For a moment I don't know what I should feel more – pissed off or hurt –
but I find myself mostly confused. It's nothing new for Bella to get in my face like that; I know she deals with her frustration by letting her emotions run rampant, and I prefer that to her brooding and moping around for ages, but this obviously goes beyond any other fight we've had lately. And being left standing in my living room with Jazz, who is seething with anger, while I have absolutely no idea what is going on, is not helping things.
"What the fuck?"
Probably not the most eloquent way to phrase the question, but I don't think anything else will get through to him right now.
Jazz keeps staring at me for several seconds, then grunts, and turns away from me, still tense as hell.
"Nothing. Forget it."
"What do you mean, nothing?" I shout, my own ire rising at the way he's trying to shut me down. "Obviously I'm an oblivious asshole that doesn't
"get" anything. You could at least do me the courtesy of telling me what I was too dense to "get" this time!"
He stops, then looks back at me, flexing his hands as if he is yearning to punch me. Hell, maybe he is. I don't give a shit.
"Well?" I ask again when he still doesn't say anything.
"You really don't see it?" he asks, more incredulous than angry for a moment, but the rage is back within moments. "How can you not see it?
She saw it weeks ago! Weeks!" Jazz throws his hands up and starts to pace, then stops again, glaring at me. "How can you be so blind?"
"Maybe because I'm just a stupid fucker?" I supply unhelpfully, but his anger is so contagious that I can't calm myself down. I'm so fed up with all the secrecy, and I know it's only going to get worse if I don't stop this now.
"But how about for a change you just tell me what the fuck is going on?
Instead of whining behind my back that I'm too much of an idiot to get it?"
He takes an almost menacing step towards me, then opens his mouth, but at the last second closes it again. My patience snaps and I cross the distance between us, grabbing the front of his t-shirt to yank him towards me so I can sneer into his face from up close.
"Fucking tell me!"
"I love you, that's what's going on!"
He spits out the words, then shoves me away, hard enough to make me stumble and for him to shake me off. Once the meaning behind what he has just said registers, I'm stunned, and unable to react. I feel like a fish out of water, and my mind kicks into overdrive.
He loves me. He loves me? What the -
I swallow thickly, then force myself to think; all the while Jazz is staring at me, his shoulders heaving slightly with each shaky breath.
Part of me is waiting for me to freak out – what will happen now? How will Bella take it? Can our relationship survive me fucking up again, in exactly the same way as before? But the only thing I actually feel is relief. Because suddenly it all makes sense.
From the end of their spat it's obvious that Bella knows, in fact has known for a while – and that also explains her erratic behavior of the last few weeks. She's not one to keep secrets, and it must have been eating her up not to breathe a word to me. The fact that she didn't tell me leads me to only one possible conclusion – not only did she bow to what must have been extensive begging on Jasper's side, but she must be sympathizing deeply with him without being upset herself, or else she would have gotten in my face the second she got a whiff of it.
And Jazz's own erratic behavior is clearly related to what just culminated to what must have been one of the hardest things he has ever admitted to anyone in his life. From the way he's still looking at me, with panic and defiance warring in his eyes, it's not hard to guess that he's expecting me to either laugh in his face, tell him to fuck off, or kick him out at any moment now.
I should probably tell him that I don't intend to do any of those things.
Though brief to me, my silence must have been endless to him, and he looks ready to draw his own conclusions from it.
"Aren't you at least going to say something to that?" he gripes, his voice strained, his anger not completely gone.
I spend a fleeting second trying to come up with something, but nothing comes to mind. I just know how his words make me feel.
He hasn't shoved me far enough away that I can't cross the distance between us in two quick steps, but he tries to fight me when I grab his shoulders and pull him close. He seems so fragile as he stares at me, then opens his mouth to keep shouting, but I cut off the escaping sound by mashing my lips against his and pushing my tongue into his mouth.
Jazz shudders, then tries to push me away in earnest, but I only let go of his left shoulder so I can grab the back of his neck to keep him from dislodging my lips from his. The muffled grunt he utters in protest already speaks of his defeat, and a moment later I feel his hands on my body.
