It Was The Smartest Thing I Ever Did, Because Now You're Here (7/?)
Title: It Was The Smartest Thing I Ever Did, Because Now You're Here
Author: x_avecia_x
Rating: PG-13
Warning: A few sweary words, nothing too shocking.
Word Count: 2,906
Disclaimer: I do not own Community - although I would totally marry Dan Harmon then claim half in our (inevitable) divorce settlement - that is unless he conceeds to my end game Jeff/Annie demands. If you recognize any of it, it isn't mine.
Summary: Annie and Jeff deal with the consequences of their attraction.
Author's Note: Urgh, this chapter switches POV randomly and I don't know how to fix it. So I just hope you forgive me. Show must go on...x x
P.S. This will be the last chapter until Sunday probably as I have work that's kicking my ass right now so I'll get a chance to write this weekend :)
______
2 weeks later
The next two weeks were awkward to say the least. He would say that he was avoiding Annie, or rather avoiding the consequences of him kissing her, but in reality she was doing a damn good job of it on her own. By the time it got to the first week of February things were positively frosty between them. When he finally figured out that she was doing her best to avoid being alone with him, he forgot about avoiding her and set about trying to get her alone to explain his lack of control that horrible night when her father had punched him.
Ok, he didn’t exactly know what he was going to say but he figured the biggest obstacle he had was in fact getting some time with her, just the two of them, without the rest of the study group. Thankfully Annie hadn’t seem to have told any of them what had happened (judging by the fact Jeff’s head had remained intact and out of a jukebox).
But when Annie practically hissed at him in the hallway a few days ago that there was ‘nothing to talk about’ whilst simultaneously trying to get away from him as quickly as possible, he figured he’d fucked up royally for the last time.
And every day it made it harder and harder to get up and watch her walk around campus, so very obviously carrying his kid now judging by the more noticeable bump under her shirts, yet feeling like some kind of background prop.
Jeff Winger was not, and never would be a background prop in anybody’s life.
Which is why when Annie turned up on his doorstep close to midnight, with two large suitcases and what looked suspiciously like the penis-shaped vase she’d made at pottery class in her hands, he was shocked for all of three seconds before pulling her inside.
‘So Mr Dildopolis finally had me evicted,’ she explained, looking less than happy at being sat on Jeff’s couch, ‘guess he finally figured out that I’m pregnant and not just had one too many visits to KFC recently.’
‘Wait a minute, he can’t just kick you out because you’re pregnant,’ he replied, only realizing after he spoke that this might have been the opportunity he’d been looking for - he did after all want Annie to move out of that total crap hole.
She gave him a wry smile, already clearly feeling uncomfortable at having to come to him for help, or whatever it was that she wanted.
‘Well he changed my locks and I had to actually go into Dildopolis to pick up my stuff after I got home from Greendale.’
Jeff took that in and realized Annie had been effectively homeless now for probably seven hours or more.
‘Wait a minute, you picked up your things after you got home from campus? Why did it take you so long to come here? You could have called me to come get you.’
Annie sighed and accepted the mug of tea he offered her.
‘I don’t like asking for help Jeff, you know that. I tried to get a motel or something for tonight but I just couldn’t afford it what with my budget and actually having some standard of hygiene. I contemplated going to my mom’s - got all the way to the front door before I turned and ran down the driveway. So I sat in a coffee shop for a while before I finally decided to come here. I’m sorry for just turning up so late - I didn’t know where else to go.’
The last few words came out in a bit of a mumble as she buried her head in her hands and cried. Jeff winced until he realized he’d never heard her cry like that before. She sounded so completely hopeless - so much so that he forgot about all of their problems over the past month as he moved over quickly and awkwardly took her in his arms, noticing how she clung to him tightly, heaving out sob after sob.
‘Annie,’ he pleaded, ‘Annie, come on. It’ll all be ok.’
Crying women were never his forte, but a crying Annie, that was always his kryptonite - damn her.
‘How do you know it’s going to be fine? I don’t want to have to ask for your help Jeff, I really don’t. I just didn’t know what I was supposed to do. This baby is ruining my life!’
If he was honest, those last six words stung more than he expected them to.
‘Look, you don’t mean that, just try to calm down. You can stay here as long as you need.’
She pulled away from him and seemed to get a hold on what was happening, furiously shaking her head.
‘No Jeff, I’m not going to...’
‘Annie, you’re the one who turned up on my door at this ridiculous hour. Just...stay here tonight at least. You can have my bed, I’ll take the couch.
‘No I can’t let you sleep...’
‘The couch is a fold out,’ he interjected, holding his hands up to emphasize, ‘I’m not letting you leave here at this time of night. It’s not happening so get over it.’
He went to go get extra covers but Annie pulled at his arm to stop him from going any further.
‘Thank you Jeff, you don’t have to let me stay, I know I’ve been...’
‘Avoiding me lately...again,’ he cut her off, ‘...yeah, I noticed.’
She didn’t know how to re-engage in the conversation without bringing up the kiss in her apartment, so instead she walked after him when he gestured to her to follow. She wound up in his bedroom for the first time, noticing how everything was differing shades of grey, illuminated by the stylish looking lamps mounted on the bedside tables. It was what she figured interior decorators would call minimalist, but all it really made Annie feel was that Jeff was missing a lot in his life. There were no pictures or anything that made it look like the room (or even the apartment) actually belonged to someone - well, nothing except for the sonogram picture that was unframed on one of the bedside tables propped up against Jeff’s alarm clock.
And immediately she felt both completely terrible yet one hundred percent better at the same time.
‘Jeff, I’m sorry. You know, for these past few weeks and just turning up here tonight. I guess things just hit me tonight in a really bad way...’
She shuffled past him and sighed as she sank onto his bed, picking up the sonogram picture.
‘...Sometimes I forget it’s not just me going through all of this.’
‘It’s alright,’ he murmured, hands now laden with pillows and a blanket, ‘you’re welcome to stay for as long as you need.’
She nodded and smiled back.
‘I didn’t mean it by the way...’
Well that could apply to so many things that had happened or been said between them, so he hoped his confused look of ‘help me out here’ did the trick.
‘...you know, about the baby...ruining my life,’ she murmured, ‘I was just being really emotional and dramatic. My hormones really kicked it up a notch this week.’
‘Oh, right, yeah...hormones,’ he muttered with a wry looking smile of his own, ‘well, I’m going to go get some sleep. Let me know if you need anything.’
She nodded and watched him as he wandered off into the living room, wondering how to deal with this new development in their relationship.
_____
‘I thought morning sickness was only supposed to last for the first couple of months?’ he asked, casually leaning up against the bathroom door.
Annie sat on the floor, leaning her face against the cool wall tiles, giving him a look of shut the hell up.
‘You’re five months gone now and in case you hadn’t noticed it’s not morning,’ he added, pointing to his wristwatch telling him it was quarter to midnight.
‘Yes thank you for pointing that out Jeff and for your information the regular sickness stopped about six weeks ago so it must be your questionable cooking that’s the problem - I could swear that Lasagne tasted like pork for some reason.’
He smirked and leaned over to help her up.
‘I assure you it wasn’t pork and if you don’t like it you could always just move out…’
That earned him a light-hearted slap of course - everyday Annie had been pouring over the local Craigslist notices for an apartment that was in her budget and in a safe enough part of town. It was proving to be impossible, so riling her up about it the fact she was stuck there living with him was not going to be a good idea.
‘…or, if you think it’s my cooking that’s the issue you could always do it instead - you know, we could work out a rota or something?’
That of course implied she would be staying for a while. It had been two weeks already and he wasn’t getting cold sweats or planning a way to get rid of her. Ok it wasn’t ideal, they continued to ignore the kiss that had happened weeks ago, but at least that way she was content to stay for now and he’d be there if she needed his help.
But she sighed in response and broke away from Jeff to stand in front of the bathroom mirror, poking at the dark circles under her eyes.
‘I’m not staying Jeff, this is just temporary. I’ve told you that like…a million times.’
She picked up her toothbrush and started her nightly oral hygiene routine as Jeff rolled his eyes. He moved to stand next to her, picking up his own brush. He watched how they both stood there, wondering how if anyone could see them right now if they’d think it was the perfect picture of domesticity - a couple brushing their teeth together before going to bed. The thought did make him feel a little sick himself but he knew that once they were done she would go off into his bedroom alone and he’d be stuck on the couch watching infomercials. It was almost like the domesticity he remembered from when he was a kid, although his dad would be the one to end up on the couch after coming home drunk, not because his mom and dad were in this weird platonic-yet-not-entirely-platonic relationship like he and Annie were.
When Annie was finished, she splashed her face with water and toweled herself off, giving him a small smile before disappearing out of the bathroom with a quiet ‘goodnight.’
She obviously wasn’t up for any conversation regarding their living situation tonight so he put out the light and made his way to the couch. He’d only just got comfortable when he heard Annie’s shriek from the bedroom.
Jeff burst through the door wondering what the hell had happened to find her sitting up in the middle of the bed craddling her stomach. The panic within bubbled up to epic proportions and less than a second later he was on his knees beside Annie begging her to tell him what was wrong.
‘Annie, what is it? Do we need to go to the hospital?’
He couldn’t see her face with it turned down towards her stomach, her hair keeping her features from view. Jeff reached up and pushed the hair behind her ear as Annie turned to him with what he could only describe as one of the biggest smiles he’d ever seen her wear.
‘No, I’m fine it’s just…I think the baby kicked.’
‘I’m sorry, the baby what?’
She grinned and shifted around to face him, pulling him off his knees to sit down properly.
‘I’m pretty sure I just felt the baby kick. It’s been moving around a lot for the past week but just then I’m sure I felt a kick for the first time.’
Her face contorted slightly as she gripped her stomach but when she was sure of what she just felt again she grabbed his hand and placed it under hers on her stomach.
‘Ok, definitely a kick,’ she confirmed, giving him no option but to obey even if he felt completely awkward sitting on his bed with his hand forced up her top resting on naked skin, waiting to feel his baby kick. He felt sick again when he didn’t feel anything under his hand.
But just as Jeff felt a little disappointment sneak in to replace that sickness, he felt a sharp jab underneath his fingers.
‘Holy shit…’ he mumbled, receiving a slap from Annie (no doubt for swearing in the baby’s presence), ‘…does it hurt?’
She shook her head, ‘No, I think I yelled when I first felt it because I was so shocked but it’s not too sore at all.’
Jeff stayed silent and felt another flurry of movement underneath his hand before he let the smile fade from his face into a frown.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, noticing the look and grew annoyed when he didn’t seem to want to answer, ‘Jeff, what is it?’
He pulled away and took a moment to compose himself before looking back at her.
‘I could have missed this,’ he replied honestly, struggling to keep his emotions in check, ‘I could have missed it.’
She wasn’t sure if he meant because she might not have been living with him or because he could have taken the easy way out and left her to handled the pregnancy on her own while he high-tailed it out of town. But it didn’t matter either way - when Annie looked at him she felt her heart clench at how much Jeff had grown into his role as father. When did he get so…reliable. She certainly didn’t believe he could be, part of her still didn’t, but she knew that if they were going to be able to be good parents they would have to be able to compromise. It was about the baby, nobody else.
But he was staring at her like he used to. Or at the very least, in the way he would have probably said she imagined he used to. And she felt like she was completely out of her depth.
No, it was about absolutely no-one else at all. Just the baby.
‘Jeff, I don’t know what to…’
But he moved closer, taking her face in his hands and made her lose her train of thought instantly.
‘Stay?’
She looked as startled as he did at having said the words out loud. Ok, it wasn’t the first time he’d asked her that very same question, but this time there was very little doubt he was doing it not just because he wanted to feel like he was doing the right thing, but because it was what he actually wanted. And somehow, that finally seemed to get through to Annie.
‘Ok I’ll do it.’
‘You will?’ he responded, leaning back, clearly surprised by the positive response, ‘I didn’t think I’d ever convince you, but you changed your mind.’
‘Yeah well, you’ve worn me down,’ she grinned, making herself comfortable by crawling under the covers, ‘I guess there’s no rush in finding somewhere else to live, but if we’re going to do this Jeff there needs to be some rules.’
He snorted loudly because he didn’t expect anything less from Annie under the circumstances.
‘Who needs rules? We managed for two weeks so far without them.’
Annie turned away from him and pulled at the covers, forcing him to move over, ‘I think you’re forgetting the shower incident a week ago, which was followed by the laundry incident, which was quickly followed by the pyjama incident - you have a terrible selective memory problem Jeff.’
Jeff groaned as he moved off the bed towards the door in a huff.
‘Look, it’s not my fault if you didn’t lock the bathroom door properly and my shower curtain is see-through.’
‘It was an invasion of privacy Jeff!’
At the time she had tried to claim she was incredibly pissed off that he’d wandered into the bathroom with her standing there behind the shower curtain in the buff, when in reality he knew she took more enjoyment out of bringing it up at any given opportunity to embarrass him - judging by the smirk he could faintly see etched on her face she was enjoying it much more than he expected.
‘Yeah, whatever Edison- don’t pretend you didn’t do the exact same thing two days ago.’
It was dark in the room but he caught the way her cheeks flared up at having been caught. She had hoped her mistake at having wandered into the bathroom first thing in the morning whilst he was in the shower had gone unnoticed - clearly not.
‘I think you’re mistaken Je…’
‘Yeah I’m sure I was,’ he cut her off sarcastically, ‘Goodnight Annie.’
She let her arm rest over her rounded stomach and smiled sleepily at him, ‘Goodnight Jeff.’
She closed her eyes but Jeff watched from the shadows until he heard her breathing even out into a steady rhythm. With that he took one last look at her and withdrew from the room. As he moved back to his position on the couch, he wondered how much longer he was going to be able to keep his feelings to himself by playing happy-platonic-families.
Author: x_avecia_x
Rating: PG-13
Warning: A few sweary words, nothing too shocking.
Word Count: 2,906
Disclaimer: I do not own Community - although I would totally marry Dan Harmon then claim half in our (inevitable) divorce settlement - that is unless he conceeds to my end game Jeff/Annie demands. If you recognize any of it, it isn't mine.
Summary: Annie and Jeff deal with the consequences of their attraction.
Author's Note: Urgh, this chapter switches POV randomly and I don't know how to fix it. So I just hope you forgive me. Show must go on...x x
P.S. This will be the last chapter until Sunday probably as I have work that's kicking my ass right now so I'll get a chance to write this weekend :)
______
2 weeks later
The next two weeks were awkward to say the least. He would say that he was avoiding Annie, or rather avoiding the consequences of him kissing her, but in reality she was doing a damn good job of it on her own. By the time it got to the first week of February things were positively frosty between them. When he finally figured out that she was doing her best to avoid being alone with him, he forgot about avoiding her and set about trying to get her alone to explain his lack of control that horrible night when her father had punched him.
Ok, he didn’t exactly know what he was going to say but he figured the biggest obstacle he had was in fact getting some time with her, just the two of them, without the rest of the study group. Thankfully Annie hadn’t seem to have told any of them what had happened (judging by the fact Jeff’s head had remained intact and out of a jukebox).
But when Annie practically hissed at him in the hallway a few days ago that there was ‘nothing to talk about’ whilst simultaneously trying to get away from him as quickly as possible, he figured he’d fucked up royally for the last time.
And every day it made it harder and harder to get up and watch her walk around campus, so very obviously carrying his kid now judging by the more noticeable bump under her shirts, yet feeling like some kind of background prop.
Jeff Winger was not, and never would be a background prop in anybody’s life.
Which is why when Annie turned up on his doorstep close to midnight, with two large suitcases and what looked suspiciously like the penis-shaped vase she’d made at pottery class in her hands, he was shocked for all of three seconds before pulling her inside.
‘So Mr Dildopolis finally had me evicted,’ she explained, looking less than happy at being sat on Jeff’s couch, ‘guess he finally figured out that I’m pregnant and not just had one too many visits to KFC recently.’
‘Wait a minute, he can’t just kick you out because you’re pregnant,’ he replied, only realizing after he spoke that this might have been the opportunity he’d been looking for - he did after all want Annie to move out of that total crap hole.
She gave him a wry smile, already clearly feeling uncomfortable at having to come to him for help, or whatever it was that she wanted.
‘Well he changed my locks and I had to actually go into Dildopolis to pick up my stuff after I got home from Greendale.’
Jeff took that in and realized Annie had been effectively homeless now for probably seven hours or more.
‘Wait a minute, you picked up your things after you got home from campus? Why did it take you so long to come here? You could have called me to come get you.’
Annie sighed and accepted the mug of tea he offered her.
‘I don’t like asking for help Jeff, you know that. I tried to get a motel or something for tonight but I just couldn’t afford it what with my budget and actually having some standard of hygiene. I contemplated going to my mom’s - got all the way to the front door before I turned and ran down the driveway. So I sat in a coffee shop for a while before I finally decided to come here. I’m sorry for just turning up so late - I didn’t know where else to go.’
The last few words came out in a bit of a mumble as she buried her head in her hands and cried. Jeff winced until he realized he’d never heard her cry like that before. She sounded so completely hopeless - so much so that he forgot about all of their problems over the past month as he moved over quickly and awkwardly took her in his arms, noticing how she clung to him tightly, heaving out sob after sob.
‘Annie,’ he pleaded, ‘Annie, come on. It’ll all be ok.’
Crying women were never his forte, but a crying Annie, that was always his kryptonite - damn her.
‘How do you know it’s going to be fine? I don’t want to have to ask for your help Jeff, I really don’t. I just didn’t know what I was supposed to do. This baby is ruining my life!’
If he was honest, those last six words stung more than he expected them to.
‘Look, you don’t mean that, just try to calm down. You can stay here as long as you need.’
She pulled away from him and seemed to get a hold on what was happening, furiously shaking her head.
‘No Jeff, I’m not going to...’
‘Annie, you’re the one who turned up on my door at this ridiculous hour. Just...stay here tonight at least. You can have my bed, I’ll take the couch.
‘No I can’t let you sleep...’
‘The couch is a fold out,’ he interjected, holding his hands up to emphasize, ‘I’m not letting you leave here at this time of night. It’s not happening so get over it.’
He went to go get extra covers but Annie pulled at his arm to stop him from going any further.
‘Thank you Jeff, you don’t have to let me stay, I know I’ve been...’
‘Avoiding me lately...again,’ he cut her off, ‘...yeah, I noticed.’
She didn’t know how to re-engage in the conversation without bringing up the kiss in her apartment, so instead she walked after him when he gestured to her to follow. She wound up in his bedroom for the first time, noticing how everything was differing shades of grey, illuminated by the stylish looking lamps mounted on the bedside tables. It was what she figured interior decorators would call minimalist, but all it really made Annie feel was that Jeff was missing a lot in his life. There were no pictures or anything that made it look like the room (or even the apartment) actually belonged to someone - well, nothing except for the sonogram picture that was unframed on one of the bedside tables propped up against Jeff’s alarm clock.
And immediately she felt both completely terrible yet one hundred percent better at the same time.
‘Jeff, I’m sorry. You know, for these past few weeks and just turning up here tonight. I guess things just hit me tonight in a really bad way...’
She shuffled past him and sighed as she sank onto his bed, picking up the sonogram picture.
‘...Sometimes I forget it’s not just me going through all of this.’
‘It’s alright,’ he murmured, hands now laden with pillows and a blanket, ‘you’re welcome to stay for as long as you need.’
She nodded and smiled back.
‘I didn’t mean it by the way...’
Well that could apply to so many things that had happened or been said between them, so he hoped his confused look of ‘help me out here’ did the trick.
‘...you know, about the baby...ruining my life,’ she murmured, ‘I was just being really emotional and dramatic. My hormones really kicked it up a notch this week.’
‘Oh, right, yeah...hormones,’ he muttered with a wry looking smile of his own, ‘well, I’m going to go get some sleep. Let me know if you need anything.’
She nodded and watched him as he wandered off into the living room, wondering how to deal with this new development in their relationship.
_____
‘I thought morning sickness was only supposed to last for the first couple of months?’ he asked, casually leaning up against the bathroom door.
Annie sat on the floor, leaning her face against the cool wall tiles, giving him a look of shut the hell up.
‘You’re five months gone now and in case you hadn’t noticed it’s not morning,’ he added, pointing to his wristwatch telling him it was quarter to midnight.
‘Yes thank you for pointing that out Jeff and for your information the regular sickness stopped about six weeks ago so it must be your questionable cooking that’s the problem - I could swear that Lasagne tasted like pork for some reason.’
He smirked and leaned over to help her up.
‘I assure you it wasn’t pork and if you don’t like it you could always just move out…’
That earned him a light-hearted slap of course - everyday Annie had been pouring over the local Craigslist notices for an apartment that was in her budget and in a safe enough part of town. It was proving to be impossible, so riling her up about it the fact she was stuck there living with him was not going to be a good idea.
‘…or, if you think it’s my cooking that’s the issue you could always do it instead - you know, we could work out a rota or something?’
That of course implied she would be staying for a while. It had been two weeks already and he wasn’t getting cold sweats or planning a way to get rid of her. Ok it wasn’t ideal, they continued to ignore the kiss that had happened weeks ago, but at least that way she was content to stay for now and he’d be there if she needed his help.
But she sighed in response and broke away from Jeff to stand in front of the bathroom mirror, poking at the dark circles under her eyes.
‘I’m not staying Jeff, this is just temporary. I’ve told you that like…a million times.’
She picked up her toothbrush and started her nightly oral hygiene routine as Jeff rolled his eyes. He moved to stand next to her, picking up his own brush. He watched how they both stood there, wondering how if anyone could see them right now if they’d think it was the perfect picture of domesticity - a couple brushing their teeth together before going to bed. The thought did make him feel a little sick himself but he knew that once they were done she would go off into his bedroom alone and he’d be stuck on the couch watching infomercials. It was almost like the domesticity he remembered from when he was a kid, although his dad would be the one to end up on the couch after coming home drunk, not because his mom and dad were in this weird platonic-yet-not-entirely-platonic relationship like he and Annie were.
When Annie was finished, she splashed her face with water and toweled herself off, giving him a small smile before disappearing out of the bathroom with a quiet ‘goodnight.’
She obviously wasn’t up for any conversation regarding their living situation tonight so he put out the light and made his way to the couch. He’d only just got comfortable when he heard Annie’s shriek from the bedroom.
Jeff burst through the door wondering what the hell had happened to find her sitting up in the middle of the bed craddling her stomach. The panic within bubbled up to epic proportions and less than a second later he was on his knees beside Annie begging her to tell him what was wrong.
‘Annie, what is it? Do we need to go to the hospital?’
He couldn’t see her face with it turned down towards her stomach, her hair keeping her features from view. Jeff reached up and pushed the hair behind her ear as Annie turned to him with what he could only describe as one of the biggest smiles he’d ever seen her wear.
‘No, I’m fine it’s just…I think the baby kicked.’
‘I’m sorry, the baby what?’
She grinned and shifted around to face him, pulling him off his knees to sit down properly.
‘I’m pretty sure I just felt the baby kick. It’s been moving around a lot for the past week but just then I’m sure I felt a kick for the first time.’
Her face contorted slightly as she gripped her stomach but when she was sure of what she just felt again she grabbed his hand and placed it under hers on her stomach.
‘Ok, definitely a kick,’ she confirmed, giving him no option but to obey even if he felt completely awkward sitting on his bed with his hand forced up her top resting on naked skin, waiting to feel his baby kick. He felt sick again when he didn’t feel anything under his hand.
But just as Jeff felt a little disappointment sneak in to replace that sickness, he felt a sharp jab underneath his fingers.
‘Holy shit…’ he mumbled, receiving a slap from Annie (no doubt for swearing in the baby’s presence), ‘…does it hurt?’
She shook her head, ‘No, I think I yelled when I first felt it because I was so shocked but it’s not too sore at all.’
Jeff stayed silent and felt another flurry of movement underneath his hand before he let the smile fade from his face into a frown.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, noticing the look and grew annoyed when he didn’t seem to want to answer, ‘Jeff, what is it?’
He pulled away and took a moment to compose himself before looking back at her.
‘I could have missed this,’ he replied honestly, struggling to keep his emotions in check, ‘I could have missed it.’
She wasn’t sure if he meant because she might not have been living with him or because he could have taken the easy way out and left her to handled the pregnancy on her own while he high-tailed it out of town. But it didn’t matter either way - when Annie looked at him she felt her heart clench at how much Jeff had grown into his role as father. When did he get so…reliable. She certainly didn’t believe he could be, part of her still didn’t, but she knew that if they were going to be able to be good parents they would have to be able to compromise. It was about the baby, nobody else.
But he was staring at her like he used to. Or at the very least, in the way he would have probably said she imagined he used to. And she felt like she was completely out of her depth.
No, it was about absolutely no-one else at all. Just the baby.
‘Jeff, I don’t know what to…’
But he moved closer, taking her face in his hands and made her lose her train of thought instantly.
‘Stay?’
She looked as startled as he did at having said the words out loud. Ok, it wasn’t the first time he’d asked her that very same question, but this time there was very little doubt he was doing it not just because he wanted to feel like he was doing the right thing, but because it was what he actually wanted. And somehow, that finally seemed to get through to Annie.
‘Ok I’ll do it.’
‘You will?’ he responded, leaning back, clearly surprised by the positive response, ‘I didn’t think I’d ever convince you, but you changed your mind.’
‘Yeah well, you’ve worn me down,’ she grinned, making herself comfortable by crawling under the covers, ‘I guess there’s no rush in finding somewhere else to live, but if we’re going to do this Jeff there needs to be some rules.’
He snorted loudly because he didn’t expect anything less from Annie under the circumstances.
‘Who needs rules? We managed for two weeks so far without them.’
Annie turned away from him and pulled at the covers, forcing him to move over, ‘I think you’re forgetting the shower incident a week ago, which was followed by the laundry incident, which was quickly followed by the pyjama incident - you have a terrible selective memory problem Jeff.’
Jeff groaned as he moved off the bed towards the door in a huff.
‘Look, it’s not my fault if you didn’t lock the bathroom door properly and my shower curtain is see-through.’
‘It was an invasion of privacy Jeff!’
At the time she had tried to claim she was incredibly pissed off that he’d wandered into the bathroom with her standing there behind the shower curtain in the buff, when in reality he knew she took more enjoyment out of bringing it up at any given opportunity to embarrass him - judging by the smirk he could faintly see etched on her face she was enjoying it much more than he expected.
‘Yeah, whatever Edison- don’t pretend you didn’t do the exact same thing two days ago.’
It was dark in the room but he caught the way her cheeks flared up at having been caught. She had hoped her mistake at having wandered into the bathroom first thing in the morning whilst he was in the shower had gone unnoticed - clearly not.
‘I think you’re mistaken Je…’
‘Yeah I’m sure I was,’ he cut her off sarcastically, ‘Goodnight Annie.’
She let her arm rest over her rounded stomach and smiled sleepily at him, ‘Goodnight Jeff.’
She closed her eyes but Jeff watched from the shadows until he heard her breathing even out into a steady rhythm. With that he took one last look at her and withdrew from the room. As he moved back to his position on the couch, he wondered how much longer he was going to be able to keep his feelings to himself by playing happy-platonic-families.