It had been a long drive back to wherever Jackson lived. Not that I experienced any of it seeing as I fell asleep within about 5 minutes. Why was I so tired all the time? Jackson gently shook my arm the moment we arrived and I groggily opened my eyes to see where we had ended up. I opened them to see a fairly large block of apartments; I could tell it was expensive because a vast majority of it was made up of glass. Any notion of being impressed was gone when I remembered how he managed to pay to live in a place like this. I could see Jackson nervously checking my reaction in the corner of my eye. Unsmiling, I turned to face him and simply shrugged my shoulders. Acting blasé and unbothered seemed to be the only way to cope with what was running through my head. The happy escape of sleep had stopped me routinely going through what had happened when we had met with Jackson's boss. Everything was done with so quickly and I had no say in the matter. Why would his boss want me involved in an assassination? I wasn't an employee and surely I'd proved that I couldn't be trusted.
I shook my head, hoping to get some answers once we were in Jackson's apartment. Though, I wasn't sure if he had any answers. Even though he tried to disguise it, he looked just about as confused as I was. During my thought process, Jackson had got out of the car and to my surprise, was holding my door open for me. I blinked up at him in the dim late evening lighting.
"Will you hurry up? We don't have forever, woman." He scowled and made a gesture towards the door, signalling me to get out.
"Charming as always." I rolled my eyes and stalked towards the entrance of the apartment block, hearing him shut the car door a little harder than necessary and probably making an obscene gesture behind my back.
Once we got to door, he unlocked it and went inside; threw his leather jacket on the couch and absentmindedly said something like 'make yourself at home'. What was wrong with him? The tension between us was oppressive. The apartment didn't look exactly homely and I wandered in reluctantly. To my surprise there were a few picture frames lined neatly on the mantelpiece. Curiously overpowered me and I walked up to inspect them. They all seemed to be from when he was a lot younger; the first one he looked around 6 and he was stood with a little blonde girl, his sister? The second one looked like a family photo with his mum, dad and sister all there and the last one was just a photo of his mum and dad together. It wasn't hard to guess why there wasn't any recent ones; it wasn't exactly plausible for Jackson to have a girlfriend, who would want to be with someone with a job like that? And here you are, Lisa. It's not like this was exactly romantic though. Having said that, I couldn't help feeling things towards Jackson that I never thought was possible before he had appeared in my life for the second time. Every instinct in me was telling me that I shouldn't even be here. It was ridiculous; I get out of this apartment now if I wanted. Jackson had clearly stopped being bothered about me and was off-guard. So why wasn't I running hell for leather right out of that apartment and finding some way of being home, of being safe? Safe. I'd forgotten the meaning of the word. After I met Jackson, I realised being safe was just an illusion. I heard him abruptly clearing his throat behind me, interrupting my reverie.
"Find anything of interest?" I spun around quickly hearing the sharp tone of his voice.
"Yeah, actually." I moved to the side so he could see the frames behind me. "Is this your family?" There was no point in being subtle with Jackson.
"I don't want to talk about that. We have stuff to do." He turned around and went to pick up his laptop which was lying on the kitchen side. Anger flared inside of me.
"Why does everything have to be on your terms? I barely know a single fucking thing about you yet you know everything about me, even the way I have my eggs in the morning. Doesn't that strike you as a little unfair, Jack?" I slurred nastily as I said the name that he hated so much. "There's nothing keeping me here, you know. I could walk out of that door and you'd never see me again." I was so lost in a flurry of rage that I hadn't noticed Jackson advancing on me from the other side of the room. "I don't care if I'd have to move to fucking Alaska, you would never-" I was stopped mid-sentence by Jackson's lips crashing onto mine. My hands instinctively went up to his chest but instead of pushing away, I decided to kiss him back. His kiss was rough and urgent, his hands slipped around my waist and he pressed me hard against him. My arms snaked around his neck, pulling him impossibly closer. He picked me up and placed me on the desk against the wall, planting tentative kisses down my neck and along my shoulder. My breathing quickened as he placed a hand on my waist under my top. We stayed like that for a while, making out like reckless high school kids. I'd never felt so alive.
