Gym Day with Jessica Day

Warming Up

(A/N) Guys. I am so sorry. I literally forgot that I was writing this. Like, I got in the mood for a Nick and Jess fanfiction and when I went to search one up, mine was the first one to pop up and then I realized I hadn't updated in...well, a while. I'm not going to promise to be better but it issss summer so...maybe. Anyway, I don't feel great about this chapter, but I wanted to get it up, so here it is. 

When they walked into the box, Nick's cheek still tingling from Jess's lips, Jess automatically sprouted her social butterfly wings, cheerily greeting the five people chatting by the benches and the two stretching on the floor. Several of them looked like they could crush Nick's head with their biceps and probably their quads, too, but he was pleased to see their were also a couple people with a body type closer to his own. 

Nick was trying  his damnedest to not turtle face, but he could already feel his mouth puckering and the telltale crease between his brows. Before he could make his tiny toe fists like Jess taught him to, the sound of his name snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Nick, these are my Cross Fit buddies," he nodded mutely before realizing Jess wasn't going to introduce him, but was instead expecting him to do it himself. Like a goddamn adult.

"Um, hi, I'm Nick, Jess's...uh...roomfriend," he said, not sure exactly how he was supposed to introduce himself given previous flirting and cheek kissing. He didn't miss the knowing look two of the girls on the bench exchanged with Jess, and he didn't like it either. 

The next couple of minutes consisted of lots of names and pleasantries being thrown at him. Two Kelsey's, Franco, Sherri, Matt, Tom, and Heidi. The next, next couple of minutes consisted of him forgetting all of those names except for three: Kelcy (with a 'c', he had been informed), Sherri, and Franco. He remembered Kelcy and Sherri because they had been the ones to shoot eyes at Jess after his 'roomfriend' blunder and also because she seemed to be closest with them.

He remembered Franco because, well, Franco was hot. And smiley, and fit, and everything that Nick wasn't. He was also very talkative and handsy with Jess. Not that Nick had any right to be noticing these things, and he definitely didn't have any right to be jealous considering his last attempts at wooing Jess had been bashing her nose in and then telling her he liked her ass in leggings. But he couldn't help it. He couldn't help seeing Franco's hand on Jess's shoulder when he greeted her, or his light touch to her waist when moving past her, and he sure as hell couldn't help the stab of jealousy he felt every time these things happened.

The normal, functioning adult response would have been to splash some water on his face and get over it. But never before had Nick been normal nor a functioning adult and today didn't seem like the day to start. Maybe next week. So instead of the cold water he opted to play a game with himself; every time Franco made any sort of pass at Jess, any flirty comment or little touch, Nick would do the same thing.

The first chance to try out his new method came before they had even started warming up. Franco made a comment about how Jess's hair looked nice today and Nick prickled before reminding himself he could do one better. When Jess, sitting beside him on the bench, sat back up from tying her shoes he reached over to tuck an errant strand back behind her ear. Before he could pat himself on the back for a romantic one-up well done, however, several unfortunate events occurred at a pace too rapid for Nick's slightly hungover brain to catch up with. 

At the first contact his hand made with Jess's hair, his stomach surged with unexpected butterflies. Manly butterflies. Moths, perhaps. And with the appearance of the moths, he lost the ability to continue moving his hand, so instead of smoothly sweeping Jess's hair to the side, he ended up just sitting there, his hand in her hair, resting above her ear, and moths in his stomach. Also at First Contact (Nick decided the event deserved capitalization), Jess swiveled her head towards Nick's touch, eyes widening when she realized that he appeared to be trying to play with her hair. Unfortunately, the combination of her sudden movement and Nick's stilled hand resulted in the creation of a tangle, the center of which had trapped Nick's fingers.