mamma mia | jeremy jordan

15. exceptions

Ana returned home towards noon, her stomach and heart full of food and a phone number.

She hadn't checked her phone since the night before, mainly because it was on 1% and she always worried she would kill the battery and end up in a bad situation.

When she plugged it into her charger on her bedside table, she saw three texts from Laura and five from Jeremy, along with three phone calls from him.

Laura: hey, hope you had fun with ben! i have some stuff to do today, such as shopping. let me know if you need anything.
i assumes you wanted more orange juice because we're out, so i got some lmao
also got stuff for four cheese pasta tonight!!! assuming that you'll be home 😏

Jeremy: hey, i read the list and signed it
i agree to everything you listed.
i'm also sorry for giving you such a hard time at the cafe.
please call back when you get a chance.
come over tonight?

He left no voicemails, but Ana didn't need a vocal message to understand why he'd called.

He was horny.

And she couldn't exactly say no when she was missing his warmth and he'd signed the contract.

So, she called him while she prepared her toiletries for the shower.

She wasn't as exhausted as she would have assumed herself to be, but her head did pound from the lack of sleep. So, maybe she would make an exception to the mo cuddling rule.

Only because she was tired.

"Hey, Jeremy. Sorry I didn't reply to any of your messages or call you back. I was with a friend all night and day. I'm getting a shower and then I'll be over."

She ended the voicemail by hitting the red call button.

—

Ana traced a finger over Jeremy's jaw, watching his eyelashes shutter shut as he blinked. He laughed lightly as her touch tickled down his neck and he shrugged his shoulder so she would remove her hand.

Ana giggled, moving her ticklish hand to his hair, twisting small curls tighter with one swift movement.

Jeremy tightened his grip on her waist, humming slightly as she tugged at his hair.

"What happened to rule number one?"

"I can make exceptions. Sometimes."

"Sometimes?" He quirked an eyebrow at her emphasize.

"When one of us has had a rough day, or one of us is too tired to leave before the sun rises, or we simply need to be held a little bit longer than twenty minutes." Ana assured him.

Jeremy cracked a smile, "Should we clause that in our constitution?"

"Shut up and go to sleep." Ana removed her hands from him, suddenly acting rude because of his statement. She turned onto her other side, but Jeremy pulled her against his chest.

"I was kidding," he kissed her temple, down to her shoulder.

"So was I." She said, her eyes shutting as she drifted off the sleep.

He shook his head before placing it in the crook of her neck and following her to the rem cycle.

—

Ana woke up before Jeremy did, as always.

She dressed herself back into the leggings and sweater she'd worn over before stepping to leave the room.

"I feel like we've been in this situation before." Jeremy called from where he had sat up in bed.

"I have to get back to my apartment." Ana sighed, turning around with her hand still placed on the door knob. "Plus, I thought we agreed no lingering."

"Your rules never said anything about breakfast." Jeremy slid shirt over his head and moved past her out of the room. "C'mon."

Ana hated herself because they were indeed breaking a rule- the one stating they couldn't be each other's friends outside of the bedroom. But, she was starving, and part of he yearned for quiet, platonic time with this man.

She sat down at his kitchen counter, drinking black coffee, while he cooked her eggs and bacon. Ana texted Laura back, assuring her 'where are you?' text that she was at Bens house again.

Laura sent the smirking emoticon back, but Ana left it on read.

Ana was reaching out to take her plate from Jermey when someone knocked on the door of his apartment.

Both of their shoulders tensed up at the consistent knocking. Ana turned her gaze away from the door and towards Jeremy, who was furrowing his brows at the sound.

"Jeremy? Are you in there?"

Ana recognized Ben Fankhauser's voice bleeding through the oak door.

Jeremy did not know that Ana knew his best friend, but he didn't have to.

He did know that Ana did not want anyone to know and, after getting over his lengthy whine about this minuscule detail of their fling, he embedded into his mind one thing: protect Ana.

"What do we do?" Ana stood from the bar stool, rushing towards Jeremy's room in order to put on her moccasins.

She stuffed her arms into her coat as Jeremy paced from his door to where she stood.

"Jeremy, I know you're in there. I can hear you feet. Please, open up!"

Jeremy, eyes wide with panic, whipped his head around in attempt to find an escape route for Ana.

"You have to go down the fire escape."

Ana gasped at his idea, glancing out his bedroom window where there was, in fact, a fire escape that reached to the concrete sidewalk below them.

"Are you kidding me?"

Jeremy grabbed Ana's arm and pulled her towards his window. He unlatched the lock and assisted her in stepping out safely into the metal frame of the landing.

"You so owe me a million breakfasts after this." Ana grabbed her phone as Jeremy held it out of his window towards her.

He squeaked out a small apology before she began descending the steps. Jeremy closed his window, his face flushed red.

He opened his front door to Ben, who was holding a bag of food from the cafe. They exchanged greetings, Ben's enthusiastic and Jeremy's still slightly nervous.

Ben walked past Jeremy into the kitchen. He knew immediately that Jeremy was keeping a secret when he discovered two plates of breakfast sitting on Jeremy's island counter. Jeremy covered it with a lame excuse that Ben pretended to believe.

He didn't even mention thag there was a woman's bra hanging off the front door knob of Jeremy's bedroom door.

He sure as hell didn't mention that the initial marking the tag of the bra had an A and D on it.