[i]”Exclusivity.”[/i]

It was what Jane had figured Rob would want from her, but somewhere deep inside of her, she needed to hear him request it of her due to bad habits of blaming plausible deniability in situations like this. That, and a true urge to figure out what was going on in his head. Although she wasn’t normally worried about such things as someone else’s feelings, especially while being distracted by such an amazing physical connection, she knew Rob deserved to be able to vocalize what he wanted from her as well. It was fair. 

Jane hadn’t been in an exclusive relationship in over three years completely by choice. It wasn’t a total independence thing, though, like most people automatically assumed by her. She was jaded. 

Ryan Miller. She had met him surfing when she was nineteen years old, and she was immediately infatuated by him. He was twenty-five at the time and was cut from the same cloth as Jane: the flippant attitude towards life itself, the connection to the beach and nature, constant partying and bad decisions.   What started off as something so passionate and beautiful had turned dark over a course of a year, but the changes had been so little, slowly trickling in to her daily life that it was hard for her to see and consequentially accept.

It was simple things at first, like condemning her for the same things he was doing, like partying and being reckless. Then, came bouts of jealousy over Jane hanging out with friends who were male, especially Rob. Jane, at the beginning, tried to please him by not hanging out with Rob as much, but any time that she did, she knew there would be a fight waiting for her when she got home. Soon, Ryan became more controlling, attempting to monitor where she was, who she was with, what texts or calls were coming in on her phone, until eventually, he had reached a boiling point. 

[i]”Ryan, chill the fuck out!” Jane yelled as she backed into a corner. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.” 
Ryan scoffed. “I should’ve listened to my friends, man,” he shook his head as he slowly approached her. “I should’ve known getting with a slut like you would do this to me.” 
“What the hell did I do?” At this point, Jane had lowered her voice, but remained on guard. “Please, just calm down.”
“Don’t fuckin’ tell me to calm down, Jane. I’m sick of you telling me to calm down,” he replied as he got a few inches from her face.  
She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face from him. “Get the fuck out of my face, Ryan. Please. I’m sorry, okay?” 
Another scoff. “Yeah, I bet you are.” At that moment, the back of his hand struck the side of her face, and she immediately recognized the metallic taste in her mouth as blood, forming from a split lip.
“I’m fucking done.  I’m fucking done. I’m fucking done,” Jane kept muttering to herself until Ryan had backed away from her, allowing her enough room to collect her things from his apartment and make her way to the beater she drove downstairs. 
He followed her out to keep her from leaving. “I’m sorry, Jane. I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.” 
Jane ignored him as she threw her things in the backseat and got into the car. “Move, Ryan!” she screamed through the glass at him as he stood in front of the car.
“No, Jane. Come on. Get out of the car.” 
While still in park, Jane put her foot on the pedal and made the engine roar, causing him to jump out of the way and give her room to get out onto the road.
“Fuck you! You’ll come back, you’ll always come back,” he shouted at the car.
Jane stuck a middle finger out of the window as she drove away, and luckily this time, she never went back.[/i]

Jane had always remembered that day vividly, a constant reminder of what giving someone control of another can produce. But there was also another part of that day – when she immediately drove to Rob’s house after the fight. How, after begging him not to confront Ryan, he comforted her and made her feel okay again.

He had always been there for her. 

[i]“We’ll agree to be honest with each other. No matter what that means. No bullshit.”[/i]

Jane nodded in agreement before pulling him closer to her. She had nothing more to say. Nothing else really [i]needed[/i] to be said. If Rob wanted her all to himself, she decided right then that she would try to give that to him without worrying about how she’d feel about it later on.

With both hands on the sides of his face, her lips slowly met his in passion, and her fingers slowly grazed up his skin until they were both in his hair. A fake cough from someone two machines down startled her, as she looked over, a woman gave her a disapproving look, and Jane mumbled a “sorry” to her before looking back to Rob.

“Probably shouldn’t stick my tongue down your throat in a laundromat, yeah?” she smiled as she released him from her grip. “I’m sorry I dropped all that on you,” she apologized as she hopped down from the machine and worked her warm clothes out of the dryer across from it. “What do you want to do today?” 

They had a short drive to Detroit tomorrow with an interview scheduled in the afternoon, then a 9 PM set at a large venue in the city. 

Jane paused in thought as she was taking the last of her clothes out of the dryer and turned to Rob, a curious expression on her face. “Where did you and Sam go this morning?