Jake and Adrienne- Date, part 2

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

After dinner, Jake brings Adrienne back to Wanda's place. Awkwardness ensues.


Talk of modeling, the business world, international law, food, and mutual
friends had taken them through dinner and a discussion of after-dinner plans
had ensued. Adrienne had made it clear that she had to teach in the morning-
it would be the last day before Spring Break but she was still holding
classes- so it couldn't be a late night, but she found herself not wanting
to end the evening after dinner, either, and she felt that since she had
picked the restaurant, it was only fair for Jake to pick their after-dinner
activity. So Driver (who had insisted on keeping an eye on Adrienne, which
she appreciated despite an initial feeling of being baby-sat) had taken
them, at Jake's instruction, to a dine-in bakery, and they'd gotten dessert
to go before heading back to the Brownstone and Wanda's apartment, since
Jake was still living there. Adrienne wasn't sure as Jake opened the door if
she would see Wanda on the other side of it, but she also wasn't sure if
that would be such a bad thing. "I feel strange coming here without a box of
shoes for Wanda," Adrienne joked to Gavin as he opened the door.

"It's probably good that you didn't," he said with mock seriousness.
"I'd be obligated to hide them somewhere, and then she'd be obligated
to smack me and retaliate by doing something awful to my sweaters,
and--wait, we do that anyway," he mused. "Still, probably not a good
idea," he said as he held the door open to the empty apartment and
gestured for Adrienne to step inside. Things were going well, for the
most part, although Morgan's warning left Jake pretty sure that the
most he could hope for was a promise for another dinner. At least
Adrienne had good taste in restaurants--it was some of the best food
he'd had in quite some time.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" he asked, scooting a skull out of
the way to make room on the once-again cluttered dining room table for
the dessert boxes.

"Water's fine, thank you," Adrienne answered, poking at the skull casually.
Drinking in the company of cute men was a bad idea, if her trainwreck of an
incident with Manuel had proven anything. "Is this thing real? And if so,
why do you have it?"

Water was probably a good idea, he supposed. "I don't know," he called
over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen. "It's Wanda's. Which
makes me think it's real. We have a sort of Don't Ask, Don't Tell
policy about the Weird Stuff." He reappeared with a pair of glasses
and a pair of forks. "Water for the lady," he said, handing her a
glass and a utensil.

The psychometrist smirked as she accepted the water and the fork from Jake.
"I could tell, but I don't think I'm really that keen on asking," she mused,
heading over to the couch with the dessert boxes. "We can eat on the couch,
right?" she asked as an afterthought, raising an eyebrow. "Wanda's not going
to hex us?" Adrienne wasn't entirely sure where to go from here, so she
just sat and waited for Jake, comforted by the fact that Morgan with her
threats wasn't very far away should Jake go somewhere with her she didn't
want.

Jake sat down an appropriately friendly-but-not-too-close distance
away, wishing once again he could get through the night without
hearing Morgan's voice. "If Wanda hexes people for eating cake on her
couch, then I'm absolutely doomed," he said with a smile. "Dig in.
It's good cake." He proceeded to take a bite of his own cake, not sure
exactly what to say next. He'd never ended up casually talking at this
point in the night--either clothes were being shed or people were
headed their own separate ways--and he wasn't sure what to do in this
situation.

She tried some of her cake, nodding in approval. "Do you think you've ended
your quest to find the best bakery in town?" she asked Jake. "Try some of
this." Inching closer to him on the couch, Adrienne held out her dessert box
to him. She wasn't going to be cheesy and feed him off her own fork, but it
was good cake and she thought he should try it, since she'd learned
he liked desserts.

"Can such a quest ever truly end?" he asked as he leaned over and
speared a piece of cake. "I'm hoping not." The cake was as good as
he'd remembered,
and he took a moment to savor it, closing his eyes briefly. He
made a mental note to keep the bakery on his list. He smiled at her
and offered his own cake. "Mmm. Try this one." He deliberately held
the box close enough that she'd have to lean over to take a bite.

Hesitating, Adrienne wondered if Jake's move earned him points on her
scorecard or if she should deduct some. She recognized it as a sly attempt
to get her closer to him, which she appreciated for the fact that he
obviously wanted to get her closer to him and was attempting to instigate
what he wanted, but she was still unsure that it was what she wanted. But,
he wasn't forcing anything on her, so Adrienne supposed he earned points. He
had a lot of them so far. She leaned over and picked up some cake with her
fork, continuing to lean over as she ate the cake before straightening back
up. "Very good," she praised, smiling, and went back to eating her own cake.
"With your powers letting you enlarge your fingers and such, does that mean
you can keep yourself thin while you're on your neverending quest?" she
inquired, chewing thoughtfully, "or do you just have an amazing metabolism?"

He looked rueful, toying with his cake for a second. "The metabolism's
a nice perk," he admitted. "'Shifting takes a lot of energy.
Especially right now." He wasn't sure how much he really wanted to
talk about his arm; he was having a nice time. But Adrienne didn't
seem like the type to let things slide. "I can change my mass
somewhat, within limits," he said finally. "So if I want to be a
little thinner, I can be. But I think I'm plenty thin right now."

Adrienne liked men who had pride in their appearance. "I agree,
emphatically," she assured him, but then worried he would mistake her
comment for criticism. "Not that you're too thin, I mean- I think you look
great, I mean, you look... you're fine. Uh, not too thin, but you don't need
to be thinner, is what I..." she shoved cake into her mouth to stop the flow
of awkward words, mentally beating herself around the head. She used to work
with models, for Chrissakes! She never had trouble delivering
compliments to them in public. Why was it so embarrassing to be
complimenting Jake?

He smiled softly at her awkwardness, eyes on his cake. "I'm too thin
right now," he amended quietly. "I had a bit of a mishap recently and
lost an arm. I'm still trying to compensate for that. I'm actually a
couple inches taller than this." He glanced at her, not sure what her
reaction would be--although she did live at Xavier's, and was friends
with the Snow Valley folks, which meant he didn't expect her to jump
up and run away. Still, the whole story behind the arm could make
things...complicated.

With concern on her face, Adrienne stared at Jake. "You lost an arm?"
Memories of watching Kane's arm being ripped from his body turned her
stomach, and she set her cake down. "But you... grew it back? Or is that
one... prosthetic?" She slid a little closer, reached over and put her hands
around his wrists since she wasn't sure which arm he'd lost, squeezing a
little. "Feels like there's nothing to compensate for," she pointed out,
trying to be comforting.

He flinched slightly as she touched him, but willed himself to be
still, chuckling slightly at her comment. "Grew it back," he said.
"Every day, actually. So I'm shorter from missing the arm, and thinner
from having to grow it back." He was quiet a moment, looking down at
her hands, then turned his over to lightly pull away from her grip. He
caught her fingers with his before she could pull away, holding them
loosely in case she wanted to. "It's been a rough few weeks," he
admitted, looking her in the eye for a moment before letting his gaze
fall again.

It was Adrienne's turn to flinch as Jake caught her fingers, but since he'd
not pulled away from her she didn't pull away from him. "You grow it back
every day?" she asked quietly, an uncharacteristic softness in her voice.
"Are you going to have to keep growing it back?" It sounded like something
out of Greek mythology. "Did Sabretooth... was he responsible?" After a
moment of watching Jake stare down at something she couldn't follow,
Adrienne squeezed his hands once more and pulled away, picking up her
dessert box and finishing up her cake in silence. "You can feel free to tell
me it's none of my damned business if you want to, too," she assured him,
sounding like herself again. They seemed to be getting along well together,
and she didn't want to jeopardize that, but this sort of thing- comforting
people- wasn't really her strong suit. Really, none of this was comfortable
for Adrienne. She didn't normally go out to dinner with someone and come
back to their place and sit on the couch eating dessert talking about
regrowing arms, not without knowing exactly what was going to come next.

"Sorry," he said, breaking his reverie by turning back to his cake.
"It wasn't Sabretooth, at least not as far as I know. It's
complicated. I'm working--we're working on it." He didn't say
anything more, finishing his cake. Things had gone from tentative to
awkward, and he had no idea how to what to say next. Stupid arm.

Adrienne nodded at his explanation. "I'm sure if anyone can work it out for
you, it's the Trenchcoats," she assured him. She had a lot of respect for
the X-Force team, and as much faith in them as she had in anyone, and it
showed in her tone. "I should get going," she announced, almost reluctantly.
"It's a school night. I had... this was... I enjoyed this. You. I mean,
going out with you- uh, for dinner. Meeting for dinner." Things were
definitely getting awkward. Best to cut and run. But she'd enjoyed herself,
a lot more than she'd anticipated, even though this evening had produced a
lot more confusion and questions than answers. And to add
to her confusion and impending questions that she would have to think on
later, Adrienne leaned forward, bracing one hand on the arm of the couch,
and kissed Jake.

"Mmph--" Jake had been just about to say something about how cute
Adrienne was when she got all flustered when she kissed him. He froze
for a moment, then his body overrode his brain and he kissed her back,
reaching up to gently tangle his fingers in her hair. He let go
reluctantly when she drew back, a shy smile spreading across his face.
"We should do this again sometime."

She blushed. Adrienne hated blushing. It was so frustrating. She got up from
the couch, bumping her leg against the coffee table, then her other leg
against the end of the couch. "I-I... I'd like that. I have to go now. Home.
To my fish." For some reason, it was important to her to point out that she
was going home, not to anyone else's place. "I'll... call you?" she asked,
putting her hands on her temples and trying to get the thought of his kiss
out of her mind.

Well, that was encouraging--one kiss and she was tripping over herself
to get away. "That would be great," Jake said, rubbing at his mouth
absently. "Can I walk you downstairs?" Too late, he realized that she
might be going to Morgan's. "Unless you--I mean--that is...if you
want," he finished lamely. After a second's hesitation, he stood up
from the couch but didn't move to close the distance between them.

"Alright," Adrienne nodded, still feeling awkward about kissing him. Walking
her out to Driver earned him more points, though. She led the way downstairs
and hesitated at the door while Driver started the car. Don't kiss him
again. Don't kiss him again until you figure out why you did it the first
time, she scolded herself. "I'll, uh... have a good night, Jake," she
said with a smile, kissing him on the cheek. Shit. How lame was that?

"I had a good time tonight," he said, putting his hands in his pockets
before he could grab Adrienne and kiss her again. If there was one
thing he understood, it was the need to run away, and as much as he
wanted her to stay, he didn't want to make her feel trapped. Well, at
least she wasn't going to Morgan's. "Call me," he reminded her as she
walked towards her car.

The brunette nodded again, smiling, and slid into the car. Driver turned to the backseat to address her. "Didn't think you'd be back. Thought you'd be calling to let me know you were staying," he said with a raised eyebrow, "either with Gavin or Lennox."

"I don't pay you to think," she snapped. It was a long-running schtick, and he knew by now that she didn't really mean it. Adrienne slumped back against the seat, head reeling and spirits a little low. Until she'd kissed Jake she'd been planning on going to Morgan's to show her the scorecard, but now...it was bad enough going home to your own place alone after a date with a man you thought you might want to sleep with, a man who you thought might want to sleep with you. It seemed even more pathetic to go intrude on your friend's night when she had someone she could be sleeping with and you were not a part of that sleeping equation, so instead there was probably cuddling but that cuddling just made it more painfully obvious that you weren't sleeping with anyone because you didn't know what the hell it was you wanted. All Adrienne knew was that she didn't want to cuddle, and that she wanted to call Jake again, but she wasn't too sure yet about why that was. Feeling like she was wading through a hundred different thoughts, excuses, explanations, Adrienne lay down on the seat and stared up at the ceiling, trying to make some sense out of what she was feeling.