He didn’t fight when she pushed him away, he merely moved back, and even averted his gaze for a moment before looking at her again. Though in her slightly buzzed state, Zoe didn’t realize that her hand was still on Jay’s chest as she sat there blushing.

”Well, nothing,” Zoe replied after a couple of moments, and it was her turn now to avert her eyes, looking at her almost empty beer bottle before turning back to Jay. ”But don’t you have a girlfriend?”

She really knew how to ask the tough questions, didn't she? He sighed, again breaking eye contact. "Well...yeah," he said, his voice trailing off. "Maybe I was wrong..." he said, retreating into his beer for the time being.

The awkwardness of the situation began to set in and he merely sat in silence, drinking on his beer. It was going to be his final one, but now he may as well get hammered. He sighed deeply. He and Zelda were something special, but damn if he didn't wanna go ahead and get that dress off of Zoe...

Love was hard.

He looked over at Zoe, giving another light shrug as he took another sip of beer.

He had a girlfriend. And yet he kissed her. Zoe swallowed, her eyes dropping, and only then realized that her hand was still on Jay’s chest where she had placed it to push him away from the kiss. She blushed again as she quickly lowered her hand to her lap, then looked at her beer before turning back to look at Jay.

When she wasn’t lying to herself, Zoe knew that she had wanted to kiss Jay since that first day they’d met. But he had a girlfriend, and so despite the chemistry and flirting between them, she had never gone there.

Yet tonight, with throwing a bit of alcohol into the mix, they had.

When Jay looked up from his beer, he simply shrugged. And drank some more. Yeah, the night had definitely gotten awkward quickly. ”I should probably head home,” Zoe said, giving Jay a small smile. ”Give me a call when you can hang out. I have something I’ve been working on I’d like to show you.”

With that, Zoe stood up, grabbing her purse and slipping her coat on as she walked toward the exit. Before she had gotten halfway to the door, she jumped in surprise as she felt someone touch her back. But she didn’t say or do anything else immediately because she thought that it was Jay following her.

That belief was dispelled a moment later as she heard a very different voice. “Come on, Zoe, there’s no need for you to leave. Let’s go have another drink.”

Zoe’s eyes widened in shock, and she stopped walking, turning to face the man so that his hand lost contact with her back. ”What the hell, David?” Zoe asked in confused frustration. ”What part of no do you not understand?”

Jay sighed as her hand had left his chest, and now she was leaving. He knew he messed up, though he couldn't figure out whether the mistake was kissing her, or telling her he wasn't single. Maybe there was still a shred of decency in him somewhere after all. Or maybe it was just the beer. Who knew at this point?

"Yeah, I'll be in touch. Sorry about...you know. Be safe, okay?" he looked at her apologetically, but showing real concern for her safety. He turned back to his beer as she left. He sighed, deciding to wallow in his regret.

But then he picked up Zoe's name in the hubub of the bar, and turned to see her being harrassed by the loser from before. Great. Well...since he wasn't a total ass, he had promised he'd bail her out. Pulling his walled out of his back pocket, he slapped more than enough money on the counter for his tab and a tip, then downed the rest of his beer--no need in letting it go to waste--and made his way over to the other side of the bar.

Once he made it, he didn't miss a step and landed a right hook square to David's jaw. "I think she said no," he replied. He figured he was about to get thrown out, hence the paying his tab before he got up.

Zoe nodded as Jay spoke, not quite making eye contact before she left him at the bar. And despite how the night had turned, Zoe decided that she would hold him to his word of keeping in touch, even if it meant hunting him down like she had joked about.

Zoe was glaring at David when all of a sudden Jay was there, hitting David. Well, he had promised to rescue her from a bad blind date, Zoe just hadn’t expected it to happen that night.

”Jay, let’s just go,” she said, grabbing his elbow and tugging slightly, hoping to get out of there before this turned into a full on bar fight.

Jay nodded, not wanting this to escalate farther. After all, he kind of liked this place, and he was already banned from the Trasheteria, so he'd wanted to have one place in the city where he could default on for a good drink. Besides, being banned from bars was not how you got a band gigs, after all.

Jay was snapped out of his adrenaline rush by Zoe grabbing his arm. "Yeah, let's get outta here. I like this place, after all," he said with a smile, pulling her close and walking rather briskly with her out of there. They were now on the street, slightly--or more than slightly--affected by the alcohol they'd been consuming. There was no way that could go wrong, right?

"So....since our fun night at the bar is over...you want me to walk you home? At least in case Prince Charming decides to follow you," he said with a shrug. "And you did say you wanted to show me something, anyway."

At least Jay wasn’t set on a fight, and he smiled at her as he agreed that getting out of there was a good idea. Without another look at David, Zoe turned toward the door again as she felt Jay’s arm wrapping around her shoulders, keeping her close as they walked. Zoe couldn’t help but think even in her slightly beer fuzzed mind, that for them, that was probably not the best idea. However, with how David had kept coming up to her, pressing the issue, it was probably a good thing.

It didn’t take long for them to get out of the bar and onto the street. Where Jay asked if she wanted him to walk her home. Looking up at him, she nodded slightly. ”With how things went in there, that might be a good idea,” she told him, then smiled when he brought up the fact that she had something for him. ”Let’s go. Though I’m not sure it’s quite ready yet, but I can show it to you anyway.”

And so they started walking to her place. As they went, Zoe’s arm ended up wrapping around Jay’s waist; it was just easier to walk that way with how close Jay’s arm around her shoulder was holding her.

It didn’t take long to get to her apartment, though Jay had been there often enough that she didn’t need to show or tell him where to go. And so in the building and up they went, Zoe only very slightly fumbling with her keys before letting them into her apartment. Once she was inside, Zoe slipped her coat off and sighed in relief as she took her shoes off. ”Have a seat, it’s just on my desk,” she then told Jay as she moved further into her apartment.

"Yeah, I wasn't about to wait and see what levels he'd have stooped to though," Jay said, occasionally looking over his shoulder, though mildly surprised by the arm around his waist. Sure, he wasn't a savory type of guy by any means, but he knew to take no for an answer, even though Zoe hadn't technically given him a no. What he hated was when a guy didn't know when to quit, especially when said guy harassed a girl that Jay himself had sworn to 'save.'

The road to her apartment was a familiar one, and though it took Zoe a second to get inside, he instantly made himself at home once in. He made his way to the couch, shedding his jacket and his shoes, propping his feet on the coffee table. He made himself comfortable, relaxing considerably as he waited for her.

He looked down at his fist and laughed a little. That was going to hurt tomorrow...

It was a pretty quiet walk to her apartment, though to be honest, that may have been a good thing. Who knew what may or may not have been said that could have made things worse.

But they got in to her apartment, and as she expected, Jay made himself comfortable on the couch as she started sifting through her sketchbooks for the specific picture she had drawn. Finally she found it and pulled it out, she had already cut it out of the book neatly with a straight blade, and made her way to the couch.

”Here,” Zoe said simply, handing the page to Jay as she sat beside him, one leg tucked under her. The picture was a pencil sketch of a wolf, the only color in the picture being the blue eyes that Zoe had tried to get as close as she could to replicating Jay's.

”I'm not sure I'll ever consider it done, I keep going back and tweaking it, but there it is.”

Jay waited patiently as he thought. Or rather, what would constitute thought in his current state. But those thoughts went away when he saw what she'd brought as she sat next to him.

"Damn..." he said, letting out a low whistle as he looked it over. "That's really good. Is that supposed to be me? Though, it does explain why you wanted to see me as a wolf so much," he mused. "I think it's perfect as it is," he said with a smile, gently setting it on the coffee table. "Thanks."

Zoe grinned when she saw and heard Jay's reaction to seeing the picture she had drawn. She still saw flaws in it all over the place, but she supposed that was because she was the one who had drawn it. That, and the fact that this was the first thing she had actually drawn for someone rather than as an assignment or simply for herself.

”It is supposed to be you,” Zoe confirmed with a slight nod. ”But no, I wanted to see you as a wolf so much because who wouldn't want to be able to have a tame wolf curled up on the couch with them in the middle of winter. This was just a bonus, and a way to say thank you.

“But I'm going to go get changed. Be right back.” Pushing herself off the couch, Zoe made her way to her bedroom swinging the door closed behind her, not noticing that it stopped a couple inches shy of actually being closed.

"I can tell; the blue eyes on the greyscale sketch look amazing," he complimented as he smiled over at her. "I admit that is kind of cool. Though you've helped me get even more shifts, and I don't know how to repay you for that, much less this," he said with a smile.
Thoug
Then....well, she got up to go change, but the door wasn't quite closed all the way. Could that have been an invitation? Honestly, he wasn't sure. She hadn't told him no after all. This was so freaking confusing. But...even still this was too hard to resist. Though it did cross his mind to play it safe. And he did.

Of course his idea of playing it safe was shifting into a Fennec fox, which left his clothes on the couch. Then, he crept towards the door, the big-eared little canine poking its head through the crack in the door. But he misstepped a little and the door creaked open a little farther than intended...

Zoe hadn't realized that her bedroom door hadn't closed all the way. Nor had she any idea that Jay had shifted and followed as she unzipped her dress and slid it off. In fact, she wasn't aware of any of this until she was dropping her dress on the edge of the bed when she heard the squeak from her door moving.

Looking over her shoulder, at first Zoe didn't see anything other than the fact that her door was a few inches open. But then she saw the small head and large ears of a fennec fox as she stood there in just her underwear.

”Jay!” Zoe exclaimed, immediately blushing as her eyes darted around for something to cover herself with. ”What are you doing?” Not finding any better options, Zoe grabbed the blanket from her bed and started wrapping it around herself.

The fox stood half in the doorway, watching as the dress came off. But then the door creaked, and Zoe was freaking out and covering up. So maybe it was for the best he'd decided to be more covert about this after all. So he tried to explain and apologize, though it didn't take him long to realize or remember that foxes weren't in Zoe's language repertoire.

Well then. So, he shifted back and put his hands up in sort of a display of peace. "Sorry...I wasn't sure if the open door was an invitation or not...but now I know it wasn't, so I should probably..."

He sort of backed towards the door a little, flashing her a sheepish grin.

Jay didn’t say anything at first, or do anything, simply stood there as a fox looking at her wrapping the blanket around her. She wasn’t angry, exactly, but the blush was still on her face when Jay finally shifted back to human form and started speaking.

Zoe couldn’t stop her eyes from darting quickly, which only caused her blush to intensify more as she forced her eyes back up to Jay’s. All of the many times that Jay had shifted in her apartment, they had always managed for her to avoid seeing him naked.

And yet, here he was, naked and in her bedroom, slowly backing toward the door as she stood there almost as unclothed as him. ”It wasn’t,” Zoe said, her voice barely more than a whisper as she looked over at Jay, trying to keep her eyes at an appropriate level. And when had her heart started pounding? ”Not that it hasn’t crossed my mind, but I didn’t mean…”