy to the point I didn't talk much, if you weren't in my group of friends already, chances are you weren't going to be in my group of friends in the future based solely on the fact I was too shy to talk to people." He said as Winter wasn't quite sure where this was going.

"Well, I also had a crush on this one girl in my class, her name was Miranda Alexandra, she wasn't necessarily popular, but that was what I liked about her, is that she seemed like me, but again I was too shy to talk to her, but I remember thinking she seemed so nice, but again didn't really have the guts to talk to her." Jem scratched the back of his head.

"Well one day, she comes up to me and starts talking to me, and that helped a lot because again, I was too shy and didn't have the balls to talk to her." Jem however cringed a bit at what was coming up next.

"Well eventually, I got confident enough to ask her out, and she said yes, and again I was over the moon, and the first date I took her to was standard, just dinner and then a movie." He seemed to trail off a bit.

"But, then I decided, maybe I should make the dates more interactive, you know like something so you really get to know the other person? Show that you have an interest in who they are as a person?" Winter could see where he was going.

"Of course, you don't want to date someone based on looks alone, you want to know how much you have in common." Or at least thats what Winter thought.

"Well...I noticed eventually that whenever we went on those dates, she wouldn't be very talkative, she seemed to refuse to talk to me about anything personal, and even when we got back from the date and texted, she would always give me one word answers. So it bothered me. But again, I don't want to seem like one of those douchebags who puts too much pressure on the girl in the relationship, so I let it slide." And then Jem paused for a bit.

"Until one day, I asked her why she was being so distant, and well, she told me it was because she had just gotten over a breakup with her former boyfriend, and she was hoping that if she was to get back on the horse again, she could feel better, so she saw me, and figured I would be too much of a loser to reject her, so I would be an easy rebound." Winter cringed a bit at that.

"I was confused, I asked her why did she agree to go out with me if that was the case, and eventually she said she was hoping if she faked feelings long enough, then maybe they would become genuine, you know like fake it til you make it. And not going to lie, for a sixteen year old kid, that really stings." Jem said as it took him awhile to get over that.

"So, needless to say, that relationship crashed and burned, and again, I was sixteen, so I didn't know how to cope with that in a healthy matter, so I kind of just went back to being shy, it wasn't until after graduation, that I started to realize I hated being shy and awkward all the time, so that was when I really started taking self improvement seriously." He said as that was one of the reasons he became obsessed with exercise and studying.

"While I do think it helped me learn to be more social and learn to take my self improvement seriously, I still think it was a dick move, and now I don't date anyone on a whim, I remember how much it sucked to have someone pretty much pretend to like you, and it sucked, and I never wanted to do that to anyone." He said as he got that off his chest.

"Well thats kind of sweet."

"Yep, well that and I just got so obsessed with how good I look I completely forgot about women for awhile." Jem said as Winter facepalmed.

"You were telling a nice sweet story, and you had to ruin it by admitting your own narcissism?"

"To be fair, when you work out in the gym and start to see results, its hard to not start to admire yourself, because then you're like 'Oh damn, are those my muscles? Oh damn, I look gooooddd." Jem admitted, he had an odd habit of staring at himself a lot when he first started lifting weights.

"I think you're just weird." Winter said as a matter of fact.

"Ha, but no seriously, truth is the gym really helped boost my confidence, and on top of that, it feels great to see your body improve as well as your physique change, it did wonders for me mentally and physically. Imagine what I would have been like if I never got into that, for all I know I could end up one of those loners on reddit who constantly post about how much life sucks and how no matter what happens, their life will always suck."

He had a point there.

"Still odd, especially since I saw some of your old instagram posts with your gym buddies back in the army."

"What you mean?"

"Well for starters, theres one where you're posing with your friend saying 'Hell yeah bro, you thick." She said as Jem went blank.

"Yeah, like thicc in muscle."

"And another caption was 'Hell yeah bro, you look sexy with a pump.'"

"Well yeah, got to hype your bros up, its the same reason I heart react all my buddies selfies."

"...Men are strange..." Winter said as she wanted to leave the conversation there.

They went from talking about how Jem didn't want to start a fake love, and it ended with him apparently being in love with his bros.