Last Kiss // Jameson & Avery

Never thought we'd have our last kiss .

As Avery ran off the plane onto the Tarmac, the smell of the rain fresh on the pavement circling around her, she felt her heart leap when her eyes locked with his. There Jameson was, sweeping her up into his arms after three long months apart. She had missed his dancing eyes and his spurts of energy, amped up especially when he failed to take his Equanil.

"Come along now, we have a party to start," he whispered, grinning as he did so.

So, despite her being in a gown with five layers of organdy, she ran with him, hands interlocked, as they weaved through the landing and into the large and iridescent building looming overhead. In a matter of minutes, he ended up being the usual life of the party, showing off again. While she preferred to watch on the sidelines, observing everything, there he was in the middle of the dance floor. Soon enough he ended up dragging her along with him for a dance. She knew she wasn't much for dancing, but for Jameson she would do so happily. He made all the prying eyes stuck on her disappear, until it was just the two of them in a crowded room. Staring into his eyes, she realized that she didn't know how it gets better than this: dancing with someone who made her feel like stars aligned just for the two of them, like, despite the odds, fate had truly tied them together with a single thread of gold.

"I love it when you look at me with those eyes," he said, as he spun her around.

"What ey—" but she was interrupted by his lips on hers, and the two continued on as if it were just them in the room, despite the laughter (and eventual applause).

Avery knew she had responsibilities to attend to—being the youngest billionaire in the world did that to you. She did, however, did not care for them, at least for this night, because right after she and Jameson left the dance floor, the night lulled into inactivity and incessant chatter that, frankly, was the pinnacle of unnecessary. Just before another businessman continued his rattle into another tangent about some embargo and just before she impaled her eyeball with her fork, Jameson intervened, whispering into her ear.

"This party's dead. Wanna ditch it?"

"Absolutely," she replied, abruptly standing and excusing herself.

Then off the two went, chauffeured back to the manor and running up to her room. She collapsed onto the bed, him following. She glanced at her bedside table, the clock glaring back at her with the time, 1:58. And then they laid there. The silence basking them was comfortable, the only sounds the patter of the rain and the breathing of the two, a sound that has become familiar and comforting to both. The room was dark and empty, lit solely through the moonlight, and Avery turned towards to Jameson, just to realize he was already staring at her.

"I love you," he murmured, barely a whisper, barely a sound uttered, but the meaning there all the same.

And then Avery remembered. She remembered the plane and the bomb, she remembered her coma and waking up and Jameson not being there. She remembered, she remembered he was gone.

When Avery looked around again, sunlight was pouring into her room, rays blinding her. She stood up and made her way to the kitchen, making herself some hibiscus tea. She then walked to the second floor library, her safe haven during these past weeks. This was the first place Jameson and her explored, the first place they started to work together on their first mystery. Entering always left a pang in her heart, a pang that she was guilty to admit she loved feeling. As soon as she entered, Xander emerged, instantaneously. In his hands, this time, was a votive candle, seemingly to a deity named Kelly.

"I think you're losing your creative touch," she said in response to his presence.

"Oh, how you wound me," he replied.

For the duration of the last weeks without Jameson, Xander had been finding new ways to make Avery smile again, in hopes that she'd finally start functioning. Thus far, each new attempt had resulted in failure. The two stood there in silence for a beat, until he started speaking.

"Ok, that's enough. Let's go outside."

Avery responded with an incoherent groan, which he took as agreement. Xander led her to the door, but they weren't outside for one second before Avery started complaining.

"It's way too muggy and humid to go out right now, are you serious?"

"Exactly! Perfect weather to go to the beach."

Avery didn't have the heart or the energy to refuse, and so she went along with him. That was how most things were recently; she was just barely living, just getting by day by day, occasionally eating to not pass out. She had to admit she enjoyed doing inconsequential activities; it gave her body something to do and her mind a topic at hand to focus on besides Jameson. She'd also have to admit for some reason, everything reminded her of him. The beach, a place full of life, reminded her of her 18th birthday, when she ended the day dancing on the beach in a ballgown with him. Then she remembered he was gone. She remembered she'd no longer spend the late hours alone with him, ever again. She'd never experience his light hands on her body, helping her get out of the layers of a gown, helping her get a crinoline off. And then she'd feel guilty. Everyone was mourning his loss, not just her. Xander had lost his brother, yet here he was, comforting Avery nearly every minute of the day. So, just for his sake, Avery went along with his ploy of getting her outside, eating the mangú from the street stalls and playing canasta with him under the tall ceiba tree near the ocean. They soon fell into a comfortable silence, with Xander tinkering with a shortwave radio he'd been working on and her writing up a composition about clouds, although her piece was more rambling than writing. They spent the majority of the day there, retiring as the sun set on the horizon. As they made their way back to the estate through the maze of hedges, Avery recalled a distant memory, digging up a cadaver in these very hedges, when all their lives were in danger. That seemed a lifetime ago now, a time when her worries were on the threat on lives and not the loss of ones.

"This is not your best work, is it? Languid more than usual I'd say," Xander said, flipping through her notebook and breaking Avery out of her reverie.

To this she responded with an eyeroll and a shove, but she did not miss the nervous tics he was experiencing, and the quiver in his voice. Jameson's death was hitting Xander hard, but Xander always had odd coping mechanisms. At the very least, they weren't extremely unhealthy like Grayson. He had shut everyone out and refused to leave his room for a whole week—the only signs of life being the gut-wrenching sobs coming from his wing at the dead of night. Now he operated similarly to Avery, like a lifeless body going through the motions of everyday life, more like existing than living. No one commiserated each other verbally; they all knew the impact of a loss of a life like Jameson. Jameson, who was always sensation-seeking, living for the thrill of life, was now robbed of all that.

The two finally retreated into the office of her wing, her laying into a deep armchair and Xander on the ground, crocheting another doily coaster.

"The only time the cotorrita is quiet," Avery murmured under her breath.

"The only time you're quiet is when you're stuffing your face with scones," he returned.

When she had first arrived at Hawthorne House, Jameson had begun a game of calling Xander parrot in different languages, and cotorrita just stuck. As Avery's thoughts swirled in her head, the memory of Jameson was just too painful; tears were forming in her eyes and she immediately excused herself, calling it a night and going to her room. As she was looking for her pajamas in her closet, she stumbled upon Jameson's button down. Absentmindedly, she put it on, her vision going hazy, filling with tears. Soon enough, her legs were shaking, and it was too tiresome to stand. She sat, wearing his clothes, and released an agonizing sob. On the floor, hidden under feather-adorned clothes, sat the photo album of the both of them that she received last year, during a press conference.

That night, she watched his life in pictures, like how she used to watch him sleep, him looking in his element, unworried, safe, living.

Avery never imagined they'd have their last kiss.