Work Text:
Bzz-bzz
Jay reaches over to grab her phone from where it's slipped between Genie and the couch cushions.
"Hey, I'm watching that," Genie shoves her shoulder hard enough that she only escapes face planting into the floor by throwing one hand out to the ground and the other onto Genies leg.
"Oi! I was just grabbing my phone. You almost killed me!"
"Whatever."
Jay snuggles back into her spot curled up in front of the TV next to Genie. Unlocking her phone, her stomach clenches and gets all fluttery when she sees a notification from Bill. She has only had Bills number for two days and this is the first message she has received, apart from the ones they sent to confirm numbers. She replies to Bills message with something totally cool and suave, that doesn't reveal the way her heart rate has picked up, or the nerves she was starting to feel because two days was kinda a long time to not text someone and maybe Bill regretted asking for Jays number in the first place.
"Oh My God, Jay, can you believe that!" Genie slaps her arm as she gestures to something that's happening on TV.
For some reason, Genie loves those really cringe reality TV shows that are just mildly famous people not wearing much and starting drama about even less. Jay kind of hates them because they all seem to be about making the contestants do humiliating things to each other, and it reminds Jay of the time in fifth grade when she had food poisoning at summer camp, and they were doing an underground cave tour. Jay had barely stepped into the cold, gloomy entrance up the top when a spider jumped out of nowhere (she swears it was a spider, okay! It was huge and creepy and wanted to eat her! If no one else saw it, that's just because it ran away really fast!) and it scared her so bad she lost control of her tender bowels and shat herself in front of the whole camp. She doesn't tell this to Genie though because Genie still thinks that memory is hilarious even though it was like 6 years ago and Jay has finally escaped being the butt of every poop joke in school. So whenever a new season of whatever Genie is obsessed with at the moment comes out, Jay just sucks it up and watches it with her anyway like the good best friend she is.
"Ooh, what are you smiling at?" Unlike some people, she could mention. "Jaaa-aayyyy! Quit giggling at your phone and watch this with me." When Jay doesn't react, Genie leans over her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of her phone screen. "What are you doing on there anyway?"
"Nothing," she tilts her phone a bit further in the opposite direction.
Genie begins attempting to snatch Jays’ phone. "Stop! Stop! Leave me alone! You're missing your show!"
"Jaaaayyy-ah HA!" Genie has successfully snatched Jays’ phone.
"OOOooohhh! You're texting someone, you little minx!" Jay holds her breath and fiercely hopes Genie doesn't notice the contact name.
"Bill?" Or maybe she knows lots of Bills. It's a common name. She doesn't know, maybe Jay knows other Bills, it's not like Genie knows every single person she ever speaks to.
"BILLIE LEYDEN!!" Genie shrieks.
Okay, so maybe Jay doesn't really know that many Bills. And maybe Genie does know everyone Jay speaks to. It's not like she was very popular after the whole spider-cave-shitting-her-pants incident. The potential friend pool lowered significantly for her after that, and it's hard to recover socially whilst being an awkward 10-year-old girl.
"Oh My God, Jay! You’re sexting Billie Leyden?!" Genie has begun flapping her hands erratically, and it honestly makes Jay worry for the safety of her phone.
"WHAT! I'm not sexting anybody! Give me that." Jay grabs her phone back and tucks it in the waistband of her trackies for security. Genie won't want to risk groping her ass just to get her phone, right?
Jay shuffles further back along the couch, just in case.
"Well, she was telling you about how she just got home from the gym. That's like, foreplay to sexting. She was totally about to start sexting!" Genie watches way too much reality TV.
"You watch way too much reality TV."
Genie rolls her eyes, "Coming home from the gym means one of two things. A: she's all dirty and sweaty and ready to hop in the shower, thus tricking you into thinking about her naked, or B: she has all these pics she took while at the gym, of her all dirty and sweaty and in tight gym clothes, thus tricking you into thinking about her naked! She totally wants you to start thinking about her naked, Jay, and that's when the sexting starts!"
Seriously, all this fake Netflix drama has rotted her best friend's brain. It's not like Genie is a total sexpert either. She hasn't even had a proper girlfriend yet, only that totally-casual, friends-with-benefits, situationship-thing with Snafu last summer, who's one of the students who run track at their school in the year above. Jay doesn't think a girl who loses her virginity to someone who named themself Snafu gets to hand out sex advice. Not to mention Genies super embarrassing ever-lasting crush on her totally-straight, has-had-a-boyfriend-since-thirteen, childhood friend Sidney.
No matter what kind of romance guru Genie clearly thinks she is, Jay just does not trust someone who drops the word 'thus' into a sentence about sexting twice, a single bit.
Genie has evidently had enough of Jays attempts to ignore her by staring intently at the contestants gossiping on the TV, and starts clicking her pastel pink acrylic nails in Jays face. "JAY! HE-LLO!"
"GENIE! WH-AT?" Sometimes Jay wonders why this girl is her best friend.
"So how do you even know Billie Leyden in the first place?" Sometimes Jay not only wonders about, but in fact regrets her decision to make this girl her best friend.
"She goes by Bill," if Jay can subtly change the subject, maybe Genie will get distracted and drop it.
"Okay, but how did you meet her?" Unfortunately for Jay, Genie can be quite a focused individual, especially when it comes to things that interest her like botany, a good poetry book or psychologically torturing her best friend for the details of her love life.
"I don't know why that's any of your business," Jay huffs. "It's not like you have to know everything I do. I'm my own person, you know?"
"Um, except for the fact it like totally is my business, I'm your best friend. Duh!" Genie pokes her in the thigh with an annoyingly well manicured foot. "Besides, I told you all about my thing with Snaf, remember?" Jay does remember. Unfortunately. She shudders at the reminder. What she would do to erase those 2 am video messages from her mind. Deleting them from her phone wasn't enough, she needs to delete them from her brain.
Genie continues, "You've never given anyone your number or, like, talked to someone like this before and that's important, Jay! I don't need to know everything you do, but I'm your friend, so I want to, okay? I may be able to help, or like, give advice, or god forbid, I just want to support my best friend and celebrate with her when a cool hot girl starts chatting with her!"
"Fine! You sap," Jay swears Genie is the most sentimental person ever. It's probably because of all the flowery poetry she reads or the meditative walks through the woods she takes. Whatever, it's not the worst trait to have in a best friend, she supposes.
And Genie is right, that Jay doesn't have much experience talking with people she just met, let alone someone who might like her, like like her. It's not as if Jay is some kind of social outcast, a lone wolf, or whatever. She's always had friends, even after the notorious shitting-her-pants incident. She was actually friends with Snafu and Burgie first, before Genie had even met them, back when Genie went to a different school and was just Jays kind-of friend from summer camp. It's just that Jay isn't exactly a social butterfly either especially not next to Miss Genie Bobbie Leckie offered me alcohol and asked me to join her poetry club, Andie Haldane wants my help with the school newspaper, Sidney Phillips invites me to all the parties at her boarding school dorm Sledge. She doesn't mind really, it's just that because she's been a little bit of a late bloomer and this is her first experience of even being close to going on a date with someone, she wanted to keep it to herself for a bit. Private.
But now that she's thinking about it, maybe it would be a good idea to talk to Genie about it. What if Bill picks up on her lack of experience and thinks she's lame? What if Bill somehow didn't pick up on her slightly awkward personality or sometimes left-of-field sense of humour and ditches her once she realises? Oh, God, what if Jay really does need Genie's help? She doesn't want to have to ask Burgie or Snafu for advice, they'll just make fun of her and that's not helpful no matter how lighthearted it is. She drops her head into her hands and groans.
With a start, she feels Genie take one of her hands in both of her own, and it snaps her out of her nervous spiral. "I’m allowed to be sappy because I love you. Now tell me about how you met the notorious Bill Leyden."
"Okay, whatever. It was the other day, you know, when-" Jay pauses. Did she hear that right? "Wait... Notorious? Why is she notorious? Do you know her?" She may be being paranoid, but surely Genie can't actually know everyone Jays ever met.
"Obviously I know her, Jay!" Genie exclames. She is staring at her like she just realised Jay is stupid and was somehow hiding it this whole time. "She literally goes to my old school. We had, like, 5 different classes together! Well, only for, like, a term before I moved, but still."
Jay gapes. Seriously, one day she will have to meet someone who has never even heard of Genie Sledge, its statistics.
"Plus, her dad and my dad are in the same rifle club. Bill has got the junior sharpshooter award for, like, a million years in a row or something. Sometimes they'd come hunting with me and dad, she is like super into all that hunting-guns stuff. They didn't have that kind of thing in New York, which is where she's from, by the way, so she thinks it's great." Sometimes Jay forgets how growing up in a city might mean she had a different childhood to Genie, until she mentions something like this casually, as if going hunting is a super common father/daughter bonding activity.
"Uhhhmmm, okay."
"Yeah so she kind of has this reputation you know? Of being like, a bit wild," Genie keeps on talking, like a fountain of Bill Leyden related knowledge.
Jay thinks back to the short but built girl with the cocky grin and piercing blue eyes who tapped numbers into Jay's phone like it was her own, before slipping the phone back into the rear pocket of Jay's jeans like maybe they were her own too. That move was so smooth, Jay didn't even want to think about how often she must do it. "Reputation? I can see that, I guess."
Genie hums in agreement, "Totally. So, has she tempted you over to the wild side yet?" This is punctuated with some truly horrendous eyebrow wiggling Genie probably thinks is suggestive.
"Ugh, what does that even mean?" Jay smushes her palm into her friend's forehead with the hopes of removing her ability to move her eyebrows like that ever again. "We haven't really spoken that much yet. I just want to get to know her, I guess. She seems... like, cool or whatever." And maybe she seemed to think my bad name-spelling joke was funny, instead of the result of nervous ramblings, Jay thinks but doesn't say out loud.
Genies eyebrows begin twitching in a manner that makes Jay curse all redheads and their expressive facial features.
"Cool?"
"Yeah."
"Just cool?"
Jay tries to imagine Genie slipping in a puddle on the way to school or getting gum stuck in her hair again, in order to distract herself from the awkward embarrassment this line of questioning is causing to curl through her stomach.
"What do you mean ""just cool""?"
Genies eyes widen a little too innocently.
"Like you don't think she's anything else? Not polite, or interesting, or smoking hot? Just cool?"
Jay feels her face heat up, "What!"
Genie is grinning completely evilly now. Laughing in the face of Jay's embarrassment, the cruel best friend that she is. ""WHAT? WHAT?"" Don't lie, Jay, she's so your type."
"I do not have a type."
"Sure. So your interest in getting to know her is completely intellectual. Purely innocent. Not in the slightest bit related to the fact she loves muscle shirts and basketball shorts."
Jay sighs and just gives in. "Okay, fine," No point in denying it anyway. "Yeah, I think she's hot. She was funny, and like really nice. And okay, maybe she dresses like a 13-year-old boy, but not everybody has the shoulders to pull that off, and she totally does. Also, her hands..." Jay remembered how Bills fingers looked tangled with hers, how they felt wrapped around her wrist, her palm cupping her shoulder. She breathes out a huff of air, thinking about how steady and deft they looked sweeping Bills fringe out of her eyes.
Genie giggles.
"SHUT UP! You asked for this!"
"No, no, Jay, I swear! I'm not laughing!" Genie says, laughing. Jay reaches out to grasp both of Genies shoulders and shakes her. The giggling intensifies. "So when are you getting married?" She hiccups. "I dibs maid of honour!"
That's a step too far. Laughing, Jay can take, but this? Blatant mockery, in the face of her vulnerability, which Genie pestered her into sharing? That's over the line. Jay launches herself at the other girl, shoving a throw cushion into her face, attempting to silence the gasping laughter and prevent any further verbal abuse.
"You will not be maid of honour! You will be maid of nothing, you won't even be invited on account of if you don't shut up right now I will never speak to you again!" Jay shouts.
A pale hand slips out from behind the cushion and starts limply slapping at her arms, at the same time as a cold foot ineffectually kicks at her ankle. "You can't wiggle your way out of this one Genie! I need a formal apology!"
"Mmmpffhhhrrmmm!!" Jay suddenly needs to clamp her legs tight around the girl she's sitting on as her prisoner exhibits a bust of energy and tries to throw her off with a bucking bull type tactic.
"What? What? What was that noise? A sound of deep and heartfelt contrition from a regretful and apologetic best friend?"
The heaving and shuddering pillow goes limp. A breathy gasp that sounds suspiciously like "Let me up! I can't breathe!" snakes out from under the cushion.
"That doesn't sound like an apology to me." She pokes Genies side.
"Sorry!"
Jay lifts the pillow a little.
"Sorry for laughing! It wasn't at you, I swear!" Jay has her doubts about the validity of that statement, but she decides to relent anyway. Genie was really quite bony and didn't make a very comfortable place to sit. She rolls off to settle in her previous position on the couch.
"Wow. Over reaction much! I have a heart condition you know, you could have killed me," It takes roughly 2.5 seconds for Genie to catch her breath and start swiping her hair out of her mouth before resuming her role as the most persistent and annoying voice in Jay's life.
"What the heart condition of being an ice-cold bitch?" Jay jokes, but she actually did know about the heart murmur on account of Genie mentioning it at every minor inconvenience she faces ever. This is also how she knows it won't kill Genie to have to breathe through a pillow for 2 minutes. To her disappointment. "Also, that was not an over reaction, thanks. It was the appropriate response to you begging me to share my feelings with you and then bullying me about them!"
"It was just sweet, okay! To see you all cute and moony," Genie is way too strange for Jay to ever fully figure out no matter how long they know each other.
"Gross."
"So when are you guys going out?"
Jays stomach twists, "I don't know, Genie! She might not even want to. We've only met once and barely spoken since then. How am I supposed to know if she wants to see me again?"
"Hey," Jay sees a hand reach out and brush her arm from where she's glaring down at her hands. "Hey, none of that. She asked for your number, didn't she? She's interested. She'd be an idiot to not want to get to know you, Jay."
"Yeah?" Jay sighs, "But what if she does get to know me and doesn't like what she finds?"
"Well, then fuck her." Jay glances up to where Genie has a surprisingly serious look on her face. "You're really awesome, Jay, and if someone else can't see that, it's not your fault. You always have me and Burgie and Snafu, and we like who you are, no matter what, okay?"
Despite the creeping nerves Jay was working herself into, she feels a warm, light feeling spread from her chest through her body at Genies words.
"Yeah, okay," She grins and pokes her foot at Genie. "If I do go out on a date with her, and it's bad and sucks, you have to be responsible for mending my broken heart."
Genie gasps and grabs Jays foot. "I'll have you know I take my best friend duties very seriously, Jay De L’Eau! I'll nurse your broken heart to health in no time, if you ever need it. But if it goes well and you guys fall in love and get married, then I have to be the maid of honour, promise me!"
It will probably continue to be one of the greatest mysteries of Jays life as to how she came to have just such a good best friend as Genie, but it's one she isn't going to question too hard. She loves Genie, and she knows Genie loves her, and that's what matters.
"Okay, I promise!"