Disclaimer: Don't own.
Part two: Happy Birthday, Liz Gillies
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Jade's pov:
I hesitate outside the door, thinking about how, just a few years ago, I was more welcome here then in my own boyfriends home. More accepted here then at either of my parents homes. Sure, mom may have had to raise me, but she never really wanted me. Even today, she suggests I keep my visits to when family business requires it, like my brothers birthday, or a funeral or the like. Now Dad, he never totally disowned me, just suggested I'm responsible for my own life, and asked me not to drag him into anything. So, feeling unwanted, even among my family. However, here, back then, hanging out here, among my friends, I was almost always welcome. I'd find a comfortable couch to sit upon, television to watch, and acceptable company. To a girl who usually felt like the outsider, it was it's own form of paradise.
Okay, I always feel so nervous when I approach any of my nostalgia places. Places where I'd once been happy. It's just, life's not the same now. My friends have scattered to the four winds, each looking for their own shot at happiness. Friendships that were supposed to last forever, well, some stay strong, like me and Cat, even if she's always so busy. Poor girl, she is happy, just doesn't have any time for me these days.
Of course, I start to think about how I feel for her sometimes, how Beck may seem like the perfect boyfriend, but he's too laid back. Boy needs to know when to do something, anything, to calm the storms in a girls mind…
And the door, stil a comfortable distance, maybe ten feet, is flinging open. Who do you think is on the other side? Yep, it's Trina, with that look on her face like somehow I'm late, when I'd mae sure I had time to get my brood on before I was supposed to actually be here. "I have a hot date tonight."
Damn, I should have checked my Connecster account. Trina has a date, that means…
I'm almost at the door now, looking for an excuse, not that I expect to have the time. Instead, I feel her hand as it shoots out to snag my wrist so she can start hauling me through the living room. "Jade." Mister Vega said as I'm dragged thought.
"Mister V." I reply. It's our thing, a holdover from that Saturday morning we spent watching a Happy Days marathon, bonding in the almost silence between the laughs. The day he told me that the term "Jumped the Shark" comes from this show, as well as a slow decline. However, that infamous jump happened in the fifth season premier, and the show lasted eleven seasons. Hardly the death sentence people seem to associate with that term. Sigh, happy memories. Betting I don't get to live here to long, not now...
"Jade." Misses Vega calls from the kitchen as I'm pulled up the stairs. I remember helping her try to teach her children to do more then just follow recipes. Girls can cook, but they both get so caught up in their own personal safety nets, Tori and her rules, Trina and her determination to do things her way, that they both miss the point of food preparation.
"Misses V." Odd how she likes that greeting too. Guessing Happy Days is an institution in this house.
Now, lets accept one thing, I'm hella stronger then Trina, and that girls is strong. I mean, girls possibly stronger then Beck, and I could stop her in her tracks, not be dragged another step. Only, I have my reasons for allowing myself to be pulled up to her room. One, they've accepted me, like no one else ever did. Why alienate even the most annoying of them, when they like me for who I am, and not just for the curve so many guys seem to apreciate?
We reach her door, and I shoot a quick glance to the door on the opposite side of the hall, my second, and admittadly bigger reason for not resisting, the one Tori lives behind. But I already know where that girl is, even as we enter Trina's room, and I see said girl among a pile of clothing and accessories.
"It's just Sinjin." Tori protests, even as I want to facepalm. It's not 'just Sinjin', it's the man who finally got Trina to feel the way I've been feeling, loved and Accepted, to the point where the shallow things doesn't matter as much. Hell, when they finally got together, Trina wasn't thinking about just how much money that family has. No… Getting distracted… wait, gonna need that distraction anyways, cause this is a Trina fashion show, and god, her taste in clothing.
I remember telling that lanky nerd to leave me alone, only to have to almost immediately pull his bony ass out of the fire after a group of Northridge boys beat him down. Jerks thought they ere gonna impress me like that. I never asked them too. Didn't want Sinjin hurt, just away. In fact, at that moment, after leaping in to save the guy who was, admittedly, closer to being my friend, I had to come close to removing them from the gene pool to get them to under stand. For the record, not a killer, so wasn't threatening to kill anyone. Besides, their junk made much more attractive targets for my scissors. However, jail sucks, and I'd just started dating a police mans daughter, so... Yea, getting ahead of myself…
""I know you're the one who ratted me out." I whisper to my Vega, even as she sticks her tongue out at me.
"If I have to suffer through this, then you're suffering with me." She replies, even as her fingers dance along my leg, near my knee. God, she's flirting here, in her sisters room? I'm barely here, and she's already on that. Now I need a distraction from my distraction, cause this girl, she's always gotten to me. One way or another, Tori's always gotten to me.
After Sinjin got his ass kicked, I remember telling him that he could always take some kind of martial arts, and then sent him to the first place I could think of where he could learn some chiz quickly, and not be in my dojo. I mean, sure, Krav Maga fits him, with it's origins with the Israel Defense Forces, so some of it's practitioners embrace a taste of Kaballic philosophy, or at least tattoos in Hebrew. But the last thing I needed was that freak perving out on me while I was learning how to hurt people. I chose another dojo, and hoped.
I'd forgotten how I'd known about that place, until I found out Trina had started dating the freak. Turns out he had to drop a lot of the weird to survive that place, the same place Trina studied. Trina, she'd found out Sinj had been buddying with Beck, and hoping for an in, got closer to him. Instead, she finally saw the guy, seeing that he had loads of good qualities, beyond his families money, that his terminal weird and stalkerish ways did a good job of hiding. And as her dojo helped him train, learn, she got to spend enough time with him to decide that the captain of the terminal loser club of Hollywood Arts was a good choice to maybe be with. I realized I'd made a mistake when she started trying to guess what their kids would look like.
"So, how's he doing?" I asked. No need to say who, we all know.
Trina, who's wearing something peach, looks over at me and smiles. "Up to one seventy five." She brags. Yep, Trina and that dojo got him working out, and while it took a couple of years, there's few things that scram man as much as thirty plus pounds of muscle added to that frame. So, maybe a little shallow.
Tori whispers in my ear. "Don't have a clue how you can enjoy this. I mean, we're helping Trina get ready to try and impress Sinjin…" Her breasts are pressed into my back, something I'm way to aware of.
"Okay, I think we found my look." Trina decides. "Lets get started on the makeup." I don't approve, even if I have to agree, she looks sexy enough in that outfit. But it's her usual over the top look, and she'd do better in jeans and a tee shirt. Boy could see her goodies, and that's all it should take to get whatever it is she wants from him.
It takes another ten minutes of work for us to finish giving Trina the makeup she wants, all the while my Vega is constantly pressing suggestive parts of her into me, or touching bits she'd have lost a hand for just a few years ago. There's even sniper kisses, most aimed at my neck, but a few sneak to my lips as we get her sister all dolled up. I had no ability to think, just focusing on getting done so I could confront this new threat. Tori isn't a slut, but when she's revved up, nothing short of running can save me, and Jade West doesn't run easy.
We split off from Trina as she heads down to wait for her date, and we head to Tori's room to, hopefully, talk. God, I hope Mister V gives that boy the third degree, cause that dress shows a lot of cleavage, and he needs to know to keep his hands in safe places. Girls looking to get some. And speaking of, it's time to address the hand inside my bra. "Okay, Vega, whats up?"
"I get lonely sometimes." She tries, innocent smile that could light up a room suggests this is all just an accented, save for the fact her hand is still I n my bra..
"Try again, and don't give me that competition crap, cause we've been doing it for a while now, and Sinjin only recently entered the acceptable weight class to nail your sister." I meet her eyes, challenging her to tell the truth. Not an easy thing for either of us, but we've been working on being better people, me with my trying to be nice, even when it means lying, and her on not being the manipulative gank she and her sister both always were. Meanwhile, in an act of will I hate that I need, I remove her hand from my tit.
"Okay, Trina's fishing for a ring…" It's not what I asked for, and she knows it, but I do appreciate both the distraction, and the irony, cause one of the few times me and Beck have been in the same place without violence was a year ago, back when we teemed up to tell Sinjin to wait until they were a bit older before be begged her to marry him. Tori, however, see's my eyes, and goes for the truth. "You get along with my family too well."
"Sorry, what?" I'm actually, honestly floored. I mean, how the holy hell can that be the problem?
"I want my girlfriend to be into me." She explains. "Not just the sex part, though I do like that. Kinda hoping for a bit of that, and soon. And, and not just because I want my solo Jade time. I like what we do together, and after helping Trina for far longer then you could have imagined…"
I cut her off. "Trina's easy. You just tell her your opinion, and understand she's looking for assurance she made the right choices. I just give her honesty. She may hate my opinions, but she knows they're mine."
I kiss my girl, and shift to the new topic. "I love you. I do. But I loved Beck, while his family hated me. His trailer, it wasn't just for me. He got it cause he wanted to prove he could live under his own rules. But we'd have died a whole lot faster without that trailor. No, I needed, was starved for acceptance. Your family, them taking the time to get to know me, find our areas where we could coexist, that was magic for me."
She gives me a sigh, and I know I have so much more to tell her. "I'm sorry if out together time suffered, but we connected. Your family and me, we connected. I can be me, the dark monster everyone knows and fears, and the hopeful little girl into all kinds of chiz I'd have to kill people to hide, and they never judge me for any of that. But I do lovehaving my time with you. I really do. I just, is it wrong for me to fall in love with your family?"
"I guess not." Tori sighed. "So, date night? I'm thinking we just hot tub it. I have two of your suits…"
"No, you have two suits you bought for me, and one is pink." I correct her. The pink shit is her attempt to get me to look more feminine, like this body looks anything but. But I do understand. Sometimes I can be a bit macho, and she likes to remind herself I'm a girl.
Besides, her family accepted me for who I am, and that was more then enough to keep dating someone. I do love Vega, I really do, and the sex is great. I just, if it were just the family, I might just learn to endure. Hell, I even get along with Trina, to the point where I don't freak when she asks me to help her get ready, or runs into Tori's room to borrow a dress while we're making out. We do lock the door after she snuck in to borrow something that morning, while we huddled naked under her sheet. Trina didn't care, but there have to be some limits….
"Okay, I have one suit that you won't wear, cause my hot but annoying girlfriend refuses, and another that's a touch tight…" Her smile tells me that choice was deliberate.
"So we soaking before or after the sex." I wish it were a joke question.
"Both." She replies. "Plus, dinner someplace in the middle. Just, your spending the night, just in case Trina does go all the way. I'm not gonna deal with her walk of shame alone."
"And if she has that ring she's after?" I asked. I so wanna tell my girl her sister's gonna get it. Only, Sinjin's tale to tell.
"Then I need you here to hep me celebrate." Tori says, and I understand. Not getting home from my Friday date until late Sunday. No biggie, cause this is like the home I never had….
Sometimes, when things change, they actually get better. Now, to get undressed, and after, squeeze into a suite she likes, cause I will do anything to be in a family like this, even fall in love. Wasn't that hard, but…
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We'll leave it at that, okay? So, thoughts?