After the holidays, things settled in a dull blur of gloomy weather and work for both Jack and Kelsey. Zach's friend Turk, the one one who had been conveniently away for the holidays, decided to stay in Mexico through May, thus extending the convenient circumstances for Jack. He, Zach, Jeff and Toby spent the morning of the second moving Jack out of Kelsey's house. He had very little stuff, and only the futon sofa in the way of furniture, so it only took two trips. Thankfully, Kelsey wasn't around.

Jack had seen the picture of her leaving Phoenix's house with him on New Year's Day, hand in hand with Phoenix, and it had been like a punch in the gut. To know that she was moving on was one thing, but to have pictorial proof that she'd spent the night with another man was another.

Jack went through his days with his head down, powering grimly through the frigid, dark morning swim practices, the long days of classes, the afternoons and evenings of studying and homework, and the lonely, sleepless nights without Kelsey. He could only wonder how he'd endured such a life before he'd known her. 

Other than his friends on the swim team and Marian, he really only talked to the girls in his study group. Rain, Teresa and Nadine were equal parts sorrowful and furious to find out he'd broken up with Kelsey.

"What? You what?" This was Teresa, always the most outspoken of the three. "Why? Oh, Jack, no!" She stared at him, brown eyes shocked. On either side of her, Rain and Nadine were also looking at him, wide-eyed in disbelief. They were sitting in class before it began.

He explained, very briefly, about Marian and trust and what relationships were based on.

"Jack, please," Teresa responded flatly, brushing aside his opinion on trust and what relationships were based on. 

"That's such a load of crap," Rain put in.

Nadine just nodded, blonde curls bouncing.

Jack looked at the three girls in surprise. "What, you think I was wrong?"

"Of course you were wrong, you idiot," Rain said. "Oh my goodness, how can such a smart guy be so stupid?" She gestured down the line at herself and her two friends. "You could've had any of us at any time, but we knew, as soon as we talked to you, that you were in it for the long haul with Kelsey Carlisle."

Jack blinked and leaned his head back in shock at her words.

"What, like you didn't know all three of us were into you?" Nadine asked, speaking for the first time. She shook her head. "You're a grade-A fool for sure, Jack."

"And even if you hadn't said anything, we knew for certain sure as soon as we saw you two together," Teresa said, emphasizing her words by poking Jack, rather hard, in the chest with her finger. "You could practically see the steam when you looked at each other."

"And now you're telling us that we held back, just so you could break up with your OTP and get with that swimmer chick?" Rain asked.

"Held back?" Jack repeated, embarrassed by how squeaky his voice was. The classroom was filling up, and a few people turned to look at him. And what was OTP?

This conversation was making him dizzy. And uncomfortable. And confused.

"Of course we held back," Teresa informed him, continuing to poke him with her finger. "We all recognize prime man meat when we see it, but we're not going to get between an OTP, am I right?" She looked back and forth at her two friends, who were both nodding vigorously. "I mean, Jack, we're women, but we have manners, we have standards, you know what I'm saying?"

Jack shook his head violently. "NO," he said desperately. "I have no idea what you're talking about. And what in the world is an 'OTP'?"

All three girls burst out laughing at his words, and it looked like Nadine was getting ready to answer him when the professor walked in, ending their conversation.

Rain quickly took out a clip, pulling her plentiful red hair back and out of the way, opening up her laptop and taking out her notebook and pen.

Jack somehow made it through class, though he couldn't have told anyone anything the professor said during the ninety minutes he sat there. The words of the girls kept going through his head. 

He shouldn't have broken up with Kelsey. He was wrong. He shouldn't be with Marian.

OTP?

As soon as class was over, the girls briskly gathered their belongings, along with Jack, and carried him in their midst, so to speak, to the student union, where they found a table in the back to continue their conversation.

The girls ordered coffee, Jack a smoothie, and they picked up where they'd left off.

"Aww, poor Jack," Nadine commiserated, rubbing his arm in sympathy. "Look girls, we've frightened him."

Great, now they were making fun of him. Irritated, he yanked his arm away. "I'm not frightened," he insisted. "But I'm getting sick and tired of getting advice from everyone and their brother about my love life, and none of it is the same." He glared at the three mirthful young women. "And for the love of Pete, what is an OTP?"

"One true pairing!" they chorused in unison.

One true pairing?

"You know, the person you're intended for? The one you're meant to go through life and eternity with?" Teresa explained, laughing. "Like you and Kelsey, you dummy."

Jack sat back, his smoothie untouched.

"But Marian said Kelsey and I seemed to have so many differences," he began. "Marian saw us together and she said that Kelsey was--was--"

"I'm sure Marian said a lot of things," Rain interrupted, her voice soft. "But Marian wanted different things than you did, didn't she?"

"What does that mean?" Jack picked up his smoothie and took a drink, looking at Rain.

"Jack, it was obvious to anyone with eyes that Marian wanted you for herself." Rain, too picked up her coffee and took a sip. Teresa and Nadine nodded in agreement.

"No, that's not true, not at the beginning," Jack said. He sounded uncertain, even to himself. When had he realized that Marian "wanted him for herself", though? By the time she told him, he already knew, right? Jack could no longer remember when that particular piece of information had seeped into his consciousness.

"Besides, when did you even see me and Marian together?" Jack asked. He was thoroughly confused now. As far as he could recall, his study group had only seen him with Kelsey, and that was very briefly, at his house, when they'd been working on their project. They hadn't seen him with Marian at all, had they?"

Now Nadine was talking, blue eyes flicking over her phone as she scrolled through something. "Jack, Marian Lowell has been posting stuff of you and her together since way back in September, I think." She found what she was looking for and clicked on it. "Yeah, see?" She handed her phone to Jack. 

Marian was keeping some kind of online blog journal or something, and it was full of Jack. There were numerous pictures of them having lunch and dinner together while Kelsey was stuck on the set, of when they went to Griffith observatory, of when they went to the Halloween party together. Most of these pictures were accompanied by posts she'd written, like journal entries, just funny little essays. 

The number of pictures and entries ramped up after Marian started working out with the team, and there were quite a few of their trip to Vegas. To anyone looking at these, it would indeed appear as if Jack were the new man in her life. Of Kelsey there was very little mention.

Jack handed the phone back to Nadine. "What is that, exactly? And how many followers or whatever does she have?"

Nadine looked at it, shrugging. "Um, looks like a couple hundred thousand? It's not private or anything. She's pretty famous, you know? Since she won the gold medal and everything? And everyone knows a movie's being made about her life. She has a lot of followers. You've never seen this?"

Jack shook his head. He had social media accounts, but he wasn't very active. He knew he even had some "fans" who followed his swimming career, and that the number had grown after he became Kelsey's coach, but he pretty much ignored all of that stuff, leaving it to Kelsey and her publicist to keep track of all of it. Kelsey had never seen it, either, he was fairly sure, or she would've been much more upset, much earlier.

"So you guys think we shouldn't have broken up?" He looked at them, one at at a time, and they were all shaking their heads at him, brown eyes, blue, and blue, looking back soberly, regretfully.

"Jack, you're such a great guy, but you're like a baby in the woods, you know?" Teresa said, looking at him fondly. "You just don't have the weapons to defend yourself against what's out there." She waved a hand at Nadine's phone. "You were easy pickings for the first woman to come along who took aim at you."

"Hold on a minute." Jack was getting tired of this. "I'm not some baby rabbit or orphan deer or something, you know?" He took a deep breath. "I am a sentient adult, capable of making decisions on my own." He glared at the trio sitting across from him. "For your information, Kelsey broke up with me. I begged her not to. She pretty much told me to give things a try with Marian, and see what happened."

"Do you hear what you're saying?" Rain asked. "You're saying you can make your own decisions, then in the very next breath you're saying that Kelsey told you to do this." She smiled at Jack, though it was a kind smile, with no malice. "Jack, you're still not making your own decisions, don't you see? First Marian was pulling your strings, and now Kelsey is, and 'other people,' whomever they might be, but it's still not you."

She leaned forward. "What do you want? You? Just you? Jack?" 

Jack stared at her. "I don't even know any more," he admitted. "All I know is that I'm so unhappy, you guys."

"You want Kelsey, Jack, don't you know that?" Nadine asked. "Can't you tell?"

Jack shook his head. "She doesn't want me anymore. She's moved on. She's practically living with that guy, Phoenix McTaggart."

Teresa shook her head. "I bet she'd surprise you."

"I have to try to do what she asked. I have to at least try, you know?" He finished his smoothie, then looked around at the three young women. "Thanks, though, you guys, thanks for talking to me."

Rain, too, shook her head at him. "It's been weeks, though, Jack. I can't believe you didn't talk to us about this sooner."

Jack shrugged. "It's all over the place, I thought you all knew."

"We saw all that stuff with Phoenix at New Years, but we figured it was just rumors, and we didn't want to pry," Teresa said. 

"Nah, you guys are friends now, no prying involved," Jack replied, giving them a grin.

"Oh no, you mean, we've missed our chance?" Rain turned to her friends. "You heard him, girls, we've officially been 'friend-zoned'," she said with a grin. She turned back to Jack with a grin. "We should've tried harder, I guess. We can be real barracudas, I've been told."

"I bet," Jack laughed, rising. 

They all rose as well, surprising him, descending on him in a group, hugging and kissing him, laughing.

Jack left the student union feeling better than he'd felt in a while, for some reason, and with a lot to think about.