The Middle - Volume Two ✔️

Chapter 10

Jamie

"Fuck!" Shaun says, as he relaxes his weight on top of me.

We're naked (besides my skirt), we're both covered in sweat, and we're coming down.

Shaun moves off of me, and retrieves his boxers and jeans from the kitchen floor. I sit up and smooth my skirt down over my thighs, before reaching over to grab my bra from where it was thrown over the couch. I'm aware that I'm sitting half naked in front of Shaun's wall length windows, but his apartment is on the fifth floor of the building, and it's dark out anyway. This is fine... And it was pretty exciting doing it right next to a window. 

He sits down next to me as I put my bra back on. My shirt is all the way over by the kitchen counter, I'll get it later.

"So, there was one thing I wanted to clarify with you." He says. Straight to business, I see. Great. "I had to hide in your closet yesterday morning when Erin Larson showed up at your place. I assume you wanna keep this between us?"

"Yeah." I say. It's our business, no one else's.

"Fine by me." He smiles at me, before sitting back on the couch and looking up at the TV. I've answered his question, we've done what I came over here to do. That's it, I should get going.

I walk over to the counter to retrieve my shirt, and as I pull it on over my head, Shaun speaks again.

"Hang on. That tattoo." I stop and look down at my only tattoo. It's just below my left breast, so it's only visible when I'm in underwear, bikinis, or naked. I obviously see it whenever I want, so whatever. I pull my shirt down and smooth it out.

"What does it mean?" He asks with interest, so I tell him.

"J3P? Think about it? Jamie, Jamie, Joel and Patrick."

"I figured as much, but why not get The Middle rather than a weird combination of all your initials?" Shaun asks with a smirk, and I roll my eyes at him.

"I don't question you about your tattoos." I say, gesturing towards his naked torso. He has a full tattoo sleeve on one arm. I always assumed it would extend onto his chest, like Patrick's tattoos do. But it doesn't, he just has the one sleeve.

"I liked the design." He says, shrugging his shoulders. "No deeper meaning. But what do you tell guys like that Noah guy when they ask you about that tattoo? Don't you think they'd find it weird you have three dude's initials permanently inked onto your skin?"

"Shaun, I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks." I reply, giving him a big fake smile. He laughs at me. 

"Yeah, that much is clear." He says, while looking me up and down. "Any other ink?"

"You've seen me naked twice now." I point out. If I had any other tattoos, he'd know about it. He laughs. 

"You don't want any more? No cliched inspirational girly quotes like live, laugh, love?" He asks. 

"I like tattoos, but I have no current plans to get another one. I have thought about getting my mom's birthday, but I don't know. Patrick hasn't been to his tattoo guy in a while, maybe I'll get a new one next time he goes." I tell him. 

"You don't need to go with Moore. One of the other guys could take you. Or me. I mean, I am a responsible adult after all. You don't need Moore." Shaun says, his smile gone. I sigh, because his and Patrick's mutual dislike for one another is so irrelevant and stupid. They're both awesome drummers, fucking end of story. 

"Yeah, well, Patrick took me to get this tattoo and he was great. He held my hand and he didn't make fun of me when I pretty much started crying from the pain. He was an awesome help, so I'd go with him again." I explain, before walking over to the door. We're done here.

"I could hold your hand, too." Shaun says, getting to his feet and following me over to the door. He's smiling again. I roll my eyes at him. 

"Well, if we're keeping things discrete, parading around tattoo parlours together probably isn't something we should be doing." I point out with a smile. Shaun nods his agreement. 

"And on that note, do you have any other terms and conditions?" He asks lightly, grinning down at me. I know what he means. 

"Well, I don't care if you sleep with other people while we're doing this, as long as you're safe. And obviously, we will always be safe together." I state. Condoms, all the way. I'm not stupid. 

"Agreed." He says. "So we don't tell anyone, we always use protection... Anything else?" 

"Well, obviously the most important term of all is no strings." I add in for good measure. "No feelings, no attachment, no jealousy if we see each other talking to other guys or girls. And no bitch fits if we need to cancel plans or whatever. Cool with you?" 

"Superstar, there's a reason you're such a Superstar." Shaun says, and I swat him over the head playfully before he opens the front door to let me out. "This is fucking perfect for me. You want me, give me a text, and vice versa. If we're busy, tough. If not..." 

He wraps his arms around my lower back and squeezes my ass. I frown up at him. "Shit like that isn't part of our arrangement. You don't need to get all touchy feely with me unless -"

He cuts me off. "Unless we're moments away from screwing?" 

"Exactly." We smile at each other for a moment, before I step out into the hallway of the building. Then, randomly, I think of something. "One last thing - why don't you have a drum kit over here?" 

Shaun frowns at me in confusion, before laughing. "I do. I keep all of my drumming shit in a spare room. You wanna see before you go?"

"Maybe next time." I reply, feeling a little dumb as he laughs at me before closing the door. I definitely need to find out how Shaun is so rich. Maybe his dad is fucking Dave Grohl or something. I really need to get to the bottom of that. He has a fucking music room? Talk about excessive. Patrick keeps his drums in a corner of his bedroom at his and Joel's place, and when he lived at home he kept his drums in his bedroom. And obviously, he keeps a kit in my garage, but it's in constant use. That shit isn't cheap, you know. I wonder how many full drum kits Shaun even owns. 

I make my way out of Shaun's apartment building and get into my car. I parked a couple of streets over, just in case someone recognised my car outside of Shaun's building or something. I still don't exactly know why I wanna keep my arrangement with Shaun to myself. Well, that's a total lie. I know exactly why I wanna be discrete about this. Because deep down, I feel guilty about having slept with Shaun the night of the Halloween Dance, after throwing a fit about Noah and Madison, and consequently making a complete fool of myself, because I got everything so wrong. I still don't know what the hell went wrong with Noah yesterday afternoon either. Things were so good with him last Thursday after we had the most amazing sex. And now? Now, nothing. Noah's not part of my life anymore. But, Shaun is. He's not my future husband, but he's a good lay. And for now, that's enough to keep me satisfied.