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Chapter 32 - be his friend first

"Hi..." Jess uttered as the door was opened by one of Jack's housemates, who was clearly taking a while to process whether he recognised her or not. When it became clear that he didn't, Jess quickly tried to save the awkwardness. "I'm looking for Jack."

"Of course you are." The guy who went by the name of Zaiden teased ,yet it only made her feel more uncomfortable. "Come in."

As he began taking a few steps back to create space for her to walk in, he followed by yelling up the stairs for Jack a few times before turning his attention back to Jess.

"He'll be down in a minute."

Nodding her head, Jess stood self-consciously in the hallway as Zaiden threw himself back down onto the sofa with a few of Jack's other housemates. They were all engrossed in a game on the playstation and she instantly felt very out of place. She didn't know why she had agreed to come today and was wishing she'd just said no however, it was way too late to back out now.

"You're Jess right?" The guy who she recognised as Max called out and she forced a smile in return.

"Yeah."

"Thought so. What are Lawrence's plans today then?" He asked, causing the guys to smirk and snigger along as though she was missing an inside joke. "Dinner? A movie? Or are you just staying in like they usually do?"

Jess' heart completely sank as he spoke those words while the guys continued to laugh, clearly finding this very amusing. They were trying to make a joke however, to her this was extremely far from funny.

"Um..." She began to respond, desperately trying to come up with a good enough reply to get them to stop however, she was full of relief when she heard a recognisable voice.

"Fuck off." Aaron bit as he threw a boxing glove at them and managed to hit Max across the head.

"What?" We're just asking." He argued before throwing it back with force, yet Aaron managed to catch it perfectly in his hands.

"She doesn't have to answer your questions nor is any of this shit funny." He began, with pure warning in his eyes. "Have a bit of fucking respect, yeah?"

Jess was mentally thanking Aaron over and over in her head for appearing at this precise moment. She knew she should have stuck up for herself but when surrounded by a group of guys who knew Jack better than she did, it was difficult to know what to say.

"Alright, Aaron Harris. Thank you for your wise words." Max mocked with a grin over his face, clearly showing he still found it all funnier than he should. However, it didn't matter anymore because Aaron rescued Jess from the awful situation by guiding her off and into the kitchen.

"Ignore them, they're twats."

"Mmm, I will." Jess agreed before watching him as he began searching through the cupboards. He was pulling out a rather large collection of water bottles and piling them up on the kitchen side and there was no denying he was obviously heading off to training.

"Do you want one?" He asked, passing a bottle her way and Jess couldn't help but smile while shaking her head.

"No, I'm good, thank you."

When Aaron was in training for a fight, he was full on focused on sticking by every rule given to him. It drove Sophie insane and she always made Jess laugh when she was full of shock and frustration at how much water he drank while she was the one ordering alcohol or a coke. He'd be on a strict diet for the sport while she was the total opposite, so having dinner together was always a huge challenge.

"Jack will be down in a minute; he's only just got up."

"Are you serious?" Jess laughed even though truly, she wasn't all that surprised. It may be 1pm in the afternoon but to Jack, that probably felt more like 9am. His inner clock had been messed with due to the reckless ways he spent his nights, meaning he had missed one too many lectures over the year.