I'm Yours to Keep, I'm Yours to Lose (Long Story Short, I'm All About You)

chapter: 2 gold rush (jade)

August. Jade had blinked and July had passed her by, the summer almost over. Soon she would be packing up her things, heading to her dorm, starting her classes.

But for now, it was still August, and she still had time.

"Let me put it on your back."

"You already did!"

"Well, you're burning, I don't know what you want me to tell you."

Jade groaned. "Fine, but actually do it right this time, or what's the point?"

"I did it right before! You're just pale. It wouldn't kill you to go outside more often."

This is what August brought, apparently. She and Tori at the beach, bickering about sunscreen as Tori slathered half a bottle on her palms and rubbed it into Jade's burning skin.

In the past, as recently as June even, Jade wouldn't have believed anyone (and she probably would've yelled at them for even suggesting it) if they had told her she would one day be in this position.

But that was then and this was now, and now, Jade was pretty used to Tori touching her. Well, maybe not used to it , but she was... familiar with it. They'd been doing whatever it was they were doing for a few weeks now, and they had fallen into it almost too easily.

The kissing, the touching, the hanging around after sex.

They weren't dating, Jade didn't think. They were just... well. She didn't know what they were doing, exactly, but she didn't really need a label at the moment.

It was fine. It was good. It was... whatever.

It didn't matter, really, because summer was almost over and... then what? Then Jade would be at school and Tori would be doing who knows what with her music.

'Turn on the Sun' had debuted the first day of August and since then, Tori had been pretty wrapped up in a new world. She'd filmed a music video, did small press interviews, planned the rest of the album.

She'd been busy, in any sense, but somehow not too busy to see Jade.

So they'd celebrated. Dinner at Nozu, which led to making out in Tori's car, which led to making out in Jade's room, which led to Tori going down on Jade in what was probably the best sexual experience of her entire life.

And so it had been, for several weeks, and Jade was happy. Like actually happy. Like a smile for no reason, just because, kind of happy.

So this was what they were doing, at least until the end of summer. But it was only August still, and the end was still a few weeks away. A few more weeks to save up her money, to buy her camera, to kiss Tori when she felt like it.

Of course, she knew a few weeks wasn't that long, but in that moment, those few weeks seemed to extend before her in an endless string of days just like this:

The sun warm on her skin, the soft sand beneath her toes, and Tori Vega next to her looking like some kind of walking advertisement for tiny purple bikinis.

August. August was good.

//

The day was dragging, as Tuesdays were liable to do when you worked at a shitty Regal Cinemas in the mall and had been assigned to concessions, once again, with your fifteen year-old twerp of a coworker.

The next available showing wasn't for an hour and they were supposed to be stocking supplies for the night crew, but their manager was on his hourly fifteen minute smoke break and Jade had like, ten minutes of her shift left, so she and the twerp were scrolling on their phones and otherwise slacking off.