THE FIRST TIME

CHAPTER FOUR - I'D DO ANYTHING FOR LOVE (BUT I WON'T DO THAT)

"As long as the planets are turning, as long as the stars are burning

As long as your dreams are coming true, you better believe it

That I would do anything for love, and I'll be there 'til the final act

And I would do anything for love, and I'll take the vow and seal the pact"

MEAT LOAF (FROM BAT OUT OF HELL II (1993))

Pacey woke up that morning still feeling rather upset over what had happened in school the day before, or as upset as he could get with Joey (not that it was all that much, to be Frank). Her wagering himself having to kiss Abby, even if he in his wildest imagination couldn't see Abby beating Joey in a contest, that involved character assessment of any kind, had him feeling like maybe this newfound relationship of theirs wasn't as important to her, as it was to himself. He didn't want to kiss Abby either, even if there were far uglier girls at school than her (from a purely objective standpoint), it was more the principle of the whole thing that had him practically chewing his own fingernails down with worry. Certainly, he couldn't see himself making some stupid bet, that would involve her having to kiss some other guy, if he lost it, so where exactly did he stand with Joey now?

He planned on hopefully finding out at school, although he hadn't really figured out yet how to go about it. One thing was for sure though: He would give it far more of a try, than he would at trying to follow any of his classes that day.

"I'm such a frigging dumbass! You can say it, Bessie. I've already screwed this up beyond repair, before it ever came close to having a chance at becoming as awesome, as it could have been" Joey scolded herself, as she was about to be dropped off in front of the school by her older sister.

"I've seen guys forgive much worse, than what you did. Plus, it's Pacey we're talking about here! With the exception of you doing it with someone else, I'm a hundred percent positive from having seen how he looks at you, that an apology and a few kisses will sway him back on your side. After you've called off that bet, it goes without saying" Bessie assured her and as much as she hated to admit it, Joey knew that her older sister was probably right once again, in what she was telling her.

"I just hate the idea if giving Abby the satisfaction of knowing that she got the better of me, you know?" Joey confided and for some reason the thought of it alone, was enough to send small shivers down her spine.

"Correction: It was your own stupidity and stubbornness, that got the better of you this time!" Bessie corrected her and although Joey did roll her eyes at her sister, she yet again conceded defeat on the matter.

"Thanks for boosting my confidence, especially at this time of the morning, where I'm still trying to wake up!"

"You did the crime, so now you have do the time! Or in this case, try to make peace with a girl, you don't like."

"I don't just "don't like her"! She's the bane of my existence, the pebble in my shoe and most of all, I'd rather tear out my own fingernails, than see her kissing my new boyfriend!" Joey stated annoyedly.

"Before you go that far, do me a favor and try reasoning with her for once, instead of starting yet another confrontation! You'd be surprised how far a friendly smile, and a little political savvy can get you sometimes."

"She's the one who started it!" Joey objected, but it only made Bessie shake her head at her complaints.

"You're fifteen now, Joey, not five! Try thinking of it as practice for when you'll have to deal with a lot more of the Abby 's of the world, when you get to be my age someday" Bessie suggested and once again (and as little as Joey wanted to admit it to herself), she had to give in and let her sister be in the right this time.

Jen however, had her own plans that involved Abby, only she was completely clueless on how to go about it (ironically in spite or her having watched the movie "Clueless" the evening before, to get some tips on how to be a good matchmaker). One thing was for sure: Dawson and Abby couldn't be more different, if they tried, so her first objective was to find some sort of common ground, that both of her two "targets" would be able to agree on.

What on earth that could possibly be was the big question and since she didn't know Abby all that well yet, trying to find out was at the top of her agenda that morning. She got that chance when she walked into the girl's room and found Abby to be the only one in there and in the middle of washing her hands.

"Fancy meeting you in a place like this! Don't tell me that you had the tacos from the school cafeteria for lunch yesterday too?" Abby asked and it made Jen scrunch her face up.

"No, but I guess it explains the smell in here! Whew!" Jen got out, while trying in vain to waft it away from her nose.

"You should praise yourself lucky! So, what's up with Joey and all of her loser friends, you can't seem to get enough of?" Abby asked, while grabbing for some towels to dry her hands in.

"They aren't as terrible, as you think they are!" Jen felt like she had to defend her friends with.

"For the record, as if it mattered, I don't think they're terrible people, just terribly boring people!" Abby explained and even if she didn't want to, Jen couldn't help herself from giggling a little. "I'm not saying that my own life is a fun, action-filled adventure ride all of the time, or any of the time, if I have to be honest, but just the thought of having to spend an evening with them is enough to make me drowsy!"

"Pacey is a fun guy, when you get to know him. Joey is ..."

"Spare me the lecture on the wonder that is Joey Potter, please! She likes you and she's nice to you, so congratulations or whatever for that. Every time I've tried talking to her, she's instantly attempted to bite my head off. Try to sell me on her all you want, but you'll never get me to join her fan-club!" Abby stated in no uncertain terms. It did give Jen another (possibly great) idea, though.

"Pacey, we really need to stop this and get to class! We only have three ..." was as far as Joey got in her sentence, before Pacey used his most effective weapon against her voice of reason, another wet and wild kiss, in the same vein as the many other kisses they'd shared in the second half of their lunch break, down in the boiler room.

"Let's ditch it and stay down here!" he pleadingly suggested, but his suggestion didn't exactly go down well with the object of his affections.

"Like that'll do wonders for my reputation, Pace! Sure, we'll just skip class and come waltzing into the next one holding hands and pretending that nothing happened! I'm well aware that you're a C student at best, but I don't have to spell it out for you, do I?" she fired back at him and along with him not wanting to do anything to hurt her, he was also well aware of how fast the rumor mill ran at Capeside High. Rumors that would be sure to reach her sister in no time and he could only imagine how awkward of a conversation that would be for her.

"Alright! Just gimme a minute here. I have another "Issue" to take care of" he told her and closed his eyes.

The ten things he thought of were, in this exact order:

Baseball

Football

What his favorite car was

The idea of his parents having sex

The idea of Mr. Peterson having sex with his grandmom

The idea of himself having sex with Bessie (especially now!)

The idea of himself having a three-way with Joey and Jen (this was an involuntary thought, that he couldn't help himself from having at that moment and had the polar opposite effect on what he was trying to accomplish)

Goldfish swimming around in a fishbowl.

Algebra

Why everyone keeps hiring Gil on The Simpsons, when he's terrible at every job he lands? (This one did the trick, just like it usually did for him)

After an hour of suffering through Mr. Peterson's English class, he only had P.E. left and then his five days a week punishment for being fifteen was done for the day. It helped a lot with his mood as well, that P.E. was one of the few classes, he for the most part liked. And it wasn't the sports and exercise part, unless they were playing basketball, he was looking forward to. Since the school was so small, it also meant that the boys had to share the gym with the girls, and they were sure to get a good look at how the girls their own age were developing. Even if he was a kept man now, no one said that he couldn't still do some window shopping.

"Barbara? You have to admit, that she has a great ass!" Chris Wolfe, one of their more chauvinist classmates threw out there, while they were sneaking glances over at the girls warming up and pretending to warm up themselves.

"It's too bad that she also is an ass! A very low two and that's being generous!" Pacey told him back and knew that it was his turn next, to name a girl for the two of them to rate.

"Mary-Beth?"

"Bland with a side order of bland! I'd still do her, but I'm sure she'd find some way of making it feel boring! She's a three, at best" Chris judged and Pacey more or less had to agree with him there, although he wouldn't have been as direct in his description. "Here's a wildcard for you. Jen. In my book, the closest among those present here to a solid ten! No offense, but I have way too many childhood memories of Joey, to even being to start looking at her, as more than a dude with boobs" Chris joked and Pacey had to fight hard not to chuckle, as it now became time for them to run a few laps and finish their warm-up's. "What do you give her?"

"Jen? I mean, she's cool as a cucumber and easy on the eyes, it's not that. She's also my girlfriend's best friend, so I try all I can, to avoid thinking of her that way."

"But you can't help it, right? Don't worry, Dude, the exact same happened to me, back when I had my first girlfriend."

"How did that all go down, then?" Pacey couldn't help himself from asking, even if he wasn't all that interested in the answer, to be honest.

"I waited until I'd broken up with my girlfriend and then I asked her friend out. My theory is that it's the whole "forbidden fruit syndrome", that gets the better of us. I know that I'd never thought about my ex-girlfriend's friend that way before then, so it's the best explanation, I can come up with. Come on, Pacey. What's your verdict on the uber-sexy, luscious and mysterious miss Lindley?"

"A seven, bordering on an eight. I'm more into brunettes these days, in case you haven't noticed" Pacey lied to him. If Joey was his version of a ten, then Jen was surely a 9.999999999.

"One last one. Abby?" Chris suggested half-laughingly.

"Negative eight million, six hundred thousand, nine hundred and forty-two. Give or take a few million!" was Pacey's unfiltered answer.

Joey was coming towards the end of what had to have been the most drawn-out feeling shift, she'd ever had at her family's restaurant. Her total tip intake of eight dollars for the entire shift said all about how much they'd fallen into the post-vacation lull, now that the last of the tourists had finally gone home for the winter. On top of that, there was the Yacht Club's end of season party down at the pier, seen as the last hurrah of the summer by many Capesidians and also had it own chefs serving gourmet food. The only diners they'd had all evening were an elderly couple, who were both clearly hard of hearing and spoke so loudly, that you could have still heard them clearly, if you'd been standing fifty feet down the street, and a very friendly family of four, who came in once a month or so and usually ordered the same things, every time they were there.

The one good part was that it had given her the chance to catch up on her schoolwork, because as hard as she'd tried, the "Ghost of Abby" had been haunting her mind so much all day, that she couldn't think of anything else. With the exception of the period, she'd spent down in the boiler room with Pacey, it should be said. Five times during the school day, Joey had spotted Abby and had the chance to talk to her and every time, she'd utterly chickened out and felt worse afterwards. Having had so long to think it over during her uneventful workday, it had led her to the conclusion that this wasn't normal behavior anymore and had turned into some kind of mental block, where she simply wasn't mentally capable of backing down, when it came to her number one rival.

She couldn't remember, when it had started to go wrong with herself and Abby, but she was sure it had happened not long after her family moved to Capeside. Ever since, the two of them had been at perpetual war, with a few truces along the way, when things started to get too out of control. It wasn't even like she hated Abby anymore, she more felt sorry for her than anything else, since she never saw her hanging out with anyone and it wasn't much of a secret around their small town, that her mom had turned into a trainwreck, since Abby's dad had skipped town. She'd seen Abby's mom not long before this in a grocery store and from what she could tell, trainwreck was a deeply understated way of putting it. Knowing that Abby had to live with a woman in that kind of emotional and physical state, with no dad around (like she herself had in her sister's fiancée Bodie), zero friends to help her get through the ups and downs in life and no prospects of it getting better, made Joey eternally thankful for what little she had to celebrate over in her own life. If she had to be honest about it, with Pacey by her side now to love her and be there for her, when she needed him to, it felt like her life was finally on the right track again, after a few years of it feeling the opposite. Abby had none of that, so should it really be that much of a surprise to her, that Abby acted out like she did? If she'd been in Abby's shoes, she'd probably have wanted to do something drastic, if only to try anything to change or get away from her life here. Why was Joey so afraid of trying to talk to her normally girl-to-girl, then?

It, like many other things in Joey's life had over the past few years, simply didn't make any sense to her.

Jen's plans for the evening consisted of a long shot, to see if she could (should all go according to plan) get the Dawson/Abby romance started and without either of them being clued in on this being her plans. Before she got that far though, she had to sit through dinner with Grams, which along with following a meal plan from the 1950's, also meant that there would be lots of uncomfortable silences.

"I suppose, you're going out tonight as well. That'll be six evenings in a row, Jennifer" Grams stated in her usual passive/aggressive way that along with making Jen feel like she was about five inches tall, also did little to hide that she wasn't all too pleased with how her granddaughter had been conducting herself lately.

"I haven't been getting myself into any trouble, if that's what you're afraid of. I've been a total angel through and through, I promise" Jen told the old lady back. It only got a small smile on Grams' face as a reaction, however.

"Somehow, I doubt that. Is it a boy, who's the reason for all of these evenings out on the town? I was your age myself once, strange as it may sound now and I still remember a little of how I was during those years" Grams confided in her and Jen saw a chance here, small as it was, to try to connect with the woman that had shown her such immense kindness by taking her in, when no one else would have taken in a rebellious teen, with a past that read like a horror story to people like her grandmother.

"It's kind of the opposite of it. There's this guy, who likes me, that I wish didn't. So now, my very wholesome activity for the evening will be trying to push him off on someone else. Which I guess, isn't all that wholesome at all, when you think about it, but it's still beats me having sex with him, right?" Jen said half-jokingly and immediately regretted having said the S-word and at the dinner table, no less. To her surprise however, it only got a small laugh out of her grandma.

"That it does. You can't just tell him that you don't feel the same way, as he does about you?"

"I'm still pretty new here, so it's kind of a delicate situation. He's really nice and not shabby on the eyes either, it isn't that. We're just too different to work as more than friends, you know? All I want is for all of us to continue to be on friendly terms, myself to get the perfect start here and maybe, if I'm really lucky, somehow manage to find myself a decent boyfriend. In time, when I feel like I've settled down and gotten used to how everything works here, not now, when it's still all so new to me" Jen said, before taking a bite of her Salisbury steak, that she had to admit was rather delicious, like most of her grandmother's cooking was.

"It's sounds like a well-thought-out decision. Although, you can't tell me that as a girl your age, it's easy to all of a sudden take a vow of celibacy like that?" Grams asked and for as much as Jen wanted to be this perfect and angelic version of herself, the Jen that she wanted to be, she also had to agree with the old lady there. For tonight on the other hand, she would have to push the teenage hormones that were telling her that it's time to advance the species out of the way and concentrate on the job at hand.

"You're seriously ditching being bored here at the store with me, for an evening out with a gorgeous girl, that sounds like it could actually be fun? What kind of a friend are you?" Pacey quipped, while putting some just returned video titles back on the shelves at "Screen Time". His best friend was already half on his way out of the door, after having been given the rest of the evening off.

"A friend, who'll hopefully get lucky with Jen tonight. Wish me luck!" Dawson told him back smilingly.

"Good luck, my friend. Something tells me that you'll need it!" Pacey just had time to say, before Dawson was out of the door. Maybe it was just himself being so used to disappointment, when it came to the fairer sex, but it clearly seemed to him, like Jen simply wasn't into Dawson, the same way he was into her. Sometimes, from the way Jen smiled that sweet smile of hers back at him, when they made eye contact, he even had a feeling that she could be into himself, although he chucked that down to just himself being terrible at reading the supposed silent signals, that girls apparently send you all the time.

He'd only just settled down into his chair to get ready for even more boredom over the next few hours (he'd brought his schoolbooks with him, but he still hadn't reached that serious of a state of boredom yet!) and popped "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" into the store's VCR player, when a welcome face made her way through the door.

"Have they officially made you a "Quarter-Timer" at the restaurant now? I mean, you were only a part-timer before, so we can't say that you've become even less of a part-timer, can we?" Pacey joked and got to see his girlfriend's sweet smile as his reward for it.

"I could count the number of customers we've had tonight on two hands pretty easily. How about you?" she asked him casually, before sitting down on his lap and them sharing another in the long line of the wild, wet kisses, that he kept fantasizing about, even when they weren't together.

"Let's see. A few of the jocks from school came in and rented both of the Snake Plissken movies, on the advice of the guy, whose lap you're currently sitting on. Mary-Beth rented "American Pie", to my slight surprise, I have to say. Oh, and there was a couple in what I'm guessing is their thirties, who rented an evening's worth of movies from the "Triple X-Rated" section, probably as a way to spice of their activities between the sheets. Apart from that, I've been wasting all of my time here today thinking about you" he told her and the gratification he felt at watching the way, his simple words could make her smile, made him feel better inside than perhaps anything else could.

"Only for the good things, I hope?" she asked him sweetly.

"Joey, how much does what we have mean to you, say on a scale of one to ten?" he asked back, trying to get a clear answer out of her, while still not stirring the pot too much, that he could mess anything up.

"Is this because of that dumb bet, I made with Abby?" she asked almost apologetically.

"I wouldn't dream of doing anything, that would involve you being forced to kiss someone else. I guess, I'm just worried ..."

"On a one-to-ten scale, I'd say two hundred thousand" she answered him before he had a chance to finish his sentence. "Pacey, this thing we've begun here, it's the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me! Every day is like a new adventure with you, that I can't wait to get started on. You have to believe me, I'm in this relationship for the long haul. The longest haul, even!" she confided in him, which made him ease up again.

"It's the most amazing thing, that's ever happened to you? Joey, I've spent the past two years having bashed into my head through constant rejection, that I would never have the slightest chance of ever finding myself kissing someone as beautiful as you, or for that matter being lucky enough, that an incredible girl like you would like me back. You can't blame a guy for having a few teenage insecurities here!" he told her half-jokingly at the end, as she nodded along understandingly.

"You want to hear about teenage insecurities? Pacey. I've been kicking myself constantly, since I made that dumb bet, because I was sure I'd messed the first great romance of my life up, before it had a chance to get properly started. I guess, what I'm trying to say is thanks for being such a forgiving boyfriend. I mean, it is Abby, you potentially have to swap spit with!" she told him with a small giggle, that did little to hide how hide her disgust in the thought of it actually coming to pass.

"This is only the start, huh? Tell me what I have to look forward to" he asked her teasingly and gave her a small kiss on the cheek.

"Well, I see lots of romance in our future, for one thing. Then there's the sexual exploration part, which I'm sure you can't wait to get started on ..."

"Don't try to act like you're some sort of pristine angel, Potter! You want to try all of those things, just as much as I do!"

"Don't worry, you'll get to do all of them with me! You know, seeing as it's such a boring evening here and there's that private storeroom in the back, we could get a head start on it, if you feel like it? We could try to round second base and see what that's like" she asked him flirtingly and in a second, his little fella was back to its usual state, whenever they were making out.

Luckily for the two of them, it would be nearly an hour, until the next customer came into the store and by then, he'd already had several items crossed off his "things he needed to try, before he died list" that evening.

Jen only learned one thing during her evening of trying to set up Dawson and Abby: That she needed a plan B and soon! First her and Dawson had gone down by the pier, where there was an end of season party hosted by the yacht club, that apparently was one of the social events of the year in Capeside. There, she'd already agreed to meet up with Abby and if things had gone according to her plan, she would have become a fifth wheel and been able to excuse herself shortly after, to leave things in the hands of fate. Instead, she'd spent the evening being the only one, who kept the conversation going, along with stopping Abby from sending too many barbs Dawson's way. Who else could there be though, for her to push Dawson off on? If this had only been New York, where she knew dozens of girls, who would have jumped at the chance to score with someone as cute as Dawson, it wouldn't have taken her an afternoon to get rid of his unwanted affections. Here, the number of girls she'd had a conversation with still hadn't reached half a dozen and with the exception of Joey and Abby, she couldn't say that she knew any of them at all.

Those thoughts depressed her a little, but when she saw a smiling Joey waiting outside of her house, as she got home after her incredibly long and immensely frustrating evening, it couldn't help but cheer her up a little. In spite of herself fighting against feelings of jealousy towards her slightly tall-for-a-girl brunette friend, there was also no denying that she was grasping onto this chance to live vicariously through Joey with every fiber of her being. That and it was close to impossible to avoid being cheered up by Joey's almost over the top great mood, whenever her and Pacey had just had another round of what Jen guessed, were some pretty steamy make-out sessions.

"Hi, Jen. I'm sorry to come by this late, it's just that some things happened tonight, that I could really use to talk to you about. In private, not at school, where everyone can overhear us" Joey started off with and Jen tried to look as understanding, as she could.

"In that case, we should stick to talking about it out here. I don't need Grams thinking that you're any worse of an influence on me, than she already thinks you are. Anyway, I could use some good news, after the sucky evening I've had!" Jen told her truthfully and one of the things Jen loved about her new friend, was how hearing it made Joey look like she genuinely felt bad for her. All of her old friends would have been like "You too, huh? Well, welcome to the club!", but Joey legitimately cared about every little thing that happened in her life and it only made Jen love her back all the more because of it.

"What happened?" Joey asked cautiously.

"Nothing, that I want to waste a single second more of my youth thinking about! I'm much more interested in what happened with you" she asked back and it made Joey a bit shy to talk about it.

"I went to visit Pacey at the video store, and we sort of went to third base. As in crossed it. Jen, we came so close to having actual sex, that it freaked me out a little!" Jey told her exasperatedly and despite trying her hardest not to, Jen felt immensely jealous of her at that moment.

"How far are we talking here?" Jen asked, with only her most morbid side actually wanting to know.

"I didn't plan on it going that far, let me say that first. But then, when we got started, I just couldn't stop myself. First it was him licking my nipple, then it was his hand sliding down the front of my panties and before I knew it, there I was, exactly as nature made me and with his tongue and fingers giving me pleasure the likes of which, I've never come anywhere close to feeling by myself, right in the middle of a storeroom full of employee t-shirts and discarded video titles! Jen, if it happens again, I seriously doubt that I'll be able to stop myself a second time! I suppose what I'm asking is, how did you know that you were ready to have sex?" Joey asked with such a deer in headlights look to her, that it made Jen think to herself, that she could say pretty much anything to this girl right now and she'd buy it hook, line and sinker.

"If you feel like you're in love with him and you're ready for it, I say go for it. I can say for a fact that I would have, if I were you" Jen told her somewhat truthfully, after having thought about it for a moment. Had it been herself, who was in that state of love with someone (not that she'd tried what it's like so far), she would have gone all the way with him, no matter what feelings of self-loathing for falling back into old habits, she would know before going through with it, would be sure to follow afterwards. Whether or not it was the right advice to give Joey was an entirely different matter, one she wasn't entirely sure of. And should it lead to them breaking up of course, no one said that she couldn't take advantage of it, to help make herself feel more at home in Capeside.

Pacey spent the bike ride home to his parents' house feeling a tiny bit conflicted over what had happened that evening. Sure, being naked with Joey had been everything he'd hoped it would be and him seeing how insanely turned on she'd gotten from pretty much all of the things, they did in that storeroom, made him feel like a far bigger man, than how he usually felt. In the back of his mind however, there was also a bit or fear that they'd taken things too far, too fast and it would end up working against them in the long run. There was no doubt that he wanted his real first time to be with Joey (his "thing" with Tamara, whatever it had been, didn't count in his own estimation, given how tainted it had all become afterwards) and as for being enough in love with her that it warranted them going all the way, he was sure to his bones that he was there and then some. Then again, if that was the case, why was he finding himself feeling this conflicted?

END OF CHAPTER FOUR