“You’re crazy.”

Pacey looked up from his thick history textbook and grinned infuriatingly.  “I’m crazy?”

“Yes,” Joey said decisively.  “Whatever possessed you to wear that shirt with those pants?”

“Oh, and you’re just the picture of fashionable elegance, Potter,” he said sarcastically.  “I happen to like this shirt.”

She wrinkled her nose.  “Hawaiin shirts are so passé, Pace.  Even you, with your excess of class, can’t pull it off.”

“But I can,” he said mischievously, and tugged his shirt over his head.

“Cute,” she threw back, trying to hid the blush in her cheeks.  The sight of Pacey’s tan, toned arms and muscular chest (now only covered by a tight undershirt that left very little to the imagination) was making her sweat.

“I know.”  He blew her a kiss.

“See, you do know, and that’s why you aren’t attractive in the least,” Joey shot back.

“I do know what?”

Now she was stuck.  “You know…well…stuff…”

Pacey rolled his eyes.  “Deep, Jo.  Soon I’m going to abandon this scintillating banter for my much more entertaining history reading.”

“I never liked you anyway.”

Pacey raised his eyebrows.  “Even shirtless?”

She couldn’t hide the blush this time.  “You’re a cretin.”

“Yeah, but I’m a good-looking cretin.  That’s what you meant, isn’t it?  I know I’m cute, and therefore I’m not.  You prefer those distant, oblivious types.”

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes.  “Yeah, I’m sure you know exactly my type.”

“I know exactly who isn’t your type.”

“Yeah, you.”

“Oooh, that hurts.”  Pacey clutched his chest melodramatically.  “Right here…you got me.”

“Do your work and shut up, Pace.”

He smiled slightly and turned back to his book.  Several moments passed in silence.  Joey couldn’t concentrate.  Her mind flashed to everything but history…the way Pacey’s eyes twinkled when he laughed…the way he always looked at her like she was beautiful…him shirtless…sitting across from her…

“So what do you think my type is?” Joey asked hastily.

Pacey looked up from his book.  “Josephine, I’m trying to study.”

“C’mon.”

“I think the better question is what you think your type is,” Pacey said slowly.

“I don’t know.  I just know I haven’t found him yet,” Joey said a little bitterly.

“Maybe you just haven’t looked hard enough,” Pacey muttered.

“What?” Joey asked.

“Nothing.  I should read.”

“Why are we doing this again?” Joey asked.

“Because you lost the bet.”

“What bet was this?”

“The sobriety bet.  About whether you could hold out on alcohol for six months,” Pacey said matter-of-factly.

“It had been six months.”

“It had not! I was keeping track.  You had two more weeks, and you were completely and utterly smashed last weekend.”

“Dawson said--”

“I know, Dawson said since we’re seniors we should throw a wild party.  I guess the junior year fiasco wasn’t enough for him--”

Joey put up her hand.  “Please.  Go no further.  I choose not to remember that party, the strippers, Dawson crashing the boat…”

“No, what you choose not to remember is you throwing yourself at him, him shoving you  my way, and me comforting you--”

“You did not comfort me.  You upset me.”

Pacey gave her a look.  “Jo.”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

 She did, and felt herself tremble at the intensity of his hazel eyes focused on hers.

“I comforted you.  If nothing else, I made you laugh.”

Joey smiled lopsidedly.  “Well, maybe a little.”

“And I won the bet fair and square because you-being the little lush you are-got yourself toasted last week, nearly broke Dawson’s coffee table, and tried to--” he stopped.

“Tried to do what?” Joey asked.  “I remember very little.”

“Never mind.”  He shuffled some papers uncomfortably.  “It was stupid.”

“I know, Pace…but I’d rather have you tell me than some random person at school who saw me degrading myself under the influence.”

“You tried to kareoke to Diana Ross, that’s all,” Pacey said, trying to smile. “Apparently there ain’t no mountain high enough…”

Joey slapped her hand to her forehead.  “I’m definitely never touching alcohol again.”

“Yeah, well…just to make sure, I’m going to be studying with you for the next week to remind you how stupid it is for ye of little tolerance to touch anything even mildly alcoholic, okay?”

Joey smiled. “The experience should be sufficiently horrible to reform me.  I don’t need a twelve-step program…just your company.”

“Yeah, I love you too, Potter,” Pacey threw back.

It’d all be okay if that wasn’t so true, Pacey thought sadly.