Elodie & Jasper
The concept that every human being was complex and layered and what you saw on the surface was only a tiny fraction of who they were was still kind of above Jasper’s head. He knew from personal experience that Jules was much more than she seemed, but it was hard to apply that to everyone else in the world. So to him Clint Nolan was boring as dry toast and he would probably get fat and bald early in life and just be a car salesman or something. If Elodie wanted to put herself to sleep by having sex with him, that was up to her ... though thinking about her scaring the guy with her strangulation talk was kind of funny. Jasper took another hit off of the joint, still smirking at her, a bit of excitement shooting through him at getting some gossip he could maybe pass along to Ruby if she wanted to know. “Oh damn, yeah, who?” he asked, not picking up on any change in Elodie’s expression.
It was the alcohol and weed that made Elodie all hyped up to tell Jasper everything she knew, which admittedly wasn't much, but still. People were weird about their boyfriends and girlfriends fucking other people. But now that she could say it out loud to him, she felt kind of bad. It was a weird, foreign sensation creeping in and she honestly didn't like it. But maybe Jasper wouldn't even care. Or maybe he'd care too much. He was like that sometimes. "Well, don't kill the messenger," she started, bouncing lightly on the balls of her heels, her arms folding across her chest. "Or get mad at the messenger, or anything like that. Clint told me it was Jules."
Jasper felt like it took him an extra second to comprehend the words, and then his stomach fell and the expression faded from his face. Jules. Jules had fucked Clint Nolan. While he’d been with Ruby, and she’d known that. When did it happen again? Jasper was suddenly struggling to remember. The immediate rage and hurt that erupted in his chest wasn’t fair, he knew that somewhere, but it was hard to keep that in mind when he had such an overwhelming reaction inside. It occurred to him that maybe Elodie was lying just to rile him up, and even more anger welled up inside of him. The color had drained out of his face, but two red splotches had bloomed in his cheeks. “You’d better not be fucking with me, Elodie,” Jasper said, staring hard at her.
Elodie squinted one eye, scrunching up her nose as the news settled in and Jasper's expression changed. Yeah, he was pissed. Ruby would be pissed too, if she found out. But she didn't really care about Ruby. She cared about Jasper, as much as she could care about anyone, and she kind of regretted telling him. But whatever, it was out now and Elodie hadn't figured out how to turn back time yet. "I'm not fucking with you," she said simply. "I mean, I do fuck with you sometimes, but not like, about this kinda stuff. Anymore." Because she had fucked around before, but that was forever ago and since then they'd been through some fucked up shit together so now he was on her very short list of people she'd never deliberately hurt. Unless he hurt her first, of course. "He told me it was Jules. That's all I know."
He didn’t want to, but he believed her. If they hadn’t been through the shit they’d been through, he probably wouldn’t have, because she did like to lie and fuck around with people. Jasper just didn’t think she was, not this time. Jules had really fucked Clint Nolan and broken up him and Ruby. That probably hadn’t been her intention, and if he was going to cheat on her, Ruby was better off without that asshole anyway, but still. It was a fucked up thing to do. “Why would he tell you that?” he asked, his voice tight and clipped. He wasn’t pissed at Elodie, but he was pissed. “What exactly did he say?”