InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 6: Shameless ❯ Brotherly Love ( Chapter 14 )

~~Chapter 14~~

~Brotherly Love~

 

 

 

Jillian twisted her body and leaned her head back, pulling her headphones off with one hand and shading her eyes with the other and squinted up into the darkened shadows of Gavin's face. Towering over her with his arms crossed over his chest, he looked like he just might be ready to kill—or at the very least, ready to unleash a dire string of condemnations. She couldn't see him very well. The sun was shining much too harshly behind him, and after having laid out on her stomach for the better part of an hour in an effort to boost her waning tan, her vision wasn't exactly at peak performance. Trying not to fidget since she had a good idea just what was eating at him this time, she shot him a brilliant smile and pretended that she was completely clueless. “Yes, Gavvie?”

 

He snorted, having none of her cock-and-bull bravado. “What the hell do you think you're doing?” he choked.

 

She shook her head. “I'm working on my tan,” she informed him in a tone that said plainly that he ought to know as much.

 

He sighed and hunkered down, grabbing the strings of her bikini top and tying them carefully. “I see that, Jilli. What I meant was why are you doing that here?”

 

“Where else would I lie out?” she countered.

 

“I'm sure you can find a tanning salon in town,” he grumbled as he repeated the process with the neck strings. “Hidekea has one of those, I'm pretty sure.”

 

She wrinkled her nose and rolled over, flopping back and adjusting her breasts as Gavin's head snapped to the side. It never ceased to amaze her, just how quickly the man's face could surge with embarrassed color. “You've seen these a thousand times,” she remarked as she held out her hands and wiggled her fingers for him to pull her to her feet.

 

“Don't remind me,” he grumbled, catching her hands and tugging.

 

“You have to be the cutest thing, ever, when you're blushing,” she quipped.

 

“Entirely beside the point,” he grouched, “and I'm not.”

 

Rolling her eyes as she grabbed the long white tank top she'd been wearing over the bikini, she tugged it over her head and flipped her hair out of the neckline. “You are, and it isn't. I don't see how you can possibly complain. I'm in the back yard, and no one could see me.”

 

That earned her a very loud snort. “Ri-i-ight.”

 

“Well, it's true. Unless someone snuck up in the trees—”

 

“Possible.”

 

“—And I certainly would have heard them—”

 

“During the two second breaks between songs, you mean?”

 

“—Or smelled them—”

 

“If you could smell anything other than artificial coconuts.”

 

“Oh, Gavvie!” she laughed, throwing her arms around his neck and effectively rubbing suntan oil all over his shirt and arms.

 

He sighed, but didn't push her away. “You're going to be the death of me yet, Jillian Zelig,” he complained.

 

“Yeah, well, at least I'm not the only one, then,” she retorted as her smile widened.

 

“What's that supposed to mean?”

 

She leaned back, pining him with a dark look as she slowly shook her head. “You know very well what it means, Gavin Jamison. When are you going to admit that you're my mate?”

 

She could see it in his face: he was going to argue with her. Of course he was. He always did. She sighed, letting her arms drop as she abruptly swung around and gathered her things. “I know; I know. You're not my mate, right? Can't you just agree with me? Just once?”

 

“If I ever agreed with you, even just to humor you, you'd latch onto it and try to hold me to it,” he complained.

 

She made a face that he couldn't see since that was exactly what she would do, but she was getting tired of waiting, darn it. After all, she'd already been waiting on him for the last twenty years . . . “I think I'm going to go take a shower,” she informed him, unable to keep the clipped tone out of her voice.

 

He sighed. “Yeah, and now you're mad at me.”

 

Jillian grabbed the magazine off the ground and blinked. The tiny box with the single fortune cookie . . . she'd forgotten about that . . . Picking it up, too, she stood slowly and sashayed toward the glass doors. “I'm not mad at you,” she argued, “but I am keeping track so that when we do become mates, I can remind you of just how long you've put me off when we could have been disgustingly happy for years now.”

 

Her words had the desired effect. Gavin chuckled and relaxed. “Sure, Jilli, sure . . . anyway, I've got to go check on a few things. Hank said a couple of the cows got tangled in a fence.”

 

She stopped short and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Aww . . . you can save them, can't you?”

 

His grimace said it all.

 

Jillian shook her head. “Just untangle them, right?”

 

“It's not that simple,” he said. “If they broke their legs or something like that, then we'll have to put them down.”

 

“Why?”

 

The grimace deepened. “It's too hard to set their legs. If they can't bear weight on the leg and it doesn't heal right, there's a good chance it'd get infected, and we'd have to put them down, anyway. It's more humane this way.”

 

She bit her lip as she considered his words. What he said made sense. It simply didn't make her feel any better. “Oh . . .”

 

“Try not to worry about it, okay? You're just going to get yourself all upset.”

 

She nodded. “Sure,” she forced herself to say in a calm, light tone.

 

He sighed, probably remembering how many animals Jillian had rescued over the years. It had always seemed like she was saving creatures all the time, and luckily, her mother never seemed to mind it too much. She winced. Well, Gin had minded it quite a lot when Jillian had brought home a pair of young raccoons. Jillian supposed that they were just too rodent-like for Gin's comfort. Her mother was unreasonably afraid of anything that looked even slightly like a rodent. It was the only time that her mother had flat out refused to allow the creatures into the house, so Jillian, Gavin, Evan, and Madison had set up a makeshift pen to house the animals for the summer, and though she still wasn't quite sure how she'd convinced Gavin to go along with it, she'd talked him into taking Rick and Rack home with him since his parents had decided to drive out to Maine to pick him up that year. He'd called her about a month later to tell her that Rick and Rack had been forced to live in a tree in the backyard because they were driving his mother insane. Between them, they had managed to knock over the garbage can a few times too many despite the trash can being located inside the latched cabinet. Apparently the raccoons had figured out how to unlock the baby locks . . . and worse, the two raccoons weren't brothers, as she'd thought. Rack had managed to become pregnant, and Jillian, who had been subjected to far too much of her brother's perversity over the years, hadn't missed the irony in that, at all . . .

 

No, it simply saddened her; the idea that the cattle might not be saved. Bassie had always teased her for having too soft a heart. Maybe he was right . . .

 

“Why don't you go take that shower? You'll feel better. I shouldn't be gone too long.”

 

Smiling wanly at the obvious concern in Gavin's voice, Jillian shrugged as she pulled the sliding glass door open and stepped inside, dropping her towel and magazine on a chair before heading for the kitchen. “I will—after I eat my fortune cookie.”

 

She didn't see Gavin stop dead in his tracks, and she didn't see the color siphon out of his features. She did, however, hear his choked tone. “C-c-cookie?” he sputtered.

 

Shaking her head slightly, she glanced back at him and blinked at his odd expression. “Yes, my cookie . . .”

 

“You don't want that cookie!” he blurted suddenly, gaze locked on the cookie in her hand.

 

She frowned. “Yes, I do . . . you've got an entire box of them. Stay away from mine.”

 

“W—I—You—Gimme that cookie!” he demanded, extending his hand as he strode toward her.

 

Jillian twisted her hand up behind her back, eyebrows disappearing under the fringe of bluish-silvery bangs that framed her forehead. “No way, cookie monster . . . you can forget it.”

 

“Hand it over, Jillian,” he demanded in a tone that she'd never heard him use before. Quiet, assertive, he looked dead serious, and for the briefest of seconds, her heart skipped a beat.

 

“Back off, Gavvie. You steal my cookie, and I'll hurt you!”

 

He snorted, cheeks reddening slightly as he continued to stalk toward her. “Cute, Jilli. I'm scared to death. Now give me the cookie, will you?”

 

She shook her head, retreating a few steps without taking her eyes off Gavin. Unsure what could have brought about such a change in the man she knew, she shook her head yet again when words failed her. The ferocity in his gaze . . . the quiet sense of urgency . . . she'd never seen him look at her like that before. Breath catching in her throat, she swallowed hard, wondering in an absent sort of why just why she was backing away when all she really wanted to do was . . .

 

He moved deceptively fast for such a large man. Slipping his arms around her waist, he caught her hands and tried to pry the cookie out of her closed fist.

 

Dazed by the nearness of him, Jillian blinked, every one of her senses concentrated on him. Unable to comprehend just why he was so set on getting the cookie away from her, she tightened her grip, slipping her wrist out of his hand and cradling the cookie against her chest. “It's mine!” she protested.

 

He shook his head slowly, lifting his eyebrows as he heaved a pronounced sigh. “All right, Jilli . . . you asked for it.”

 

She shrieked when his hands locked onto her sides. Throwing herself from side to side in an effort to elude his tickling fingers, she held onto the cookie with admirable tenacity. Pushing against his chest as she tried to retreat, Jillian shrieked all over again when she bumped into the arm of the sofa, throwing herself and him off balance. Tumbling onto the cushions in a tangle of limbs and laughter, Gavin pinned her down, catching her wrists in one of his hands and pinning them over her head as he continued to tickle her unmercifully. “Hand over the cookie,” he demanded moments before he broke into a grin.

 

“Make me,” she shot back, unable to control her laughter as tears welled in the corners of her eyes. “Stop . . . tickling . . . me!”

 

“What's the matter? Can't take it, Jilli?” he goaded but finally, mercifully, stopped tickling her in favor of trying to pry the cookie out of her hand once more.

 

“This isn't very fair,” she whined, squirming in a vain effort to dislodge the bulk of his weight. “Gav-vie!”

 

“Give me the cookie, and I'll leave you alone,” he countered.

 

She wrinkled her nose. “Fat chance, dog-breath.” She bucked her hips again. “Move it, you oaf!”

 

“You know, I'd take you more seriously if you weren't giggling like a girl,” he pointed out as he tried to pry her fingers open.

 

“You're . . . crushing . . . me . . .”

 

That earned her a decisive snort. “Sure, Jilli, sure . . . I think I'd know if I were crushing you.” All the same, he slipped his knee between her legs to alleviate some of the burden of his weight.

 

Jillian gasped as his thigh brushed against her. Her body's reaction was fierce, immediate. The unbridled need to arch against him assailed her, and she bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from doing it. She craved the lure of his touch . . . “Oh . . .”

 

Gavin didn't seem to notice right away when her body stilled beneath his. So intent on the struggle to take her fortune cookie, he wasn't paying attention to much of anything.

 

“Gavin?” she murmured, eyes drooping closed despite her resolve to keep them open. His body was just too near, too warm . . . too inviting.

 

He paused in his efforts to snag the cookie, casting her a questioning glance that lingered after his gaze locked with hers. The playfulness that had punctuated his actions dissipated as emotion that he couldn't mask filtered into and out of his expression. The drastic shift in his youki blossomed around them, and she gasped, somehow knowing deep down that he felt it, too. Closing her mouth to swallow hard only to let her lips part once more, she had to concentrate just to remember to breathe.

 

His gaze dropped to her lips, his eyes brightening with a singular sense of urgency. He let go of her wrists, fingertips trailing down the length of her arms, and she arched her head back, eyes closing, moaning quietly as a riot of sensation shot through her. Gooseflesh erupted under the path of his touch and rippled outward, cascading down her body as an invisible force—the fiercest of desires—opened up deep inside.

 

“Jillian,” he whispered, his voice an entreaty.

 

Forcing her eyes open again, she saw it in the depths of his stare: every single thing he'd ever denied. The raw longing in his expression tore at her very soul, and she gazed up at him, willing him to understand that all he'd ever had to do was touch her . . .

 

Leaning on his elbows, he leaned in closer, closer . . . She could feel his breath moist on her lips, could almost see the turbulence in his youki. Sooty eyelashes fluttering down as he closed his eyes, head tilting slightly to the side, he groaned softly as her breath caught, as her heart stopped . . . as the world spun around her yet time stood so very still . . .

 

His lips brushed hers—the whisper of a touch that drew a gasp from her. The incredible sweetness of his actions brought the sting of tears to her eyes; unleashed a bittersweet ache in her chest, and that curious sensation of falling was back with a vengeance . . .

 

“Gav? You busy?” Moe Jamison cleared his throat. “Looks like you are,” he muttered.

 

Jillian didn't register the intrusion right away. So caught up in the moment, so befuddled by the touch of Gavin's lips, she didn't realize that his father had walked into the house.

 

Gavin, on the other hand, wasn't so oblivious. Moe's voice was like a dousing of ice water, snapping him back to his senses faster than anything else ever could. His head jerked up, eyes wild as he met his father's amused stare. The rest of his body, however, didn't want to cooperate as he opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. “D-d-dad,” he finally stammered after several failed attempts to form coherent words.

 

Moe slowly shook his head as his face reddened slightly. “Sorry,” he mumbled as he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

 

“Ah, no! Dad, wait!” Gavin blurted as he hauled himself off the sofa and stumbled over the coffee table in his haste to stop his father.

 

Moe narrowed his gaze on his son before shifting his eyes to Jillian, who was pushing herself up with a dazed sort of look on her face. “If I'm interrupting . . .”

 

“Uh, no,” Gavin muttered, raking an unsteady hand over his face. “You need something?”

 

Moe shrugged. “Just wanted to talk to you.”

 

Gavin sighed. “I, uh . . . there was an incident with the cows,” he said, casting Jillian a nervous glance. She was curled up on the sofa, staring at her hands with an inscrutable expression on her face. “Hank said he could take care of it, but . . .”

 

“I could go with you,” Moe offered.

 

Gavin nodded. “Yeah.” Opening his mouth, he grimaced as he glanced at Jillian again. In the end, he couldn't figure out just what to say to her, and he strode toward the door, instead.

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Jillian sat still long after Gavin had pulled the door closed after his abrupt departure. It took a long time to calm her body down. It felt as though everything inside her body was trying to crawl right out of her skin. Pressing her palm against her chest, she couldn't contain the little smile that broke over her features.

 

`He does feel it, too,' she thought as her smile widened. `I knew it!'

 

`And he ran, Jilli . . . he couldn't get out of here fast enough, or didn't you notice?'

 

She wrinkled her nose, determined not to let her youkai voice bring her down. `He's shy . . . that's not really surprising, I don't think. He's always been that way.'

 

`If you think that one near-kiss is going to change his mind, then you really are living in a fantasy world.'

 

`It was a kiss,' she argued. `At least it was the start of one.'

 

Her cell phone trilled, jarring Jillian out of her musings. Leaning forward to retrieve the device off the coffee table, she glanced at the number before answering the call. “Hello?”

 

“Jillian, baby! How's your vacation doing?” Dan Lister's voice greeted her.

 

“It's doing very well,” she assured him. “You promised me a nice, long vacation,” she reminded him.

 

Her long-time manager chuckled. “I did; I did . . . In fact, I'm taking a short one, myself; heading up to Canada for the week to see my son . . . I just wanted to tell you: you got a new offer that you might want to consider.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Okay, tell me then.”

 

“Playboy called. They want you to be their Valentine's Day girl.”

 

She blinked and shook her head slightly. “Playboy?”

 

“Yep . . . they're offering an absolutely obscene amount of money for it, too.”

 

The shock was quickly wearing off only to be replaced by a thoughtful scowl as Jillian brought up her knees and wrapped one arm around them. “I don't know, Dan . . . This is a lot different from posing for Oliveri . . .”

 

“Yeah, it is,” Dan agreed mildly. “That's why I figured you'd want to think about it.”

 

“Gavvie says I have a lot of money,” she went on slowly.

 

“You do. If you don't want to do this, then that's fine.”

 

She sighed. “What do you think I should do?”

 

Dan chuckled again. “You should do whatever you think is best, Jillian. If you're not comfortable with posing for Playboy, then you shouldn't do it.”

 

“I see . . .”

 

She could hear Dan's fingertips drumming against the steering wheel—something he always did when he was considering things. “I would have told them `no', straight out, but I figured I'd better ask you, first.”

 

She smiled. She was lucky, she supposed. Cain had introduced Dan to her when she'd first decided that she wanted to try modeling. He was an old acquaintance and happened to be one of Ben Philips' good friends. Ben was Cain's top general, and as such, he trusted Ben's judgment implicitly, and with Dan's guidance, Jillian had quickly become one of the most sought-after models in the world.

 

“I don't know,” she hedged.

 

Dan grunted. “Think it over. If you're not cool with it, that's fine. I'll tell the Playboy reps that you're not interested. Just wanted to let you know that it was on the table, so to speak.”

 

“Thanks, Dan,” she replied. “How's Denny's new job going?”

 

“He's enjoying it though I think entertainment management is a little more stressful than he thought it'd be. He's got an up and coming actor he's working with at the moment. A bit high maintenance, I believe Denny said . . .”

 

Jillian laughed. “Actors? High maintenance? Oh, please! Tell Denny he needs to try working with models sometime.”

 

“I'd hardly call you high maintenance,” Dan remarked dryly.

 

“Nicest thing anyone's said to me all day,” she quipped. “Anyway, you have a safe trip, and give Denny a hug for me.”

 

Dan chuckled again. “Sure, Jillian, sure . . . Denny's a little old for me to go around hugging him, but for you? Okay. Enjoy the rest of your vacation, and don't hurry back too soon . . . at least, not without a mate, in any case.”

 

She giggled. She hadn't had to tell Dan how she felt about Gavin. He'd figured it out easily enough on his own and had said more than once that he firmly believed that Gavin was being stubborn for no good reason—a belief that seemed to be prevalent amongst most of their collective acquaintances. “I'll see what I can do,” she assured him.

 

“Good.”

 

The line went dead, and Jillian snapped the cell phone closed.

 

`Playboy, huh?'

 

She wrinkled her nose. She'd never actually considered posing nude, and she wasn't so certain that it was something she could do, anyway. `Yeah, Playboy . . .'

 

`That's really not a good idea . . . please tell me you're not actually considering it . . .'

 

`Well, yeah, I suppose . . . I'm not ashamed of my body . . .'

 

`It's not about being ashamed of your body, Jillian. You don't honestly think that Gavin would be okay with that, not to mention your family . . .'

 

`That's ridiculous,' she argued. `Mama's always telling me that the human body is beautiful, and Daddy? He paints and sculpts naked women all the time.'

 

`That's completely different, in case you didn't know. Your mother's right, of course, but that doesn't mean that posing for Playboy is a good idea. It's not an art magazine, remember? It's nothing but acceptable porn, and your father? If you really don't see the difference between his art and posing for that magazine, then you're nuts . . . besides that, it doesn't matter one way or the other. To your father, you're still his little girl, and what father really wants his daughter to be seen in that sort of light?'

 

She sighed. True as that may be, Cain never actually told her what to do, either. He trusted her to make her own choices, even if he didn't like them. He'd told her shortly after the Oliveri incident that he would have preferred that she'd chosen not to pose topless, but he hadn't condemned her, either. No, Cain was definitely a more easy-going parent than most, and for that, Jillian was eternally grateful.

 

`Fine, then, if you won't listen to reason, then think about this: do you really suppose that Gavin will want you posing for Playboy? You're trying to convince the man that he wants to be your mate, and there aren't many men who would be all right with their potential mate posing naked for an international publication for any reason, whatsoever.'

 

`You're making it sound as though I've already decided to do it,' she complained. `I haven't . . . I'm simply trying to make a rational decision based on the things I know.'

 

`Just think about it—really think about it. There's a good chance that Gavin won't be happy at all if you really wanted to do it.'

 

She frowned. It wasn't a question of what he would or wouldn't like. No, it was a question of what sort of advice he would give her. While she really didn't have any desire to pose nude, she had to wonder just what he'd say to her if she mentioned it to him. Would he play the non-committal route, as he had before? When she'd asked him what he thought of her posing topless for Oliveri, he'd just looked a little shocked but had told her that she should do whatever she was comfortable with doing. `Typical Gavvie,' she thought with an inward sigh.

 

Too bad his carefully constructed barrier was crumbling. He wasn't nearly as immune to her as he'd like to think he was. He showed his vulnerability today, hadn't he? As small as the crack in his defense against her was, it was there, wasn't it? The look on his face invaded her mind again; the seriousness in his gaze as he stared at her . . . as he leaned down to kiss her . . .

 

A new wave of delightful shivers raced up and down her spine as the recollection of the touch of his lips infiltrated her system. She'd known that kissing Gavin—really kissing Gavin—would be unbelievable. She hadn't really understood just how incredible it would be. She did now. The lingering memory not-quite-a-kiss was more than enough to unfurl a tremor in her body, a lethargy in her limbs, a clouding of her thoughts . . .

 

Jillian couldn't help the smile that turned up the corners of her lips. Gaze dropping to the cookie still held tightly in her fist, she laughed. `All that over a fortune cookie?' she mused. `Who cares? He kissed me . . .'

 

The trill of the cell phone cut through her reverie. Jillian's smile widened when she checked the caller ID. “Evvie!” she gushed when she answered the call.

 

“Jilli!” he greeted brightly. “How's my baby sister?”

 

She giggled. “Just fine,” she assured him. “Where are you now?”

 

“Uh,” he hedged uncertainly. “I think we're in Germany or something. Hey, Bone! Where the hell are we?”

 

“Mannheim,” Bone replied, his voice distant.

 

“Mannheim,” Evan repeated. “Wherever the fuck that is . . .”

 

“In der Nähe von Heidelberg,” Bone commented.

 

“Uh huh,” Evan agreed. “Whatever he just said.”

 

Jillian laughed. “I didn't know Bone knew German.”

 

Evan chuckled. “Bone's a bone of many talents.”

 

“Yes, he is,” she agreed. “Thank you for the cookies . . . too bad Gavvie won't share.”

 

“I sent you a special cookie, Jilli. He take that one, too?”

 

“No . . . but you sent him a box of them! I'm your sister, and you only sent me one!”

 

“They're his late birthday present,” he told her. “You'll get yours on your birthday. Get it?”

 

She wrinkled her nose. “It's almost my birthday now,” she pointed out.

 

He snorted. “Keh! Your birthday ain't for another two weeks. Did you read your fortune?”

 

“My fortune? No . . .”

 

“Damn, Jillian. It is a fortune cookie, after all,” he grouched.

 

She giggled. “Let me open it . . .”

 

Catching the cell phone between her ear and shoulder, she opened the clear plastic wrapper and pulled out the cookie, breaking it open and popping a piece of it into her mouth as she unfolded the slip of white paper. “`The Oracle says that the man you want fantasizes about Princess Leia as Jabba the Hutt's captive',” she read. “Does he really?”

 

“Are you kidding me? All geeks fantasize about that . . . I mean, come on! A metal bikini? What's not to love about that?”

 

She rolled her eyes as her grin widened. “Really?”

 

“Absolutely. I'm tellin' you: if you showed up in front of ol' Gavvie in the metal Princess Lei-me bikini? He'd be done—finished—kaput.”

 

“I don't know,” she mused as she slowly chewed a bit of the cookie. “I doubt that bikini is very comfortable.”

 

“Keh! Like comfort matters . . . you'd only be wearing it long enough for Gavin to pop the wood, you know.”

 

Shaking her head at her brother's more colorful choice of words, Jillian couldn't keep herself from laughing at Evan's assertion. “True as that may be, I think I'd rather that our first time doesn't have anything to do with fantasies or science-fiction characters.”

 

“As if that matters! The end result, Jillian . . . keep your eyes on his balls.”

 

“You're just wrong, Evan,” she pointed out, her chiding tempered by the laughter that undermined the chastising tone in her voice.

 

“Yeah, I am,” he agreed readily enough. “That's why you adore me.”

 

“If you want to think so,” she said with a mock-sigh.

 

Evan chuckled then cleared his throat. “Joking aside . . . how are things going?”

 

She couldn't help but smile at the way Evan so easily changed the mood with whatever he was saying at the moment. Other people could try to do it. They somehow came off as fake and even a little condescending as they tried to meld from one topic into the next, running the gamut from joking and silly to serious in the space of a breath. Evan never did. No matter what he was saying, he always sounded sincere; genuine. It was one of the rare qualities that she loved in her brother. “What? You mean things between Gavvie and me?”

 

“Sure, that . . . anything.”

 

“Well, you know Gavin.”

 

He snorted. “You know, Jilli, I'd think you'd have given up by now.”

 

“I'll never give up on Gavin,” she retorted. “We're meant to be . . . and I'll have you know he started to kiss me.”

 

“Really.”

 

“Yes,” she said, unable to keep the heat from infiltrating her cheeks at the simple reminder of the near-kiss.

 

“Well, damn . . . `bout time. Where is ol' lover boy?”

 

“He had a cattle emergency,” she informed him.

 

“Wait . . . that dickhead blew off kissing the Jillian Zelig to fuck around with damn cows?”

 

“Something like that.”

 

“Da-a-amn . . . you're hella near a bloody saint,” he grumbled. “You shoulda told him to hit his fucking knees . . . literally.”

 

“Now, now . . . if I did that, he'd run.”

 

“Maybe . . .”

 

“Hmm.”

 

He sighed. “I gotta go. Mike's waving at me like a fucking woman. I can't figure out if he wants me to get a move on, he's trying to wave in an airplane, or he's trying out for a place on the groupie bus. That's just not happening. He'd make a hella-ugly woman . . .”

 

“Okay. Love you, Evvie.”

 

He laughed. “You, too, Jilli. If you need anything at all, you call me.”

 

She grinned. “Absolutely.”

 

The line cut off, and she snapped the phone closed, dropping it onto the sofa beside her as she re-read the fortune cookie with a little grin.

 

Too bad she'd never do that. Even if the metal bikini were something that Gavin couldn't ignore, the fact remained that Jillian wanted their first time together to be simple: just him and her without fantasies or visions of something else marring the moment . . .

 

`Soon,' she told herself as her smile widened. Wrapping her arms around her ankles, she rested her cheek on her knees and sighed. `It's just a matter of time now . . .'

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“Your mother wanted me to come talk to you.”

 

Gavin didn't miss a step, but he couldn't quite hide the grimace that contorted his features at his father's admission. “About what?”

 

Moe shrugged, carefully taking in the southern horizon as the two strode through the field. “You're really saying you don't know?”

 

“Nope . . . not a clue.”

 

Moe chuckled at Gavin's obvious lie. “Damn stubborn,” he muttered with a shake of his head. “You and Jillian looked like you were getting . . . close,” he commented a little too neutrally.

 

“Did we?”

 

“Yep, you did.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

“You, uh, sure she isn't your mate?”

 

Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Gavin scowled at the ground and concentrated on keeping his feet moving. “I told you, Dad,” he began. “We're—”

 

“—Just friends; yeah, I know.” Moe shook his head. “Didn't look like `just friends' to me.”

 

Gavin snorted.

 

“It didn't. Gotta tell you, Gavin . . . I've had lots of friends, and it never occurred to me to try and kiss none of them . . .”

 

“She . . . she's not my mate,” he mumbled again.

 

Moe sighed. Gavin could feel his father's ardent perusal despite the almost perverse resolve not to look at him. “You sure about that?”

 

“'Course I am.”

 

Nodding slowly, Moe fell silent as they kept walking, though Gavin didn't even attempt to convince himself that his father was going to let the subject drop. The reprieve, though, however brief, was welcome. Mind still reeling, his body was still berating him for leaving her so abruptly.

 

Trying to shove the thoughts of Jillian away, he quickened his pace, cursing himself for not having bothered to saddle a horse for the trek. His mind had been a little too addled with the lingering memory of the near-kiss; with the knowledge that it was his fault; the condemnations that rang in his ears. She'd just been too close, too inviting . . . to welcoming. Answering questions about his feelings for Jillian . . . it was almost more than he could endure.

 

“I ever tell you about the girl I met a long time ago?” Moe finally asked.

 

Gavin blinked and shot his father a questioning glance. “Girl? No . . .”

 

Moe nodded, narrowing his gaze as he scanned the horizon; as his expression seemed to cloud over as though he weren't looking over the landscape at all, but over years and time and space. “She was a pretty little thing . . . just seventeen at the time, wearing a yellow silk dress with all the lace and ribbons . . .”

 

Gavin shook his head. He couldn't recall hearing his father speak like that before. “Yeah?”

 

Moe smiled, a vague and rather dreamy smile surfacing on his face—an expression that Gavin couldn't recall having ever seen on his father before . . . “Yep . . . First time I saw her, I knew she was out of my league. Nice to look at, but she'd never belong with a guy like me.”

 

Gavin scowled. “A guy like you?” he echoed.

 

Moe shrugged. “Sure . . . I'm a hunter, right? She was . . . what do you call them?”

 

Gavin shook his head.

 

Moe chuckled, cheeks reddening slightly as he let his gaze fall to the ground. “A southern belle, I guess . . . yeah, that's what she was . . .”

 

“A . . . southern belle?”

 

Moe nodded. “Yup.”

 

“So what happened?”

 

“Well, she followed me around. I couldn't shake her. Every time I turned around, she was there. I told her to go away. She never listened. She was nothing but a pain in my ass, come to think on it . . .” He chuckled. “She kept saying that she was my mate, you see, and I . . . I kept telling her that she was wrong.”

 

“What's this got to do with me?” he asked, shifting uncomfortably and praying his father didn't notice.

 

Moe shot his son a sidelong glance. “You can't figure it out?”

 

“No . . .”

 

Moe sighed. “Well, son . . . she's your mama.”

 

“Mama . . .?”

 

“Don't repeat my mistakes,” Moe warned, shrugging even as a hint of a blush crept into his cheeks. “You, uh . . . you know, right? You know what happens when one mate rejects the other.”

 

“Yeah . . .”

 

“Good. I trust you have a decent head on your shoulders. Don't you hurt that girl; you got it?”

 

Gavin grimaced, unable to meet his father's penetrating stare. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Yeah . . .”

 

 

~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~ =~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~

A/N:

 

Princess Leia Organa Solo and Jabba the Hutt characters belong to George Lucas.

 

== == == == == == == == == ==

Reviewers

==========

MMorg

OROsan0677 ------ fallenangel7583 9 (I wondered … I didn't figure you were trying to offend or anything … at least, I hoped you weren't. lol) ------ kds1222 ------ Lisa C ------ nish04 (Currently messing with the next chapter of Desideratum… projected date is my husband's birthday, July 8. Lol) ------ artemiswaterdragon ------ Kurisu no Ryuujin ------ Acheronlover ------ vvkimbo07

==========

Forum Reviews

My Own Self ------ OROsan0677 ------ TenshiKaika ------ Piett ------ kamackie ------ RogueDestiny

==========

Final Thought fromMoe:

…Did I have to see … that …?

==========

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~