Lady Candor

Dates weren’t her forte. Neither were sharing feelings and being emotionally available to others. But, with Elisa, even though she knew she was holding some painful information back, she was able to be herself and show how she truly felt. Since high school, Jack had thought she’d never find someone to love the way she was supposed to. Movies and shows showing love at first sight were just something to laugh at for her. That was impossible. And films where two friends slowly fell in love were even worse. Their cheesiness almost made her sick on multiple occasions. And yet, despite telling herself that she’d probably never become romantically involved with anyone ever again, that she’d never want to, she was sitting here across from Elisa, thinking to herself that she didn’t want to be anywhere else right now. It was weird, it was scary, and it was wonderful.

“Oh! I have wine too,” Jack said, interrupting the hungry silence. “I almost forgot.” She turned and got up, moving over to her little mini fridge. As she opened it, it was easy to see that it was literally just filled to the brim with alcohol. She grabbed a bottle of wine and came back to the table. Her eyes flashed yellow as her claws dug into the cork and pulled it out, causing a loud popping noise to fill the room. The wine glasses she had nearly forgotten were there were sitting empty on the table, and she quickly fixed that by pouring them each a glass. “For you, madam.”

Elisa looked up from her food and smiled. Now it was getting especially romantic. Classy, even. But for some reason she wasn’t focusing on what they were wearing or how they looked at all. She was just excited. This would start something completely new. Somehow she thought she was ready. They were ready. It had been awhile now and right now was the right time. “Thank you.” She nodded with a small smile. This is perfect, she thought. Lis didn’t want to be too emotional about this. It was just all so much to her. 

She raised her glass, “why don’t we make a toast?” She smiled and raised her eyebrows in question. “To the new year and hopes it’s full of adventure and happiness.” Her eyes showed so much happiness in this moment, that she was sure she could just stay right here. It wasn’t about doing anything. It was about being with her and just being close. Knowing that they were safe and starting to realize how safe they could be was all worth it. It was all worth being here. “Now what do you say? Ready to start an adventure with me?” 

Jack hadn’t even paid attention to which shirt she put on, so when she glanced down and saw it was a star wars one, she let out a laugh. It said she was mentally in a galaxy far, far away, but she wasn’t today. Or at least she wasn’t right now. A galaxy far, far away was great and all, but Elisa wasn’t there. If she wasn’t there, how good could it really be?

“It’s a great shirt, right?” she smirked, moving to sit back down. She opened her container and put her steak on the plate in front of her. At Elisa’s cute outburst, Jack smiled back but not as intensely. “It wasn’t much trouble. Don’t worry about it.” She picked up her fork and knife, ready to begin cutting the steak, but Elisa spoke once again and pulled Jack’s attention away from the meal. Her words made Jack’s genuine smile grow a bit wider, but she tried to keep her cool. “It’s just some food,” she shrugged, “but I appreciate it. I’m just glad you’re still here.”

She nodded. She loved that Jack was such a little pocket nerd. She was everything Elisa didn’t know she wanted. She made her smile and forget about everything that has happened to her. She never made her feel uncomfortable or unwanted, even when she was sure she had angered her. Jack had every right to never speak to Elisa again. Somehow she was lucky enough that she didn’t. She was lucky she even came back from Canada...where she was sure she’d stay. 

Elisa surely didn’t expect to find anyone but her brother here. Now she didn’t know how she’d be able to leave if he left. It was going to be the strangest thing. She looked down and smiled and didn’t think about those things. “I’m glad you’re still here too.” Her eyes twinkled in the light when she looked back at Jack with a smile. “Alright, let’s eat.” She started to cut her steak. 

Jack sat in silence and simply watched Elisa as they waited for the agent to bring their meal. The guy had owed Jack a favor, so she figured it would be best to use it before he forgot that he owed her. She really just hoped Elisa wouldn’t ask why he owed her; it wasn’t something she was really proud of. It had happened a long time ago, nearly seven or so months prior, and she used her hold on the guy to make him squirm. This was her way of letting him go. Jack automatically smiled when Elisa spoke, and her eyes lowered to the table as she nodded. “Oh, yeah. Definitely,” she replied with a small smirk. Her eyes flickered back up to Elisa. It felt a little weird just to sit here, so when a knock came at her door, Jack sprung right up and answered it. She gave the agent a small smile and took the food with only a thank you before shutting the door in his face. Jack strode over to the table and opened a take-home container to reveal a rather large steak. The steam was still rising from the slab of meat. Jack set the container down next to Elisa’s plate and said, “I’ll let you get that out by yourself. I’d probably splatter something on you, knowing my luck.”

“Considering I didn’t get as dressed up as you did,” she said motioning to Jack’s hilarious shirt, “I don’t think it’d matter.” Though she was pretty glad she didn’t get so dressed up and worried about what to wear, she still had an odd feeling about it. It was a different kind of nervousness. Elisa was so unprepared for this. She had so much on her mind and all she wanted to do was get lost in what Jack wanted to do. Her worry was that she’d lose her and somehow here she was serving them steak. 

She carefully put the steak on her plate. Her mouth unintentionally started to water as she looked at it. Elisa hadn’t even known she was hungry. That nap must’ve lasted a bit too long. Her hand moved behind her head as she looked at Jack and smiled so big her eyes closed or maybe she closed them because she was so embarrassed. “I’m really sorry that we didn’t get to do this anytime sooner. This looks so great... I just can’t believe you went through all the trouble.” When she opened her eyes her hands were now both on the table, ready to feast. Maybe it was too heavy to say what she was truly thinking, but she had to say something. “Thank you. This is really... amazing, Jack.”  

Jack took the phone and let out a light laugh. “It’s just some actor she recently became obsessed with.” She opened the text, seeing that it was from an agent, and set her phone down. “Yeah, the food will be up in a minute. It was an agent just letting me know he was on his way.” Jack would normally pick the food up at the parking lot on her own, but this was special, and the agent owed her a favor.

“Hm.” Elisa said slightly wondering why she would do something like that. She smirked and nodded after she said it so Jack wouldn’t get the wrong idea. It was just in that context, Elisa didn’t have friends like that. After everything, no one back home wanted to be around her. Parents even ill advised their teenagers to stay away and the close friends she did have were forbidden from seeing her... not that they wanted to anymore. If she knew anything it was betrayal. But here was different and she was reminded that with every conversation. Now she had Jack and others. Maybe that’s why she walked in so caught off guard. She was never anything special to anybody. So her biggest fear was scaring Jack off. A look of pure admiration came from her eyes as she gazed at the girl across from her. “You do realize you’re something else, right?”

Jack didn’t really want to answer the question Elisa posed. When it came to intimacy with clothes on, Jack wasn’t too comfortable. She didn’t know how to feel about anything, and she especially didn’t know how to behave or act. She wasn’t exactly having second thoughts about this whole thing, but she wasn’t completely convinced this was the best idea either. But it seemed to be working out okay, at least so far. Elisa seemed into it, and that helped Jack calm down slightly.

She let herself be whisked away from her spot on the bed and sat at the table. It was actually quite adorable. “Don’t worry,” she said, smiling up at Elisa. “I ordered enough for leftovers.” Just after she finished talking, her phone on the bed beeped. “That’s probably the food now. That or Meg sent me another picture of Rami Malek.”

Even though Elisa was keeping up her cool composure and was completely comfortable with Jack, her heart was still racing a bit. She never had anyone do something like this for her. It had been a long while since anyone had done anything at all for her. So when she sighed with a smile on her face, she played it off as if she was pretending to be relieved about the food when she really had been holding her breath. It took everything in her for her hands to not shake. 

A nod came from her as she retrieved the phone and handed it over. “I hope you know I have no idea who that is, but I am very jealous right now.” She smiled and sat in her seat. She couldn’t believe Jack had set this all up. At least she wouldn’t have to ask if she was serious about them. Though she did assume Jack might ask her that question. With that in mind, she didn’t know when she should start breathing again.

Jack could tell that Elisa was definitely thrown off guard. Whether that was a good thing or not was still to be seen, but while she watched her, Jack began to have second thoughts. Was this even a good idea? She wanted this, probably, but she should have at least asked or something, right? Maybe dates weren’t their thing. They had been perfectly fine just hanging out. Was Jack fucking up?

In an attempt to get those bad thoughts out of her head, Jack sat up and focused on what Elisa was saying, not trying to figure out what she was thinking. “Nah, I don’t do traditional, you know that.” A small laugh left her as she glanced over at the table. “Except for right now, I guess.” In all honesty, Jack didn’t know how else to have a date that didn’t require leaving campus or doing something they’d already done before. Dinner dates were something most movies had, so Jack went with it. Looking back at Elisa, Jack added, “You don’t have to stay or anything if you don’t want to. I can eat the steaks by myself.” Her tone was rather sarcastic but the look on her face tried to say that she was serious. Elisa could leave if she felt uncomfortable. This was her final out.

She narrowed her eyes at her, but couldn’t contain the laughter that wanted to come out and eventually did. “Why would I leave?” For some reason she felt like Jack needed convincing that this was okay. Sometimes Elisa could be stand offish and she knew that. It was by nature for her to withdraw. This dinner was so normal that she was caught in the different dimension of dating. It was okay though. She liked it and that wasn’t something she had to convince herself. 

Elisa got up from her seat and went over to Jack. She may not have to convince herself, but she felt that her shock might’ve made Jack want to withdraw. She pulled out her chair and then took her hands and brought her to her seat. Before she pushed her seat in she moved her hair out of her face and kissed her lips softly. “I know you can eat the steaks by yourself, but I hope you did get enough for me.” She smiled as she watched her and stayed by her seat instead of returning to her own. 

While Jack was oh-so-casually resting on her bed, she kept her attention on her surroundings. Any little noise coming from the hallway made her eyes move to the door, but the door didn’t open. She would then shake her head and go back to reading Twitter until another sound made her turn her attention away from the electronic device. Thankfully, that only happened a few times. The people on her floor usually liked to remain there, and so they wandered about on occasion. After a long period of silence, the door suddenly opened and Jack found herself looking at Elisa.

Before the girl even took a moment to look around, Jack’s cheeks were probably (most definitely) a little red. Despite the anxiety she had developed over this whole thing, she remained casually resting on the bed. “Well, a long time ago we mentioned potentially going on a date, and since that never happened…well, it’s happening now.” Jack set her phone down on her bed. “Is that okay?” After Elisa had disappeared, Jack was unsure if she even liked her anymore, but since she’d returned, they seemed kind of almost back to the way they were, and Jack’s feelings for her were still there. She didn’t know if the feeling was mutual though, and she didn’t want to put Elisa on the spot…although it was a little too late for that. If Elisa didn’t want this, she could just say so.

Elisa blinked a couple times. She wasn’t sure why, but she thought she was doing it as if the table would disappear and it would just be Jack laying on the bed. Or maybe she’d burst into laughter and say it was all a joke. Didn’t a date mean she should’ve mention it? Did she mention it? No. Elisa was sure she would’ve remembered. She wanted to cross her arms. But instead she sort of pouted a bit. This wasn’t what she was expecting and she wasn’t big on surprises either. Lis looked her over and sighed as she gave in. What could she be mad about? It didn’t seem like Jack dressed up at all. That didn’t mean she wanted her to see her go through all the emotions of before a date happen all at once. She became increasingly nervous, even though it’s always been casual and comfortable between them. This was a new area that she had almost forgotten they had to eventually go into. 

After contemplating leaving and then contemplating joining her on the bed, she decided to sit in the chair she figured was designated for her. “I guess I can’t complain.” She smirked at her. This could be casual. She could be cool and collected. “Though I would’ve brought you flowers or something. You did go through all the trouble and all.” Everything in her wanted to go over to her and kiss her right then and there, but she knew that she’d probably get herself into something she’d like to wait on. There was a reason she was taking it slow and she hoped Jack didn’t mind.