fandomtownies | Book Haven, Monday

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Book Haven, Monday

The notice about the school's Thanksgiving dinner in the lobby this morning had helpfully reminded Claudia that, once again, she was stuck without any real family for the holidays. She wasn't much closer to finding Artie and getting him to help her get Joshua back -- certainly not close enough to expect to see her brother before Thursday.

So this was Claudia, her head on her arm, poking irritably at her laptop keyboard instead of checking to see if there was stock to be shelved.

Book Haven was open -- if grumpy.

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". . . Oh." Claudia had no idea how to react to that. It wasn't like she and Jake had ever declared themselves to be all exclusive or anything, but she had to admit, the idea of him kissing someone else sucked a lot. But -- well, he said he wasn't going back for awhile and that he and the other girl weren't going to go anywhere. It wasn't like she couldn't understand crushing on someone else. Though at least Scully wasn't another guy, and she wasn't more interested in Scully than Jake and they hadn't kissed or anything. . . . "Do you like her better'n me?"

Jake flinched at the question, but he'd gotten this far and...

"It's... different. It's not like I went to Homecoming and only thought of her or anything like that? I thought I'd put it out of my system, but it's so complicated and she gets into my head when I'm there," he rubbed at his eyes.

"You're different."

A lot of kids Claudia had known had used that term to mean something bad, but she was pretty sure that wasn't what Jake was doing. "Okay."

She still didn't know what to think about all this.

"I told Scully I sometimes think about her naked," she admitted. "It was a whole . . . thing. So . . . maybe we're kinda even."

That... was kind of distracting him from the whole Bella related angst at least.

"You like girls?"

Priorities.

Claudia blushed faintly. "Yeah. I've never been real partial between guys and girls."

"Okay," he blinked and it was a good thing it wasn't sex pollen week because he really didn't need any more help with those mental images.

"Is it mutual?"

Claudia shook her head. "She's totally straight." And in love with her best friend from home, but Claudia wasn't entirely sure Scully had figured that part out for herself, yet.

"Right, and she's got that guy," Jake remembered, because he was less tactical and well he thought it'd been kind of obvious right there.

"Which totally doesn't matter because that wasn't what we were talking about," he blinked. "So you're not pissed at me?"

Claudia shrugged. "Not really. I mean, I kinda wish you hadn't kissed her, but we never said we were only gonna do that kind of stuff with each other. And you're not gonna see her again for a while. Just . . . I'm not just a stand in while she's not around, right?"

Jake shook his head, hesitating whether he should explain or not.

"It's done. Forever. She made her pick and she's going to spend eternity with her bloodsucker," he clarified. "I'd be lying if I said that doesn't hurt, because it does and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to feel. I wish I did, I thought I'd have figured it out by now, but..." he shrugged helplessly.

". . . Wait, she picked a vampire?" Claudia's mind boggled, her brain kind of stuck on why someone would go with a cold blood drinking dude over a warm cuddly one like Jake. "I mean, her loss, but still. Are you sure she wasn't, like, an idiot?"

Jake stared at her before he burst out laughing, relaxing a little. "When it comes to guys? Yeah, I kind of think she is."

Claudia couldn't help laughing as well, then smiled at him gently. "So, is this why we haven't talked in, like, forever?"

"Yeah?" he admitted, going right back to sheepish. "I didn't know what to say, and I couldn't change and that along with the sex stuff wasn't a good combination. And then I was kind of chicken, which isn't a good look on a wolf."

Wasn't like she'd been much better. "Wait, why couldn't you change?"

Oh. Right.

"I got injured so I had to keep from changing for a bit to let it heal up," he clarified. "I'm fine now."

Of course he was injured. And he didn't tell her. Claudia sighed. "Okay, that you probably could have mentioned before."

"By the time I would have told you, it would have healed up already," he said, which was an exaggerating as Raven had healed up the last of the damage a few days later.

"It's no big, I heal fast."

"That doesn't mean I don't wanna know about it! You yell at me when I get into trouble, it's only fair if I get to do it back."

"You don't have healing powers!" he objected. "But okay, I guess that's fair."

He leaned forward, making himself level with hers. "You can yell."

Claudia opened her mouth, then shrugged. "Okay, so that pretty much covered it, actually."

Jake snorted. "Okay, so can I give you a hug then?"

Shhh, that totally wouldn't ruin his badass werewolf image.

Claudia perked up a little more. "Sure. I mean, if you wanna."

Hugs went a long way towards distracting her from familial brooding.

"Yeah, I wanna. I mean, we're friends first, right? That's not going to change and maybe I need to figure some things out but a hug's always cool, right?"

He was saying right a lot.

"Hugs are totally cool," Claudia agreed hurriedly. "Always welcome."

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