Turning Tables || Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x OC

hands in your hair

They were sitting in a booth at the Hard Deck. Jas was arguing animatedly with Phoenix and Payback about something Jake wasn't even remotely interested in.

He watched Jas as she moved her hands, incensed that neither of her sparring partners was on her side. Her lips pursed as she listened to Phoenix, her nose scrunched in concentration, and her light brown hair fell over her shoulders and down her back in loose waves.

He liked her like this the most. Relaxed and free, out of that heinous uniform that made very few people look good. Actually, he liked her best when she was falling apart under him, but this image wasn't far behind.

He wanted to tell her, but Jas would tell him to fuck off. It felt like a miracle that she was even sitting next to him.

"That's just stupid," Jas huffed, clearly horrified at whatever Payback had just said.

Jake's arm was slung across the back of the booth, his eyes trained on her side profile. He wanted to touch her, feel her skin under his fingertips, and hear her sigh his name like she did when they were alone and tangled up in each other. When she called him Jake instead of Seresin.

"Whatever," Payback said, shaking his head in surrender. He got up and headed to the bar to get another beer. Phoenix followed him out of the booth and joined the rest of the squad at the pool table.

Jas turned her head to him with an incredulous look. "What do you think you're doing?"

The bottle he was raising to his lips halted halfway in the air, his brows knitting together. "I'm not doing anything."

Jas narrowed her eyes at him. She then looked over her shoulder at his hand resting on the back of the booth. "You're touching my hair."

Jake opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out as he caught a glimpse of his hand very clearly in Jas' hair.

He hadn't realized he was doing it.

He removed his hand and pulled it to himself, letting it fall back at his side. "Sorry," he muttered and took a sip of his beer. He wasn't, though, not really.

Jas held his gaze. She looked disappointed, but he had to be imagining it. There's no way he wasn't. Jas had made it very clear that what happened in her office was a one-time thing, which meant that intimate gestures like playing with her hair, intentional or not, were off-limits.

"It's okay," she finally said and turned her head back to the rest of the squad, who appeared to be discussing teams for another round of pool.

There was something in her tone Jake couldn't quite place.

She finished off her beer and moved to stand. "I need some air."

He watched her leave. She crossed the expanse of the bar at a rapid pace, ignoring Rooster when he asked her to join him for a round of darts. Jas flung the door to the deck open, and Jake watched her shoulders slump through the window the moment she was outside.

Jake caught Phoenix's eye as they flickered from the door Jas had disappeared out of to Jake, who still sat in the booth nursing a beer. She walked back towards him, ignoring Coyote's question of where she was going.

She stopped in front of the booth. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything." He hadn't, and Jas said it was okay.

Phoenix didn't look convinced. "You must've done something to make her storm out of here."

Jake shrugged. "She said she needed some air."

Phoenix offered him a skeptical look, but she didn't say anything. She just went back to the pool table to continue the game, flipping Coyote off when he made a remark she didn't appreciate.

Jake replayed the conversation with Jas in his head. The only thing he'd really done was touch her hair without asking first, but it was an absentminded gesture, and Jas hadn't been mad at him, had she? She didn't seem angry, and he'd never known her to hold back.

He had to talk to her and clear the air if she was upset, so he downed the rest of his beer in one go. He got out of the booth, strolled across the bar, and out to the deck. The door clicked shut behind him, and the noise from the bar faded to the background.

He stood there for a second, enjoying the cool ocean breeze, before looking around for Jas. He found her leaning against the outer wall of the bar, looking up at the night sky. Her figure was illuminated by a porch light holding on for dear life.

It occurred to Jake, not for the first time, that she was one of the most beautiful people he'd ever seen. He could look at her forever and never get tired of it.

"You okay?" He asked and approached her.

Her eyes left the stars and found him. Her features remained schooled into chilly indifference, no indication that she was mad at him. He took it as a good sign as he stopped in front of her, feeling the heat radiate off her in steady waves.

"Yeah," she said, her eyes darting away for a second before returning to him.

"There's something else going on," he observed matter-of-factly. Jake couldn't read her and would probably never be able to, but something told him he'd hit the nail on the head.

Jas looked down at her feet, and that's when Jake spotted the rosy tint to her neck that looked suspiciously like a fading flush.

Some part of him knew it was a bold move, but he still raised his hand and placed it under her chin to make Jas look at him. He was mesmerized by just how blue her eyes were, even in the shitty lighting of the desperate porch lamp.

It was so out of character for her not to offer a snarky remark, and Jake was a little stunned that he was still touching her.

"I just needed some air," she finally said.

He dropped his hand, not wanting to push his luck. "Because I touched your hair or...?"

Jas groaned in frustration. "Yes."

He was missing something. He had to be. He felt like he was back in high school trying to solve equations, but the answer was just out of reach.

"Why?"

Jas groaned again, the exasperation clear on her features. She looked at him, and he watched the war in her mind raging as her pupils grew in size, making her blue irises disappear.

The realization hit him a split second before her lips crashed onto his in a searing kiss.

His hands came up to her cheeks, and he pulled her face closer to him. He wanted to feel all of her, even if he couldn't quite believe she was letting him kiss her again.

She tasted as good as he remembered.

His hands moved from her face into her hair, and she moaned into his mouth when he gripped it.

He pulled back and stared at her, surprised at his discovery. Jas' pupils were blown wider than before, and her lips were swollen from their borderline teenage make-out session.

He wanted her, had wanted her since he first laid eyes on her.

Jas raised an eyebrow, daring him to ask the question she knew was on the tip of his tongue.

He didn't, though. He loosened his grip on her hair and ran his hands through it instead. Gently, like he had inside the bar. He loved the sensation of her locks running through his fingers.

He smiled to himself at the knowledge that she liked having her hair pulled. He stored it in the box labeled Jas in the back of his mind, keeping the information for a rainy day when he'd need the upper hand. With Jas, you never knew when that would be.

For now, he leaned in again and captured her lips in a kiss that felt dangerously romantic. It lacked the fervor of the previous one.

Jake took a step back, winked at Jas, who looked ready to tear his clothes off, and walked back into the Hard Deck like nothing had happened.