Thread: His Greatest Treasure (Crusade & darkangel76)

The story had Jake planted firmly on his seat, body angled towards Emma, one hand still resting on her thigh as a form of unspoken support as she got through it. He could tell it was a source of pain and understood exactly why. The daughter who could have been. It was disgusting to think parents could essentially abandon their own daughter because she wasn't who they wanted her to be. If he had an address, he would have been tempted to pay them a visit. He wasn't above torture. He itched to make the two of them suffer for what they put their daughter through. A thought suddenly sprung up in his mind. He and Emma taking a road trip back to her home town to surprise her folks with a pop in visit. Nothing out of the ordinary aside from introducing them to her new love interest. And then the knife would come out and Emma could look on as her boyfriend sliced her parents to ribbons, letting them bleed out in agony while the happy couple bathed in their blood. A man could dream. Snapping himself back, he listened intently again. When Emma mentioned Jess, he at first thought she was talking about her sister. That's the way it came off, that Jess was the sister they got and truly wanted and Emma was just a mistake. Then, her story veered of and she revealed that Jess was her best friend. That was like a blow to the gut to Jake. Competition was the last thing he wanted to be thrown into the equation. A best friend was just another person who would stand in the way of the two of them being together. If Jess was anything like girls he'd seen in clubs and bars, she would do everything in her power to learn every little fucking minute detail about Jake before she accepted him. She would do her best to make sure he was completely miserable up until that acceptance and trust was built. He didn't want to deal with that. He didn't want to deal with her. And she was obviously a damn good friend if she followed Emma when she moved away. Why couldn't Emma just be on her own in a strange place where Jake was the only person she knew? It'd be so much easier that way. He realized her was going off on another tangent in his mind. Jake would have to ground himself and be supportive instead of only looking out for himself. He slid his hand from her thigh to find one of her own hands and gave it a squeeze as he interlocked their fingers. He could see just in her body language and her eyes that her parents were a source of a lot, if not most or the hurt in her life. I'm glad you didn't try to change for them. No one should have to be someone their not just for their parents' approval. And Jess sounds like a great friend. You're lucky to have someone like that in your life. He had to do everything in his power not to grit his teeth when he said that, but he wanted Emma to think he was fine with Jess, too. Hating her best friend wasn't going to get him anywhere. He held her hand tighter and nestled in even closer to Emma. And believe me, I know what's it like. My parents didn't care about anything I did. I could have been flunking out of school and they wouldn't have known. My dad worked and my mom went out when my dad worked. I was staying home alone when I was eight years old. I was the invisible boy. He wanted to tell her that was when he started having his fascination with blood and mutilating animals, but he resisted. So I get it. I don't think it's made as any worse people, though. That's the important thing. If anything, we're probably stronger because of it. Jake lifted the hand he held up to his lips and kissed the top of it before bringing it into his lap. It means a lot. You know, you opening up to me like that. I really appreciate it, Jake told her, their bodies so close he wouldn't have doubted if Emma could feel his heart beating. In that moment, he felt such a strong connection to her he was tempted to kiss her and do anything in his power to make her pain go away. He was enthralled by this girl and the feeling he had in his gut was like something he'd never experienced before. He was falling for Emma.