Chapter Tags: angst, mentions of cheating, fluff, flirting, teasing, more angst
Chapter WC: 1970
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Your POV
You keep staring at your cell, moving it back and forth on the desktop, willing the screen to illuminate with your fiancé’s name returning one of your many missed calls. You know that Williams would have broken up for Spring Break the day before, and he won’t have been working all day, so there’s really no excuse for him to be missing your calls; not unless he’s doing it on purpose.
Luckily for you, with it being the last week of semester, no one has really wanted to work, and you’ve not wanted to teach. Instead, you’d encouraged the girls to read their favourite book and write an essay on one of the characters. It was easy for all of you, and no one complained. That meant you had plenty of time to sit at your own desk and pretend to read while either hiding your phone and texting Drew, or just staring blankly at the book, thinking about why he’s being so distant.
If it wasn’t for your stupid dream where you’d caught Drew with one of his students, you would’ve never even considered him cheating on you. Of course, Jensen had to put that seed of doubt in your head, though. You know he’s trying to look out for you, but you’re not sure how much of his concern is just jealousy.
Still, you’ve not been able to stop your mind from wandering. After all, Drew was the one that pushed you to move back to Texas, to take this job. He was the one that was happy to wave you off. Did he only do that for the freedom? So he could go back to his single life, hitting on any student that seems up for it? You’d like to think you’re an exception, that he hasn’t been with any other students besides you, but you’re not entirely sure that’s true – you’ve always been too afraid to ask.
Besides, even if there were others, you’d been the first he’d wanted to live with, you’d been the first he asked to marry him. So that counts for something, right? But what if you moving back here has made him realise he prefers it when you’re not around? Except, if that was true, then why would he tell you you can’t take the job full time? If he wanted the best of both worlds – a fiancée and the single life – surely he’d be happy for you to take the job? Give him the space and time he would need to cheat on you.
And then there’s him avoiding you. Is that just because he’s upset that you’d even consider making this permanent? But he was distant before that. So maybe it goes beyond the job. Your mind spins every time you think about it, unable to land on a reasonable explanation or anything that eases your mind. And inevitably, you end up thinking about Jensen and what he’d had to say about the entire thing.
“Maybe you should just ask yourself if he’d say the same thing for you.”
Is Drew really being selfish telling you you can’t take this job? Or are you being selfish even considering it? Your lives are in New York, and suddenly you’ve sprung it on him that you’re considering moving back to Texas. But the more and more you think about it, the more and more you want to stay. You love your home state, you love being so close to your family, and you love your job. Why can’t Drew just realise that? Why do you have to be the one making the sacrifice?
But then it’s not fair to expect him to make the sacrifice either. He had a life in New York well before you came along. He has a great job that he loves, decent pay, he has his family and an apartment he’s decided to share with you. You chose that life. You chose New York when you agreed to be with him for the rest of your life, and now suddenly you’re turning the tables, and surely that isn’t fair, either?
“Y/N.”
You look up from your cell sitting on top of the essays you’re meant to be grading, seeing Jeff enter your classroom.
“There you are, everything okay?” he asks. It takes you a moment to realise why he’s here. It’s a Friday, which means staff drinks.
“I need a drink more than you could know,” you force a laugh, grabbing your cell and dropping it into your purse, before getting out of your chair. You decide you can come back for the papers in the morning. Jensen won’t mind letting you in, and it’s not like you currently have any plans or places to be for spring break.
“Tough semester?” Jeff prompts, watching you approach him.
“That’s a conversation to have after a few G&Ts,” you joke, leaving your classroom with him hot on your heels.
“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” Jeff grunts as he sits himself back down beside you, fresh drinks in his grasp.
You tear your eyes away from your still silent cell phone and huff a breath. “Drew isn’t answering my calls,” you explain.
“Is everything okay between you?” Jeff asks, taking a sip of his drink.
“I don’t know,” you answer honestly. “He’s been hard to get hold of for months now, and then Jensen offered me my job full time,” you start to explain.
“About time,” Jeff interrupts. “You were born to do it.”
“I’m not taking it,” you tell him sadly. “My life is with Drew in New York.”
Jeff opens his mouth, but then stops himself from speaking, shutting it again and taking another sip of his drink. You decide more alcohol is definitely a good idea, so you take a large mouthful of your own drink.
“So he was off before the job offer?” he asks, clearly thinking it through.
“Yep, too busy to talk, missing my calls. I swear I’m not one of those clingy girlfriends, but I feel like I’ve become one. I just can’t pin him down. I don’t even know what’s happening for the next two weeks,” you tell him, exasperated. “I think I’m overthinking it, I’m probably just being paranoid. I had this stupid dream that he cheated on me.”
“Do you think he could?” Jeff asks, frowning slightly.
“No,” you laugh him off, shaking your head. “No, not Drew. Drew is amazing, he’s… he’d never do that.”
“Alright, sweetheart, who are you convincing? Me or you?”
By the time you stumble through the front door, you’re fairly drunk. Your heart to heart with Jeff had resulted in burying your phone at the bottom of your purse, forgetting all about your idiot fiancé and welcoming drink after drink as Jeff pledged to give you a good enough evening that New York wouldn’t even cross your mind.
And it had worked… right up until you got home and saw Jensen sitting on the couch. That was the moment you’d been slapped in the face with the reality of knowing that it didn’t matter how good he looked in his sweatpants and henley, you couldn’t have him; because like it or not, Drew and New York do still exist.
“Good night?” Jensen asks, clearly a little amused by the less than straight line you walk to get to the couch. You plop yourself down next to him, seeing an almost empty bottle of scotch on the table.
“Celebrating by yourself?” you ask, referring to the bottle. Jensen chuckles softly, and now you’re closer to him, you can tell that he’s hardly sober, either.
“I’m used to being alone,” he reminds you, a sad smile on his lips.
“You deserve someone,” you find yourself saying.
“No I don’t,” he counters. “I had someone and I fucked it up. That’s what I do.”
You don’t want to think about that right now, you just want to forget for a while. Spring break was your favourite holiday when you were a teen. All the parties and drinking and boys. You hate that you’ve spent all month dreading it this time around.
“That’s too depressing for Spring break, c’mon we should dance,” you encourage, getting up and reaching for the stereo remote. You turn the music on, cranking the volume up so it’s fairly loud and start dancing, throwing your arms above your head.
Jensen watches and laughs for a moment, until you gesture for him to join you. He finishes his drink and gets up to his feet, joining you on your makeshift dance floor. You take his hand, spinning yourself under his arm and then feel yourself step closer, your body pressing against his. You laugh together as you dance against one another to some eighties song you vaguely recognise thanks to your father.
“This is how you celebrate Spring break,” you tell him, biting your bottom lip. Jensen’s eyes don’t leave your face, a smirk curling across his lips. You’re flattered by the attention, not realising how much you’ve missed him looking at you in that way. “We should just do this for the next two weeks,” you suggest.
The music dies when the song ends, and silence consumes you for a moment. You glance back over your shoulder, wondering why it’s stopped.
“Must be the end of the cassette,” he explains.
“Cassette?” you giggle. “Wow, I forgot how old you are.”
Jensen scoffs, wrapping his arms around you tighter, holding you closer to him. You’re close enough now that the tips of your noses are touching, your breath ghosting over his lips. The silence only makes it more intense, so you pull away, intent on playing some more music.
You’re sorting through records and cassettes looking for something you can dance to when Jensen speaks up behind you.
“So you’re staying here all holiday?”
“Looks like,” you tell him with a sigh. “Can’t get hold of my fiancé, so…” You smile slightly when you find a Bon Jovi cassette and put it in the player.
“Still?” Jensen pries.
“He’s just busy,” you insist, shaking your head. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Too busy for his own fiancée?” Jensen asks, skeptically.
“Don’t say it like that,” you argue, turning around to glare at him.
“Like what?” Jensen asks, shrugging.
“Like he’s some asshole that doesn’t deserve me or something.”
“He doesn’t fucking deserve you,” Jensen scoffs. “The guy has been avoiding your phone calls for weeks, refuses to let you take a job that would make you happy, is probably cheating on you and you still put him on some fucking pedastal.” You laugh bitterly, shaking your head, telling yourself it’s not like that at all. “And yet, I got you into college, tried to give you the best life possible, wanted what was best for you… what I thought would make you happy, and I’m the worst human ever.”
“It’s not like that, Jensen,” you insist, shaking your head. “Not everything is about you. Drew is a great guy, he’s… he’s amazing, he loves me–”
“I love you!” Jensen shouts, pointing at himself.
The room falls silent, your mouth falling open but no words are coming to your mind right now.
“Fuck, Y/N, I still love you,” he repeats. “And it’s killing me. It’s killing me that you want him over me.”
You take a deep, shuddering breath in, willing the tears that have flooded your vision not to fall. You step forward, tentatively at first, but once you’ve broken the spell, the rest of the steps come easier to you than breathing, until you’re right in front of him, your arms wrapping around his neck and your lips on his.
“I want you,” you whisper, “I’ve always wanted you,” you confirm, kissing him again.
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