Chapter 12

Would it be cliché of me to say I felt fireworks? Sparks? Probably but there’s no other way I could think to describe what it felt like when my lips collided with Jess’s for the first time. I’m not sure if I could think at all really. All of my senses were being taken over by Jess as her lips glided over mine. I was gripping Jess’s waist with one hand while hers rested lightly on the side of my face. I could feel her fingers stroking softly as our lips moved in sync with one another.  I’m not sure how long we stayed like that. It could have been an eternity or it could have been just a few minutes but I didn’t care. It felt like heaven.

Eventually we did break away from one another reluctantly. I rested my forehead against hers, not bothering to open my eyes quiet yet. I was still in awe at what just happened and all I wanted to focus on was the feeling of Jess still caressing my face gently.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” she whispered.

I finally opened my eyes to see Jess staring directly back into mine and I swear it felt like my heart was going to soar right out of my chest. I chose not to say anything and instead kissed her again, but only briefly this time seeing as Jess couldn’t stop smiling and after a second, neither could I.

“Well, I’m glad we did,” I finally said.

“Yeah? See, this girl told me I should go for it but I thought she was crazy,” she said playfully.

“Well, that girls sounds like a genius. She’s probably really pretty too,” I said, smirking.

“Hmm I wouldn’t say genius but she might be a little hot,” she teased.

“A little?” I frowned. I moved so that I could try to move myself over top of Jess in order to gain some leverage in this ‘argument’ but I somehow forgot that we were still under a tree. As soon as I lifted myself up the tree completely toppled over right in the middle of Jess’s living room. I sat up quickly and stared in disbelief at what I just did. I probably broke a shit load of ornaments in the process.

“Shit, Jess I’m so sorry,” I started, but when I looked back over at her I saw her practically dying of laughter. She had both her hands covering her face while she was quite literally almost crying laughing.

“C’mon it’s not that funny,” I whined.

“Yes it is!” she said after finally catching her breath.

I stood up then and grabbed Jess, picking her up from the ground and standing her up. She was still laughing and I couldn’t understand if it was really that funny or if she’s just lost her mind.

“Come on. Help me fix it,” I laughed as she fell limp against me in an attempt to push me off balance so we would undoubtedly end up in the floor again.

“Okay, okay,” she said as she soon realized I could easily hold her up.

We hoisted the tree up together and got it situated back in its place. Luckily, I had only managed to break one ornament out of the dozen or so that had fallen off. Jess was somehow still laughing even after we had everything fixed and I was just fully convinced that she’d gone insane.

“I’m never going to hear the end of this am I?”

“I’m sorry, babe,” she said as she wrapped on arm around my waist and rested her face against my neck. “I think I’m over tired. I’ve been awake for a really long time and everything is just funny to me now.”

“You’re insane,” I said as I planted a kiss on top of her head. It seemed like such a natural thing already, kissing her.

“Okay, well now that you’ve destroyed my tree let’s go sleep,” she said, the exhaustion now evident in her voice since she’s calmed down.

She moved her arm from around my waist which disappointed me a bit but she then linked our hands together and, as usual, pulled me up the stairs. She pulled me into her room and it wasn’t until now that I realized I’d never been in Jess’s room before. When she snapped on the light the first thing I noticed, and expected, was the organization. I know the girl has some serious OCD but dang.

There were several photos around the room and they were perfectly straight, hanging in what was probably perfectly designated places. When Jess opened her closet I saw her millions of pairs of shoes lined up perfectly and coordinated. Her clothes as well were hung up and organized based on formal, casual, and everything in between. I shook my head and started rummaging through my bag which Jess carried up here earlier.

I found the pair of short shorts and t-shirt I packed for sleeping and quickly slipped them on, fully aware of Jess’s eyes on me. I was too tired to make any kind of snarky comment or to mess with like I normally would so I just slipped under the covers and waited for her to finish with whatever she was doing.

It wasn’t long before I felt cold air hit me from the blankets being lifted and I opened my eyes to see Jess slipping underneath them. I immediately moved myself over to cuddle into her and before I could even register what was happening I felt her lips connect with mine once again but for not as long as I would have liked. She pressed her face into the crook of my neck and sighed out in content.

“Elena?” I heard her say sleepily.

“Yes?”

“Do you know you have beautiful eyes,” I heard her say. I couldn’t help but laugh slightly at the statement simply because I knew she was only talking to keep herself awake longer.

“Well, thank you but I think I like yours better.”

She didn’t say anything after that and after waiting several minutes I thought it was safe to assume she had fallen asleep. I closed my eyes and held her closer to me as I tried to drift off. I felt Jess’s fingers move under my shirt slightly and she rested her hand on my bare stomach.

“Can I ask you something?” She said, the sudden sound of her voice making me jump slightly.

“I thought you were asleep,” I chuckled. “What is it?”

“What are we?” she asked timidly.

“Humans, Jess.”

“You know what I meant,” she said, smacking my stomach playfully.

“I don’t know. What do you want to be?” I asked her.

I heard her sigh out and it was silent for a few minutes. I think I knew what Jess wanted to say but she felt tense. I couldn’t understand why she would be so nervous. Wasn’t I supposed to be the nervous one? Or at least equally so?

“I’m scared you won’t want the same thing I do,” she confessed.

“You never know until you try,” I said, repeating my words from last night.

I felt her smile against my chest as I said this and I patiently waited for her to speak again. She moved so that she was hovering over me slightly and I could just barely make out her face in the dark. Her face was so close to mine I could feel her breath against my face.

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

She bit her lip nervously as she awaited my answer. I didn’t keep her waiting long as I moved up to catch her lips in mine.

“I would love to,” I mumbled against her lips.

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I woke up the next morning to the sound of Jess singing quite loudly. I say quite loudly because I could tell she was downstairs in the kitchen and yet she still sounded like she was in the same room as me. I laid there for a minute, remembering everything that happened last night. Not only had I finally kissed Jess, several times I might add, but she was my girlfriend. How did I ever get so lucky as to find her? When I left home I could have ended up anywhere in the world. I didn’t care if it was the next state over or the other side of the world. But I ended up here and I found the most perfect woman in the world.

I sat up and stretched slightly before making my way down the stairs to see what Jess was doing. Her voice was still ringing loud and clear all through the house. When I finally reached the kitchen I stood in the doorway just out of sight to see Jess dancing around in front of the stove. She was singing ‘Love On Top’ by Beyoncé loudly while she plated a ton of pancakes. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched her. She’d never done any type of singing or anything like that in front of me, well knowingly.

When the song ended Jess reached over and turned off the radio, turning around then to see me standing there wearing a smirk.

“All right,” she sighed. “How much of that did you see?”

“Oh, I saw enough,” I said as I made my way over to her.

She pouted at me as I wrapped my arms around her waist and pecked her on the lips. I could already tell I was never going to get tired of this.

“How long have you been awake? I wanted to bring you breakfast in bed,” she frowned.

“A little while. Someone woke me up with her singing,” I said playfully.

“Shit. Was I that loud?”

“A bit but I loved it,” I said as I sat down at the island. She sat across from me, handing me a plate full of pancakes and we made small talk as we ate.

“So what do you want to do today?” Jess asked.

“Whatever you want to do is fine. I have to go back to work tomorrow,” I said sadly. Normally I would be happy to go back to work but more than anything I just wanted to spend all my time with Jess.

“Okay, well why don’t we go get your phone fixed and then we can just come back here and do whatever. I’m still feeling a bit jetlagged,” she said frowning.

“Yeah, all right. So what did you do in New York?” I asked. I wanted Jess to feel more comfortable about talking to me about her job without worrying about me seeing her any differently.

“I recorded a few more songs for my next album and had a few meetings,” she said. “Nothing too big yet.”

“Are you almost finished with it or is it still going to take a while?”

“We thought it would be done in the next couple months but I think it might be summer before we release anything. I have shows and things to do in between but I’ve got time off until after New Year’s now.”

“Have you been terribly busy this year?”

“Not as much as I usually am. Next year is going to be crazy though. I’ll have the album release and tour and everything…” I noticed Jess’s face drop at the mention of it all.

“What’s wrong? I would have thought you’d be excited about all that.”

Jess sighed heavily and gathered our plates to wash without saying anything else on the subject. I was so confused. I thought she loved her job. She had her back turned to me so I stood up and walked over to her, wrapping my arms around her waist from behind. I leaned my head on the back of her shoulder and just stood there like that, waiting patiently for her to finish.

“You know you can talk to me about anything right?” I said once she started drying her hands.

She turned around so that she was facing me and wrapped her arms tightly around me so that we were stood in the middle of her kitchen simply holding onto each other.

“I know. It’s just stupid,” she said as she buried her face into my shoulder.

“It’s not stupid if it has you feeling upset, Jess.”

I tucked her hair behind one ear and planted a kiss right behind it in hopes that I could comfort her enough to just talk to me. I didn’t want her to keep things like this bottled up.

“It’s just, I won’t be able to see you as much when things start getting hectic.”

“Is that all you’re worried about? Jess, we’ll be fine. We don’t need to see each other every moment of the day for this to work. You have nothing to worry about,” I stated as I continued stroking her hair comfortingly. “Plus we have all this month, right?”

“Yeah,” she said after a moment. “It’s not just that though. The distance will put enough strain on us but then there’s the paparazzi and the bullshit articles. You wouldn’t even know what to believe and I wouldn’t blame you.”

I could feel a few tears starting to soak through my shirt and I knew then that Jess was truly bothered over this. I could understand her concern, of course. I had seen the articles online and a lot of them were accusatory and just plain mean.

“I understand what you’re saying Jess, I really do. But I think we just need to focus on the present. I care about you, a lot. More than what I’ve ever cared about anyone and I would never let you go that easily,” I said defiantly.

“I just don’t want to lose you,” she said, finally looking me in the eye. “I’ve lost so many people close to me because of all this.”

It suddenly occurred to me what Jess meant by all this. She’s talked about a few past relationships before and almost all of them ended because of the strain of her career. She just wanted someone to love and I knew that. She’s told me that a few times. And I knew more than anything she just wanted someone to show unbiased love toward her. She’s afraid of having her heart broken again.

“I already promised you I wasn’t going to leave you because of this and I couldn’t imagine ever leaving you. You make me too happy,” I confessed as I dried the few tears that had fallen down her face. “Look, let’s just go and take care of this phone. Just forget all about that for right now, okay?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry,” she said as she composed herself. “Let’s go get ready.”

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Nothing else was said on the subject after that. Jess’s mood seemed to make a complete turnaround by the time we were ready to go. Jess gave me the “no PDA” talk in the car which I didn’t like but I understood. I would have forgotten that I’m not just dating Jessica. I’m also dating Jessie J and so I knew we needed to be careful. We’ve been together for less than a day and the last thing that needed to happen was the whole world knowing about it.

We were at the store in no time considering Jess lives so close to everything and there’s wasn’t hardly any traffic this time of day. We walked in, keeping our distance from each other, and I could already notice the stares in Jess’s directions. Did no one have any shame?

Jess insisted that she talk to the person at the counter so in order to avoid an argument I just handed her my phone and let her have at it, reminding her to keep in mind I only brought enough cash to fix the screen. Jess ignored the stern look I gave her and left me to sit in one of the chairs away from the counter.

As time went on, I began to notice the increasing amount of people ogling Jess. It made me feel incredibly uncomfortable and I couldn’t imagine how she didn’t feel the same. But much to my surprise, Jess didn’t even seem fazed by the unwanted attention. She just continued talking with the man at the counter like no one else was even there.

I decided to simply stare out the window to try to distract myself a bit. I pulled at my sleeves nervously as I noticed a handful of men outside the store taking photos through the window. What the actual fuck?

I jumped as I felt someone tap me on the shoulder and looked up to see Jess standing over me, smiling like there was nothing wrong. Well, if she thought everything was fine I might as well act like it as well.

“Go ahead of me to the car, okay? I’ll be right behind you. I don’t want you to get caught in the crowd,” she said as she handed me her keys.

“What about you? Will you be okay?” I asked, concern evident through my tone.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve been through way worse. There are only a few paps outside,” she said, sounding sure of herself.

“All right…”

I got up and headed straight out to Jess’s car which was parked a bit of a ways down the street. When I was about halfway there I glanced back to see those men crowding around her with their cameras flashing. I could hear them yelling questions from here but couldn’t quite make out what they said. It took everything in me not to turn right back around and help Jess through that crowd but I forced myself to turn around and get straight into the car.

I understood now why Jess kept this part of her life a secret from me for so long. Had something like this happened when we first met, I probably would have run far away and not looked back. But well, I was just in way too deep to think about doing something like that now. I felt like I had Jess’s heart in my hands now.

Just one wrong move and I could crush her.

A/N  It gets better soon. I promise.

Thank you guys so much for voting and commenting on chapter 11. I actually can't believe the response it got. You guys are great :D I wouldn't continue this if I didn't have all this support. Keep it up and I'll make sure I keep writing and posting :)

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