Written in 62 minutes.

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Jake’s: Upstairs Hall

Before Jake had sold the bar, she’d rented the rooms above to any one who passed her own personal background check. But with Coleman’s purchase of the property, he hadn’t wanted the headache of being a landlord, so they’d gone unused.

Which was good because any tenants would have definitely been disturbed by the time Jason   managed to get up the stairs to the second floor, distracted when Elizabeth’s busy hands had found the button on his jeans, popping it open, and sliding her fingers down.

He stumbled, resting one hand flat against the wall, and the other firmly underneath her bottom, trying to keep them both upright. Jason let her legs fall to the floor, then reached for her hands, pinning them above her head. Elizabeth tossed her hair back, looked at him with a smoky, sultry gaze that he’d only glimpsed once before— that night in her studio over a year ago.

For a moment, they just stared at each other, their chests brushing against other, breathing heavy — if ever there would be a moment for them to turn back, to stop this, for common sense and reality to wash over them — this would be it. Before the point of no return.

Elizabeth’s tongue swept over her bottom lip. “I’m going to need those back eventually,” she murmured.

“Maybe,” he murmured against her mouth, then kissed her again, swallowing the smirk that was already spreading across her beautiful face. “But maybe you should behave yourself when stairs are involved.”

“Do you want me to behave myself?” she panted, when his mouth cruised a trail down her jawline to her neck, nipping at the soft skin behind her ear, his hands gliding up and underneath her dress, cupping her bottom. She arched her neck, wrapping a leg around his waist.

He didn’t answer her, couldn’t have formed a coherent word when their eyes met again, and he saw everything he felt reflected back.

“Tell me you have a key,” Elizabeth said, tugging his shirt up and sliding her hands up the planes of his back, her nails lightly scratching.

“If they didn’t change the locks—” Jason shoved a hand in his pocket, found his eyes, and with shaking fingers, found the old key for the room he always stayed in, then wrapped his other hand around her wrist, afraid that if either of them were separated for too long, they’d remember all the reasons this was a terrible idea.

But right now, impulse and lust and desire were in control, and everything else was taking a very distant back seat. Elizabeth must have felt the same way, because she shimmied in front of him as he tried to unlock the door, kissing his neck, collarbone, jawline, any skin she could reach.

The locks hadn’t been changed, and Jason had one moment to be grateful Coleman was a lazy son of a bitch. Then the door opened and they almost fell through. Jason gripped Elizabeth around the waist, lifted her clear of the door, then threw it closed, throwing the deadbolt across.

She dragged the shirt over his head and tossed it somewhere before attacking his jeans again, this time tugging the zipper down—before he could even take a full breath, she’d stripped him of most of his clothes, and was shoving him towards the bed. He fumbled for the zipper of her dress, locating it under her arm, dragging it down so that the bodice gaped.

“Your boots—” Elizabeth pushed him down on the bed into a sitting position, then knelt at his feet with a wicked smile. She made quick work of unlacing his boots, tossing them side, before dragging the jeans all the way down his legs, and they went flying. “I could just…stay down here,” she said with an arch of her brow, her hands on both of his thighs, sliding up towards the edge of his black briefs.

He’d never survive that, Jason thought, leaning forward, to capture her mouth, then drag her over him. Enough playing around, enough teasing, enough waiting. He’d waited too long to be here, to touch her, to feel every inch, and he wasn’t going to wait another damn minute—

Jason swiftly rolled them so that she was underneath him, then dragged the bodice of her dress until it was at her waist. She shimmied and wiggled, which he thought was another one of her teasing tricks, but then a piece of fabric went flying, and her hands at her briefs again.

“I need you now,” she panted against his neck. “Now, please—” She gasped when he slid inside, her legs wrapping around his waist, her nails digging into his back. It was hard and fast, and nothing like what he might have wanted for their first time—but Elizabeth was already breaking apart, her neck arching, and then everything exploded until there was nothing left but them, clinging to each other and the wreckage of the lives they’d just burned to the ground.

—

It should have been awkward, Elizabeth thought, a bit lazily, some time later. She wasn’t sure exactly how long. After that first, hurried, insane round, Jason had dragged them both up towards the headboard, though she’d been no help in that, her bones mostly limp. He’d started kissing her again, and then—then they made love. Long, sweet, reverent, looking at each other — maybe that first time could be a mistake — but not the second, she thought.

She lay across his chest, listening to the soft rainfall outside, the plink of the drops as they hit the roof, dripped down the window. The clock on the night stand had red digital letters informing her that it was crawling towards five in the morning. Dawn wasn’t far away now.

Jason had risen after that second time, gone to find his phone and checked it. Nothing from the hospital, he’d said. If there were other messages he was ignoring, he didn’t say, and she wouldn’t ask. All of that was outside of this moment somehow, and they were inside their little bubble, just like always.

Jason set the phone on the nightstand, climbed back in bed, then they made love for a third time. She’d slid into a dreamless sleep — perhaps because she was already in one. What was left to dream about?  She didn’t know if Jason had slept. She hoped so — he looked so tired, and worn out at the hospital.

His fingers trailed up and down her spine, tracing patterns with his fingertips. She lay draped across his chest, one of her legs hooked over his, the thin blanket pulled over them both.

“Tell me about somewhere you went when you weren’t in Port Charles,” Elizabeth said. She looked up, resting her chin on his chest.

Jason furrowed his brow for a long moment. “Egypt,” he said finally. “I wanted to see the pyramids. I went to Cairo, saw Giza. You see pictures and you can read measurements. But none of that does them justice.”

“They’re older than most written history,” Elizabeth murmured. She laid her head back down, closed her eyes. “It puts it into perspective, sometimes. How small and insignificant our lives are. The world was here long before us, and will still be here when we’re bones and dust.”

His phone rang then, and they both looked at it. Elizabeth sat up, flattening one of her hands against the mattress, the blanket falling to her waist. Was it the hospital—

Or was it someone else? She bit her lip, forced the possibility away. That wasn’t part of this. It couldn’t be. After this night, they’d go back to their own lives, maybe never having a reason to talk again.

But until then, Jason was hers and she wasn’t going to let go until she had to.

Jason reluctantly reached for the cell, looked at the screen and his body tensed. “It’s Monica,” he said. He sat up, dragged a hand down his face. Elizabeth leaned her face against his shoulder. It was the call they’d both dreaded. Jason waited just one more moment, then flipped it open.  “Hey. No, I’m still awake—” He tensed, then looked at her, his eyes bright. “What? What? When? How—” His voice shook. “No. I’ll—I’ll tell her. Yeah. Yeah, no, tell her it—” Jason took a deep breath. “Tell her I love her.”

“Jason?” Elizabeth prompted when he closed the phone, closed his fist around it. “What—what happened? Tell—”

“She—the infection—her fever broke.” Jason looked at her again, and there were tears in his eyes. “The doctors—she made it.”

“She—” Elizabeth clutched her hands against her mouth. “Oh! Oh! She’s alive? She made it? She’s going to be okay?”

“I don’t—Monica didn’t have a lot of—” He cleared his throat. “They don’t know if she’s fully in the clear, but this is a good sign. Her body is starting to fight back. But she—she’s alive. She made it through the night.”

Elizabeth had never let herself hope for such a miracle. She started to laugh, even as tears streamed down her cheeks. Jason reached for her, and she could feel the joy in his, the smile in his kiss.

Jason lowered her to the bed, his kiss turning searching and hungry. This was it, she thought, the last time. After this—they’d open the door and go back to reality. But until then, she’d hold on tight and savor every moment so she’d always remember this night and this man.

—

After all this time, they still somehow understood each other with few words. After making love for a fourth time, they left the bed. They silent dressed, donning the clothes they’d ripped from each other only hours before.  Jason stripped the sheets and other linen, and went to change them, knowing where Jake had kept such things.

Then they went down stairs, Jason pausing to relock the door. In the bar, Elizabeth tidied up the pool table, while Jason disposed of the bottles and took the glasses to clean them. He left cash on the bar, and they headed for the door.

The sun was just breaking over Port Charles when they left Jake’s. The morning held a slight chill, and Elizabeth shivered. Still — they said nothing. He handed her the helmet, and she climbed on the bike, holding him close.

At the studio, he walked her upstairs, and then finally when they reached her doorway, and she’d pulled out her keys, she looked at him. “So I guess…I guess this is…” Then her words failed her and she looked down at the silver keys. “Do we talk about it?” she asked, her voice hushed.

Jason swallowed hard. “I—”

“I mean, do we—do we go back to—” She glanced at him, and she bit her lip. “Do we go back to how it was, like this didn’t…”

Jason exhaled slowly, looked over her head, at the door he’d put on the studio a year earlier to make her safer. Did they pretend this happen? Just an insane night outside of all the others—did they go back to their lives?

Elizabeth picking up the pieces after her disastrous marriage, and Jason to…return home to another woman. To marry her and create a life with her.

That would be easiest, Jason thought. Simplest. Agree that this was one-time thing and never talk about it again. But could he do it? Could he pack all the things he’d felt before, and all the new feelings — could he put them into a box like he usually did and lock them away?

“I don’t think I can,” Jason finally admitted, and she looked at him, surprised, her eyes widening. “Can you?”

“N-no. No, but—”

He kissed her again, backing her against the door, and her arms slid around his neck, the keys in her hand, falling to the ground with a clink of metal against concrete. They broke apart, one of her hands sliding down to rest against his chest, their eyes meeting.

“So what now?” Elizabeth asked, her lips swollen, rosy, still damp from his mouth. He pressed his thumb against her lip, sweeping across. “I mean—you’re…you’re—” Her voice faltered.

“Engaged,” he finished. “I know. I’ll—I think of something to tell her. To end it.” Though now that reality was filtering back in, he remembered all the reasons why it wouldn’t just be a simple conversation. “But I will.”

“Okay.” Elizabeth smiled tremulously. “If you’re sure. I—I don’t want you to do something you don’t want to do—”

“I want to,” Jason said. He kissed her again, lingering, before stepping back. “I’ll call you,” he said. “As soon as I can.” He handed her the keys she’d dropped, then waited until she was safely inside.

All he had to do was go home and tell his fiancee, who had recently suffered a miscarriage and learned that she couldn’t have any more children, that he didn’t want to marry her anymore.

What could go wrong?

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