Jay Halstead is comfortably lounging on his couch and shoving pizza in his mouth while watching a Hawks game. Second period is ending and the Hawks are up by 2, and if Crawford won’t allow any goals then he is looking at his eighth shutout this season. The twenty year old is on his junior year in college and the textbooks on his kitchen table will prove this experience pretty hard.
The knock on his door interrupted his saturday night and with a groan Jay gets up and walks over to the door. He almost chokes on the pizza when he sees Erin, in tears, standing on his doorstep.
“What happened?” He asks with his mouth full and Erin just walks toward him and buries her face in his t-shirt and sobbing harder. “Alright, it’s ok. I’m here.” Jay rubs her back and leads her to the couch.
Jay and Erin have been best friends since they were little. They told each other everything, the only rule they had was to never keep secrets from one another. The thing Jay never told Erin is how in love he is with her, how much it hurts him when she choses every guy over him, how much he hates the fact that he can’t tell her all of the feelings he has for her because he knows she doesn’t feel the same. It kills Jay to see guys treat Erin like she’s nothing, like she’s property. And the worst of all is that he can’t tell her because ruining a friendship like theirs over something so childish is not worth it.
Erin stopped crying a while ago, but she won’t tell Jay what happened. But Jay already knows, some asshole cheated on her. Jay can’t remember how many times Erin came crying to him, how many times Jay told her it was going to be ok, how many times he could tell her he loves her. And yet, he hasn’t.
“Why do you always go out with assholes?” Jay asks Erin, and he knows he shouldn’t really be asking this but he’s tired of watching Erin cry over someone who doesn’t deserve to be cried over.
“Excuse me?” Erin rises from the couch and turns to look at Jay, who was leaning against the counter, sipping a beer.
“Every guy, you’ve been with, has cheated on you, left you, and treated you like s***.” Jay confronts her, three dangerous words threatening to spill.
“It’s not really my fault, Jay. If you have a problem with it then tell me. Or if there’s something else you want to say to me, go ahead.” Erin’s voice is hard and cold, unusual to her soft one.
Jay hates himself right now, but he knows that if he doesn’t say all this now, he probably will not say it all. He just stares at Erin for a while, taking in her beautiful features. Her soft brown obs, with smudged mascara around them, her full and pink lips that he has resisted for so long, the way her curled hair framed her face, and to Jay she was the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. He was mentally kicking himself for all the feelings he has for Erin, and the fact he let it get too far, but he had no choice, He was gone the moment they turned sixteen.
“You know what,” Jay starts a little harsher than he wanted and put his beer down, “I do have something to say. I hate every single guy you’ve ever dated, or went out with, because they are not good enough for you. I see the way they treat you, and then leave you. You are too good for any guy out there, because you care about other people more than yourself, you are stronger anyone I have ever met, your eyes alone can make anyone feel they got a friend no matter how bad it gets. And your smile can light up any room, any time of day. And not to mention you are absolutely beautiful. And yet you go out with assholes who treat you like s***, who don’t even deserve to have been on a date with you.” Jay says and doesn’t realize how much closer him and Erin are now.
“Oh, wow, and since you seem to know plenty, tell me this Jay, who is good enough for me?” Erin fires back at him and looks him in the eyes, and neither of them see the familiarity of home, just hostility and coldness.
“God, why can’t you f***ing-. You’re so, f***!” Jay doesn’t even know where to start, his feelings clouding his head and apparently the ability to speak. “You’re blind you know that! Me, Erin why can’t you just see that it’s me you end up with. After every break up you come to me. Someone cheated on you, you come crying to me. Someone left you, once again you’re here with me. You have no idea who many times I’ve held you in my arms while you cried over some jerk, how many times I told you that it’s gonna be ok. And what hurts me the most is that you can’t even how much it kills me to see  you with someone else, who is only going to hurt you. You have no idea how I feel about you, no f***ing clue!” Jay’s raised voice makes Erin flinch, and she’s about to start talking but Jay doesn’t let her. “No, you are going to listen and then you can talk. You have no idea how you make me feel. Your smile alone can make my day, because it’s contagious and completely innocent. Your eyes, god your f***ing eyes, they can say so much and it makes me crazy. Your touch is electric and even after you’re gone I can still feel it burning, right where your hand was. And your laugh is amazing, it makes me lose control. You make me f***ing lose control and I go crazy because I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you how much I love you, because I was scared that I would lose you. I promised myself I wouldn’t fall in love with you, but I broke that promise over and over again, I promised that I would keep it to myself until I stopped feeling this way. The worst feeling is that I don’t think I would be able to survive without you, when we’re together I forget how to be me because you make me forget my own name. But you know, I don’t care anymore. I love you Erin. I love you so much.” Jay finishes his speech and he doesn’t dare to look at Erin, who the last time he looked at her, was crying.
Jay looks at the ground, cursing himself for his proclamation of love for Erin, to Erin. Jay covers his face with his hands and giving up, turns around to take his beer and forget this ever happened. He doesn’t even glance at Erin, because he didn’t need to, he knew exactly how she felt.
“Are you done?” Erin choked out between her sobs, “Can I talk now?” She asks but she doesn’t wait for an answer, “Because now it’s my turn to yell at you. You make me so mad, you make me want to-ugh! You are so f***ing selfish you know that! All this time I had to guess what was wrong with you, what I did to make you act the way you did. One minute you’re all sweet and caring and feel like home, and the next day you completely shut me out. The reason I come to you is because you are it for me, you make me feel loved and wanted, you’re the one for me. But then after I’m all better you go back to being a friend. You are the one who can’t see past his own feelings. Why do you think I look at you like you’re my lifeline, why do you think I try to stay close to you, because I want to be able to hold on to you and never let go. Everytime I’m with you, I get the chance to let my mind wander to a world where I get to call you mine, to be able to fall asleep next to you instead of being with you in my dreams. You have no idea how much I want to be with you, in every single way possible. But you pushed me away, you shut me out because you couldn’t let yourself show me exactly how you felt. You didn’t want to hurt yourself, so tell me how could you be that selfish? Jay I told myself I was never going to let myself fall helplessly in love with you, but I did. And I don’t regret it, no matter how much I hurt in the process, you at least know how I feel.” Erin comes closer to Jay, and she’s just inches away from him, not daring to come any closer.
They can feel each other’s breath on their faces, their eyes daring them to make the move. If Jay just dips his head lower, or if Erin just stands up on her tippy toes, then all of this would be over. All of their wandering and dreaming, how the other tastes, how their lips feel pressed against each other. Their eyes mocking one another, almost laughing, because of these silly games.
“F*** it.” Jay breathes out and grabs Erin’s chin, pushing their lips together, a little too hard at first. He needs this, and honestly Erin does too.
Erin’s hands twist in Jay’s t-shirt, and she presses as close to him as possible. Jay bends his knees, getting lower to match Erin’s height, and slides his hands down her sides and under her thighs and picks her up. Kisses turning sloppier and wetter with each minute their lips move against each other, tongues battling for dominance. When Jay pulls away to catch his breath, Erin is sitting on the counter right in front of him, still clutching his t-shirt in her hands. He looks at the girl in front of him, lips red and abused, pupils blown and dark, breathing is fast and shallow. Oh, all the things he is going to do to her, make her scream his name, make her want him more than she already does. While he looked at Erin, she herself was having pleasurable thoughts. To her Jay looks disheveled, his hair is messed up and breathing is uneven, his own pupils blown to the point that his eyes look black, his hands running up and down Erin’s thighs, burning through her jeans. Lips slightly parted, and all Erin wants to do is latch back and kiss him harder. Erin feels herself getting a warm feeling inside and if Jay doesn’t do anything soon she might burst.
“Jay, you need to do something right now.” Her voice is barely above a whisper and she is still breathing heavy. Jay’s grip tightens on her hips and she can feel his finger digging in where her sweater has ridden up, giving Jay access to her skin. She lets a moan slip from her lips and she throws her head back, allowing Jay to watch her exposed neck and collarbones. A second later Jay’s lips attached to her neck, sucking and biting, leaving marks that are the evidence that she is his, and nobody else’s. A moan escaped Erin’s lips and she tightened her legs around Jay’s waist.
“Wait..” Jay practically jumped away from Erin, and held her in place as she reached toward so his mouth can continue doing wonderful things to her neck and collarbones. A frustrated whine slipped out of Erin and she forced herself to open her eyes and look at her Jay.
She liked the sound of that.
Her Jay.
“If we are going to do this-”
“Now you decide you want to talk about feelings?” Erin cuts in and slides her hands under the hem of Jay’s shirt and feels him shudder. His breath hitches and takes a few moments to try and collect himself.
“I- uh- I need to know that you are sure that this is really what you want.” The young man’s voice seemed to shrink.
“Jay, I swear that this is what I want. What I need.” She pulls him into a sweet and gentle kiss. “Now I would really like you to continue whatever it is you were doing because that was really good.” Erin smiles at Jay, he hands still running up and down his sides under the shirt, that she needed off of him stat. “And would you please just this off already.”
Jay does not need to be told twice, he reattaches his lips back to Erin’s skin. His teeth grazing her soft collarbones, leaving wet open-mouth kisses up to her jaw. Erin’s tugging on Jay’s shirt continued and he eventually pulled it over his head, quickly kissing Erin, his own hands working on taking off her sweater. Soon it joins his shirt on the floor.
“Bedroom, now.” Jay almost growls in Erin’s ear as she let’s him pick her up from the counter and carry her to his bedroom.