“She’s punishing me. This is some elaborate revenge plan three years in the making. She probably has it on notecards.” Pacey held out his hand, ticking off fingers with a beleaguered groan. “1.Leave the state for three years and make Pacey go crazy wondering about me. 2.Return looking sexy as hell and move in next door to Pacey. And when I mean next door, I mean in the same goddamn house. 3.Sleep with Pacey, declare undying love to him. 4.Tell Pacey it was all a mistake, you don’t love him, he’s all wrong to love you, and somehow manage to make it seem like you’re just agreeing with him for dumping you. 5.Leave Pacey more damaged and in love with you than he ever was.”
“She’s not punishing you,” Jen said, frowning sympathetically.
“And I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t leave any evidence if she was,” Dawson added. He leaned back against the cement stairs of the fountain, eying his friends lazily. The sun beat down brightly on the Ruins.
“Definitely no notecards,” Jack said, grimacing and pulling his sweaty green t-shirt over his head. Jen reached over to tickle his bare stomach, giggling when he moved away from her with a scowl. “Stop it, Jen.”
“Joey’s very organized, she’d probably outline revenge schemes on a computer,” she said, sticking her tongue out at Jack. She tugged at the thin strap of her tank top with a pout, blew a few limp blonde curls out of her eyes, and yawning, stretched out so her legs were draped over Dawson’s lap, her head nestled on Pacey’s shorts clad thigh.
“Yep, look for a lap top on her desk,” said Dawson, yanking Jen by the ankles teasingly. She blinked and rubbed her head, now resting against the hot concrete ground.
Pacey stared down at his friends and shook his head. “You are all no help.”
“Live to please, Man,” Dawson yawned.
Pacey squinted as a passing cloud released a ray of bright light across his features. Pulling out a pair of sunglasses and adjusting his gray wifebeater, he groaned and buried his head in his hands.
“And to be exact,” Jack mused slowly, “just when did Joey promise undying love to you?”
“She didn’t, exactly,” Pacey admitted. He held a hand to his heart for a moment, eyes flashing. “But...she loves me. I feel it.”
“Pacey.” Jen sat up and watched him, a wan smile curling her lips.
“No.” He ran a hand over his stubbled chin. Standing, he paced anxiously around them. “This isn’t the point when you look at me all ‘what a cute lovesick puppy Pacey makes.’ Not in the least. This is the point where you all help me convince our prodigal friend and the love of my life that she needs me. That she loves me.” He stopped, blue eyes pained and hurt. “She does.”
“I think you’re right.” Dawson said quietly. The three friends looked over at him, surprised. He remained where he was on the ground, eyes closed to the sun, smile open and relaxed.
“You do?” Pacey asked uncertainly.
“Yeah. Joey was at her happiest when she was with you,” he admitted, opening his eyes slowly. Pacey stared blankly at him. “Don’t give me that look. I had to grow up sometime. Even Steven-”
“Spielberg outgrew his Peter Pan Complex,” Pacey, Jack, and Jen completed in sing-song unison.
“And then he made A.I.” Jen inserted, smiling mischievously.
“E.T. the sequel,” muttered Jack in a stage whisper.
“Whatever.” Dawson waved the comments away with a hand. “Joey loves you, Pace. Go after her.”
“I hate to interrupt this male bonding moment,” Jen said, frowning, “especially since it’s taken so damn long to happen but...Joey may love Pacey, but she doesn’t need him.”
“Jen,” Pacey whispered, looking stung, “I thought you’d support me.”
“I want to. I do. But she’s survived three years without any of us, and she looks better than she ever has, seems more together than ever before...maybe you should just let her go back to California.” She shrugged, turning from Pacey uncomfortably.
“I can’t.” He said, strained.
“If you love her,” Jen whispered sadly, “maybe you should.”
**
“Alex, how do you like sharing a room with Pacey?” Joey watched him play, her arms crossed loosely over her chest.
“It’s okay.” He scooted closer to her, allowing her to drape loose arms over his shoulders as he flipped on a Gameboy. She sighed imperceptibly. This was the only cuddling to be done with Alex anymore. She’d been away too long. He darted a look over his shoulder at her. “Soon he’ll go back to his own room.”
“What do you mean?” She put a hand on his, releasing it when he paused the game with a rather sullen pout.
“He usually sleeps where you’re sleeping.”
She frowned. “Pacey sleeps in my room?”
“Yep.”
“Are you sure, Alex?”
“Yeah,” a child after his aunt’s heart, he rolled his eyes. “He moved his stuff before you came.”
“But everything looks the same as when I left it.”
“I dunno about that.” Alex shrugged, returning his attention to the gameboy, little fingers gripping the buttons gingerly. A series of beeps signalled defeat within moments. He frowned, discarding the toy and replacing it with a Spider-Man jigsaw puzzle. He dumped the contents onto his floor. “He only took some clothes into my room.”
Alex bent down over the puzzle pieces as Joey looked around for traces of Pacey. Signs that he’d lived with Alex for three years. She pulled out some drawers, all filled with Alex’s clothing. Same with the closet. The only photos on the wall taken by Pacey were of Alex, Bessie or Bodie. Pacey’s clothing sat in a neat pile next to the futon crowding Alex’s floor. A few books lay underneath. There was a cardboard box of camera supplies shoved beneath Alex’s desk.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“It’s okay, Aunt Joey.” The little boy reached up to lay a hand on her arm, patting at her helpfully. He smiled brightly. “I like Pacey staying here. He said it would be like a big sleepover. He’s so funny, he stays up all night.”
“All night?”
“Yeah, he almost never sleeps. So weird.”
Joey handed Alex a piece of his jigsaw puzzle distractedly. “Al, I’m gonna go check something in my, in Pacey’s bedroom, kay?”
“Kay.”
She walked into her old room for the first time feeling like an intruder. Eyeing the space carefully, she searched for evidence of Pacey. To her surprise, she found it almost immediately. A photograph of her from their summer on True Love. She’d never put that up. That was Pacey’s. It was now framed in silver, sitting unobtrusively on her dresser next to the picture Dawson had taken of them at Christmas. The picture she had replaced on the dresser when she’d first gotten back. The one picture she took with her of them. Everywhere. Despite how insane she knew that made her.
Turning in a circle she found another picture, this time of the two of them, she’d never hung up. It now hung to the left of the door. And another photograph, of a boat she’d never seen, buried in between pictures of True Love on her desk. Opening her desk drawer, she found a pen with bite marks around the bottom. Pacey chewed his pens.
In the closet she found a suit, hung carefully in a dark garment bag. In a dresser drawer, buried in the back next to the boxers she’s stolen from him years ago, were more boxers, newer. On her bed was the teddy bear he won for Anna Evans so long ago, the one she’d left at his beach house that night.
Her search was interrupted by a cough and a low voice behind her. “Looking for something?”
“Pacey,” she said, jumping a little.
He was leaning against the doorframe, blue eyes guileless. She bit her lip, at a loss for words. Her eyes swept over his tousled brown hair, his muscular shoulders, bare beneath his gray tank. She was momentarily lost and blinked. “Jo?”
“You live here,” she finally breathed.
He raised an eyebrow. “That I do.”
“You sleep here.”
“Occasionally,” he said, smirking.
“Here,” she repeated, eyes wide.
“Yes?” He was silent for a moment. “Jo, are you okay?”
She stared up at him, searching his eyes. “Yeah, fine.”
“Really?” he asked doubtfully. “You sure taking care of the Unholy Terror isn’t getting to you?”
“No, I mean, at least I don’t have to room with him,” she said, trying a new tact and smiling curiously, “Must be hard sleeping on a futon and rooming with my nephew all the time. You should’ve asked Bessie to get your own room or something. Hell, my bed was open, Pace.”
He swallowed and shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, well, who says I want in your bed, Potter?” She shrugged. “The sheets still smell like you,” he added nervously, his eyes widening and a trembling hand running through his hair.
“They do, huh?”
“I would assume,” he covered lamely, “you have a distinctive stench.”
“Well, I am exhausted,” she said, feigning a yawn, “I’m gonna just take a nap and stink up the sheets some more, kay?”
“Yeah, okay.” He took a deep breath and fled the room as she shut the door, a satisfied smile curving her lips. She laughed and jumped on her bed, staring at her picture of the two of them, so happy and in love.
**
Pacey spent the rest of the day maintaining the B&B and his distance from Joey. He wasn’t sure how to feel about her change of attitude...she’d gone from giving him the silent treatment to polite friendship in mere days. And he didn’t want to think about how Joey had interrogated him over his living situation. So instead, he kept busy. He checked the Potter truck for any repair needs. He cleaned the bathrooms. Dusted the curtains. And most importantly, ducked around a corner every time he heard the patter of her feet. No need to darken her doorway when she’d made it perfectly clear he wasn’t welcome. But at the same time...he definitely didn’t want to think about Jen’s advice. Or Dawson’s. Or whose probably was more salient. Not today anyways.
With a relieved sigh he closed the door to Alex’s room, grateful to find the rugrat asleep in his bed, having at best a fitful nap. Sitting down on the edge of the beat up futon, his eyes seemed drawn to it. Placed carefully on Alex’s brightly colored toy chest was his silver framed photograph. She seemed to stare right into his soul, her eyes softly loving, her lips parted in an embarrassed half grin. Picking up the picture, he looked over at the closed door, imagining he could see her through the walls. What was she doing to him?
