Everything comes back to you -J.MARIANO

[1.07]

"𝓒offee?" Jess asked with a completely different tone for her than he used for other customers. This was a tone that suggested he actually wanted to know the answer to the question and was not just asking it to avoid the wrath of Luke Danes.

Taryn looked up from her sheet of practice questions and the page of the textbook she had been staring at in complete bewilderment for a good thirty minutes and smiled whilst nodding. "Pleas- wait what's the time?"

"Suddenly can't read your watch Taryn?" he raised a brow, gently placing the half empty jug of coffee down on the counter in front of her.

"It's broken," she frowned, briefly glancing down to look at the moving hands of the oldest thing she owned. Her watch had been a tenth birthday present from her uncle, on her Da's side, who lived in England and she hadn't seen him since. It held a weird sort of importance in her life and she physically could not bear to part with it, let alone remove the watch from her wrist. 

"Still? It broke weeks ago, why are you still wearing it?" he asked, keeping his gaze focused on hers as to avoid catching the eyes of the customer on the table behind her who had been trying to flag him down for a refill.

"My wrist feels weird without it," she shrugged in response before turning around to glance at the clock on the wall behind her head. Whilst she turned away, Jess looked down to her books then straight back up as she turned back around. "Yes but decaf please."

Jess nodded and instantly went to reach for the pot of decaf coffee, glad that he had brewed a fresh pot only minutes ago. "Biology?" he asked, even though he knew the answer, whilst filling her mug up.

"Yeah," she sighed, the confusing lines reforming on her forehead. "It's being a dick at the moment."

"Maybe you should beat it up."

She frowned, wondering if she had interpreted what he had said correctly, "Beat it up?"

He gasped jokingly, "Wait, you're not strong enough to beat up an entire subject?"

She rolled her eyes despite the gentle laughter that fell from her lips, "Can you be done being sarcastic?"

"Yes."

"Seriously?"

He nodded whilst leaning both his forearms onto the counter, looking directly at her as he responded, "Yeah, completely, quit cold turkey and done for good."

She dropped her voice to a whisper, feeling like their close proximity made it necessary, "I dislike you strongly."

"And I shall never recover," he smirked, dropping his voice down to a whisper as well.

"Jess!" Luke abruptly called from the storage room out the back of the diner, a place that Taryn also was not allowed to go after one too many incidents. Jess sighed and before he went to leave to answer Luke's call, picked up the pencil she had discarded in frustration and tucked it behind his ear. Unable to protest as he had disappeared so quickly, Taryn fished another pencil out of her bag and got back to her work. Biology came with too many mistakes that she couldn't afford to make in pen.

Twenty minutes later, when Taryn had seemingly finally caught a grasp on what she was doing, her Dad's entered Luke's and called her away from her studies for dinner. They didn't often eat at Lukes, as Da absolutely adored cooking for his family, so she found herself rather surprised by their appearance in the diner. Leaving her books and work in a stack on the corner of the counter, she moved to the bigger table which her parents had selected and a discussion quickly formed between them all.

After they had ordered food from Jess - as Luke was out on a date or doing something with Lorealai and Jess was being vague about it - the conversation reached its capacity. Only each successive member of the family was completely silent. They conversed entirely in sign, but for the laughter that sometimes came from their direction. Jess found himself somewhat enraptured by the silent conversation, though he tried his hardest not to look in their direction too much. He however couldn't help but glance over when she laughed as it was the realest laugh he had ever heard from her and he found how comfortable she seemed so interesting. He hadn't ever seen her with her parents before so this was a new side of Taryn for him.

As Jess put their food down, Taryn saw her opportunity and decided to run with it. Whilst his hands were full of plates, she reached up and stole her pencil back from behind his ear. As she slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans, he caught her gaze and softly smirked before returning to his hiding place in the kitchen.^Mind explaining that?^ her Dad signed, concerned about furrowing his brow.

^He stole my pencil earlier,^ she shrugged. ^I was just stealing it back.^ At the same time, her parents turned to look at each other with a similar look within their eyes, both intrigue yet pure concern poured from their gazes. ^What?^ Taryn sighed in pure oblivion, still holding a fry in one hand.

A second deliberation followed and a muttered conversation where they had hidden their lips so she wouldn't be able to read them (she so hated when they did that.) Finally, her Da responded. ^Well from what we've heard he's not the nicest person around.^

^He's not like that when you get to know him, trust me,^ Taryn replied quickly and instantly noticed that her parents remained entirely unconvinced. ^Didn't you want fries?^

^It's not a big deal.^ Her Da responded and Taryn instantly rolled her eyes. She popped one of her own fries into her mouth then stood from the table, heading towards the kitchen. Only Jess stood in the way of the threshold, suddenly appearing out of nowhere as he pointed towards the new no Taryn in the kitchen sign.

"Taryn," he greeted with a soft smirk, sensing that her parents were probably covertly watching the entire conversation. He wanted to make somewhat of a good first impression, even if they were jumping to conclusions about things that they had heard about him.

"Caesar forgot a plate of fries," she responded softly, nearly at a whisper, as to not annoy the cook. "Are you okay? You look a little spaced out."

"Just tired," he shrugged, purposely avoiding looking in her eyes in fear she would sense the lie. "I'll go get those for you."

"Thanks," she replied and he smiled briefly before disappearing back into the kitchen. Taryn, whilst confusion tugged at her brow, returned to the table with only one thought on her mind.

She looked up after a minute or so and found both her Dads staring at her in worry, their eyes telling a thousand tales of concern. ^Stop staring before I throw a fry at you.^

Laughter fell from the table once again and the slight tension - that had somehow discovered itself - slipped away with ease