There were pamphlets everywhere, seriously.  Every job anyone could imagine was staring her in the face and there was so much pressure to do well on exams in order to actually continue on in all of her NEWT courses… Jordyn had so much on her mind.  The beginning of break had been a nice departure from reality and now that it was back…

Well, there had been so much going on that she’d almost forgotten that the rest of her life was just on the brink.  After adjusting her scarf for the ten thousandth time for the day, Jordyn was just feeling paranoid that someone would notice.  It hardly seemed plausible that any marking would still be there almost an entire week later, but she couldn’t be too careful. 

If someone saw surely they would just instinctively know.  It made her stomach twist in the weirdest ways when she thought about it.  On one hand her cheeks flushed at the very idea of going back to the astronomy tower, but on the other hand, it made her smile a little bit too.  Whenever she opened her trunk to get dressed she saw the strands of silly beads and caught herself smiling. 

There was also the “new” pen she’d gotten… a carefully transfigured token that she had started tapping to her lips during class that also made her blush.  The Ravenclaw she sat next to in class gave her the strangest look and for half a second, Jordyn’s heart had stopped thinking she was miraculously in possession of knowledge of what had happened, but she composed herself and forced focus on the matter at hand – class. 

Her schedule was so busy on Monday mornings that she didn’t stop, and that meant that even in classes with him she couldn’t spend time being distracted.  The future was looming, she had to do well. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t speak well to her self-care, so she had skipped lunch without much of a thought and when the break for dinner finally came, Jordyn was ravenous.  She spend toward the Great Hall, her heels clicking on the stone floor when she thought… oh she definitely saw – did they make eye contact? 

Jordyn was too hungry to turn away, but also entirely uncomfortable with moving forward.  Lowering her eyes, she stared at the tips of her boots as she walked, pursing her lips together and biting the inside of her cheek.  She was thankful for the strap of her satchel to hold onto.   She hoped he wasn’t going to suddenly be surrounded by friends as she approached, needing to pass to go to the Great Hall.  “Hello,” she murmured with shifting eyes, making her steps linger a little in front of him.  Obviously they should say hello, right?

Wasn’t that the sort of thing that she should do?  It felt like the thing to do, even if her stomach was twisting uncomfortably and the color on her cheeks had already elevated to tomato status. 

There was an Astronomy meeting to start planning, and Jai was trying to organize and prepare for it. Except he couldn't stand to be in the library because everything was too crooked. The dorms wouldn't work because everyone was just getting back from spring break and many of them hadn't unpacked. Hufflepuffs, for some reason, were a particularly sloppy type -- except for Jai, of course. Maybe it was because they were so good at FINDing things that they didn't think they needed to organize them. Jai was a bit nervous in that way, but he never really felt like a Hufflepuff anyway. He felt like their collective dad.

Besides, looking at his astronomy stuff reminded him of his own spring break, and what had happened in the astronomy tower. And that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. He hadn't told anyone what happened, but his sister Lydie had discovered his secret when he tried wearing a turtleneck to cover up the "love bites" he'd gotten. So, she knew there was a girl that he sucked face with. It was devastating. Jai refused to tell her which girl, though, knowing it would get around to all the third years. Lydie ran over to Fae and told her approximately 2 minutes after he told her not to run around telling everybody. He was proven correct when a gaggle of girls with glittery clips in their hair and too much makeup on whispered past him on his way to class earlier.

By the time he'd gotten back to school, the bruise was mostly gone, but there was still a faint mark that only he could see. It was a nice reminder while he was looking in the mirror. Though he'd swallowed most of a bottle of rum the night they'd ..... shared a nice moment together ..... and he missed her. He kept an eye out for her, because thoughts of her were on replay in his mind. He was an 18-year-old boy and he'd just popped his cherry. But more than that, she was actually cool and brilliant and so beautiful that he'd had trouble remembering to breathe when they'd had their "moment" together.

So, he was there in the Astronomy tower, alone with his books and his diagrams. He felt himself getting distracted by thoughts of Jordyn and looked up. Did he ..... see her? It wasn't impossible, but it seemed like too much of a coincidence and he was momentarily confused. Had he fallen asleep?

But when she stepped in his direction, despite the fact that she was staring hard at her shoes, he still heard a little voice say "Hello" and knew it had to be her, really her. He felt the back of his neck getting hot, a tingling sensation running down her spine. What was he supposed to do?? Say hello back, Jai! "Hi," he blurted, or maybe screamed. He paired it with the best smile he could muster.

Oh Godric,  Jordyn didn’t think she’d be this embarrassed or… girly… standing in front of him.  She apparently didn’t have quite the luck she thought and they were alone… again… no one to run in and distract from the awkward moment.   It was only made more awkward by the fact that she hadn’t looked up yet.

Looking at their shoes together, Jordyn’s mind flipflopped back to remembering how she’d tucked her cold feet between his in the tower and a furious blush rose to her cheeks again.  Wow.  How was that even possible – she thought she had been blushing already but it suddenly got ten times hotter under her scarf and her mouth was really dry.  When had that happened? 

Swallowing her own lack of spit, Jordyn finally got up the courage to look up and she felt positively ridiculous, looking at his smile and instantly the corners of her mouth started to turn up.  That was an infectious smile, to be sure. 

But, now that she as smiling, still gripping until her knuckles were white onto the satchel strap on her shoulder, she realized she had nothing else coming out of her mouth and they were just standing there, in the hall, smiling awkwardly at one another where anyone could see and they weren’t saying anything. 

Jordyn felt her stomach lurch and she licked her bottom lip before biting the inside of her cheek, “Did you have a good rest of break?” she asked, far more timidly than even she imagined she would ask.  She felt like her voice was barely a whisper of what it had been before!

It was really her, wasn't it? He recognized that smile, even if it was a little one. What he remembered was that she wasn't really touchy-feely, though they had kept each other warm throughout the night by cuddling. And it was nice to be that close to her, that vulnerable with her. It was so relaxing... he didn't think about anything. He had completely forgotten the world existed. He wished more of it had been clearer and hoped there would be a next time. They hadn't really talked since but he was so glad she was there because there were things he wanted to say.

"How was the rest of your break?"

"It wasn't bad," Jai answered. "It was all downhill, though, from ...that night." He blushed, which was an unusual sensation. The last time he did it was probably when Lydie was singing the "Hickey Song" she wrote in honor of Jai's branding. Jordyn had a matching one, and he felt bad if she went through anything like that. This was a better kind of blushing, though. A lot less angry, for sure.

She was really nervous. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to, but he stood and walked over to her, standing a little closer than he would to anyone else. Jai was still fidgety, though; he was twisting his fingers together, trying to rub out the nervous shaking they were doing. He did not look at his hands, though. He looked at her.

  "It wasn't bad," Jai answered. "It was all downhill, though, from ...that night."

She never could have imagined it would be this weird.  Sure, in all the teen books she read and stuff it was awkward.  It never seemed like it would be easy but this was another level entirely.  When she had met Jai she thought he was cute and nice, but she hadn’t really thought much beyond that and then it went so far beyond that it took her by surprise. 

Not hearing from him for the rest of the break had been, for some reason, sort of a blow to all of her understanding of the… etiquette of everything as well.  It was weird, how disappointed she had felt for a little bit, then the relief because it wasn’t full of drama like she’d imagined it would have been, but then disappointment again because it didn’t match her expectations of things…

The rest of her break, to be perfectly honest, had been sort of a roller coaster, all things considered.  “Yea,” she blushed and half-heartedly laughter, shrugging her shoulders and letting her eyes fall to the floor again.  It was weird – she had totally lost her appetite, or at least felt like she had…

“I… um…” she never said um, this was truly a time where Jordyn was at a loss, “that’s true.”  Jord bit her lip again, shifting her weight from her right foot to her left, she was feeling extra warm now that he was standing near her and Jordyn reached up to tug a little at the fabric around her neck, loosening it to let her breathe.  When did it become so difficult to take in air in satisfying quantities?  “Mine was the same, I guess.”

She was uncomfortable and Jai had a feeling he knew why. He felt like a dirtbag. "I wanted to mail you," he blurted. He softened his tone. "But my family has only one owl. And my sister saw the, uh..." he gestured to the general region where his hickey had been, "and she is the biggest gossip and total brat, I couldn't do it with her around, I didn't want to embarrass you or make you feel pressured or-" He stopped talking and stared at her with big, concerned eyes, his face stuck saying words he couldn't come up with.

"You didn't feel... pressured, right?" He hoped not. Jai couldn't imagine himself doing anything to hurt anyone; he literally could not hurt a fly because he fled from them whenever he saw them. Their buzzing freaked him out and he didn't want them to fly close to his ear and startle him with it. And hurting someone as incredible as Jordyn would be vile. He wouldn't be able to live with himself. He didn't consider himself one of those guys.

He'd kissed a few girls, the number of whom he could count on one hand. The other hand he could use to count the number of those girls that also let his hands wander. And then he could look at both hands and remember fondly the three girls he'd kissed, and the two who had let him feel around. He could chop off 5 of his fingers.

The numbers had changed, actually. He'd have to keep those fingers. That is, unless he'd done something bad to Jordyn. Then she could chop them off.

Jordyn didn’t know if she felt better or not about the what he said.  She couldn’t exactly relate, she was an only child and her family rarely interacted.  They didn’t even mind that she hadn’t come home from break – so it wasn’t as though she could say her family would be in her business enough to bother, but she had to try to be understanding.  However hurt she felt, when she glanced up at him, he looked so concerned about the whole thing that her doubt about the veracity of his statements was slightly tempered.

She supposed no matter how sweet he looked and sounded he could be lying, but she didn’t really want to go there.  That would mean she was another one of those stupid girls who made stupid choices that she made fun of with her friends, and she didn’t want to be that. 

It wasn’t like that anyway.  She made a choice, and it wasn’t a bad one – she didn’t want him to feel badly about it.  “No, no,” she assured him in a fast voice, “not at all – don’t worry,” she smiled a little shuffling her feet a little bit. 

“You’re very sweet,” she looked up at him, “so you don’t have to worry or anything like that,” she reached up and brushed some of the hair away from her face.  There was something she wanted to say on the tip of her tongue, but she really didn’t know what it was.  It just felt like there was something unsaid and for someone like Jordyn who never lacked words, it felt even more strange.

He was relieved to hear that everything had been fair. Not knowing the right way to react to such news, and knowing that everything had been fair -- she wanted to. And he wanted to. She thought he was sweet! Jai thought that Jordyn was... better than sweet. Even saying her name felt special, felt like a kiss on his lips when he said it. Remembering that feeling, he said her name - his first excuse to say it out loud since they'd been together. Their departure had involved a long walk for Jai back to an area in Hogsmeade he could apparate from.

"Jordyn," he finally said it, but the feeling was clouded by a million questions. "So...." his lips twitched to the side. What was there to say? He felt warm inside because she'd asked him not to worry, she was making sure he was okay. And she'd wanted to kiss him and touch him, even when he was naked... and she'd felt comfortable enough to do it too... Okay. He stopped his thoughts and refocused his attention onto Jordyn. Being an 18 year old male was hard sometimes. His eyes softened and he gave a weak smile. It had been a while since he'd said anything. "I think um..." He was stuck on his words again. He shut his mouth and took a moment. "I really like you."

Jordyn got even more nervous, if she was going to be truly honest. 

Boys didn’t really like her.  It seemed as though every single time someone showed an interest in her it was in order to get the real object of their affection to like them back, the two main cases in her life were Devlin Matthews and Julian St. Just (not that she’d been interested in either of them, but still – it was the point).  Outside of that, she’d been briefly madly in love with Seraphin Olivier, who wasn’t really actually anything to her other than her Yule Ball escort…

Jordyn didn’t have the luck that some other girls managed when it came to these sorts of things.  So when Jai said he liked her it sort of took her by surprise, and even more than that, her first instinct was to not believe it. 

Her cheeks were very pink at this point and she cleared her throat, letting go of the strap of her satchel and smoothing out the front of her dress before she gripped onto the hem of her dress, leather gloves still covering the finely manicured digits.   The only thing she could manage in response was a quizzical “You do?”

After he said the four words "I really like you," it looked like Jordyn really didn't respond well to them. She got just as fidgety and twitchy as he was being. He understood what she was doing, but if she liked him back, would this really be the time for it? These types of situations were perplexing, and he didn't know how they worked because the other girls ... one had been a girlfriend in his third year, and that had been just kissing and was really not a relationship at all. He'd had another girlfriend during his fifth year, for about 3 months. Another girl he'd been drunk with. Was this another one of those situations? He sincerely hoped not. With the last year he hadn't really cared at all. With Jordyn he was ....sentimental?

"You do?"

"Of course," He breathed out right away. He came closer and held both of her hands, so that they'd both have something to do with them. Even in the gloves, they were warm. His lips twitched and he tried to look at her but it was like trying to look at the sun. Eventually his eyes made it there.

Even more strange than declaring he liked her was the hand holding.  Jordyn didn’t fight it, but she was not known for her desire for physical contact.  People touching her generally made her tense up and feel uncomfortable, but Jai took her hands so gently that she didn’t pull back or anything. 

She curled her fingers around his and felt little prickly sensatiosn through her hands and up her back.  It was like a little nest of happy bees was buzzing inside of her and it felt equally as nice as it did anxiety inducing.  She brushed her thumb over the back of his hand, watching the leather move over his darker skin and decided maybe she could look up.

She was very glad for the scarf and dress covering her upper chest, she was afraid she was red all over, and just accepted the fact that her cheeks were inflamed from hearing him.  “Wow,” she laughed a little, her shoulders shaking as she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and gave his hands another little squeeze, just to make sure she hadn’t passed out from starvation on the way to the Great Hall and was having a dream.

It seemed, however, warm human skin was still warm human skin (and that thought made the color on her cheeks deepen) and she was awake.  “I was kind of worried,” she averted her eyes again, for some reason honesty breeding timidity, “you know, that it didn’t mean anything - or that you didn't like me, or both...” she said very honestly,  “but I don't feel that way right now.”  She looked up and decided that she could make it and got on her tippy-toes. 

She pressed a light kiss to his cheek (it seemed the way to go to start) and sunk back to her flat boots.  “Thank you.”

When Jai looked in the mirror closely, he saw a bunch of problems. None of his features seemed like they were in the right place to him. His eyes were too close together and his nose was big and it all looked wrong to him. But even up close Jordyn was perfect. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be; she had a symmetrical face and he couldn't stop looking at it.

"Wow."

Jordyn squeezed his hands and so he squeezed back. With their hands held together like this, they felt like a full circle. He never realized before that all along he'd only been half of one.

“I was kind of worried, you know, that it didn’t mean anything - or that you didn't like me, or both...” she said very honestly,  “but I don't feel that way right now.”

These words were music to Jai's ears, and not just because her voice matched her face. "I, um," he broke the circle to anxiously rub his neck. "I'm... I've never... done - that" - his lips twitched - "with anyone, ever, so, I ...." He didn't know what to say next. His eyes were darting around nervously. He placed the hand he'd taken away onto Jordyn's shoulder and focused on looking into her eyes. He took a moment and then ran his fingers to Jordyn's neck, pulled her close, bending like a weeping willow to kiss her hard.

After the kiss ended, Jai pressed another quick one on her lips and began to run the tips of his fingers over the back of her neck. "It meant a lot."

 This could not possibly be a thing in her life. Jordyn wasn't the type of girl who got all caught up on holding hands or pretty words: that stuff was easy. Anyone could be sweet and nice, at least on the outside.  The real thing was backing it up and pulling through. Even for her parents that was a hard thing to manage. It was almost comforting when he dropped her hands, if only to continue her suspended belief of reality.

So it was hard for her to really wrap her head around the situation, much less really believe any of it at this point. So her only response really was to blush and avoid looking at him because if she did, she'd see his big brown eyes and get caught up and her mouth would do that weird dry thing again and she just couldn't handle it so she looked down and around and anywhere to avoid that. She also didn't want him to feel bad, particularly as she couldn't quite articulate the same things with the same sincerity... Not yet, anyway. Ever the practical one, and with slightly lower internalized self-worth than one might guess from looking at her, she knew it was inappropriate to shove off compliments, but she didn't want to gladly accept them either.

In reality it was much easier to accept being tugged forward, which she met with resting her free hands on his upper chest.  Her cheeks started to burn again, hazily remembering something similar. When the very tall young man leaned down to kiss her, Jordyn hesitated for a moment but finally found it in herself to kiss back, swiftly reminded of how nice it was to kiss him.  She melted a little bit into him, muscles relaxing, as she tipped her head up and closed any of the extra distance between them with a tiny step.

She felt a twist in her stomach when he stopped and then placed another slightly more chaste kiss on her lips, which made her smile despite herself.  She hummed and nodded in agreement, flexing and retracting her fingers on his cardigan. She wanted to say something, but being her and being so.. Jordyn made it hard to really comment on anything that made her uncomfortable - even in a good way.  Feelings were not what she was good at. 

"You said your sister was a gossip?" She final blurted, latching on to something else important in all of this. "I mean, not that that's a bad thing... But..." She glanced over her shoulder then around him, suddenly growing nervous again and a little apprehensive of what exactly the implications of that could be.  Her fingers fumbled with the edge of his tie and she bit her lip.  “Maybe we should… keep quiet?”

Jordyn seemed to enjoy the kiss -- it had been one of the better ones in Jai's life. Kissing Jordyn was even better sober. She was so soft and warm and made him feel the same way inside and out. After the second little peck she smiled, and he had nearly forgotten how adorable it was. She wasn't a big smiler, from what Jai could tell...making every smile that much more precious.

But then he looked at her face, he'd been so absorbed in thoughts and feelings about her that he'd hardly noticed that her face was no longer smiling but was now filled with concern. Jai's eyes mirrored the look.

"You said your sister was a gossip?" She final blurted, latching on to something else important in all of this. "I mean, not that that's a bad thing... But... Maybe we should… keep quiet?”

Jai's lips twitched. Lydie. She was such a pest these days. He couldn't wait until she was out of her teeny-bopper phase. She'd been a lot cuter as a kid, coming up with crazy stories about made up people (instead of real ones). And by the sound of it Jordyn didn't want this getting around. That stung. He believed that she was embarrassed of him, and who wouldn't be? He became bashful but didn't want to pull away because she was still close to him and he wanted to savor it.

"Um... if that's what you want," Jai answered shakily. Really, he wanted to yell from the rooftops that he'd kissed a gorgeous brilliant girl. But the reverse couldn't possibly be true- she probably wanted to keep their night together completely under wraps. Possibly, she regretted it a little.

Jordyn could immediately sense the difference.  Jai seemed to tense up a little bit when she suggested that maybe they keep things under wraps, but it was different for boys.  His reputation wasn’t going to suffer for it, and it wasn’t that she thought that it was Jai that was going to hurt her reputation… not at all… anyone would have. 

It was hard to be a girl, especially when the details of the whole thing were so… stereotypical in so many ways.  She’d thought about that over break and hadn’t told anyone yet because of it.  She was a teenage girl who got a little drunk and even though she had made the choice and she was totally happy with what happened, Jai was so nice and sweet and kind to her, it was still going to come off a certain way and they weren’t even seeing each other like that. 

Doing things outside of the ‘natural’ order gave her anxiety, that was for certain.  “It’s not… I mean,” Jordyn licked her lips, looking down again.  She didn’t really move apart, but the lack of eye contact established a little bit of distance.  She was such a mess, “I just don’t want people to get the wrong idea,” she sucked the inside of her cheek between her teeth and bit down a little bit before she continued.  She had just needed to breathe for a second, “about either of us.”