hello, goodbye, hello.

Chapter 6: As Seen On T.V.

As soon as EJ closed the front door of the Caswell residence Gina was on top of him. Ashlyn and her parents were out at a dinner party that night, so Gina knew they'd have the house all to themselves for a couple of hours. Perhaps it was teenage hormones or the fact that they had denied their attraction to each other for so long, regardless, In the short time they had been together, Gina and EJ seemed to skip most of the bases entirely, however they hadn't gone 'all the way' yet. To no surprise, Gina tended to take a much more dominant role in the relationship and EJ didn't mind though. Most of his life, EJ had been stuck in a paradox of sorts. He was expected to be in control of his emotions, but everything in his life was always laid out for him. He was expected to take charge on his personal problems, but he was coddled with a silver spoon in his mouth since birth. Gina sort of filled both niches for EJ. She took charge in their relationship, but, unlike his family, she actually cared about what EJ wanted, how he felt. Put simply, it was just nice to be able to put his trust in Gina and let go.

"So mm what's this surpr mm surprise." EJ said through Gina's lips.

Suddenly Gina stopped kissing EJ and looked at him with very dark and sad eyes.

"Oh...this isn't enough for you?" She asked, her eyes watering slightly.

Shit.

"Oh no no no no nonononono that's not what I meant at all I-" EJ desperately blurted out, but was cut off by a noise coming from Gina.

It wasn't crying, no. Gina was laughing. Laughing?

"I'm just messing with you Caswell." She said, giggling "God you should see the look on your face!"

EJ blushed and then started laughing too.

"You jerk." He said.

With anyone else, a joke like this one might have really set EJ off. He wasn't one to show vulnerability or real emotion openly. To have anyone else turn that into a joke wouldn't have been okay, but it somehow didn't bother him with Gina. Or, at least, that's what he told himself.

"Okay are you ready for your real surprise?" Gina asked teasingly.

"How do I know you're not just going to trick me again?" Ej replied.

"I won't, I promise." Gina said, heading for the stairs. "Just wait down here and I'll call you upstairs when it's ready, okay?"

EJ nodded, smiling and Gina hurried up the stairs.

Several minutes passed and EJ wasn't sure what to do with himself. He had spent plenty of time in this house of course, but the context of this night seemed perhaps slightly different than a family get together. Unpredictable at the very least, and EJ couldn't help but feel a tiny bit nervous. Trying to ease his mind, he flipped on the television. One of those awful daytime soap operas was the first thing to fill the screen. A perfectly distracting remedy.

On screen, An average looking woman in a black slip dress lay seductively on a bed, In the background, the sound of a shower could be heard.

"Mi amor...Are you coming?" She said.

The camera paned past the bed to the nightstand and zoomed in on a photo of the same woman and a rather ugly looking man. A jump cut to face the bathroom door, which opened, steam pouring out so that the tall, broad man inside was obscured. The man stepped out from the steam and the camera paned up from his feet, slowly glancing over his hairy legs, a towel draped loosely around his waist, his chiseled torso and chest still dripping with water, and finally up to a very handsome face, but definitely not the one in the photo seen before.

A predictable plot line, but for some reason, EJ was invested anyway.

"You waitin' for me, hunny?" The handsome man said in a low, sort of raspy voice.