Chapter 182

“Um...” Jackson says lightly, looking uncomfortably to the side – a move he stole from me, I don’t fail to note –

And I gasp, even louder now, just staring at him, completely agape. Then, I find myself.

“Jackson!” I sputter, leaning back to kick him with my foot. Not because I’m pissed – I just can’t believe I didn’t know this! “What the…!”

“What!?” he says, laughing and lifting his head to look at me again, snatching my foot out of the air as I attempt to land a second blow. “You can have another mate, but I can’t have a past!?”

“Um, you can’t have a sexual past, when your whole vibe is being Mr. Women Are So Scary and I can’t even talk to them! Jackson!”

He bursts out laughing at my description of him, but I just continue to stare, flabbergasted.

“Seriously, you can’t even talk to the waitresses at your job in the city, but you’ve had sex before!?” I shake my head, totally not getting it.

“Okay, okay,” he says, still holding my foot in is hand as he leans forward and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I get it – this was…unexpected. But you knew I’d kissed someone before – that I knew a girl.”

“Kissing and sex are very different, Jacks,” I growl, tugging my foot out of his hand and tucking it beneath me.

He shrugs a little, like perhaps it’s not, and I just stare at him, wondering if I know him at all. And then I sit up straight, my feelings hurt all of a sudden because –

I mean, because it would make a lot more sense to me if Jackson didn’t want to have sex with me right now because he was a virgin – like me – and wanted to ease into it. But there was another girl whom he was willing to go that far with…

So…

Wait. Why…why won’t he have sex with me?

Did he…oh my god, did he like her more?

Did he like her MORE!? Was she hotter than me!?

Oh my god. Was she funny? If she was funny…I’m going to flip out.

“Stop,” Jackson says, tightening his hand on my shoulder, sensing all of my feelings down the bond. His face falls into serious lines as he stares at me, hard. “Stop all of that, right now. None of that’s true, Ariel.”

“Well…” I say softly, kind of adrift emotionally and starting to get upset. I tighten my fists around the fabric of the sheet, holding it closer to me. “What…what is true?”

“Come here,” he whispers, opening his arms to me even as he twists so that his back is to the headrest too. I do as he urges, climbing into his lap and letting him wrap me up, trusting him completely even if I am confused and a little dismayed. “I’ll tell you everything, if you want to hear it.”

“Of course I want to hear it,” I breathe, still staring at his face. God, am I even blinking anymore? Have I forgotten how to blink?

“Do you want to hear it?” he asks, grimacing a little. “You get…a little jealous, Ariel.”

I scoff a little, thinking that that’s a little bit of a baseless claim.

“The waitresses?” he urges, raising an eyebrow at me.

Instantly, my eyes narrow. “What, was she a waitress? Wait - did they make a move on you last night?” I snap, sitting up straighter. “Which one? Was she pretty? Where does she –“

But the way he smirks at me makes me stop mid-harangue. And I snap my mouth shut, and scowl, and lean back against his arm.

“Don’t get me wrong, Clark, I like it when you get a little jealous,” he murmurs, his smirk deepening as he rocks me a little. “But…you’re not going to like some parts of this story. And it can wait, or…I don’t have to tell you at all.”

“Oh, you’re telling me this story, sir,” I say, snapping my eyes up to him, knowing that the mystery of it will keep me up at night if I don’t know all of the details right now.

“Okay,” he says, his smirk softening to a smile. “But…I mean, are you mad? That I’m not a virgin, like you?”

“Wait, how do you know I’m a virgin?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.

He sniffs the air around me. “I can tell by your scent.”

“What!?” I screech, eyes wide.

But he just laughs at me and shakes his head, and I shriek again and smack him on the chest when I realize that he’s kidding.

“I just…put the pieces together, Ari. I think you’ve had a sheltered life and Jesse would have teased you about it in front of me if you’d had a serious boyfriend before. He wouldn’t have been able to resist that bait. And I think if you’d slept with Luca…he’d have let me know.”

I sigh, realizing that that’s right. That Luca absolutely would have used it as leverage against Jackson – wouldn’t have been able to resist it in the same way Jesse can’t resist a good tease.

“So,” Jackson continues, shrugging again. “Just…an educated guess. But…I mean, are you? Mad?”

“No, Jacks,” I say instantly, suddenly sorry that my reaction made him think that. “I don’t care that you’ve had a history. I’m just…surprised. When Daphne came into the room that time you were ready to bolt – and she didn’t even want to sleep with you –“

“Yes she did,” he murmurs, dry.

I burst out laughing and smack him again, not bothering to mention that she did think he was cute - second only to Rafe, in her estimation. “Shut up,” I growl, jealousy rankling in me a little at the thought. “But seriously? How did this happen?”

“It was…at the Community,” Jackson says quietly, getting started on the story. “Her name…” he hesitates. “Do you want to know her name?”

I consider it for a second, and then nod.

“Her name was Tasha,” he continues, holding my gaze. “And it was all…really strange.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling oddly half tense and half calm. I lean back against his arm a little, still clutching the sheets to my chest so I have something to hold tight in my fists. “Tell me everything, Jacks.”

“Okay,” he murmurs, and then he leans forward to press a long kiss to my lips, passing all his love and assurance and adoration down the bond to me before he starts, letting me hold onto it while he speaks so that I know that the story itself changes nothing.

When he pulls away he looks at me curiously, asking if I’m ready for it. And I nod.

“It was…spring?” he says, taking a deep breath, his eyes going a little far off as he gets started. Jackson shakes his head at the memory. “About three years ago. That’s…all I’ve got, time-wise. Time works differently in the Community than it does here. We don’t have…calendars. No weeks, no months. Just days, following one after another, and then seasons of course. But even those aren’t marked by holidays, so,” he shrugs, blinking and focusing on me again. “It’s…hard to tell when things happened, or what’s coming up.”

I nod, urging him to continue.

“When I got to the city,” he says softly, musing, “I thought you all had such a ridiculous mania for tracking time. Like everyone’s on the same clock, down the second?” he shakes his head, frowning. “I mean, why? I still think that, a little bit. But I also realized that…that perhaps the Community took away time as a further way to control us. You can’t make plans to meet up with people, or to escape, if you’ve got no way to plan when that happens. Except the moon, but…”

He sighs, and hangs his head a bit, and I reach out to put my hand on his cheek.

And then raises his head to look into my eyes, his face a little sad, and he begins to tell me everything.