sierra jolts awake, her body's internal clock waking up her brain. she's slightly sweaty from sleeping in jacks sweatsuit and she reaches over to grab her phone to check the time. 4:54 am. "fuck," she whispers to herself. her alarm is set to go off in six minutes.
she looks over at jack who sleeps facing her. they could never fall asleep and wake up cuddling, but they were always touching, like right now his leg is draped over her own. she knows she needs to wake him up so she can go home and get ready for work, but he looks too peaceful to wake.
sierra sighs and lays back down and closes her eyes. they went to bed at midnight after staying up talking about nothing at all. she fell asleep first because she had work, and jack shortly after. the thought of him kissing her gently while he thought she was fully asleep replays in her mind and she smiles.
she drifts off to sleep, and what feels like seconds later, her alarm loudly goes off. jack groans dramatically. "turn that shit off," he says. sierra presses snooze and jack rolls over onto his stomach. sierra sits up and rubs his back, causing him to let out a deep breath. "go back to bed."
"i have work."
"call out."
"it doesn't work like that," she says, laying on top of him. jack sighs heavily through his nose and she kisses the back of his neck. "i'm gonna go." she says.
"no," he mumbles, sticking his arm out and grabbing onto her leg.
"jack, i have work," she says rolling off of him. he groans loudly and sits up, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. he flattens out his hair and sighs. "good morning."
"morning," he says, his voice raspy and thick with sleep. he reaches over to her and grabs her chin, pulling her close to him and placing a kiss on her cheek. "you ready to go right now?" he asks. sierra nods and he stretches his arms over his head. "alright. let me go to the bathroom real quick." sierra nods again and he gets up to use the restroom.
she packs up her clothes that she wore last night and slips her feet into her heels. when jack comes out of the bathroom, shes all ready to go. jack throws on a jacket and slippers and motions for her to follow him. sierra yawns as she follows him down the stairs and he looks at her over his shoulder. "just call out, sierra."
"i cant," she says simply.
"yes you can."
"okay, and do what all day? if i dont work, i cant pay rent, and if i cant pat rent i dont have anywhere to stay, jack," sierra replies, her voice exasperated, and it's only 5:15 in the morning.
"as long as you got me, you dont have to worry about shit like rent."
sierra waves him off and continues on outside to his car. she doesn't mind his words, but she takes them lightly. it'll be a cold day in hell before sierra lets jack take care of her like that. she can deal with the gifts, but the line has to be drawn at him paying her expenses, because she'll feel trapped. and imagine if things go wrong? he can hang that over her head and play with her livelihood—she won't take that risk.
they hop in the car and jack immediately blasts the heat. he pulls out of his driveway seconds later and starts down the road. "you gotta clock in at 6?" he asks, looking at the clock on the dash.
"mhm," she says. jack nods and speeds up, grateful for the lack of traffic this morning. they ride in silence, sierra checking the clock every few seconds, as if the time will magically increase by five minutes.
they make it to her house, and she jumps out before jack can even properly pull into the parking space. she's inside in record time, throwing off her heels and running into her bedroom. jacks sweatsuit is off in seconds, and she's pulling on a blue pair of scrubs and her nurses shoes. she tosses edge control and her brush into her bag, and races outside and gets back in the car.
