“I don’t really know how it happened… It just did. We started working together again and everything just sort of fell into place from there. Like it was always meant to be.”

May 1st, 2010 BloombergVanity Fair Party At Pierre Vimont

I could follow you to the beginning/ Just to relive the start/ Maybe then we'd remember to slow down/ At all of our favorite parts/ All I wanted was you

Nick Jonas & Demi Lovato arrive at LAX 

“How was it?” She asks, trying to remain casual, cool. Like it isn’t a big deal, even though it is. She doesn’t like this feeling that was in her stomach. This feeling that tells her that she hoped his date was awful, that the girl was dumb and had no interest in him. She doesn’t know why she wanted it to go poorly, but she does. Jealousy, no, that isn’t it. She isn’t jealous of this mystery girl. It’s just that he’s her best friend and she doesn’t want some floozy coming along and ruining his life and screwing things up. She’s just… protective.

Nick plops down on the couch next to her, putting his feet up on her coffee table. She quickly bats his legs down and he laughs a bit, knowing she didn’t like it when he did that but he always did it anyways. He puts his legs back down and sips his water. “It was good. I had fun.” He shrugs.

“Are you gonna go out with her again?” Demi bites her lip gently and picks up her phone, checking to see if anyone has texted her, but it’s a blank screen. She wants to act like she doesn’t really care, that his date is of no importance to her, but she’s just being protective, right? She has to ask, has to find out. She’s looking out for him is all.

“Probably.” He nods. “I could see something working.”

“Really?” She raises her eyebrows a bit and he looks over at her.

“Yeah, why not? We had a good time.” He leans back against the couch and sips his water again, shrugging.

“She just seems a little… Ditzy to me.” She offers and Nick laughs lightly.

“You haven’t even met her.”

She smiles lightly. “I know, but Joe told me about her. I don’t know, she just doesn’t seem your type.”

“Oh?”

She sighs a bit. “Well, like… Joe says she’s tone deaf. And she really isn’t into music all that much. So I just can’t see you with someone who’s like that. Plus, she majorly needs to touch up her roots cause that’s not attractive. Her brain cells are probably all dead from bleaching her hair that god awful blonde.” She laughs a bit and he shakes his head, smiling.

“Says the girl who just got back from being platinum blonde.” He teases.

“Horrible mistake.” She laughs and looks up at him. “Seriously, though. She just doesn’t seem good for you.”

“Why does it matter? I’m just trying to have fun.” He shrugs. “I’m not looking for anything serious.”

“You’re wasting your time with her.”

“So?”

“So… don’t.” Demi sighs, getting a little frustrated now.

“Why not?”

“Because!”

“Because why?”

She takes a deep breath, thinks ‘screw it’ and leans up quickly, her lips crashing into his. Surprisingly, he doesn’t pull back, doesn’t freak out or push her away, he kisses her back, as hard as she’s kissing him.

“Oh.” He says simply, a little breathless as they pull away.

She doesn’t know what to say, what to do next. She’s freaking out on the inside, panicked and confused. She doesn’t know why she did that, what the hell what she even thinking? Nothing, except that she wanted him. She wanted him and she has wanted him for a while. And shit, there’s no going back now.

“I mean, it’s good…” Demi bites her lip gently, offering a shrug. But he can tell she doesn’t like it. They exchange a look and she sighs. “It is! I like it, it’s just… I don’t know. Some of the lyrics sound kind of… dumb.” She says simply.

“Dumb?” Nick raises his eyebrows and leans back in his chair, his arms crossing in defense. “You do realize that this is our first single in three years, right?”

“I know! It’s good, Nick, really, I like the beat and it’s fun, I just…” She sees the look on his face and sighs, knowing he’s pretty furious at her. “You told me to be honest! I’m being honest!”

“Don’t talk about bad lyrics when you’re over here singing about a ken doll. Those are dumb lyrics!” He says harshly, mostly just angry that his best friend is doing this to him.

She rolls her eyes at him. “At least I’m not asking girls to shake their boobs at me.”

“Okay, that is not – !”

“Oh, isn’t it? Come on, Nick! Seriously?” She gives his a look and he just shakes his head and gets up from his seat, starting to grab his stuff. “You’re acting like a child. Am I not allowed to dislike one of your songs?”

He ignores her question as he slings his bag over his shoulder, not looking at her and quickly putting on his sunglasses to avoid her gaze. “I’ll see you later.” He mutters. And just when she thinks he might be calming down, he walks out and slams the door behind him.

“No, you’re making it harder than it needs to be. Here…” Demi takes the pencil from him and shows him for what must have been the tenth time. He just sighs and sits back, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

“Can’t you just take the test for me?” He looks up at her with wide, puppy dog eyes and she laughs.

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t. I hate math.”

He raises an eyebrow. “How do you hate math? You have like, a 102 average!”

She shrugs simply, like a 102 average is no big deal. “You don’t have to love something to be good at it. I don’t know, it just comes naturally, I guess.”

“Lucky.” He sighs again and shakes his head, but she just smiles and hands him the pencil.

“Try again.” She tells him.

He takes the pencil and goes back to the problem, but he really just doesn’t want to do this right now. “If you hate math so much, why are you spending two hours trying to help me? Wouldn’t you rather be doing something you actually enjoy?” He asks as he starts to work the equation again.

“Your mom bribed me with cookies. I can’t turn down her cookies.” She says with a laugh, but when he looks up he sees there’s something more behind it. And he knows, he’s always known about her struggle with eating. They’ve known each other since they were kids and it’s always been kind of an unspoken thing between them. He knows she doesn’t want to talk about it and she doesn’t want to drag him into her problems, so they both just kind of ignore it.

“I know the feeling.” He says with a light laugh, tapping the pencil against the page impatiently. “Really though, this is dumb.” He tosses the pencil aside and she shakes her head at him.

“Come on, one more time.” She picks up his notebook and turns the page, writing the equation out again. He watches her carefully and smiles to himself, liking the way her hair falls gently out from behind her ear, how she bites her lip as she copies the numbers onto the paper, how she’s spending her Saturday night tutoring him in math when she hates the subject, how she’s his best friend and pretty much everything he wants in life, how they’re kind of perfect for each other.

“Dems?” He says quietly and she looks up, tucking her hair back behind her ear.  “Let’s go somewhere. Like… Out. Out to dinner.”

“You don’t want the left-over takeout?” They had previously planned to finish off the Chinese food that sat in her fridge, maybe watch a movie, and pass out on the couch. That’s usually how it worked with them.

He shakes his head. “No, I wanna go out with you. Like on a date. We can get fresh Chinese, if you want.” He smiles, but she looks confused and a little taken aback. “But if you’re not up for it,” He says quickly, trying to recover. “I mean if you don’t want to, we can… Yeah, left-overs sound good.” He nods quickly, hoping now that they can just forget he even said anything and watch the movie as planned. “Let’s just… Yeah, we’ll do that. We’ll…”

“Nick?” She says simply, just to make him stop talking. He looks at her worriedly, knowing he’s completely ruined their friendship and there’s no way they’ll get past this now.

He takes a deep breath and swallows hard, looking up at her. “Yeah?”

She leans up, biting her lip like she was before, but in a more nervous way. “It’s about damn time.” She says quietly as she presses their lips together. Her hand snakes up around his neck and she pulls him close, kissing him hard like she’s been waiting to do this for God knows how long. He sighs into it, letting his arm wrap around her waist and he swears, if he could, he’d never come up for air.