Jackie and Tommy

"I got it. I'll see you at school then."

He nods, returning to staring back out the window. I slip out of the car and start doing advanced trigonometry in my head.

He has a crush and wants to get over it. Or is just having misdirected, nonromantic feelings towards me. What would happen if I told him how I feel? Would it mean we could try to work something out?

I guess he doesn't want to ruin our dynamic. We're unspoken best friends, and I guess this is something a lot of best friends go through at some point or the other.

But how far gone is he that he needs to not see me? What exactly does he feel towards me? Maybe he just needs to get some ass, maybe he wants to get married. I won't know until I ask him. I turn around at the front door and he's still waiting there, gazing out into the darkness, but when I tell my feet to move, they don't go. His head turns toward me and I just wave, turning my key in the front door. I slip inside, he pulls away.

...

I try to act as normal as possible towards Thomas. We don't eat lunch together during break or sit braindead in front of my TV anymore in the evening, but we do normal stuff, like hanging out at his mom's when I visit her.

We're just never alone together, which I think is a reasonable ask from him. One of the pros is that he's not on my back about how I recover as much. I stretch and flex to my heart's content until my scars don't pull as much. It strikes me after a few weeks that I may always have the slight sensation of the skin across my back, arms and shoulders being connected with thin pulling lines. Or at least until my skin starts giving as I get older. The thought sobers me up a bit. Cool scars and the scar tissue to go with it.

I relish the time to myself, without Thomas grumping around and dragging his opinion along behind him. But I miss him. I fill my time with extra archery lessons and a few books, but it's not the same as hopping into Tommy's car and just riding along to whatever supply store he's making a trip to on the weekend.

One drizzly day I dismiss class about fifteen minutes earlier than usual, suspecting that it's gonna start pouring in a bit. They cheer anyway, and as everyone files out I settle down to grade papers and wait out the storm.

It does come, loud and in abundance, and when I finish grading there's no sign of it stopping.

"It's-"

"YEAH!" I shout nonsensically, jumping in my seat. Thomas is at the open door, as overcast as the sky.

"Sorry."

"No, you're good, I just," I let out a giggling breath. "'Didn't know you were still here."

"It's not stopping until tomorrow morning. Come on."

"Oh, I got an umbrella in here. Just hate using it, but thanks."

He stands there looking at me.

"I live five minutes away, Thomas."

"I'm not going to jump you."

"I don't- Whatever, sure. Let's go."

He drives the thirty seconds by road to the house and I say my thanks, making to get out.

"Jackie, hold on."

I turn back with a fresh face, unwilling to start any mess. "What's up?"

"My mom says come by this weekend, she's doing sourdough and butternut soup, and she said she'll finally give you some of her starter."

"She'll give me some of Rocky II?!" Rocky II is 32 years old; Rocky I got contaminated at the ten year mark.

He chuckles. "Yeah. And uh, the new stupid DC movie tomorrow?"

"What about it?"

"Wanna order pizza and make fun of it?"

I sit back. "I thought we weren't hanging out for a minute. What, you found a hookup in town?"

"Wh- a hookup?"

"Nothing, never mind. But if you're sure, yeah, come on over."

He stops me again. "No, no, Jack. A hookup? What did you think was going on?"

"What do you mean what do I think- was I not borderline spread-eagled across the kitchen counter a few weeks ago?"

His eyebrows scrunch together and he looks more than a little angry. "Jackie, don't say it like that."

"Okay. But I figured you went out and fixed what caused it, so that's why we're good. I'm logical. But okay, if you don't wanna talk about it."

I start to break out into a grin, but he just looks at me, and I fall back into a straight face. "But I'll see you tomo-"

"For fuck's sake, Jackie you thought I was just, what, overcome with horniness and needed to fuck the nearest person as soon as possible?"

"Thomas I don't know what goes through your mind, and you don't tell me. Then what was it? Because for you to be back so soon and so sure, it damn sure wasn't anything deeper than that."

"I don't- I didn't just want to fuck you, Jackie," Thomas presses, his hands sitting aggressively in his lap.

"Well... well okay, then this is probably something we should talk about, right?"

"Go ahead on in, I'll see you later."

"Thomas I'm fucking sick of- you know what? I'll see you this weekend. Until we talk about whatever the fuck is happening, I'm keeping my distance, because if it is what you're implying, then no fucking way you're over it. And we need to-"

"Jackie you don't know-"

"YES, I do!" I burst, slapping the dashboard with the palm of my hand. It stings deeply right after, but the silence from him is worth it. "Thomas, you fucking idiot, just..."

"Who was it?"

I step out into pounding rain and dash to my door, officially sick of his shit.

...

I hate this trope in romance. It's just miscommunication, right? I need to talk to him and clear things up but every time I try he just makes me so, so mad. How could I feel the way I do about him and want to strangle him at the same time?

But in the same manner in which I fought Jessie's ex - well, became an obstacle in between him and who he was after, because to be honest he was a giant - of course I blindly toss my cards into the wind and just come out with it at once, just before school break.

Thomas is in his classroom, getting ready for the day, and I walk up so that he can hear me coming.

"Hey."

He doesn't look up. "Hey."

I take a breath. "I've been really into you, on and off since I've known you and your mom, and I kind of beat it back every time it comes back up because I value you as a friend."

He's looking up now. Over the next few silent moments, his face becomes increasingly redder.

"So you..." He crosses his arms, decides against the move and puts his balled fists into his pockets. Oh, how I love him. "What do you mean by really into me, like what does that...?"

I rush in at his uncertain pause. "I'm assuming you only recently came to have feelings for me, or else you've been really good at hiding it over the years, but if we feel the same way, I'm down, you know. And if it doesn't work out, so what? We were friends, and that will always be special and a beautiful part of my life, even if stuff falls apart after. But I'll see you later."

He starts walking across the room to me, but I turn around and walk into a stream of arriving students, greeting them as the day officially begins. I think I timed that perfectly.

I hear "You alright, Mr. T?" as I reach my classroom, and I start the last class of the month.

...

I also try to leave with the students at the end of the day, but I'm yanked back into the building by a strong arm. I yelp, and although some of them look back, they keep going, and my stomach begins to wind and flutter.

I finally turn to Thomas, and he's not red-faced and befuddled like this morning, or all the other times. He's very calm.

"Let's go."

I get into the car without a word, and he drives the twenty minutes to his house in silence. I'm silently drifting in and out of existence in the passenger seat, my stomach knotting and my head full of trouble.

I follow him up the steps, walk into the house after him, watch him hang his bag on the back of a chair at the table and turn on the kettle for tea.

"Come sit down, Jackie."

He's still very calm. He combed and slicked his hair back today, instead of leaving it in its usual wiry poof, and it's distracting. I sit across from him, and at this point the adrenaline is pumping so hard I feel uncomfortable sitting still. I fidget in place and he moves around the kitchen, placing honeyed black tea in front of me in my favorite mug. We don't often hang out at his place just because mine is so conveniently close, but when we do, I get the mug with cartoon frogs all over it.

I lean over it and let the steam play over my face in an attempt to feel something other than condemned.

"Why right before school started?" He sits down across from me as he asks, his own cup with Momma Ain't Raise No Fool plastered on the side in his hand.

"If we were anywhere else you would've come after me and started a fight."

"We teach less than a hundred feet away from each other."

"And you stayed in that classroom." He nods, and I sigh. "If I made a mistake and you're not on the same vein, I'm alright, you know. We can go back to distancing, or acting, or whatever."

"Jack, you're so impulsive it's amazing you don't have more full-body scars."

"These aren't full body scars, they're only- whatever. Go ahead."

He leans forward, and I fight to stay seated at that table.

"I've been in love with you since we graduated."

"College?"

"High school."

I chew on my lip in the silence, and look back up into his expectant face. "Oh, we're sharing? Oh. Then, probably a little bit after I started working at your mom's, then. That was..." The years pull up through my memories. I was 16?

"Twenty years."

I shrug, and he keeps staring me down, processing the facts. "Kinda crazy, huh?"

He stands. "So almost since we met... how did we get here, Jack? Why are we just now talking about it?"

I feel my eyebrows scrunch. "You know damn well how we got here, we're pussies! I'm already indebted to your mom for basically taking me in, was I supposed to just slide in to try and bag her only son too?"

"You know my mother doesn't think of you like that."

"I know now, yes. And you, what, you suffered in silence for two decades too?"

Thomas shakes his head. "I've been possessive as hell for two decades."

I feel my eyebrows shoot up. He has. "I thought that was just a personality trait."

"I stopped hugging people because you couldn't be the only person I didn't hug, so I pretended I just didn't like it."

"Thomas," I say, in hushed dismay.

"I'm sorry about the past few months. So very, very sorry. I've been ordering you around like a child because I can't stay away from you, but I can't stand watching you just... run into walls and men with knives and shit either, I dunno." He rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"What makes you think I'd stop running into walls if we were together?"

"Well we are together, so you can do your usual shit and I can react as a partner and not a complete moron."

"We're together? I think you have to ask first."

He drops his hands, and all the little butterflies in my stomach converge into a giant fucking hot stone at his expression.

"That's why we're here."

I take two slow breaths as he comes to stand over me, and I'm deadass reluctant to stand up because my legs might be trembling too much. He waits, and I do rise, immediately diving in to wrap my arms around him. He winds his arms around me and even though the heat is surging through my veins like a live electrical wire, I feel the sweetness in his embrace. Right before I feel his hands gripping my ass.

"I see why you don't hug people," I mumble into his chest.

Thomas' grumbling laugh reverberates in my skull. "Go get in my bed, Jack. I still have to ask you to go out with me."

He follows me to his room, and I start dropping clothes on the way. The shirt comes off first, the bra next, the slacks hanging loose around my hips after I unbutton them. I'm burning up on the inside but the skin across my chest still shivers with the cold in the air. As soon as I cross the threshold to his room Thomas steps up to me, hands roving over my cold-pricked skin and cupping my breasts before dipping lower to the scar across my stomach.

"I didn't feel anything but mad at you at first, when I was taking care of you after that bastard got you. Then you started getting better..." he brushes his hand across my lower stomach, and I shudder.

"Everywhere I touched, your skin would flinch, and you'd let out a little breath after. I thought it was because it hurt, but..." he drags his teeth across my shoulder and slips his hand under my waistband. "When you got better and still did it, it drove me crazy."

"Dirty old bitch," I giggle, voice already husky with want.

"Very, very dirty," he agrees, fingers stroking over the cleft of my lips. "I get to show you just how dirty now."

I expect him to flip me around or let me climb into the bed, but he just grabs me by the waist, just like he did on that thirsty, thirsty night, and heaves me onto the mattress, shocked and on all fours. He covers me with his body, placing kisses on the scars at my shoulders.

He draws my pants down over my hips, tugging and pulling until they pool at my knees. He huffs warm breath over my ass, and I feel time slow so I can enjoy the sensation of hot air over my pussy.

"You let me know if this is too much," he whispers over my shoulder. I crane my neck, doing my best to peer at him as he rises to his knees above me.

I hear the crack before I feel the sting across my left ass cheek, and whisper a surprised "Fuck!" shortly after.

He keeps his hand over the skin, rubbing it soothingly as he reaches his other hand around to pluck at my clit. "You good, Jackie?"

"Always."

"Well I don't want you good." His hand comes down on the opposite side, and I grunt, taking the sting in stride until he starts rubbing it into the skin again. "I want you begging. I've wanted you begging since I first saw you as a grown-ass woman."

His hand comes down in the same spot, and I grunt again. "You said that the other night, you can't imagine how badly I wanted to show you how much I agree with you."

Thomas delivers about ten more then, in quick succession, until I emit the smallest gasp at the rustle of his shirtsleeve as his hand draws up again. The next thing I know there's a tongue in my pussy, and he's pushing in between my shoulders until my chest is on the bed, ass free for the taking. I can't buck at the feelings, but I start letting loose guttural, shuddering moans, especially when he starts fluttering his tongue at my clit and rubbing wet fingers at my asshole.

"I can't wait to have everything, Jack," he says, wet mouth rising from between my now sloppy lips. "Here, lemme see you."

He lifts up away from me and after a pause I turn over onto my back, breathing heavy and caught by his eyes. Maybe the stilted, clumsy behavior over the years was him holding back. He hasn't gone red or unfocused since he caught me outside of the school.

"You gonna fuck me now?" I ask as slyly as I can manage, eyes roving over his completely clothed body.

He unbuttons his dress shirt, lets it fall to the floor behind him, and pulls his t-shirt over his head, flinging it to some corner of the room. I see a furred chest, knocking my mind off whatever track it was on. A fair hint of the ginger on his head, and dense across his torso.

"No, I'm gonna ask you out, remember?" His fingers start fumbling at his jeans, and I groan, my eyes closing. "What is it, Jack, you good?"

"I just... I can't wait for you to be inside of me," I drawl, drinking in the freckled wealth of his body as it appears from underneath the clothes he's discarding.

"Fuck. Fuck this," Thomas mutters, pulling down underwear and jeans and falling on top of me. I only catch a glimpse of a stout, sturdy dick before he straightens up over me, lining up as best he can between my legs.

"Mm. Okay." I slip my legs out of the remaining clothes wrapped around my ankles and wrap my legs around his waist, brown calves against the red lines left from his jeans.

Extreme concentration as he guides himself in, and then a long, blank stare into my eyes.

"You're crying," he observes, as I wish for the power to dive my hands to the blanket on his chest.

"Don't worry about it. Just- fuck- yes. Yes."

He's tilted his hips and drawn out of me, and I crane my hips to feel the head of his dick as it pops out.

"I told you I don't want you 'good', Jackie. I want you begging." He shoves and sinks right back into me, spreading the flesh before him.

"What am I begging for?"

He smiles, and my heart jumps weakly at it, already hammering against my chest at the steadily increasing pace. "To be my girlfriend. My fiance, my wife, whatever is gonna keep you next to me."

I close my eyes and he starts fucking me faster, leaning over my body with his hands on either side of my head. He's plunging into me so surely that we evolve past the slicking, slapping sound of thrusting and up to vulgar suction cup noises, his dick tearing away from the dripping walls and plowing back in.

"We get to come home and fuck like we need to," he pants. "Like we've needed to for years. You fit so- so well, so tight over me, just..."

I'm sliding my hands over the sweat soaked skin of his back, but at the first violent pulse of my body I grip his shoulders. He slows down and starts slamming into me instead, chasing my orgasm away and kissing my open lips.

"I said begging, Jack."

"Fuck, please, yes, Tommy, just give me-"

He slams into me again, and my hands drop from his back to grip his sheets, unable to do anything to bring me over.

"No, you tell me what I want to hear. What did I ask you?"

I wind a trying hand into his hair, scratching at his scalp and fingers fluttering when he scrapes out of me again.

"I'll be with you. I'll go out with you. That's what I want."

He stops moving completely. "Mm. Again."

"I want to be with you."

"Aga- mmm," he manages, dick jumping in me and causing my hips to roll and trying to prompt it to move again.

"Thomas, I've been waiting to feel you for so long. I'm yours. You have to bring me over. I need to feel you do it. Please, baby," I rasp, taking my questing hand from his hair to cup his face. I trace his bottom lip with my fingers as I feel him starting back up.

"I'm here, Jack. Come on my dick, baby, I got you. I'll bring it to you," he promises, powering into me again and picking up one of his thick arms to roll shaking fingers over the nerves not making enough contact with his thrusts.

And my next moves are wild, words sputtering out that I don't take note of, my body throwing itself against his as I'm struck rigid by the power zapping through me. His hips lose their smooth, steady rolling and the thrusts are sporadic, egging on the crushing waves as I try to come back to complete consciousness.

"Open your mouth, Jack."

He drags his dick out of me and without hesitation swings around, shoving his dick into my, luckily, already waiting mouth. My walls are still seizing around nothing and he quickly replaces the absence with four fingers, cramming them into my pussy which starts cramping and pulling around his hand. He lowers his tongue to my clit and I moan around the shaft in my throat, slightly gagging when I register exactly how forcefully he's fucking my head.

"Take my fucking dick, Jack," he groans, thumb circling my clit again as he fills the air with vivid compliments. The walls of my vagina glitch around his fingers, my own cum slopping out as he continues to pump. "Fucking slutty mouth has me all the way to my fucking balls. I'm going to take every hole you've got, baby. Listen to how sloppy that mouth is. I knew it'd be this good. I'm gonna mark every inch of you this week."

I groan again and he comes in a mighty rush down my throat, powering past the flexing muscles and one last choking gag as more tears ride down my cheeks. He shoves his hand into my pussy for a final time and I just remain stuck, spread open and trembling at both sides. He continues with small, miniature thrusts of his hips as he delivers his remaining lines into my sucking mouth, and twists his fingers in an already stuffed pussy so that I moan in slight pain, but an overwhelming, muffled, shuddering orgasm.