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Fake it

Chapter Four: Waste My Time

synopsis: a pair of best friends, one apartment, and one fake dating ploy to get jake’s ex girlfriend back, will end well right? wrong.

pairing: jake seresin x female reader.

warnings: no use of y/n, mentions of drugs, talks of binge eating, one instance of masturbation, mentions of vomit, jake and reader are both 20. this blog is 18+.

word count: 7.7k

college au, fake dating trope, roomate trope

previous chapter | next chapter | fake it masterlist

If Jake had known prior to his shower—where he planned to attend to his morning problem—that his best friend would be on the forefront of his mind, he would've truly chopped his dick off with the kitchen knife you stowed in the bathroom cabinet.

You had been convinced it would come in handy, in case an intruder conveniently found either of you mid-shower. And maybe it was a good idea to leave it there after all, because he might actually make use of it.

Raking a hand through his wet hair, Jake tosses his head back, allowing the cold water to run down his face. But it doesn’t do much to get his mind off the issue at hand. There is no way he’s about to rub one out—not when your face is currently being screened behind his closed lids.

“This can’t be real,” he groans in disbelief, dragging a hand down his face, his heavy head dropping forward with it.

Warily, Jake opens his eyes to the water running down his toned stomach, practically guiding him to look at the veins lining his thighs, and the untimely hard on he’s sporting between them. And though, he's staring straight down at a very clear problem, he feels the weight of his other predicament wash down on him instead.

His ex-girlfriend was far gone by the time he reached you last night—yet Jake still went ahead and kissed you, for longer than he anticipated too. Simply because he just wanted to. And if he was being honest with himself, this hadn’t exactly been the first time he’s wanted to either.

But in his defense, it had been years since he sensed that bleary feeling in his chest, the one that gave him the uncontrollable urge to just lean in and kiss you—and who would’ve known it would spawn again?

Actually, Jake should’ve known.

Like clockwork, that urge flares up when his mind is mostly cluttered—when every part of him is riddled by heartbreak. And Jake knew you’d always be there whenever he was on the chopping block, and it’d be wrong if he went looking for affection from you everytime he was. Because that's weird. You were his best friend—not some fling he could swap spit with each time got out of a failed relationship.

So instead, he learned to wean himself off the compulsion by simply touching you.

Whether it was pinching the back of your sweater when the elevator rattled, holding onto some part of you to make sure you didn’t linger far, or coaxing you to sleep by gliding a hand along your spine.

Jake just needed to feel you.

Strangely, it was enough to tame that bizarre feeling that struck him once in a while. But despite his best efforts, he didn’t stick to his usual methods last night. Kendall's disparaging remarks must’ve really got to him. And there you were when it finally spilled over, standing there like your sixteen year old self did once before, waiting for him.

Making the choice to just let it go, Jake assures himself that he was just confused, again. All thanks to a girl in a skirt so short it could pass as a belt—and Jake pitifully notched onto that tiny belt of hers.

With that matter put to rest, he swallows thickly—returning back to his original point of concern. His frustration seems to have gone straight to his dick today. By no means, was waking up hard, unusual for him, but it’s particularly more difficult to ignore this morning.

Now, he’s left staring down at his, not exactly little, problem. But the longer Jake stares—the more the self-restraining thoughts trickle out his ears, joining the stream of water running down his body, and mazing through the patterns of the rubber bath mat underneath him.

“Fuck it,” he whispers to himself, roughly spitting into his palm.

This is so wrong—but this is so—the only time he’s doing this. The blond had only joked about wringing one out while you were still home, but now he’s seriously following through.

“Ah shit,” he hisses, rubbing the wad of saliva over his tip, brows pinched in concentration.

Bringing a rough palm down his aching length, Jake’s breathing labors as he starts to work himself in already desperate strokes. Maybe it’s because your strawberry body wash is sitting on the edge of the bathtub. The muscles rippled on his wet back contract from the movement. Maybe it’s because your pink toothbrush is sitting next to his by the sink.

Gritting his teeth, Jake puts more focus on getting this over with, coiling his calloused hand even tighter around himself. Maybe it’s because his ex is making it hard for him to understand anything.

With the repetitive graze over a sensitive vein, Jake’s eyes snap shut, breath hitching in his throat—concentrating on that sensation. Maybe Jake likes kissing you more than he thought he would.

The sound of low grunts and heavy panting permeates the bathroom, overpowering the echoing of water droplets panging against the shower floor and trickling down the drain. And just as he’s nearing his edge, overworking his forearm in quick motions—there’s an urgent knock at the door, followed by your muffled voice. “Jake? I really need to pee. I can’t hold it in…And you’ve been there for so long.”

The end of your plea comes off as a whine, forcing him to immediately rip his hand off.

Jake’s eyes flutter open to blink hastily, lungs burning as they expand, forcing himself to overcome his haze as quickly as possible. God, he hopes you didn't hear a single second of that.

“Shit, um. Sorry, Princess,” he rasps, clearing his throat immediately after.

“Doors unlocked, you can come in,” he establishes, hitting his flushed chest with a fisted hand to clear his throat again. It takes him a second, but he finally pulls himself together.

With a soft click of the doorknob, Jake assumes you’ve scuffled inside. A faint clattering by the toilet can be heard before you desperately yell out, “Cover your ears!”

“...Hurry! I’m—I might piss on myself,” you squeak, curling your toes against the tiles.

The warning directed towards the shower curtain is useless, because Jake's already cupping both hands over his burning ears. “They’re covered,” He spurts out a short laugh, turning his head, shouting the confirmation back at you.

The automatic response had been programmed into him from the countless times your bladder coincided with his showers—mostly during the trips your families took together.

Maintaining the nostalgic positioning of his hands, Jake recalls the one time you slipped off the porcelain toilet at his beach house and refused to let him jump out the shower to check on you. At one point during that incident, you had thrown a roll of toilet paper at his pruney fingers when you spotted them curling around the shower screen to pull it back.

Jake’s ear nearly fell off at the reprimanding he received from his mother, following that—when he decided to joke about massaging your sore butt during dinner.

With uncanny timing, Jake’s hands fall from the side of his head as your bold thumbs-up breaches past the shower curtain, coming into view in front of him, signaling that you’re done.

He prods the inside of his cheek with his tongue, staring at your tiny hand that’s lined directly in front of his lower region.

“Hey now. You sure you wanna be stickin’ a hand in here baby?” He taunts, with a teasing head tilt—even when you’re unable to see him.

Baby. Your hand. In the shower. Where he’s naked.

At that, you immediately withdraw the arm you stuck in there. Then, your small voice bleeds past the small crack of the curtain. “..I don’t want to know what you meant by that.”

“Step inside if you do, though,” he shamelessly offers, stretching his jaw to control his amusement, but the playful lilt in his voice gives it away.

“I..I am not doing that!”

Before Jake can add on to your fluster, you’re trotting off.

With your faded footsteps nearing the door, you make your exit back to your bedroom with a huff and a whispered complaint under your breath. Jake laughs at that, tipping his head back into the water as more memories come flooding in.

You really haven’t changed from the time you clumsily tumbled off the rim of his toilet seat.

Considering the fact that the only people you ever spoke to on campus were either frat affiliates, or freshmen who occasionally needed directions—you never really caught the chance to make friends with other girls at school. It wasn’t intentional, of course. You had just grown so attached to Jake, that you found it difficult to harbor that kind of friendship with anyone else.

However, that disconnect from girls your age didn’t mean you were that different from them. You had an idea of what any other girl would do if they were in your situation. It would only make sense that they’d do a healthy amount of snooping on Kendall’s social media—and all her friends’—and perhaps her parents’ too. For research purposes, obviously.

But, maybe that was not the best way to start off your day.

After an alarming amount of online stalking, you’re quickly swept up by a sudden frenzy. Because how was it physically possible for someone to shine through their pictures? She quite literally radiated in every single post you zoomed in and out of. And the flood of comments you scrolled through made sure to remind her too.

There was no point in denying that she won the genetic lottery either. And apparently you weren’t one of the lucky winners. Because, if you were, then maybe clothes wouldn’t sit on you like it was your enemy—either strangling or suffocating you. There was sadly no inbetween, really. But, it looked like she got along swimmingly with her clothes.

Was building an alliance with your own outfits, something you had to work on now?

At that revelation, you clumsily dart towards your closet, nearly tripping over the blanket still clung to your legs. And it must’ve taken a whole twenty minutes of you combing through overworn shorts and a thick stack of failed crochet hats, to successfully track down an old denim skirt you bought over a year ago.

Batting off unvoiced doubts, you squeeze your legs into the stiff material and hastily throw on the oversized sweater Jake bought you—praying it would hide the fact that the skirt was two sizes too small. The light layer of makeup you quickly apply next isn’t your best attempt, but it’s enough to make you look alive.

You realize that it seemed a touch ridiculous to be suddenly concerned about how you looked, but given that you were playing as Jake’s new girlfriend—the stress was very much warranted. His ex’s instagram was a testament that if she were to sport a potato sack, she’d still outshine you by miles—many miles actually, probably enough miles to wrap around the entire earth twice. It’s only natural that you would make an effort to appear somewhat decent in comparison.

Mentally running through your plans for today, you unintentionally wander into the kitchen and start an attack on a tub of icecream—without even realizing it. It’s only when you’re half way through the container—that Jake finally steps into the kitchen, hair slightly damp from his lack of towel drying, a pair of gray sweats sitting loose around his waist, and another variant of his black hoodies clung on his upper half.

“Oh, there you are.” He cranes his neck to see what you’re so focused on.

Jake feels a slight sense of disappointment creep in when you don’t give him a single sign of acknowledgment. Even with the lame attempt to louden his footsteps, you’re still quietly standing by the counter, back turned to him.

Coming to a halt behind you, he briefly gives the back of your head an unimpressed look, before casually resting a palm onto the table top in front of you.

The ends of his hoodie drawstrings start to dangle over the top of your head when you unconsciously lean back into him. Jake hums contently, steadying his feet so you could comfortably lay your weight onto his chest. The disappointment from before lifts, slightly.

“Thought you were gonna join me in there. You coulda’ scrubbed my back or something,” he playfully laments. All you do is wriggle against him, silently making yourself comfortable.

Out of nowhere, Jake feels the steady pace of his heartbeat begin to pick up, though, he’s not sure if it’s from the horrifying remembrance of being interrupted a little bit ago, or because it feels kind of nice to have you on him like this.

Again, with no answer from you, he looks down past his nose, eyes landing directly onto the silver spoon that’s sticking out your mouth. Jake only squints when he’s met with his own wacky reflection at the end of the utensil.

“Okay then,” he says to himself, tracing his gaze down the shiny metal. Reaching the end of the spoon, he catches the blank stare you’re giving that tub of ice cream under those curled lashes of yours. Jake bites the inside of his cheek at the observation.

He’s not even sure what to make of your sudden change in behavior. Not long ago, you were cutely pawing at the bathroom door, and now you’re all dolled up underneath him, raw dogging a container of ice cream.

Gently, he pinches the end of the cold handle between two fingers, slowly pulling it from your lips. All you can do is blink dumbly at the large hand that breaks your vision, letting him take it from you. Your eyes scrunch when the sunlight trickling through the kitchen bounces off the bowl of the spoon, momentarily blinding you.

“You gonna let me have a taste?” He genuinely asks, dipping his head down to whisper the question in your ear. He does it softly enough so it doesn’t startle you.

You blink a few more times before rushing to nod your head.

Permission granted, Jake dunks it back into the tub to get himself a generous scoop, pressing the spoonful of vanilla flat against his tongue, licking it clean above you. “You left some of your lipgloss on here,” he lamely shares, while eating off the sticky residue. It should gross him out, but it’s just you, so really, he couldn’t care less.

Setting the empty spoon down against the counter with a soft clatter, Jake hands end up on the front of your pants, again—for probably the third time this week. The soothing action is happening more frequently than it ever should, but you haven’t chewed him out on it—yet. And it’s not his fault he needs to wean himself off.

“What’s with the makeup? Thought you were just hittin’ up the grocery store today.”

All you do is give him a small shrug, he takes it as an answer for now.

There were times when Jake stumbled on his older sisters prancing around the house at random hours of the night, faces full of makeup. Out of curiosity, he’d asked them why they decided to start their enrollment in clown school—and he’d get the same response—an eye roll and annoyed exclamation of Girls just like doing their makeup randomly Jacob! You don’t get it!

For someone who was considered ‘a green flag’ on paper for having two sisters, Jake didn’t reap the benefits at all. Unfortunately, he was largely unaware of the things a guy should know if he grew up around girls.

Discreetly pulling you in closer, he inhales through his nose. The taut muscles on his back relax once the scent of your strawberry body wash reaches him. “Why do you randomly do your makeup?”

You stare at the shine of the melting desert in front of you, mildly confused by his abrupt question.

Sure, Jake had pestered you with random questions about girls, given that you were one. But they always followed the lines of—Does this text mean she’s mad at me? or Why the fuck does she need me to pick out a nail color every two weeks? And get mad at me when I say blue? Never has he asked dumb questions in regards to you—but it’s not like he needed to anyway.

“Oh, um. I don’t know,” you bite your glossy lip, contemplatively. It takes you several seconds to come up with a better explanation than Oh, um. I don't know. Because that’s stupid, you sound stupid.

“It just…feels good to do it, like—a confidence booster of sorts,” you finally surmise, partially honest with him.

“Feels good, huh.” Jake repeats, trailing off as he absently runs his thumb around the rim of your metal button.

While you weren’t aware of his large hands flirting with the entryway of your skirt before, you’re pretty much noticing it now.

No matter how much you try to downplay the habit, it undeniably made you slightly nervous—okay, it actually made you very nervous. Because what if he accidentally pulled down your zipper—or worse—what if he saw the stupid day of the week underwear that you still wear.

You’re not sure if you could ever live that down if he does.

“I–um. Yeah, feels good,” you incoherently mumble, hands pathetically slick in sweat at your sides.

He hardly gets a chance to register the mental turmoil going on under him as his brows suddenly furrow. The subtle engravings on the button of your shorts feel different, unfamiliar even.

WIth that, he stills. And without so much of a warning, Jake drags one hand around to the small of your back, pressing his palm flat against the bunched up fabric of your sweater, dragging it upward to check what shorts you decided to wear. You stagger forward, forced to crash your sweaty hands down onto the counter as he pushes you off him.

This whole time, you were wearing a skirt.

And it’s not like Jake Seresin was opposed to the idea of girls wearing something too tight for comfort, but the dark washed band is curling into your flesh. Jake was opposed to that.

You gulp, the skin of your cheeks growing hot. Jake practically has you bent over, butt pointing up into the air. Warily, you attempt to continue the conversation as if he wasn’t checking out your skirt, in the worst way possible. “You could’ve, um, I dunno, just asked me what I’m weari–”

“This shit is digging into you, Princess,” he cuts you off firmly, flipping you around with that hand.

Jake silently watches you, waiting for an explanation once he has you facing him. It’s quiet as you dodge his eyes. Of course, he thinks it looks weird on you.

Eventually, you choose to look down at his front hoodie pocket like a scolded child. “I just…had too much to eat. Dairy makes me bloated,” you meekly supply, worming your hands into the empty pouch. Nervously, you begin to pick at the tiny tufts of cotton glued to the inner lining of his pocket.

Ignoring the new feeling stirring in his stomach, Jake intently dips his middle and pointer finger into the front of your skirt, trying to get an estimate on how tight it was. They’re already losing circulation between the pudge of your tummy and the band.

“What?” Jake scoffs incredulously, eyes rolling up and down your figure.

“You don’t eat too much. Don’t even try that with me,” he sternly cements, disapproving of your excuse. “This shit is just—not your size.”

Using the two fingers hooked into your skirt, he tugs you forward in demonstration, causing you to let out a startled yelp. Seeing how the movement easily sends you launching forward, Jake sighs and retracts that hand from your waistband, holding you still by the hip instead.

Moving to grab your face with his other hand, he forces you to look up at him—and your stomach bubbles, maybe because of the ice-cream.

“I’m not gonna tell you what and what not to wear outside, ’cause my mom would fucking kill me,” he clarifies. “But, really?” Jake’s voice drops to a softer tone, considering that you look somewhat embarrassed, and not in the way he liked.

You nod once in his hand, “I like it,” you manage to argue, cheeks squished by his fingers. If you like it, Jake can’t seem to hate it. But what Jake hates—is that he knows you’re about to head out, by yourself.

“Okay.” His eyes flick down to your new choice of apparel. “Let me come with you today, Fuck Bradley,” he proposes, dismissing his upcoming plans with the brunette this afternoon.

If you wanted to play dress up around him, that’s fine, but if you were going to walk around the supermarket aisles, without him trailing behind you, looking like this? He would rather go through his frat hazing twice over just so he could tag along. Your parents would kill him if he didn’t make up some excuse to watch over you.

Somewhat bothered by your bare thighs brushing against his knees, Jake drops both hands down to pull at the sides of your skirt, but the stubborn fabric doesn’t budge. Again, he yanks it to no avail. Jake blows air through his nose, because he just needs your upper thigh to be covered at least. That’s what your mom would want, for him to look after you and all.

“Jake,” you warn, bringing his attention back to your face. “We never end up buying what we need ‘cause you play around too much,” you put forth, glaring at him.

Jake gives your skirt one final jerk before giving up, weaving his fingers into the belt loops instead. However, under the weight of his hands, the band glides from your waist down to your hips. It covers more of your legs now.

“I’ll behave,” he confirms, looking down at you. The specks of seriousness in his eyes says he will. But his inability to leave you alone for more than five minutes says, he won’t.

“You never behave,” you tiredly argue, cracking your knuckles in his front pocket, accidentally pulling him closer by doing so.

Jake cocks his head. “So? That’s what makes us work. You do all the important crap,” he points out, forgoing his seriousness from a second ago. “While I keep things fun. Don’t start pretending you don’t like it.”

You look off to the side with a sigh.

“I actually don’t like it,” you start, matter of factly. “And you’re not coming,” you finally conclude, brushing off the sudden memory of him keeping things fun last night.

Rationally, you should be relieved that he remembers kissing you, it was clear in the way he wouldn’t stop teasing you about it during the entirety of the walk home. But all it does is fill you with unease.

“My girl’s playin’ hard to get. That’s fine, I can handle you,” he continues, a lazy smirk playing on his lips. Yeah, he’s definitely not getting the permission to accompany you if he’s being so coy, this early on in the day.

Rolling your eyes, you pivot your head to look at him again, only to realize that it’s a mistake to do so. Because you instinctively cower—when was he standing this close to you? And when did he slip his fingers through your skirt’s belt loops?

Jake’s eyes dart across your features, taking in your nervous falter. “What? You like when I call you that?” His grin only stretches wider.

You hate that you’re still not used to his new pet names.

“What? No—no, I don’t.” You hurriedly defend yourself.

You also hate that you can’t handle talking about said pet names without sputtering like an idiot.

The moment you fill your cheeks with air, Jake takes it as a sign to not test his luck with you. Keeping quiet, he intently watches you let out that breath while you start to digress.

“You can join me next time, ‘cause it’s rude if you cancel on Bradley, I’ll just…come over after I’m done.” Reminded that Bradley kind of smiled at you last night, you assume he wouldn’t mind if you invited yourself over. He’s oddly let you through the door before, anyway.

As you finish speaking, you gently nudge at Jake using the hands you still have resting in his pocket. The thick fabric, combined with his body heat, has been keeping your fingers so warm—that you almost forget the way the cold tub of vanilla felt between your hands from before.

Weirdly, Jake doesn’t say anything.

Instead, there’s something unfamiliar that flits in his eyes, the dumb grin he’s wearing quickly fades and all he does is stare at you, like he’s unsure about something. Jake Seresin, unsure of himself, in what world?

“Promise me you’ll actually be there. Need to hear you say it,” he gently demands—suddenly.

Jake trusts you to stick to your word, but there’s some part of him that needs to know that he’ll see you again during the day. And he wasn’t going to hang out in Bradley’s room all afternoon, and have it possibly stretch into the evening—if you’re not going to show up at some point.

You pause, lips parted, searching for any signs of his impending teasing. Because where did that come from? The last time he was this deliberate in what he said, he had asked you to be his girlfriend.

You wonder how your sixteen year old self would react—she’d probably put on some Coldplay song and grab a nearby pillow to cry into it, if she knew he didn’t mean it in the way you wanted him to. And for some reason, you feel a twinge of her hurt flicker through your chest, when you think about it.

Above you, Jake remains still, letting you curiously scan his face. A thick lump forms in your throat when you come to the realization that he’s being serious.

You swallow, giving him all your sincerity. “I promise.”

That unfamiliar look flashes in his eyes again when you assure him, and you instantly look down once you notice it. “Now can you, just—let me leave. We have no milk left and you can’t have your cereal dry,” you fumble, caught off guard by his sudden seriousness.

Jake clears his throat. “Okay, yeah. I can…do that,” he starts, slowly.

Letting his concern for your outfit drop, Jake moves off you so you can go. The weird tension in the air wrapping around you two, simply dilutes with that.

Jake feels more confused when he watches you fetch your keys. He’d only wanted confirmation that you were seeing him later, thinking it would calm his protectiveness over you. But, it didn’t do jack shit, really. You didn’t get dressed up for no reason, nor did you wear things like that when you did.

The realization that he should’ve tried to probe more, crosses his mind when he hears you go through the front door. In the midst of his silent brooding, Jake eventually decides not to fault himself for it—because when has he ever had to pry an explanation out of you? You always told him everything.

But as he comes to that conclusion, Jake fails to notice what you quickly pop in your mouth when you scurry out. Maybe it was because you couldn’t stop thinking of your younger self—but you reached for that reflective baggie you stole from last night’s snack table. It should do the trick to soothe that growing ache in your chest.

“Motherfuck–” Bradley bites his lip in focus, capping off his insult. “Takin’ off half my health. Get your ass back here,” he harshly narrates under his breath. Leaning closer to his computer screen, he expertly moves his fingers against the lit up keyboard in precision with his mouse.

Jake came over a few hours ago, and what started as a conversation between two friends—turned into Jake leaning back against Bradley’s headboard while the brunette busied himself with rounds of Fortnite.

“I’m telling you, she wore that shit on purpose.” Jake huffs, retelling his encounter with his ex. Truthfully, Bradley’s baffled that Jake was able to stretch out the topic for this long.

Hour five into the rant, you had tiredly strolled in the room after being let in the house by Bob. There was hardly any greeting before you immediately dove for the mattress. In a matter of seconds, you were curled around Jake’s leg like it was some life line, left cheek squished against his thigh and an arm thrown across his knee.

Neither of them said anything about your peculiar arrival, but it wasn’t like they caught the chance to, because you had already dozed off.

“Okay? The hell you want me to say to that.” Bradley grumbles, eyes still trained on his monitor. For the first time in his life, Bradley finds himself jealous of you. If he had to cuddle with Jake in his sleep to get a ticket out of this, then so be it.

Before Jake can say anything, Bradley is rapidly clicking his mouse and jerking it across his mouse pad in zig zags. “No, no. Fuck—Shit. Oh fuck you.”

The gruff shout at his computer causes you to stir a bit.

“You died?” Jake stupidly asks, cupping a hand over your ear, muffling the noise.

Slowly, Bradley swivels his chair to face him. “No. My character just got shot in the face.”

“Right.” Jake doesn’t care. “Anyway, you should’ve seen the skirt she was wearing,” he pauses to re-evaluate his next words. “Actually, don’t even start to imagine it.”

“Just know it was bad,” he says flatly, hoping Bradley gets the point.

Entirely unimpressed by his friend’s idiocracy, Bradley’s eyes dart between the skirt you're wearing and the idiot playing with the shell of your ear. Maybe if he aimed it correctly, he could chuck his wireless mouse at Jake’s thick forehead without it landing on you.

“Same skirt that your little girlfriend has on right now?” Bradley presses, lazily raising an eyebrow.

Jake’s eyes snaps to your outfit and he roughly grabs a blanket to cover you entirely.

“What is she, Goldilocks? Passing out on someone’s bed after going out on her own. Should’ve gone with her, dumbass,” Bradley insults.

Jake gives him an incredulous look.

“Bro, I fucking tried but you know how girls are.” If anyone should understand, it’s Bradley—the guy who had a hoard of sisters himself. He of all people, should know that talking to girls was like trying to communicate with a mob that was already angry at you. You say one thing wrong, and you’re getting chased by pitchforks and torches.

“Look at that. Another girlfriend who’s tryna’ escape you,” Bradley swipes a tongue over his growing smirk, amusing no one but himself.

“I’m glad you’re finding this funny. ‘Cause I don’t.”

“Thanks.” Bradley says offhandedly, in his usual uninterested tone.

“That wasn’t—okay,” Jake bites his tongue, not wanting to spark an argument that might wake you.

“Why are you so hung up on this chick anyway? What do you even like about her?” Bradley suddenly presses, trying to gain knowledge on why his friend is so infatuated.

In the years he’s known Jake, yeah, he’s been a serial dater, but he never went back to the same girl—over and over again. And he never employed you to help him do it either. Bradley never got the impression that Jake would do that in the first place.

“I like everything about her,” Jake finally punches in his answer, focusing on the way you’re clinging to his leg.

It’s a simple question, one he should know how to answer. But his attention drops to you when he racks his brain for a valid reason—as if you were going to wake up and give him the response he was looking for.

“She made me feel good. I don’t fucking know dude. I just liked her more than I liked anyone else.”

Bradley inwardly winces at that.

Jake slowly turns his head to his friend who’s leaning back into his chair, and dismissively shrugs. “Everyone said we were good together and I just thought so too.”

Despite his attention to the conversation, Jake has a far off look in his eye—his brain is wandering off somewhere.

Bradley shakes his head, in disagreement. Clearly, his strategy of getting Jake to catch you with someone else at the party failed, so maybe he has to switch gears. “Dude, just because some fucking randoms said so, doesn't mean—”

“...Gummybear.”

Both of them put the conversation on pause, snapping their necks in your direction. Another minute of quiet passes until you mumble the phrase again, paired with a groan this time.

Jake shifts around, no longer slouching against the headboard. The duo watches closely when you sleepily untangle yourself from him and sit up for yourself.

Scrubbing your eyes, you distribute a guilty look between Bradley and Jake through blurry vision because you feel your mouth slowly being filled with the pre-vomit drool.

You’re one second away from showing them both your lackluster breakfast and cannabis laced gummies you had the bright idea of eating.

Perhaps, it wasn’t the best course of action to have one—or two, but you thought they were supposed to make you feel calm—because isn’t that why people buy them? How were you supposed to know that having more than one would make you feel so sick?

“I don’t, um, feel too good.” Your throat bobs and you slap a hand over your mouth.

Jake lunges forward, shoving away the pillows blocking you from him. He visually pales when bend over against him, aggressively gagging into your palm, unable to swallow back the burning acid rising into your throat and spilling onto your tongue.

With you on the brink of vomiting in his lap, Jake keeps his eyes on you as he hurries Bradley to find something for you to dump your guts into.

“I said I can’t fucking find it!” Bradley’s already shot out his chair, rapidly throwing dirty laundry over his shoulder once he’s bent over in the spot where his trash bin should be.

From the way he launched himself out of his seat, the gaming chair is flung halfway across the room. And with the sound of your retching and Jake’s useless instructions, Bradley picks up the pace and hastily reaches into piles of junk in hopes that he’d unearth the tiny bucket.

“Aim on the damn floor if I don’t find this thing,” he grits, sweating as he continues to dig through his pigsty.

And aim at his floor, you did.

“I threw up all over his room.” You mumble into Jake’s hoodie, punishing yourself over the turn of events.

Since bringing you home, Jake’s been actively trying to get your mind off what happened. But all you’ve done is guiltily fixate on the fact that you barfed like a sick puppy, leaving a plop of mush right onto a Victoria Secret bra sitting in Bradley’s room.

What if the girl who owned it came looking for it—just to find a fat stain sunken into the cup? Bradley would probably have to tell her that his idiot friend hurled on it because she didn’t know her tolerance was incredulously low. And you’d probably won't stop thinking about it for the rest of your life.

“Who cares? You gave Bradshaw a reason to clean. Now turn around and tell me what you want,” Jake prompts you, looking ahead at the open snack pantry in front of him.

The high clearly kicked in while you were in the snack aisle, because why else would there be five party sized bags of chips staring back at him.

Jake narrows his eyes, straining to make out the flavor you bought. The dim lighting makes it nearly impossible to read the big lettering written across the shiny plastic. But then again, he hadn’t bothered to turn on the main lights, choosing to depend on the trim of fairy lights lined throughout the apartment. It was safe to assume that you preferred those, so he stuck to that.

Rather than complying, you wrap your arms tighter around Jake’s torso, shaking your head in refusal against his chest. “Don’t want anything.”

Redirecting his attention to the top of your head, he hugs you back with one arm. “C’mon sick puppy, take a look.”

The last time you writhed in guilt like this, you had swung Jake over the head with your neon pink hydro-flask at his beach house—when he was the one who purposely scared you. Though, he took it as a win, considering that you cradled his head all night, giving him an excuse to sleep in the same room as you. Back then, it came at a perfect time since his fling that summer recently ended in disaster.

“I’ll just throw up again if I eat anything,” you quietly whine, replaying the defeated sigh Bradley heaved when he stared at the pathetic beige goo sinking into the lace of the bra.

Using the arm he has around you, Jake gives you a squeeze. “No? Don’t even want some gummies?”

When he’s met with silence, Jake lowers his head to kiss the top of yours, but the gesture goes unnoticed by you. For a second, he thinks you managed to fall asleep standing up. “Done talkin’ to me Goldilocks?”

Jake’s voice pulls you out of your deep analysis of the way Bradley sighed in disappointment. But, with the reminder that you had also shamelessly napped in his bed—brought on by your desperation to sleep off the high, you fist the back of Jake’s hoodie in both hands and bite down on your lip to hold back a screech of embarrassment.

“Won’t you look at that, the little lady didn’t like my joke,” he lightly teases, glad that your useless talent of falling asleep anywhere didn’t spur into action.

Detecting the spike of heat from your flushed face against his stomach, Jake refrains from making any more jokes and lifts you slightly, positioning the bottom of your feet over the surface of his own.

Once he drops you to stand on his sock-clad feet, Jake begins to carefully advance into the bathroom, unbothered by the pressure of your heels on his toes as he walks.

“If you want nothin’, we’re hanging out where we did this morning.”

In one swift movement, he both peels you off his front and moves you off his feet. Letting him guide you to sit at the edge of the tub, you attentively look on while he crouches in front of you, face perfectly leveled with yours—despite the raised height provided by the bathtub. Did he place you here because you fell off the toilet that one time?

“Why did you randomly take those? Mickey puts a shit-load in there,” he questions, referring to the gummy bears that eventually led you into buying a life supply of Jake’s favorite chips, Smoked Barbeque.

If it wasn’t for the soft yellow string of lights you taped around the bathroom door frame, you would’ve missed the puzzled look he’s wearing. The light pinch of his brows and the concern tightening his jaw makes you feel guilty for the second time tonight.

Instinctively, his hands reach towards your waist, thumbs coming close to meeting at the center as his palms settle on your sides. A shiver runs down his spine when he comes to notice how you fit in his hands—but he pushes the new sensation aside.

“I’ve been doing a lot of random things today,” you broadcast, unsure of the rationale behind wearing makeup for a mundane outing—and unsure as to why you were compelled to level with a girl who could clearly look down at you from where she is.

“Yeah, you have, haven’t you?” Jake says softly, watching your eyes flick down towards his hoodie. It’s an exact replica of the one keeping warm from the night before—and the same one he gave you for the sole purpose of announcing that you were his.

“Oh. I forgot to give your sweater back to you last night. I’ll wash it and—”

“Keep it, we didn’t break up yet,” he cuts you off, the unfamiliar look from this morning passing through his eyes, again.

Oblivious to it, you simply nod at him, bringing your parted lips to a slow close.

Then, it goes quiet as you two take the time to recollect your thoughts.

After several minutes you both meet back in a silent agreement that you’re ready to continue the conversation. Jake nods his head at you, encouraging you to speak first.

“I ate it because this didn’t feel good,” you suddenly confess, lips bunching to the side of your mouth. Knowing what you meant, his attention drops to that skirt he caught you in this morning. An unsettling feeling swirls in his stomach, it looks even tighter on you now.

Jake liked to think he knew how to read you.

Whenever his ears picked up on your nervous laugh, he knew to stalk over to see which one of his nosey aunts were pressing you about having a boyfriend. Whenever you nervously dug the toe of your sneakers into the floor, he knew to start comparing shoe sizes with you as a distraction. But when he finds you in something you don’t usually wear, Jake doesn’t know what to do.

He wonders if you felt like you needed this stuff to feel pretty. And he also wonders why he’s so unaware of it until now, if you had.

“Think I threw up because it’s so tight. Maybe Mickey’s gummies aren’t so bad,” you attempt to joke with a light laugh, wanting to ease the tension off his face.

In front of you, Jake’s stare is still unwavering towards the engravings of that button. In a way, this is kind of disorienting for him, what you’re wearing is so familiar to him. Yet, seeing it on you is unfamiliar if anything. Because this isn’t you, it’s the girl he was just arguing with last night.

The only reason he even started this whole thing with you, besides Kendall’s unexplainable jealousy towards your friendship, was because you were different to her in every way. So, if you were going to change that about yourself, Jake didn’t like it—because it was unfamiliar to him. For his whole life, he kept tabs on little things about you that no one else bothered to learn. So, he doesn’t like that he you’re keeping things from him now.

“I…don’t like this,” he delivers carefully, enunciating each word to you purposefully, leaving no doubt in your mind that he says it to be mean. And like always, what he really wants to say translates to you—I don’t like the way it makes you feel either.

“...Can we take it off then?” you insert with the same careful delivery.

He draws in a deep breath, and you mimic the action unknowingly.

Then, with a flick of his thumb, Jake unfastens the button of your skirt, dislodging it from the denim slit that kept it tightly wrapped around your waist. When you go to lift your butt, he pulls the tiny scrap of fabric down your legs. His eyes trail it, keeping his attention off your underwear. In his peripheral, he spots your half-full bottle of strawberry bottle wash.

With you moving to sit back down on the cold ledge, he’s briefly greeted with a pink cursive lettering. Tuesday.

Surprisingly, it’s not awkward to be sitting in nothing but the poorly constructed sweater he said looked good on you and a pair of your day of the week underwear. Maybe you were being dramatic, thinking that you would die if he saw it. Because this isn’t so different from the days you spent walking around in your bathing suits, in the lifetime full of summers you spent together.

“You never needed that,” he shrugs, relief settling in his chest now that it’s off of you.

“I never needed it,” you repeat back.

While your entire lives were filled with inside jokes and probably too much bickering—there were small lapses in time where that all drops. You’re not sure when it had even started, but for as long as you could remember, whenever either of you voiced something worthy of importance your counterpart naturally echoed it back. I was a dick. You were a dick. Jake, not right now. Okay, not right now. You never needed that. I never needed it. It was something your friendship naturally adopted.

And like all other friendships, you two also knew how to shimmy your way out of a vulnerable moment like that, without making things weird.

Jake leans into you a bit, suppressing a cheeky grin. “It says Tuesday, today is a Saturday,” he whispers.

Shoving him back with one hand, you break out into a smile. “You read my underwear!”

“It read itself to me,” he finally grins, prompting you to smack your palm over his eyes in embarrassment.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” You chant between your laughter. “I’m never wearing these again.”

“No? Not even for me?” Jake starts to wrap his fingers around your wrist. It’s not too firm, but it’s enough to lower your hand from his eyes. Your laughter begins to die down at how gently he handles you.

Another silence settles in the bathroom again when he leisurely traces a path from your wrist up to your palm, entwining his fingers through yours. Then, he drops your connected hands between the small gap between you two.

But as quickly as he holds your hand, he lets go of it. And strangely, that tinge of your sixteen year old hurt sweeps through your heart when you lose that warmth against your palm.

Jake suddenly clears his throat. “I should uh, leave. You know, so you can shower.”

Pushing down the confusing swirl of emotion in your chest, you nod.

This time, Jake’s the one to walk out of the bathroom, leaving you alone with your best friend at the forefront of your mind.

note: im so sorry for taking forever to update! so please enjoy this accidentally long chapter as an apology! as always, reblogs & thoughts are greatly appreciated, thank you for reading! & gently ignore any spelling/grammar mistakes for now

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