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"... That must have been some shitty day." Jaimie Leontine's voice cut through the pleasantries like an hungry Bengal into a circus audience. He had his chin resting on one hand, his eyes half lidded and only half paying attention to her, and his other hand, wielding a long handled spoon, was stabbing idly at a melting ice cream sundae. It was hard to tell at this juncture bit it looked like it was probably coffee ice cream and plenty of hot fudge. It was difficult to say however if he'd eaten much, or if he'd just been sitting there stabbing it to death with his spoon. There was a cell phone partially obscured by his jacket. A small, unimpressive thing in brownish colors, it looked far less high tech than might have been expected for him...though the three or four plastic lion charms were very predictable.

Jaimie blinked, then raised an suspicious eyebrow at Cordelia. The two of them hadn't historically gotten along, and he was a little leary of it now. Especially so because the source of his problems was female, and well... there was always hints of the mythic level 'Girl Network'.

"That's unusually generous of you." he pointed out, cautiously, pausing to lick a melted slurry of coffee icecream and room temperature fudge off the end of the spoon before pushing his melted sundae slightly off to one side. He'd actually never -tried- birthday-cake ice cream, it always gave him the vibe that you might need an insulin shot afterward, but hey... he'd been trying lots of new things lately. Like Loosing. And getting kicked in the junk. And shot. And turning down incredibly awkward, sterilized offers of sex, which had been as romantic as a cold, stainless steel probe.

He sized her up cautiously, trying to form a chain of connection between her and the source of his current dilemma... and finally offered out the tidbit:

"...It's girl trouble. And if any of this gets back to her, I'll probably have even more trouble."

Jaimie actually managed a slight snort of laughter at this, leaning back slightly in his seat and shrugging his shoulder, a bit stiffly. He was pretty sure most of it was psychosomatic, but he still felt the odd ache or two where he'd been struck.

"...Am I going to need to send for an paramedic in case one of us actually finishes these?" He added, poking at the new sundae, from which he saw glimpses of decadant looking brownie. Mm. Brownie.

"Tallulah Cowden. I think you've seen her. Sort of teal-black hair... wears the little star clip all the time." He gestured vaguely at his head in a mimicry of the microtail which sprouted from her habitual hair ornament.

He grimaced at the name, looking thoughtful and then attacked his own new sundae with a spoon, stabbing off a chunk of ice cream and eyeing it accusingly as he added. "... I don't know, it's complicated."

He stuck the spoon in his mouth, still glaring at some introspective point as he considered, letting the ice cream melt without really tasting it, and continued. "I seriously don't even know where to start. I..." He hesitated again. "...I dunno. I think I made a mistake."

That was a loaded statement if ever there'd been one, but he wasn't sure how to immediately follow up on it. There was just so damn much.... and it felt like the more he thought about it the more things kept cropping up.

Jaimie almost choked on his icecream.

His eyes widened, his spine stiffened, his face paled, and he jolted in his chair, and he thumped his chest with the heel of his hand, coughing.

"W-what?? NO!" If her comment had been loud, his was definitely audible, and he coughed a couple more times before answering, red from choking and embarassment both. "God no." ... Wait... that probably sounded worse than he'd intended... or...something.

"No. She's freaking out because I didn't have sex with her." He admitted, in a much lower voice, giving her a defiant look, daring her to make fun of the choice. "...It was too goddamn weird."

Granted he kind of knew people probably got... certain kinds of 'self help' from the fan fiction posted under the pseudo-identity "Kitsune Trick", but he'd never planned for his crappy smut-fic to lead to...
And that had only been the beginning of the awkwardness.

"And I mean it was... just weird."

"...Weird as in a proctologist would have had a sexier come on." He snorted, glowering. "I'm not Gay."

Maybe a bit curious, but that wasn't the same thing as Gay. He had no problem with boobs, but the entire thing had just put him off.

"She found a bunch of shitty old fanfics I wrote and put on the net for laughs under a fake name, she started reading them, and then she was like "Hey we could have sex." And it was just the way she said it, it wasn't like "Hey this would be fun" it was kind of more "This is the obligatory action we must follow as directed by the invisible script."

He spoke the last bit in a deliberate, slightly mechanical monotone to emphasize what had bothered him.

"It just hit me as really weird because this is the girl who balked at the idea of going steady because she's not in college yet, and she was afraid of what her dad would think. But apparently it's ok if I jump the bones of Daddy's Little Girl, but not if I say "Hey, I'd like to potentially make a commitment here."

He was still scowling, becoming more animated as the metaphorical cork on his bottled up thoughts came loose.

"What's up with that anyway? I mean... that doesn't make sense... at all... and now I kinda feel stupid for even offering to go steady with her because she kinda freaked out about that too..."

He'd been so...hopeful at the time. It had seemed like a major and significant moment, especially with so many people around them almost dying... which had been followed by... well... that damned battle in Elysion.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time, I mean I have no idea if something's going to eat my goddamn head tomorrow morning." He protested, waving his spoon like a baton. "But seriously what the hell... I feel like I made a major wrong turn two seconds out of the damn starting gate and somehow I didn't notice till now."

"Ok Barbie, let's move past the writing..." he growled, flipping a small glop of whipped cream and sprinkles in her direction. It wasn't exactly 'claws' but his aim had gotten better since becoming a Senshi.

Sheesh... it was thrilling to be the source of high entertainment. "Remind me why I'm asking -you- for advice again?" He demanded, decidinCag to make her wait by briefly picking a the Sundae again, which also gave him a chance to calm down a little, instead of continuing to 'conduct' the room with his broad gestures.

He sighed again, trying to put answers together around the facts that he had.

"...I dunno. I've never asked if she had a previous boyfriend." He admitted. " She's pretty comfortable around guys, I mean part of the study group, there was this dink of a guy who went fishing in her underwear drawer before and she didn't freak out as much as I would have expected..."

Had they been 'involved'? He always kind of thought that Captain Perv had just been sort of... Pervy but now he was starting to get a little paranoid.

"Maybe." He admitted. "But it still felt kind of wierd."

Her reaction was interesting. Cordellia was apparently dating a guy who didn't know they were dating? ... Sad.... But better not to comment on it within kicking distance.

"She's usually pretty in control. That's also kinda maybe something I've been thinking about. I mean I stopped talking to Cee because she was a great damn ringleader and look where that got me."

He figured it probably wasn't a secret among 'the set' that he and his twin sister were not on remotely amicable terms, which was something like saying that Hydrogen and Oxygen wouldn't hang out anymore.

It was also the heart of his problem, approached in a somewhat roundabout way, and he looked a bit pensive as he broached it, making a point to ignore the glare.