“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!” + ness !!
Jess throws the door open to Nick’s room, even though she knows that she’s really supposed to knock, but apparently she didn’t learn from the whole him walking in on her naked thing. To her credit, the Shower Incident was just this morning and she hasn’t really had time to process it, okay?
Nick startles at the noise, almost jumping an inch up from where he’s sitting on his bed with his computer in his lap. He quickly tugs his headphones out of his ears as he lowers the lid of his laptop and turns his head to face her.
The door rattles when it hits the edge of his bookshelf, and Jess feels a complicated mess of anger and frustration and stupidity when she accusingly yells, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
He looks nervous, a hesitant attempt at a semi-smile that’s mostly him gnawing at his lower lip. “Tell you what?”
“You know,” she huffs, because what is she supposed to do? Just come out and say it? Besides, isn’t this supposed to be his job to tell her? That way she isn’t acting like a complete idiot around him, like some kind of clueless, helpless girl in a horror movie who’s the first one to die.
“But do you know?” he counters, sounding skeptical, as if it isn’t completely obvious to anyone who has half a brain. Which, to be fair, it kinda is.
Jess crosses her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes to stare at the ceiling. She can feel her face getting hot with embarrassment, but at least he can’t see her slowly turning redder than a tomato or her favorite sundress. “Don’t make me say it.”
Nick’s tone drops to something she’s never heard before, his jaw clenched like whenever one of the guys mentions Caroline. Or his dad. “What, is it impossible for you to even say?”
“No!” she cuts in quickly. That’s the opposite of how she wants him to feel. Especially now that they’re kinda sorta getting along. The last thing she wants is to accidentally make him shove her away because of one dumb oversight. “I just… I feel like an idiot for not noticing.”
“You’ve never met a blind guy before?”
“Ha!” she cries victoriously, raising her hand to point up to the ceiling in a mini-celebration of her success. “So you admit it!”
His brow furrows. “Is this funny or something?”
“No, that’s not what-” Jess quickly corrects, stumbling over her words. She drops her arm back down to hang awkwardly at her side, swinging back in forth through the air as she rocks back on her heels. “I just- just- let me have this win, okay? I feel bad enough already.”
“You don’t have to feel bad for me,” his voice is soft again, his features all twisted up like he ate a lemon and it makes Jess’ chest ache.
She takes a step towards his bed and thinks about sitting down on the edge of his mattress before she thinks better of it. Nick can get prickly about stuff like that. Best not to test her luck. “I don’t feel bad for you. I just feel terrible for not noticing sooner.”
The corner of his mouth quirks up and Jess’ heart slowly starts to rise up from the pit of her stomach. “I mean… it’s not exactly subtle,” he teases.
“Okay, so maybe I’m not the most observant person in the world,” she admits. She can’t help it. She believes in people. Even though it’s lead her astray more than a handful of times. But that doesn’t mean that everyone has bad intentions at heart. Most of the time.
“I use a phone with a keyboard.”
“It fits with your whole old man vibe.”
“Everything in the kitchen is labeled in braille.”
“I just thought Schmidt was weirdly particular with his label maker.”
“Winston is trying to train Ferguson into a ‘Seeing Eye Cat.’ Got him a little vest and everything.“
“That’s not the weirdest thing he’s done with that cat.”
Nick chuckles a little at her joke, and Jess takes it as an invitation to sit down beside him, still hovering mostly on the edge of the bed in case she’s gone too far. But he doesn’t say anything, just smiles at her, the curve of it slightly lopsided. It kicks up a flutter in her stomach and Jess tries to shove it away and not think about how Cece keeps pointedly asking about what she thinks of her lumberjack roommate.
(She thinks he’s kinda cute. You know. Objectively. And he smells like Old Spice but in a manly way and not at all like the boys at her school who seem to think it’s an equal replacement for a shower.)
((Not that she thinks of Nick showering. Definitely Not.))
(((Okay maybe once or twice. She blames Sleeping Jess, that twirly traitor.)))
“So you’re not mad?” she asks hesitantly, trying to gauge the look on his face and the unfocused gleam of his brown eyes. They’re nice eyes. They make her feel a little warm inside, like she just took a sip of hot chocolate after spending a long shift on outdoors duty on a chilly winter morning. Keep it together, Jessica Day.
“What?” he scoffs, like it never even occurred to him. “No way.”
“Okay, good.” Jess fiddles with his comforter, picking at a loose thread by the zipper. She’s pretty sure it’s just an old sleeping bag, but it seems to work for him. There’s a lot of things that Nick does that don’t quite make sense, but somehow kinda fit him perfectly. She likes it. It makes him unique, but not like he’s trying to be different, like Schmidt does. She likes him.
Not like likes him. That’s ridiculous.
A sudden realization hits her and Jess lets out an involuntary gasp. “Oh my god.”
Nick’s brow furrows again. “What?”
“I took you to a movie,” Jess says, completely distraught. How could she be so terrible to him? She rambled about the animated visuals of it for like an hour, and Nick just listened to her the whole time. And she didn’t even realize! “Oh my god, I’m the worst.”
Nick’s laugh rings off the walls of his room, real and genuine and it might be one of the nicest things she’s ever heard. But it would be a lot better if it wasn’t directed at her.
“Shut up,” she mutters, but it doesn’t stop the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“Hey, it’s better than treating me like I’m special,” he puts an extra emphasis on the word, something sarcastic that seems to be edged with a hint of actual hurt.
Her heart aches again, and she desperately wants to pry him open and yank all those sad feelings out of him, but she’s pretty sure Nick would rather give himself a root canal than talk about how he feels. Maybe she can convince him to let her give him a hug later. Or she could sneak up on him, catch him when he’s not looking.
Or not. Definitely not. That would actually be pretty terrible. The sneaking part, not the hug part. She’ll table that offer for a different time. Maybe when he’s drunk. That could work. Nick’s a lot friendlier to her when he’s a few beers deep.
“Well you’re still special, even if you’re not special special.” Jess reassures him as she rises back to her feet, but not before giving Nick a teasing shove to the shoulder. He plays along with it, swaying back a few inches with that stupid, heartwarming smile still plastered on his face.
Jess goes to leave the room, but she hesitates in the doorway before turning back to face him. She awkwardly crosses her arms over her chest and leans her weight against the wall, ignoring the way the light switch digs into her shoulder blade. “So you for sure didn’t see anything… earlier?”
Nick coughs a little to clear his throat, and now he’s the embarrassed one. “We don’t really have to talk about it, Jess. I mean…”
“No. Obviously not.” He waves his hand in front of his eyes like it’s proof.
“Not even my,” Jess fumbles for the correct word. She teaches sex ed to middle schoolers, for crying out loud. “Gumbo pot?”
“Get out!” he says, but it’s more of a joke than an actual command, all bark with no bite. Jess spins tight on her heel to leave him be, but not before catching a glimpse of the grin on his face and the way he shakes his head in amused disbelief.
Send me a prompt and a pairing for a mini-fic!
turnnoffyourmind
jbbartram-illu
baratheonpilled
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
snowghoul
kianamaiart
stormborns
dededos
