someone else | j st. james [on hold]

12 | just friends

as we move to season 2 — have no fear. jesse will make an additional appearance or two more than he does in the show. and i've got some deliciously angsty drama to make up for his absence. but we will be skipping lots of episodes throughout

Jacob Ben-Israel was a menace — a menace who couldn't wait to dig up as much gossip and dirt as possible when the first day of the new school year came around. Dan hadn't taken three steps out of the locker room before he descended like a vulture with his cameraman.

"Dan Hummel, is it true that notorious heartbreaker Jesse St. James left you behind like litter on the street and ran off to LA?"

Dan scoffed as he forced his microphone in her face. "He left for college, dumbass."

"Are the reports that you're on the market true? That Jesse didn't want the burden of a long-distance relationship weighing him down, so he dumped you?"

"Actually, I am on the market," Dan said, spinning on her heel and smiling directly into the camera. "And anyone looking to impress me can start by locking JBI in a port-a-potty and then rolling it down the hill behind the football field with him still in it."

Jacob cowered as she grinned viciously at him. One of the passing baseball players had heard her request, and in seconds, a herd of boys were grabbing at Jacob, dragging him off, desperate to please the head cheerleader. Dan winked at the cameraman before he followed after to catch the drama on film.

The truth was that Dan was single. Jesse had left for UCLA. But it was by no means a crushing breakup.

If anything, it had been the best summer of either of their young lives. It was full of dates — ones that weren't an hour out of town to hide from people they knew. Movie nights and duets in car rides and loving nights under the sheets. They spent almost every day together, not wanting to waste any moment of their limited time.

They had even met each other's families — in Jesse's case, a more formal setting than stumbling across them when he had her pressed up against a wall.

Jesse's family had definitely been interesting. It was clear that he was the favorite of their three children. And his parents were far more stuck up than Dan's family. But Dan is nothing if not charming when she wants to be, which meant she easily had them wrapped around her finger. What parent didn't love their son dating the perfect head cheerleader, who was also the captain of the soccer and lacrosse teams?

It had been a little harder for Jesse to win over Dan's family after Finn and Kurt informed their parents of all his dastardly deeds. But he had been invited over for dinner with the unofficial Hudson-Hummel family, and Jesse had won over Burt and Carole for the most part. It was another story for Finn and Kurt, who vowed to hate Jesse until their dying breath.

And even after Jesse came over one day to find Dan and Burt singing Run Joey Run in the backyard as they grilled hotdogs, he had to admit that he liked being at her house more than he liked being at his own.