fic: it always comes around (disney rpf, nick/miley, 2/?)
Title: It Always Comes Around
Author: empressearwig
Pairing: Nick/Miley
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 9,300 for this part
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is all for fun. This didn’t happen. Etc.
Summary: Two weeks in June.
Author’s Notes: I was going to finish this before I started posting, but then I realized just how long it was going to be and said screw it. Thanks to various people who read this against their will.
[Part 1]
The next morning, Miley's no less confused, but at least she's well rested.
She'd fallen asleep almost instantly, her body's exhaustion overcoming the questions and feelings that were crowding her mind. If Nick or Justin invaded her dreams, she can't remember, and she's grateful, because she's been spending enough of her waking hours thinking about them. And with Nick down the hall, she knows that won't be going away any time soon.
She takes a shower and gets dressed, and checks her phone for messages. It's not that she's avoiding going downstairs and facing Nick exactly, but she's scared that things will be different in the harsh light of day, that they were both caught up in some sort of moon struck madness and that's why last night happened. And she's maybe a little scared that it's not why last night happened, too, because then it's all too real.
She skims her text messages and frowns when she sees Justin's name pop up again and again. She doesn't want to deal with the reality of Justin. She knows she hurt him, and she knows that if he knew Nick was here, he'd be hurt worse, because all of his suspicions about them would have been proven true. Well, not the ones about her cheating on him with Nick. But the ones about there still being something going on, those were right. Miley had known they were right when Justin was making them, but she'd been in denial, because denial was safe and easier than acknowledging the truth.
After last night, though, denial isn't possible. Reality, Nick, is waiting for her downstairs and she needs to figure out what is going on.
She ignores the messages from Justin, because she can only deal with one ex-boyfriend at a time, and heads downstairs to where she knows Nick will be waiting for her. If her heart starts beating a little faster at the prospect of seeing him, she doesn't notice at all, because that would be ridiculous.
She won't act like a thirteen year old girl, no matter how much he makes her feel like one.
Nick's sitting at the kitchen table eating cereal, and his hair is still wet, and god, she wants to kiss him. Wants to sit on his lap and pick up where they left off last night, and she digs her hands into her thighs to stop herself from doing just that. "Hi," she says instead, helping herself to the juice in the fridge. "Sleep okay?"
He looks up and grins at her, and she is not going to let herself melt at the sight of it. She has willpower. "Hey," he says happily. "I was starting to think you were going to sleep all day."
She laughs and comes to sit in the chair next to his, stretching her legs out and propping them up on the chair across the table. "I could have, believe me." She can't quite stop herself and reaches out to ruffle his curls, tangling her fingers in the mess of them. "So what do you want to do today?"
He closes his eyes for just a second and leans into her touch, and she can't help but be happy that he's as affected by whatever's between them as she is. It's comforting to know that she's not alone, that he's right there with her. He opens his eyes and smiles at her, shrugging his shoulders a little. "I don't know. What is there to do?"
She frowns. That wasn't really something she'd considered. "Um, I don't know." She sees him start to laugh and presses a warning finger to his lips. "Don't even think about it."
He shakes his head solemnly. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he says, eyes bright with laughter. He grabs her hand and starts playing with her fingers. He sort of ducks his head, and looks up at her from underneath his eyelashes and says, "We could just hang out."
It's an incredibly appealing idea. It's also an incredibly dangerous idea. Miley's pretty sure that if they hang out all day by themselves that there will be a lot more of what happened last night happening, and while there's pretty much nothing she wants more in the world, especially when he's touching her, however innocently, she knows that they should probably talk first. But she's not sure what to say yet, she needs more time. So they can't just hang out. They need to do something.
And she suddenly knows exactly what it’s going to be. She raises her eyebrows at him, making sure the dare is there in her eyes and her voice. “How do you feel about jet skiing, Nicky?”
“I feel pretty okay with the concept.” His eyes narrow at her suspiciously and he sits up a little straighter. “Wait, you don’t think you’re going to be driving, do you?”
She laughs and pulls him to his feet. This is going to be awesome, she can feel it. It’s just what they need to make things less confusing. “Get changed, and meet me back down here,” she orders, pushing him towards the stairs. “I gotta make a phone call to set it up.”
He goes, but he calls back over his shoulder, “No really, you don’t think you’re going to drive, do you?”
She just laughs again and pulls out her phone.
*
Nick lets her drive.
Well, maybe “lets” isn’t exactly accurate. She’s pretty sure there’s a part of him that still can’t believe he gave in and is riding bitch, but whatever, it’s still happening.
The best part of Georgia so far is the lack of paparazzi, but part of Miley can’t help but wish that just once this once they were hanging around and making her life difficult. She needs photographic proof this moment existed, if only so she can show it to Joe later and Joe can rub it endlessly in Nick’s face.
She and Joe have always agreed that it’s their job to make Nick take things less seriously.
Of course, if the place was swarming with cameras, there’s probably no way Nick would have agreed to come, so maybe it is better this way.
Being out on the water is every bit as amazing as it was the day before, only this time it feels even better, because Nick’s arms are wrapped around her and his skin is warming her everywhere they’re pressed together, and if she could do this forever, she thinks she could die happy. Nick’s having fun, too, he’s gone from yelling comments about her driving in her ear to shouting words of encouragement, telling her to turn harder or go faster, and seeing him like this, all carefree and happy, makes this day pretty much perfect.
Maybe halfway through their hour, she slows down and stops, turning her head to face him, and god, he’s just so close that it’s like they’re practically kissing.
“What’s wrong?” he asks so loudly he’s almost yelling, like he thinks that the wind is still whipping past them and she won’t be able to hear him otherwise.
“Nothing!” she answers, and she can’t quite help herself. She reaches up and kisses him swiftly, pulling back before he can even react. She sees his eyes darken just a little, and knows that he’s going to kiss her.
And he does.
It’s soft, and it’s gentle, and Miley feels like they’re starting over, like they’re sharing their first kisses all over again. Nick brings his hands up to cup her face, tracing along her cheeks and her jaw, and sliding back to tangle in her windblown hair.
She needs to be closer to him, and she tries to twist herself around so that she can touch him the way that he’s touching her. She’s not sure what she does, how it happens, but suddenly she’s falling off the jet ski and is in the water looking up at him.
She pushes her wet hair back off her face and treads water and tries to see if he’s laughing. If he’s laughing, he’s going to see exactly what a ticked off southern woman looks like, not for the first time. The reminder would be good for him, she thinks darkly, but she doesn’t see any traces of laughter on his face. Instead he just looks sort of confused, like he’s not sure what happened either.
Without a word, he holds out a hand and she grabs onto it, letting him help her back up onto the jet ski. When she’s sitting again, she twists her head around to face him, sure that now he’ll be laughing. Because, really, it was pretty funny and she would probably have been laughing at him if the situation had been reversed.
But he’s still not laughing, and he just leans forward to brush a slow, soft kiss to her lips. “You okay?” he murmurs against her lips, and all she can do is nod. “Good,” he says, giving her another quick kiss. Then he pulls away and he’s smiling at her, and she has to smile back, has to smile so widely that her cheeks hurt.
He wraps his arms around her waist, and leans against her back, whispering in her ear, “Ready?”
And maybe he’s just talking about this ride, maybe he’s talking about something more, but either way, Miley thinks she finally is ready. Ready to see what happens next, to finish what they’ve started.
She nods and hits the gas.
*
When they get back to the house, they're hungry, tired, and sunburned.
But neither of them has stopped smiling at the other since they left the rental place, and on the drive home they kept reaching out to touch the other, like they needed the confirmation that they're both here, that it's real. Every time Nick smiles at her, Miley feels like her heart is going to explode with happiness and the butterflies in her stomach haven't gone away since he kissed her on the jet ski.
Maybe it's a little bit crazy, and maybe it's too fast, but she knows she's falling for him all over again.
She just really hopes that he'll be there to break her fall.
They split up to shower and change, and once she's in her bedroom by herself, she can't quite help herself and she dances around the room. She's just - she's just happy. Happier that she probably has a right to be considering she broke up with Justin two days ago, but she hasn't felt this good in months, maybe even longer, and she's damn well going to enjoy it while she can. She knows that what's coming will be hard, that some of it will hurt, but she can't let herself think about that now.
Not when Nick's here, when they're together, when it's the easiest thing in the world. There will be plenty of time for everything else later.
She sings to herself in the shower, loudly and off key, and if Nick could hear her, he'd probably be having second thoughts about the duet they recorded. But she's filled with music for the first time in forever, and wants - no, she needs - to let it out. She's written more songs about the way he makes her feel than she can count, and she thinks she could write a million more, starting right now.
She fusses over her hair and her makeup, like she's getting ready for a date. She's being silly and sentimental and a girl, but it just can't be helped. She remembers what she felt like that first night they went to dinner with his friends, and has to laugh, because really, nothing has changed. She's just as nervous as she was then, and she wants to impress him just as badly.
She hopes he's feeling the same way too.
When she finally goes downstairs, she finds Nick in the kitchen, standing over the stove.
"Hey," she says, coming to stand next to him and peering at the pot. "Whatcha doing?"
Nick turns his head towards her and smirks. "What does it look like I'm doing?"
She rolls her eyes at him and bumps him with her hip. "Very funny. I mean, what are you making?"
He bumps her back, and stirs the pot. "But that's not what you said," he teases, still smirking.
Miley narrows her eyes. "Don't make me get rough with you, Nicholas," she threatens, bringing her fists up like they're going to box. "I could take you."
"Is that a threat or a promise?"
And okay, her jaw drops a little, because she wasn't expecting Nick to take the flirting to that place quite so soon.
"Speechless, Miles?" he laughs, setting the spoon down on the stove, and turning to face her. He hooks his thumbs in her belt loops and drags her against him, and she really doesn't have a choice but to wrap her arms around his neck. He bends his head and kisses her gently, and she moves closer to him, moves into the kiss.
She knows they need to talk, but when he's kissing her she can never seem to remember that. So it's with some regret that she breaks the kiss, and steps back. "Nick," she says, biting her lip anxiously.
He looks sort of confused, and says, "Yeah?"
"We need to talk about this. About what's going on."
He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. "Yeah. We do."
"I just - I need to know what we're doing," Miley says, studying his face. She reaches out and strokes his back. "It's important."
He nods and grabs her hand, squeezing it tight. "I know." He smiles sort of weakly. "I was just hoping to put it off a little longer."
She can't help but laugh a little, because god, he's such a boy sometimes.
He raises his eyebrows at her. "Something funny?"
She shakes her head. "Nope." She looks down at the stove. "How much longer do you think?"
He looks like he doesn't quite believe her, but he looks appraisingly at the pot anyway. "I don't know, ten minutes?"
She nods. "I'll set the table, okay?" She leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek, and walks away to try to find the dishes in this still unfamiliar kitchen. When she sneaks a look at him over her shoulder, he's smiling foolishly and all the nerves that had been building up in her stomach start to dissipate.
Everything is going to be fine. She knows it.
*
Over macaroni and cheese they talk about everything but them.
He tells her about what they've got planned for the tour, how Joe's planning on dressing up in wacky costumes at their sound checks, and how excited he is about the softball team. She tells him about how nervous she is about this movie, how much fun she thinks it is going to be to go on tour with Trace, and that she's totally jealous that he's done with school.
But their mutual avoidance of the topic that's hanging over them doesn't stop them from grinning at each other like idiots for no reason, or from brushing hands and sharing lingering touches. Miley doesn't know about Nick, but her willpower isn't that strong.
They're almost done eating when Nick gets a really nervous look on his face and sort of stammers, "So there's something I wanted to ask you."
She sits forward in her chair and tries not to look too eager. Maybe this will be it, maybe they're finally going to talk about what's going on. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," he says, and he's pushing what's left of his dinner around on his plate and not quite meeting her eyes. "Would you maybe want to come to Dallas next week and sing Before the Storm with me?" He finally looks up at her and his heart is in his eyes. "Please?"
She stares at him in shock and can't quite catch her breath. She hadn't been expecting that at all, and she knows without a doubt that there's nothing he could have asked her that would have meant more, just like when he asked her to work on the song with him in the first place. Music is how Nick says all the things he can't, and that he'd ask her to share that with him... It's better than a thousand declarations of love.
"Yes." She knows she has a ridiculously big smile on her face, but she doesn't care. "Yes."
The nervous panic starts to fade on Nick's face and is replaced by a tentative smile. "Yes?"
"Yes," she says firmly, and she has to throw her arms around his neck and hug him as tight as she can. "Yes," she whispers in his ear, breathing in the scent of his freshly washed hair. "Yes."
He wraps his arms around her and holds her close to him. "Thank you," he says softly, the words muffled against her throat.
She shakes her head and pulls back just a little so that she can look him in the eyes. "I'm the one that should be thanking you," she disagrees. "I can't believe you'd want me to be there, to sing with you... It just, it just means -"
Nick lays a finger across her lips, cutting her off. "Miley, haven't you figured it out by now? I'm always going to want you there."
And her breath catches again and wow, where did that come from? Nick's staring at her, waiting for a reaction and all she can manage is a single word. "What?"
"Not quite the reaction I was looking for," he mutters under his breath. He loosens his grip on her and says with a sigh, "We should probably talk now, huh?"
She just nods, still staring at him in shock. Nick doesn't say things like, and he doesn't say things he doesn't mean, and she thought she was prepared for this, but she's so obviously not. She slides off his lap and stands, nodding her head towards the living room. "Okay, yeah, okay," she babbles, not even sure what she's saying. "Let's do that."
He takes her by the hand and leads her to the next room, sitting down on the couch and tugging her so that she's sitting next to him, practically on top of him really, and he doesn't let go of her hand. She's not sure if she finds it comforting or scary.
"Miley," Nick starts, looking at her intently.
"Did you mean it?" she blurts out, searching his face for the answer to her question. Nick can't lie to her with his eyes, he's never been able to and no matter what, she'll be able to tell by looking at him. No matter what he says.
"Yes," he says, bringing his other hand up to cup her cheek and looking her straight in the eyes. "Yes, I meant it."
She lets out a breath she hadn't known she was holding and shudders in relief. It wasn't all in her head, she wasn't crazy. She hadn't known how worried she was that she was crazy.
"Um, Miley?" Nick asks anxiously. "Did you hear me?"
She nods, not trusting herself to speak, which is funny, because she can always find something to say. Except around Nick lately, she's probably been speechless more times around him in the last two days than she's been in her entire life.
"Did you want to tell me anything?" he prompts, and she can tell he's trying not to sound too invested in what she might say, like it doesn't matter, but there are nerves all over his face and he's tapping his foot against the floor so fast that she's surprised the floor isn't shaking, and it calms her down in a way that nothing he could have said would have. He's nervous too, and that says more to her than words ever could.
"Nick," she says, and it's the only thing she can think to say. She's not sure how to tell him that she never really stopped loving him, that she wants to be with him more than anything in the world, but that she's scared of getting her heart broken again, of losing him again if things don't work out. She never wants to lose Nick again. "I don't know what to say," she confesses, biting her lip. It's not fair, she knows it's not fair. He's said more than she ever expected him to already, and she hasn't given him anything in return.
He smiles at her tightly and squeezes her hand. "It's okay," he manages. "Just - just say something, please? I need to hear something."
So she says the only words that will come. "I'm scared."
"Scared of what?"
Miley looks up into his face and tries to figure out how to explain. He's not scary. From somewhere, she remembers that line from a Julia Roberts movie, about being a girl standing in front of a boy and asking him to love her, and that's what Nick looks like right now. He's just looking at her with his heart in his eyes and she wants so badly to give him what he wants. But the way that he makes her feel is powerful, and scary, and she can lose herself in it so easily. She could give in right now and tell him everything and throw her heart at his feet, but what if he changes his mind and decides he doesn't want it again?
"I'm scared of," she starts, trying to figure out how to make him understand. "I'm scared of getting hurt again, Nick. I'm scared of losing you."
"You think I'm not scared?" he asks, his thumb stroking along the inside of her wrist. "You broke my heart too, you know."
"I know," she whispers, because she does know. They hurt each other so badly, and it took them so long to get back to being friends. But maybe they never were friends, maybe this, them, was always hanging over their heads and it always will be. "But -"
He shakes his head. "When did this happen? When did you become the careful one?" He holds up his other hand, a rueful expression on his face. "Don't answer that." His face turns serious, almost desperate, and it hurts to see him look like that, to know that she's the reason why. "Just answer this. Forget all the reasons that it won't work, why we shouldn't. Do you want to be with me?"
And maybe it really is that simple. Maybe at the end of the day that's all that matters, how he feels about her and how she feels about him. He's opened himself up to her again, and she thinks that she owes him the same. She owes herself the same, them the same. "Yes."
He closes his eyes and lets out a long slow breath, and when his eyes open his face looks lighter, more open and she realizes just how unsure he was about her feelings. How much he was putting on the line. "Okay," he says, voice full of relief. "Okay." He tugs on their joined hands and pulls her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her and holding her against him.
She leans her head against his chest and breathes him in. Nothing has been solved, they haven't talked about what it means, where it is going, how it is going to work, but she doesn't want to think about any of that right now. She just wants to be here, with him, to concentrate on how it feels to be in his arms, to memorize this moment.
Miley's not sure how long they sit like that, wrapped in each others arms. But she knows it hasn't been long enough when they hear the sound of the front door opening and her mother's footsteps walking down the hall. They're not even doing anything, but she knows she doesn't want her mom catching them like this, it's too intimate to share, and so she slides off Nick's lap, settling herself next to him on the couch.
Nick frowns at her, but she pats him on the leg and reaches forward to grab the tv remote. She switches it on and leans back, leaning against his shoulder. "Did you really want my mom walking in on us again?" she asks, starting to flip through the channels.
Nick shakes his head furiously, and she laughs.
"Are you scared of my mom?" she teases, looking up at him with a wide smile on her face.
His hand creeps down her side, running his fingers over the ticklish part of her stomach, and he steals the remote from her. "Nope, not at all."
"Liar."
He smirks at her and stops on the pre-game coverage for the NBA Finals. "Prove it."
"Prove what?" her mom says from the doorway, and both their heads snap towards her.
Nick shoots Miley a look and stands up as quickly as he can. "I'm gonna go check my levels, I'll be right back." He doesn't exactly run from the room, but it's close and she laughs.
"That proves my point!" she calls after his retreating back. She smiles at her mom. "Hi."
"Hi," Tish says, perching on the edge of a chair. "How was your day?"
"Good," Miley says, shrugging her shoulders a little. "We went jet skiing. It was fun."
"I'm glad to hear it." Her mom is studying her closely, too closely, and Miley can tell that she's debating whether or not to ask her questions now. Miley really hopes she doesn't, because she would have no idea what to say. "Is there anything you want to tell me?" Tish asks finally, and at least she can actually answer that.
Miley shakes her head. "Not yet, okay, Mom?"
"Okay," Tish says, standing back up. "But we will talk" She crosses the room and kisses the top of Miley's head, and Miley closes her eyes and thinks about how lucky she is to have her parents. "Right?"
Miley nods. "Right."
"Then I'm going to go get some dinner. You kids did eat, right?"
Miley nods again, trying not to smile too widely. "Nick cooked."
Her mom raises an eyebrow in that mom way that really means "oh really?", but she just smiles and nods and heads out of the room.
Miley leans her head back against the couch and closes her eyes. She feels like she's been living on some sort of emotional rollercoaster for the past few days and she knows it isn't over yet, but she's just so tired. The only thing she is absolutely certain of is that she can't pretend that she doesn't still love Nick anymore. It takes too much energy, too much effort, and she's just too tired to do it. But she's also too tired to try to figure out what it all means tonight and she hopes he just wants to watch the basketball game and be dorks and fight about who is going to win, because that's all she thinks she can handle right now.
"Hey, where did your mom go?" Nick asks, as he sits back down next to her, stretching his arm out over the back of the couch.
Miley cracks an eye open and looks up at him. "To dig your grave." And the look on Nick's face is just panicked enough that she bursts out laughing and she slaps his side. "To eat dinner, where do you think?"
He narrows his eyes at her and she starts inching away from him, because she knows that face and it never means anything good for her. "Nick..." she says warningly, trying to get him to reconsider, but she knows him and knows that will never ever happen.
And sure enough, he grabs for her, throwing her down on the couch and tickling her without mercy. She shrieks with laughter and tries to bat his hands away, but he just pins her wrists over her head, holding them in place with one hand and keeps tickling her. But she's not laughing anymore and her heart is beating really fast and she suddenly wants to play in a whole different type of way.
When did Nick get strong enough that he could do that? And when did she start finding it so hot?
"Nick," she says again, only this time her voice is low and breathy and pleading. Her face feels hot and she wants his hands on her more than she wants to take her next breath.
He looks down at her and his eyes are dark and he's staring at her like she's the only thing he'll ever want to see and Miley holds her breath as he lowers his head to kiss her.
It's more intense than the other times they've kissed today, it's hot and wet and like they're picking up where they left off last night before her mom showed up to interrupt. She arches against him, trying to free her wrists so that she can touch him, but he holds her captive, running his other hand over her curves and it's just not enough.
She tears her mouth away from his and gasps, "Nick, please," in a voice she hardly recognizes. He looks at her with unfocused eyes and just shakes his head, pressing his lips to her neck and sucking lightly at the pulse point. And it feels amazing, but it's not what she wants and if he's going to torture her, she's going to torture him right back.
She arches against him again, tangling their legs together, rubbing the length of her body along his, smiling triumphantly when she hears him groan.
"Miley," he pants against her neck. "Are you trying to kill me? Or get me killed?"
She laughs from low in her throat and says, "No." She tugs at her wrists again, and this time he gives in and releases her. She wraps her arms around him immediately, rolling them over, so now he's flat on his back and she's leaning down over his body. She pushes her hair back out of her face and runs her hands across his chest. "Hi."
"Hi," he says, reaching up to tangle one of his hands in her hair, trying to pull her back down to him. "C'mere."
She shakes her head, sliding her hands down his stomach and under his shirt. Nick hisses as she makes contact with his skin. "Now why should I be nice to you when you weren't nice to me?" she asks, bending her head to suck on his neck, mimicking how he'd teased her.
Nick's hands dig into her hips, pulling her flush against him and she can't help but press against him. He groans again and she finally kisses him, swallowing the sound.
"You have to be quiet," she says against his lips, between short, teasing kisses. His hands slip under her shirt and she shivers at the contact.
“Maybe you’re the one that needs to be quiet.” He’s tracing along the length of her spine, inching closer to her bra and Miley knows they need to stop, but she doesn’t want to, she wants to keep doing this forever.
But she really doesn’t want to risk her mom walking back in and so she leans back and says with palpable regret, “Nick.”
He exhales loudly and looks up at her with frustration written all over his face. “Yeah,” he says, sliding his hands out from under her shirt and rubbing them across his face. “Yeah.”
She climbs off him and he pushes himself up to a sitting position. She scoots down so she’s at the opposite end of the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs so that she’s not tempted to touch him. She doesn’t think it will work, but she needs to at least try.
She nods her head towards the tv and says, “Maybe we should just watch the game?”
“Okay, yeah,” Nick says and he stands. “I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”
Without waiting for a response, he heads out of the room and Miley closes her eyes and leans her head against her knees. God, what the hell is wrong with her? It’s like whenever Nick’s within five feet of her she can’t keep her hands off him. She doesn’t even know if they’re together or if they’re not and she’s never acted like this before.
She needs to pull herself together.
Too bad that's so much easier said than done.
She stands and heads into the kitchen to make popcorn, her potentially lame attempt to diffuse the situation. Eating should give them something else to do and if nothing else they can throw it at the tv when the refs make bad calls. That's something normal, something that should take her mind off how badly she wants to jump him whenever he gets anywhere near her.
Please let it take her mind off that.
When Nick comes back she's sitting cross-legged on the couch, bowl of popcorn sitting next to her, and he gives her this look that says that he knows exactly what she's doing, and she sort of shrugs at him, because what is she supposed to do, deny it? She apparently has zero self-control when it comes to Nick. The only consolation is that he doesn't seem to have that much more when it comes to her.
He sits down on the other side of the bowl and grabs a handful of popcorn, shooting her a heated sidelong glance.
She keeps her eyes fixed on the tv and hopes the game goes into overtime. It may be the only thing that can save her from herself.
*
By the end of the game, Miley and Nick are sitting hip to hip and she's elbowing him in the side in glee.
"See?" she crows in delight, reveling in the pout on Nick's face. "I told you. Didn't I tell you?" She's grinning ear to ear and she just feels so good right now.
"Yeah, yeah," he grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning at her. "No one likes a sore winner, Miley."
"No one likes a sore loser, Nicky," she counters, reaching over and poking her fingers into his cheeks, trying to force his frown into a smile. She laughs when he tries to bat her hands away.
He bares his teeth at her in some sort of twisted version of a smile and she doubles over at the waist with laughter. God, teasing him is so much fun. Making him act like he's a real, live sixteen-year-old boy is so much fun. She wonders what the rest of the world, the world that's so used to Nick Jonas, most serious boy ever, would think if they could see him now.
She's willing to bet that more than a few of them would accuse her of drugging him or something. Certainly of being a bad influence. Because heaven forbid Nick should ever act his own age, or she should ever be able to be a good influence.
Miley knows they shouldn't bother her, the people who don't understand her, them, but sometimes it all gets to be too much and they do.
She doesn't realize she's stopped laughing, or that her smile's turned to a frown, till Nick pokes her in the side and says, "Hey, what's wrong?"
She blinks at him, bringing his face back into focus. He's staring at her with confusion in his eyes, and she understands why, because even for her that was a rapid mood swing. She shakes her head, and plasters a smile on her face and hopes she's a good enough actress to fool him. "Nothing," she says as cheerily as she can. "I just zoned out for a minute." She stands up and grabs the empty popcorn bowl from the coffee table. "Do you want anything else to eat? I think I'm still hungry, aren't you?" She starts to step over his legs and towards the kitchen, but Nick grabs her wrist.
"Miley," he says, genuine concern in his voice and she knows that if she looked at him the same concern would be written all over his face, but they're having a good time and she doesn't want to ruin it with thoughts about things that neither of them can change.
"I'm fine," she says as convincingly as she can and shakes off his hand. "I'll be back in a minute, okay?"
She doesn't look back as she flees from the room, dumping the bowl on the kitchen counter and making a beeline for the stairs. She just needs a minute by herself, a minute to breathe. A minute to convince herself that if she and Nick are going to do this, be them again, that she'll be able to handle all the comments, the insinuations, the fans screaming for her head.
She throws herself down on her bed and closes her eyes.
If she's honest with herself, she knows what’s really bothering her. Nick is leaving tomorrow and she still doesn't know what they are. When it's just them, like they've been for the last two days, it's the easiest thing in the world. But when their realities, their lives come into play, it becomes a million times more complicated. She'll be here for the rest of the summer, Nick will be touring. She'll be touring all fall, and Nick will be filming in Canada. Having a relationship is hard enough when you're in the same place, but they'll never see each other. And are they going to keep things a secret again? Miley's not sure she can do it, she liked being able to go places with Justin, to hold his hand in public, to not have to lie.
She hears her phone buzz on her bedside table where she'd dropped it earlier and fumbles for it. She reads the incoming text from Brandi and wants to hit something.
Why is her break up headline news? Why is her twitter being quoted on CNN?
Why is she so sure that this is going to make things with Nick more complicated?
"Hey," Nick says. She looks up, and he's standing in the doorway, looking unsure as to whether or not he should come in.
She sighs and pushes herself up so that she's sitting against the headboard. They were going to have to have this talk eventually. Better to do it now than have it hanging over their heads the rest of his visit, she guesses. "Come in." She punches a tweet into her phone, taking her frustration out on the buttons, tossing it to the side once she's finished. "Sorry, I didn't mean to disappear."
Nick sits down next to her on the bed, and takes her hand, lacing their fingers together. "Miley, what's wrong? And don't tell me nothing, I know you better than that."
She nods slowly, looking down at their linked hands. "Nick, what are we doing?" She shifts her gaze to his face and he's frowning in confusion.
"I thought we talked about this," he says.
"We agreed we wanted to be together," she agrees. "But are we?"
"Miley, what are you talking about?"
She has to fight back the urge to roll her eyes, because he chooses now to be a clueless teenage boy? Nick's the planner, not her, and she'd have thought he'd have understood where she was coming from. She shifts so she's sitting facing him, and she grabs his other hand, so that they're as connected as they can be. "I want to be with you," she says firmly. "But Nick, that's the easy part."
"There was nothing easy about it," he mutters under his breath, and she hits his knee with their joined hands. "Hey!" he exclaims. "I was just saying."
"I know what you were just saying," she says as sternly as she can, which is hard, because he's giving her his wounded puppy dog eyes and that's just not fair. He knows what they do to her. "Which is as good as place to start as any, I guess. I'm going to try to be friends with Justin, you know that, right?"
He nods, but he doesn't quite meet her eyes. "I thought you would."
She squeezes his hand, trying to make him understand that it doesn't change anything between them. "I have to. He's too close to my family, and it'll just be too awkward if we can't be friends." She hesitates, not sure how Nick will react to what she wants to say next, because he's always made his feelings about Justin quite clear. "And he's a good guy, really he is. I know you don't think so, but he is."
"Miley, it's okay," he says, squeezing her hand back. "I get it, I do." He sort of shrugs his shoulders. "As long as you don't want me to be friends with him, whatever, it's fine. And as long as he understands that all you are is friends." He narrows his eyes suspiciously. "He does understand that, right?"
"Um," she hedges, because truthfully Justin hasn't really gotten that yet. She's not even sure how many texts she has from him and she hasn't had the guts to tell him that Nick's here, let alone what's been going on between them.
"Miley."
"I'll make sure he does!" she exclaims defensively. "I promise."
Nick's giving her this look like he doesn't really believe her, and she should probably be more offended by that than she is. But some part of her is finding this show of possessiveness kind of hot, even if he doesn't exactly have the right to be possessive yet. It's not like he's her boyfriend. Well, maybe he is, but until the words are said, Miley's not taking anything for granted.
"Look, Justin's just a little confused," she defends. And she probably shouldn't tell him this, it'll only pump up his ego, but maybe it will help him get past whatever his issue is with Justin. "You know he's always been jealous of you, and I haven't told him that you're here, so..."
Sure enough, now Nick's grinning and she hits him with their hands again. "Nicholas!"
"I'll be good," he says, still grinning like an idiot. "So, you did want to talk about something other than your ex-boyfriend, right? Not that I'm not enjoying knowing what a -"
She drops his hand and covers his mouth with her palm. "Finish that sentence and you'll regret it," she threatens. She really shouldn't have told him that. Really, really shouldn't have told him that.
He holds up his hands in surrender and she cautiously removes her hand.
"Are you going to behave?" she demands, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at him through narrowed eyes.
He nods obediently, but she doesn't believe him for a second. So fine, she'll put him on the hot seat.
"So are we dating or what?"
Nick blinks at her. "What?"
"Are. We. Dating?" she repeats each word slowly, enjoying the utter confusion on Nick's face. It's probably petty, but after the way he's thoroughly confused her for the past few months, she'll take the shoe being on the other foot for once.
"Miley, what the hell kind of question is that?"
"It's not a crazy question at all," she defends, frowning at him. "Look, you know how I feel about you. But Nick, we're not going to be anywhere near each other till next year. How are we going to make that work? Can we make that work?" She bites her lip and tries to figure out what he's thinking. She needs him to understand this. She wants this more than anything else, but it needs to be right. It needs to work. She's not living through it not working again. She can't.
Nick sighs and runs his hand through his hair. "Yeah." He looks frustrated and she can relate, because nothing about this is easy.
It should be easy. She loves him and though he hasn't said it, she knows he loves her.
But when has anything about them ever been easy?
Miley reaches out and lays a hand on his knee, trying to reassure them both. "The past two few days have been amazing. But you're leaving tomorrow."
He nods. "You know I wish I didn't have to, right?"
And she laughs a little at that, and he looks offended, so she rushes to explain. "I believe you, I do, but Nick, you're leaving to go on tour. You live for that. It's okay, I get it." And she does get it. She always has.
He looks sort of sheepish, and turns her hand over, running a finger across her palm before lacing their fingers together. "Well, yeah. But that doesn't mean I won't want to be in two places at once." He squeezes her hand. "Because I will."
"And I'll want the same thing," she says. "But..."
"Yeah." He looks at her seriously, his thumb stroking across her wrist. "What do you want, Miles?"
If ever there was an impossible question to answer that would be it. Because what she wants and what she knows they need to do are two totally different things. She wants to throw caution to the wind and say that they're together and that's that. But she knows they need to take things slow, to rebuild what they lost. She's not exactly sure how taking it slow works when you're already in love, but they'll have to figure it out. And being apart should make it easier and more complicated all at the same time. Just like everything else in their lives.
She takes a deep breath, not sure how he's going to react to what she's going to say.
"I think - I think we need to take things slow," she says, willing him to understand. "I don't think we should rush into anything, not like before."
He's frowning, but he doesn't seem to be upset and Miley gives a mental sigh of relief. "So what," he says, "you want to just be friends?"
"Not exactly," she hedges, because she doesn't. "I don't know, we could say we're dating but not, like, together? Not like boyfriend and girlfriend?"
"How is dating not being together?" he asks, the hint of a smirk teasing around the corners of his mouth.
She frowns at him. "You know what I mean."
He shakes his head and now he’s full on smirking. "Honestly, hardly ever."
Her jaw drops and she hits him in the bicep. "Nicholas!" She winces and shakes her hand out, because damn it that hurt. When did he get to have those kind of muscles?
He laughs and says, "Did you hurt yourself? Let me see." He takes her hand, bending it back and forth, and she watches him through wary eyes. "I think you'll live," he pronounces, kissing her knuckles. "There, all better."
Her heart flutters a little, because she's still not used to this Nick, the one that makes those kind of gestures so easily. "Th-thanks," she sort of stutters, her words tripping in time with her heart.
He smiles at her and rubs his thumb across her knuckles, and releases her hand. "So explain to me how this whole dating but not being together thing works," he says, and god she could kiss him on the mouth for getting her attention back where it is supposed to be and away from how much she wanted to crawl into his lap and kiss the hell out of him. Which really doesn't make any sense at all, but whatever. She needs to focus.
"Right." She shrugs a little and tries to explain. "I just think that we should keep things sort of casual. You know, not serious."
He raises an eyebrow at her. "Casual? Have we ever been casual, Miles?"
"Shut up, it's possible," she defends, rolling her eyes at him. "Do you have a better idea?"
"Yeah," he drawls. "We're together and we see each other when we can. We talk on the phone. We video chat. Kind of like we do now, except, you know, with kissing."
She frowns at him. "Cause that's the most important thing, right?"
"Well," he says and his cheeks turn a little bit pink and he shrugs his shoulders sort of helplessly.
She rolls her eyes again. "God, you're such a boy sometimes."
He laughs. "And that's a bad thing?" he questions, his voice dropping to the low, husky place that does things to her insides and she tries not to shiver at the sound of it.
"I - I didn't say that."
His eyes darken and he pulls her so that she's sitting next to him, wrapping his arm around her. "Okay, so why does it need to be so complicated? Why can't we just be together and see what happens?"
"But what if that's too hard? What if it doesn't work?" She looks up at him with pleading in her eyes. "I can't go through it not working again, Nick. I can't." She feels stripped bare, like she's just confessed to the most intimate part of herself and she's hoping that he will understand and be okay with what she needs.
He's studying her with careful eyes and she's holding her breath waiting for a response. Finally he nods and says, "Okay." He drops a kiss to the top of her head and tightens his arm around her waist. "If that's what you need, okay."
She turns her head and buries her face in his shoulder. "Thank you," she mumbles into his shirt and she can feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She keeps them closed tightly, to keep them at bay, and wraps her arms around Nick.
He pulls her tighter into the circle of his arm and holds her close.
*
Miley doesn't want to say goodbye.
That's all she can think about the next morning as they eat breakfast and as she sits on his bed and watches him pack. They didn't have enough time together, and she knows she'll see him again in about a week, but the weeks and months drag on after that and she doesn't know when she'll be able to see him. She'd known it was going to be hard, saying goodbye had always been hard, but she hadn't known it would ache like this.
Nick looks up from his bag and catches her staring at him. "Hey," he says, coming to sit next to her on the bed. "It's going to be okay, Miley."
She nods and tries to smile, but she knows she won't be able to fool anyone, especially not him.
"It will," he says firmly, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her into a hug. "I promise."
She wraps her arms around him and turns her face into his neck, breathing in the scent of him, trying to memorize what he smells like, what he feels like, so she can remember on all the nights when they're not together.
Finally, Nick pulls back with a sigh and says, “My cab is going to be here any minute. I should probably go downstairs and wait.”
Miley nods again and crawls off the bed, hovering in the doorway as Nick gathers his bag and guitar case. She gives him a wobbly smile and he bends his head to kiss her cheek gently, taking her hand as they make their way down the stairs.
They linger in the front hall, waiting for the cab to arrive.
She stares at him and bites her lip, trying to figure out what to say, how to say goodbye. She doesn’t want to cry, she doesn’t want to have that be the last memory he has of her before he leaves.
Nick sets his guitar down on the floor and tugs on her wrist, pulling her into a hug. “I’ll call you tonight,” he promises against her hair.
“Good,” she says into his shirt. She tilts her face back so that she can look at him. “I’m going to miss you.”
“Me too,” he says, smiling down at her. He brings a hand up to cup her face, tracing along the length of her jaw. “But I’ll see you soon.”
“I know.”
She stretches up on her toes and presses her mouth to his. It’s brief, just a brushing of lips, but she can feel it through her entire body. She knows that when he’s gone she’ll remember this, that she’ll replay this moment in her mind a thousand times until she can be in his arms again.
A horn honks outside, and she falls back down on her heels.
“I guess this is it,” she says, looking down at the floor. She can feel tears pricking at her eyes and she tries her best to hold them back.
Nick lifts her chin so that he can look her in the eyes. “I love you, Miley,” he says, and it’s the first time he’s said that to her in almost two years and her heart swells with happiness, because hearing him say those words, knowing he means them, makes everything else worth it.
“I love you, too,” she says with the biggest smile she can manage, and it’s the first time she’s meant a smile all day.
Nick smiles back down at her and kisses her one last time. “I have to go,” he says with regret, bending down to pick up his guitar once more.
She nods. “Call me?”
“Absolutely,” he says, opening the door and stepping out onto the steps. He looks back over his shoulder and smiles at her again. “Bye, Miles.”
He walks down the driveway to the cab and disappears inside.
“Goodbye,” she whispers from the doorway, waving at the car as it backs down the driveway.
Nick is gone.
*
She spends the afternoon watching sappy movies.
It’s probably a really girly response, but whatever. She just broke up with someone and sort of got back together with her first love all in a matter of days, and if ever there was a time for tear jerking movies this is it.
She’s sprawled out on her bed, watching on her laptop, her cell phone close at hand so that there’s no chance of missing Nick’s call. Which is also really girly, but she can’t bring herself to care. Her mom comes in halfway through P.S. I Love You and lays down on the bed with her, leaning her head against Miley’s, and Miley just closes her eyes and lets herself be comforted by her mom’s presence. She knows that her mom is dying to ask what happened while Nick was here, but it must be pretty obvious that she’s not ready to talk about it, because her mom’s not asking.
Miley’s pretty sure she’s never loved her mom more.
After the movie, she decides she can’t ignore the rest of the world anymore and starts returning texts and playing around on twitter. She tweets the name of the movie and before she knows it she gets a reply from Justin and god, she still doesn’t think she’s ready to deal with him, but she has to at least try. She meant it when she said she wanted to be friends with him, after all.
So she sends him a reply and then goes to see what there is to eat in the kitchen.
It’s a start.
[Part 3]
Author: empressearwig
Pairing: Nick/Miley
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 9,300 for this part
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is all for fun. This didn’t happen. Etc.
Summary: Two weeks in June.
Author’s Notes: I was going to finish this before I started posting, but then I realized just how long it was going to be and said screw it. Thanks to various people who read this against their will.
[Part 1]
The next morning, Miley's no less confused, but at least she's well rested.
She'd fallen asleep almost instantly, her body's exhaustion overcoming the questions and feelings that were crowding her mind. If Nick or Justin invaded her dreams, she can't remember, and she's grateful, because she's been spending enough of her waking hours thinking about them. And with Nick down the hall, she knows that won't be going away any time soon.
She takes a shower and gets dressed, and checks her phone for messages. It's not that she's avoiding going downstairs and facing Nick exactly, but she's scared that things will be different in the harsh light of day, that they were both caught up in some sort of moon struck madness and that's why last night happened. And she's maybe a little scared that it's not why last night happened, too, because then it's all too real.
She skims her text messages and frowns when she sees Justin's name pop up again and again. She doesn't want to deal with the reality of Justin. She knows she hurt him, and she knows that if he knew Nick was here, he'd be hurt worse, because all of his suspicions about them would have been proven true. Well, not the ones about her cheating on him with Nick. But the ones about there still being something going on, those were right. Miley had known they were right when Justin was making them, but she'd been in denial, because denial was safe and easier than acknowledging the truth.
After last night, though, denial isn't possible. Reality, Nick, is waiting for her downstairs and she needs to figure out what is going on.
She ignores the messages from Justin, because she can only deal with one ex-boyfriend at a time, and heads downstairs to where she knows Nick will be waiting for her. If her heart starts beating a little faster at the prospect of seeing him, she doesn't notice at all, because that would be ridiculous.
She won't act like a thirteen year old girl, no matter how much he makes her feel like one.
Nick's sitting at the kitchen table eating cereal, and his hair is still wet, and god, she wants to kiss him. Wants to sit on his lap and pick up where they left off last night, and she digs her hands into her thighs to stop herself from doing just that. "Hi," she says instead, helping herself to the juice in the fridge. "Sleep okay?"
He looks up and grins at her, and she is not going to let herself melt at the sight of it. She has willpower. "Hey," he says happily. "I was starting to think you were going to sleep all day."
She laughs and comes to sit in the chair next to his, stretching her legs out and propping them up on the chair across the table. "I could have, believe me." She can't quite stop herself and reaches out to ruffle his curls, tangling her fingers in the mess of them. "So what do you want to do today?"
He closes his eyes for just a second and leans into her touch, and she can't help but be happy that he's as affected by whatever's between them as she is. It's comforting to know that she's not alone, that he's right there with her. He opens his eyes and smiles at her, shrugging his shoulders a little. "I don't know. What is there to do?"
She frowns. That wasn't really something she'd considered. "Um, I don't know." She sees him start to laugh and presses a warning finger to his lips. "Don't even think about it."
He shakes his head solemnly. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he says, eyes bright with laughter. He grabs her hand and starts playing with her fingers. He sort of ducks his head, and looks up at her from underneath his eyelashes and says, "We could just hang out."
It's an incredibly appealing idea. It's also an incredibly dangerous idea. Miley's pretty sure that if they hang out all day by themselves that there will be a lot more of what happened last night happening, and while there's pretty much nothing she wants more in the world, especially when he's touching her, however innocently, she knows that they should probably talk first. But she's not sure what to say yet, she needs more time. So they can't just hang out. They need to do something.
And she suddenly knows exactly what it’s going to be. She raises her eyebrows at him, making sure the dare is there in her eyes and her voice. “How do you feel about jet skiing, Nicky?”
“I feel pretty okay with the concept.” His eyes narrow at her suspiciously and he sits up a little straighter. “Wait, you don’t think you’re going to be driving, do you?”
She laughs and pulls him to his feet. This is going to be awesome, she can feel it. It’s just what they need to make things less confusing. “Get changed, and meet me back down here,” she orders, pushing him towards the stairs. “I gotta make a phone call to set it up.”
He goes, but he calls back over his shoulder, “No really, you don’t think you’re going to drive, do you?”
She just laughs again and pulls out her phone.
*
Nick lets her drive.
Well, maybe “lets” isn’t exactly accurate. She’s pretty sure there’s a part of him that still can’t believe he gave in and is riding bitch, but whatever, it’s still happening.
The best part of Georgia so far is the lack of paparazzi, but part of Miley can’t help but wish that just once this once they were hanging around and making her life difficult. She needs photographic proof this moment existed, if only so she can show it to Joe later and Joe can rub it endlessly in Nick’s face.
She and Joe have always agreed that it’s their job to make Nick take things less seriously.
Of course, if the place was swarming with cameras, there’s probably no way Nick would have agreed to come, so maybe it is better this way.
Being out on the water is every bit as amazing as it was the day before, only this time it feels even better, because Nick’s arms are wrapped around her and his skin is warming her everywhere they’re pressed together, and if she could do this forever, she thinks she could die happy. Nick’s having fun, too, he’s gone from yelling comments about her driving in her ear to shouting words of encouragement, telling her to turn harder or go faster, and seeing him like this, all carefree and happy, makes this day pretty much perfect.
Maybe halfway through their hour, she slows down and stops, turning her head to face him, and god, he’s just so close that it’s like they’re practically kissing.
“What’s wrong?” he asks so loudly he’s almost yelling, like he thinks that the wind is still whipping past them and she won’t be able to hear him otherwise.
“Nothing!” she answers, and she can’t quite help herself. She reaches up and kisses him swiftly, pulling back before he can even react. She sees his eyes darken just a little, and knows that he’s going to kiss her.
And he does.
It’s soft, and it’s gentle, and Miley feels like they’re starting over, like they’re sharing their first kisses all over again. Nick brings his hands up to cup her face, tracing along her cheeks and her jaw, and sliding back to tangle in her windblown hair.
She needs to be closer to him, and she tries to twist herself around so that she can touch him the way that he’s touching her. She’s not sure what she does, how it happens, but suddenly she’s falling off the jet ski and is in the water looking up at him.
She pushes her wet hair back off her face and treads water and tries to see if he’s laughing. If he’s laughing, he’s going to see exactly what a ticked off southern woman looks like, not for the first time. The reminder would be good for him, she thinks darkly, but she doesn’t see any traces of laughter on his face. Instead he just looks sort of confused, like he’s not sure what happened either.
Without a word, he holds out a hand and she grabs onto it, letting him help her back up onto the jet ski. When she’s sitting again, she twists her head around to face him, sure that now he’ll be laughing. Because, really, it was pretty funny and she would probably have been laughing at him if the situation had been reversed.
But he’s still not laughing, and he just leans forward to brush a slow, soft kiss to her lips. “You okay?” he murmurs against her lips, and all she can do is nod. “Good,” he says, giving her another quick kiss. Then he pulls away and he’s smiling at her, and she has to smile back, has to smile so widely that her cheeks hurt.
He wraps his arms around her waist, and leans against her back, whispering in her ear, “Ready?”
And maybe he’s just talking about this ride, maybe he’s talking about something more, but either way, Miley thinks she finally is ready. Ready to see what happens next, to finish what they’ve started.
She nods and hits the gas.
*
When they get back to the house, they're hungry, tired, and sunburned.
But neither of them has stopped smiling at the other since they left the rental place, and on the drive home they kept reaching out to touch the other, like they needed the confirmation that they're both here, that it's real. Every time Nick smiles at her, Miley feels like her heart is going to explode with happiness and the butterflies in her stomach haven't gone away since he kissed her on the jet ski.
Maybe it's a little bit crazy, and maybe it's too fast, but she knows she's falling for him all over again.
She just really hopes that he'll be there to break her fall.
They split up to shower and change, and once she's in her bedroom by herself, she can't quite help herself and she dances around the room. She's just - she's just happy. Happier that she probably has a right to be considering she broke up with Justin two days ago, but she hasn't felt this good in months, maybe even longer, and she's damn well going to enjoy it while she can. She knows that what's coming will be hard, that some of it will hurt, but she can't let herself think about that now.
Not when Nick's here, when they're together, when it's the easiest thing in the world. There will be plenty of time for everything else later.
She sings to herself in the shower, loudly and off key, and if Nick could hear her, he'd probably be having second thoughts about the duet they recorded. But she's filled with music for the first time in forever, and wants - no, she needs - to let it out. She's written more songs about the way he makes her feel than she can count, and she thinks she could write a million more, starting right now.
She fusses over her hair and her makeup, like she's getting ready for a date. She's being silly and sentimental and a girl, but it just can't be helped. She remembers what she felt like that first night they went to dinner with his friends, and has to laugh, because really, nothing has changed. She's just as nervous as she was then, and she wants to impress him just as badly.
She hopes he's feeling the same way too.
When she finally goes downstairs, she finds Nick in the kitchen, standing over the stove.
"Hey," she says, coming to stand next to him and peering at the pot. "Whatcha doing?"
Nick turns his head towards her and smirks. "What does it look like I'm doing?"
She rolls her eyes at him and bumps him with her hip. "Very funny. I mean, what are you making?"
He bumps her back, and stirs the pot. "But that's not what you said," he teases, still smirking.
Miley narrows her eyes. "Don't make me get rough with you, Nicholas," she threatens, bringing her fists up like they're going to box. "I could take you."
"Is that a threat or a promise?"
And okay, her jaw drops a little, because she wasn't expecting Nick to take the flirting to that place quite so soon.
"Speechless, Miles?" he laughs, setting the spoon down on the stove, and turning to face her. He hooks his thumbs in her belt loops and drags her against him, and she really doesn't have a choice but to wrap her arms around his neck. He bends his head and kisses her gently, and she moves closer to him, moves into the kiss.
She knows they need to talk, but when he's kissing her she can never seem to remember that. So it's with some regret that she breaks the kiss, and steps back. "Nick," she says, biting her lip anxiously.
He looks sort of confused, and says, "Yeah?"
"We need to talk about this. About what's going on."
He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. "Yeah. We do."
"I just - I need to know what we're doing," Miley says, studying his face. She reaches out and strokes his back. "It's important."
He nods and grabs her hand, squeezing it tight. "I know." He smiles sort of weakly. "I was just hoping to put it off a little longer."
She can't help but laugh a little, because god, he's such a boy sometimes.
He raises his eyebrows at her. "Something funny?"
She shakes her head. "Nope." She looks down at the stove. "How much longer do you think?"
He looks like he doesn't quite believe her, but he looks appraisingly at the pot anyway. "I don't know, ten minutes?"
She nods. "I'll set the table, okay?" She leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek, and walks away to try to find the dishes in this still unfamiliar kitchen. When she sneaks a look at him over her shoulder, he's smiling foolishly and all the nerves that had been building up in her stomach start to dissipate.
Everything is going to be fine. She knows it.
*
Over macaroni and cheese they talk about everything but them.
He tells her about what they've got planned for the tour, how Joe's planning on dressing up in wacky costumes at their sound checks, and how excited he is about the softball team. She tells him about how nervous she is about this movie, how much fun she thinks it is going to be to go on tour with Trace, and that she's totally jealous that he's done with school.
But their mutual avoidance of the topic that's hanging over them doesn't stop them from grinning at each other like idiots for no reason, or from brushing hands and sharing lingering touches. Miley doesn't know about Nick, but her willpower isn't that strong.
They're almost done eating when Nick gets a really nervous look on his face and sort of stammers, "So there's something I wanted to ask you."
She sits forward in her chair and tries not to look too eager. Maybe this will be it, maybe they're finally going to talk about what's going on. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," he says, and he's pushing what's left of his dinner around on his plate and not quite meeting her eyes. "Would you maybe want to come to Dallas next week and sing Before the Storm with me?" He finally looks up at her and his heart is in his eyes. "Please?"
She stares at him in shock and can't quite catch her breath. She hadn't been expecting that at all, and she knows without a doubt that there's nothing he could have asked her that would have meant more, just like when he asked her to work on the song with him in the first place. Music is how Nick says all the things he can't, and that he'd ask her to share that with him... It's better than a thousand declarations of love.
"Yes." She knows she has a ridiculously big smile on her face, but she doesn't care. "Yes."
The nervous panic starts to fade on Nick's face and is replaced by a tentative smile. "Yes?"
"Yes," she says firmly, and she has to throw her arms around his neck and hug him as tight as she can. "Yes," she whispers in his ear, breathing in the scent of his freshly washed hair. "Yes."
He wraps his arms around her and holds her close to him. "Thank you," he says softly, the words muffled against her throat.
She shakes her head and pulls back just a little so that she can look him in the eyes. "I'm the one that should be thanking you," she disagrees. "I can't believe you'd want me to be there, to sing with you... It just, it just means -"
Nick lays a finger across her lips, cutting her off. "Miley, haven't you figured it out by now? I'm always going to want you there."
And her breath catches again and wow, where did that come from? Nick's staring at her, waiting for a reaction and all she can manage is a single word. "What?"
"Not quite the reaction I was looking for," he mutters under his breath. He loosens his grip on her and says with a sigh, "We should probably talk now, huh?"
She just nods, still staring at him in shock. Nick doesn't say things like, and he doesn't say things he doesn't mean, and she thought she was prepared for this, but she's so obviously not. She slides off his lap and stands, nodding her head towards the living room. "Okay, yeah, okay," she babbles, not even sure what she's saying. "Let's do that."
He takes her by the hand and leads her to the next room, sitting down on the couch and tugging her so that she's sitting next to him, practically on top of him really, and he doesn't let go of her hand. She's not sure if she finds it comforting or scary.
"Miley," Nick starts, looking at her intently.
"Did you mean it?" she blurts out, searching his face for the answer to her question. Nick can't lie to her with his eyes, he's never been able to and no matter what, she'll be able to tell by looking at him. No matter what he says.
"Yes," he says, bringing his other hand up to cup her cheek and looking her straight in the eyes. "Yes, I meant it."
She lets out a breath she hadn't known she was holding and shudders in relief. It wasn't all in her head, she wasn't crazy. She hadn't known how worried she was that she was crazy.
"Um, Miley?" Nick asks anxiously. "Did you hear me?"
She nods, not trusting herself to speak, which is funny, because she can always find something to say. Except around Nick lately, she's probably been speechless more times around him in the last two days than she's been in her entire life.
"Did you want to tell me anything?" he prompts, and she can tell he's trying not to sound too invested in what she might say, like it doesn't matter, but there are nerves all over his face and he's tapping his foot against the floor so fast that she's surprised the floor isn't shaking, and it calms her down in a way that nothing he could have said would have. He's nervous too, and that says more to her than words ever could.
"Nick," she says, and it's the only thing she can think to say. She's not sure how to tell him that she never really stopped loving him, that she wants to be with him more than anything in the world, but that she's scared of getting her heart broken again, of losing him again if things don't work out. She never wants to lose Nick again. "I don't know what to say," she confesses, biting her lip. It's not fair, she knows it's not fair. He's said more than she ever expected him to already, and she hasn't given him anything in return.
He smiles at her tightly and squeezes her hand. "It's okay," he manages. "Just - just say something, please? I need to hear something."
So she says the only words that will come. "I'm scared."
"Scared of what?"
Miley looks up into his face and tries to figure out how to explain. He's not scary. From somewhere, she remembers that line from a Julia Roberts movie, about being a girl standing in front of a boy and asking him to love her, and that's what Nick looks like right now. He's just looking at her with his heart in his eyes and she wants so badly to give him what he wants. But the way that he makes her feel is powerful, and scary, and she can lose herself in it so easily. She could give in right now and tell him everything and throw her heart at his feet, but what if he changes his mind and decides he doesn't want it again?
"I'm scared of," she starts, trying to figure out how to make him understand. "I'm scared of getting hurt again, Nick. I'm scared of losing you."
"You think I'm not scared?" he asks, his thumb stroking along the inside of her wrist. "You broke my heart too, you know."
"I know," she whispers, because she does know. They hurt each other so badly, and it took them so long to get back to being friends. But maybe they never were friends, maybe this, them, was always hanging over their heads and it always will be. "But -"
He shakes his head. "When did this happen? When did you become the careful one?" He holds up his other hand, a rueful expression on his face. "Don't answer that." His face turns serious, almost desperate, and it hurts to see him look like that, to know that she's the reason why. "Just answer this. Forget all the reasons that it won't work, why we shouldn't. Do you want to be with me?"
And maybe it really is that simple. Maybe at the end of the day that's all that matters, how he feels about her and how she feels about him. He's opened himself up to her again, and she thinks that she owes him the same. She owes herself the same, them the same. "Yes."
He closes his eyes and lets out a long slow breath, and when his eyes open his face looks lighter, more open and she realizes just how unsure he was about her feelings. How much he was putting on the line. "Okay," he says, voice full of relief. "Okay." He tugs on their joined hands and pulls her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her and holding her against him.
She leans her head against his chest and breathes him in. Nothing has been solved, they haven't talked about what it means, where it is going, how it is going to work, but she doesn't want to think about any of that right now. She just wants to be here, with him, to concentrate on how it feels to be in his arms, to memorize this moment.
Miley's not sure how long they sit like that, wrapped in each others arms. But she knows it hasn't been long enough when they hear the sound of the front door opening and her mother's footsteps walking down the hall. They're not even doing anything, but she knows she doesn't want her mom catching them like this, it's too intimate to share, and so she slides off Nick's lap, settling herself next to him on the couch.
Nick frowns at her, but she pats him on the leg and reaches forward to grab the tv remote. She switches it on and leans back, leaning against his shoulder. "Did you really want my mom walking in on us again?" she asks, starting to flip through the channels.
Nick shakes his head furiously, and she laughs.
"Are you scared of my mom?" she teases, looking up at him with a wide smile on her face.
His hand creeps down her side, running his fingers over the ticklish part of her stomach, and he steals the remote from her. "Nope, not at all."
"Liar."
He smirks at her and stops on the pre-game coverage for the NBA Finals. "Prove it."
"Prove what?" her mom says from the doorway, and both their heads snap towards her.
Nick shoots Miley a look and stands up as quickly as he can. "I'm gonna go check my levels, I'll be right back." He doesn't exactly run from the room, but it's close and she laughs.
"That proves my point!" she calls after his retreating back. She smiles at her mom. "Hi."
"Hi," Tish says, perching on the edge of a chair. "How was your day?"
"Good," Miley says, shrugging her shoulders a little. "We went jet skiing. It was fun."
"I'm glad to hear it." Her mom is studying her closely, too closely, and Miley can tell that she's debating whether or not to ask her questions now. Miley really hopes she doesn't, because she would have no idea what to say. "Is there anything you want to tell me?" Tish asks finally, and at least she can actually answer that.
Miley shakes her head. "Not yet, okay, Mom?"
"Okay," Tish says, standing back up. "But we will talk" She crosses the room and kisses the top of Miley's head, and Miley closes her eyes and thinks about how lucky she is to have her parents. "Right?"
Miley nods. "Right."
"Then I'm going to go get some dinner. You kids did eat, right?"
Miley nods again, trying not to smile too widely. "Nick cooked."
Her mom raises an eyebrow in that mom way that really means "oh really?", but she just smiles and nods and heads out of the room.
Miley leans her head back against the couch and closes her eyes. She feels like she's been living on some sort of emotional rollercoaster for the past few days and she knows it isn't over yet, but she's just so tired. The only thing she is absolutely certain of is that she can't pretend that she doesn't still love Nick anymore. It takes too much energy, too much effort, and she's just too tired to do it. But she's also too tired to try to figure out what it all means tonight and she hopes he just wants to watch the basketball game and be dorks and fight about who is going to win, because that's all she thinks she can handle right now.
"Hey, where did your mom go?" Nick asks, as he sits back down next to her, stretching his arm out over the back of the couch.
Miley cracks an eye open and looks up at him. "To dig your grave." And the look on Nick's face is just panicked enough that she bursts out laughing and she slaps his side. "To eat dinner, where do you think?"
He narrows his eyes at her and she starts inching away from him, because she knows that face and it never means anything good for her. "Nick..." she says warningly, trying to get him to reconsider, but she knows him and knows that will never ever happen.
And sure enough, he grabs for her, throwing her down on the couch and tickling her without mercy. She shrieks with laughter and tries to bat his hands away, but he just pins her wrists over her head, holding them in place with one hand and keeps tickling her. But she's not laughing anymore and her heart is beating really fast and she suddenly wants to play in a whole different type of way.
When did Nick get strong enough that he could do that? And when did she start finding it so hot?
"Nick," she says again, only this time her voice is low and breathy and pleading. Her face feels hot and she wants his hands on her more than she wants to take her next breath.
He looks down at her and his eyes are dark and he's staring at her like she's the only thing he'll ever want to see and Miley holds her breath as he lowers his head to kiss her.
It's more intense than the other times they've kissed today, it's hot and wet and like they're picking up where they left off last night before her mom showed up to interrupt. She arches against him, trying to free her wrists so that she can touch him, but he holds her captive, running his other hand over her curves and it's just not enough.
She tears her mouth away from his and gasps, "Nick, please," in a voice she hardly recognizes. He looks at her with unfocused eyes and just shakes his head, pressing his lips to her neck and sucking lightly at the pulse point. And it feels amazing, but it's not what she wants and if he's going to torture her, she's going to torture him right back.
She arches against him again, tangling their legs together, rubbing the length of her body along his, smiling triumphantly when she hears him groan.
"Miley," he pants against her neck. "Are you trying to kill me? Or get me killed?"
She laughs from low in her throat and says, "No." She tugs at her wrists again, and this time he gives in and releases her. She wraps her arms around him immediately, rolling them over, so now he's flat on his back and she's leaning down over his body. She pushes her hair back out of her face and runs her hands across his chest. "Hi."
"Hi," he says, reaching up to tangle one of his hands in her hair, trying to pull her back down to him. "C'mere."
She shakes her head, sliding her hands down his stomach and under his shirt. Nick hisses as she makes contact with his skin. "Now why should I be nice to you when you weren't nice to me?" she asks, bending her head to suck on his neck, mimicking how he'd teased her.
Nick's hands dig into her hips, pulling her flush against him and she can't help but press against him. He groans again and she finally kisses him, swallowing the sound.
"You have to be quiet," she says against his lips, between short, teasing kisses. His hands slip under her shirt and she shivers at the contact.
“Maybe you’re the one that needs to be quiet.” He’s tracing along the length of her spine, inching closer to her bra and Miley knows they need to stop, but she doesn’t want to, she wants to keep doing this forever.
But she really doesn’t want to risk her mom walking back in and so she leans back and says with palpable regret, “Nick.”
He exhales loudly and looks up at her with frustration written all over his face. “Yeah,” he says, sliding his hands out from under her shirt and rubbing them across his face. “Yeah.”
She climbs off him and he pushes himself up to a sitting position. She scoots down so she’s at the opposite end of the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs so that she’s not tempted to touch him. She doesn’t think it will work, but she needs to at least try.
She nods her head towards the tv and says, “Maybe we should just watch the game?”
“Okay, yeah,” Nick says and he stands. “I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”
Without waiting for a response, he heads out of the room and Miley closes her eyes and leans her head against her knees. God, what the hell is wrong with her? It’s like whenever Nick’s within five feet of her she can’t keep her hands off him. She doesn’t even know if they’re together or if they’re not and she’s never acted like this before.
She needs to pull herself together.
Too bad that's so much easier said than done.
She stands and heads into the kitchen to make popcorn, her potentially lame attempt to diffuse the situation. Eating should give them something else to do and if nothing else they can throw it at the tv when the refs make bad calls. That's something normal, something that should take her mind off how badly she wants to jump him whenever he gets anywhere near her.
Please let it take her mind off that.
When Nick comes back she's sitting cross-legged on the couch, bowl of popcorn sitting next to her, and he gives her this look that says that he knows exactly what she's doing, and she sort of shrugs at him, because what is she supposed to do, deny it? She apparently has zero self-control when it comes to Nick. The only consolation is that he doesn't seem to have that much more when it comes to her.
He sits down on the other side of the bowl and grabs a handful of popcorn, shooting her a heated sidelong glance.
She keeps her eyes fixed on the tv and hopes the game goes into overtime. It may be the only thing that can save her from herself.
*
By the end of the game, Miley and Nick are sitting hip to hip and she's elbowing him in the side in glee.
"See?" she crows in delight, reveling in the pout on Nick's face. "I told you. Didn't I tell you?" She's grinning ear to ear and she just feels so good right now.
"Yeah, yeah," he grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning at her. "No one likes a sore winner, Miley."
"No one likes a sore loser, Nicky," she counters, reaching over and poking her fingers into his cheeks, trying to force his frown into a smile. She laughs when he tries to bat her hands away.
He bares his teeth at her in some sort of twisted version of a smile and she doubles over at the waist with laughter. God, teasing him is so much fun. Making him act like he's a real, live sixteen-year-old boy is so much fun. She wonders what the rest of the world, the world that's so used to Nick Jonas, most serious boy ever, would think if they could see him now.
She's willing to bet that more than a few of them would accuse her of drugging him or something. Certainly of being a bad influence. Because heaven forbid Nick should ever act his own age, or she should ever be able to be a good influence.
Miley knows they shouldn't bother her, the people who don't understand her, them, but sometimes it all gets to be too much and they do.
She doesn't realize she's stopped laughing, or that her smile's turned to a frown, till Nick pokes her in the side and says, "Hey, what's wrong?"
She blinks at him, bringing his face back into focus. He's staring at her with confusion in his eyes, and she understands why, because even for her that was a rapid mood swing. She shakes her head, and plasters a smile on her face and hopes she's a good enough actress to fool him. "Nothing," she says as cheerily as she can. "I just zoned out for a minute." She stands up and grabs the empty popcorn bowl from the coffee table. "Do you want anything else to eat? I think I'm still hungry, aren't you?" She starts to step over his legs and towards the kitchen, but Nick grabs her wrist.
"Miley," he says, genuine concern in his voice and she knows that if she looked at him the same concern would be written all over his face, but they're having a good time and she doesn't want to ruin it with thoughts about things that neither of them can change.
"I'm fine," she says as convincingly as she can and shakes off his hand. "I'll be back in a minute, okay?"
She doesn't look back as she flees from the room, dumping the bowl on the kitchen counter and making a beeline for the stairs. She just needs a minute by herself, a minute to breathe. A minute to convince herself that if she and Nick are going to do this, be them again, that she'll be able to handle all the comments, the insinuations, the fans screaming for her head.
She throws herself down on her bed and closes her eyes.
If she's honest with herself, she knows what’s really bothering her. Nick is leaving tomorrow and she still doesn't know what they are. When it's just them, like they've been for the last two days, it's the easiest thing in the world. But when their realities, their lives come into play, it becomes a million times more complicated. She'll be here for the rest of the summer, Nick will be touring. She'll be touring all fall, and Nick will be filming in Canada. Having a relationship is hard enough when you're in the same place, but they'll never see each other. And are they going to keep things a secret again? Miley's not sure she can do it, she liked being able to go places with Justin, to hold his hand in public, to not have to lie.
She hears her phone buzz on her bedside table where she'd dropped it earlier and fumbles for it. She reads the incoming text from Brandi and wants to hit something.
Why is her break up headline news? Why is her twitter being quoted on CNN?
Why is she so sure that this is going to make things with Nick more complicated?
"Hey," Nick says. She looks up, and he's standing in the doorway, looking unsure as to whether or not he should come in.
She sighs and pushes herself up so that she's sitting against the headboard. They were going to have to have this talk eventually. Better to do it now than have it hanging over their heads the rest of his visit, she guesses. "Come in." She punches a tweet into her phone, taking her frustration out on the buttons, tossing it to the side once she's finished. "Sorry, I didn't mean to disappear."
Nick sits down next to her on the bed, and takes her hand, lacing their fingers together. "Miley, what's wrong? And don't tell me nothing, I know you better than that."
She nods slowly, looking down at their linked hands. "Nick, what are we doing?" She shifts her gaze to his face and he's frowning in confusion.
"I thought we talked about this," he says.
"We agreed we wanted to be together," she agrees. "But are we?"
"Miley, what are you talking about?"
She has to fight back the urge to roll her eyes, because he chooses now to be a clueless teenage boy? Nick's the planner, not her, and she'd have thought he'd have understood where she was coming from. She shifts so she's sitting facing him, and she grabs his other hand, so that they're as connected as they can be. "I want to be with you," she says firmly. "But Nick, that's the easy part."
"There was nothing easy about it," he mutters under his breath, and she hits his knee with their joined hands. "Hey!" he exclaims. "I was just saying."
"I know what you were just saying," she says as sternly as she can, which is hard, because he's giving her his wounded puppy dog eyes and that's just not fair. He knows what they do to her. "Which is as good as place to start as any, I guess. I'm going to try to be friends with Justin, you know that, right?"
He nods, but he doesn't quite meet her eyes. "I thought you would."
She squeezes his hand, trying to make him understand that it doesn't change anything between them. "I have to. He's too close to my family, and it'll just be too awkward if we can't be friends." She hesitates, not sure how Nick will react to what she wants to say next, because he's always made his feelings about Justin quite clear. "And he's a good guy, really he is. I know you don't think so, but he is."
"Miley, it's okay," he says, squeezing her hand back. "I get it, I do." He sort of shrugs his shoulders. "As long as you don't want me to be friends with him, whatever, it's fine. And as long as he understands that all you are is friends." He narrows his eyes suspiciously. "He does understand that, right?"
"Um," she hedges, because truthfully Justin hasn't really gotten that yet. She's not even sure how many texts she has from him and she hasn't had the guts to tell him that Nick's here, let alone what's been going on between them.
"Miley."
"I'll make sure he does!" she exclaims defensively. "I promise."
Nick's giving her this look like he doesn't really believe her, and she should probably be more offended by that than she is. But some part of her is finding this show of possessiveness kind of hot, even if he doesn't exactly have the right to be possessive yet. It's not like he's her boyfriend. Well, maybe he is, but until the words are said, Miley's not taking anything for granted.
"Look, Justin's just a little confused," she defends. And she probably shouldn't tell him this, it'll only pump up his ego, but maybe it will help him get past whatever his issue is with Justin. "You know he's always been jealous of you, and I haven't told him that you're here, so..."
Sure enough, now Nick's grinning and she hits him with their hands again. "Nicholas!"
"I'll be good," he says, still grinning like an idiot. "So, you did want to talk about something other than your ex-boyfriend, right? Not that I'm not enjoying knowing what a -"
She drops his hand and covers his mouth with her palm. "Finish that sentence and you'll regret it," she threatens. She really shouldn't have told him that. Really, really shouldn't have told him that.
He holds up his hands in surrender and she cautiously removes her hand.
"Are you going to behave?" she demands, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at him through narrowed eyes.
He nods obediently, but she doesn't believe him for a second. So fine, she'll put him on the hot seat.
"So are we dating or what?"
Nick blinks at her. "What?"
"Are. We. Dating?" she repeats each word slowly, enjoying the utter confusion on Nick's face. It's probably petty, but after the way he's thoroughly confused her for the past few months, she'll take the shoe being on the other foot for once.
"Miley, what the hell kind of question is that?"
"It's not a crazy question at all," she defends, frowning at him. "Look, you know how I feel about you. But Nick, we're not going to be anywhere near each other till next year. How are we going to make that work? Can we make that work?" She bites her lip and tries to figure out what he's thinking. She needs him to understand this. She wants this more than anything else, but it needs to be right. It needs to work. She's not living through it not working again. She can't.
Nick sighs and runs his hand through his hair. "Yeah." He looks frustrated and she can relate, because nothing about this is easy.
It should be easy. She loves him and though he hasn't said it, she knows he loves her.
But when has anything about them ever been easy?
Miley reaches out and lays a hand on his knee, trying to reassure them both. "The past two few days have been amazing. But you're leaving tomorrow."
He nods. "You know I wish I didn't have to, right?"
And she laughs a little at that, and he looks offended, so she rushes to explain. "I believe you, I do, but Nick, you're leaving to go on tour. You live for that. It's okay, I get it." And she does get it. She always has.
He looks sort of sheepish, and turns her hand over, running a finger across her palm before lacing their fingers together. "Well, yeah. But that doesn't mean I won't want to be in two places at once." He squeezes her hand. "Because I will."
"And I'll want the same thing," she says. "But..."
"Yeah." He looks at her seriously, his thumb stroking across her wrist. "What do you want, Miles?"
If ever there was an impossible question to answer that would be it. Because what she wants and what she knows they need to do are two totally different things. She wants to throw caution to the wind and say that they're together and that's that. But she knows they need to take things slow, to rebuild what they lost. She's not exactly sure how taking it slow works when you're already in love, but they'll have to figure it out. And being apart should make it easier and more complicated all at the same time. Just like everything else in their lives.
She takes a deep breath, not sure how he's going to react to what she's going to say.
"I think - I think we need to take things slow," she says, willing him to understand. "I don't think we should rush into anything, not like before."
He's frowning, but he doesn't seem to be upset and Miley gives a mental sigh of relief. "So what," he says, "you want to just be friends?"
"Not exactly," she hedges, because she doesn't. "I don't know, we could say we're dating but not, like, together? Not like boyfriend and girlfriend?"
"How is dating not being together?" he asks, the hint of a smirk teasing around the corners of his mouth.
She frowns at him. "You know what I mean."
He shakes his head and now he’s full on smirking. "Honestly, hardly ever."
Her jaw drops and she hits him in the bicep. "Nicholas!" She winces and shakes her hand out, because damn it that hurt. When did he get to have those kind of muscles?
He laughs and says, "Did you hurt yourself? Let me see." He takes her hand, bending it back and forth, and she watches him through wary eyes. "I think you'll live," he pronounces, kissing her knuckles. "There, all better."
Her heart flutters a little, because she's still not used to this Nick, the one that makes those kind of gestures so easily. "Th-thanks," she sort of stutters, her words tripping in time with her heart.
He smiles at her and rubs his thumb across her knuckles, and releases her hand. "So explain to me how this whole dating but not being together thing works," he says, and god she could kiss him on the mouth for getting her attention back where it is supposed to be and away from how much she wanted to crawl into his lap and kiss the hell out of him. Which really doesn't make any sense at all, but whatever. She needs to focus.
"Right." She shrugs a little and tries to explain. "I just think that we should keep things sort of casual. You know, not serious."
He raises an eyebrow at her. "Casual? Have we ever been casual, Miles?"
"Shut up, it's possible," she defends, rolling her eyes at him. "Do you have a better idea?"
"Yeah," he drawls. "We're together and we see each other when we can. We talk on the phone. We video chat. Kind of like we do now, except, you know, with kissing."
She frowns at him. "Cause that's the most important thing, right?"
"Well," he says and his cheeks turn a little bit pink and he shrugs his shoulders sort of helplessly.
She rolls her eyes again. "God, you're such a boy sometimes."
He laughs. "And that's a bad thing?" he questions, his voice dropping to the low, husky place that does things to her insides and she tries not to shiver at the sound of it.
"I - I didn't say that."
His eyes darken and he pulls her so that she's sitting next to him, wrapping his arm around her. "Okay, so why does it need to be so complicated? Why can't we just be together and see what happens?"
"But what if that's too hard? What if it doesn't work?" She looks up at him with pleading in her eyes. "I can't go through it not working again, Nick. I can't." She feels stripped bare, like she's just confessed to the most intimate part of herself and she's hoping that he will understand and be okay with what she needs.
He's studying her with careful eyes and she's holding her breath waiting for a response. Finally he nods and says, "Okay." He drops a kiss to the top of her head and tightens his arm around her waist. "If that's what you need, okay."
She turns her head and buries her face in his shoulder. "Thank you," she mumbles into his shirt and she can feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She keeps them closed tightly, to keep them at bay, and wraps her arms around Nick.
He pulls her tighter into the circle of his arm and holds her close.
*
Miley doesn't want to say goodbye.
That's all she can think about the next morning as they eat breakfast and as she sits on his bed and watches him pack. They didn't have enough time together, and she knows she'll see him again in about a week, but the weeks and months drag on after that and she doesn't know when she'll be able to see him. She'd known it was going to be hard, saying goodbye had always been hard, but she hadn't known it would ache like this.
Nick looks up from his bag and catches her staring at him. "Hey," he says, coming to sit next to her on the bed. "It's going to be okay, Miley."
She nods and tries to smile, but she knows she won't be able to fool anyone, especially not him.
"It will," he says firmly, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her into a hug. "I promise."
She wraps her arms around him and turns her face into his neck, breathing in the scent of him, trying to memorize what he smells like, what he feels like, so she can remember on all the nights when they're not together.
Finally, Nick pulls back with a sigh and says, “My cab is going to be here any minute. I should probably go downstairs and wait.”
Miley nods again and crawls off the bed, hovering in the doorway as Nick gathers his bag and guitar case. She gives him a wobbly smile and he bends his head to kiss her cheek gently, taking her hand as they make their way down the stairs.
They linger in the front hall, waiting for the cab to arrive.
She stares at him and bites her lip, trying to figure out what to say, how to say goodbye. She doesn’t want to cry, she doesn’t want to have that be the last memory he has of her before he leaves.
Nick sets his guitar down on the floor and tugs on her wrist, pulling her into a hug. “I’ll call you tonight,” he promises against her hair.
“Good,” she says into his shirt. She tilts her face back so that she can look at him. “I’m going to miss you.”
“Me too,” he says, smiling down at her. He brings a hand up to cup her face, tracing along the length of her jaw. “But I’ll see you soon.”
“I know.”
She stretches up on her toes and presses her mouth to his. It’s brief, just a brushing of lips, but she can feel it through her entire body. She knows that when he’s gone she’ll remember this, that she’ll replay this moment in her mind a thousand times until she can be in his arms again.
A horn honks outside, and she falls back down on her heels.
“I guess this is it,” she says, looking down at the floor. She can feel tears pricking at her eyes and she tries her best to hold them back.
Nick lifts her chin so that he can look her in the eyes. “I love you, Miley,” he says, and it’s the first time he’s said that to her in almost two years and her heart swells with happiness, because hearing him say those words, knowing he means them, makes everything else worth it.
“I love you, too,” she says with the biggest smile she can manage, and it’s the first time she’s meant a smile all day.
Nick smiles back down at her and kisses her one last time. “I have to go,” he says with regret, bending down to pick up his guitar once more.
She nods. “Call me?”
“Absolutely,” he says, opening the door and stepping out onto the steps. He looks back over his shoulder and smiles at her again. “Bye, Miles.”
He walks down the driveway to the cab and disappears inside.
“Goodbye,” she whispers from the doorway, waving at the car as it backs down the driveway.
Nick is gone.
*
She spends the afternoon watching sappy movies.
It’s probably a really girly response, but whatever. She just broke up with someone and sort of got back together with her first love all in a matter of days, and if ever there was a time for tear jerking movies this is it.
She’s sprawled out on her bed, watching on her laptop, her cell phone close at hand so that there’s no chance of missing Nick’s call. Which is also really girly, but she can’t bring herself to care. Her mom comes in halfway through P.S. I Love You and lays down on the bed with her, leaning her head against Miley’s, and Miley just closes her eyes and lets herself be comforted by her mom’s presence. She knows that her mom is dying to ask what happened while Nick was here, but it must be pretty obvious that she’s not ready to talk about it, because her mom’s not asking.
Miley’s pretty sure she’s never loved her mom more.
After the movie, she decides she can’t ignore the rest of the world anymore and starts returning texts and playing around on twitter. She tweets the name of the movie and before she knows it she gets a reply from Justin and god, she still doesn’t think she’s ready to deal with him, but she has to at least try. She meant it when she said she wanted to be friends with him, after all.
So she sends him a reply and then goes to see what there is to eat in the kitchen.
It’s a start.
[Part 3]