CHAPTER 29

WHAT DIDN'T CHANGE

Jason sat on the furthest chair possible around the fire pit on Davis' backyard, where she could watch and hear Dianna perfectly, but she wouldn't be able to read him so easily.

At first, when he saw Dianna, he felt like he received a punch in the face and, at the same time, that a heavy wool blanket was placed over him, making him feel warm and fuzzy. But it only meant that she was around VA Beach again, after disappearing for months for work.

Then, she let them know that she worked for the CIA now, and he felt like getting a hard slap in the face, because Nick was obviously her recruiter, and not a love interest. He saw Ray looking at him right after she said that; he was sorry for meddling. But the sensation of getting slapped only lasted for a few seconds, because then he remembered that if she went to The Farm, he still had clearance to know that. And Davis too. So after the initial fuzzy feel, now he was keeping his distance, because in the end, she left without telling him where she was going. Obviously, she wanted her independence.

While the guys told Dianna about some ops and news, always avoiding names and countries, considering that Naima, Stella and Natalie didn't have clearance, Jason kept looking at her, feeling angry and hurt, and after Natalie sat on the arm of his chair, he kept holding her hips and caressing her leg, trying to make Dianna uncomfortable. She kept him in the dark all this time because she didn't want anything serious with him, it didn't change anything. She manipulated him and broke his heart. But Dianna didn't seem uncomfortable with Jason's PDA, even though it was a lot more than he ever PDA'd before in his life, and he couldn't help but to interrupt Dianna sometimes, but she still, politely, ignored his rudeness.

Jason was with Natalie for a few months, and unlike Dianna, what won him over was the fact that Natalie always wanted to be serious with him, and was very supportive, taking him to surgery, then giving him extra attention during recovery. Not once, he was in doubt about how she felt about him, and Jason took the chance and started an official relationship with her. Even his therapist approved, and always encouraged him, actually.

Jason was seeing a tharapist because he had a panic attack before surgery, which had to be rescheduled, and when that happened, he remembered of what Dianna said and decided to seek professional help. Natalie mentioned that therapist during one of her consultations, it was a friend of hers, and now he was going there, weekly.

His body was stronger than ever, his mind was getting fixed, he was with someone who really cared about him, and he even sold his house. Jason was a new man, a better one, he concluded, while lazily caressing Natalie's leg.

Davis kept staring at Jason, in a weird way, then she raised her cellphone and typed something, and soon enough he felt his phone buzz, and took it out of his pocket.

'CIA trained her as an undercover because she's famous. We didn't have clearance. Stop being an asshole. This was her dream'.

Jason's heart stopped. He looked at Davis, alarmed, and she raised him an eyebrow, confirming that yes, he was, in fact, being an asshole.

Jason swallowed, looking at Dianna and thinking about how nice she was being to him and ignoring his bullshit, and suddenly he felt his hands on Natalie a little... too much now. He slowly took them off of her, and excused himself to go to the bathroom. He glanced at Davis on his way there, and he went to the powder room, feeling nauseated with guilt.

"Why do you have to always make things worse?" Davis came after a few minutes to the powder room, pushing the door that was ajar, while Jason was washing his face on the sink.

"I didn't know, Davis" Jason said, bitter. And he knew he was right.

"You're right. But you just can't help but to be that little extra dramatic, huh? Groping Natalie like that in front of Dianna. Even I felt nauseated, could you imagine her?" Davis was indignant.

"I wasn't groping" Jason gestured, "maybe fondling. But Dianna didn't even notice, I think, anyways".

Davis stared at him, with a boredom face. Jason didn't get it.

"If your ex doesn't show any emotions, it's because there's too much to handle, ok?" Davis wisely said.

Jason swallowed, trying to defend himself. "She's not my ex. She never signed the forms".

Davis sighed. "And did you really couldn't give her the benefit of the doubt? Because to be honest, I always thought she was maybe consulting for something top secret for the Navy or CIA. Or even FBI, they have a lot of cases that we can't know about. How the hell did you not think about any of those possibilities?" Davis was indignant, and now Jason was absolutely miserable for being so dumb.

"She didn't… I don't know. She just kept repeating she couldn't sign the forms".

"Couldn't? So she never said that she didn't want to sign them?" Davis mocked him.

He lowered his face on the sink, now he wanted to vomit, for real.

"She told you she didn't like you or something? That she thought of you just as her friend?", she asked, curious. Dianna didn't tell her what happened between them.

"Please stop, Davis" he pleaded, because he remembered perfectly when she said she wanted to be with him, and just couldn't sign the forms. And his pride and ego were so big that he didn't see any of those things back then. And, apparently, he was way dumber than Davis, so he didn't think about those other possibilities like she did. Although, his dumbness wasn't really his fault.

But he suddenly remembered something that made his guilt more tolerable. What Ray saw and told him, about Dianna and Nick. Of course he didn't know Nick was just recruiting her, but it was all very understandable. He had many reasons to be suspicious of her story, in the end, and what Ray told him only confirmed all of it. His guilt diminished considerably, it was just a problem of miscommunication, or timing, or both, but it wasn't his fault, he couldn't have known, really. So he shooed Davis away from there so he could pee in peace.

"It's my house, Jace. I'm not a dog that you can ju-"

He shut the door at her face.

Jason took his time to go back to the backyard, because he wanted to fix his hair to look his best. The problem was, when he finally got back outside, everyone was up and talking to each other, holding their drinks, everyone happy, including the ladies. Who were in a group. All of them. Near the fire pit. And Natalie and Dianna were talking to each other. Davis saw him coming out and she raised an eyebrow to Jason, and he felt terrified, but there was nothing he could do at that point, so he went to the beverage table and poured himself some whiskey. Neat.

Jason noticed Dianna and Natalie talking a lot, and suddenly Natalie turned and pointed at him, and he froze with his glass of whiskey in hand. He decided to come closer to hear their conversation better, so he walked to Clay and Trent, that were talking, and he pretended to hear them, while in fact, he was trying to listen to the girls, but it was impossible. So he looked at Clay and nodded, for him to join him at the girls' circle, and Clay understood immediately, and they quickly meddled their conversation.

Jason knew Dianna would choose to work with Nick, because he remembered the jealousy she felt towards Jessica, so it was no surprise when she solemnly announced it. But it was a surprise to Jason when she was rude to Natalie, just because she pointed out that her smile looked like of that actress, and that it was cute. It was the same thing he told her, and she liked that comment back then.

Jason slightly smiled, Dianna was acting jealous, of course. Suddenly, he remembered he had no right being angry at Dianna, he just got used to feeling angry at her all this time, that he had forgotten than even though it wasn't his fault that they fought, it wasn't hers either. So he glanced at her, standing next to Natalie, and how hard it must be that situation for her. Because, in the end, she wanted to be with him, she just couldn't. And now he moved on to someone else. Someone who liked him very, very, much. He reminded himself of that. Natalie supported himself a lot this whole time. He liked her. And she really, really, liked him.

And he kept that thought going while he watched Natalie comment something about Dianna having an accent, and she politely answered that she was from Uruguay. Natalie then said she was glad the U.S. was finally opening up for foreigners, 'especially latinos' and that the 'green card was so accessible'. He didn't know what to think of that, except that maybe Natalie now was a bit jealous too. Because Jason knew how much Dianna worked and was finally rewarded with the green card. Any other country would have begged her to be their citizen, too.

Jason was sipping his whiskey and heard Natalie asking Dianna's age and asking her, serious, if the terrorists took her seriously during interrogations, due to her 'cute' face. He saw Dianna's face twitch, and she reasonably gave another harsh answer to Natalie, and walked to the beverage table. He knew she was livid, and he was dying to talk to her, so he followed her there. And concluded that yes, she was furious. And getting drunk, fast.

"Natalie is not a surgeon" Jason casually mentioned, right after sipping some of his whiskey and facing the backyard, right beside Dianna. They were leaning at the beverage table and just watching everyone else.

"She treated you, then? To get back out there" Dianna gestured, with a hint of sarcasm.

He ignored her sarcasm, and explained that Natalie was a professional. "Yes. She was my physiologist. Still is, actually", he said, glancing at Dianna.

"She's a military?" Dianna asked, with disbelief.

"No, but she's linked to the Navy. She works at Base", he softly chuckled.

"And you were her patient?" Dianna asked, and Jason didn't understand why she kept asking that.

"Yes" he answered, chuckling, because Dianna was definitely acting jealous.

"She signed some forms, then" she bluntly said, and walked away.

Jason felt like getting slapped again, because he had no right to make fun of her jealousy. Dianna couldn't signs those forms, and he didn't believe in her, so now Natalie took her place. He was felling guilty enough with everything that happened, but it also wasn't normal to Dianna to be this mean.

He watched as she made her way to Brock, who was receiving her with open arms. Charming as always. He was really worried that maybe Dianna would want to seek some revenge in Brock's bed, so after a few minutes he meddled into their conversation, because Brock was mentioning the dog again, and Dianna was melting as always.

Soon enough, they were talking about how they missed Dianna's fun interrogations, and Jason nodded in agreement, because he really did. Natalie came to stand next to him, to hear the stories.

"I can't tell you much because it's TS, but I can tell you that Dianna was a Russian, and some of the guys were very, very bad people", Clay said, seductively, to Stella.

Dianna chuckled, and looked at Jason. "Yes, the guys had to rough up a prisoner, but just pretending. And I was carried around and was roughed up, too".

Jason's pupils dilated, when he remembered how he carried her on his hip, then squeezed her on the wall. And although they weren't really close friends back then, he already was feeling the effects of his desire for Dianna. Because he wanted her so bad, that he was rude and aggressive to her, yelling and fighting. She drove him crazy.

When everyone stopped laughing, Dianna suddenly added specific details, looking at Jason. "Jason carried me like a laundry basket", and now he knew that she was stirring the pot. He glanced at Natalie, that had a killer eye.

Fortunately, Sonny called everyone to eat.

"So, I hear you're going camping tomorrow?" Naima asked Jason, who was sitting next to her at Davis' dining table. Natalie was in front of them, talking to Ray.

"Oh. Yes. We'll leave tomorrow morning" he said. He forgot about that during the last few hours. And he suddenly realized that Natalie probably told that to Naima when they were talking, with Dianna with them.

"Jason's kids are coming with us" Natalie said, loudly, from the other site of the table. Jason noticed that Dianna glanced, but didn't say anything. She was a bit far, almost on the other side of the table.

Natalie thanked Sonny for grilling her veggies 'to perfection', and Sonny answered that he just dropped that stuff there.

"Well, you see? It's way easier, and cheaper, to be a vegetarian. Maybe Jason will become one too. At least now, he's eating some vegetarian stuff with me sometimes" Natalie stated.

Sonny was indignant. "Ah, seriously? You'll lose all your muscles, man, come on".

"Actually, his body and muscles were never better, right?" Natalie said, smiling at Jason.

"Well, yes" he cockily answered, "but to be honest, they were before I went to surgery".

Natalie raised her shoulders. "Well, maybe. But your recovery was faster than expected. And you know, being a vegetarian also is a good way of being kind to animals. Every animal lover knows that".

"I funded a NGO for animal rescue, when I was in college" Dianna suddenly said from the other side of the table. "We took turns on the weekends to rescue abused dogs and cats".

Natalie sighed. "Good for you. But you eat meat, right?"

"Yes, I eat meat. Rare or medium rare, actually. I was born in Uruguay, after all" Dianna stated, raising her shoulders.

"That's… weird" Natalie murmured.

"What? Look, my uncle has a cattle farm, and my whole life we only got the cows from his farm to eat. They were raised free, in the pasture. He had some chickens, too" Dianna explained, annoyed, and Jason was amused that she had a farmer uncle. She could picture her walking around the small town, and choosing, sadly, which cow to kill.

"Well, if your conscience is ok with that, fine by me" Natalie raised her hands, and Ray looked at Jason, like he was supposed to meddle, but Diana intervened first, when she saw Dianna's lips tightening up. Davis was sure that Dianna was about to stand up and ask her to hold her loop earrings. Even though she wasn't wearing any.

"Oh, talking about cows, did you see how expensive the milk is nowadays?" Davis suddenly said, to avoid a huge fight between them.

Jason was concerned that Dianna drove to Davis' house and then drank that much. He was afraid that she was lying and would try to drive back to her place, so he wanted to make sure she was ok, and that her uber came.

When they walked to his car, to wait for her uber, he saw her all hunched down, with her jacket in her hands, looking smaller than ever, incredibly vulnerable.

Jason felt a lump in his throat because he now saw her entire dress, it was sleeveless and delicate, actually only the straps on the shoulders were holding her dress, with a discreet bow. The strap kept falling off her shoulder, and Jason wanted to just go there and lift it for her. Untie it, would be better. She hasn't changed anything, and he realized that she was approved by the CIA, passing the grueling tests at The Farm. She was humiliated, hurt and psychologically abused during her training to withstand torture, and she passed it. She was really strong, and he wanted to talk to her more about her training and new job.

Dianna shivered and put her jeans jacket back on, seeming tired, then she leaned on the car.

"I really like this car" Dianna muttered, staring at Jason with her pupils dilated. She was teasing him, but it wasn't fair of her to do that to him, especially this close to Natalie.

He came closer to her, annoyed. "What are you doing?" he whispered.

Dianna made an ingenue face. "Nothing. Just had a memory. Didn't know it was forbidden. Last time we talked, you didn't seem to mind sharing some memories", she said sarcastically.

Jason perfectly remembered fucking her and confessing all the times she drove him mad, and he kept trying to forget about the times they had together for months. All of a sudden, she was back, and he was lost because he didn't know what to do. She was mad at him, but she also didn't have the right to be angry at him. And he couldn't be angry at her either.

But Dianna was acting too immature for his taste now. She wasn't like that, and he knew that she was acting like that because she was drunk. So he said goodbye and got into his car, waiting for her uber inside.

He drove back to his place and made his way into his sad apartment, with Natalie touching him with naughty thoughts, and he had to tell her that he was too tired for sex that night. Because he couldn't stop thinking about Dianna.

He looked at his apartment, and at Natalie, sleeping next to him. So much had changed that year.

One thing hadn't changed. Dianna was still the same.

And if she was still the same, he had to find out if his feelings were still the same, too.

He was praying for a storm that morning. Because he really wasn't in the mood to go camping that weekend.

.