rpf: let's pretend it's love (dan gheesling/janelle pierzina)
Title: Let's Pretend It's Love
Pairing/Characters: Dan Gheesling/Janelle Pierzina
Summary: Dan turns his head to look at her. He thinks about how this could feel like they’re in the game again, lying in the arcade room and trying to distract themselves from a competition or nomination ceremony. Except it doesn’t feel like that at all. In the house you can always tell you’re trying to distract yourself, from the game or from boredom or from missing home. But they’re not doing that now. Big Brother 14 AU.
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,100
Disclaimer: This is extremely untrue and I am not getting anything out of it except, possibly, shame. Title from One Direction's "Live While We're Young." Clearly we all know the state my life is in.
Second place isn’t so bad.
The minute it’s over--one vote from Danielle that he’ll laugh about later, Janelle’s mouth against his throat, her warm breath ghosting over his skin as she laughs too, the sound of it vibrating against him--he washes himself of the game. It’s a game and he lost and it doesn’t matter. It won’t be something he loses sleep.
So it’s really not bad at all.
He doesn’t go straight to Janelle. He congratulates Ian and they come out of the house and he says hi to Julie and hugs Britney. This isn’t some romantic comedy where he can feel her eyes on him or sense that things have shifted because they’re in the same space again, but he’s excited, anxious, spots her out of the corner of his eye and keeps track of her in his head. Now she’s hugging Joe and now she’s shaking hands with Ian and now she’s talking to Julie. He keeps track of her but he doesn’t get to the part where she’s standing in front of him, smile bright.
She hugs him and says, “Congratulations,” and they don’t talk about what she said about his game or what he said back. They don’t talk about him saying “I love you Janelle,” which didn’t mean what it could have meant. He meant thank you and you’re one of the best competitors to ever play this game and i want to try outside the house and my feelings didn’t change while you were home and I was here and you look beautiful.
He didn’t mean I’m in love with you.
That comes later.
He does backyard interviews, giggling and repeating the same answers over and over again because that is how this works. Dan forgot that Big Brother doesn’t end when the game ends. He has The Talk tomorrow and more interviews and then he’ll get to decompress. His head is buzzing and he hasn’t had any alcohol and he can still smell Janelle’s perfume lingering on his jacket.
He doesn’t mind the post-finale press. He’s just tired. He’ll get a second wind and later, when everything is over, he’ll sleep for a day and start adjusting to the real world again.
Janelle got to the backyard before he did. He was talking to his parents and his sister and making sure they were okay. He was talking to CBS and they were making sure he understood everything. But it’s not his first time and he gets it. He’s done this before and he can do it again. Not everyone will like him, he’ll need time to readjust, etc. So Janelle is done before he is. He expects her to be gone when he’s finished, out getting drinks with Kara and Jodi and whoever else, getting dinner with Brendon and Rachel, back at her hotel room ordering room service, lying in her pajamas and watching some cheesy romantic comedy.
Instead he finds her sitting next to Jordan, listening intently to whatever story Jordan is telling. When she sees him she smiles and he walks over, asks, “What’s up?”
Janelle doesn’t beat around the bush. “You wanna get out of here?”
He grins, “Sure.”
“It was nice to see you Jordan,” Janelle says, giving her a hug.
“You, too. Nice to meet you, Dan.” Jordan gets up and gives him a hug, asks if he thinks Jeff is almost done and congratulates him one more time before he and Janelle leave.
They take the car she rented back to the hotel. She says, “They offer to drive you to the studio but then you’re at their mercy.”
Dan raises his eyebrows and watches her hands at two and ten like they tell you when you first learn. “At their mercy?”
“They fly you out and get you to your hotel and to the studio but you can’t get back unless you wait for everyone to be done and then they don’t take you to any fun parties.”
“Oh no!” Dan mock gasps, hand flying to his chest.
Janelle rolls her eyes, biting her lip as she flips her turn signal. “You didn’t want to sit there for another hour by yourself because JoJo’s busy hitting on that orange intern.”
“They’d force her leave because they feel bad for me.”
“You know that intern’s the one driving the car.” Janelle takes the exit and honks her horn. “These people don’t know how to merge.”
Dan laughs, “He’s probably a better driver than you are.”
“Not with JoJo giving him a handjob.” She reaches over and tries to slap him as he cackles but he moves out of the way. Her eyes are glued on the road and she misses. “I’ll get you later.”
“Better be a promise, Janie.”
“Fuck you, Dan.”
He has to stop from asking if that’s a promise, too.
They get back to the hotel and Dan gets his room key. He drops his bag and washes his face and changes into something that he wouldn’t wear to a job interview.
He waits for Janelle.
Dan thinks about how there’s no cameras and then he doesn’t because it makes him feel like he’s back in sequester waiting to go into the house. Before he thinks too much about anything there’s a knock on the door. When he goes to look through the peephole he can’t see, it's just dark nothingness. He opens the door and Janelle giggles and Dan says, “You think you’re clever.”
“I do.”
He just shakes his head, stepping aside and opening the door wider.
Janelle walks in and flops down on the bed, adjusting the pillows against the headboard and crossing her legs pretzel-style. “At least I didn’t lose $450,000 tonight.”
“You didn’t win $50,000 either.” Dan closes the door and makes sure it clicks shut.
Janelle rolls her eyes and grabs a pillow to put on her lap, spreading her hands over it. “I forgot how annoying you are.”
Dan laughs and flops down on the bed, crossing his ankles and reaching out to tug lightly on the end of Janelle’s pajama pants. “What did you do when you got home?”
“Um, I went back to work and went to the spa and played chess so I can kick your ass.” The corners of her mouth twitch up.
“I beat you once. I can do it again.”
“You cheated!” She widens her eyes and knits her eyebrows together, pushing her leg out to kick Dan in the side.
He laughs, loud and vibrant. “What do I need to know about the game?”
“Um.” Janelle bites her lip. “Danielle is a psycho lying bitch?” She crinkles her noise and presses her lips into a smile.
“Should I be worried?”
She nods once. “Very.”
Dan fiddles with the fabric of Janelle’s pajamas, knuckles brushing against her foot. “You’ll protect me?”
She rolls her eyes. “No.”
“Come on, Janelle.” He frowns, starts drumming his fingers over her ankle. “I need you.”
“You’re so stupid, Dan.” She hits him in the face with the pillow, sliding down on the bed so she’s lying beside him. “Do you think you’re gonna go to the wrap party tomorrow?”
Dan shrugs. “I think so.”
“Yeah, me too.” Janelle reaches out, grabbing Dan’s hand, looking at his palm.
“Are you going to read it?”
Janelle laughs, runs her fingers along his lifeline, says, “You’re going to write another book and it’s going to be on the New York Times Best Sellers list.”
Dan turns his head to look at her. He thinks about how this could feel like they’re in the game again, lying in the arcade room and trying to distract themselves from a competition or nomination ceremony. Except it doesn’t feel like that at all. In the house you can always tell you’re trying to distract yourself, from the game or from boredom or from missing home. But they’re not doing that now.
It’s different. It’s better.
“What else?” He asks, feels Janelle press the pads of her fingers against his palm.
“You’re going to lose all of your money due to bad investments. And then you’ll get really depressed and stay in bed for months. When you finally get yourself together you’ll get a job flipping burgers and die from asbestos poisoning.”
Dan says, “That’s sad.”
Janelle hums in agreement before lacing their fingers together, pressing her hand flush against his. “I feel bad for you, Dan. You peaked early.”
“I feel bad for me, too.” Janelle’s looking up at the ceiling and Dan follows her lead because it feels like the right thing to do.
“It’s a good thing you have a friend like me.”
“Are you going to save me?” He asks.
Janelle looks at him. He can feel the bed move as she shifts. “You can’t change destiny Dan.”
He rolls his eyes and she laughs, quiet. It gets muffled against the comforter. It makes him turn to look at her and she’s closer than he thought, they’re hands still pressed together between them. He thinks about that time in arcade room the night before the coaches were coming into the game and how he had wanted to kiss her.
He had wanted to kiss her but she had kissed him first.
Dan wants to kiss her now. Instead he waits for her to look up, a strand of hair falling in front of her face. He asks, “Do you remember the arcade room?”
She furrows her eyebrows but a moment later she understands what he’s talking about. She smiles softly and her eyes are wide. She blinks and whispers, “Yeah.”
This time he’s the one who kisses her first.
The first time she kissed him she was hesitant, but then he kissed her back and it was like everything was heightened, it was like everything was Janelle and she was kissing harder, kissing like something unnamed but important depended on it. At the time Dan had thought it was their friendship or the game but now he thinks it was something else.
It had only been a moment, a minuscule amount of time in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t Frank and Ashley in the HoH room. It was Dan and Janelle in the arcade room. It was one kiss and then they had pulled away.
Janelle had smiled, gotten up and said. “I’m gonna work out later.”
“Want to walk?”
“Sure.” She had grinned even wider.
No on in the house ever found out about it.
(But he's sure America knew.)
He kisses her first this time but she lets him. She looks at him, silent, breathing even and careful like she could just stay like this forever, like she’s okay with waiting for him.
So he kisses her and it’s slow, lazy like this isn’t new even though it is, even though it still makes his entire body feel like a livewire. Janelle moves closer, presses her mouth hard against his and slips inside. She rolls over and then she’s straddling him, grabbing his other hand and intertwining their fingers and Dan thinks this is already too much.
He breathes, “Janelle.”
She giggles against his mouth. “Dan.”
“What are we doing?” He blinks up at her and she sits back, dropping his hands on the bed.
Her eyes are wide and bright and she rolls them dramatically. “Oh little Dan. We’re kissing.”
“Janie.” Dan sighs and she bites the inside of her cheek. “I know that. I mean what are we doing? In general.”
“Oh.” Janelle shrugs. “I don’t know.” She looks down at him, her mouth pressed into a straight line. She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and says, “Do you need to know?”
Dan doesn’t know. He’s never been good at hooking up, at liking someone for a night and not the next day. He wonders if Janelle is good at that. He thinks about Big Brother 6 and how she thought she was in love with Michael and then she came back and said she hadn’t actually liked him at all. Dan doesn’t think he could take that. He couldn’t handle Janelle coming back for All Stars 2 and being asked about her relationship with him and saying she got out of the house and realized she never really liked him. He thinks that would hurt.
He thinks that’s probably his answer. “Yeah.”
Janelle rolls off him and he sits up. She’s facing him, her legs tucked underneath her. She turns a ring around her finger. Dan watches her quietly. He’s good at reading people, at knowing when to say something and when to let them think, good at knowing when he can push it and when he shouldn’t. Here’s the thing: he’s out of the house and he doesn’t want to push her even if he can. He just wants her to want him the same way.
She says, “I like you.”
He laughs, the sound is quiet and he almost feels like he’s choking it out. This wasn’t meant to get this serious this soon. “I like you, too.”
She smiles. “I think I like you a lot.”
Dan swallows. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
This time she kisses him, this time it’s like when they were in the arcade room, hard and needy, except it’s not that there’s not time now, it’s that there might never be enough time. 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year and it won't ever be enough. Janelle kisses him like she’s trying to make up for something, like she’s trying to make up for all the times she watched him on television and thought if she was there, if she had been sitting next to him, she would have wanted to kiss him.
Janelle sits up on her knees and then crawls into his lap, pushing him back down on the bed. She says, “Too much. I like you too much.”
Dan knows his judgment might be clouded with the whole coming in second thing and having been stuck inside a house with only Danielle and Ian to talk to for a week, so he says “Okay,” instead of “Me too.”
The way she laughs against his throat, her hair brushing against his cheek, Dan thinks she knows.
He sucks a hickey onto the base of her throat and she sounds fake exasperated when she sighs, “You are a child.” She sighs right before she presses her lips against his and slips her tongue into his mouth.
Janelle hums against the inside of his thigh, smug when she says, “You almost lost unanimously.”
Dan rolls his eyes, “You didn’t even make jury.”
She says, “shut up.”
“You came in third twice. I’ve always done better than you.”
She sucks his dick into her mouth, and hums again. This time when she tells him to shut up he listens, tangling his hand into her hair, wanting to lift his head and look at her. He tries but he groans, her mouth too warm and wet and his head too heavy.
He fucks her, her nails digging--sharp and almost painful--into his back, her mouth brushing against his ear when she says, “God I like you.”
He laughs, “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain.”
When she slaps him it’s sharp and actually painful and he yelps. Janelle smirks, blonde hair spread out behind her, a piece sticking to her forehead. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are dark and dilated but there’s something hopeful in them, something light and soft that makes Dan want to remember what she looks like right now, that makes him want to remember her this way forever, wants to remember her this way no matter what happens.
She’s tight and wet and loud and she knows what she’s doing, lifts her hips and tells him to change the angle, groans when he presses his thumb against her clit. Dan comes first, collapses and rolls to the side to catch his breath. When he looks at her she’s breathing hard, mouth agape, trying to get herself off.
Dan says, “Janelle.” She blinks and turns her head to look at him.
He moves down the bed and learns he’s really terrible at oral sex. She tangles her fingers in his hair and he learns that Janelle’s a good teacher. Just when her voice starts getting rough and breathy she says, “Practice makes perfect.”
They’ve showered and they’re back in their pajamas, the covers pulled up, Janelle’s toes cold against Dan’s shins. The lights are off and Dan thinks how nice and weird it is that there’s no cameras on them now, no sound of one moving to get a better look at them sleeping. He says, “Janie.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
He blinks in the dark, can only see her silhouette. He moves closer, whispers, “I don’t know.”
“Have you checked your phone since you’ve been out of the house?”
“No.” The air-conditioning kicks on and whirs in the background. Dan sees Janelle’s outline shift. Goosebumps pop up on his arms.
“I texted you my number.”
He smirks, “What if I didn’t want it?”
“Too bad.” She laughs and she’s so close Dan can feel her breath warm against his chin and throat. “Jordan gave me your number.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t have it before.”
He can tell Janelle shrugs by the way the covers move. She says, “You were probably too scared to get it after you won.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Scared?”
“Because you liked me so much. I’m a Big Brother legend.” She laughs. Dan blinks and then her head is leaning against his shoulder.
He runs a hand through her hair, tugs lightly on the tangles. “I’m one of the best players to ever play the game.”
“You are,” she groans. “You’re gonna make me regret saying that aren’t you?”
He says, “I am.” He pauses, takes a deep breath says, “You’re one of the best players, too.”
Janelle laughs against his neck,, presses her lips against his Adam's apple, her hair tickling his chin. “I know.”
Six months after he gets out of the house he tells Janelle he loves her. He says, “I love you Janelle,” for the second time and this time he means I’m in love with you in addition to all the things he meant the first time.
Janelle moves to Michigan three months after that, moves into his apartment even though they tell his parents she’s got her own place.
Janelle moves in and Dan thinks maybe Big Brother 14 changed his life more than Big Brother 10.
He thinks second place feels better than first.
Pairing/Characters: Dan Gheesling/Janelle Pierzina
Summary: Dan turns his head to look at her. He thinks about how this could feel like they’re in the game again, lying in the arcade room and trying to distract themselves from a competition or nomination ceremony. Except it doesn’t feel like that at all. In the house you can always tell you’re trying to distract yourself, from the game or from boredom or from missing home. But they’re not doing that now. Big Brother 14 AU.
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,100
Disclaimer: This is extremely untrue and I am not getting anything out of it except, possibly, shame. Title from One Direction's "Live While We're Young." Clearly we all know the state my life is in.
Second place isn’t so bad.
The minute it’s over--one vote from Danielle that he’ll laugh about later, Janelle’s mouth against his throat, her warm breath ghosting over his skin as she laughs too, the sound of it vibrating against him--he washes himself of the game. It’s a game and he lost and it doesn’t matter. It won’t be something he loses sleep.
So it’s really not bad at all.
He doesn’t go straight to Janelle. He congratulates Ian and they come out of the house and he says hi to Julie and hugs Britney. This isn’t some romantic comedy where he can feel her eyes on him or sense that things have shifted because they’re in the same space again, but he’s excited, anxious, spots her out of the corner of his eye and keeps track of her in his head. Now she’s hugging Joe and now she’s shaking hands with Ian and now she’s talking to Julie. He keeps track of her but he doesn’t get to the part where she’s standing in front of him, smile bright.
She hugs him and says, “Congratulations,” and they don’t talk about what she said about his game or what he said back. They don’t talk about him saying “I love you Janelle,” which didn’t mean what it could have meant. He meant thank you and you’re one of the best competitors to ever play this game and i want to try outside the house and my feelings didn’t change while you were home and I was here and you look beautiful.
He didn’t mean I’m in love with you.
That comes later.
He does backyard interviews, giggling and repeating the same answers over and over again because that is how this works. Dan forgot that Big Brother doesn’t end when the game ends. He has The Talk tomorrow and more interviews and then he’ll get to decompress. His head is buzzing and he hasn’t had any alcohol and he can still smell Janelle’s perfume lingering on his jacket.
He doesn’t mind the post-finale press. He’s just tired. He’ll get a second wind and later, when everything is over, he’ll sleep for a day and start adjusting to the real world again.
Janelle got to the backyard before he did. He was talking to his parents and his sister and making sure they were okay. He was talking to CBS and they were making sure he understood everything. But it’s not his first time and he gets it. He’s done this before and he can do it again. Not everyone will like him, he’ll need time to readjust, etc. So Janelle is done before he is. He expects her to be gone when he’s finished, out getting drinks with Kara and Jodi and whoever else, getting dinner with Brendon and Rachel, back at her hotel room ordering room service, lying in her pajamas and watching some cheesy romantic comedy.
Instead he finds her sitting next to Jordan, listening intently to whatever story Jordan is telling. When she sees him she smiles and he walks over, asks, “What’s up?”
Janelle doesn’t beat around the bush. “You wanna get out of here?”
He grins, “Sure.”
“It was nice to see you Jordan,” Janelle says, giving her a hug.
“You, too. Nice to meet you, Dan.” Jordan gets up and gives him a hug, asks if he thinks Jeff is almost done and congratulates him one more time before he and Janelle leave.
They take the car she rented back to the hotel. She says, “They offer to drive you to the studio but then you’re at their mercy.”
Dan raises his eyebrows and watches her hands at two and ten like they tell you when you first learn. “At their mercy?”
“They fly you out and get you to your hotel and to the studio but you can’t get back unless you wait for everyone to be done and then they don’t take you to any fun parties.”
“Oh no!” Dan mock gasps, hand flying to his chest.
Janelle rolls her eyes, biting her lip as she flips her turn signal. “You didn’t want to sit there for another hour by yourself because JoJo’s busy hitting on that orange intern.”
“They’d force her leave because they feel bad for me.”
“You know that intern’s the one driving the car.” Janelle takes the exit and honks her horn. “These people don’t know how to merge.”
Dan laughs, “He’s probably a better driver than you are.”
“Not with JoJo giving him a handjob.” She reaches over and tries to slap him as he cackles but he moves out of the way. Her eyes are glued on the road and she misses. “I’ll get you later.”
“Better be a promise, Janie.”
“Fuck you, Dan.”
He has to stop from asking if that’s a promise, too.
They get back to the hotel and Dan gets his room key. He drops his bag and washes his face and changes into something that he wouldn’t wear to a job interview.
He waits for Janelle.
Dan thinks about how there’s no cameras and then he doesn’t because it makes him feel like he’s back in sequester waiting to go into the house. Before he thinks too much about anything there’s a knock on the door. When he goes to look through the peephole he can’t see, it's just dark nothingness. He opens the door and Janelle giggles and Dan says, “You think you’re clever.”
“I do.”
He just shakes his head, stepping aside and opening the door wider.
Janelle walks in and flops down on the bed, adjusting the pillows against the headboard and crossing her legs pretzel-style. “At least I didn’t lose $450,000 tonight.”
“You didn’t win $50,000 either.” Dan closes the door and makes sure it clicks shut.
Janelle rolls her eyes and grabs a pillow to put on her lap, spreading her hands over it. “I forgot how annoying you are.”
Dan laughs and flops down on the bed, crossing his ankles and reaching out to tug lightly on the end of Janelle’s pajama pants. “What did you do when you got home?”
“Um, I went back to work and went to the spa and played chess so I can kick your ass.” The corners of her mouth twitch up.
“I beat you once. I can do it again.”
“You cheated!” She widens her eyes and knits her eyebrows together, pushing her leg out to kick Dan in the side.
He laughs, loud and vibrant. “What do I need to know about the game?”
“Um.” Janelle bites her lip. “Danielle is a psycho lying bitch?” She crinkles her noise and presses her lips into a smile.
“Should I be worried?”
She nods once. “Very.”
Dan fiddles with the fabric of Janelle’s pajamas, knuckles brushing against her foot. “You’ll protect me?”
She rolls her eyes. “No.”
“Come on, Janelle.” He frowns, starts drumming his fingers over her ankle. “I need you.”
“You’re so stupid, Dan.” She hits him in the face with the pillow, sliding down on the bed so she’s lying beside him. “Do you think you’re gonna go to the wrap party tomorrow?”
Dan shrugs. “I think so.”
“Yeah, me too.” Janelle reaches out, grabbing Dan’s hand, looking at his palm.
“Are you going to read it?”
Janelle laughs, runs her fingers along his lifeline, says, “You’re going to write another book and it’s going to be on the New York Times Best Sellers list.”
Dan turns his head to look at her. He thinks about how this could feel like they’re in the game again, lying in the arcade room and trying to distract themselves from a competition or nomination ceremony. Except it doesn’t feel like that at all. In the house you can always tell you’re trying to distract yourself, from the game or from boredom or from missing home. But they’re not doing that now.
It’s different. It’s better.
“What else?” He asks, feels Janelle press the pads of her fingers against his palm.
“You’re going to lose all of your money due to bad investments. And then you’ll get really depressed and stay in bed for months. When you finally get yourself together you’ll get a job flipping burgers and die from asbestos poisoning.”
Dan says, “That’s sad.”
Janelle hums in agreement before lacing their fingers together, pressing her hand flush against his. “I feel bad for you, Dan. You peaked early.”
“I feel bad for me, too.” Janelle’s looking up at the ceiling and Dan follows her lead because it feels like the right thing to do.
“It’s a good thing you have a friend like me.”
“Are you going to save me?” He asks.
Janelle looks at him. He can feel the bed move as she shifts. “You can’t change destiny Dan.”
He rolls his eyes and she laughs, quiet. It gets muffled against the comforter. It makes him turn to look at her and she’s closer than he thought, they’re hands still pressed together between them. He thinks about that time in arcade room the night before the coaches were coming into the game and how he had wanted to kiss her.
He had wanted to kiss her but she had kissed him first.
Dan wants to kiss her now. Instead he waits for her to look up, a strand of hair falling in front of her face. He asks, “Do you remember the arcade room?”
She furrows her eyebrows but a moment later she understands what he’s talking about. She smiles softly and her eyes are wide. She blinks and whispers, “Yeah.”
This time he’s the one who kisses her first.
The first time she kissed him she was hesitant, but then he kissed her back and it was like everything was heightened, it was like everything was Janelle and she was kissing harder, kissing like something unnamed but important depended on it. At the time Dan had thought it was their friendship or the game but now he thinks it was something else.
It had only been a moment, a minuscule amount of time in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t Frank and Ashley in the HoH room. It was Dan and Janelle in the arcade room. It was one kiss and then they had pulled away.
Janelle had smiled, gotten up and said. “I’m gonna work out later.”
“Want to walk?”
“Sure.” She had grinned even wider.
No on in the house ever found out about it.
(But he's sure America knew.)
He kisses her first this time but she lets him. She looks at him, silent, breathing even and careful like she could just stay like this forever, like she’s okay with waiting for him.
So he kisses her and it’s slow, lazy like this isn’t new even though it is, even though it still makes his entire body feel like a livewire. Janelle moves closer, presses her mouth hard against his and slips inside. She rolls over and then she’s straddling him, grabbing his other hand and intertwining their fingers and Dan thinks this is already too much.
He breathes, “Janelle.”
She giggles against his mouth. “Dan.”
“What are we doing?” He blinks up at her and she sits back, dropping his hands on the bed.
Her eyes are wide and bright and she rolls them dramatically. “Oh little Dan. We’re kissing.”
“Janie.” Dan sighs and she bites the inside of her cheek. “I know that. I mean what are we doing? In general.”
“Oh.” Janelle shrugs. “I don’t know.” She looks down at him, her mouth pressed into a straight line. She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and says, “Do you need to know?”
Dan doesn’t know. He’s never been good at hooking up, at liking someone for a night and not the next day. He wonders if Janelle is good at that. He thinks about Big Brother 6 and how she thought she was in love with Michael and then she came back and said she hadn’t actually liked him at all. Dan doesn’t think he could take that. He couldn’t handle Janelle coming back for All Stars 2 and being asked about her relationship with him and saying she got out of the house and realized she never really liked him. He thinks that would hurt.
He thinks that’s probably his answer. “Yeah.”
Janelle rolls off him and he sits up. She’s facing him, her legs tucked underneath her. She turns a ring around her finger. Dan watches her quietly. He’s good at reading people, at knowing when to say something and when to let them think, good at knowing when he can push it and when he shouldn’t. Here’s the thing: he’s out of the house and he doesn’t want to push her even if he can. He just wants her to want him the same way.
She says, “I like you.”
He laughs, the sound is quiet and he almost feels like he’s choking it out. This wasn’t meant to get this serious this soon. “I like you, too.”
She smiles. “I think I like you a lot.”
Dan swallows. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
This time she kisses him, this time it’s like when they were in the arcade room, hard and needy, except it’s not that there’s not time now, it’s that there might never be enough time. 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year and it won't ever be enough. Janelle kisses him like she’s trying to make up for something, like she’s trying to make up for all the times she watched him on television and thought if she was there, if she had been sitting next to him, she would have wanted to kiss him.
Janelle sits up on her knees and then crawls into his lap, pushing him back down on the bed. She says, “Too much. I like you too much.”
Dan knows his judgment might be clouded with the whole coming in second thing and having been stuck inside a house with only Danielle and Ian to talk to for a week, so he says “Okay,” instead of “Me too.”
The way she laughs against his throat, her hair brushing against his cheek, Dan thinks she knows.
He sucks a hickey onto the base of her throat and she sounds fake exasperated when she sighs, “You are a child.” She sighs right before she presses her lips against his and slips her tongue into his mouth.
Janelle hums against the inside of his thigh, smug when she says, “You almost lost unanimously.”
Dan rolls his eyes, “You didn’t even make jury.”
She says, “shut up.”
“You came in third twice. I’ve always done better than you.”
She sucks his dick into her mouth, and hums again. This time when she tells him to shut up he listens, tangling his hand into her hair, wanting to lift his head and look at her. He tries but he groans, her mouth too warm and wet and his head too heavy.
He fucks her, her nails digging--sharp and almost painful--into his back, her mouth brushing against his ear when she says, “God I like you.”
He laughs, “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain.”
When she slaps him it’s sharp and actually painful and he yelps. Janelle smirks, blonde hair spread out behind her, a piece sticking to her forehead. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are dark and dilated but there’s something hopeful in them, something light and soft that makes Dan want to remember what she looks like right now, that makes him want to remember her this way forever, wants to remember her this way no matter what happens.
She’s tight and wet and loud and she knows what she’s doing, lifts her hips and tells him to change the angle, groans when he presses his thumb against her clit. Dan comes first, collapses and rolls to the side to catch his breath. When he looks at her she’s breathing hard, mouth agape, trying to get herself off.
Dan says, “Janelle.” She blinks and turns her head to look at him.
He moves down the bed and learns he’s really terrible at oral sex. She tangles her fingers in his hair and he learns that Janelle’s a good teacher. Just when her voice starts getting rough and breathy she says, “Practice makes perfect.”
They’ve showered and they’re back in their pajamas, the covers pulled up, Janelle’s toes cold against Dan’s shins. The lights are off and Dan thinks how nice and weird it is that there’s no cameras on them now, no sound of one moving to get a better look at them sleeping. He says, “Janie.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
He blinks in the dark, can only see her silhouette. He moves closer, whispers, “I don’t know.”
“Have you checked your phone since you’ve been out of the house?”
“No.” The air-conditioning kicks on and whirs in the background. Dan sees Janelle’s outline shift. Goosebumps pop up on his arms.
“I texted you my number.”
He smirks, “What if I didn’t want it?”
“Too bad.” She laughs and she’s so close Dan can feel her breath warm against his chin and throat. “Jordan gave me your number.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t have it before.”
He can tell Janelle shrugs by the way the covers move. She says, “You were probably too scared to get it after you won.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Scared?”
“Because you liked me so much. I’m a Big Brother legend.” She laughs. Dan blinks and then her head is leaning against his shoulder.
He runs a hand through her hair, tugs lightly on the tangles. “I’m one of the best players to ever play the game.”
“You are,” she groans. “You’re gonna make me regret saying that aren’t you?”
He says, “I am.” He pauses, takes a deep breath says, “You’re one of the best players, too.”
Janelle laughs against his neck,, presses her lips against his Adam's apple, her hair tickling his chin. “I know.”
Six months after he gets out of the house he tells Janelle he loves her. He says, “I love you Janelle,” for the second time and this time he means I’m in love with you in addition to all the things he meant the first time.
Janelle moves to Michigan three months after that, moves into his apartment even though they tell his parents she’s got her own place.
Janelle moves in and Dan thinks maybe Big Brother 14 changed his life more than Big Brother 10.
He thinks second place feels better than first.