Learning to Love Slowly

Pride and Prejudice and Hair

"Your selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realize you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry--"

"No, pause it! Pause it!" You yelled from the kitchen.

Jason scrambled for the remote to stop the movie and eventually found it under the couch just as the scene had ended. He looked over to see you hurrying to make more popcorn and drinks--all to which he had said he was good without, but you had insisted on the full movie theatre experience. When he looked back at the screen he could still hear you mumbling off a checklist of everything you had.

He had come to visit you the first night he could take off after not seeing you for a good week. Jason had heard from you, every phone call and text conversation lasting long enough to close the distance just a bit, but it wasn't enough. He felt like he wasn't enough; that you deserved to be in a relationship with someone who wasn't as fucked up as he was.

You two were taking it slow, he reminded himself. Again. You had assured him that when you two first became official, which he could hardly believe was a little over a month ago. Much less that it took nearly half a year of him showing up at your window at midnight for you to finally ask him on an official date. And that it took him a whole two seconds too long to accept

"Here you go, my darling," You said, juggling a bowl of popcorn and two bottles of pop. You paused, pulling back the bottle to look at it. "Wait, did you want grape or orange?"

Jason bit back a smile. "It doesn't matter."

The answer seemed to please you and he ended up with the grape. He hated grape soda but drank it anyway, just to see you happy. When you sat on the couch, it was next to him, but just far enough to respect his space.

You had started the movie again after getting comfortable, curling up in the middle of the couch with a blanket over you, and handing the bowl off to Jason. He tried to focus on the movie, but you were distracting him.

Jason had sat with his arm thrown on the back of the couch, and he was close enough to smell and feel your hair against it. Cautiously, his hand played with a loose strand of your that hung over the back, watching it twirl around his finger and liking the way it gleamed in the TV light.

It was soft, and, for a moment, he felt wrong for touching it with his dirty, calloused hand. Jason thought of taking his hand away, but when you leaned back into the touch with a sigh of relief, he kept it there. Slowly, his hand moved to massage the back of your head, earning a soft smile from you. When he pulled it away, Jason watched as you tried to bite back a wide grin.

"That felt nice," You whispered.

Jason didn't know if he would touch you like that again soon, but he was glad to know you liked it. It was a step, he knew that much.