An Angel's Fix Pt. 04

He stopped in the middle of sprinkling his nut packet. "Oops...I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking."

She touched his hand. "I'm joking." Her hand lingered and he played with her fingers. It struck her that this was their first date alone together since before graduation, which reminded her of a curiosity she had. "How many times...hmm...how often have you and Jasmine slept together?"

Joe plunged his spoon into the cup and left it there while he slumped back against his seat. "Argh. Just had to kill a good thing, huh?"

"Well, you don't have to stop. Just curious, that's all. Not sure why you stopped with Kim..."

He pierced her eyes with his. "I'm starting to think you have all this built up in your head. I haven't slept with Jill since last fall. Aside from you pretty much making Kim sleep with me a couple of times while you watched and joined-in last winter, I hadn't slept with her since we broke up. As for Jasmine, well, you know both times I've been with her."

"But when you go on dates with her..."

He sighed. "Nothing more than what you've seen happens, even when you're not home until late."

"So, how would you describe your relationship with her?"

"Ashley..."

"What? We wanted to talk, so here we are talking."

He shook his head. "I guess you could say that Jazz is a girlfriend without full benefits. How would you describe your relationship with Kim?"

His turnaround of a personal question was par for the course. Since the first day Ashley set foot in his house, he would return a biting question with another. She let out a massive sigh. "I really don't know. It's starting to border on not even friendship. The most I hear from her are snide comments any more. I don't know how to fix it. She's even stopped sleeping with Jill and Jasmine."

Joe watched Ashley take a nibble of one of her pies. "You've heard girls in sitcoms talk about a 'phase' in college of being involved with other girls, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever considered that maybe for Kim, it really was just a phase?"

"Well, not until now that you've said it. I just want that friendship back, you know?"

Joe smiled at her, taking his first spoonful of the partially melted treat before him. "You will. Trust me."

* * *

Thank you for reading this necessary set-up chapter. If you enjoy the story line so far, please remember to tag the #5 star below.

Part 5 will not take as long to be posted, as it is already written. Just needs to be edited.