Part 2

The story continues...

At Starbucks, Jason and Jess somehow ended up at their own table in the corner, discussing the pickling process and sheepdog training over tall double chocolate chip frappuccinos. It wasn't long before Jason could not contain himself - he confessed that he was madly in love with her and that he wanted to eat pickles with her for the rest of his life.

Haha... not really. That would have been really weird.

Ok so nothing really happened at Starbucks. After grabbing a few drinks (Jessica got Jamba Juice from next-door) and spending some time in conversation, the crew decided to retire to Matt and Rebecca's apartment. Jessica doesn't really remember what they did (there must have been something in the juice). But she got some funny pictures.

April turned into an alien halfway through her latte.

Jessica's disgusting cappuccino brownie.

April and Jason listen to some of Jason 2's tunes.

(Jason 2 is hiding behind the tv. See?)

When Matt got home from work a game of Halo began and this time the girls joined in. Jessica thought that they were very nice to let her play because she was not very good at all. Jason didn't seem to mind having her on his team.

Jessica decided to be gracious and leave not long after she racked up her first kill in the game. She meant to slip out without a fuss so the others could continue their game, but when Jason noticed she was leaving he leapt up and shook her hand, telling her it was nice to meet her and he was sure they would see each other again sometime. Jess had not been expecting this but she replied in the affirmative.

It was the very next day, in fact, when Jason did something else unexpected.

Jess and Becca were ready for some cookie-making at Becca's place after an evening of shopping. Jason didn't come up in their conversation so Jess didn't get a chance to tell Becca what had been on her mind... that it might be a good idea to NOT encourage a relationship with Jason (who was now called Jason 2 affectionately, to prevent confusion with April's husband Jason). She didn't worry about it, though, opting instead to make this Thursday night as much like Friday as possible.

Apparently so did everyone else. April arrived while the cookies were in the oven, and next Jason 2. Matt arrived with the usual gang for (you guessed it) a game of Halo. Jessica thought of all the books she could read in the hours these people spent playing Halo.

The girls indulged in a few rambunctious games of Rummy and Nerts, with Jason 2 rounding out the foursome. By one o'clock in the morning all of the boys were shooting at each other, the girls had eaten too many cookies, and Jessica was ready to head home before she butchered her bedtime even further.

Jason stood again when he saw her leaving, and moved towards the door behind her with an "I'll be right back, guys." Jessica expected another handshake, and thought he might watch her from the balcony to make sure she made it safely to her car.

"Thanks for walking me out," she said when the apartment door closed behind them.

"Oh, no problem."

And he started down the stairs behind her.

Uh-oh.

Jessica hoped he didn't plan to throw her on the back of his motorcycle and try to woo her with a high-speed race down highway 6 in the middle of the night.

One of them tossed a trivial conversation piece into the air, she couldn't remember who. She expected their interaction to last only as long as it took for her to reach her car. But when they had finished with that and stood in the brightly lit parking lot in front of Jessica's car, Jason continued the conversation. They talked about Maryland, where Jessica had lived before her family moved to Texas, which led to a discussion of some of Jason's travels in previous years.

Then Jess watched Jason nervously scuff his toe against the ground and listened quite in shock as he said that he'd like to hang out with her sometime.

He was very nervous. She could tell. She was, too. Was this a normal thing to do after meeting a girl only twice before (thrice, if you counted her cold non-acknowledgement during the Scrabble game)?

So she tried to put them both at ease by explaining she would prefer to spend time together with the rest of the group, and sharing her MySpace page. He seemed content with that and headed back upstairs. She climbed into her car, drove home, and promptly sat down with her journal. This was gonna be worth remembering!