Queen of Knots
Jerome walked towards the party his eyes scanning for Charlotte. He ran a hand through his hair and scratched at his scalp. Stuffing his hands in his pockets he continued on his way. When he saw Charlotte he grinned, and held up a hand waving to her.
She looked very pretty he noticed and wondered if he should have put more thought into what he was wearing. He shoved the thought aside and decided it didn’t matter, after all they were just going to see a movie. That’s all it was really, two friends going to see a movie.
As he got closer to her he nodded, “Charlotte.” He greeted her in a reserved manner.
Charlotte offered him a small smile, “Hey, Jerome” she couldn’t help sounding nervous and excited all at once. Crap, when did she turn into such an air head? It didn’t matter, what mattered was that she was spending time with a friend and she needed to tell him something important. Was it too soon? Maybe she should wait until after the movie. Too late, her face had already formed into the inquisitive look it tended to carry before she was going to ask a question.
She decided that she wouldn’t say anything yet, unless her said something about the awkward look on her face.
“So, how was your day?”
Charlotte stood outside the party waiting for Jerome. She was happy that she had decided to dress up a little, her floral shorts and high heels made her legs look better than normal.
The small Russian girl had a lot on her mind, like how to break it to Jerome that her feelings had spread from ‘Friends with benefits’ to something more like ‘I like you way more than I ever want you to know’ it had taken Mara and Amanda flirting with him to make her realize how much she actually cared. There was a green rage monster inside of her wanting to rip the girl’s heads off and it was her own fault that she was even in the situation.
Tonight would be the night she would let him know. the cards would fall where they may and she would either end up with a boyfriend of fall flat on her face and find herself back at square one.
Jerome, hands shoved in his pockets, arrived at Horus House and wondered what the best way to enter would actually be. He shrugged and hopped up the steps leading to the front door, knocking politely and hoping that Charlotte would be the one who opened the door.
Waiting for someone to arrive and open the door for him Jerome hoped that it wasn’t Percy, but quickly thought up excuses in case it was.
A knock interrupted Charlotte’s train of thought. She hopped up from her chair and walked through the house to the front door. Once there she glanced around the foyer to make sure Percy wasn’t hiding anywhere, you could never be too careful, before opening the door. A smile settled on her face before she spoke,
“Hey Jerome, come on in” She took a step back from the door frame, giving him enough room to enter. Charlotte was a bit nervous, this whole thing made her anxious, but she was glad to have some company even if it was about to get really awkward really quickly.
Charlotte was sitting in Horus’s kitchen staring at a plate of cupcakes. She was currently contemplating where Percy was, he had suddenly disappeared [probably to go get his beating stick ready for the kids that went to Ireland]. Him not being around worried her because that meant he could pop up anywhere, including her bedroom.
She set a cupcake covered in pink frosting in front of herself, poking at the frosting, her mind wandered from Percy to Jerome. Was what they were doing healthy? One of them was bound to get attached and fall to pieces when the other one decided to end everything. She hoped to God that it wouldn’t be her.
Jerome and Charlotte
“What are you thinking about?”
“Everything.”“Why?”
“Sometimes you just need to think.”
“Thinking is stupid.”
Taken by Eddie
Jerome bit his lip not sure exactly what she meant by that comment. “Oh,” was all he could think to come up with… and he knew he sounded stupid saying it. He got up and pulled his jeans on then a plain navy blue long sleeve shirt.
“Did you want your clothes?” He asked her, the words sounding a little foreign to him. This whole friends with benefits thing confused the heck out of him, even if he wouldn’t admit it out loud.
Charlotte shook her head, she felt awkward about getting dressed in front of him. Funny, seeing as they were completely without any form of clothing the night before. A flush rose to her cheeks, red blotches splattered across her neck.
“I can, uhm, I can take care of this. Why don’t you go down and eat breakfast people will be wondering where you are”
Charlotte stared at the floor, trying not to make eye contact. They really needed to talk about ground rules at some point so this morning-after thing would be more put together.
“I’ll get dressed and sneak out the window, no one will ever know I was here” She hoped this was true. What if Alfie had come in during one of her sporadic five minute naps and saw them? Charlotte tried not to think about this as she waited for Jerome to reply.
Jerome yawned as he nodded in response to her question. Why she was playing around he wasn’t sure. Now he didn’t know how he should react to waking up next to her after last night. She was wearing his shirt, he noticed. Should he kiss her? He wasn’t sure, so he decided not to. He lay back on the pillow again, staring at the ceiling.
“What about you?” He asked, courteously. He couldn’t remember having trouble falling asleep, but he was pretty sure he had fallen asleep before she had.
Charlotte wasn’t sure what the rule about touching was, since they were ‘friends with benefits’ were they allowed to do the morning cuddling thing? She wasn’t quite sure so she kept her distance, which was pretty hard since his bed was twin-sized.
“I’ve had better nights” Charlotte winced at her own wording. What if he thought she meant that he wasn’t good in bed? All of this was too confusing, there need to be ground rules for a relationship like this so that people would know what to expect.
Jerome woke up and rubbed the crust away from his eyes. He yawned and stretched when he realized someone else was in the bed with him, and the events of the previous night flooded back into his brain all at once. He cussed under his breath, not sure what to make of everything.
He also realized that Alfie was still gone for whatever reason. He looked at Charlotte who was clearly awake, but also clearly didn’t want to be bothered. “Morning,” he said to her, raising his brow.
Charlotte had been up for a while, her mind racing about the previous night’s activities. Her eyes were red from sleeplessness and maybe a couple tears. She hadn’t wanted it to go that far, not yet, but last-night Charlotte apparently didn’t give a crap if she was whoring herself out.
Now she was laying in Jerome’s bed, she wore his shirt because she hadn’t wanted to make a lot of noise while gathering her own clothes up. Suddenly there was a rustling next to her, a sleep covered voice called to her. Charlotte turned to look at Jerome, self-loathing settling in the pit of her stomach.
“Oh, good morning. Did you sleep well?” Stupid question, but it would hurry along the awkwardness so that she could escape to her own bedroom.
Jerome nodded, not sure exactly how to react to that. He’d heard things about Charlotte and Blake but he wasn’t really one to care much about other people’s love lives if it didn’t involve himself or a person he cared enough about. “So you’re saying that you’re going to use this friends with benefits thing to make Blake jealous,” Jerome couldn’t say he didn’t like the idea. It would be nice to have someone around that wasn’t clingy for once. “I like the way you think,” he said, “just try not to get too attached.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes, she thought the idea of getting attached to Jerome was preposterous, she was doing all of this for Blake in the first place so getting lovey dovey with Jerome was not on her list of things to do.
“I can promise you, that I’m not going to be all clingy and crap. Believe me, if it weren’t for Blake being a numbskull I wouldn’t have even asked you to do this for me” Charlotte wasn’t exactly sure what to do next, did they just start now or wait a little while? It was funny how something made to simplify relationships made it even harder to figure out.
Jerome thought for a moment. “Well I guess there’s no harm in some meaningless fun,” he said, raising an eyebrow. He looked at her, “Not that it matters… but who is this person that you want to make jealous?” He was only slightly curious. He didn’t actually care very much about hearing people’s stories about their undying love for whoever it was they had zero percent chance of ever getting with.
Charlotte wasn’t really one to give out her whole story on the spot, so Jerome would just have to do with a simple answer.
“It’s Blake” She said softly, glancing around to make sure no one was eaves dropping on their conversation. Sure, it probably wasn’t exactly a secret that she had feelings for the guy, but she had to keep it on the down-low as much as possible. Who knew what rumors would be spread around if people were filled in on all of it, she didn’t want Blake losing his job over a stupid group of gossiping teens. Even telling Jerome was a little iffy, at least they were partially ‘in this together’ now so there was less of a chance of him spreading it around the school.
