CHERRY. [JESS MARIANO]

I Don't Have To Tell You Anything

I was wiping down a table in Luke's diner on a Saturday afternoon. The place was relatively empty except for Babette and Morey who sat in a corner table. Luke had gone out to get some stuff from Doose's since we had run low on coffee beans and some other stuff.

I waited behind the counter for Jess to come down so we could head out and get lunch together. But he was running late and I couldn't exactly leave now since no one else was there to manage the diner.

"Hey, sugar!" Babette called from her table as I smiled in response. "You mind refilling our coffee?"

"You got it," I say as I grabbed the coffee pot that sat on the counter and headed over to their table. As I refilled their cups I heard the heavy sound of footsteps from behind me, probably Jess.

I turned around to see him standing behind the counter with his back to me. Jess was wearing a brown collared shirt with a pair of slacks. I put back the pot of coffee on the counter and went up to him with a smile.

"Hey," I greeted with a smile as he turned around to face me.

"Hey, Cherry," he kissed me lightly as I looked up at him with a frown.

His skin around his left eye was bruised and cut up. I winced as I took in the injury, my eyes scanned across his face to see if he was hurt anywhere else but it seemed that he was lucky. No where else on his face seemed to be inured at all.

I take his face in my hand and move his head to the side so I can look at it closer. "Oh my god! Are you okay?" I ask frantically as he groaned at my question. I brush my hands across his face gingerly, careful not to hurt him.

"Calm down," he placed his hand on my shoulder. He looked into my eyes to get me to stop freaking out but it wouldn't help at all.

I push his hands of me and take a small step back. "What the hell happened to you?" I exclaim catching the attention of Babette and Morey. The black eye on his face didn't seem to disappear no matter how hard I stared at it. It was like one big ugly sign saying 'Look at me!'

"Stop it, you're overreacting." He tells me with a sneaky glance in Babette and Morey direction. The two of them try -and fail- to hide their interested gaze by avoiding all eye contact.

"I'm overreacting?" I repeat incredulously. "Look at your face! I think if my boyfriend gets a black eye I deserve to overreact!" I gesture to his bruised up face which gave me a pang of nostalgia to when he fought Chuck Presby.

"It's no big deal," he says with a pleading look, trying to convince me to drop it. "Nothing happened."

"Did you get into a fight?" I ask as I tilt my head to side. I pressed my lips into a fine line as I cross my arms over my chest.

Jess clenched his jaw as he answered me. "No," he said sternly. "Will you drop this?"

I shake my head at him, some stray hair from my ponytail falling into my eyes. "I am not gonna drop this until you tell me what happened," I say as I brush some hair out of my face.

"You wanna know what happened?" He asked with an icy stare my way. I open my arms wide for him to continue. "Nothing, that's what happened."

I was foolish to think he would actually answer me honestly. "Why don't you just tell me what happened?" I exclaimed exasperatedly as Jess scoffed. "Is it your ego? Your pride?"

"No," he answered with a glare my way.

"Is it cause you got in a fight?" I ask again hoping for him to answer me truthfully for once. We both knew that he had been trying so hard stop getting into fights so it would make sense for him to lie about it.