company. | jori

Ten: Christmas Eve

Jade

"Jade! Jade!"

I wake up to somebody shaking my shoulder and get ready to throw my arms out in front of me and beat whoever it is before I realize it's just Tori.

"Ugh. What time is it?" I can still feel the alcohol running through my system so it can't be that much later after we stopped playing our drinking game.

"I don't know, like four in the morning?" She leans over me to look at the clock on my nightstand and I feel tingles run down my spine at the feeling of her hair running across my collarbone.

"Then why am I up?"

"Because I got nervous."

"Nervous?" I sit up now, suddenly much more wide awake, "Why are you nervous? Are you okay?"

Tori looks up at me and I see a genuine smile flash it's way across her face. "I hate being alone."

"You're not alone, Tori. I'm right here." I fight back the urge to roll my eyes at her.

"Yeah, but I woke up and you weren't awake. Then I got scared," she explains, looking down at her hands and scratching one of her palms.

"You're an idiot."

She smiles at me.

"Thanks for waking up, Jade," she says, reaching out to put a hand on my shoulder, "it means a lot."

"It's hard to stay asleep when you're violently throwing me back and forth," I mutter.

She rolls her eyes and settles back into her side of the bed, pulling the covers up to her shoulders and laying on her side to face me. "I shook your shoulder gently."

"You shook me so hard my brain rattled around and I have like at least eight concussions."

"You're so dramatic."

I smirk at her before deciding to mirror her position, her eyes finding my eyes as my hand finds her hand.  I lace our fingers together and bring our hands up to lie in the middle of us. Because I'm not the one who's outfacing arm is currently preoccupied, I reach over and brush away the hair that falls in front of her face. She grins before shaking her head, forcing her hair to fall back. I groan before reaching out again.

I push her hair back two more times before I've had enough. She pulls her hair across her face again and this time when I brush it back behind her ear I keep my hand on her face, gently stroking her cheekbone with my thumb and keeping her hair back at the same time.

"We're totally friends," she says.

The urge to push back on that statement isn't as strong as usual and instead I find myself with a fluttering in my stomach and a disappointment in my chest. "Yeah. I guess we're just friends, huh?"

Her smile grows infinitely wider. "Finally! I have waited for-fucking-EVER to hear Jade West call me her friend."

"Merry Christmas, Vega. That's my present to you."

"But it's only the 21st? That's not fair, I want something real."

"It's the 20th, Tori."