In The Heights || Bade
Beck stood leaning against the hood of his car waiting for Jade, watching as the sea of students spilled out of the doors mere seconds after the bell sounded. His last class of the day had been history and for once the teacher had actually let them out early. It was only fair; the teacher had sprung a pop quiz on them at the beginning of the lesson, and he felt a little like the early finish was supposed to somehow make up for that. Nearly everyone else had sped out of the parking lot as fast as possible, but he was waiting. He had been trying to think for days about what he could possibly do try and make Jade feel a little more positive about going to her sessions with Lane and the night before, inspiration had finally struck. There was a really pretty spot up in the mountains that wasn’t too far a drive and he knew that the sight would be particularly breathtaking at this time of year. So he was planning to drive up there right after school so long as Jade agreed to it.
Jade had practically bolted from her dreaded English class the second the bell rang, not even stopping by her locker to switch out her books before heading out to the parking lot. Spotting Beck propped against his car, she smiled and made her way over to him. "Hey," she greeted, kissing him on the cheek, "so what's the plan?"
“Well, that depends. Are you up for an adventure?” He asked, slinging an arm around her waist and pulling her in close to him. Just because he had a plan didn’t mean that he was in such a hurry that he wasn’t going enjoy her company a little. As pathetic as it might sound, he kind of did miss her when he had to go through hours of a class he hated without her.
"I'm always up for an adventure," she replied. She had no way of knowing what kind of 'adventure' he could be talking about, but she knew she'd probably enjoy herself if she was with him. "Should we go?"
“That’s what I like to hear,” he replied, a little excitement seeping into his voice now. He nodded in response to her question; he wasn’t in a rush, but he still wanted to get back at a reasonable time tonight, and now that she had sort of agreed to go along with what he had planned, he really couldn’t wait to get going. “How was your day?” He asked as they waited in the buildup of traffic to get out of the parking lot.
Jade sighed. "It was okay, I guess. Like I said, I had another meeting with Lane, which sucked even more than it usually does, but other than that everything was fine. What about you?"
Beck hid a smile at her mention of Lane, glad to hear that she was sticking with it even if she hated it. “Okay, as well. My history teacher thought a pop quiz would be a fun way to liven up the afternoon, though. Can’t say that was much fun.”
"Ew, no. I hate pop quizzes. But hey, at least we've got our adventure to cheer us up, right? Are you really not telling me where we’re going?"
“That’s true. And no, I don’t think I will. Where’s the fun in that?”
"Fiiine. Can we at least turn some music on then? Driving in silence is weird."
“Yeah, I suppose I can allow that.” He hadn’t really noticed the silence until she had pointed it out, too busy trying to decide which way into the mountains would make it least obvious that that’s where he was planning on taking them.
Jade busied herself with finding a radio station playing something she didn't find objectionable, finally settling on one that was playing 'Thinking Out Loud' by Ed Sheeran. "Finally," she muttered, turning it up. She grabbed Beck's hand like she always did when he drove, settling back into her seat. "Something that doesn't suck."
“I like this one,” he agreed. They played it quite often but unlike most of the other songs they did that with, Beck didn’t seem to be able to get sick of this one. He was used to hearing this song play when he was driving on his own and so he nearly always sung along to it. This time proved no different, his mind focused on driving but the lines falling from his lips out of habit. “Well, me I fall in love with you every single day…”
Jade smiled to herself. Beck didn't often sing in public or anything like that, so the fact that he did so around her felt incredibly special. She squeezed his hand gently, joining in at the chorus and harmonizing with him: "Take me into your loving arms. Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars..."
He took his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at her. He had heard her sing plenty of times but he didn’t think that he had ever heard something so beautiful as her voice and it just about blew him away every time she sang. It wasn’t even just the fact that she could sing so amazingly either, it was that she just sounded so honestly like herself when she sang. He thought that if anyone spent long enough listening to her voice singing that they could probably fall in love with her. Even Beck, who was so hopelessly in love with her already, found himself falling for her infinitely harder as she sang along with him. When the song ended, he couldn’t help himself from raising their joined hands and brushing his lips against her hand - really the greatest show of affection he was capable of whilst he was driving. “God, I love you.”
Jade could feel herself blushing as he gently kissed her hand, not really sure where such a sweet gesture was coming from, but more than willing to accept it. "I love you too," she told him, rubbing her thumb across the back of his hand. "Wish you'd sing with me a little more, though. I like hearing your voice."
“I actually kind of like singing with you,” he admitted. Beck found it a lot easier to sing in front of her but he still didn’t really do it a lot. Not because he didn’t want to but simply because it was ingrained in him to just stay quiet and occasionally just because he wanted to simply sit back and listen to her angelic voice. If nothing else, their little improvised duet had certainly worked to distract Jade from paying much attention to their surroundings and it wasn’t long before Beck was turning onto the curving road that weaved right up to the spot that was their destination.
"I like it too." Jade didn't quite get the chance to say much more than that, distracted by Beck's sudden veer onto a different road she didn't even recognize. "Where are we?"
“Shh. Don’t ask questions, you’ll ruin the mystery.” Now that they were in amongst the trees, there weren’t really any noticeable landmarks and Beck felt pretty sure that she wasn’t going to guess where they were headed. If she even knew about this lookout at all. He himself had only been up there a handful of times but the memory of looking down over the valley was one that had stayed with him.
He parked the car in the small makeshift parking lot beside the lookout, glad that the place was hardly signposted at all. He climbed out of the car and quickly made his way over to Jade’s side, opening the door for her. “Okay. Close your eyes,” he requested and took her hand in his, wanting her to be taken with the view all at once and not catch glimpses as they walked out to it.
Though she hated surprises and was insatiably curious about just where they were, Jade obediently closed her eyes and let him lead her by the hand. "Can I open yet?"
Beck shuffled around, undecided about where the exact right spot was but he didn’t want to keep her waiting too long either. “Okay, open.” He told her, having drawn her quite close to the railing so that when she opened her eyes she would have a completely unobstructed view of the valley beneath them.
Jade opened her eyes and her heart immediately dropped. They were standing on the edge of a scenic overlook, facing out over the valley. To anyone else it might have been beautiful, but to Jade, it was terrifying. She'd long been deathly afraid of heights, and being perched up on an overlook built into the side of a mountain was definitely not an experience that she was enjoying. She reached a hand out to grip tightly onto the railing, trying to steady herself. She held up her other hand like she was shielding her face from the sun, covering her eyes so she didn't have to see. "Uh huh, it's pretty," she agreed. "Cool. You- you about ready to go?"
“I...you hardly even looked, babe.” He frowned, a little confused and disappointed by her reaction. “Just, I don’t know. It’s kind of beautiful and everything looks small from all the way up here. I love this view.” His words were a little on the defensive side but he had really been expecting her to be at least slightly more interested than she appeared to be right now.
"Yes, I did." Jade peeked through her fingers to glance at the valley again, but was hit by a wave of fear and unease and quickly closed her eyes again. "It- it's pretty," she repeated lamely. Her knees were getting a bit wobbly, so she tightened her grip on the railing. "But you know, you've seen one mountain, you've seen them all, am I right?" She forced a laugh. "So, yeah, you about ready to go?"
Beck stepped closer to her, as though that would somehow help him figure out why she was acting so weird. He placed his hand over hers on the railing, noticing the tension in her hand. She was clearly on edge about something, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what had possibly changed since they were in the car a few moments ago and she had seemed completely fine. “Is everything okay?”
"Yeah, I'm fine," Jade lied. She knew he had to have put a lot of thought into taking her here, and he had no way of knowing that she wouldn't enjoy it. She dropped her other hand to the railing, hoping it would make her feel more steady. She was squeezing her eyes shut as tightly as she could so she wouldn't have to see the view that was scaring her so much, praying Beck would just drop it and take her home.
He watched curiously as she dropped her other hand to the railing. Her eyes were shut and the expression on her face was almost a grimace so clearly her assurance that she was fine wasn’t even remotely true. He didn’t understand the change in her demeanor at all, she clearly wanted to leave right away even though she seemed perfectly happy just before. “Fine,” he said, glancing down at her hands on the railing and seeing that her knuckles were turning white from how tightly she was holding on. “We can go if that’s what you want,” he tried to keep the hurt out of his voice and was about to ask if there was something else that she wanted to do when the pieces finally clicked together in his head. “Wait, Jade. Are you- are you scared of heights or something?” In anyone else it might have been obvious but in all the time he had known her, only a few rare things had ever seemed to scare her and heights certainly wasn’t one of those he had come across. It was such a normal thing to be scared of that it surprised him.
"Yup," Jade nodded vigorously, both a little embarrassed and relieved that he'd finally figured it out. "Deathly afraid of heights. Always have been. Not a fan. But you were so excited to take me here. I didn't want to tell you and ruin our trip."
“The trip was to come out here and spend time with you, I couldn’t care less about the view.” That wasn’t exactly true but he was just so relieved that it was something so simple bothering her that he meant it anyway. Sure, he loved this view and had wanted to share it with her but he couldn’t be upset that she was afraid of heights - especially not when her reaction was so adorable. “Can I make it up to you? Maybe take your mind off it?”
"I mean, it really is pretty," she admitted, "I just think I'd rather have seen it in like a picture or something." At his question, she nodded again. "Take my mind off of it. Do whatever you want, I'm down."
He stepped in close to her so that even if she did open her eyes, he would be blocking most of her view. He tangled a hand in her hair and leaned down to press his lips to hers in gentle, drawn out kiss.
Jade was taken aback at first, but gave into it, leaning in close and deepening the kiss. When they pulled apart, she finally opened her eyes, winding her arms around his waist and looking up at him with a smile. "A+ distraction, babe."
“I’m glad I could be of some assistance,” he joked, returning her smile and pleased that she had finally opened her eyes. “Now, do you want to just get out of here and pretend that my attempt to be romantic didn’t terrify you?”
"Yeah, sounds good to me," Jade laughed. "But hey, it's the thought that counts, okay? I know you were trying to do something nice. So thank you."
“Okay, come on then.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her back in the direction of the car. That definitely hadn’t gone as planned but he wasn’t really too bothered, already trying to think of somewhere better to take her next time - somewhere that had nothing to do with heights. “Do you have to be home anytime soon? We could head back to the RV and watch a movie or something.”
"No, I don't have to be home anytime soon," Jade replied. She leaned further into his side as they walked, enjoying how it felt to be so close to him. "A movie sounds perfect."
They managed to hit rush hour right as they got back to the main roads so the drive back to Beck's was a bit longer than it usually would have been. The sun hadn't set yet but the sky was starting to change color in anticipation of it as he pulled into the driveway and parked in his usual spot in front of the RV. "Any movie preference?" He asked, still feeling slightly bad that she'd only been scared by the view and so offering for her to pick what they watched.
"I don't know. Not really in the mood for anything scary. Maybe something on the lighter side. I might even be persuaded to watch a rom-com."
”A rom-com? Babe, are you sure you're feeling alright?" He jokingly brought a hand up to feel her forehead as though checking for a high temperature.
"Hey!" Jade blushed and swatted his hand away. "Don't be mean."
"I'm kidding. Um, maybe 10 Things I Hate About You?"
"Yeah, I really like that one."
Beck nodded, he'd seen it a bunch of times and it was one of his favorites. He moved over to retrieve his laptop so they could watch it online, suspecting that the DVD was in the main house somewhere and not feeling up to go out and search for it. "Couch or bed?"
Jade scoffed. "Are you serious? Bed."
He shot her a grin, glad that they seemed to be in agreement on that. Placing the laptop on the bed, he pushed the pillows back against the wall so that it would be easier to half sit up as they watched and then settled back against them. It was still quite warm but he pulled a blanket up anyway, thinking that there was something comforting about being under a blanket regardless of whether it was actually cold.
Jade settled in beside him, tugging his arm around her so she could lean against him while reaching up to hold his hand. She sighed contentedly. Even with its moderately terrifying segway, the time she'd spent with Beck today had been more than enjoyable.
Beck smiled as Jade drew his arm around herself and grabbed his hand. Though he had never voiced such an opinion, he kind of adored when she did that and he pulled her in a little closer to him as the opening scene of the film played out on the screen. “I know that this whole afternoon didn’t exactly turn out perfect but I really am proud of you for sticking with your sessions with Lane, even though they suck.”
"I don't know, we're curled up watching a movie, that seems pretty damn perfect to me," Jade replied. But then Beck continued, and she could feel herself blushing slightly; it was a bit of a rarity to be told that someone was proud of her. "They do suck. He makes me talk about things that I don't want to talk about, and usually I can suck it up, but today I just totally lost it it. I hate it a lot, but I am trying, and it means a lot to me that you pick up on that. So thank you."
“I’m sure they do,” he conceded, he knew that he himself would really struggle to open up and actually talk about anything to anyone. “But I know you’re trying and that’s all that anyone could possibly ask of you.” Beck pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, feeling the need to emphasise his words with the simple gesture.
Jade smiled when she felt his lips graze her forehead. She lay her head on his shoulder and cuddled in closer, curling into his side. "I love you."
“I love you too, baby. More than anything.” He dropped his head to rest atop hers, revelling in the comforting feeling of having her curled up close next to him. The movie was only half finished when his eyes started to grow heavy and he found himself falling asleep not long after. He had been sleeping a lot lately, a side effect of his recent head injury and the medication they had him on. Even though it was early, being snuggled up in bed and having the warm presence of his beautiful girlfriend next to him was evidently enough to have him drifting off in hardly any time at all.