Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Five (section)

===Summer's Over===


Jake snorted.  “How cynical.”  He crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back in the bucket seat, eyes half-shut.  “You know…I didn’t tell my parents about our mutual realization.”

“Hmm?”

“On the Observation Deck of the Fang,” he reminded her.

Venus half-smiled, crossing her arms over her stomach.  “I implied it to my parents when they specifically said they were wondering if you were going to propose.”

“Mmm.”  Jake sighed at the ceiling of the airtruck.  “I don’t think they’d trust me to make that kind of commitment.  My mother actually had the stones to ask me if I ever felt you and your cousins were being nice to me because they thought it made them better people, or absolved them of moral burdens, or some shit.”

Venus shrugged uncomfortably.  “What did you say?”

“I said ‘of course not,’” Jake said.  “But the fact that she even asked…I mean, the context was Remilia giving me all those clothes and gifts and stuff.”

“Well, I guess to someone who doesn’t know just how grateful to you she was, I suppose that could look like graft or condescension,” Venus said.  “But do you think it was?”

“Of course not, my mother’s just stubborn,” Jake said, waving his hand.

Venus twisted in her seat to look her boyfriend over.  He was idly rubbing one finger across his chin, thinking.  “So…do you think we should talk more about this?”

“About what?” he asked.

“About getting married.”

Jake’s stomach tightened up a bit.  “Well…honestly, no,” he said.  “Don’t get me wrong…I think we should, someday…but hell, I bet every seventeen-year-old thinks that at some point.  And what’s the odds?  Something like seventy-five percent of high school marriages end in divorce?”

“So you think we should wait?” Venus asked.  “But not rule it out?”

Jake smiled ruefully.  “I actually considered buying a ring with the money Remilia gave me, on Nocturne, but then I remembered.  You’re a jeweler.  You’d make a ring nicer than anything I could buy.”

Venus shook her head.  “You’re incorrigible.”

“I have my moments.”  Jake reached over and caressed her hand.  “But if you want to think about something longer-term…”

She caught his hand in hers.  “Mom specifically asked me if we were going to be using this as a test bed for something more permanent.”

“Well, of course we are,” Jake said.  “We’re living together.”

“Yeah, but –”

“Also, ‘test bed’ sounds like a great idea,” Jake mused.

Venus sighed through her grin.  “Jake, baby, come on.”

“Sure,” he said, pulling his hand back.  “So…where are we going with this?”

Venus shrugged against her seat.  “Who knows?  I don’t.”

“Well,” Jake said, pushing his seat back as far as it went, “as long as the air conditioner in our room lets us do the ‘fire in the freezer’ thing, I’m good for now,” he said innocently.

Venus laughed, slapping her hand over her mouth.  “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“If you have a better idea,” Jake said, sounding so very hurt.

“Nope, I like it,” she admitted.

He grinned happily as she fought down her giggles.  She was beautiful.  She was funny.  She was, as far as he could tell, the ideal woman for him.  And for the next four years, they’d be growing and learning together.

Jake leaned sideways to stare out the window at the hundreds of tiny fluctuation in the surface of the hive skin below.  Life, he decided, was good for him, right then, and he was looking forward to it.

Venus stood up in the cab to grab her slate from its bag on the floor of the truck behind her.  She started it up and paged through it to the movies directory, and sat down to watch one.  As she did, she glanced over at where Jake was looking out the window, and smiled to herself.  Kouthry would be demanding, she hoped, and she had no idea how her relationship with Jake was going to end, but she knew it would be fun finding out.

The truck and the pilotless car behind it sailed over the hives towards the school, unmarked and unremarkable.  Inside, two seventeen-year-olds thought about the future, about school and love, and about how life was better for the other’s presence.  They soared east, to where Jake and Venus' desires had drawn them, and to lives they could enjoy together.


The End.



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[[Category:Warhammer High]]