tangled up in blue

23

paramore- grudges (very fitting for our two fave oblivious idiots)

AN- warning: soft soft soft soft soft

oh yeah, and smut oop

The next morning, I was hiding from Jace's early-morning fury in our shared bathroom until I heard a collection of voices that definitely didn't belong to my friends.

"Rise and shine, Jacob!"

There was a thud, and then Jace's disgruntled, sleepy voice. "Ow-Cella, Corey- get the fuck off me-"

Daring to crack open the door slightly, I saw both of Jace's friends lying on top of him in an attempt to piss him off. I honestly didn't know where they found the courage; I hated mornings too, but in his case, I was scared to even look at him when he'd just woken up, which was why him singing and making me pancakes that one morning should have been added to the world's greatest unsolved mysteries. They hastily got off the bed when he swung a fist out, to which Eugene didn't bat an eyelid.

"What the fuck are you idiots doing here?" Jace groaned, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.

"Good to see you too," Corey grinned.

"We decided to save you from your misery," said Cella, flipping her short dark hair over her leather clad shoulder. "If my Mom forced me to go to summer camp, I'd be so pissed. So we brought you weed."

I crinkled my nose with distaste as she chucked a packet at him. For some reason, I didn't like the thought of Jace on drugs. Something could go wrong, and I found myself worrying about the kind of people he'd met.

Fuck, I sound like his Mom. Jace is 'those kind of people.' He can do what he wants. He'll never care what I think.

"You can come out now, Noah," Eugene drawled without lifting his eyes from his phone. Heat instantly rose to my face as everyone turned their attention to the door, which I was forced into slowly opening. I laughed nervously and tried to look anywhere but at Jace's pissed off face.

Marcella instantly broke out into a grin and strode forward to pull me into a tight hug. Corey joined her a second later, and their superior strength lifted me slightly off the floor. I patted their backs awkwardly as I suffocated. "Er, hi guys." I barely even knew them, but they were treating me like family. I wasn't used to affection like that, especially from people as popular as them, but being liked felt better than I expected.

As they bombarded me with affection and leaned on my smaller frame, Jace glared at his friends moodily. I much preferred Gene's silent and emotionless approach of giving me a firm nod over my hair being played with by Marcella, so I was relieved when the door opened. That dissipated as soon as I saw a familiar pair of green eyes.

Jace hastily got out of bed and I tensed, seeing as the last time I'd seen them in the same room, Jace threatened to punch him in the face and then decided his time was better spent sucking me off.

Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about-

"Hey, just Noah," said Enzo with a timid smile.

I blushed with one glance at his handsome face and just prayed that I wasn't red. By the way Jace was looking between us icily, I guessed I appeared like a complete idiot. "Uh, hey..." I didn't know why he made me nervous- it wasn't as much as with the other ridiculously attractive boy in the room, but under his gaze I still felt helpless. There was something there I didn't understand, like some inside joke that he wasn't including me in.

"Don't worry," he laughed softly. "Me and Jace are cool. Right, bro?"

The tanned boy didn't respond. Jace didn't take his intense stare away from my face, and I avoided meeting it at all costs. After an awkward pause in which Eugene decided to cough in order to make things worse, I forced myself to speak. "Anyway, um, I gotta go. I'm seeing Helena."