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At odd moments over the next two days, Joey was able to believe that she didn't love him. Those were the moments when she was completley alone. But the rest of the time, in particular, when they came together, she could only describe it as making love. However one sided that love may be. It was all his fault, she could have convinced herself it was just sex if he hadn't held her so tenderly afterward, or continued to seduce her with his hands, with his words, with the very idea that he needed her. He never said so, of course, and he wouldn't let her talk about her feelings, but she was sure it was need she saw in his eyes when he reached for her. Well, almost sure. That day, she headed for his mother's room. She'd been having to scrounge for clothes to wear, and she'd mostly stuck to Pacey's boxers and t-shirts. He claimed they made her look extremely sexy. Her own clothes hung in the closet of the room she hadn't slept in since the second day she'd arrived there. "I can think of any number of better things to do this afternoon." He said from behind her. "I just bet you can." She smiled, "Why don't you go take a hike outside or something." "Come with me." She shook her head, still smiling. "I know you've already searched here, but I'm running out of places to look. You don't have to stay with me." "I think you underestimate my deviousness. While I pretend to search, I can work on changing your mind about the proper ways to occupy an afternoon." Against her will, her blood warmed. She looked over her shoulder, attempting a scolding frown. He stood just behind her, a smoldering smile on his face, ruining her attempts at a serious expression. Pacey wanted her. If nothing else, the wanting was real. "This is important to me Pace. I want to find that paper, whatever it is." He nodded, "I know. But I can't help wondering how much longer you're going to search before you give up." Her mind went blank. This had happened several times in the last three days, any time she tried to look past the present. Her heart refused to peer around the corner to the time when he wouldn't be there. "I don't know." She lifted a framed photo from the table. "You and Doug look a lot a like." "I try not to notice." He said dryly. "Have you talked to him recently?" Joey wondered. "You're avoiding." She put the frame down and moved to the other side of the room, putting the bed between them. "I don't know what you're talking about." "I'm taking about the way you're sidestepping the discussion of the temporary nature of our relationship. What happens if you do find what you're looking for, Jo? If you open that drawer and find a dozen love letters from your mom to the mailman? Will you stick them in your pocket, shake my hand and tell me it's been fun before driving back over that bridge?" Her hand froze midway to the drawer he'd spoken of. They road had been clear for days, she could leave any time...and they both knew why she hadn't. "I've always been a coward, Pacey. I'm just not good at facing things." "You? Since when?" He arched an eye brow. "Since always." She opened the drawer and started rifling through the clothes inside. "Think back with me, Pace. When have I ever faced adversity or conflict of my own voilition?" "So...when your mother died, you ran and cried in your room for months. Funny, the Joey I remembered faced the town with her chin up and her eyes dry. The Joey Potter you describe would have hung her head in shame after her father was convicted of drug charges. As I recall, you didn't even blink when everyone whispered behind their hands about the 'Potter trash'. Or when Principal Green was being fired for punishing Matt what's-his-name...everyone else in this town turned a blind eye to the injustice. But not Josephine Potter." Pacey shook his head, "So, I'm not quite seeing how you've turned away from adversity or hidden from conflict." She winced, "Think back with me, Pacey. Way back to the boat yard, and they day we christened True Love. Do the words, 'It has to be' ring a bell?" He nodded, "Yeah, they do. But do you also remember at that same dock, a few weeks later, the words, 'I want to go with you'? Because those are the ones that stick in my mind." She smiled faintly, accepting the statement, thought not entirely believing it. "That was a good summer, wasn't it?" she sighed wistfully. "The best of my life." He replied honestly, for once not cloaking the emotion in his words. "It kind of reminds me of us now." She said tentativly, watching him from the corner of her eye as she aimlessly looked through the drawers. "Dont you think?" His expression changed, closing her out even as he closed the the doors to the closet. "I think," he said, "that it's pointless to search territory that I've already been through. You never did answer my question," he turned to her, his face a mask of indifference. "If you find what you're looking for, are you going to hurry along on your way?" He looked so damned polite, as though her answer might be interesting but that he didn't really care either way. Her hands clenched at her sides. "Why are you making me say it?" "There are a number of things I could make you do, particularly if you're naked. But I don't think I could make you tell the truth." Maybe...just maybe, he needed to hear the truth. She held her head high, just as he'd told her she always had, and fixed him with a level look. "I wont go until you send me away." His face tensed and she knew she'd affected him. She just couldn't tell what affect her words had wrought. "I'm going downstairs," he said, heading for the door. "Join me when you get tired of wasting your time. There are a few things we haven't tried yet." He paused, his hand on the doorknob. "I'd like to revisit the kitchen, have you thought of the erotic possibilites there? The first time there was so fast..." his eyes glowed with hot promises. "I plan to lay you naked across the table, flat on your back so I could nibble a bit...maybe bring out the chocolate sauce." His smile was pure sin. "Sound fun?" "Don't think I don't know that you're trying to distract me." "It really doesn't matter if you know what I'm doing or not. It still works, doesn't it? I'll see you downstairs." When the door closed behind him, Joey didn't know whether to rage or weep. She'd pushed him. He wasn't ready to trust, to open up. It was no wonder he retreated behind the sexuality he could weild like a weapon. Yet, she had so little time. How could she get him to open up if she didn't try? How could she stop herself from hoping, no matter how futile that hope may be. Maybe she was fooling herself. Maybe she was no better than he was. Was she as ready to open up as she wanted him to be? Could she really push him to do something she wasn't prepared to do herself? She groaned and ran a hand through her hair and set back to work. It was all so complicated. He was worse than a woman on her period...one minute he was sweet and playful, and the next he acted like a distant stranger. And to make things worse, every time she tried to work it out in her head, she found herself thinking about the kitchen, the wooden table there and how it would feel against her bare back. Among other things. ![]()
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