slowly over me // bresse
bridiecoughlan:
“You know me, I’m a nice girl.” She snorted. “Well, unless your wildest fantasies feature me flying through the air à la Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, I think I might surprise you. But fine, noted.” Bridie wasn’t dense: she knew the people here, even the ones she considered friends, didn’t want to hear about her relationship with Jesse. Sometimes Rachel asked how they were doing, just as a general kind of statement, so Bridie didn’t go into detail. But if she were to talk about him, they would be surprised to hear how extraordinarily considerate he was when it came to her and her feelings. It was obvious that he always wanted the best for her – she couldn’t even get annoyed by how hard she was pushing just to get him to dance, something he typically loved doing.
Bridie would and could defend Jesse to anyone if necessary, but she also recognized that she had never really met the Jesse who had managed to call an entire glee club his enemy. It was partly due to age, maturing, and even those who knew him in high school could admit that people changed. They themselves had changed, after all. It was also because she alone had the initials that belonged to him on her wrist and one of her very special privileges was that he often found her annoying quirks cute and the same was true in reverse. He would also never dare belittle her or make her think less of herself. If she was being honest, the way she was around him was probably unrecognizable to the people she had grown up with, too.
Although it was no surprise when he took her hand, Bridie couldn’t help but squeal and pull him down for a quick kiss before dragging him out to the dance floor. She turned her head to look at him when he spoke, then shot a look at the DJ booth. “Should I be offended?” As any high school boy who had been to a dance with a girl could vouch for, one of the perks of slow dancing was being able to hold your date close to you. But another perk was not needing to really dance but rather sway, which was the way she interpreted his remark. Probably he was smart to think this way, but she couldn’t conquer her fears with a slow dance. “I’m sure there’ll be one while we’re out here. Knowing Eve, I actually wouldn’t be surprised, but I think we may be out of luck.”
Once they procured a suitable spot, Bridie found herself feeling much shyer than she had just moments ago when she forced her boyfriend out onto the dance floor, but she tried not to show it. “If you dump me for showing you up on the dance floor, I hope we can still stay friends,” she joked before starting to dance to the up-tempo Top 40 song currently blaring from the speakers. Most of the movement was coming from her elbows, which made her look like she was doing an altered version of the chicken dance, but with alternating arms. Honestly, the worst thing about her dancing was the danger it presented to those nearest her.
You know me, I’m a nice girl.
He was more than aware of that fact, which was one of the primary reasons he didn’t completely (or at all) understand how it was that the two of them had ended up becoming soulmates; Bridie was definitely getting the short end of the stick between the two of them, it was ridiculous, all too obvious to everyone who knew that the two of them were together, and aware of the grouch that was Jesse St. James. At least she wasn’t getting dragged down by his notoriety, clearly her kindness was more than making up for his lack of. “Depends on how we’re categorizing ‘wildest fantasies’. Could be absolutely nuts wild or... sexual… wild…?” That felt weird to say, despite the fact that the two of the were together and he didn’t really make any attempts to hide that he was fairly…passionate… about her, but Jesse was joking, at least that was clear. “Spiderman can fit into both types if we really wanted it to.”
That seemed to change when Bridie kissed him on their way to the dancefloor though, a blush creeping across his cheeks as he reciprocated, however briefly. He loved her, he made no qualms of showing that, but what they had now was something so new, both in that it was still relatively recent and it was unlike any relationship he had ever had before (if what he had with Rachel and that girl from Carmel High could be considered relationships, something about him being an overly dramatic teen who got into a number of really weird... adventures muddying the waters), that public displays of affection felt… too cloy. Not that he didn’t like it... or that he didn’t want a repeat of it... or something much more than just a peck... a full on makeout session maybe?
“Offended? Hmm...no? But you’re about to be once you get a taste of my sweet, sweet dance moves. I hope you know what you got yourself into, Coughlan,” he meant for his words to come off as a joke, and indeed, they were, but some of the typical Jesse competitiveness still seeped in, imbuing him with this need to prove that his mouth wasn’t running checks that his body couldn’t cash… or his hips, in this case, as he proceeded to shake them in her direction.
To make up for it, he made a point to be a little too comical in his movements, to allow her to slowly ease into the dance, to remember that he was there with her, not as the Jesse that the glee clubs knew, the one who wanted to one up them on every stage, but as the Jesse that just wanted to have a good time with his girlfriend… even though she’d come too close once or twice in driving her elbow to his chest, but hey, as long as she was having fun. What made that clear was the way that he only had eyes for her, where before he would be tempted to look out to the crowd, to see if they were noticing him and how great he was. “Bridie, you have way more reasons to dump me than I do you… and your moves? Unbelievable, out of this world even. If you weren’t already my girlfriend, I’d ask you for your number right now.”
