#he said she would still have people waitinf for her no matter what it made her do

[mishapen-dear]

oh my god what if jaiden lies to cellbit. She ran to him to tell him about cucurucho acting weird. when foolish opened up to her she ran to cellbit to tell him everything. she showed him bobby fields. what if she lies to him and tells him cucurucho kept her in a room for two weeks and he looks at her and sees a shared misery- the worst has happened. cucurucho has hurt another loved one. he sees jaiden and commiserates with her misery because he fucking understands what its like to be hurt by that fucking bear-

jaiden mentioned him by name earlier. “Im sorry cellbit, i know he tortured you with a chainsaw.”

what if she lies to him.

what if she tells him the truth

[glassheartff]

23. All In

See the thing is...I know it's morning.

I could feel the sun on my face, it’s heat replacing the heat from Tina when she untangled herself from me earlier. I knew which one I prefered.

I had figured out she was a morning person from our stay in San Diego but then again I’m sure ninety-nine percent of the world was a morning person if you compared them to me.

I could honestly sleep for another seven hours but I knew the moment I felt Tina slip out of the bed I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep.

"You're seriously doing a

dine and dash

on me, Tina?"

She practically jumped and whirled around to face me while I was using all my fucking strength to sit up. "What?"

My eyes drift from her to what must have been her pyjamas. “Hit it and quit? Wham bam, and thank you mam? You just use me for my bed and walk away? Just like that? What is this? A one night stand?”

I could tell she was trying her hardest to keep a straight face but it’s a lost cause. I know I’d do near enough anything to see that smile of hers. “No...it’s a sleepover.” She concedes.

"Exactly, and do people leave as soon as the sun rises at sleepovers without saying goodbye?"

"No..."

"No.” I say with a yawn and groan finally getting out of bed. “At sleepovers after everyone gets up they have breakfast together, which is what we're doing."

I seriously have no idea where the fuck I was going with this. Breakfast? I don't even know if I've ever gone grocery shopping at all year and it was December. But as usual my mouth spoke before my mind decided on what I should say next. 

"Now, since you're a guest at my house, what can I get you for breakfast, we have a very fine selection of choices between...pop tarts and cereal."

They were standard things most people have in their house. I should at least have those, right?

Tina’s laugh was something I savoured because I hadn’t heard it in so damn long. "Surprise me." She says.

"Will do." I walk to the door then found myself stopping before I walking out and turn back to Tina who was looking at me curiously. "Stay here, try not to run out on me, will ya?"

"I'll try not to" She said in that voice where I wasn't too sure if she was joking or not but she sat back down on my bed. She made shoving gestures to the door "Go on! I'm just going to stare at these bare walls for a while."

Why would I even say that? I sounded like some clingy guy who didn't want her out my sights...which I was.

When the fuck did I become that guy?

As soon as you stepped foot in that interview room.

But what now? I know I'm just stalling the inevitable - offering to make her breakfast but what after that? We'll have to talk eventually about us.

Us.

Just one word and it had the most fucking complicated meaning in the world.

Like seriously, this can go both ways and I knew what way I wanted this to go but I didn't have a fucking clue what was going through Tina's head, I never did.

This could be it, it could be the end and if it was I wasn't ready for that, I probably never would be. I knew I was all in. Desperately all in it scared the fuck out of me and knew would scare the fuck out of Tina if she had an inkling of how much I wanted us to be together.

But right now I need to focus on food, breakfast. A distraction.

Really- an opened can of cream soda and crackers in the refrigerator. Who the fuck puts crackers in there?

If I feed her that I’m pretty sure she’ll end up in A&E.

"Shit.” I mutter to myself and jog lightly up the stairs to find Tina standing by my mirror with her hair up. She looks to my hands and stifles a laugh.

"Well you surprised me."

"Turns out I over exaggerate things sometimes. Sometimes I make myself think that there's things that aren't really there...for example, I thought I had all this food in my fridge when in reality there's only cream soda and some crackers that was already here before I moved in.”

Tina’s face scrunched up in disgust. "Eww. That's fine. I'll just head off--"

"--nope!” Again with the mouth working before my brain. “We're having breakfast."

Tina’s eyes narrowed in confusion. "But you just said--"

"--we'll just have breakfast somewhere else...where they cook better than me...which can be pretty much anywhere..." Now I’m really trying to think of somewhere, wait, I got it. iHOP. "I know this great place about five minutes from here, their pancakes are to die for"

Tina watched me for a second before finally nodding and smiling. "Okay, fine, but can I go home and change first?"

What the hell is she talking about?

"What? No! You live like thirty minutes away. Just wear what you've got on."

"Hello?" Tina pointed at what she was wearing from last night. Some college tee where she must of studied because the logo matched the one on her journalism diploma on her wall.  She then pointed to her flannel shorts. You do not need to tell me twice to look at your legs -- "I look like a troll"

My eyes went back to her to see if she’s joking, she wasn’t. So the only other explanation that made sense was that she was blind.

As a bat.

"Shut up" I murmur as I went to my suitcase I took on the promo tour. I picked up a pair of basketball shorts I never wore because let's face it - I suck at basketball, have you seen me try and do a jump shot? Not a pretty sight. I threw it to Tina who caught it shock. "It's like you're begging me to sing Just The Way You Are to you, Tina...and I will, anywhere at any time if you say something like that again"

Either I was blind or Tina just blushed. "Please don't. There's only so much cheese I can handle so early in the morning" She says. She pulls the basketball shorts on top of her flannel ones, hell she could even make them look good.

"Perfect, let's go."

"Go where?"

"It's a surprise" I say as we walk out the bedroom.

"Have I mentioned how much I hate surprises?"

"You know what kind of people say that? People who haven't been surprised in the right way."

 If you told me last night I would be spending the next day getting pancakes and picking out a dog with Tina I would have laughed in your face, probably slap you for even thinking that then laugh walking away from your crazy ass but that's exactly what we did.

But on the way back to mine I could feel that we were teetering on the edge of uncertainty. That the moment to lay all our cards on the table was coming pretty fucking soon. 

Hey, at least I'll have Geronimo no matter what, there’s that. 

"This is fucked up..." I just about make out the words Tina was saying to herself.

"What is?" I laugh even though I knew exactly what she was talking about.

"It's so fucked up how..." She glanced at her phone. "Not even seven hours ago we were fighting and now we just went dog shopping together.”

"I guess we're just unorthodox like that. Aren't we just unorthodox, Geronimo?" I ask my brand new Rottweiler who barked back in agreement.  "See what I did there?" I looked back to Tina "I said Unorthodox...that's the name of my album."

She scoffs. "Yeah, I saw what you did there" We then set Geronimo up with some food in silence, I could feel the tension. "You should really decorate this place, especially since you have a new roommate" Tina breaks the silence and I immediately take in our surroundings, the lack of everything here.

"Eh...one day." I shrug and hop on one of my bare kitchen counters. "When things aren't so hectic...really wasn't the best time to buy a dog was it?"

"What more can you expect from an unorthodox person?" Tina countered with a knowing smile. Girl's got jokes, huh?

I’m impressed, but not surprised.

"Touche."

There’s that fucking tension again. It was suffocating and I really wasn’t sure what I was looking at any more, that’s how intense it was.

I latch onto Tina’s words, letting me know that she was probably feeling the same thing, thinking the same thing as me.

"...we should really talk about what happened last night...” Her voice is calming. “And as fun as today's been...and it's been really fun, I know we can't just keep on ignoring the elephant in the room for much longer.”

Fuck, I was not ready for this.

I knew it was coming but...shit. This could be it. The end.

But still I save face, play it off like I’m cool with it even though I was anything but.

"Damn...and I'm so good at ignoring elephants in the room. So, how far back are we gonna go on this thing?"

Despite how calm I seemed I was thinking of all the ways it could go wrong. I didn’t want this to end in a colossal argument like last night or San Diego.

Tina taps her chin lightly as if in thought. “Oh, say...the moment you came back to L.A?”

“Starting with the climax.”

“Aren’t they always the best part of the story?”

“Writer jokes.” I answer but it’s not really an answer. I look to my feet for a moment and take a breath, about to recall the moment the plane landed last night.

“So yeah, we touched down in L.A. Most the guys were tired and went back home to their beds and loved ones and I went to do the same--” I stop myself immediately I know how that sounds. Like I wanted to go home to Amelia.

Shit.

"Go to bed, that is..." I saved face in case Tina got the wrong idea like I did. "But Kenji was all pumped for some reason, fuck knows. He wanted to go out somewhere and I said I'd come with him but we needed to get changed first because who goes to a club wearing sweats? So we stopped by mine so I can get some clothes and Amelia was here...I don't know how she got in but she did, and she was just acting like everything was normal, even though we hadn't even spoken to each other in two months...and that's when I thought, what's the fucking point of it all? I spent two months on the road with people like Brian and Phil and Eric, and they're all just so fucking happy with their girls and here I am acting single every night with Phred and Jamareo while I have a girl at home who I'd rather not talk to."

Jeez, why do I get the feeling like I’m talking too much? But I swallowed in the paranoia because Tina was waitinf for me to continue.

"So I just did it, I ended the relationship...and Tina, I felt so bad for her...she was crying her eyes out asking me what went wrong and why it was so sudden and that we were so happy. How could have things gotten so bad between me and her that she was deluded enough to think things were perfect between us?"

“...I don’t know.” She answered quietly, adding no more words.

"And then she left...Kenji was there the whole time. It was so fucking awkward I wanted to rip my hair out" I let out a breath of air and I had the need for a smoke because I wasn't used to dealing with stuff like this that stressed me out this much but I knew I had to say it all. Lay out all my cards like I should of done in the very beginning. "And you know what I thought right after she left? About what you said in San Diego, about why it had to be you who got to make the choice if I break up with her or not."

Tina’s eyes lowered and there was a semblance of a smile on her face. "Oh, my little bitch fit?".

"Yeah...I had gotten this thought in my head that maybe things were supposed to work out this way. That I had to break up with Amelia on my own, and I thought we were in a good place after I apologized back at Phil's. I thought...that if I was to just go to you and say: I broke up with Amelia, maybe we could go back to what nearly happened in San Diego because honestly, Tina...I missed you more than anyone when we went on the road. Do you know how hard it was for me not to call you? Or not to ask about you whenever one of the guys spoke to Kendra or Raye or Fara on Skype or on the phone? But I knew I had to give you space because that's the best chance I had of you forgiving me for all the shit I've done"

Not that I deserve forgiveness or anything.

Tina just looked away from me and had her thinking face on and that honestly scared the shit of me. I just wanted to know what was on her mind.

I couldn’t stand the silence so I started talking again.

"I went to look in my mail and there was this invitation for the Holly & Ivy party tonight and we went there because I knew you were gonna be there. So I got suited and booted, got Kenji looking decent too and we went, it was like killing two birds with one stone really...he got his party and I got to see you...and I did...with Mr. Surfer Charity Worker."

I know she said they were just friends, nothing more...but if you saw the way he was looking at her that night you'd understand why thinking...mentioning...that guy made my blood boil.

It was the chime of Tina’s laugh that brought me back to that reality that she had spent most the night here with me and not with him.

"I just didn't expect that...you were looking...stunning -- you always do but damn...and when I realized it was for him it just pissed me off. I was thinking; here I am basically pining after this girl for God knows how long and she's here with some other dude."

Now was the time when Tina reassures me by saying she doesn't like him that way or calling me dumb for even thinking that but nope. Nothing. Fucking speechless again. Why can't she be like that when she's ripping my head off for something. "I always make you speechless at the worst of times..." I nudge her with my foot, that seemed to wake her up.

"You're always surprising me..." She blurts out. Okay, not the response I expected...but at least she's saying something. "Just as I think I've got you figured out you do a one-eighty on me...and I just don't know how you feel about me sometimes...and that scares me."

That was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard, that was my first thought. How could she not know what she meant to me? Then I thought back to all the shit we've been through, it felt like we've been through every stage a relationship has in a lifetime.

We've spent more time not talking than we have talking and I'm partly to blame. I didn't tell her I had a girlfriend after I flirted with her and basically chased after her and when she finds out I still chase after her and in the end when things got tough I still stayed with Amelia.

Try explaining that logic to anyone, they would be confused as hell.

Instinctively took Tina's hand in mine causing her to look up at me and I’m glad. I needed her to understand me.

"Yeah, I get it...I'm complicated, tell me something I don't know. But one of the few things that's not complicated about me is the way I feel about you. The way I've always felt about you, from the moment I first saw you back in Mode's building all those months ago. And I've screwed that up so many times and there have been times when we've had fights but it's never done anything about my feelings for you..."

Tina took a breath and I needed to hear how she felt about what I had just said.

"...you can be a real jerk sometimes"

Okay, again, not the response I was going for, but her hand was still in mine so I wouldn’t complain. 

"And...I want to kick you where it hurts a lot, but when it comes down to it, I've always felt the same way about you."

I couldn't help but smile. I didn't expect her to say that, that after all these months, through the arguments and secrecy and my dumbass-ery she would possibly feel the same way about me as I feel about her.

Jesus Christ I feel like my fucking heart was about to burst through my chest.

"So..." Tina gave me a nervous smile as she gathered her words. "What do we do now?"

What do we do now?

"Oh wow..." I sat straighter on my seat on the counter. Emotions I could feel and identify clearly were: leaning back on the surprise, excitement, nervousness, weirdness...everything really.

"I wasn't expecting those...declaration of feelings from you." I looked Tina up and down and she knew what I was on about. I think every other time we try and talk about our feelings she storms out, she tells me to leave, she can't respond or she's too drunk to even understand them.

"Well, I can't be speechless all the time."

"I do like it when you talk. Okay...so let's summarize all that's happened so far. A.) You and that surfer guy--"

"--there is no me and that surfer guy." And there was that reassurance I was looking for!

"Let me finish. You and that surfer guy are non-existent" I held up a second finger on my free hand that wasn't holding Tina's still. "B.) Me and Amelia are non-existent. It seems like this complicated situation has uncomplicated itself. C.) I like you. D.) You like me, a lot, might I add. What do people usually do in these situations...?"

"I have a feeling you're about to tell me" Tina rolled her eyes at me like she usually does.

"I think we should..." I pointed to her then to me. "You know..." I shrug with a smile, feeling shy all of a sudden..

Tina raised her eyebrows at me, clearly finding this funny. "I don’t. What?"

"...start you and me, the right way."

Tina looked from me around the kitchen then back to with me a sigh. "We can't just jump into this..."

"Why not?" I question, or panic. I can’t seem to know the difference right now. It was like whiplash, I was almost one hundred percent sure this was going great.

"We need to be realistic" She explained with a serious expression on her face. "You just said it's not the best time for you to buy a dog, so what makes you think it's the best time for you to start a relationship?"

With her, there’s nothing I’ve ever been as sure about as I do feel now.

"Like with Geronimo and like with you..." I put her hand to my stomach "It's a gut feeling. Why don't we just follow that for now and see where that takes us?"

I could see the nerves in her eyes, the million thoughtd running through her head but what she said next had me laughing."...what if one of us has indigestion?"

She was a fucking breath of fresh air.

"We'll deal with the stomach problems when we approach them - with huge doses of Pepto Bismol. I know you haven't seen me at my best when it comes to being in a relationship but I swear I won't do any of that to you, Tina - I couldn't..."

Thinking about all I've done when I was with Amelia, I honestly couldn't picture myself doing that to Tina - not her. Ever.

Tina took in what I said and nodded her head. "I believe you, I do"

Thank God.

"Soooo...?"

"Sooo" She mocked me with that beautiful smile on her face directed at me "Why don't we...give this a chance?"

You couldn't describe the way I felt, there was no words for this feeling. Kind of like the way I felt with her after the concert on that balcony. All I knew was that I never wanted it to go away and with Tina here I was almost certain it'd stay.

This was almost perfect.

"Oh." I said sliding slightly closer to her on the counter "And one more thing"

There’s panic in her eyes and it almost makes me laugh. "What?"

"And...I want you to kiss me like you did last spring." I asked.

Tina stepped closer closing the gap between us wrapping her arms around me and pressed her lips onto mine. This was the best feeling. Just like back at the concert but better in a way I couldn't tell you. Maybe because it was honest, maybe because I was sober enough to understand all my senses, maybe because everything finally felt right and things haven't felt this way in what feels like years.

It was when I pulled her closer when I heard her starting to laugh as she pulled away.

"Not with Geronimo around!" She chuckled taking my legs from around her waist - damn, I didn't even know I was doing that. "He's too young to see this."

"Alright.” I give in. “But if Geronimo wasn't here right now I'd jump you right now"

"That...is the most romantic thing you've ever said to me." I grinned at that trademark Tina sarcasm.

"I try, I try."

"So when are you going to sign those album papers?"

Yeah, Brandon called earlier saying that everything was done. Every-fucking-thing. Two weeks is when it comes out and I guess two weeks is when things get hectic again.

I just did a shrug, this wasn't the formal kind of meeting you'd think. It was just like a get together with the guys in Brandon's office. It's kind of a tradition that I bring the drinks, I sign the papers and the celebration get's started. But it's sort of an intimate one since it was strictly those involved in the album. Just like during It's Better If You Don't Understand and Doo Wops & Hooligans.

But I wasn't going to go now to enjoy the two-man party with Brandon when he'll spend the entire fucking time complaining about the drinks I brought.

"The later it is the more likely everyone will show up. I'd bet fifty bucks Phred just fell asleep from whatever he did last night but because I'm so gentlemanly I won't gamble with you. Plus since Brandon doesn't like my champagne buying skills, I probably need a little assistance" I raised an eyebrow at Tina. "Who better to ask than a bartender?"

"You are so lucky you know me."