Soundtrack
The KillâThirty Seconds to Mars
All About YouâMcFly
Hate MeâBlue October
4
Mia
Her heart said yes and her soul said yes despite the fact that her brain was screaming a loud, resounding no, you dumb, stupid, idiotic moron, inside her head.
She was standing directly in front of Jack, the devious smirk she fell in love with on his lips. What are you doing, Mia? She didn't know. She never knew what she was doing when it came to Jack. All she did know was that it was beyond impossible for her to let him go, even if letting him go were best for her.
When she reached the table they'd been at, she picked up her drink, finished what was left of it, and held out her hand to him, just as he'd done not even twenty minutes earlier. The way his lips stretched across his face fired something off in Mia's brain that she'd been missing; Jack was dangerous to love, and that was exactly what made him so addictive.
On the dance floor of that bar, the people around them were bumping and grinding and horribly sweaty and some of it made Mia blush, but when she was with Jack, those inhibitions fell away; Jack triggered a chemical reaction in her brain that made her forget about anything and everything else in life, as well as any and everything that would have once made her feel awkward or uncomfortable.
As they swayed together, moved in sync together, Jack's mouth came down to her ear.
"Please come home."
Mia desperately wanted to go home with him; she replaced the fact that he'd been with someone else with the fact that he was running and trying to quit smoking and being honest, brutally honest. Those things had to count for something. Mia resolved to explain all of that to Andy in the morning.
Suddenly, Mia stopped moving with him, breaking their synchronization. "Are you going to run with me next weekend?"
He looked down at her in confusion, then pulled her in the direction of the exit. Mia followed, willingly, a jumpstart of the feelings and emotions she'd been holding in regarding Jack biting at the surface. Outside, under the yellow light of a streetlamp, he stopped, reaching forward to tuck a fallen strand of hair behind her ear.
"Too loud in there. What'd you say?"
"I asked if you were going to run with me next weekend. In that race I signed up for. It's only a 5k."
"I haven't been running for the hell of it, Mia."
"You need real running shoes."
"The ones I have are fine," he protested.
Mia resisted rolling her eyes. They stood there; his hand had never left the side of her face after he'd pushed the hair out of her eyes.
"Will you come home?"
Mia stared back at him, conflicting thoughts ever present.
"I won't even try to seduce you."
Mia laughed. "I can promise you we are light years away from sleeping together." Then Mia shifted on her feet uncomfortably, a question brimming at the surface that she was too scared to ask. But Jack was smarter than he let on, and he looked directly into her eyes.
"You don't need to be worried about anything. I got tested after I saw you last week. Everything's clean."
Jack Moreno putting forethought into something? He really did want her to come back home.
"Ask me again," she said.
Jack tangled his fingers in her hair, fingertips massaging her scalp, pulling her slightly closer to him. "Please come home."
Mia shut off the voice in her head and nodded.
As Jack dipped his head towards hers, the nerves and the nagging voice inside Mia's head reminding her of the terrible choice she was making were pushed away by the prospect of the rush she knew being that close to him would bring.
His lips were soft, and his mouth tasted like peppermint, a welcome new flavor, and something deep within her stirred; Mia's heart picked up speed as she moved her hands to his chest, feeling his own heart beating beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. His hands were in her hair and on her neck and roving down her back. As he made to pull away, she perched up on her toes to keep their contact from breaking; Mia wasn't ready for the moment she'd been waiting two months for to be over.
When Jack did pull back, and when their eyes met, his seemed to be brimming with concern, something Mia wasn't wholly used to seeing in them. His thumbs spent a moment smoothing over the freckles smattered across her cheekbones.
"Ready?" The slightest nervous twinge was laced in his voice.
Mia turned her head and grabbed at his watch. It was almost two in the morning.
"Very ready."
With one last kiss to the top of her head, he led them to his car. When he started it up, Mia noticed the small orange check engine light illuminated in the darkness.
"How long has that been on?"
He didn't immediately answer. "Are you really going to nag me about my car thirty seconds into us getting back together?"
An icy blast swept over Mia's chest, but it was melted away when Jack's hand took hers across the console.
"It's due for an oil change soon. I'll have them check it out then."
"When's the last time it had an oil change?"
"Can we not do this right now?"
Mia relented. Jack was a grown man, and she had to start trusting that he was going to take care of the things he needed to. That proved to be harder than expected when she walked into their apartment.
"Jack. What happened here?"
His hands immediately came down over her eyes, shielding them from the piles of clothes and dishes and other random items strewn about the place.
"I didn't know you'd be coming back. I'll fix everything up in the morning, I promise."
"Is this how you've been living?"
But her question went unanswered. He shuffled Mia into their bedroom, hands still over her eyes.
"Hang on a sec, keep your eyes closed, okay?"
Mia knew for her sanity more than his it was best to listen to him in that moment. She felt his touch leave her, and her ears picked up the sounds of more clothing being thrown to the floor.
"While you're shuffling around out there, can you get a pair of my pajamas for me?"
"Are you sure you need them?"
"Have you washed the sheets since I left?"
There was was a heavy pause. "Once or twice."
"Pajamas. Now."
"Okay, hold on." A drawer opened on the other side of the room, but Mia felt his hands on her shoulders again soon. "Can I?" Mia nodded, and he carefully pulled down the straps of her dress one at a time. When it was pooled around her feet, Jack's hands moved to her back and unclasped her bra. Once that too was on the floor, she felt his thumbs hook into the waistband of her underwear.
"Absolutely not."
His hands came back up to her shoulders, and she felt him lean closer to her, breath hot against her ear. "Are you sure?"
Mia opened her eyes. "More sure about that than anything else I've done tonight." She closed her eyes again, but not after watching a thousand different emotions flash across Jack's features, one of which she was fairly certain was pride for her having stood her ground.
His touch removed itself instantly. "Arms up." He shimmied her pajama shirt over her head and arms, and she stepped into the shorts he was holding.
"Can I open my eyes for real now?" Mia heard the flick of the lightswitch and took that as her answer. He was still wearing the same shirt he'd worn out, his jeans on the floor. "Are you going to finish changing?"
"Too tired. Let's sleep."
Mia didn't have it in her to argue with him; she climbed back into their bed, happy enough to be there with him, to sleep in her own bed again. Jack rested in beside her, and the moment she turned into him, he enveloped her with his body. Mia didn't let him know, but a few tears slipped out as he held her there. So much had happened between them in the past few years, but there had been moments when she'd wondered if she were ever going to see him again. There were moments when she hated him and moments when she loved him and moments when she thought she'd never figure out if she were happier with or without him.
Mia let all of that flow out as Jack held her, his one hand tracing the lightest of patterns on her shoulder blade. When the movements stopped, she assumed he'd fallen asleep until his voice broke through the darkness that is three in the morning.
"Thank you for coming back with me. I love you, Mia."
One final tear cascaded down into her pillow. "I love you, too."
And with that, they were out.
***
When Mia woke up, Jack seemed to have ditched his shirt at some point in the night, yet one arm was still slung around her. She shifted to try to get a read on the alarm clock she'd left on the dresser. Somehow, it was on its side, making it difficult to read the time. A bit of squinting got her to see that it was just after nine: plenty of sleep to get a morning jog in.
Mia peeled herself out of bed, careful not to wake Jack just yet. In the light of the morning, the apartment looked far worse than what she'd seen the night before. A pang of disappointment shot through her core, but she shook it off. Surely, a bit of tea would right everything.
Walking through the bedroom and the hall to get to the kitchen was a challenge. Mia kept telling herself that he wasn't expecting anyone; she came up with ten excuses for him far too easily: he's been working a lot, he's added running to his routine, he's just not as neat as I am.
Mia reached her breaking point when she opened the cabinet to grab a sachet of tea and was met with a bunch of bananas so old that a swarm of fruit flies escaped the moment the door opened.
She actually started to cry; not the silent tears of the night before, but real tears. Tears of anger and regret and so much more. Mia stomped back through the hallway, treading on top of clothes and shoes and whatever else was anywhere it wasn't supposed to be. He stirred the moment she flung the bedroom door open.
"Jack, wake up."
He rubbed at his eyes as he sat up in bed, and Mia's heart stopped cold in her chest.
"What's wroâ"
"What is that?" Her shaking index finger pointed at the massive blotch of colorful ink etched into the skin covering his left side.
"Oh, er, I got a tattoo. Do you like it? It's not done yet. I need one moreâ"
"Why?"
He scratched his head. "Dunno, I always wanted one so, why not?" He shrugged his shoulders as Mia tried to wrap her mind around everything.
"What is it?"
He turned to give her a better look. Yellows and blues and reds seemed to all come together. "It's Colombia, and those are the colors of the flag, and I'd been thinking about my grandfather a lot, soâ"
Mia put her hands up to stop him. "How much did that cost?"
"Per session or total?"
"Total."
"I think, like $1400."
Mia grabbed her dress from the floor and walked out of their room, ordering a cab on her phone as she made her way to the front door.
"Mia, wait."
She got her shoes on and a ride confirmed by the time he'd made it out of the bedroom; he'd managed to pick up one of the shirts from the floor and throw that on before he stood in front of her.
"This place is disgusting, and I'm not staying here. What happened to every discussion we had about spending and living within our means? Do you really think throwing a tattoo that cost that much into the mix was a good idea? Were you high?"
That last question hadn't been meant to be taken seriously, but the way Jack diverted his eyes from hers when she'd asked it gave her his answer.
"Maybe you should consider the fact that every bad decision you've made since I left you made while you were high." Mia couldn't stay in that apartment a second longer; she worried she'd say something she couldn't take back if she did. With her dress in one hand and her cell phone clutched in the other, she left their apartment, walked down to the curb, and hopped into the car that would take her back to Andy's.
***
When Mia walked in to Andy's apartment, she noticed his door was shut, meaning he was still sound asleep. She dropped her things in her room, changed into shorts and a sports bra, and laced up her sneakers. She wasn't going to let everything that happened with Jack in the past twelve hours stop her from being any less prepared for the race she'd signed up for.
As she ran, Mia kept her mind focused on her goal. She'd yet to break a twenty-four minute 5k, and that was all she wanted. She wasn't too fast (though she was faster than Andy), but she could go on for miles. She just wanted to be in the sub eight-minute range.
Mia ended up jogging a smooth five miles, feeling slightly more clear in her head and wondering if she'd overreacted. She tired to tell her heart that she was making another excuse for Jack, but her heart didn't want to listen. When she unlocked the door to Andy's apartment and walked in, she saw him sitting at the countertop, a mug of coffee before him and a mug of tea in front of the other barstool.
"Can we talk?" he asked.
Mia set her phone down on the small entry table he had by the door and took her shoes off. He'd brewed her a cup of green tea, drizzle of honey too, which she took eagerly.
"Thanks."
He cleared his throat. "I know I'm only a few months older than you, and I know I'm not your biological brotherâ"
Mia turned to him and shook her head. "Don't be dramatic."
"You're my sister, Mia, and I don't want to see you make the same mistakes over and over."
"Ok, dad."
"Jack eats up all of your time when you're together, and you allow him to do that. He takes over everything, and it's as if you forget about everyone else in your life. You spent approximately five minutes with Ben last night, on his birthday. Before you moved in here, I barely saw you."
Mia didn't want to look him in the eyes, so she played with the string of the bag of tea in her mug.
"You know, when I stopped at mom and dad's the other day, mom said something like, 'it's nice having Mia come around more often.' The only thing that's changed in your life in the past two months is how little Jack has been in it."
"Don't bring mom and dad into this. You're just upset because you don't like Jack."
"After everything that happened with mom last year, you should make her the priority, not Jack, or anyone else for that matter."
Mia felt the tears building in the back of her eyes, and she hated that she'd cried more in the past week over Jack than she had in the past two months. "Don't guilt trip me about mom. I've been spending a lot of time with her, and with dad."
"And if you get back together with Jack, do you think you'll still continue to do so? Will you still come home every Sunday for dinner?"
Mia threw her hands up in frustration for the second time that morning. "How am I supposed to know what every Sunday is going to look like for the rest of my life?"
"It's easy, Mia. You just keep Sundays clear for mom and dad. Do you think you can do that?" His voice had taken on a patronizing tone, and she wanted to tackle him for it; if only they were still kids and that would have been mildly acceptable.
"It's been a rough morning, okay? Just lay off a bit." Mia got up to leave, but Andy called her back.
"What did he do?"
"If I tell you, it'll only feed your fire."
"Listen, I can't hate the guy more than I already do. At least rant to me and get it out of your system."
Mia didn't really have anyone else she could talk to about it, so she reluctantly pressed on. "He spent over a thousand dollars on a new tattoo. The apartment was also an absolute wreck."
Mia could see that Andy attempted to hold in his anger. "You mean the apartment you still pay half the rent on, despite not living there for two months?"
"He couldn't afford it on his own. Both of our names are on the lease andâ"
"And he used the money he could have spent covering your half of the rent on something for him."
"Andy, please. I'm trying to talk to you, but you're not making it easy."
"This is what he does, Mia. He's immature and selfish, and it's why I set you up with someone like Carter. It's also why we are absolutely going to his barbecue tomorrow."
"I just spent the night with Jack, I can't just hang out with Carter tomorrow."
Andy finished what was in his mug and got up from the counter. "Do you want to keep running in this endless cycle with Jack, or do you want to be with someone who is actually going to put you first and be the kind of partner you need in your life?" He placed his mug in the sink and went into the bathroom.
Mia sat there, staring into her nearly empty mug, wondering if she emptied the bag of tea leaves into it if they would tell her what to do.
"Fine!" She yelled loudly enough for him to hear her through the closed door. "I'll go with you to Carter's tomorrow. But DON'T think this means anything at all." Mia hoped she could convince herself of that as well.
***
Dinner at the Clarke house that Sunday evening was like it'd been for the past few months. Mia's mom's hands were still a bit shaky, so she had to help her pour the gravy she'd made into the serving bowl, but other than that, the night was perfectly fine. Andy kept his mouth shut about Mia's recent encounters with Jack, but he didn't fail to mention the fact that they were going to Carter's the next day. Mom and dad seemed happy about that; well played, Andy.
Mia hadn't heard from Jack since she stormed out of their apartment, which made the idea of going to Carter's a little easier to accept. Andy drove them over, and it was easy to spot Carter's family's house when they got there. Red, white, and blue balloons flanked either side of their driveway, and a sign that read "Party THIS WAY" with an arrow pointing towards their backyard was stuck in the gravel.
"They go all out for Memorial Day." Andy shifted his car into park on the street.
"When he pitched the idea to me he said something along the lines of "help us ring in summer." Clearly it's a big deal to them. Maybe they have family in the military?"
He shrugged his shoulders as they got out of the car. Mia had chosen to wear denim shorts and a simple white sleeveless blouse. She didn't want there to be any expectations set, though she was certain Carter would take her being there as an indicator that she wanted something more from him, but she wasn't even sure what she wanted out of all of this.
When they walked into the party, Mia steered them towards the direction of the grill (which was easy to spot with the smoke stack rising from it) as she knew the only person either of them would know at that party would be found there. Andy waved to catch his attention, and Carter smiled ear to ear. He was clad in a blue-checkered apron, dirtied with barbeque sauce stains; his outfit was complete with a set of tongs in his hands. He snapped them playfully at them as they approached.
"Welcome to the party!" He opened his arms, and Mia realized that meant she was supposed to go in for a hug, so she leaned in, patting him awkwardly on the back and careful not to touch too much of his apron. Andy stepped in immediately to shake Carter's free hand.
"Thanks for having us. Are your parents around?"
Carter looked over their heads and waved one of his hands in the air. Soon enough, two incredibly lovely middle-aged people stood before them.
"These are my parents, Donna and Michael. Mom, dad, this is Mia and her brother, Andy."
"It's lovely to meet both of you," his mother said, a warm smile on her face.
"Please help yourselves to whatever you need." His dad shook Andy's hand after smiling at her.
And so their day at the this unknown family's barbecue began. Conversation with Carter was less awkward than it had been at the coffee shop, and when another of their coworkers showed up, Andy became tied up with him in a game of corn hole.
When the night was coming to an end and it was time for Andy and Mia to make their exit, Carter walked them out to Andy's car. After saying goodbye to him, Andy got in the car, and Carter grabbed at the back of his neck as Mia stood outside the passanger's door.
"Thanks for coming. I know it's a bit of a drive."
"No worries. It was really nice to welcome summer in this way. Thanks for inviting us."
"Of course. I, er, I was wondering if you were busy next weekend. Sunday to be specific. I have these tickets for a show in town, my brother was going to go with me but something came up."
"Oh, Sunday? What time?"
"Evening, maybe around six, I think."
"I'll, um, I'll have to check. We have these family dinners on Sunday nights and, I don't know if Andy told you anything, but my momâ"
He rested a hand on my shoulder. "It's okay. I wouldn't ask you to skip something with your family. I know how important family is. There will be other shows." He smiled; it was the same warm smile Mia had seen on his mom.
She reached forward and hugged him. "Thanks for understanding. I'm sure I'll see you soon."
Once she was in the car, Carter waved at them one last time before heading back to what was left of the party. Andy had the most self-satisfied grin on his face that she'd ever seen.
"That hug looked pretty nice."
"Shut it."
Surprisingly, he did.
***
As Mia laid in bed that night, she made two mental pro/con lists: one for Carter and one for Jack.
She was so angry with Jack, and Carter had been refreshing, but there was still that pang for Jack in her heart. Did Carter only look more pleasing because of how upset she currently was with Jack?
As if someone from above was trying to interfere, Mia's phone buzzed off. She had a new text from Jack, and when she opened it, a number of photos began to pop up. They were all pictures of their apartment, as sparkling and shining as it was the day they moved in.
When the photos stopped, a message came through: "I'm sorry. I'm trying. I love you."
Mia then got a notification that Jack had sent her the equivalent of her share of two month's rent to her Venmo account, and she closed her eyes.
"I love you, too," Mia wanted to write back. But she didn't. She slept on it, and in the morning, she sent that text, and on the way home from work, she stopped at the local athletic store and bought Jack a proper pair of running shoes, and after that, she made her way to their apartment.
A/N: muahâhaâhaaa (that's my evil laugh ð)
I hope you're enjoying this ride â¤ï¸ I love that you're here with me.
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L
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