BLANK SPACE ; jess mariano

xᴠɪ. ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴀʟᴋ

SAGE bounded back to her mother like an obedient dog.
"Ready to go?" Leanne quizzed.
"Yep." Sage responded, popping the 'p'. As she turned to leave, she saw both Jess and his new girl's (who's name she'd learned to be Shane) eyes lay on her. She repudiated the thought that she'd done something wrong, also trying hard to dismiss her mother's almost guilt filled face. She took one last intrigued glance at Jess and Shane before her and her mother sauntered away, a deafening silence settling upon them.

THE coffee addicted teenager decided she had to go to Luke's straight after she had walked back into her home. She couldn't stay in the tense atmosphere that even the atmosphere itself didn't understand how it had been created. She pushed open the diner door with force and shocked the eaters as she arrived by screaming.
"I'm here and I need coffee!"
"Do you really need to alarm my customers like that?" Luke grumbled in a monotonous way.
"Of course I do, I need to let the whole world know!" she replied, making her last words louder than the rest of her sentence. Luke vaguely muttered something that sounded like,
"Teenager humour.." before he travelled to the back to fetch more coffee. Jess stumbled down the stairs, accompanied by a giggling Shane. The two stopped at the bottom of the stairs to kiss eachother in a somewhat passionate way, although it proved to Sage to be a half hearted and forced kiss. Luke emerged from the back.
"Isn't that a violation as well Luke?" Sage pondered, gaining a look from Shane that caused her eyebrows to furrow and her eyes to narrow. Luke pointed to Sage with a grin on his face and Sage tried to lean back on her stool as far as she could, ultimately panicked by this new and unusual face gesture from the guy who's mouth was usually set in a frown.
"That's right Sage! Very right in fact, you know your stuff." Luke beamed, only for Sage to half smile, slightly confused, slightly terrified. Jess rolled his eyes and caressed Shane's cheek before she left, nudging Sage's stomach with her elbow in her way out. Sage reacted by rubbing her stomach, modestly pained.
"So..." Sage said in a singsong tone, "Rory?" The boy blatantly ignored her, tutting to himself.
"Jeez, you're acting like my mother."
"I'm not. I don't, I mean, I don't want anything to do with your mom." Jess fumbled around with his words as they came falling out his mouth uncontrollably.
"Okay, I was just..." Sage quietened her voice.
"Yeah, okay, sorry. A joke. Right." Jess laughed drily. Sage resumed her previous conversation topic.
"So, you never answered, Rory?" Jess exhaled.
"She's still with Dean. She doesn't want to be with me, she must of been drunk or something." Sage scoffed, almost a little too falsely.
"Drunk and Rory? Wrong equation." Sage joked, and she watched as Jess' face creased into a smile.
"Anyway, I don't care. I have Shane now." Jess protested, returning the emotion on his lips to a blank space yet again.
"Okay." Sage let the boy rest. If he wanted to settle down, play the game of love with Rory, then she would let him. She had already played that game, and it had led her nowhere and instead she found herself falling madly for the guy that she used to find amazingly annoying.
"I'm going to the dance thing." Jess spoke up, breaking the silence between the two.
"Oh yeah? Me too."
"..With Shane." Jess added, almost looking scared to tell his friend. Sage nodded as her heart crumbled slightly.
"Oh. Cool." she mumbled.
"We're not dancing." he continued, "We're just gonna be watching."
"Same." Sage smiled genuinely.
"Well .. cool." Jess allowed the corners of his lips to turn up.
"Cool. I'll see you then." Sage climbed off the stool.
"Yeah, please don't be wearing some forties outfit, just to fit in with the crowd." Jess pleaded.
"Well, it will have to be a surprise, Mariano." Sage smirked devilishly, "I'll look cute anyways." Jess almost copied the smirk Sage was wearing.
"If you say so, Robertson." Sage poked her hand round the door, forming a wave, sticking her tongue out aswell as she passed the window.

"So, Rory?" Luke returned to the subject he had eavesdropped on earlier.
"What about her?" Jess grunted, annoyed, staring at the ceiling.
"Still hung up on her?" Jess made a scornful sigh, and shook his head.
"I don't care. She doesn't want me anyway. I have Sage anyway." Luke shot up from his lying down position Jess followed after realising what he had said.
"Shane! Shane." he exclaimed, cheeks turning scarlet. He flopped back onto his bed and lay awake through the night, listening to his uncles sequenced snoring. He felt his mouth curve into a smile numerous times, but smacked his face to stop it. What was this feeling? He liked Rory, of course, Shane was just a plain distraction. But what was this he felt towards Sage?