tangled up in blue

10

I had forgotten how to breathe.

A million thoughts were racing through my brain, starting with 'push him away' and ending in 'don't let him leave.' My mess of a mind made no sense. The only human thing I could find in all the chaos was the sound of his voice, whispering my name.

I grasped for it, held on tightly, and pulled it towards me. The thought of him enveloped my chest, and pushed out a single word.

"Jace," I breathed.

We didn't often call each other by our first names. It was almost intimate, the way we sounded on each other's tongues. Foreign, and yet familiar, like a dream of a place you'd once been, and since forgotten.

He blinked. Once. Twice. And then his fingers twitched, almost as if he wanted to touch me.

"You should-" I cleared my throat, my voice quiet and rough under his intense stare. "You should probably move away now." I placed a hand against his bare chest, and pushed past him. He stumbled back, blinking rapidly as if he'd suddenly just realized where he was, and what he was doing.

"Dick," He said behind me, quickly returning back to his old self and covering any sign of being flustered. Not that there was a person alive that could actually make Jace flustered. He didn't blush over anyone. It was probably just from the heat.

"That reminds me," I said from where I stood with my back to him before I could stop myself. "You gonna put on some clothes?"

I was glad he couldn't see my face as it reddened. There was a pause of electrified silence, and then he chuckled. "I don't know if you really want me to, Quinn."

I forced myself to let out a short, humorous exhale, but my heart was racing again. Straight people teased each other all the time. Sexually charged jokes were totally normal. With friends.

Me and Jace were many things, but not once in our entire lives, had we been friends.

So I did what I did best; I picked up my problem with my mind, and threw it in a dark, dusty room labelled 'Things Noah Doesn't Think About.'

Good job, me! Another trauma successfully repressed!

"Shut up," I mumbled, and picked up his clothes from the floor.

"You gonna turn around and give me clothes to put on?" He mimicked, amusement lacing his tone.

"I'm fine where I am, thanks," I replied, trying to resist the urge to look at him. He responded by throwing a pen from the desk beside him at the back of my head. I flinched, rubbing my neck, almost turning to glare at him before I remembered why I was so interested in my bedroom wall. In retaliation, I walked to my left and pulled open the door, throwing his clothes as far down the hallway as I could.

I heard a gruff voice cursing under his breath as I slapped a hand over my eyes. His footsteps entered the hall, and then stopped.

"Holy- uh, hey Jace. Nice ass."

At the sound of an unfamiliar male voice, I swiftly opened my eyes and headed through the doorway again. Standing out in the hall were a group of teenagers, gawking at the boy in front of them, who was hastily wrapping a t-shirt round his waist for protection. My friends were standing slightly behind them, Beth capturing the moment with a picture, her mouth open. The tanned boy clenched his jaw and spoke, looking like he was about to commit a felony.

"Hi, guys. May I ask what the fuck you're all doing here?"

The girl in the group laughed in disbelief, stepped forward and tugged gently on the t-shirt that covered him. She was pretty. I decided that I hated her.