InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 6: Shameless ❯ For Jillian ( Chapter 7 )

~~Chapter 7~~

~For Jillian~

 

 

“Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, pl—”

 

Gavin rolled his eyes and tried not to look at Jillian. “No.”

 

“But, Gavvie . . .”

 

“No.”

 

“Please?”

 

“Uh-uh.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Drop it, Jilli,” he growled.

 

“Please?”

 

“N—”

 

“All right,” she gave in with a loud, melodramatic sigh. “Fine, fine . . . if you refuse to take me, I'll just go see if one of your stable hands wants to go.”

 

Gavin gritted his teeth. He knew what she was doing. She did it all the time, didn't she? Back home, though, she'd simply say she'd call Evan, and that was bad enough. Evan was just a little too good at getting into trouble, and Jillian . . . well, she never had been any good at tempering Evan's wild streak. Gavin had pulled her fat out of the fryer more than once over the years when her escapades with her sibling ran amok. At least his hired hands would be calmer and less likely to suggest anything that could be potentially damning for Jillian to do . . .

 

“I'll just see if Hank's busy.”

 

Head snapping up, Gavin dropped the stack of mail onto his desk as he narrowed his eyes and swung around to face Jillian, who was looking entirely too innocent about the entire affair.

 

Then again, he could be entirely wrong . . .

 

Pausing long enough to kiss his cheek, Jillian started to head for the door. Gavin caught her hand and pulled her back. “You win, Jilli,” he grumbled. “I'll take you out for dinner, but I am not—am not—dancing with you.”

 

She giggled and clapped her hands. “Gavvie! You love me!”

 

He rolled his eyes. “Let me go shower and change.”

 

“Okay,” she agreed. “I should change, too.”

 

Gavin watched her run off with a long-suffering sigh before heading for the stairs. He really didn't mind the idea of taking Jillian out for the evening, but he was waiting for Bas to call back about the latest emails. It seemed that Mickey B. was quite irritated that Jillian would abscond from Cancun without his prior knowledge, and was even more irritated that he had no idea where she was at present. Good news for them, Gavin supposed, but Mickey was threatening `dire repercussions' if Jillian didn't respond to him posthaste.

 

Luckily for them, Jillian had spent the last couple days immersing herself in ranch life, spending yesterday following Gavin around as he mended fences with Hank, and trailing him today while he trekked all over the grounds to make sure that everything was as it should be. She seemed to like the day-long outing. He'd opted to walk since she still seemed a little reluctant after their first horseback ride. All in all, she appeared to be enjoying herself, but he had to wonder how long it would take before the novelty of being stuck out in the middle of nowhere wore off.

 

It didn't take long to give himself a quick shower, and even less time to pull on a pair of faded jeans and a black tee-shirt. Opting for a pair of sneakers instead of the cowboy boots he'd worn all day, Gavin spared a moment to catch his hair back in a low riding pony tail before heading out of the bedroom once more.

 

Jillian was waiting in the living room, and he stopped short when he saw her. All decked out in pale pink pseudo-cowgirl gear, he tried not to laugh outright when she carefully smashed the pink Stetson onto her head, casting him a saucy grin, turning around so that he could get the full effect. The wide pink suede skirt billowed around her, the white fringe flipping with her movements. The rhinestone snaps on the pink and white plaid cowgirl shirt she wore winked in the light filtering through the windows, and she had tied a pink bandana around her throat for good measure. Even her little boots were pink, he noted with an amused grin. “What do you think?” she prompted when he didn't remark right away.

 

Gavin chuckled. “Cute, Jilli, but a little overdone for dinner at the Burning Barn.”

 

“Nonsense, Gavvie,” she argued with a flick of her wrist. “There's no such thing as `overdone'.”

 

Shaking his head, he let the subject drop. Jillian, he knew, could wear just about anything, and it wouldn't really matter in the end. She was one of those rare women who didn't have to do a thing to demand attention. Grabbing his keys off the table, he held out his hand for her. She ran over, smiling up at him before ducking under his arm as he held the door open. “That's what you think,” he replied dryly as he closed and locked the door behind them.

 

Jillian paused at the top of the stairs, her eyes darting over the horizon, a quiet sense of awe illuminating her gaze. Gavin chuckled softly, stuffing his hands in his pockets. `How often have I done the same thing, myself?' he wondered. Seeing Jillian do it, too . . . it filled him with a sense of satisfaction that he could barely credit. “Ready to go?” he asked, loathe to break the sense of serenity that had fallen over the girl.

 

She shot him a quick smile and shrugged. “Sure.”

 

He nodded, caught off guard by the stunning smile she bestowed on him. `It's those dimples . . .' he mused in a distracted sort of way.

 

She grabbed his arm and tugged him down the steps, heading for the truck that he'd been using the last few days. It wasn't the nicest of the vehicles owned by the ranch, but it was the best one on gas mileage. Jillian didn't seem to mind the scratches and dents. Hopping into the passenger seat, she rolled down the window and pulled the seatbelt over her lap as Gavin climbed in behind the steering wheel.

 

“You know, this is sort of like a date,” Jillian mused as Gavin pulled the truck out of the parking space and crept down the dirt driveway.

 

“Hmm,” he grunted.

 

“No, it is, really,” she insisted.

 

“If that's the case then we go on `dates' all the time.”

 

She giggled. “Do we? Then you owe me.”

 

“Owe you?”

 

“Yes, owe me,” she went on, hooking her hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear.

 

“Owe you what?”

 

Her giggle escalated into full-blown laughter. “Kisses, Gavvie . . . what else?”

 

“K-k-kisses?” he choked, unable to staunch the flow of hot color that surged just below his skin.

 

“Yes,” she went on, ignoring his obvious embarrassment as she pulled down the sun visor to look in the mirror, running her index finger along her lower eyelashes. “Lots of them, I'd say . . . at least one per date that we've been on when you've been too shy to kiss me.”

 

Making a point of ignoring Jillian's silly banter, Gavin flicked on the radio and turned the volume up to drown out her words. Jillian laughed as though she figured out just what he was doing but didn't move to decrease the noise. Satisfied that he'd quieted her, at least for the moment, Gavin heaved a sigh of relief and concentrated on the road, instead. Something told him it was going to be a long evening.

 

Sometimes he really despised being right . . .

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“That was the best steak I've ever had,” Jillian said with a happy sigh as she sat back in the red vinyl booth.

 

“Yeah, it was,” Gavin agreed. Draining his beer, he set the bottle aside and stifled a belch with his fist.

 

Jillian scooted around the table to lean against his arm. “You sure I can't get you to dance with me, Gavvie?” she asked, staring wistfully toward the dance floor where a few locals were shuffling around to the latest twangy ballad blaring out of the old fashioned juke box near the door.

 

“You know, Jilli, you can talk me into just about anything, but I'm not dancing, so forget it.”

 

She giggled. “You're sure?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You did dance with me once before,” she reminded him with a teasing wink.

 

Gavin snorted and snatched up the fresh beer that the waitress set on the table. “Did I?”

 

“Yes, Gavvie, you did.”

 

“When?”

 

Shaking her head almost sadly, Jillian tried to brush off the upset that nipped at her. That dance had been one of the highlights of her teenage years, and he'd forgotten? She forced a bright smile. “Oh, well, it was awhile ago. Years ago, really . . .”

 

He shot her a questioning glance as he lifted the bottle to his lips. “Eh?”

 

“Bassie and Sydnie's wedding reception . . . you really don't remember, do you?”

 

Setting the bottle back on the table once more, he blushed a little and studiously avoided her gaze. “Oh, yeah . . . I remember that.”

 

“You said you'd step on my feet, but you didn't.”

 

Grabbing a thick, fluffy slice of bread out of the basket on the table between them, he shoved damn near half of it into his mouth as he concentrated on telling himself that he really didn't have to blush every time Jillian reminded him of things that he'd rather not think about. The instance that she was talking about was not one of his better moments. Sure, he hadn't stepped on her, but it had been a close thing, and the only reason he hadn't was because he'd flat-out refused to lift his feet up high enough for that to happen. “Yeah, and I told you that was a one-time thing, didn't I?”

 

She couldn't keep the hint of longing out of her expression despite her best efforts to the contrary. “That's why I remember it.”

 

He didn't respond to that. Digging his wallet out of his back pocket, he pulled out his Visa Gold—his only credit card, so far as Jillian knew—and dropped it on the table. “You about ready to go?” he asked, nodding at the waitress as she took his credit card and hurried away without a word.

 

Jillian rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Gavvie! We just ate! Let's do something fun; what do you say?”

 

“Your idea of fun and mine are vastly different,” he pointed out dryly.

 

“You always have fun with me, Gavin Jamison, even if you don't like to admit it.”

 

He chuckled and shrugged. “I suppose I do,” he allowed.

 

She wrinkled her nose. “Yes, you do. What else is there to do?” Snapping her fingers and grabbing Gavin's arm, she squealed when a sudden inspiration hit her. “Let's go to that bar we passed on the way here!”

 

He blinked. “Bar? Why?”

 

Waving her hand in a blatant dismissal of his caustic tone, she laughed, leaning across the table as though she were going to tell him a secret. “Karaoke night, silly! I saw it on the marquee sign!”

 

“You've got to be kidding,” he stated.

 

“Do I look like I'm kidding? It'll be fun!”

 

“Heh. Yeah. Right. Um, no.”

 

“Gav-vie!” she protested. “You sing so nicely!”

 

“I think you have me confused with your brother, Jilli. I can't carry a tune in a bucket.”

 

“That's not true, and you know it,” she argued.

 

The waitress returned with the receipt and Gavin's credit card that he promptly stowed in his wallet as he got to his feet. “It is true.”

 

“You sing just fine in the shower,” she pointed out.

 

He snorted. “You're not supposed to be listening to me sing in the shower.”

 

“I can't help it,” she shot back as she scooted out of the booth and followed him out of the restaurant. “Naked Gavvie, just add water . . . it's the combination that I live for.”

 

“Jillian!” he hissed, increasing his stride as his cheeks shot up in flames.

 

“What?” she demanded, her tone pleading her innocence. “I am a water-youkai, you know . . .”

 

He shot her a quelling glance but kept walking. “Sometimes I think you need your mind washed out with soap,” he grumbled.

 

Jillian giggled softly, linking her arm through his and hanging onto him as they headed for the truck. “Luckily for you, you're the only man I ever fantasize about.”

 

“You'll be the death of me yet,” he predicted as he jerked the passenger door open and stepped back for Jillian to get in.

 

She climbed into the truck and sat back while Gavin shoved it closed and strode around to the driver's side. “We're inevitable, you know,” she went on, careful to keep her tone light.

 

“Just like death and taxes,” he mumbled.

 

“Why are you being so stubborn about this?” she pressed as he started the truck and negotiated the full parking lot. “I mean, I've known since we were children, so you've had to know, too . . .”

 

“No, Jillian,” he growled, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “I don't.”

 

“Nonsense!” she countered. “We're meant to be, like Romeo and Juliet—”

 

“They committed suicide.”

 

“Or Antony and Cleopatra—”

 

“Also suicide. I don't have a sword, and you hate snakes, remember?”

 

She waved her hand to silence him. “Or Abelard and Heloise—”

 

Gavin paused at a red light, narrowing his eyes on Jillian with a slow shake of his head. “Abelard was castrated, which is pretty much what your father's said he'd do to me if I ever so much as looked at you like that.”

 

“Sampson and Delilah?”

 

He snorted indelicately. “She betrayed him for money, and he was put on display for public ridicule . . . then he went kamikaze . . . Not a good example, Jilli.”

 

“Okay, so that was a horrible one. Still, you get my meaning, right? We're destined to be together. Who are we to ignore destiny?”

 

Braking sharply, he cranked the steering wheel to turn into the parking lot at the bar.

 

Jillian blinked in surprise. “What are we doing?”

 

“Karaoke,” he informed her. “Thought you wanted to.”

 

“Are you going to sing, too?”

 

He snorted, pulling into a parking space and killing the engine. “No.”

 

She waited for him to help her out of the truck. “Is this your way of trying to distract me?”

 

“Depends.”

 

“On what?”

 

He finally smiled, just a little. “Is it working?”

 

Jillian laughed. “Never, Gavvie. I'll never give up on you.”

 

“Jillian, listen . . .”

 

She grasped his arm, forcing him to stop and look at her. “No, Gavin; you listen. Would it be so bad? Spending our lives together?”

 

A thousand emotions played over his features in a matter of moments; each one too fleeting for her to comprehend. Lowering his chin, he refused to meet her gaze. “Come on,” he grumbled, taking her hand and pulling her toward the bar. The throbbing pulse of the music could be discerned outside. With a defeated sigh, Jillian followed Gavin inside.

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Gavin leaned back in his chair and scowled at the bar where Jillian stood, surrounded by at least half a dozen men. She sang one of her brother's songs—a raunchy, grinding tune aptly called, `Thigh Sweat'. He sighed. Leave it to good ol' Evan to write a song about such a thing, and then to say it was a love song, at that . . . Of course, what else would be expected from a man who named his debut CD She Swallows? Evan had been so proud when that CD had been released. He'd sent Gavin a copy of it, autographed, no less, and the picture on the cover had made Gavin grimace: a naked woman with her back to the camera in front of an apparently naked Evan. He had his hand on the back of her head and a shit-eating grin on his face, and it looked like she really was giving him a blow job. He'd changed his name to Zel Roka, which was a simple switch of his middle and last names, and it was a running joke that he never appeared anywhere with the same hair or eye color. Having just released his second album, he was somewhere in Europe getting ready to kick off an international tour—his first as the headliner—which meant that he'd be gone for eighteen months or more.

 

One of the men near Jillian reached out to tweak her hat. He could hear her giggling over the din of the loud music, and he wasn't surprised to see many of the women in the bar glaring at the girl. Trying his best not to glower at the men, Gavin suppressed another sigh and slowly shook his head. It was the same everywhere they went, wasn't it? Jillian simply attracted men, and Gavin had to wonder if it was because they knew who she was or because she was just a really pretty girl. Either way, the end result was always the same. Jillian would spend the better portion of the evening talking to those men and forgetting that Gavin was sitting alone at a table in the back of the bar.

 

`Which you don't have to do,' his youkai voice pointed out reasonably.

 

`I don't?'

 

`No, you don't. You could go talk to someone, yourself. There are plenty of women in this place, in case you haven't noticed.'

 

`Oh, yeah . . . so there are.'

 

`You're really going to do it, aren't you? You're going to sit around here all night and pine over the girl you don't want—or so you've claimed.'

 

`It's not like that,' he argued, scowl darkening as Jillian's laughter carried across the room to him. `It's not about what I want or don't want. It's about her . . . she wouldn't be happy with me; not for long, anyway.'

 

`So you say; so you say . . . I think you're overanalyzing things. You always overanalyze everything.'

 

`It doesn't matter what Jillian says. Her insistence that we're mates . . . It's just a habit . . . It doesn't mean a thing.'

 

`Not a thing, huh . . .?'

 

He didn't answer. Downing the rest of his now warm beer, Gavin glowered at the gaggle of men surrounding Jillian and motioned at the waitress to bring another drink. With a grimace, he slowly shook his head. `Always the same thing . . .' It was always one thing or another, wasn't it? There was always something keeping Gavin from telling Jillian how he felt. In the beginning they'd been pups. There wasn't a reason to tell her anything. No, back then it had been simple. Jillian was just a friend—a younger child who looked up to him; one he protected because she was the tai-youkai's daughter. True, he had liked her well enough. Of course he would. Having always been smaller than anyone else his age, Gavin had enjoyed the feeling of being almost larger than life; the feeling that he really could do anything in her eyes.

 

They'd grown over the years, sure, but it always seemed as though Jillian was beyond him. Every year, he was pleased that he had grown an inch or two over the months of their separations only to find that it wasn't quite enough. When he'd arrive in Maine, he'd find that she, too, had grown a few inches; that she was still taller than him, faster than him, better than him. He sighed and winced. No, Jillian was beyond him back then. He should have known that she always would be. Too bright, too shiny, too beautiful . . . Jillian was close enough to touch him but never close enough to be touched in return.

 

By the time he was seventeen, Gavin was a good four inches shorter than Jillian, which was better than the eight inches that had separated their heights when he was thirteen and she was eight. She used to kiss the top of his head all the time, patting his hair like a much-loved puppy, and as embarrassing as it was to be Jillian's `pet', knowing that he was so much older than her hadn't helped at all. Evan loved to tease him about his marked lack of height. Scrawny, short, he hadn't been much to look at in those days. Jillian loved to pull him into her lap like he was little more than a child. He'd hated that; really hated that . . . and the memory of it was enough to set his teeth to grinding. “Sit still, Gavvie! If you're squirming around, I can't see the television . . .”

 

When he'd left that summer, he hadn't realized that he wouldn't be coming back to Maine. Looking back, he wondered if he simply hadn't wanted to realize that. After all, he'd known that he'd be starting college after graduating from high school, and he'd taken it for granted that he'd be back the following year, but when the opportunity came to get into a special class . . . Idly turning the beer bottle on the table, he frowned, not really seeing anything at all. The next summer, he'd opted to start classes at the University of Montana instead of journeying to Cain's home. Jillian, true to form, had always sounded so cheerful whenever she called, and in his mind, he had to wonder just what she'd look like when he saw her again. When he told her that he wasn't coming that year, she'd tried her best to mask her upset. “Oh . . . I see . . . yes, that's a wonderful thing for you, isn't it? I'm so . . . happy for you, Gavvie, honest!” That was what she'd said, and he'd seen right through it, though he had tried to tell himself that he was just reading more into it than what was obviously there.

 

He hadn't meant to be separated from her for so long. Three years had seemed like a lifetime, hadn't it? Sure, Jillian sent pictures, and yes, he'd seen in the distorted images that the girl he knew so well was changing. “Blossoming,” his mother had once said when she'd stumbled across the pictures. Gavin had felt Jillian quietly slipping away . . .

 

It was a sense of utter desperation that had brought him back to Maine. Unable to admit as much to himself—at least, not out loud—Gavin had researched the idea of transferring from Montana to the University of Maine. Sure, it had a nationally touted economics department, and that was a plus, but he would have transferred anyway, wouldn't he, just to be near her once more . . . “Are you transferring here for me . . .?” she'd asked him.

 

He'd always been painfully shy around girls. Jillian was the only one that he didn't get tongue-tied around. It wasn't as though he had any real interest in the other women he'd met. Something about them just made him uncomfortable in the extreme. He wasn't certain why that was, but Jillian . . . Probably because he'd known her for so long, he'd never had that problem with her. She was Jilli, and he was her hero, wasn't he? He smiled wanly, almost sadly. `Jilli's hero . . .'

 

Curious things happened in the years of their separation. Gavin had grown—finally. Over a foot of height gained over the course of three years, he was finally fairly confident that he would be taller than Jillian. He'd filled out, too, dedicating himself to a strenuous regime of working out and training while balancing school work, as well. He'd been so excited when the plane touched down in Bar Harbor, but when he'd stepped out of the tunnel only to find a smiling Gin and Cain and no Jillian . . . She was a cheerleader and had a huge pep rally that she couldn't miss, and while Gavin understood that, he couldn't help but feel a certain sense of loss. Had things really changed so much over the years? Yes, he supposed maybe they had . . .

 

When he did see her after he'd finally tracked her down at the pond that evening, he had been taken aback. The pictures had hinted at the beauty that she'd become, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of her. Gone were the spindly arms and legs that had always reminded him of a newborn foal. She'd put on a bit of weight; her body rounded softly with gentle curves that belied her age, and when she'd reluctantly looked at him, he couldn't help the unsettling surge in his stomach, like the earth had been yanked out from under him . . . and then, she smiled . . .

 

It hadn't taken long to fall back into the roles that they'd been playing since childhood. He was her voice of reason while she was the free spirit; as impetuous as the sea. Maybe it was in her nature. Water was governed by natural law that really couldn't be completely understood. Jillian was a mystery to him. She always had been. She probably always would be . . . He hadn't expected her to come crawling into his bed on his first night back in Maine. He should have known. Waking up from a fitful slumber only to find Jillian snuggled against his side, Gavin hadn't known what to do. “Go back to sleep, Gavvie . . . I'm tired . . .” Part of him demanded that he wake her up and send her right back to her own bedroom on the other side of the mansion. The other part?

 

In the end, he'd wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in her hair, breathing in the clean scent of her until he fell asleep once more.

 

Still he hadn't been able to tell her just how much she meant to him. He'd tried to do it the night of his arrival, but Cain had summoned him into his study to dole out the warnings that he'd been given at the start of every summer since it became apparent that Jillian and Gavin were pretty much inseparable. The gist of the warnings were threats to certain crucial parts of Gavin's anatomy should he let himself get carried away with Jillian. Cain allowed his daughter to sleep with Gavin, but always with the door open, though Gavin suspected that the decision had more to do with Gin than Cain. After all, it wasn't a secret that the real tai-youkai in the Zelig household wasn't actually Cain Zelig.

 

So he'd contented himself to wait. Cain was right, anyway. Gavin was twenty years old, sure, but Jillian was only fifteen. He waited. What else could he do? He stayed with the Zeligs for the rest of that term. Having transferred in mid-year, he hadn't been able to get housing on campus. Jillian had said it was destiny. “If you try to fight your destiny, you'll be doomed to a life of misery. That's what my fortune cookie said,” she told him one day as they split the last of the cookies in the jar Gin kept on the counter in the Zelig's kitchen.

 

`A life of misery, huh?'

 

It took him two and a half years to finish school. He had to take a few extra classes to fill in the differences between the two universities' curriculums. He'd just started the last semester of classes when Jillian stopped visiting. Used to having her underfoot on the weekends, he hadn't been able to understand why she just stopped coming. His roommate at the time—a hockey jock named Brandon—had only said that maybe she got tired of waiting on Gavin, but still . . .

 

Jillian had been seventeen then, and Gavin had been biding his time till her high school graduation to try to tell her how he felt. Though a small part of him was certain that she'd laugh in his face, he couldn't help but hope that maybe she was telling the truth whenever she joked about being mates. When he finally borrowed Brandon's car and drove down to Bevelle to see Jillian, though, Gin had greeted him at the door with a friendly if not somewhat reluctant smile only to tell him in a rather vague way that Jillian wasn't there. “I'm, uh, sorry, Gavin . . . Jillian . . . She went away with Evan. She thought it'd be best, you see?”

 

Gin told him that Jillian had moved in with Evan, whatever that meant. He hadn't understood at the time. It wasn't until later that he found out from his father, who was one of Cain's top youkai-hunters, that Evan had moved into the family's condo in New York City to attend the university, and apparently Jillian had gone, too, opting to finish school via the internet.

 

She'd changed her cell phone number and closed her email account, cutting all ties with him without so much as a word. She didn't come to his college graduation. Unsure what he had done that had caused Jillian to shut him out, Gavin had accepted a job offer in Detroit, Michigan.

 

He'd stayed there for nearly three years before a chance meeting with the CEO of Williamson Exchange brought about the possibility of working on Wall Street. The better job wasn't the first thing that Gavin considered, however. Jillian, he knew, was somewhere in New York City. He'd seen her on the news and in the papers, on magazine covers and billboards. The girl he thought he knew so well was becoming one of the most easily recognized faces in the world, but even when he looked at the polished pictures; the highly glossed images, he still saw the girl he used to know—the girl he wanted so desperately to protect, and he'd taken the offer without a second thought. `New York City . . .'

 

It seemed to him that those were the words—the omen—he'd been waiting for. “I'll take it,” he said without hesitation as Jillian's voice whispered in the back of his mind—something about destiny and misery . . . and fortune cookies . . .

 

Even after that fateful day when he'd found her sitting on the steps of his apartment building in the rain, one thing had been clear: no matter what she said or what he felt, they really weren't meant to be. Their worlds were too different, weren't they? She lived her life in the spotlight, attending red carpet events and parties with the big names and the high rollers. He was nothing but a country boy at heart; a geek who loved computers and video games; old sci-fi movies and collected Star Wars action figures. He was like an old shoe for her, wasn't he? Comfortable, sure, but the shiny newness had worn off long ago.

 

With a sad little smile, he slowly shook his head. Maybe he'd always known. She knew him better than he knew himself, and he knew her in exactly the same way, and yet there was a certain distance that he just couldn't breach. She was the girl he'd put upon a pedestal long ago: his Jillian, and girls like that . . . They couldn't ever be brought back down to earth, could they?

 

He'd sensed it all along, too, that there was always something preventing him from acting on the feelings he had for her. He'd been so careful through the years. Convincing himself that Jillian wasn't his mate was hard to do, but the idea of losing her again . . . He'd rather have friendship than nothing at all. He'd never forgive himself if she woke up one morning and looked at him like she wasn't sure how she'd ended up with a loser like him. He never wanted to have to tell her that he was sorry; not about something as important as that.

 

No, Jillian loved him, certainly. He was her best friend, and he would remain by her side as long as she'd allow him to be there. That was all there was, wasn't there? He didn't matter: she did. Jillian was the beginning and the end of him, and her happiness was the only thing he really cared about at all . . . He would make sure that she never made a mistake that she'd regret for the rest of her life . . .

 

A mistake like becoming his mate.

 

 

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A/N:

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Reviewers

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OROsan0677 ------ Kurisu no Ryuujin ------ angelfire777 ------ hanyouwings ------ Hitomeshy ------ inuluver313 (Thank you!) ------ naiobi

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Final Thought from Gavin:

I swear there's something wrong with Evan Zelig …

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Shameless): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~