Paradise Lost

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I'll admit, regardless of my severely wounded pride, I walked through the door to Dave's as Jake held it open for me. Okay, maybe 'walked' isn't the best term, it was more like stomped. I stomped into Dave's, and very angrily at that. I stopped before the big freezer that displayed all of th tubs of ice cream and crossed my arms before me chest with a huff. The man behind the counter, mister Dave himself, smiled that beam-of-sunshine smile I was so used to and asked me if I wanted my usual. I remained silent as I felt Jake's presence behind me. I may have walked into the place, but I wasn't about to order Jake his damned ice cream. I could be very petulant when I wanted to be.

Jake didn't seem to mind my petulance at all. In fact, I'm fairly certain I caught a slight glimpse of a very triumphant smirk as he stepped smoothly in front of me and opened that arrogant mouth of his.

"Hey, Dave." He had the audacity to smile politely, as if I wasn't even there sulking behind him….the jerk. "How's it going?"

Dave's smile stretched and I caught the way his eyes darted between Jake's completely content expression and my completely disgruntled one. I saw the calculating gleam in Dave's eyes as he made his evaluations; I didn't like it. "It's good, Jake, it's going good. Everything's always good in the summer. Now what can I get for you?"

"One scoop of rocky road, if you please."

"In a cup or a cone?"

"A cone. And a scoop of bubblegum ice cream too." Jake added casually, as if this was a completely normal occurance for him and he ordered ice cream for me all the time.

Dave's warm, grandfatherly eyes twinkled and he glanced between Jake and myself once more. "Cup or cone?" he inquired once more.

At this Jake paused turned back toward me slightly and the inquiry in his eyes somehow made him appear innocent and childlike.

I remained silent while I watched Dave scoop out the rocky road for Jake, my arms still crossed, my eyes still angry. Summer Gemma does not respond kindly to being outsmarted. I was planning on remaining silent during our entire time in the small shop, just to teach Jake a lesson, but the warm smile on Dave's face and his expectant expression completely disarmed me and served to dispel some of my stubborn petulance. I sighed and uncrossed my arms.

"A cone, Dave." My tone was resigned, I had completely lost the battle. "Same as always."

Dave nodded and Jake turned back to him just in time to take both of the ice creams handed to him.

"Together?" Dave asked casually.

My entire body tensed up. "We're not together." I snapped defensively.

Dave shot me a knowing glance that I did not appreciate at all and smiled to himself. "I meant, are you paying for these together. Same order?"

I felt my cheeks heat; where was Summer Gemma when I needed her? "Oh." was my intelligent reply.

"Yeah," Jake answered for me when he realized I wasn't going to say anything, "They're together, Dave."

Dave went to ring up the frozen treats and it was as if time stood still within the shop for a few minutes; Dave gave us the total, Jake turned to me with an expectant look, and I refrained from smacking that arrogant smirk right off of his pretty little face. I also refrained from making any move to offer Dave payment; Jake and I took part in a silent stare down, my glare as fierce as I could make it while Jake seemed to be entirely calm and collected.

In the end, Jake won the staring contest, and the silent argument, and I exhaled once more and dragged myself dejectedly to the register where I paid for both Jake's and my own ice creams. Dave smiled, Jake smiled, and I felt like a part of my soul had been yanked away from me. I really loathed being bested, and Jake had clearly bested me. He had gotten the best of me.

I was ready to take my bubblegum ice cream and march all the way back to my house, but Jake seemed to be three steps ahead of me; he had already taken my upper arm in his free hand and was directing me to a table by the windows. Actually, Jake had seemed to be three steps ahead of me from the very beginning of this day. I already despised it.

I thought there would be a silence between us. I had intended for there to be a silence between us. I had already decided that I wasn't going to speak a single word to him for the rest of the summer. Jake ruined that the moment we sat down. Like I said, he was three steps ahead of me.

"Aren't you going to thank me?" he asked casually as he licked at his ice cream.

I couldn't ignore a question like that. The nerve of him! "Thank you for what?" I demanded instantly, "For the ice cream? I don't think so. You didn't buy it. Where's my thank you?"

In retrospect, I wondered if he had known about my plan to remain silent and had therefore started with a question he knew I couldn't resist. Had he baited me into conversation? Had I taken the bait?

"Thank you." He responded instantly, and his tone was gentle, honest. The gesture did nothing to lessen my irritation. "But I wasn't talking about the ice cream. What I meant was, aren't you going to thank me for the fact that you, unlike nearly everyone else around this place, woke up without a hangover yesterday?"

I was so caught up in my wounded pride that I answered without thinking. "I never wake up with a hangover anyway." I snapped snidely at him. At his knowing glance my eyes widened and my wounded pride seemed to be a thing of the past. "I mean, um, you know, the few times that I don't drink I don't get hangovers, obviously." I tried to cover up my tracks as best as I could. Jake seemed to buy it, though there was something about the glint in his eyes that made me nervous.

"Right," he conceded slowly, "So aren't you going to thank me for keeping you from drinking at that bonfire? No drinking means no hangovers, and you were going for that Vodka before I stepped in, I think you owe me that."

I blinked and stared blankly, surprised by the fact that he even brought this topic up in the first place. My tongue skillfully avoided the pieces of bubblegum lodged into the ice cream the way a spaceship avoids asteroids and I wondered how I should answer him. I was still miffed at being bested, but I was slowly starting to wonder if I would enjoy myself much more if I actually tried to have a good time. Still, I was stubborn by nature, whether I was in Summer Gemma mode or not.

"No." I answered simply, haughtily.

Okay, maybe it was childish, but in some way I felt as if I had gotten the best of him in that. He clearly wanted me to acknowledge that he had made me behave myself, and I refused to give him the benefit of that.

It was Jake's turn to blink and stare blankly. "No?" he repeated, just to affirm it. I merely stared back silently, licking at my ice cream. He stared for a moment longer before the corner of his lip twitched up into that half-smile I was already so familiar with and he shrugged his shoulders. "Alrighty then, can't blame a guy for trying to get some recognition." And he chuckled to himself.

I stared, completely thrown off; wasn't there anything I could do to annoy this guy? I was clearly being as immaturely disagreeable as possible and yet Jake seemed completely unphased by it. He just took everything in stride, never once losing that quiet sense of self-security he seemed to have. Even now he was leaning back, viewing me with calculating eyes, but his posture was completely relaxed, he was completely comfortable with himself.

And I realized that in my prideful haze, I had been so completely focused on being as difficult as possible that I didn't once think about my own insecurities. I never once noticed the way he seemed to see into my soul, never felt uncomfortable in my own skin. I had just been myself, granted my petulant self, and I had been completely at ease with him for the first time since I met him. I contemplated this further, my own gaze upon him just as calculating as his was on me, and licked at my frozen dessert as I made another realization; Jake had known to order bubblegum ice cream for me. The realization left my mouth before I had time to stop and think about it.

"You knew that I liked bubblegum ice cream." I blurted, my tone full of wonder, my eyes confused.

Jake grinned at me and leaned forward, taking a lick out of my own ice cream. "Well, yeah. I asked you what your favorite flavor was at the bonfire, remember?" he stated as if it was the most obvious thing.

"Hey! That's my ice cream!" I snapped, ignoring his response for the moment, "I paid for it!" Jake smiled coyly and tilted his own cone in my direction; a peace offering. I stuck my nose up arrogantly and refused the offered cone of rocky road. "Still," I murmured to myself, "it was barely mentioned. It was like a fleeting comment, and you remembered." I looked up at him and I'm certain my expression was completely unguarded for the first time since we had met.

Jake seemed surprised by my reaction, but only for a moment. He only smiled softly at me and shrugged his shoulders. "It's not calculus, you know. It's just remembering an ice cream flavor." He brushed it off casually.

It was my turn to shrug, not willing to push the matter when it was clearly of little importance to him. But it mattered to me. I don't know why it did, but it did. He was right, it wasn't calculus, it wasn't chemistry or physics, it was just one ice cream flavor…but he still made the effort to remember it. I couldn't think of one single boy here, with the exception of Morgan, who would make it a point to remember what my favorite ice cream what. It was the fact that he had made an effort, however slight, that mattered. I couldn't exactly explain why it mattered, but it mattered.

A silence had fallen between us when I had turned my thoughts inward but it didn't seem to matter; this was a very comfortable silence. In fact, I hadn't even notice how quiet we had been until Jake broke through my muddled thoughts.

"You have something right here."

"Huh?" Was my eloquent response as I was broken out of my reverie.

Jake smiled, but there was something mischievous about it, he looked like he was scheming something….I was already worried. "It's just ice cream." He clarified, and I suddenly realized he was pointing to the corner of his lip, "It's right here."

I was suddenly embarrassed for some reason. No one likes having the food they're eating on their face. I rushed to wipe at it with my free hand. "Here?" I asked.

"No, more to the right."

"Wait, here?"

"No." Jake seemed to be amused by antics because he was chuckling to himself now.

I was vigorously scrubbing at my face by now, trying and apparently failing to wipe the ice cream off. "Is it gone?" I demanded.

That mischievous glint was still in his eyes. "No, it's not. Here, let me help."

And without further warning, he leaned across the table and pressed his lips firmly against my own, the action startling a mouse-like squeak from me. I think my eyes widened to the size of golf-balls and I briefly wondered if I was imagining all of this. And when I had confirmed that I was not imagining it, the overly practical part of my mind wondered if Jake had gotten any of his ice cream on me, or vice-versa, during the spontaneous lunge across the table.

The kiss itself was brief, just a firm press of lips and a gentle hand brushing against my cheek and then he was gone, back to his side of the table. It somehow seemed exactly like Jake to me; appearing out of thin air, rendering me speechless and confused, and then disappearing just as quickly, leaving me longing for more and entirely unsatisfied.

That empty feeling had returned to the pit of my stomach.

"Oh, I guess nothing was there after all."

I came back to reality to see Jake sitting across from me, grinning as if he had just won the lottery. His eyes were so playful as he took a bite out of his ice cream.

My eyes were anything but playful. "What-" I stopped and took a breath, "What the hell was that?"

Jake feigned innocence. "What? You don't kiss on the first date?"

If it was humanly possible for eyes to be the size of golf-balls, mine would have been bigger. "Excuse me?" I demanded, suddenly my arrogance was back, "This is not a date!"

Jake seemed unperturbed my tone or my exclamation. "How is it not a date? We both went out together, without anyone else, we're eating, we're conversing, and one of us paid for the both of us. What part of this isn't a date?" his tone was completely reasonable, as if he were stating obvious facts and coming to an obvious, indisputable conclusion.

I bristled at his words. "First of all," I growled, "you dragged to this damned parlor! Second, I only paid because you won a bet. Third, we're only eating here together because you dragged me to the table. I was just going to walk back to my own house. And fourth, we're only conversing because I figured I would make myself less miserable by entertaining the notion of talking to you. None of this is a date!"

My outburst seemed to amuse him for some reason and the fact that he seemed completely unmoved by my argument only added fuel to the fire.

"And furthermore," I added haughtily, "both parties have to be in agreement for a date to occur. And in order for both parties to agree, both parties actually have to know that they were asked to go on a date! So this is not a date!"

"And yet you're not storming out right now." He chuckled to himself, "You're still sitting here, knowing that I consider it a date."

I opened my mouth and took a breath to tell him off but his comment caught me off-guard. He was right. I was just sitting there, I hadn't left yet. I hadn't even smacked him in the face for stealing a kiss from me, and that was something both Summer Gemma and Normal Gemma do!

Why? Why was I still sitting there. His statement was clearly a challenge, his eyes were daring me to leave right in this instant, to assure both him and myself that neither of us was on a date. But I didn't leave. I stayed.

We stayed locked in a silent staring competition; unspoken words in our eyes. It was Jake who broke the silence…Jake was always the one to break the silence.

"Your ice cream is melting."