to jay, from j • j2

chapter two

The end of the day means it's time for him to go to his mom's bakery. His car is a little black Honda Accord, and his brother Josh always says that his car is feminine. Whatever. He got it for a good price and it runs nice, so if it's a "girly" car, then so be it. It gets him around, and Jensen's more in touch with his feminine side, anyway.

And as Jensen is waiting in the line of traffic to get out of the school parking lot, nodding his head and singing along to his shuffled playlist, there's a rapping on the passenger window of his car. He damn near springs out of his seat, head thumping the roof of his car and knuckles banging against the glass of his window. Glancing over, he notices that it's Chris and unlocks the doors with a frown.

"What the hell, Chris? You fucking scared me," Jensen says, chest heaving, and Chris grins broadly as he slides into the passenger seat.

He's known Chris since freshman year. Chris has a snarky ass attitude and they initially started out at as enemies. Sort of. Jensen really had no hard feelings against the guy, but Chris hated him... again, sort of. Chris just automatically dislikes anyone he doesn't know, but when they worked on a science project together, their friendship blossomed. It honestly still baffles Jensen how he isn't the one who hated Chris, because the guy's kind of an asshole, but he just kind of grew on Jensen. And he really had no choice but to befriend him when he found out about Jensen's itty-bitty crush on Jared.

Jensen should seriously stop leaving his blog open when he shuts his laptop screen. It's a bad habit.

"You were just too deep into your song there. Sucks you sing so good to such crappy music," Chris says as he shoves his bag onto the ground.

Jensen's mouth drops open and he glares openly at Chris. "Sleeping at Last does not have crappy music, you ass."

Jensen loves Sleeping at Last. He loves the covers he makes, loves the instrumentals, and as a writer, Jensen loves the lyrics to the songs he writes. Him and Chris only share a bit of the same interest in music, and Jensen knows that Chris doesn't listen to Sleeping at Last, but that doesn't make his music crappy.

Chris just gives a dismissive grunt.

Jensen rolls his eyes and hands Chris his phone, that way he can pick some music to listen to. "What, are you coming to the bakery with me or something?"

"Well we were hoping you'd take a bit of a detour but it's only a couple minutes away from there and you're getting gas money anyway because I'm an awesome friend who wants you to secure the bag."

"We-?"

Just then his back doors open, and he turns and watches as Tom and Mike climb inside, both sporting wide smiles.

"Hey Jensen," Tom says, waving, "Thanks a lot. We're sorry to give you trouble."

"Thanks for...?"

"Dropping us off at Tom's house. I sent you the address? And he's gonna give you gas money. Because you're going way out of your way." Chris tilts his head suggestively. Jensen just gives a slow, confused nod.

"Yeah, here's thirty," Tom says, holding his hand out at Mike. Jensen sees Tom raise an eyebrow at him, and Mike sighs before slapping a ten into Tom's palm. Tom then pulls a twenty from his pocket and hands both bills to Jensen, which makes Jensen smile and thank him. He's not a gold digger or anything, but hey, money is money.

Pulling ahead a bit when the traffic moves, he sighs when he has to come to another stop and wait. It's ridiculous the amount of traffic at this exit after school.

Once he pulls up the address in his GPS, he realizes that Chris is right and it's nowhere near out of his way, not worth any additional gas money and certainly not thirty dollars worth. Tom and Mike are good people and he, like Jensen said earlier, considers them friends, so he really doesn't mind giving them a ride especially when it's just two blocks past the bakery. He'll give the money back to them before they get out of the car.