I Swear I Love You

Jimmy’s POV

Jess’ mom was certainly right about the suit- it felt almost as if it was tailored specifically for me.

“How is it?” Jess’ mom poked her head around the door at me, obviously checking I was not in my pants before she walked in. She smiled; smoothing out the creases adoringly. “It fits you perfectly.” She stepped back and sighed. “You look very handsome James.”

I couldn’t help blushing. “Thanks. You look very nice too Mrs. Fawn.”

“Oh this thing? I just threw this on,” she said cheerfully. “It was lovely for you to say though. And call me Cheryl. Or mom if you prefer.”

“Mom?” The very thought made me smile. My family life wasn’t exactly perfect as a kid, so to have someone like this caring for me… it was a great feeling. Even if it was on borrowed time until the end of tour.

“You are my new son-in-law,” she responded brightly before grabbing my arm and beginning to tug me to the door. “Let’s go show you off to Jessie.” Before I could stop her she had managed to drag me out to what I guessed was Jess’ door, which she proceeded to knock against. “Jessie honey! James is here to see you!”

The door opened slightly. “Erm… alright. Don’t laugh okay? Promise me you won’t laugh!”

I chuckled. “I promise I won’t laugh at you.”

“Alright.” She opened the door tentatively, her gaze fixated upon the floor as she stepped out. “So… what do you think?”

“Jess… you look…” I gasped; beautiful couldn’t even cut close to how she looked right now. A soft, sapphire material bound her body, gathered at her hip by a silver rose corsage exposing a number of white netted tiers underneath. Over the top of the gown was also a bodice of the same, sapphire colour holding it in place, beaded in vertical stripes to accent her slender frame. She had left the dress as the focal piece and didn’t bother with much jewelery; simply sticking to a silver charm bracelet and a pair of matching heels. It was rather ironic though that even though she was wearing something giving her extra height I was still a good nine inches taller than her.

I took her arms and kissed her softly on the cheek, hoping it would express the words I just couldn’t seem to find at the given time. Behind us, Jess’ mom chuckled to herself. “Well I think James approves. I’ll go get your father and sister.”

As she walked off to gather the others Jess looked up at me, her head cocked to one side. “You know you don’t have to go that far with the whole pretend thing. It’s only for tonight anyway.”

I shrugged. “I don’t want them to find out. Hell, I’m worried about your dad finding out more than anything, he looks like he could take-down Matt single-handed. What the hell is his job? Bodyguard or something?”

Jess tapped her chin in thought. “He’s a lawyer actually.”

“A lawyer?!” I repeated incredulously. “If he’s a lawyer, then why the fuck is he built like a bodybuilder?”

“Well once my parents were out when they were seniors they got stopped at knife point by some random kids,” she began. “They started on my mom demanded her necklace but my dad stepped in.” She sighed. “They never did get my mom’s necklace but they managed to get my dad pretty bad before the police turned up and chased them off. He’s still got the scars.”

“The scars?”

“They had a knife didn’t they? That night they obviously weren’t afraid of using it,” she continued. “There is only one on his stomach but they got his arms pretty bad; that’s why he always wears a jacket to cover them, no matter what the weather. That instance is also why he started to work out so much- he didn’t want to be in that defenseless position again.”

“Oh.” My gaze dropped. “I’m sorry for asking.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she dismissed, soon changing the subject. The way she so readily spoke of something that bad made me wonder if she was really not that caring of bringing it up at all. In fact, I could have sworn she faltered for a moment after completing the story. “Are you sure I look alright?”

Needless to say, I wasn’t going to press the issue. “You look beautiful Jess.” Her hair was styled differently for tonight; instead of the usual, gentle mermaid waves her brunette hair had been loosely curled. As I held her I couldn’t help but wind one of them round my finger. “I don’t know how you could say you looked like a whore.”

“Look at this!” She twisted to her side and pointed just underneath the corsage on her hip, at the netting skirt. “It’s almost transparent! You could probably see my underwear if you tried hard enough!” When I crouched down to try, she ended up slapping me. Not hard or anything, but a slap nonetheless. “Jimmy!”

“Man Jess!” I moaned, rubbing at my cheek. “I was just checking to see if you could so I could tell you if you need to put shorts on or something.”

“Oh.” She gently rested her hand over mine. “Oh I’m so sorry Jimmy, I just thought…”

“Thought that I’d get a kick out of staring at underwear?” I snorted. “If you haven’t noticed, I can see what’s under the pants on the Internet if I wanted to.”

She rolled her eyes. “How very comforting. Thank you Jimmy for that lovely, uplifting sentiment.”

He grinned. “Anytime.”

“Come on lovebirds!” We both turned to look down onto the ground floor from where we was, seeing Jess’ mom, dad and sister waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. Her dad was swinging his keys on his finger. “Either get your asses down here now or get the subway!”

Jess just shook her head and laughed at her dad’s words as we walked downstairs. “Well, welcome to the family I guess.”

“I hope you’re not making us sound bad,” Jess’ mom warned, wagging her finger playfully at her daughter. “I won’t be best happy if you are.”

“I’m just giving Jimmy a warning, that’s all,” Jess replied casually, flashing me a grin. “After all, he’ll need one if he wants to survive tonight with all yours and dad’s questioning.” She sighed. “You chased away basically every boyfriend I ever had.”

“It’s not my fault they weren’t good enough for my Jessica,” she replied briskly, smoothing down her daughter’s dress. “Although I’m not sure I advocate the fact you marry without our knowledge to bypass the questioning.”

“Don’t worry darling, we’ll find out his worth by the end of tonight,” Jess’ dad interjected. I could have sworn I saw his muscles flex underneath his shirt then, just itching to have a go on me. However my eyes soon drifted to where the short sleeves ended where I could see Jess’ story spring to life with my own eyes, watching as the jagged, silver etchings reflected the light from above. He must have seen me look at them because he pulled on his tuxedo jacket seconds later, obviously still harboring the agony of that night decades later. “After all, we can’t have someone we don’t approve of wearing our legacy now can we?”

“Legacy?” Jess frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“He means this.” In unison both Jess’ mom and dad reached up for their necks and released a clasp behind them before reaching out and holding out two similar silver chains. Jess’ dad’s was thicker than her mom’s, but in to make up for it hers had tiny sapphires woven into the links themselves, highlighting the genders they had been assigned to. “They always pass to the first child who gets married.” Jess’ mom smiled as the chains were slipped into our hands. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this day.” She hugged her daughter. “I’m so proud of you.”

Jess’ eyes welled up with tears as they broke apart, her fingers running across the jeweled links lovingly. “I can’t believe it… your necklaces…”

“Not ours, yours now,” her dad pointed out, helping her to put it on while her mom did the same for me. “Let’s hope they keep you as happy as they have your mom and me all these years.”

--

“So where’s this boy you like?” Jess asked her sister next to her, curiosity taking the better of her. Our complimenting presents beamed out from our necks. “He can come can’t he?”

Holly’s cheeks burned with a fiery embarrassment. “He’s meeting us there,” she mumbled. “He had things to do beforehand so he couldn’t come to the house.”

“Plans he couldn’t break for my daughter?” Her dad interjected, sounding slightly irate. “Doesn’t sound good to me Holly.”

She rolled her eyes. “You haven’t even met him yet.”

“I don’t need to,” he replied. After he had stopped at a red light he looked at us sat in the back and added in a creepy tone, “And I don’t need to either. I have spies everywhere.”

“Yeah right,” Holly grumbled. “If you had spies everywhere you would have remembered my birthday in May.”

“Well they got their message to me late, so have a go at them,” he responded calmly. “I would tell you where to find them but well. You know ninjas. They are tricky little buggers.”

Jess laughed nervously, whispering to me. “Sorry. He doesn’t hold back on the crazy now he knows you.”

I shrugged. “It’s kind of funny really. And at least it lets me know that I’m accepted in the Fawn household.”

“Hey James.”

I looked up at the mirror that her dad was looking into since he was driving. “Yes, Mr. Fawn?”

“Jake,” he corrected. “So what kind of music does your band play?”

“Well… you probably don’t listen to it.”

His eyebrow rose. “And what would make you say that?”

“Well we’re kind of a rock band… we play mainly metal styles and stuff…”

“So like Metallica and Pantera? Those kinds?”

“Yeah, exactly like that.” My brow furrowed. “You listen to them?”

He laughed. “Come on James, I livedthrough the rock era.”

“He had the big hair and everything,” Jess’ mom interjected. “You should have seen him trying to play the guitar. He kept managing to snap the strings off.”

“It’s not my fault they were overly-sensitive!” He retorted. “A man of my build cannot play anything with dainty strings.”

How he could manage to snap strings each time he tried to play it seemed a bit far-fetched to me, but then again, considering he could easily pick me up and throw me if he wanted I wasn’t going to dismiss it. Hell, he could probably clear a good distance if he tried with me as a javelin.

“Anyway enough of that,” he continued, pulling to a sidewalk, “time to get out kids.”

We all clambered out as her dad passed his keys to the valet, before rounding on his youngest daughter. “So where’s this man of yours Holly? I want to meet him.”

“You’ll meet him later Dad,” Holly muttered as she clambered out from the back behind Jess and I. “You’re going to scare him off at this rate.” She sighed. “This is why I never let you meet guys I like.”

“That’s why you should have done what your sister did,” her mom began, “should have married him before you let him meet your father.”

“No thanks. I’d rather not have a whirlwind marriage thanks, they’re always a recipe for disaster.” Jess laughed nervously at her sister’s reply. She looked around until she must have seen who she was after, and bounced on her heels. “That’s him!” She ran off and practically jumped on him from behind, which was quite a feat considering her backless, champagne dress didn’t exactly promote movement.

“Well at least he can support her in the future,” Jess’ mom chuckled, taking hold of her husband’s hand as we all began to walk after Holly. “That’s always a good sign.”

“He must be pretty good if he’s managed to get to Holly,” Jess stated. “She hasn’t been serious about anyone before.”

I looked at her surprised. It was hard to imagine a girl like Holly not getting some kind of attention. “She hasn’t?”

“Well it’s not like she hasn’t had boyfriends or anything before,” she amended. “But she never really shows them much affection. She kind of views them more as playthings rather than anything else.” Only a few paces a head of us was Holly, beaming with her arms wrapped around the man whose back was facing us. “I wonder why this one is different.”

We finally got our answer as he turned and formally shook the hand of Jess’ dad, both of our mouths dropping open at the sight. “Mr. Fawn, it’s lovely to meet you at last.”

He smiled, returning the greeting warmly. “It’s my pleasure. I’ve been waiting to meet this ‘Brian’ who Holly has been rabbiting on about all this time.”