seven (adam banks)

chapter eleven

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chapter eleven: fumigation vacation

( a/n: bro i wrote the phrase 'two weeks out of school' and sat there staring at the wall for ten minutes because C*VID

anyways, it's gonna pick up from here 😏 )

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The night of the varsity dinner, Jamie is holed up in her room and doing homework.

It's been a few days since the project, exactly seventy-two hours she realized she was head over heels for her once-dorky-now-super-hot best friend. She still doesn't know what it all means, or how to tell anyone (if she's not going with her original plan to take it to her grave), but she knows that he's catching on to something- catching on to her recent flustered habits. The thought of how well he knows her simultaneously makes her want to swoon and shrivel up and die.

Her situation is almost as confusing as this trigonometry problem, and both of them have brought her to tears tonight.

A slight tapping against her window drags her from her thoughts.

She knows it's him. Who else climbs the tree outside her bedroom in the middle of the night like some Romeo douchebag?

"Hi."

Adam looks...angry? She can't quite tell. All she knows is that his eyebrows are creased toward each other and that there's this stormy, far-off look in his eyes. A look unbefitting of him if she's honest because he always looks so much prettier when he's happy.

Prettier? Was she calling him pretty now?

"Hey." He whispers back, voice gravelly. "Can I come in?"

Jamie sends an unnecessary, precautionary glance over her shoulder.

Her parents are in the den watching television and it's loud, but not loud enough to get her dad going. If they noticed, which she's sure they wouldn't, they'd probably skin her alive for bringing a boy into the house like this, even if it's Adam. But it's Adam.

She turns her gaze back to him. He's wearing a suit, probably the suit he wore to dinner.

"Uh, yeah, sure. We just have to be quiet."

Adam nods and she steps back, leaving the window open so she can tiptoe across the room and lock her door. The window closes with a click and she hears the shuffling of his movement. When she turns back to him, he's taking off his jacket angrily, the movements snappy and sharp, and she feels her face get hot despite her best wishes.

That's been happening a lot recently.

Jamie watches him pace for a few moments, a shadow forming in the muted light from her bedside lamp and dancing frantically across the floor.

"Hey, hey- what happened?"

"Rick happened." Adam has to clear his throat, his voice coming out all strained again. "Rick and Scott and Cole and all of those assholes."

Cringing, she gestures for him to bring his volume down, pleading with her eyes. She feels a bit like an asshole for doing it, but she would feel even worse if her parents murdered them both before he got to work through whatever the hell happened.

He doesn't really react to her motions negatively, simply nodding curtly and sitting down on the bed next to her.

Tucking her legs into a criss-cross position, she turns to him more. "What'd they do?"