Jade felt like she was on top of the world – Perrie had been right, they didn't need to talk about anything because as weird as it would have seemed a few days ago it seemed as if everything made perfect sense now.
It didn't matter if they labelled it or not. "We're married," Perrie had said, "we love each other and we do this..." The words kept ringing in Jade's head, reminding her of the previous evening when they had come back home from South Shields.
"Jade?" Jesy's voice called and laughed, causing the younger female to be startled and brought back to reality.
"Sorry," the giggled as a reply, "I kind of zoned out there." She returned her attention onto the board sitting on the table along with the little figurines on different fields. "Is it my turn?"
The blonde next to her nodded, "Well, our turn but I wanted you to be present before I start acting or anything." She laughed as she moved the red little figure forward before pulling a card from a stack without looking at it.
"Ready?" Jake asked and held the small hour glass between his fingers. At Perrie's nod he turned it around quickly and put it on the table.
Perrie looked at the card for a few seconds with an open mouth before she said, "Um, okay so, it's in Scotland and... ugh, there's so many words I can't say! Um, it's what you do before you get a job or go to uni but it's not real."
"What the hell?" Leigh-Anne laughed and looked over Perrie's shoulder to get a look at the card she was holding. "Oh my God, that is the worst explanation for that I've ever seen."
Perrie pouted and poked her tongue out at Leigh, "Stop distracting me!"
"Come on!" Jade almost screamed and waved her hands impatiently. "Give me more hints!"
"Um, um, okay, um," she stuttered anxiously and hopped around in her seat. "Oh! Okay, so a teacher there is really mean and he was in love with the main character's mum."
"Hogwarts!" Jade shouted. "Why not like that right away?"
"Okay, next one," Perrie said nervously without replying to Jade. "Jon Snow."
"Game of Thrones."
"You were allowed to say his name?" Jesy asked incredulously and snatched the card out of Perrie's grasp. Examining the words that were written on the list of words that you weren't allowed to say and sighed.
"Stop distracting us!" Jade told her impatiently and motioned for Perrie to go on. The two of them were bouncing nervously on the cushions of Jake's sofa. "Keep going already, Pez."
"You wear them and, um... Ugh, I suck at explaining," Perrie groaned and put her hand to her face nervously. "If you step in something wet while wearing them it's really dis-"
"Socks!" Jade screamed, interrupting the blonde.
As a response she giggled and put the card down to read the next. "Okay, we need it when we, meh, can't say that. When we, like... do our job. For other people."
"Drums," Jade guessed and looked at Perrie impatiently, hoping for another clue. "Choreographies, fans, um..."
"They make our voices louder," the blonde jumped in.
"Microphones!"
"Aaaand the time is up," Jake announced and picked up the little hour glass. It was true that the sand had now fully dropped into the bottom half. "How many did you get?"
"Only three," Jade pouted but took the cards Perrie had placed on the table to look at them. "You weren't allowed to say Harry Potter or school but you didn't come up with the idea to name any of the other students?" Jade laughed as she examined the words her partner hadn't been allowed to say.
"That means Jesy and I are still in the lead," Jake told them with a victorious smile which gained him a kiss on the cheek by his fiancée.
"We've moved up to second, though," Perrie defended herself and put her arm around Jade's shoulder to show solidarity.
Leigh raised her eyebrows as she moved her figure along the board game, "Well, at the end of the day it only matters who wins and that is going to be me and Jordan." Since Jake was the host of the evening it was his turn again to turn the hour glass as the couple took its turn in the game – this time miming.
Jade snuggled up against Perrie and once more this felt just so real and like everything was perfect. It looked as though they were three happy couples in the stages of romance; Leigh and Jordan were dating, Jesy and Jake were engaged and Perrie and Jade were engaged (although they had started their relationships in the exact opposite order).
"We need more crisps," Perrie whined and Jade giggled, leaning into the blonde,
"You want me to get some for you?"
"No, I'll go," Jake told them and motioned for them to stay sitting but Jesy got up either way to go and help her fiancé.
Leigh watched Jade and Perrie and the brunette felt her cheeks heat at the intent stare – she was probably wondering how they were doing, what they were doing. She wasn't too sure if she would tell Leigh-Anne if she asked because although they were best friends she didn't even really know what to tell her and if Perrie was okay with it.
Maybe, Jade thought, maybe Perrie wanted to keep this a secret.
"Look at you," Jordan said as he took a sip of his energy drink, "if I didn't know any better I'd actually think you two were a proper couple."
"We've always been very touchy," Leigh-Anne told him quickly and Jade frowned, wondering why she was defending them like this. "The four of us, I mean. Girls aren't as scared of touching each other as guys."
The male laughed and looked at his girlfriend, "Aight, but if you were as close to another woman as those two are I'd probably be jealous. Or consider it hot. But more jealousy."
"You're an idiot," Leigh-Anne told him with an amused roll of her eyes. "Just to make this clear right here and now, I will not have a threesome. Ever. And I am as close to them as they are now but of course I'm going to sit with you if we're playing a game. And I see them a lot more than I see you."
That finally seemed to satisfy the only male within the room and his conversation with his girlfriend drifted off to something else entirely but Jade wasn't listening anymore – even Jordan, who could be very oblivious (for example when Leigh-Anne was angry about something) at times thought that they looked like a couple.
The brunette looked up at Perrie, who was sitting up straighter than she was and wondered what was going through her head right now. Was she thinking and feeling the same way as Jade?
As more time passed the brunette felt more certain that maybe Perrie was reciprocating her feelings. "We love each other," she had said and it was the truth. And what did romantic love separate from platonic love? Was it the kisses? The sex? The caring for each other? The living together?
They had all of this so the only thing that they hadn't done was to label their relationship – but then again they were married so what their relationship was... was a marriage, after all.
"Crisps are out but we've got popcorn," Jake told them as he and Jesy came back from the kitchen, each of them carrying a huge bowl filled with said snack. "I hope you're okay with that."
"As long as you've got more of this," Perrie told them and poured some alcohol free champagne into her glass. "Because this tastes good as hell."
Jesy giggled and nodded as she pointed at the carton full of the same champagne in different flavours – the one Perrie was currently sipping was strawberry and as a matter of fact Jade knew that was one of her favourite flavours of all time. "Don't worry about that. Okay, it's our turn now."
About two hours later the game had finally ended with Jake and Jesy in the first place (nobody could beat Jesy's competitiveness, really) and the two other couples in a tie (luckily they didn't care as much about winning at this time of the night anymore or they would have started another game right there).
"I think it's time for bed," Perrie yawned as she emptied her glass, the last drop of the alcohol free champagne gone – she probably hadn't used the toilet in one evening as much as this night but it was totally worth it for that awesome drink. "You coming?" She asked Jade.
"You go ahead and take your shoes on," Leigh told her and waved her hand at Perrie to get her moving. "I wanted to talk to Jade."
Confused the blonde crossed her arms before her chest. "Why?"
Leigh raised her brows. "Why not? I haven't seen her in a while."
"Why don't you want to talk to me, too, then?" Perrie asked and Jesy looked between the two of them before quickly jumping in,
"Because I wanted to talk to you."
The blonde frowned and looked back and forth between the three girls before shrugging and followed the oldest woman into the kitchen. "Jordan, would you mind going to the car already?" Leigh asked and placed a kiss on her boyfriend's mouth, "I promise I won't be long but I really need to ask Jade something private."
The male nodded and grabbed his keys before leaving the room and after a few more seconds the two women could hear the front door shut. "So, what was it that you wanted to talk about?"
"About you and Perrie," the black woman told her and crossed her arms in front of her chest but she didn't look like she was judging or anything of that sort – more concerned, if anything. "What is going on with you?"
"What do you mean?" Jade replied but the blush on her cheeks was ratting her out.
"Come on," Leigh sighed and sat down again, an action Jade copied after flattening her skirt on her bum. "You are very obvious. Like... you told me. That's why I know. But even Jordan has become suspicious and Jesy asked me about it earlier, when we went to get more popcorn. Jake must have noticed too."
It was now Jade's turn to cross her arms in front of her chest but she was annoyed in contrast to Leigh-Anne. "What are you talking about?"
"Jade, I can tell from only looking at you that you're madly in love with Perrie."
It felt as though all the air had been knocked out of the brunette as she heard those words. What the hell? Jade knew, she knew that it was true so why did it shock her so much to hear those words out loud? She was aware of the way she felt towards the blonde but it still scared her that it was so obvious to others. "What – what did Jesy ask you?"
They looked at each other for a few seconds and finally, Leigh-Anne sighed in defeat. "Well, she just wondered. Why you two had locked yourself up in South Shields the past three days when Jesy and I had met each other and how you were so close all the time."
"So what do you want to hear from me?"
"What you are now," Leigh told her calmly. "What the relationship between you and Perrie is."
Shrugging, the brunette dropped against the sofa. "I don't know either, Leigh, it's all very confusing but I don't care."
"So... what did you do in those three days we haven't heard from you?"
Feeling her cheeks turn red Jade looked away and nervously fumbled with her fingers. She had known that sooner or later she would have to tell someone, she had known that Leigh-Anne would keep pressing the topic the way she had done in the US.
"We pretty much fought with jet lag all the time," was Jade's first reply and she felt a little relieved because she had managed to start somewhere without lying and without telling more than she was comfortable with. "We stayed in bed a lot." No lie again.
"Okay, I can tell this is going nowhere," the older female sighed, "so I'm going to be straight forward. Did you and Perrie... do anything that you wouldn't do with me? Something that is rather done in romantic friendships than friendly ones?"
Pursing her lips Jade felt herself nod her head in confirmation. As much as she wanted to keep this whole thing a secret from everyone she didn't want to lie to her best friend either. Sooner or later they would probably have to tell them anyway if they were going to continue their relationship the way it was.
"Did you kiss?" Another nod. "Did you... did you have sex?" Another nod and Leigh raised her eyebrows in disbelief, although she knew that Jade wasn't lying. "More than once?" Another nod. "Oh, fuck."
"Why is that bad, though?" Jade asked angrily and picked at a bread stick. "Why do you think we can't do that?"
"Jade, we're in a band," Leigh-Anne told her. "We work together. Yes, we're friends but friends usually don't break up the way couples do. And – and you just said you don't know what your and Perrie's relationship is. You've had sex, for crying out loud and you don't know what you are."
Jade frowned and then got up from the sofa, "Well, I – I don't know what you want from me. I told you what you wanted to hear from me and all you do is judge me for it."
"I'm not judging you!" Leigh gasped and got up as well to be on eye level with her friend. "I'm worried about you and about Perrie and about all our friendships. I don't mind if you and Perrie started to become an actual couple but I want to make sure you know what you want and, most importantly, what she wants from you."
Taking a deep breath Jade nodded her head and tried to calm herself. "Okay. Okay, I got it. Thank you for your help. And thanks for this nice evening, tell Jordan my greetings." Taking another she took a deep breath. "I hope you know I'm not mad at you and I will think about everything tonight."
Leigh nodded her head and smiled back at Jade sympathetically. "Okay, you do that. Remember, I love you lots."
Jade's grin broadened and showing her teeth she threw her arms around her friend to embrace her in a hug. "Love you, too. See you soon, yeah?"
"I hope!"
The cab ride back home was silent except for the sounds of the late night outside on the street as they passed by different buildings. Why is it, Jade wondered as Perrie's hands danced on her thighs in the darkness of the cab, that nobody wants me to be happy with Perrie?