♥Chapter 24: ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ꜱʜᴇ ɢᴇᴛꜱ ᴅɪꜱᴛʀᴀᴄᴛᴇᴅ♥

✿Kennedy✿

My eyes stir open when someone pokes my cheek.

I start stretching and then almost scream when hands grab my wrists, stopping me from moving.

"Shh!" Corey shushes me.

I look at his face looming above mine.

"Quietly, get up," He whispers in the lowest of voices.

A look of confusion comes over my face and I look around. Toothy stands behind Corey with something in her hands.

I look to my side to see Jake still sleeping with one big arm around my waist.

Corey helps me get up and pry Jake's arm off me, trying not to wake him up.

"What are we doing?" I whisper, still in a sleepy state.

I rub my eyes to clear them before blinking at Toothy.

Corey gives me a mischievous grin and looks at Jake's sleeping form.

He looks so cute snuggled within the blankets and with his hair all messed up and all.

Corey takes a can-type thing from Toothy and dips his finger in. When he takes out his finger, something black covers it.

"Shoe polish," Toothy murmurs to me, noticing my confused look. 

"Here," Corey hands me his phone, "Record me."

I flip the camera open and point it at Corey, "Recording started," I whisper, remembering how my own parents used to record every little thing or prank we did.

Corey gives me a thumbs-up and moves towards Jake's sleeping form and crouches down.

Very slowly, Corey smears the black shoe polish onto Jake's jaw.

He continues smearing lines across his face until Jake looked like a human head basketball.

Jake stirs in his sleep.

We all freeze.

He stirs some more but his eyes don't open.

We wait for a few seconds with our hearts in our throats. He doesn't move again.

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Corey starts rubbing the black shoe polish on his face again.

I hold a hand to my mouth to cover my silent laughter as I watch along with Toothy.

When Corey's done decorating Jake's face, he stands up and takes the lid of two big steel utensils.

"Might wanna cover your ears for this one, ladies," Corey grins, whispering to Toothy and me.

We cover our ears.

Corey spreads his arms wide, holding the steel lids. He crouches down to position the lids right above Jake's ear. He slams the lids together in a 'clang' so loud, I feel it vibrate through my body and rattle my heart.

Jake bolts up like a bullet with wide eyes.

"What the—" His eyes stop on Corey's laughing face, "Motherfucker!" He gets up with a sneer and charges at Corey.

Corey twists away before Jake's fist could reach him and runs away with a hooting laugh.

I point the camera wherever Jake and Corey run to, laughing within myself.

Jake finally catches Corey and they both fall to the kitchen floor, rolling around. Jake lands on top of Corey and wastes no second in punching his sides.

"Fifth fucking time!" Jake glowers, continuing his attack on Corey.

"God. Man," Corey who's laughing like crazy beneath him, "Ow, okay, you're punching too fucking hard." He says, "Ouch! Stop!" He yelps, "Get off me, motherfucker!"

Jake gives one last punch and gets off Corey, still glaring.

Jake puts a finger to his face as if already expecting something to be there. Black paints his finger when he sees it.

With a sigh, he turns towards Toothy and me.

"Really?" He asks Toothy. "You let him do this again?"

She raises her eyebrows. "Why not?"

He narrows his eyes and turns towards Corey. "If you do this one more fucking time, I'm gonna rough you up so bad."

A grin spreads across Corey's face as he leans back on the floor. "Kinda hard to take you seriously when you look like someone slapped mascara all over your face."

Jake glares at Corey before looking at Toothy and me.

He shakes his head and heads upstairs.

"Someone always pisses in his cereal without him even having to do anything." Corey chuckles, rubbing his sides where Jake punched him.

"Here," I stop the recording and give Corey's phone back.

I head upstairs too and walk into my room. After taking a few pumps from my inhaler, I skim through my closet in search for today's clothes.

A memory comes to my mind of the dream I saw last night.

I saw Jake asking me to let him be my boyfriend.

A laugh escapes my mouth.

Crazy isn't it?

Who would want to be my boyfriend?

I pick a pink and white romper and walk out and into the bathroom.

I furrow my eyebrows at the steam covering the mirror and the warm moisture hanging in the air.

Did someone take a shower in here?

I snort. Obviously, someone will take a shower in the bathroom only. 

Imagine taking a shower in the kitchen.

I didn't hear the bathroom door close or open though.

Shrugging it off, I yank away the shower curtain and scream when a ghost appears in front of me. Without thinking, I slap the living daylights out of the bathroom monster.

"DIE MOTHERLOVER—" I raise my hand for another slap.

Then my eyes widen, realizing it isn't a bathroom monster.

Jake stands bare and naked in front of my eyes, his body wet with water droplets running down his wide and broad chest. His hair falls over his forehead and Ohhh Mama. 

"What the fuck, Kennedy?" He glowers, rubbing his cheek where I slapped him.

"I thought you were the bathroom monster!" I exclaim, "Oh mama, you almost fixed a meeting with me and Jesus."

Jake continues glowering at me and it takes me seconds to realize again that I'm staring at a very naked Jake.

A very naked hot Jake. Delicioso. 

A squeal comes out of my mouth and I whirl around, my face matching the temperature of the sun.

"Why the heck are you naked?" I ask.

"Because I was taking a shower?"

"Oh right, sorry," I face-palm myself, "Well then, why didn't you lock the door?"

"I used to live alone, Ken. Except for Alex. No one used this bathroom, so I had no fucking reason to lock it."

"What happened to the bathroom in your room?" 

"The water's not working there." He replies.

I nod.

My cheeks are still warm and flushing red.

I didn't see his jewels though.

Should I turn around and peek—

Nope.

"Should I give you a towel or something?" I ask, my voice a little high-pitched than before.

"Yes," He grumbles.

I walk ahead and grab the towel and walk backwards, without turning around and hand Jake the towel.

I stand still in my place while Jake's doing God knows what behind me. What if he's doing one of those shower sexy dances?

"Are you dancing?" I ask. 

He doesn't reply for a while. "Does it look like I dance?" 

I imagine Jake dancing on one of those bar tables, flexing those abs of his with people running their fingers over them and showering him with money and drinks...okay, where are all these thoughts coming from? 

"You'd be an amazing sight," I say.

"Uh-huh."

"Done," He says after a while.

I frown in confusion. "Done what?"

What's done? Did he mean he's done dancing? I didn't get to see it!

He sighs. "Just turn back around." 

I turn around and breathe in relief to see the white towel around his torso.

I would have fainted otherwise.

That's when my eyes stop on his abs. Holy—

Yup, I'm still gonna faint. 

How are those dang abs so defined? And to top it all, the water droplets sliding down his hard smooth skin.  

He steps out of the shower and stands in front of me.

His face is clean of black shoe polish, and he looks fresh and crisp.

His eyes stare at me and I stare back at his.

He steps closer to me and without warning, wraps his arm around me while a hand tilts my head to meet his. His soft, plump lips come in contact with mine and I internally explode.

He continues kissing me until I break out in a laugh, making us pause.

"Imagine if your towel fell," I say.

His response was to crash his lips back onto mine. His hand comes under my butt and lifts me making my legs wrap around his torso.

His lips are fast and hard on mine with my hands roaming from his bare chest to his shoulders, feeling all his smooth and hard bare skin.

The kiss continues for a while longer before I can't take it anymore and pull away, breathing hard.

Jake sets me down and I catch my breath.

"Guess what?" I ask Jake and he nods for me to continue, "I almost saw Jakey junior."

He gives me a shake of his head before craning his head down, kissing my forehead and walking out of the bathroom.

✯✯✯

I stare at the words in my textbook.

I'm going to cry.

I have a test tomorrow and so far; nothing seems to stay in my head. It's all floating around in jumbled sentences, mocking me of how I'm going to fail.

I close my eyes and put my head on the book, silently crying to myself without actually really crying. I don't know how that makes sense, but it does. It's like I'm crying but not actually crying but like you know with the silent imaginary tears—

My favourite footsteps thud down the stairs.

"What are you doing?" A deep voice that makes my body vibrate with shivers asks above my head.

"Wallowing in self-pity. Wanna join?" I answer.

"Sure." He replies. 

"I think I'm gonna be a cobbler when I grow up."

A barstool screeches against the floor as Jake pulls up and sits beside me.

"What's wrong?" He asks.

I lift my head and point at my textbook.

"These words look English but they're not," I reply.

He looks at the page I was reading and gives a shrug.

"It's actually pretty simple." He says.

"Says the one who's in their fourth year of college," I narrow my eyes.

He rolls his eyes before gesturing towards the textbook, "Just take a fucking look."

I look at the textbook.

"What now?" I ask.

He goes on for about an hour, explaining each and every word to me. I actually find it a lil' easier when he explains. Also, a whole lot of flipping distracting.

It's not even my fault that I'm getting distracted.

Look at those hands gripping the pencil!

"Your hands look so good gripping the pencil," I say and Jake pauses whatever he was writing on the notepad.

His gaze flicks to me, with his eyes narrowing a bit, "Were you focusing on the work or my hands?"

I get a little surprised by his serious tone.

Woah, Jake likes to be super serious while studying.

"Your hands," I reply then mentally slap myself.

Jake raises an eyebrow at me, giving me a look.

"It's not my fault that you're so motherloving distracting."

"Kennedy, even you're the most fucking distracting person I've ever seen," He replies, "but let's try to finish this work so I can finally kiss the fuck out of you."

"Kiss me now," I blurt then blush when a dark hooded look comes over his eyes.

"You're tempting me," His voice comes deep and low and his grip on the pencil tightens.

I sigh, "I know, I know, I'm sorry. You're right let's finish this quickly cos I have a test tomorrow. Also then we can finally get smoochy."

We both nod in agreement and do just that.

I thought I would get a five-or ten-minute break from all the mental pressure my brain had to go through after studying.

But Jake was lifting me off my seat and onto his lap the moment we were done.

He stands up when the barstool got uncomfortable. My legs are wrapped around his waist as he carries us to the couch.

Alex is at his work and won't be back until night.

Jake's lips pepper kisses all over my jaw, lips and neck, never once taking a break. How does this man have this much energy?

"Let me be your boyfriend." He murmurs between kissing my lips and I freeze.

"Funny, I had a dream where you asked me the same thing," I laugh.

He stops kissing me and leans back, a glare on his face.

"It wasn't a fucking dream."

I blink in confusion, "What?"

"I asked you last night but the moment I did you fell asleep."

I furrow my eyebrows in confusion, "You did?"

He nods.

My eyebrows raise in shock, "Wow, it really felt like a dream,"

"It wasn't," He states.

"You know once I had a dream that I was swimming in the sea and drowned with sharks surrounding me. But then I woke up and realized that I had only fallen asleep in the bathtub. And then I got out, got dressed and went to sleep."

He stares at me as if expecting me to say something more.

Was I supposed to say something else?

I give him a confused look, "Are you waiting for me to say something?"

He sighs, "The boyfriend thing, Ken."

"The what now?"

He remains quiet to let my brain process it by myself. 

My mouth forms an 'oh' with realization, "Oh right. You know no one's ever asked me to let them be my boyfriend before. There was this one guy in my old school's class who always used to talk to me, but it was all about homework and assignments."

He nods then opens his mouth. "Can I be your—"

I cut him off without meaning to. "You know there's actually a limit to how much homework and assignments can a teacher give. But they still cross that limit and pressure students!"

"Oh wow," Jake mutters before opening his mouth. "Now about that boyfriend thing."

"Oh right! Sorry." I face-palm myself. "I keep forgetting about your question. You know there was this boy I met at the park one day who had the same forgetting thing. Guy, didn't even remember his eye colour. I started talking to him one day and—"

"Let me be your boyfriend!" Jake snaps, cutting me off.

I nod, "Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that part, but I really need to complete my story. It gets interesting in the end—"

"Let me be your boyfriend or I'm shooting myself in the face with Alex's gun." He states blankly.

I scowl, "Fine. You're my boyfriend, happy?"

He narrows his eyes, "Oh really? I thought I had to ask fifty-two more times."

I furrow my eyebrows, "Why would you think that?"

Is this how Jake thinks all the time?

He opens his mouth but then sighs, shaking his head, "Nothing," He mutters, "Just...fucking nothing."

"Jake are you okay?" I ask, genuinely.

He looks me in the eye, silent for a moment before speaking, "I wonder how Doctor Gabriel took care of you for a whole year."

✄ ✄ ✄ ✄

Words: 2,500

Date of posting: 3rd April 2022