Title: It’s Always Open Season On Princesses Part 29
Spoilers: Through Season 2
Word Count: 7653
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Dan Harmon owns everything here. Except the word ‘squander’. I don‘t know who owns that.
AN: Okay guys. Holy cow. So, in May when I started this, I had every intention of it being completed before the new season started. Actually, I think I was set to post the last chapter on the day of the DVD release. You will notice this means I haven’t stuck to my schedule at all. Sorry. I could start placing blame on things and pointing fingers, but what would be the point? I gave you the impression that this would be some summer epic and now it’s fall, which means ’fail’. Anyway, I’m not really sure if people are still reading this or not, but for those of you who are, in addition to getting some sort of prize I haven’t decided on yet, I can now tell you with almost 100% certainty that there will only be two chapters after this. So, yay? Also, as of last chapter, this story is coming in at 99,002 words, which makes this the longest thing I’ve ever had to deal with (that was for you, stephanierb!). Um, okay. So this is ’The Talk’, I guess. Kind of. Special appearance by Chang. Let’s get on with it then!
Jeff shoved his key into the lock on his front door and pushed it open before gesturing for Annie to enter. When her eyes met his unsurely, he rolled his eyes at her. “I’m not going to murder you, Annie.” One side of her mouth quirked upward and Jeff felt stupid for the amount of relief the tiny movement gave him. She hesitated only a moment longer before stepping past him, arms crossed over her chest protectively.
“Oh, cool.” Jeff’s eyes snapped up to take in Chang, sprawled on the couch in his underwear. Jeff dropped his bags onto the floor inside the door. “Hey, Annie. Slumber party?” The former teacher’s eyebrows rose. “I’ll get the vodka out of the freezer.” The diminutive man didn’t wait for an answer before he sprang off the couch and scurried to the kitchen. Jeff met Annie’s uncertain expression. He shook his head at her and then strode to the kitchen. Chang was on his tiptoes, looking through one of the cupboards. “I know I bought some brownie mix the other day, I just have to find it.” Jeff pushed the cupboard door closed firmly. “Hey,” Ben said. “What’s your problem?”
Without giving it any more thought, Jeff dug into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Chang,” he said in a low tone that he hoped wasn’t carrying into the next room. “Go stay at the Holiday Inn.”
“What?” Ben asked. Then his expression changed. The short man stepped forward and waggled his eyebrows. “You want me to leave so you can nail her?”
Jeff set his jaw. “Ten more seconds and I’m just going to kick you out for good.”
Chang raised his hands defensively. “Okay, okay. I know when I’m not wanted.”
“That’s not true,” Jeff answered with a shake of his head. “Now get out.” Chang smirked at him before leaving he kitchen.
“Turns out I’m not joining you guys,” he heard Ben explain to a silent Annie. “But you kids have a good night.”
“Um,” Annie replied hesitantly.
Jeff rolled his eyes. He knew what was happening in the next room without even having to look. “Chang, put some pants on,” he yelled.
“Thanks buddy,” Chang called back and then Annie was hurrying into the safety of the kitchen with a wary look over her shoulder.
“He’s just…changing,” Annie explained quietly.
Jeff nodded. “I figured.”
“You’re kicking him out?” she asked.
“Is there really any kind of conversation you would want to have with him here?” Jeff countered with raised eyebrows. He watched Annie avert her eyes for a moment unsurely. “Do…” He narrowed his eyes. “Do you want him to stay?”
“No,” she replied immediately and Jeff relaxed. The idea that she might not feel safe alone with him in his apartment was moderately demoralizing. “I just…” She stepped toward him and Jeff clenched his jaw. “He thinks we’re going to have sex, doesn’t he?” Annie whispered. Jeff exhaled. That was all this nervousness was about? She was worried about what Chang thought?
Really?
“Yes,” he answered slowly, trying to read her reaction to the response. She simply nodded to herself, keeping her eyes on his surprisingly clean kitchen floor. Had Chang cleaned his apartment? “If if makes you feel better, I’m having the locks Chang-ed tomorrow.”
Annie wrinkled her nose in distaste at his pun. “Why would you do that?”
Jeff raised his eyebrows incredulously at her. “Why would I do that?” he repeated. “You’re kidding, right?”
“He just wants to be your friend,” she argued and Jeff noticed how much more awake she was than she had been only five minutes ago outside of her apartment. “You could be nicer to him, you know.” Annie shot him a disapproving look and Jeff rolled his eyes.
“Would you like me to leave you two alone?” he asked sarcastically. The self-conscious smile that slid onto Annie’s face made his chest itch peculiarly. Before she could respond, Ben entered the kitchen again, an overnight bag slung over his small shoulder.
“I’m out,” he announced. “See you guys at the hospital tomorrow?”
“You’re going?” Jeff asked, furrowing his brows.
Chang’s jaw dropped. “I care about Pierce,” he defended. “Plus, he still has some of my stuff.” He turned to walk away. “Next time he says he wants to play ‘Zelda’, I’m telling him to suck it.”
“No hookers, no blow,” Jeff called after his roommate.
“Not making any promises,” Ben yelled back and then he was gone.
“I gave that man my credit card,” he stated more to himself than anyone. The internal logic of that was non-existent.
Annie shrugged. “He probably would have made us play truth or dare anyway.”
“I can only imagine how awkward things would have gotten when he tried to freeze my bra,” Jeff replied and was rewarded with a genuine smile on her face. The moment stretched out between them, tension filling the space quickly. But for once, there wasn’t an edge of uneasiness or anger or sadness wound up in it.
“So…” she murmured softly. “Rich texted me. He needs to talk to me about Camilla.”
Jeff’s eyebrows rose, weighing his options quickly. “Um, I think I know what he needs to tell you.” Annie studied him with wide eyes, asking him a question without giving it voice. “Camilla…”
“Works for Pierce?” she filled in when Jeff didn’t finish his sentence. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. “I mean…” Annie rolled her eyes. “I figured there was something going on there, and she did seem to be trying to keep us from…” She waved her hand toward Jeff and then back to herself as she trailed off, leaving the end of her sentence hanging.
What would the end of the sentence have been anyway?
Jeff still wasn’t totally sure.
“She was trying to keep anything from happening between us,” Jeff agreed as he stepped over to the fridge and pulled out a beer. He opened it and took a long drink, his eyes on Annie the entire time. She seemed to be trying to work something through in her head, suddenly in her own little world. “She isn’t an employee of Hawthorne Inc,” he continued, “but they were working together to screw me.”
Annie frowned. “How do you know this?”
“I sat in Pierce’s hospital room for an hour, listening to him babble about whatever he wanted to in order to get the information I needed from him.” Jeff raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
Annie pursed her lips in thought and Jeff swallowed over the lump in his throat. What he really wanted, the impulse he’d been ignoring since he’d left Pierce’s room was to pull her to him and kiss her. “How…did that go?” she asked, jerking Jeff from his own thoughts.
“Pierce is out of his mind,” he replied with furrowed brows. He took another drink from his beer bottle. “But…he….” Jeff shrugged his shoulders, gaining a questioning expression from the woman in his kitchen. “He’s…surprisingly deep.”
Annie frowned and pulled her sleeves over her hands again before shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Really?” she asked uncertainly. Then something miraculous happened.
She smiled at him.
“And pretty smart, it turns out.” Jeff finished his beer in three more swallows. “He knows how to get results when he wants them.”
“Like what?” she asked, picking up his hint quickly.
“He wanted to keep me from you,” he answered more honestly than he’d meant to. There was a silence that filled the kitchen in the next instant. Well, if they were going to do this, there was no reason not to just go for it. He’d already brought her to his apartment practically against her will.
Annie swallowed and cleared her throat. “Well, he… succeeded.”
Jeff bit back the response that sprang to his mind right away. He wanted to deny it, argue the point. He exhaled loudly. “I…yes. He did.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Jeff leaned back against the counter. “Turns out that when you have a staff full of people at your disposal, you can accomplish…a lot.”
The brunette frowned to herself, unable to meet his eye. Without saying another word, Annie turned and made her way back to the living room. Jeff watched her go, trying to keep his eyes from traveling down her form and failing. Belatedly remembering what was happening, he shook himself and ambled after her. Annie dropped to the cushions of the sofa gently, her face still showing her confusion at the entire thing. Weighing his options quickly, he moved forward and sat down on the coffee table. When their knees brushed, Annie glanced up at him, that wrinkle between her eyes prevalent again.
“Everyone was in on this bet?” she finally asked quietly.
“It wasn’t a bet,” Jeff argued with a roll of his eyes.
Annie rolled her eyes back at him. “Fine. What was it then, Jeff?”
“Look, it wasn’t like he was paying me thousands of dollars not to sleep with you. He’s not your reverse pimp.” He shook his head.
Annie bit her lip. “Then what was the whole thing about?”
“Pierce knew why I needed the plane ticket and he wanted me to admit it.”
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“And when I wouldn’t, he tried to force me into action,” he continued.
“Why did you tell him you needed the ticket?” Annie asked with a furrowed brow.
Jeff tightened his jaw. “I told him that I didn’t trust Rich and needed to protect you from him.” He averted his eyes immediately when she looked at him, not trusting what his reaction would be to her expression.
“You were lying?” she guessed.
“Yes,” he admitted.
She shifted her weight slightly toward him and opened her mouth soundlessly before thinking better of it and snapping it shut again. “Okay, so everyone was in on the…non…bet?”
Jeff sighed. “Not everyone, but most of them.”
“Camilla?”
“Yes.”
Annie’s eyes widened. “Sergio?”
“Yes.” He watched as she bit her lip nervously, trying to work the next question out.
“Rich?” she asked softly.
Jeff exhaled. “I wish I could blame him for this, but no.” He crossed his arms over his chest and inclined his head toward her. “He had nothing to do with any of this. He was just a…stupid, overly optimistic pawn.”
“So,” Annie tilted her head to the side in thought. “Camilla works for Pierce too?”
“Not quite,” he answered. Now that he was here, Jeff really wasn’t sure how to have this conversation with her. She wasn’t ready for this discussion. He should have just let her go to bed. He could be on his second glass of scotch already if he’d let her have her way. There was nothing that he had to say to her that couldn’t wait.
“You’re being evasive,” Annie pointed out when he didn’t elaborate immediately on the connection between Camilla and Pierce.
Jeff rolled his eyes. “I’m not being evasive.”
“Really,” Annie said in a skeptical voice. “You’re being honest with me right now?”
“Geez, Annie,” Jeff groaned. He stared up at the ceiling in frustration. “I’m not trying to keep anything from you.”
“Well, that’s something new and different.” She sat back against his cushions. Jeff clenched his jaw tightly, swallowing down the sarcastic response he wanted to give to her. Calling her out on her passive aggressive female bullshit right now would start them in the opposite direction of where they needed to go.
“Camilla tried to use Sergio,” he explained when he thought he’d gotten a better grasp of his irritation toward the woman he was talking to.
“He really does work for her?” Annie asked.
“Yes,” Jeff replied. “And I would bet she was dangling his job over his head.”
Annie rubbed her eyes tiredly and the surge of affection he felt for her in the moment made him instinctively lean toward her. Catching himself, Jeff tried to pass it off as simply shifting his weight. “So, Camilla isn’t working for Pierce.” She frowned. “Then why would she care about any of the deal you made with him?”
Jeff cleared his throat. “Camilla?” he said with raised eyebrows. “Is Pierce’s ex-wife.” Her eyes were suddenly bigger than Jeff had ever seen them. She looked away from him, in her own world again. He sat watching her work through the information he had given her. Annie started shaking her head then, arguing with herself. “Annie?” Jeff said hesitantly.
“You brought me here to tell me Camilla and Pierce used to be married?” she questioned, meeting his concerned gaze. Jeff reared his head back, surprised at the inquiry.
“I brought you…” Jeff let out a frustrated sigh. “No, I….well, yes.” He reached a hand up to run through his hair. “That was part of it, I guess.”
“What was the rest of it?” Annie asked, her voice almost endearingly childlike.
What had he been thinking? How had this seemed like a good idea? She was just sitting there, asking him questions he couldn’t answer. “Camilla…” Jeff sighed. “Camilla was trying to make things difficult for me.” He watched Annie nod to herself. “But if I’d been putting in as much effort as I probably should have, it wouldn’t have mattered.”
Annie bit her lip, but Jeff could see her visibly soften in the dim light of his living room. “Yeah?” she murmured.
“Yeah,” Jeff agreed. Her jaw began to quiver and he watched her try to get it under control before sliding across to seat himself on the couch next to her, his knee pressing against her thigh. Annie stiffened next to him and turned her head to look at him. The trepidation in her eyes made Jeff’s chest twist painfully. “I knew that…” He broke off with a grimace and Annie huffed slightly. “I couldn’t have handled you coming home from Italy in a relationship with Rich.”
Her mouth opened wordlessly and then closed again several times in quick succession. “So.” Annie finally managed to get out with a slow nod of her head. “It was about hating Rich.”
Jeff winced. “Yes. Well, kind of.” He tried to ignore the instincts that were shooting through his head rapidly.
“Jeff,” Annie whined and Jeff couldn’t stop himself from grinning at that. She turned herself toward him completely then, letting their knees press against each other. Jeff took in the movement with wide eyes. “Can you just give me an honest straight answer for once?” She huffed again, her face clearly distraught.
“I’m trying,” he snapped emphatically. “This isn’t that easy for me you know, Annie.”
“What isn’t?” she persisted. “What are you trying to say? Why did you bring me here, Jeff?”
“The idea of you with anyone else makes me crazy,” he shot back without thinking. Annie made a strangled noise in the back of her throat and Jeff grimaced again.
Her eyes were searching his, almost pleading with him to say what she wanted to hear. “Why?” she asked softly.
He brought a hand up to rub his forehead. He asked for every inch of this. “Because I don’t want you to have feelings for anyone but me.” Beyond the blinding panic that was causing his entire brain to cry out, there was a carefree feeling that was taking hold of him. It actually felt good to be telling her.
Not terrifying, like he’d assumed.
Interesting.
“That’s really selfish, Jeff.” He shook himself out of his own thoughts to focus on the woman in front of him. She was giving him a disapproving look.
Jeff smiled at her sarcastically. “That’s… kind of me, Annie.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
She frowned down at her hands. “Why did you start sleeping with Britta?” she asked quietly.
What?
“Uh,” Jeff leaned away from her, completely confused by the sudden change of direction. “What?”
“Britta,” Annie said in a more sure tone. “Why did you guys start sleeping together?”
Jeff let out a loud sigh. “Annie,” he groaned. “I’m not talking about this.”
“Because you’re still in love with her?”
His head was going to explode. He was sure of it. That was the only explanation for the pounding feeling that was rocketing between his temples. “I-no,” he insisted, looking at her incredulously. “Annie, I’m not talking about this.”
“Why not?” she asked pitifully.
“Because it’s none of your business,” Jeff shot back angrily. The look on her face made his chest ache and a moment later he regretted having said it.
Annie bit her lip in concentration. “Okay.”
Jeff grumbled to himself. He was ruining this before he’d even gotten to the point of the entire thing. He shouldn’t give in to her big sad eyes and her quivering lip. He knew better than that. He…
Damnit.
“I…had no reason not to,” he said slowly, feeling the weight of each carefully chosen word on his tongue.
Annie looked up at him in disgust. “That’s a terrible reason to sleep with someone,” she replied in a judgmental tone. “Did…did you love her?”
“What?” Jeff asked, hearing his own voice going into his higher register. “No. Annie-”
“Because you said you loved her,” she continued as if he hadn’t answered her at all.
He narrowed his eyes in response. “And you said you thought I was gross.”
“Because that was what you wanted to hear,” Annie defended.
“Why are we arguing about Britta?” Jeff demanded.
She shook her head. “Do you have any idea what it was like for me to find out that you were sleeping with her the whole year?”
Shit.
How did she manage to make him feel so many different kinds of crappy at once? It was pretty impressive really. The sheer amount of power she had over him was dizzying when it was laid out in front of him like this. Jeff cleared his throat, trying to think of an answer he could give her that they could both live with. “I’m sorry,” was what he finally landed on after several seconds of awkward silence.
“I…” Annie tucked her hair behind her ears. “I don’t want you to have feelings for anyone but me.”
The nausea that flooded into his stomach surprised him in its intensity. She was right here, inches away from him and telling him she loved him. Again. Well, basically. She had said it already. It had been only ten minutes ago. Things couldn’t have changed that drastically since then, despite how much of a jerk he was currently being. She deserved to know what he’d been holding inside of him for too long.
“I…I don’t, Annie.”
She stilled next to him, letting the words soak into her consciousness. “You,” she turned toward him quickly then with eyes full of shock. “Really?” she whispered hopefully and Jeff couldn’t stop the smile that came over his face.
“Yeah,” he replied honestly. “I…” He exhaled loudly through his mouth and rubbed his forehead, trying to soothe his headache. “Annie, after you…gave me that plane ticket, I kind of freaked out.” She sighed sadly. “I just…you said ‘love’.”
“Yeah,” she murmured quietly. “Sorry,” she added self-consciously.
“No,” Jeff argued. “That wasn’t what I…” He worked his jaw back and forth before trying again. “You don’t have to apologize for it, Annie. I just…it’s a big word.” Jeff watched her closely, waiting for any tiny cue from the woman on the couch with him. “And I knew that…” He paused, trying to think of the best way to phrase it. “…that I couldn’t say it back if I didn’t mean it.”
Annie visibly deflated, her face crumpling for the barest of moments before recovering and allowing a mask of indifference to show up in its place. “Oh,” she said sadly. “Okay.”
“You don’t….” Jeff groaned, giving into irritation. “I was sure I didn’t…I…”
“I get it,” Annie snapped quietly.
“No, you don’t.” Jeff edged himself closer to her on the couch and felt Annie flinch. “I…okay.” Jeff resisted the urge to rise from the couch in order to more effectively make his point. “So, you may have noticed that I tend to….” He raised his eyebrows. “…compartmentalize everything in my life.”
“Yeah, Jeff.” She rolled her eyes. “I think everyone has noticed that.”
“Well, when I met you, I…” He exhaled. “I made a box for all of my ‘Annie’ things and put it in the back of my head.”
“Okay,” Annie answered uncertainly.
Jeff rolled his eyes at her. “And I put it next to my ‘Shirley’ box and my ‘Abed’ box, and the boxes I have for everyone else.” Annie’s face took on an expression of confusion and Jeff felt almost comforted by it. At least she was listening to him.
Now he just needed to give her a reason not to regret it.
“The way I felt about you, it was friendly, paternal. Distant.” She nodded. “And that was the way I liked it. But then, you…it was like you were just…there more often.”
“Where?” she asked with a somber face.
“Right next to me,” Jeff answered without thinking. “In my head. I was starting to have all of these different…feelings for you, I guess.” He shook his head, more to himself than to her. “And so I made a box for my protective feelings for you and one for my affectionate feelings toward you and one for my…” He held her steady gaze. “For my desire for you.” Jeff couldn’t have missed her sudden sharp intake of air even if he’d wanted to.
Although wanting to miss that would be stupid.
“Ever since I kissed you last spring at that dance and probably since before that, I have been trying to keep myself away.” He paused, running over his words carefully. “I thought I needed to hold you at arm’s length and I thought…I thought I was doing it to protect you. “
“But you were doing it to protect yourself,” Annie noted with a nod of her head.
How the hell did she know him so well?
Jeff nodded in agreement of that assessment. “Yeah,” he muttered a moment later. “I tried to use Rich to get past it and…” He sighed. “And at times, I used Britta to get past it. But I thought it was a crush that you were going to get over and…and I knew how unlikely it was that you could really care about me, and….it made me not want to care about you.”
“Okay,” she said after a beat of silence.
“But the problem with that,” Jeff continued, feeding off of her reaction. “The problem with that is that none of it helped. Or changed anything.” Jeff cleared his throat, trying to buy himself some time. “Annie, spending time with you usually means pulling my feelings out one at a time and then putting them away before I use the next one.” She was frowning into space again. “But the problem with that is…I didn’t realize what it would mean to be around you for such…long periods of time, I guess.” He watched as she lifted her chin in anticipated defiance. “And what happened was that I had to learn how to access more than one feeling at a time and…” He tilted his head toward her, trying to draw in her gaze. When she met his eyes, there was such a fragile insecurity there that Jeff had to lean back to keep from closing the gap between them and kissing her. “When I started leaving all of those boxes open to each other and letting everything get all jumbled up in my brain, I…”
What had happened? What did you get when you added affection and admiration and protectiveness and desire together?
Love.
He loved her.
Didn’t he?
Jeff had no idea how it had actually happened, but he was pretty sure of the definition for the warm feeling that was flooding through his chest. “Why did you come to Italy?” Annie asked him with a quiet persistence.
“Because,“ he responded, his agitation growing slightly. “Because that’s what…you’re supposed to do.”
“What I’m supposed to do?” Annie asked.
Jeff sighed. “No,” he clarified. “It was….that‘s what the guys do in the movies, Annie. They rush to the woman they…” He could feel it working its way up his throat, the words he suddenly couldn’t stop thinking. No, he had to keep it inside. This occasion called for the end all be all of classic Winger speeches. There was no way he could just- “I love you,” he murmured, his brain catching up with his mouth a fraction of a second too late. “I mean, at least I think I do.”
“Right,” Annie said after a beat of silence. “Okay then.” Her eyes were wide, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze, instead focusing on something just south of his collarbone and her voice had taken on a breathless quality that reminded him fleetingly of a diorama explosion and a yellow cardigan under his fingers.
“Okay?” he repeated as he narrowed his eyes in confusion. “Really?”
“Do you mean it?” she asked guardedly.
Jeff resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the younger woman. “Believe me, Annie. I would not say it if I didn’t mean it.”
“Really?” she countered. “How many girls have you said it to before?”
Shit.
Point-Edison.
Jeff shook his head. “That’s not important.” The reaction he was expecting, the lower lip quiver move that she loved to use on him, didn’t appear. Instead, Annie rolled her eyes good-naturedly. Jeff considered his next words carefully. “I wouldn’t say it to you unless I meant it.”
“Or think you meant it,” Annie corrected.
He exhaled. “I mean it.”
“Is this…” Annie eyed him suspiciously. “Is this some kind of ego trip?”
“What?” Jeff asked incredulously. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m a twenty year-old woman who admittedly has feelings for you,” she pointed out. “That is a pretty powerful aphrodisiac for some men, Jeff.”
He narrowed his eyes at the woman in front of him. “Are you high?” he asked and Annie rolled her eyes at him. “Seriously, what is going on? You spend how much time and energy trying to get me to tell you I love you and now I say it and you don’t believe me?”
Annie’s jaw dropped. “I have not been trying to coerce you into telling me you love me, Jeff.”
“Really?” Jeff challenged her. “With the constant…face and the eyes and the…lips?” he asked and then furrowed his brow.
That wasn’t the most compelling argument.
“My lips?” Annie whispered in that same breathless tone and then she was slamming into him with far more force than he would have expected from her. Her mouth landed firmly against his a moment before her hands fisted in his shirt and pulled him closer to her. It took Jeff only a fraction of a second to respond, opening his mouth and allowing his tongue to slide against her lips. She made a noise that vibrated through him and he groaned in response. Annie didn’t waste any more time, climbing onto his lap with a frenzy that Jeff felt in his groin.
They were at the end of a two-day travel nightmare that had ended with him getting a heart to heart from Pierce of all people. And now, for some reason Jeff couldn’t explain, he was about to have sex with Annie on his couch?
“Annie,” he murmured, pulling away from her. She tried to swoop forward again, but Jeff held her at arm’s length. “No, hold on a second.”
“What?” she pouted.
Jeff mentally kicked himself. “I think we need to stop.”
“Why?” With every passing moment, she seemed more and more like a little kid. It would be troubling if it wasn’t so adorable.
“We…I mean we can’t do this here. Chang sleeps here.” Jeff sighed. “And I don’t know that he always wears underwear.”
Slowly, Annie practically slithered from his lap and back to her former spot. “So,” she surmised, trying to swallow down the beginnings of a smile. “This isn’t about me being some kind of young hot girl?”
Jeff couldn’t stop the grin that came to his face. “Annie,” He let his eyes travel down her form, lingering for only a beat too long. “You haven’t showered in two days, your hair is matted down against your head, there is a mustard stain on you hoodie.” Jeff raised one eyebrow. “You have a patch of your own drool dried onto your cheek,” he gestured to the spot he was referring to. “And your breath tastes like stale Cool Ranch Doritos.” He licked his lips to illustrate his point and took a deep breath. “I must really mean it. Otherwise, you would be kind of grossing me out right now.”
She brought her hands up to cover her face, clearly embarrassed. Jeff let out a chuckle that made him feel better than he had in days. “Well, you’re no bed of roses right now either.” Annie was trying to hard to sound condescending, but settled somewhat closer to ‘childish’. “You look like crap, too.”
“I need a new moisturizer,” he replied with a grin that she returned slowly before frowning to herself again. She regarded him for in silence. “What is it, Annie?” he asked.
She worked her jaw. “Is this about Pierce?”
Jeff wrinkled his nose. “I don’t what you’ve heard about me, Annie. But that is not how I….” He trailed off as soon as he succeeded in getting a smile from her. “What do you mean, is it about Pierce?”
“What happened with this whole…non-bet?”
“Well,” he answered before clearing his throat. “He decided that I didn’t need to repay him.” Jeff shrugged one shoulder at the surprised expression on Annie’s face.
“Really?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She licked her lips and Jeff started running over Seahawks wide receivers in alphabetical order. “So, this isn’t like ‘Pierce gave the okay so now I we can have sex’?”
“Annie, I hate to point this out.” He raised his eyebrows. “But I’m the one who just stopped the sex.”
She frowned. “You don’t know that I was thinking of having sex with you, you know.”
“Really?” he questioned dryly. “You weren’t?”
The color that still managed to show up on his cheeks after everything they’d discussed made Jeff grin. “I think that is irrelevant,” she finally answered in that breathless tone again.
His grin grew exponentially. “That’s what I thought.”
“So, this wasn’t about beating Pierce?” Annie asked quietly after a moment of silence.
He shook his head. “Just an added bonus.”
“Jeff,” Annie admonished crossly.
“Annie,” Jeff shot back in a mock-Annie tone, earning a smile from her. Now that he had done it, all he wanted to do was figure out other ways to put that look on her face.
“I just wanted to make sure you were doing this for the right reasons,” she explained and began to twist her fingers together in front of her.
Was she still nervous after everything too?
“Doing what?” he asked, confused. What the hell were they talking about now? She raised her eyebrows expectantly. “Loving you?” Jeff finally guessed and got a short nod in response. “Annie, what would be the wrong reasons to love you?“ She shrugged and fidgeted on her cushion. He could tell she wanted to speak, but was trying to organize her thoughts. “Annie?” he pressed.
“Because you don’t want to keep fighting with me?” Annie jumped in. “Because you don’t want all of our friends to be mad at you, since somehow they all seem to know what is going on with us?“ Jeff resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her. “Because you know you can’t avoid me and you don’t want to cause problems for the group in the fall?”
“You don’t think this is going to cause some problems?” Jeff questioned with wide eyes and he gestured between them. “Being together is going to be three-hundred times harder than not, Annie. We’ll have Pierce trying to give us his copy of the Kama Sutra and Shirley advising us to wait until marriage.” He didn’t miss the way her expression changed in that moment, but didn’t draw attention to it. “And we’d have Chang spying on us all the time.” He took a deep breath. “Besides, I could avoid you if I really wanted to, you know.” The change in her demeanor was instantaneous.
Shit.
He’d just meant for it to be a clever and sarcastic. Of course he wouldn’t avoid her. But now he had set a precedent for himself. “Annie.” He reached out to touch her cheek lightly with one finger. She flinched ever so slightly before lifting her eyes to meet his. “I’m sorry,” he said, hoping against what he already knew about her that she would understand what he was referring to. Miraculously, she nodded. “I shouldn’t have done it.” It was the first time he’d ever openly acknowledged the blatant way he’d ignored her the previous summer, screening her calls and flat-out pretending he hadn’t seen her that one time at Starbucks. “That wasn’t cool.”
“No,” Annie agreed. “But it was probably better that you did handle it that way.” She smiled self-consciously. “Anything else I would have misread. I mean, I pretty much didn’t even realize what you were doing until months later as it was.” She swallowed. “I told Britta I only kissed you to see if I could.”
“Yeah,” he answered in a low voice that made Annie shiver involuntarily.
“I was lying.”
Jeff cleared his throat, trying to ignore the way she was squirming next to him. “Yeah,” he repeated, trying to keep the conversation on track. “Annie, I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know how to handle you after we….”
“Kissed?”
“Yeah,” he agreed again. “I mean, I knew you had a crush on me-”
“Come on,” she cut him off with more attitude than she’d exhibited since they’d gotten to his apartment. “Jeff, that was not one-sided.”
He bit back a grin. “I know,” he conceded, feeling a prickle of pride for Annie. She was being so formidable, not letting anything slide. “But you were a teenager,” he defended. “What was I supposed to do?”
Annie eyed his suspiciously. “So, now that I’m twenty, everything is fine?”
“No,” Jeff responded with a shake of his head. “But I’m…” He stopped to clear his throat again. He was what?
“You’re what?” she echoed his brain.
Jeff shrugged. “I’m tired of staying away. I’ve tried to make sure this didn’t happen and it didn’t do any good.” This amount of honesty was liberating. All the things he was feeling, had been feeling for how long? And now he was able to just say them out loud without worrying about her having tricked him, the way others had before her?
“Why?” Annie asked softly.
“Because,” Jeff continued, feeling like he was on a roll now. He could finally tell her everything and more importantly, he actually…wanted to. “Annie, the more time we spend together, the sooner you’ll realize that there isn’t some…deeper level to me.” He shrugged. “I don’t care about the environment or equality of the sexes.” He raised his eyebrows. “Deep down, there isn’t really a deep down here.”
She regarded him in silence that Jeff felt compelled to fill before giving him a small smile. “Jeff, do you really think I don’t know you by now?”
Wow.
It was true.
She knew him, really knew him and she still liked him. No, even better than that, she loved him. She’d said so. Had this ever happened before? The warmth that flooded into his chest was overwhelming in its sudden onslaught and intensity. He could feel it bubbling up into his throat. He was going to…
“I love you,” he repeated, not satisfied with the way it sounded rolling off of his tongue. It sounded fake to him, like the way he’d said it to women in the past, women he hadn’t loved at all. None of that seemed to matter to Annie, however. She beamed at him and then was pushing toward him to kiss him. He caught her easily this time as she clambored onto his lap and wrapped her arms around him. Jeff kissed her slowly, savoring the fact that he was just allowed to do this now and no one was going to try to stop him or use psychological torture on him afterward for it. One of her small hands slid down his chest and came to rest on his upper thigh and Jeff jumped, causing Annie to give a light chuckle. Cursing his sudden morals, Jeff pushed her away gently once more. The hurt look on Annie’s face almost made him lean forward again, but he gritted his teeth and slid away from her. “We shouldn’t do this now,” he murmured and Annie nodded.
“Okay?” she replied.
He inclined his head. “Is it?”
She nodded again before stilling. “I just…I really want to.”
Jeff closed his eyes. “Believe me, so do I.” The response garnered a small grin from Annie. “But we’re both half-asleep and unshowered and…” She pursed her lips and nodded again. “And when we do this, I have every intention of seducing you, Annie.”
The flush the stained her cheeks was immediate and very satisfying to Jeff’s ego. “Yeah?” she breathed out.
He nodded this time. “Oh yeah.” The idea of sweeping her off her feet was too much fun to squander their first time on his couch with the apartment still smelling faintly of Chang’s cabbage experiment. “I think for right now, you should get some sleep.”
Annie bit her lower lip. “I…I don’t want to go home.”
Jeff’s mouth quirked up on one side. “You were either really out of it earlier or really mad at me.” He climbed off the couch, making a noise that should have been coming out of someone twice his age. He was just going to blame it on the mental and physical exhaustion he’d endured recently. That reasoning didn’t stop Annie from giggling though. He shot her a dirty look before making his way over to the door, where he’d dropped her bag when they’d entered the apartment. He lifted it toward her and Annie’s eyes widened.
“You…you planned on me staying here the whole time?” she questioned.
He shrugged. “Just wanted to be ready in case.”
“You planned on me staying the whole time?” she repeated, wanting a different answer.
Wanting an answer that was somewhat closer to the truth. “Yes,” Jeff admitted and got a wide grin in response that made his confession totally worth it. “I did.”
Annie rose from the couch and approached him, letting her fingers wrap around the handle next to his own. “Okay,” she agreed lightly. “So, where am I sleeping?”
“My bed,” Jeff nodded his head toward his room and Annie’s eyes widened. “No, I’m not going to…” He stopped and tried again. “I’ll take the couch.”
The pout that graced her lips was cuter than it should have been. “You don’t trust me?”
“Well, no.” She rolled her eyes at him before giving him a tiny smile. “But it’s mostly about not trusting myself.”
“Yeah?” Annie whispered.
“Yeah,” Jeff confirmed with another nod.
Her breathing picked up in the next moment and Jeff decided to take full credit for it. “Okay,” she finally said after she’d gotten a hold of herself again. “So, I’ll sleep in your bed then.”
No, don’t think about it.
Do not think about it.
If she sensed cracking, she’d attack.
“Yeah,” he agreed in a voice that sounded forced and strangled to his own ears. Hopefully, that voice was just in his head.
“You okay, Jeff?”
Shit.
She was batting her eyelashes at him, for crying out loud.
“Yeah,” Jeff answered with a firmness he didn’t really feel. That was okay though. He needed to be firm on this subject. He couldn’t have sex with her.
What?
It was like the world was upside down or something.
“Go get ready for bed, Annie.”
She bit her lip. “Okay,” she conceded before taking the bag from him and making her way to his bedroom, only glancing back once to see if he was watching. Jeff didn’t move or breathe again until he heard the lock engage.
Okay.
This wasn’t so bad.
No, it was great. Of course it was great. Compared to where they had been since they had met, they were fantastic. Now Jeff just needed to get through the entire night without thinking about Annie in his bed by herself, wanting him. But for some reason, he’d decided that he didn’t want to rush into anything with her now? After everything they’d already been through? Hell, they’d almost done this exact thing only two days ago. Or was it three now? Jeff glanced as his clock. It was almost ten o’clock, but he wasn’t sure what day it was.
He definitely needed to stop thinking about the fact that she was talking off her clothes only twenty feet away from him and sliding under his covers. Despite the fact that she had been tired for the last day straight, Annie had somehow perked right up at the thought of having sex with him. She’d been squirming. Jeff had seen that enough times to know what it meant.
No.
He seriously needed to stop thinking about this.
Think about the dean.
The instant he pictured the dean, Jeff felt himself relax. It was going to take more than that to undo the damage he’d already done, but this was a start at least. He could think about the dean and Al Roker and Kate Goselin.
Yeah.
Great.
Jeff walked back over to his own bag to retrieve his toothbrush and face wash before going into the kitchen to use them. He did feel at least a little better. He would feel a lot better with a shower, but there was no way he could knock on his door and traipse through his bedroom to his bathroom now. Just the sight of her was liable to set him off, and he knew that doing anything with her now was not a good idea. No, he needed to actually take her out on a date and romance her at least a little.
He needed to make it as different from Britta as possible.
Re-entering the living room and flipping the lights off, Jeff began to undress, keeping his eyes fixed on the closed bedroom door the entire time. Should it open, he would have to react quickly. Once he’d stripped off his jeans and shirt, he laid down on the couch and stared at the ceiling. Now he just needed to manage to get to sleep. The concept didn’t seem that doable considering the woman in his bed, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Well, there was one thing he could do about it, but it was not an option he was going to think about.
Tucking one arm behind his head, Jeff closed his eyes and tried to relax. It just required not thinking about Annie or what Chang had done on the couch he was now going to sleep on or the reaction of anyone in the study group when they found out about he and Annie. Maybe they could keep it between the two of them? Just for a while. Just long enough to really get to enjoy it before they had Abed watching their every move and commenting on it or Britta rolling her eyes in disgust.
He heard a noise in the distance, but couldn’t concentrate on it enough to figure out what it was. And he didn’t think he could open his eyes if he’d wanted to. Was he asleep right now? Jeff couldn’t tell. He was sure that it couldn’t be that easy, despite the exhaustion he’d felt since they’d gotten off the plane earlier that evening.
“Jeff,“ he heard someone call distantly, softly. “Are you asleep?“ What seemed like a moment later, Jeff felt something soft and warm and wet rub up against his thigh and he jumped, his eyes flying open in surprise. Annie stood staring down at him, her hair wet from an apparent shower.
She was wearing a white dress shirt.
And nothing else.
“Jeff, I’m ready for you to seduce me now.”