Jan

“Are you drunk enough yet?” I asked, watching Jan as she tipped the last drops of beer into her mouth.

“No.” She slurred.

“I think you are.” I said, watching her sway slightly as she leaned on the pool cue, watching Luce wipe down the counter wistfully.

“I’m not.” Her words blurred together. “I can’t be yet.”

“You are.” I said firmly.

“All this for a girl?” Caleb asked, a smile playing along his mouth.

Jan’s head whipped around to look at him, her eyes wide in shock. “Not ‘just a girl’. It’s Luce. She’s so much more than just any girl.”

“Well, why don’t you go prove to him that she’s better than all the rest and go ask her out.” I said, pushing her gently towards the bar.

She stumbled slightly and glared over at me before looking back to Luce who was watching her curiously, a smile tugging at her lips. I watched Jan straighten herself slightly and walk over to the bar. She was probably holding her breath.

I watched Jan put her elbow on the bar and Luce lean in just a little, showing off some spectacular cleavage. I’m surprised the poor girl didn’t faint.

Caleb and I couldn’t hear them talk, but I knew Jan was probably making a fool of herself, but Luce didn’t seem to care. She was smiling and there was an excited glint in her eye as Jan talked.

“You’re telling me than Jan never knew?” Caleb asked, watching the scene with an amused look.

“She never even guessed.” I said, smiling as I watched Luce lean in and kiss Jan’s cheek and say something to her.

Jan nodded and turned, her cheeks a deep red and the biggest smile I’d ever seen plastered on her face. “She kissed me.” Was all she said when she finally reached us again and slumped into a nearby chair.

“I saw that.” I said, chuckling quietly. “Now, let’s get your drunk ass home.”

“Can’t.” She said, her eyes wide with panic.

“Why not?” Caleb asked.

“Because, she’s taking me home tonight.”

I felt a smirk creep along my lips. “We should get you sobered up then.”

“Why?”

“Because, if you play your cards right, your celibate ass may get laid tonight.”

Jan frowned and looked like she was thinking too hard for her level of drunk. “She didn’t say that. She said that she was going to take me home.”

I rolled my eyes and looked at Caleb, “Watch her for me, will you? Make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid.” I then walked over to the bar and waited for Luce to finish serving a customer.

“Hey there, Dev. How are you and that girl?” She asked, smiling like a school girl.

“Great, gonna ask her to marry me.” I said it like it wasn’t a big deal, but the idea still gave my stomach butterflies and all I wanted to do was talk about it, but I couldn’t right now. “Now, let’s move onto the important thing. You and Jan.”

“No idea what you’re talking about, Devon.” Her grin only widened when I said Jan’s name though, so I knew she was lying.

“Let’s not dance around this whole thing. You’ve wanted Jan since you saw her, Jan’s wanted you since she saw you, and now you guys finally have a chance and she’s going to take you on a pretty great date and you’ll fall in love and have babies, or whatever. Your intentions in taking her home may be innocent, but you guys have been celibate for a long time and are too attracted to each other for nothing to happen. Unfortunately, Jan is shitfaced because that was the only way to convince her to ask you on a date finally. Jan is pretty good in bed from what I hear, when she’s sober or at least close to it. So, I suggest we find a way to help her out a little.”

JAN’S POV

I don’t know what they gave me, but it worked, and the entire night was finally dawning on me when Luce was getting ready to leave. She was talking to someone and smiling like she always did. She handed them a key and looked over at me while she talked. I immediately looked away from her, feeling awkward and like I had been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to.

She kept talking for a few minutes and I looked down at my hands and fidgeted nervously. Dev had gone home a while ago, saying something about convincing Sara to go home for Thanksgiving so she could talk to her parents. I was excited for them, but I didn’t really want to focus on that as much as I wanted to focus on Luce tonight.

“Ready to go?” I looked up and almost regretted it. She always made me nervous, and I couldn’t handle that tonight. She was, as always, in jeans and a tight tank top with her hair pulled up in a loose ponytail.

I nodded slowly, afraid that my voice wouldn’t work the way I wanted it to.

“Come on.” She smiled and I stood up, feeling my knees wobble. I almost sat back down, but that wouldn’t have helped, I would have had to get back up at some point.

I followed her back to her car and got into the passenger seat. “Thanks for taking me home.” I mumbled.

“Not a problem.” A moment of silence. “Thanks for finally asking me out.”

“So…you really want to?” I asked, trying not to get my hopes too high.

She laughed quietly. “God, yes. I’ve been waiting for ages, you know.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Was she serious? She wanted me for as long as I wanted her?

“I didn’t want to freak you out. I thought that you would ask me when you were ready, and Jesus woman, you took a long time. I just waited and waited. I almost gave up a few times, went out with someone else who asked, and then you would look at me and turn beet red and look away.” She smiled and continued with, “How could I pass that up?”

I looked back down at my hands and said, “Sorry for making you wait so long.”

“I don’t mind at all.” She said, still smiling as she drove away.

Most of the ride was spent in silence with a few moments of small talk, but mostly it was just quiet.

We pulled up to my house, and neither of us moved for a while. “You should come in.” She looked over at me and I realized how it sounded. “Not for anything if you don’t want to, but…just to come in. Nothing has to happen; it just seems like the thing to do. It’s cold out, you drove me here, it seems rude to not invite you in.” She thinks I’m an idiot.

She smiled and looked down into her lap, then at me again. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

She nodded and turned the car off. We got out and I walked up to the door, my fingers fumbling for my keys before I finally opened the door and held it open for her. “Welcome to my humble abode.” I said quietly, watching her face for some sort of reaction.

She smiled and tentatively stepped through the door and stood a little awkwardly in the hall. I walked in behind her and shut the door. I hung my jacket on the hook and threw my keys in the bowl. “It’s nice.”

I shrugged. “It’s a college apartment. I have a lot of Top Ramen in the cabinets.” I said, smiling a little.

“It’s still nice.”

“Do you want a drink or something? Or…food?” Why were words so difficult all of a sudden?

She shook her head. “I’m fine right now.”

“Okay.” I suddenly didn’t know what to say anymore, but Luce seemed to be better at this than I was.

“Do you want to maybe watch some TV? I mean, I’m here and all, so I wouldn’t mind relaxing for a bit.”

“TV’s in my room.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to say that, maybe because I wanted her to know that it was there in case she didn’t want to go there for what could happen.

“I don’t mind.”

I thought of what Dev would say and gave her a mockingly cocky grin. “I’ve been trying to get you in my bed for ages.” And I laughed nervously.

She laughed a little harder at my impression of Devon and said, “That was really good.”

I shrugged. “I’ve been around her a lot; she used to say that stuff a lot more.”

“She really getting married?”

I nodded. “Bought the ring today and everything.”

“That’s crazy. I still can’t believe she’s monogamous.”

“I know. She used to have sex with everything, and now she’s got Sara and I don’t think she even thinks about sex most of the time. She’s a completely different person. In a good way of course, I’ve been waiting for this to happen to her for a long time now.” I lead her down the hall to my room and I stood there nervously while she moved confidently to my bed and sat down, propping herself up against the wall.

“Come on.” She patted the spot next to her and I nervously followed suit.

I was turning on the TV when she said, “You don’t have to be nervous around me you know.”

I laughed and said, “You’ve always made me nervous.”

“Why’s that?”

I didn’t even think before I said, “Age, beauty, you’re smart, funny, confident. I don’t know if I can keep up with all of that.” I admitted.

“Age?” I felt my stomach tense. Shit. “It’s not that big a difference. You’re 19, just because you drink underage, like we all did, doesn’t mean I don’t like you. As for everything else, you’re keeping up pretty nicely.”

“How long have you known how old I am?” I asked, unable to believe everything she was saying.

“Please, I’m not oblivious. Since you first came to the bar, it’s not hard to spot it you know.”

I nodded. “Right.”

“Don’t be nervous, you’re making me nervous.” She said laughing a little. “Just relax, okay?”

“Right.” I mumbled. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be, I’m nervous too, just better at hiding it.”

“Why are you nervous?” Didn’t she realize she already had me? She didn’t have to try.

“I haven’t been around a girl like this since I met you. I think I’ve forgotten what to do.” She laughed a little and ran a hand nervously through her hair.

Since she met me?

She hasn’t been with anyone in any sort of way since she met me?

I know I probably shouldn’t have done it, I know that I should have taken it slow and let us go through the motions. I really should have turned on the TV or said something or done anything else but what I did, but I couldn’t not do it.

I leaned over and cupped her cheek in one of my hands and brought our lips together in a gentle kiss, one that didn’t ask for anything or expect anything. Just a kiss. Sweet, soft, the way all first kisses should be.

After a moment, she kissed back, like she needed a minute to catch up. I liked knowing she was as off her game as I was, it felt good to know she could be caught off guard too.

I started to pull away, but she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me back into her, pulling me on top of her.

I didn’t question it, I just held myself over her, deepening the kiss when she started to tangle her fingers into my hair. We both needed to breathe though, but I wasn’t ready to stop completely. I moved down to her neck, sucking on a pulse point while she breathed heavily.

She groaned and arched into me. “Jan.” She gasped and tightened her grip on my hair before pulling me back to her mouth.

My hands moved on their own, moving to all of the available skin, including her hips from where her tank top had slipped up somewhere in this mess. It wasn’t enough though, and my hands just trailed farther up, slipping under her shirt and pausing at her stomach for a moment before she whimpered into my mouth and pushed into me.

Bras. God I hate them.

Apparently Luce did too, because when I didn’t move any higher she arched her back off of the bed, not pausing in kissing, and undid the damn thing herself. She pushed me back for a second and pulled her shirt and bra off before yanking me back to her by my shirt.

She was unbuttoning my shirt while I brought my hand to her breast and rolled a hardened nipple between my thumb and forefinger. I felt her gasp into my mouth and I lowered my head to her chest while I pulled my shirt the rest of the way off for her and undid my bra, flinging it across the room.

I took her other nipple into my mouth and felt her fingers tighten almost painfully on my head.

I pulled away and looked down at her.

Luce was here, in my bed, topless, her hair messy and her pupils were blown, almost eliminating the light blue around them. Luce wanted me, and I was stalling.

I swallowed hard and looked away for a moment. “I…I uh…it’s been a while for me…” I mumbled, embarrassed. I wasn’t sure why, I mean, she admitted to me just minutes ago that she hadn’t done anything with anyone either.

She sat up too and ran a thumb over my bottom lip which was probably swollen from all of the kissing. “I don’t care.”

I looked back at her and then down at the space between us. “I just wanna say that I’m a little out of practice is all.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t really remember what I’m doing.”

“You’re doing great.” She said, chuckling, “Really really great.”

“Right.”

“Don’t be nervous.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re a bad liar.” She said, smiling a little more. She kissed me, a lot like our first kiss had been, and I soon found myself above her again.

My hands moved on their own once more, down to the button of her jeans, and it was her turn to stop me.

She held my hands and I pulled back to look at her, worry and fear shooting through me. She had a panicked look in her eyes and she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. It’s not you. Really. God, you have no idea how much I want that.” She let her head hit the pillow and she closed her eyes. She looked like she was fighting with herself. “No idea how much I really really want that. Hell, I probably need it. Not just it, but you. I want you, Jan. Trust me, please. It’s not you, I know you’re thinking that it is, but it’s not.”

“What is it?” She was right; I was thinking that it was me. That she suddenly realized what she was doing.

“Just…I thought…I thought it wouldn’t matter, but then I thought about it some more and, just to let you in on a secret, you’re not the only one who is a mixture of nervous and terrified.” She laughed quietly, but it didn’t sound real.

“What is it? Luce, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. We don’t have to do this, we can stop if you want, but I just need you to know that, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re sweet Jan. Janice.” She teased and I blushed a dark red when she said my name. “I don’t like it as much as Jan. Janice doesn’t sound like you. Jan.” She whispered my name again and touched my cheek. “I know you probably don’t care, it’s just…I do.”

“What is it?”

She didn’t say anything for a minute, just rubbed my cheek with her thumb. “I inherited the bar because my uncle’s will gave it to me when I became 21 if anything happened to him. He raised me. I lived with him when I was a kid and we were ‘thick as thieves’. Everyone used to say that. My uncle used to make jokes about it all the time. I don’t know how it started, but one night there was a fire and my uncle ended up passed out in the living room. He hit his head or something, he wasn’t a drunk, and the police told me that he had a head injury. I heard the alarm and my uncle was just laying there, looking like he had been coming to the stairs. I think he had been coming to get me, but something happened to him on the way, and I was just a kid. I called 911 and they told me to leave the house and get away, but…my uncle was just laying there…” She wasn’t crying, she just seemed distant. Far away, like she had become used to it all by now, like she didn’t really register the reality of it all. “I tried pulling him out, but I couldn’t. The firemen had to come in and get us. My uncle didn’t make it, and I didn’t realize until I was in an ambulance that I had some pretty bad burns. The worst of it all is on my legs though, my thighs particularly.”

“Which is why you don’t want me to take your pants off.” I said quietly.

She looked away and I leaned in and kissed her forehead. “We don’t have to, but I want you to know that I think you’re beautiful and brave, scars or not. You’re gorgeous.”

“They’re technically not that bad, I had a good plastic surgeon on my side. I just feel like everyone can see them. I hate them.” She whispered.

“Do you trust me?”

She looked up at me and nodded slowly.

I lowered my hands back down the her pants and unbuttoned them, this time without her stopping me, and pulled the jeans down her legs and tossed them over with the rest of our clothes.

The scars weren’t bad, you had to look for them to really notice them, but I understood why she hated them, why they haunted her.

They started just below her knees, so that’s where I kissed first. Soft, quick kisses all the way up one leg, and then up the other from about mid shin, and then I went up and kissed her lips again, just as softly. “Beautiful.” I whispered against her lips.

“Charmer.”

“No, just honest.” I started to pull away again, but she held onto me tighter. “What’s wrong?” I asked, afraid I did the wrong thing again. Maybe I’d gone too far. Maybe that was a bad idea. She didn’t want me to see them, and I kind of made her. I shouldn’t have done that.

“Nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all.” She whispered. “Just…do you mind if I stay here tonight?”

I smiled. “Of course not.”

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I thought about naming this chapter Beautiful, but I didn't, instead I went for the simpler title of Jan.

I have toyed with the idea of a shorter book about Jan and Luce, but I think that this is enough. At least for now, maybe one day I'll do a little more, but for now, I think this is nice.

Sorry for the wait though, I had a lot of computer troubles for a week, and then Ihad to write Cold Front, and then I had to write this, it's all very confusing. A little hint to the next chapter in here, Thanksgiving at Sara's parents. (I know it's not Thanksgiving, I meant for this to be done for Thanksgiving, but that's the week my computer stopped working. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving :()

What did you all think? I hope you loved it, I know I did. So, let me know your thoughts and things.

Also, side note about my life, I saw Frozen and I don't think there's ever been a more perfect movie. Indina Menzel as Elsa and sexy redheads and sexy blondes and ice queen and talking snowmen and love that isn't romance and confidence and fears. The level of sophistication in, not only the plot, but the music is astounding for a children's movie. It's not really like most Disney movies, which I love, but are like 'Here's the plot and I think we should just throw in a song? What do you think?' You know? Frozen, unlike almost every other Disney movie (which again, I love them all) really flows, and is less of a regular movie, and more of a musical. With reindeer. And magic. And family. And plot twists. And trolls. Go watch it. Don't question it, just watch it. Watch it three or four times and then download it illegally and watch it some more. And definitely download the deluxe soundtrack with all of the demos and outtakes (they have, like, twenty songs that they couldn't put into the movie, and so they put them on the album!) Also, all of the instrumentals are on there for people who like to sing and things like that. Karaoke nights featruing Disney songs including Frozen? Yes please!!!

Anyways...I'm going to go write some more now....See you guys soon!

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A little more, and on a serious note. I want to dedicate this chapter to someone who isn't doing so hot right now. One of my favorite authors on this site, and one of the authors who really inspired me in my writing, Albaluz was in some sort of accident the other night and is in the hospital. From what I hear, they don't know how she's doing right now. She was deteriorating earlier, and was even gone for a few seconds, before they brought her back. I'm dedicating this to her for a number of reasons, but the main one is that she has really effected me as a writer. She has helped me grow and become more confident with my writing, and hell, she hasn't said two words to me. I think, that maybe if I put it out there in the universe that she really makes a difference on people like me in our lives, then maybe something will happen. A little crazy, considering I don't believe in any sort of higher being, but there are some quantum physisists believe that the universe is partly controlled but what we think, so why not give it a go, right?

So, Albaluz, stay strong for people like me, your little girl, and your wife. I don't think my writing would be where it is if I hadn't read some of your stuff and saw how confident you were in posting what you wrote and talking about your life and things. Good Luck, and I wish you and your family all the best. Some people may not see this because I decided to write this a little late, but this isn't really about getting views, this is more about me trying to say what I want to say I guess.

All the best,

-Gabby