#dk x jemma

[itisaterriblelove]

Sometimes it felt like his entire existence was built up on a foundation of regrets and vodka.

This was one of those times.

DK’s head was pounding to the rhythm of Jemma’s spoon as she tapped it against the side of her frozen yogurt cup. She was bouncing in the booth, which was normal for her, rocking her body from side to side. Her brown eyes wide and alight with pleasure as she dipped into the gummy-worm and cookie-crumble concoction that had made his stomach twist on sight. She used the forefinger of her free hand to scoop up a bit of the dessert, maintaining her beat with the spoon in her other hand.

“You can have some of mine,” she encouraged, licking the contents off of her finger without even the slightest understanding that her method was both childish and ridiculously sexy. She was like that: totally and completely oblivious. On another day DK might have appreciated the cuteness and tried not to notice the temptation. But today his head was ten thousand tons of concrete.

“No thanks, baby girl.” He rejected, trying not to cringe. Beneath the mountain of gummy worms and cookie crumbles was a layer of caramel, and somewhere underneath all of that he thought there might be some vanilla yogurt. But for all he knew it could just be a cup of toppings. He wouldn’t be surprised.

Loading Jemma up with this much sugar when he was seven different kinds of hungover was stupid and DK knew it. But he hadn’t had the strength to fight off her pouting eyes and exaggerated ‘please’ this morning.

Well, okay, maybe ‘morning’ was a bit of a stretch.

She’d shown up in his apartment right after noon and bounced him out of bed. It would have been a rude awakening except that it was Jemma.

Jemma Moss was the picture of innocence: long blonde hair, sweet brown eyes, and the smile of an angel. She could always cheer DK up when he was feeling down, she knew every right thing to say to take his mind off of his own problems, and she dolled out affection like he deserved it. Even though he didn’t. She saw the world through rose-tented glasses, always putting a positive spin on things. And he had never, ever seen her be mean to a single person since he’d known her.

But that had only been six months; somehow it felt like it wasn’t long enough and like it was forever, all at once. In the best way. He’d already tried to fall in love with her — twice — because it seemed the smart thing to do. But he simply couldn’t make his heart work on command like that.

Instead it was a renegade, always picking the wrong girl, the one destined to pluck it out. And that was why he’d given up on love a long time ago. Around four years ago, actually, when a girl named Tiffany Jones ripped him open and spit inside his broken pieces. Like the bitch that she’d turned into.

Maybe he should have seen it coming.

He had believed in it all, once. High school sweethearts and happily ever after. Best friends who never let you down and love that never ended. All that junk. He’d braided a cloth ring around a girl’s finger and promised that his heart was hers forever. But forever turned out to be just long enough for her to fuck the quarterback of the football team in the bathroom at a party.

Then everything turned to shit.

So no, he didn’t believe in true love anymore. And try as he might, he couldn’t trick his heart into believing that Jemma’s sweetness would somehow make it all better. Would turn his luck around. Maybe he’d been burned one too many times for that. But as far as things went, love was not in the cards for him and Jemma Moss.

Even so, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling at her when he glanced up to see her face. She was frowning at the empty spot on the table in front of him, as if dubious about anyone’s refusal to share her sugar coma.

“But if you have a gummy worm you won’t feel so sad,” she insisted with a soft sincerity that melted DK’s heart a little bit. He was surprised that she’d picked up on his mood, and endeared that she genuinely believed a little candy could fix it.

She could be unexpectedly perceptive at times. DK had found that out for himself on more than one occasion. He hadn’t told Jemma that he was feeling any particular way, and he was positive that if he looked anything then it wasn’t sad. Tired, definitely. A hot mess, probably. A little scruffy and a lot hungover, red eyes and a headache to be sure. But sad?

He’d been laughing with her and joking for maybe an hour. And still, somehow, she knew.

“Then my stomach would feel sad.” He told her, the smile lingering against the corners of his lips. And when she continued to look skeptical, he added, “Trust me.”

“Oh well.” She shrugged, never one to press a point, and scooped more yogurt. She used her spoon this time, but the way she licked the back clean was borderline sinful. DK laughed softly to himself.

He knew what it meant for Jemma to offer him some of her dessert; it was no small feat. She definitely didn’t share sugar with just anyone so he appreciated the gesture, but he just couldn’t get his mind to focus at the moment. It was in a hundred places, sifting through a hundred moments, and he couldn’t slow it down. He couldn’t turn it off.

He wanted to be somewhere else, or maybe some one else. To slip off his skin and begin fresh. With no exes and no disappointments and no friends who could abandon you at the drop of a dime. With a new past and a different future. He didn’t want to be the guy who nursed his problems with a bottle of hard liquor at the slightest provocation. Who showed up at the doorstep of someone that he used to know, a veritable fireworks display of feelings.

But he was that guy, as the last week proved all too well.

When he’d heard that Samantha Powell was back in town — through the grapevine, of all insulting possibilities — DK hadn’t wanted to believe it. And then, to add insult to injury, he’d learned that she’d moved into his apartment building. One floor above him. The girl was literally walking on his ceiling. Without a word, without a wave. Not even a nod in his direction.

It seemed a little unreal to him because after all this time he still hadn’t figured out what happened between them. One day they were best friends and the next they were strangers. He could remember the day that they’d spit into their palms and shook on their friendship. They had always been there for each other, he had told Sam all of his secrets. All of his truths and hopes and dreams.

And then, one day, he’d woken up and she was just gone. Now suddenly she was back and acting like nothing had ever happened?

So yeah, DK could get drunk and complain to Gavin about how much it pissed him off. And he could show up at her place throwing anger and accusations, and go on a week long bender just to prove he didn’t give a fuck about anything. But the truth was that it hurt. Jemma hit the nail right on the head: he was sad.

Samantha Powell had disappeared from Pleasant Valley like she was performing a magic trick. That was the part that DK couldn’t get out of his mind: how he had seen her only the night before. How he had danced with her at the stupid Senior Prom, had kissed her cheek. How that night he’d told her — stupid him — told her that he couldn’t imagine his life without her. His best friend. And less than twenty-four hours later she was gone.

No warning, no notice, no goodbye. Even a post-script would have been nice, but he hadn’t gotten so much as a return phone call for months afterwards. And he’d felt blind-sighted. Left behind.

He’d needed Sam to help him deal with the fallout once Tiffany Jones showed her true colors. His lying, cheating ex-girlfriend had ripped his world in two; and Sam — the one person he thought that he could always count on — had been nowhere to be found when it happened. It was like she had written him off.

DK had retraced the night before Sam left a million times in his mind, going over and over the details, trying to figure out what happened. What he’d done. Because it must have been him and it must have been big. At first DK had blamed Lennon Shephard, who had been Sam’s boyfriend at the time. But a fist-fight and a few weeks later helped DK to realize that it was only his calls that Sam wasn’t returning, not Lenny’s.

So there was just no other way to explain the dissolution of years of friendship — of trust and dependability and loyalty — without acknowledging to himself that he had to have been the catalyst.

But years of rinse and repeat cycling through that night — of examination with a fine toothed comb — hadn’t given DK any answers. What he knew was this: one night Sam was there (in his arms, dancing like nothing else in the world mattered) and the next morning she was gone, all traces of their friendship right along with her.

And right after, DK had felt his world come crashing down in unexpected ways.

So was he still mad that she’d abandoned him? Hell yeah. But mad or not, the fact that she was back again affected him. It nettled, like pricking at a scab. And no matter how much he told himself to let it go, to just forget it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

About her.

And that wasn’t doing his hangover any favors.

DK ran a hand through his black waves and forced a smile at Jemma’s inquiring stare. He breathed a quiet sigh, checking his watch for the time. He had to get Jem back home soon. DK had promised Carter — his older brother — that he would do something. Which meant that DK had somewhere to be, and it sure as shit was not going to keep his mind off of Samantha Powell.

But there was nothing he could do about that.