The Gray Zone

CHAPTER 24

/Jesse's POV/

I walked over to my jeans and got my phone out of the pocket. 20 unread messages, four missed calls. Fuck. One of them was from a random number, the other three from Zach. I dialed his number and walked over to the window. After two seconds I heard my friend's voice. "Yo! Jesse, where are you? Shit, you can't drive drunk and then not tell me where you are." 

"Calm down, Zach." I interrupted him "Everything's fine. I spend the night at Alexis'." 

Silence fell over us and it made me uncomfortable. "Wow, what? Didn't you say that you wanted to take things slow? And now you're over there banging this oh-so-special chic?"

I didn't liked the tone of my friend at all and clenched my jaw. "No, I didn't fuck her. Really." 

There was silence again. Zach cleared his throat. "Yeah, okay buddy. It's just that usually ... when you're drunk and then you drive to a girl's house... You know what I'm talking about." 

"Yes, I sure do. But it was something else. We just spend the night together, cuddling 'n stuff." 

I heard him sighing through the phone. "Okay, cool man. You still gonna be at the game later?" he changed the topic.

"Sure thing, Dude. I'm already pumped for it. We'll talk later." With that I ended the call and sat down on the bed again. 

My eyes wandered through the room which was nicely decorated and then back to the bed again. A smile appeared on my face. This was one of the best things to happen to me for months. I saw my clothes lying on the floor and put my trousers back on and tucked my shirt into the belt. Just then Alex came in again, wrapped in a towel. 

"Hey there, Lovely." I smiled and walked over to her, seemingly making her knees weak. I loved that. At least here I was in control. 

"You need to start wearing shirts around me again..." she gawked, her hands going over my shoulders again and then a telling smile appeared on her face "Otherwise I won't be able to concentrate on anything else than you." 

"That's what I like to hear, Princess." With that I leaned down and pressed her against the wall of her room.

After a while, and a lot of hickeys later, we had made our way to the front door. As I was just about to leave I looked one more time into Alex's eyes. 

"Later at the game, don't try to find me. I'll find you. And then you can meet all of the boys."

She nodded cheerfully and hugged me. "Thank you for making me sleep in your arms, Babe." I heard her whisper and kissed her cheek. 

Ugh. I didn't want to go. I wanted to chill with her the whole day and later drive to in-n-out and everything. But I knew that this wouldn't happen today so I opened the front door, just to face this Madison girl. Her eyes were big and she looked over my shoulder to Alexis. "Jesse?" 

"Uhm yeah?" I snickered while taking a cigarette from the packet in my jeans. When there was no response I looked at both. "Looks like you two have a lot to talk about so I'm gonna leave. See you, Gals." 

With that I made my way past Madison and down the little stone plates to my car. Fuck yeah, that was the best start to a day since the first day of the summer holidays or so.

/Alexis' POV/

"Ohmygodyouneedtotellmeeverything!!!" Madison screamed when Jesse was a few feet away and with that she stormed into my house. "Jesse Rutherford leaving your house on a Sunday morning without a shirt on that's... impressive!" I laughed it off. 

But to be honest, it was definitely impressing. Otherworldly. He, this bad boy and player and new boyfriend of mine, spending the night with me... giving me hickeys... making me moan. I still couldn't wrap my head around that. How on earth did that come along? "Wait, Maddy. First of all, what are you doing here?" 

"I wanted to surprise you but you definitely win!" She laughed and got a plastic bag of homemade brownies out of her bag and looked at me. "How about these with coffee and then you tell me all about it?"

I agreed and a few minutes later we had sat down on my bed and I began. "He just came over and said it would drive him insane if he couldn't hold me the night so I sneaked him into my room and he talked about the party and tore his shirt off like it was nothing but-" 

"Ugh, I know! He's so hot, not even joking." Madison agreed and made a swooning face.

"And then it was just like... really, really unbelievably cute. He hold me and kissed me and called me cute names... It was like heaven."

In excitement my friend jumped up and down on my bed. "I'm so happy for you, Alex! Like, that this really happened. And that he's so perfect. This is just..." 

"I know." I snickered and went with my hand around my throat. "I just hope it stays like this." 

Madison frowned. "Don't worry, girl. Just give yourself some time. It'll work out! You two are the cutest couple ever!"

We talked a bit more and for the first time I felt relieved and overall balanced and peaceful. The conversation didn't drain me, the talking didn't annoy me. It was all just so wonderful.

A bit later my mom came back from grocery shopping and some when in the noon, while Madison had left again to get ready for the match (I don't know why anyone would dress up for that kind of thing but whatever), Levi came home. 

"Rough night, was it?" I joked as he entered the living room while I was watching TV. 

"You could say so." He agreed and added "But also... good. Anyways I'm showering now." When he left I could not other than smile. I grinned the whole day like an Idiot.

Around six PM I got out of my pajama and searched for something to wear. Once I was done I put some mascara and eyeliner on and I was ready. My mom seemed pretty excited about all this and somewhere, deep in the back of my mind Mr. Dannie popped up in my head but I was too occupied with other thoughts. These games were not really about the sport but to see and to be seen. Oh, how I hated things like that. On normal days. But this time I was so down for it.