Puzzle Pieces // m.f

1.0

Jamie slowly wandered to the bathroom, feeling somewhat dazed knowing that she was going to be shopping with the man she had idolized through a screen two days ago, and wearing his shirt on top of it. It was all rather surreal. Unlikely, impossible, implausible, improbable, bizarre. Any number of adjectives would do, really.

She turned the water on and adjusted the heat, waiting for it to begin warming up before ridding herself of the clothes she had worn to bed the night before. As she pulled the shirt over her head, she became aware that it smelled exactly like Mark; something like honey and redwood trees on a hot day.

As Jamie stepped under the stream of nearly uncomfortably hot water she caught herself smiling at the inexplicable crashing sound downstairs and Ryan's yelling that followed it. There was something nice about being in a relaxed and consistently happy environment. Of course, she was still tense and stressed but there were small escapes from the rest of the world like hot showers with legitimate privacy and nights out with the sole purpose of smiling.

She stepped out of the shower, maybe twenty minutes later, and wrapped the fluffy green towel around herself. It suddenly felt cold in the bathroom and Jamie hurried down the hall to her own room so that she could close the door and get dressed as quickly as possible.

Jamie absentmindedly turned on her music, singing along to Front Porch Step as she pulled out everything she needed to get ready for the day. The volume was up as loud as possible, mostly out of habit from living with two siblings, and she could be heard throughout the house. Faintly by Matt and Ryan who were downstairs preparing for a lengthy and bound to be aggravating session of Mario Kart and considerably louder by Mark who couldn't help but smile when he heard her.

Jamie's curly and still slightly damp hair was put up into a bun, though not an overly stable one, and she began to do her makeup. Dark red lipstick, neutral eyeshadow, and a slightly thicker than usual line of black eyeliner made her general look for the day.

Meandering out of her bedroom, Jamie walked towards where she was mostly sure Mark's office was. Unbeknownst to her, he had decided to film a quick update video just as explanation for anything that may come up in future videos as a result of having another person in the house. She hesitantly opened the door, figuring that it would be okay since it wasn't pulled all the way to anyway.

"Oh, Jamie's right here!" Mark's habitual filming smile was quickly traded for the more gentle one that came about whenever he saw Jamie. "Come on, let me introduce you to the audience."

"Mark, no," Jamie all but whispered, knowing that she really needed to keep her voice down to avoid the microphone picking it up.

"Aw, come on. They're very nice; you should know." Mark was very adamant, but so was Jamie, shaking her head to reject the idea. "Jamie's very shy."

Mark gave a bit more explanation on his new housemate, choosing not to mention gender or age since her name was rather gender neutral. He knew his fan base was mostly full of sweet and well wishing people, but on the off chance that Jamie had been right to shy away from the camera, he didn't want to take any chances. They had never openly known when he had a girlfriend and he didn't want to see what happened when they could draw their own conclusions from a seemingly random girl moving in. Hate wasn't necessarily expected, it was just avoided. When he walked out of the small recording room, he came face to face with Jamie, who seemed less than thrilled to have almost been in a video.