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thegeek-s · 1 year

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37. lovers’ tangle, snakeskin boots, and a spilled candle

PREVIOUSLY: Kat thinks Mark’s been acting strange since coming back but she chucks it off to jetlag and touring induced exhaustion; she rallies some people to go see Pet Semetary together and gets roped into chaperoning Lizzy and Jerry’s date before that, along with Sean, who’s anything but thrilled to be there; the lovebirds in question, in the meantime, are continuing to hold off on unsupervised dating but that doesn’t extinguish any of the sparks and chemistry between them; Mudhoney play their first show since coming back to Seattle and the ambience seems to sufficiently change Lizzy and Jerry’s minds about keeping their physical distance after all.

I’ve been feeling like a damn teenager lately and I really need to get a grip. Thing is, I couldn’t stop thinking about Lizzy the whole day today, basically counting down hours and minutes until I’d see her. She drives me fuckin’ crazy, just the thought of her… Hell, we haven’t even kissed! Isn’t that fuckin’ ridiculous? I did tell her I’ve never felt about anyone else the way I feel about her and I know it’s the corniest shit you could think of but I really meant it.

I splash some water on my face and as I’m straightening back up from the sink, a guy pokes his head into the restroom and tosses what looks like a used condom into a bin next to me. Ah, the undying romance of these places… Actually, funnily enough, Mark has been introducing every song tonight with some weird preamble about love and it’s obviously doing something to the crowd.

And I can’t really fully exclude myself…although I’m not sure if the credit should go to Mark here… Honestly, all I’ve been thinking about since I got here is how much I do want to kiss Lizzy. Which, of course, I’m not going to! We agreed not to do anything until I see Dee. And that’s in a week’s time. This is clearly important to Lizzy and I guess I can see where she’s coming from. Just as much as she doesn’t want to start anything with a guy who’s potentially not over his ex, I don’t want to seem like I rush into relationships recklessly and randomly. So no kissing tonight.

I stare at my reflection in the dirty, fractured mirror for a minute longer after drying my face with a paper towel and finally come back out of the restroom. I sit back down on my stool right as Mudhoney are starting…an actual love song, by the sound of it? Expect the unexpected, I guess… Both Lizzy and I exchange thoroughly amused grins and then I launch into a little impromptu dance, which makes her laugh even more.

“I didn’t know you’re such a great dancer,” she beams up at me.

“I’m a man of many, many talents, Liz.” And I’ll tell you all about them sometime later…

I sit back down and pull her closer, nuzzling my face into the crook of her neck. The sweet flowery, peachy smell of her hair fills my lungs and I think that even if I can’t kiss her tonight, I’m still feelin’ pretty damn happy. She starts humming along to the song, making up a melody that weaves in and out of the dirty, crackly chords. I love how this girl just knows music, she just feels it, understands it inside out. When she sings and hums, it comes out so effortlessly and perfectly. It’s just like talking for the rest of us.

I press a quick peck to her hair at that thought and feel her instantly tense up just a little. I lift my face, intending to apologize for that misstep, but I’m met with her sexy brown eyes and then…then she kisses me! And there’s no convincing required on my part; I bring my hand to cup her face and use the other to pull her closer as I deepen the kiss.

“Wow, Lizzy…” I look at her, quite literally speechless, when we pull apart after very long, very lovely couple of minutes. “I’ve been dying to do that for a while now,” I stroke her cheek with my thumb .

“Me too, actually,” she purrs, just inches away from my face; still so close that I can feel her breath on my lips…and then we kiss again…and then some more… and we kiss the rest of the night away, and it makes me feel like I’m on fuckin’ drugs, and I never wanna stop.

“Oh, hey, Lizzy,” a familiar nasal voice reaches my ears and does it very efficiently, seeing as Stone is standing inches away from us.

Lizzy and I both automatically pull apart just enough to tilt our heads to look at the guy, just to make sure that he’s really there, that we didn’t just imagine him, in which case we could move on and carry on. He is, however, actually there. “Hey,” I lean back some more and bob my head once at him, wondering if I’m smiling too much and what the social etiquette here is exactly. I can’t really feel my lips though so I wouldn’t know if I was.

“Hey, Stone,” Lizzy giggles.

“Hi, Jerry,” he shuffles his usual wide stare to me. Sometimes it’s really hard to tell if Stone’s a walking, breathing genius or if it’s just an empty vacuum behind those eyes… “Kat’s looking for you, Lizzy. She’s trying to go home.”

“Eva doesn’t want to stay longer?” Lizzy inquires sweetly and I, in the meantime, let my eyes roam over her face, down the bridge of her nose, across her skin of softest satin, along her luscious lips, her long, deep-black eyelashes…

“Eva’s not here. I think she’s having a mental breakdown at home or something. Not enough hours in the day, something along those lines,” the doofus continues to converse casually as if he didn’t just interrupt anything. “You’re going back with Mudsellouts.”

“They’re leaving already?” I voice my wonder.

“What do you mean, already?” Stone snorts a laugh. “It’s three a.m.. Lukin already puked all over the urinals.”

Three!?? Swear to God, I would have guessed it’s only been thirty minutes tops since they stopped playing. I guess it is true, what they say about time being relative…

“Wait…so Matt’s driving?” Lizzy’s expression suddenly plunges into a deeply worried frown.

“Obviously not, don’t be ridiculous. Mark is.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better!?”

“It should because apparently, he didn’t have any alcohol tonight. Between you and me though, he’s been acting real fuckin’ weird lately so he might be on something else entirely.”

“Stone!” Lizzy smacks his arm and tries to give him a dirty look but laughs instead.

“I can take you home,” I remember that I can also participate in this conversation instead of just watching Lizzy.

“They’re literally all in the van, like, right now, just waiting for Lizzy,” Stone continues to be the world’s worst wingman.

“You can spend the night at my place,” I blurt out blankly and stupidly as I look at Lizzy.

“No…” She sighs. “I should really get home tonight. But I’ll see you soon, yeah?” She looks at me in a way that makes me feel like she can see right into my soul. Really though, three o’clock??

“Definitely,” I say and lean forward, intending to kiss her, while Stone just…continues to stand there. “I’ll walk you out,” I tell her instead and get up from my seat.

Lizzy and I start walking towards the exit and Stone falls into step right next to us. I give him a mildly bewildered look and his eyebrows dip slightly and…nothing. I shoot him a more obviously confused look and he finally catches on.

“Oh, I’m getting a ride with them,” he nods his head at Lizzy. God damn it, Stone, you fuckin’ weirdo.

I walk Lizzy and Stone out to the parking lot, although I thankfully only kiss one of them goodnight. Turns out, Lizzy doesn’t care about PDA’s, as she sprinkles a healthy pinch of sugar on me right in front of a van full of her friends.

After the Mudhoney ride rattles off into the night, leaving a trace of wolf whistles and drunken laughter, I shuffle my way back inside the venue and head for the bar. If I know my friends at all, that’s where I’ll find them. Although I’m in no rush to see them, or anyone. I might need a moment to process. And to savor.

“Hey there, stud,” Sean’s voice reaches me like a missile. Yeah, I knew it. Him, Layne, Demri, Mike, and a couple other people we know are all draped along the bar counter in some strange, dirty and drugged up rendition of The Last Supper.

“How’re y’all doing?” I drawl, possibly because I still haven’t fully regained feeling in my lips.

“Not as good as you, clearly,” Demri cackles and Layne shoots her a supposedly dirty look along with a dignified ‘hey!’. “Oh, Layne, don’t you remember how amazing and magical the world was when we first got together? Don’t you remember what young love is like?” She flutters her eyelashes at him.

“And what are we now, an old married couple?”

“Still not getting any tonight then?” Sean adjusts on his barstool, turning to me and leaving the couple to their Shakespearean quarrel.

“How do you ever get anyone to go out with you…” I respond with a slow, over-the-top shake of my head.

“I have good hair,” he shrugs. “What do you see in her, anyway?”

“What do you mean, what do I see in her?” My expression of confusion and annoyance edging in is totally genuine now.

“I dunno. She’s…kind of a Olivia Newton-John and you’re definitely a John Travolta.”

“What?” I laugh out incredulously.

“She’s kind of a square.”

“A square?” My tone stays incredulous.

“Uh-huh. She’s probably just in her bad boy phase right now.”

“What the fuck, Sean,” this time he gets a laugh out of me. “What does that even mean?? She’s done coke in Spain, for your information.”

“Oh well then never mind,” he pops his eyes at me as we both laugh. When can I see her next? What’s tomorrow… Saturday. Shit, I work tomorrow… Lizzy doesn’t though. I can drop by her place after work. Is that weird though? Should I just call her? Nah, I don’t wanna call her, I wanna see her. But is th—

“EARTH TO JERRY!”

��Huh?” I flinch back into reality, in which all of my friends are looking at me, yelling and laughing.

* * *

1 year and 2 months earlier

1988 March 12th

“Remember me?” A girl with perfectly messy ashy blonde hair leans into my side in a world's gentlest nudge and then steps back with her hands on her hips and a big smile on her face. Hm, let's see: I ran into her three nights ago at a show (something that's been happening increasingly more often), she came back to my place (a first one), we had sex, then in the morning she ran out the door unprompted, saying something about an accounting meeting she had with a client (after previously telling me that she was a cosmetologist) and somehow looking even better than she had the night before. Yeah... I've been remembering for the past three days, what an odd question to ask.

“Kelly, right?” I grin at her.

“Asshole,” she narrows her eyes, her smile unfading.

“Asshole? I could have sworn it started with a K.”

Despite the lightning bolts in her eyes, she leans in for a kiss, and as she pulls away, her hand lingers on my freshly shaven chin. “I left my scrunchie at your place.”

“Ah well, it’s lost forever now. Matt will have already used it for some nasty sexual game with himself.”

“I’ll come over to look, just in case.”

“Careful though, my live-in girlfriend might see you and stab me in the night.”

“Live-in girlfriend?” Kristine throws her head back in laughter. “Are you referring to your band mate? Because no sane woman would ever live there.”

“Hey,” I try to give her a dirty look but crumple into a chuckle. “It looks a lot nicer when he’s not crashing there, okay.”

“So what happened to your last girlfriend anyway?” The nonchalance is palpable in her voice.

“She couldn’t take it anymore. Gauged her own eyes out and joined a travelling freak show as a Bearded Lady.”

“Can this be your one question you answer seriously today?”

Interesting question for a Saturday night but alright. I take a sip of my lukewarm beer and shrug. “She didn’t see the relationship going anywhere, she said. Come to think of it, we didn’t really see each other that much towards the end. Clashing schedules,” I pull my mouth into a toothy smile, hoping the answer will suffice. I mean, it’s true. There was nothing dramatic or explosive about the end of my relationship with the last girl I dated. She just kind of got bored, I guess. “I think she might’ve said I lacked ambition at one point or another,” I add as the memory surfaces.

“Hm,” is all Kristine says.

“Now you go! Where did you hide your ex’s body?”

“I don’t kiss and tell, Mark,” she flashes me a charming smile.

“Hello, fellow bar goers,” Kim Thayil shows up from the crowd with Buzz in tow. For some odd reason, their appearance makes me become aggressively aware of how close to me Kristine is.

“Is Matt around?” Buzz inquires.

“I’m sure he is,” I say since last I saw him was about two hours ago.

“I’m Kristine, by the way,” she says unnecessarily loudly and we all turn our heads to look at her.

“Good to know,” Buzz delivers flatly.

“Kim. That’s Buzz,” Thayil steps in with his clearly superior social skills. “What’s with the music?” He then points a finger at the ceiling. “Did you request it, Mark?”

“I love this song,” Kristine states boldly and I'm glad she did it first because I was about to make a different comment on it.

“You're kidding, right?” Buzz voices my concern, narrowing his eyes at her. “What's there to like about this piece of garbage?”

“Piece of garbage? Paula Abdul has a great voice, but I wouldn't expect you to know anything about that.”

“Ooh, what a sharp comeback. However will I get over it.”

“Mark?” She looks at me now, with some kind of a pointed look.

“What?”

Her eyes linger on me for a moment before she click her tongue and looks away. “Nothing. I'm bored.”

“You want a beer?” I offer her mine that's only half full by now.

“Yeah. How about a fresh one?” She arches her eyebrows and I assume she is hinting at me buying the said fresh beer for her. Okay then, I guess I'll go do that.

I down the rest of my drink and I elbow my way to the bar counter without too much difficulty. I ask for two of their cheapest beers and as I wait, leaned sideways against the edge of counter, my eyes inadvertently land on a girl some twenty feet away. She’s standing there, eating a donut, completely zoned out, by the looks of it, while her blonde friend is talking at her with animated hand gestures. Somebody bumps into the donut girl’s shoulder, making her red hair slide from behind her ear; she sends a quick glare at the culprit, then slowly unsticks a strand of hair from the donut, and plunges back into that same not-really-there kind of expression.

I come back just in time to hear Kim comment on Kristines boots: “Did you kill the snakes yourself?”

“Is that where the bad music taste is coming from? Bad juju for killing snakes?” Buzz adds, which cracks me up and I almost choke on my beer. “They match the song,” he goes on. Hey now, they're certainly something else but I kinda like them. It's a statement, makes her stand out from a sea of combat boots, I suppose.

* * *

I knock on the door and wait long enough that I’m about to knock again but then I finally hear footsteps on the other side. The lock clicks and the door swings open with a faint creak and I find myself standing in front of Mark Arm. Huh… I know Lizzy jokes about how this place is always full of people who don’t live here, yet I’m still surprised, every time.

“Hey, Mark.”

“Jerry, howdy. Heard you enjoyed the setlist last night,” he pulls his abnormally large mouth into a grin and steps aside to let me in. “Always good to get positive feedback from fellow dirty musicians.”

“Uh… Yeah,” I unwittingly mirror his expression. “And I heard you guys have a new rehearsal space and a career in the U.K.?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say we’re on the international highway to stardom,” he says and then just looks at me with that huge smile.

“Oh.” Eva appears in the doorway of her bedroom with a blank stare on her face. “Hi, Jerry,” she briefly lifts her hand. “How’s it going?”

“Hey, not too bad—”

“What’s up,” Matt Lukin appears in the bathroom doorway. Of course. This place really is always full of random people.

“Hey man,” I greet him as he walks over to the fridge. “So uh… Is Lizzy home?” I…did not intent to sound like a teenager talking to my sweetheart’s parents that much.

“Yeah,” Mark answers, still with that same grin. “I think she’s in her room. Do you want me to fetch her?”

“No,” I answer maybe a touch more vigorously than needed. I’m just not a hundred percent sure that he’s joking. “I know which room is hers,” I assure him as I cross the living room.

I knock on the closed bedroom door a couple of times and hear an instant ‘come in!’. “Hey, it’s Jerry,” I speak into the door crack without moving and then the door flies open, creating a wind tunnel almost strong enough to swoop me into her bedroom, or so it feels…

She’s wearing a silk scarf on her head and a fluffy robe wrapped up around her and I love that she doesn’t care about me seeing her like that. I mean, she shouldn’t, she’s gorgeous! And I really like that she seems to know that, too.

“I was actually just trying to call you,” she quickly lifts up her hand holding the telephone.

“Oh yeah?” I can’t help but grin, ear to ear. “Were you calling to ask me out?”

Lizzy breathes out that melodious laugh that makes my head spin as I close the door behind me. And all of a sudden, it’s quiet.

“So—”

“How’s—”

We both start and both interrupt each other.

“I didn’t even know if you’d be home, I was just…” Lizzy starts again while frantically trying to untangle her foot from the telephone cord.

“Yeah, I actually just came here…straight from work. I knew you’re not working today, so… I hope it’s not weird?”

“N-no, no…”

“You sure? I can leave.”

“You wanna leave?”

“It’s fine, no worries…” I turn my body back towards the bedroom door. What the fuck is going on here?! Like a goddamn teenager…

“No!” Lizzy stops me with a thud of setting the telephone down. “I mean,” she chuckles, “I don’t want you to leave.”

“No?” I feel a smile stretch across my lips and my legs finally seem to remember how to move and bring me a couple of steps closer to Lizzy.

“Nah.”

“What do you wanna do then?” I smirk down at her.

“Uh… We should talk!”

“Talk??”

“Yes.”

“What about?”

“About Dee.”

“What?!” I ask with an incredulous frown, in an embarrassingly high pitched voice.

“I mean, about how we said we wouldn’t do anything until after you saw her,” Lizzy corrects herself.

“Right,” I slump down to sit on the side of her bed. “Right, yeah. We should talk about that.” Right? I mean, I don’t really have much to say about it but it’s only fair, I guess.

“I just want you to know that I don’t regret it,” she sits down next to me.

“Glad to hear. Feels like there’s a ‘but’ coming though…”

“But… I also want you to know that I don’t normally act like that… I wasn’t asking to not do anything until after you saw Dee just to mess with you, you know?”

“I know, Lizzy. I know you don’t toy with people like that, trust me,” I give her a reassuring smile. How is this girl so sweet and gentle and caring, and how did I get so lucky??

“Good. It’s just that…you kissed me and I lost my damn mind!” She laughs out.

“Wait,” I pull my lips into an amused grin. “You mean, you kissed me.”

“What? Jerry! You kissed me first!”

“Nah, I distinctly remember reciprocating your kiss,” I lower my eyelids halfway as I watch the gentlest blush tint her cheeks.

“I would never do that!” She protests.

“You would never kiss me?”

“That’s not what I meant, Jer!” She laughs.

“We’ll have time to figure out what to tell our great-grandchildren later,” I assure her as I lean in and kiss her, because I can’t resist any longer.

“So you’ll see her on Friday?” Lizzy places her hand on my chest a minute later and gently nudges me.

“Who?”

“Dee.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Friday,” I laugh at myself.

“Where?”

“Yeah, where will you meet up?” The girl just won’t drop the topic.

“I haven’t really thought about that. How about on a street corner?” I lean in and kiss her again but a moment later, she pulls away again.

“A coffee shop? Maybe Raison?”

“Are you gonna have Eva spy on me?” I smirk at Lizzy and she quickly denies it with a laugh.

I should be thinking about this more than I am, shouldn’t I? I think it’s gonna hit me right before I see her though; that’s it’s all over and that that’s gonna be the end of our communication really. I mean, it has been over for some time. But seeing Dee in person will completely solidify it and then she’ll go back to Colorado so we won’t be running into each other on the street, and we won’t call each other again. It’s like the opposite of a first date – it’s the last one, in which we discuss our breakup and move on from there. It’s fucking weird is what it is, but I have a feeling I’ll be able to appreciate it later. Closure is important, after all.

“I hope it goes well,” Lizzy says.

“I’m sure it will be fine. She’s not the kind of girl to show up with a gun or a cyanide pill,” I assure her and go in for another kiss, yet again, and this time it seems like her mind’s been appeased some, and she melts into me.

“Hey! Oh! Sorry!” Another person who does not live here rips Lizzy’s bedroom door open and then freezes with a horrified expression on her face. “They didn’t tell me you had anyone over,” she glares at somebody outside the door frame.

“Those guys are such assholes…” Lizzy mumbles. “We were just talking…” She adds an obviously false explanation while her friend’s expression softens into a smirk. “Have you met Nadia, Jerry?”

“Hi, Nadia,” I give her a defeated wave of my hand, unable to keep from chuckling.

* * *

Buzz’s truck screeches to a halt, kicking up a huge cloud of dust. I climb out and while I’m saying bye to him and Lukin in the passenger seat, I notice a familiar blurry redhead in the distance, bobbing up and down as she’s marching down the sidewalk.

“Alright, see ya, Mark,” Buzz gives me a brief wave of his hand before they speed off and I start slowly shuffling towards the entrance to the apartment building.

God, I hate how excited I am to see her. Like a fucking puppy dog. Maybe I could stand to see her less, somehow… Within reason – I can’t do anything about the fact that we use the same laundry room and go to the same shows. But I guess I don’t have to hang out in her apartment so much. Just until this brain fog passes.

“Oh, hi, you…” She somehow only notices me when she’s about two feet away. What a lunatic.

“What’s up?” I inspect the obviously annoyed crease between her eyebrows.

“Not much.” She goes inside and up the stairs and I fall into step next to her.

“What’s wrong?” I rephrase politely.

“Not necessarily wrong, just that I haven’t felt this fucking dumb in a pretty long while now,” she keeps her eyes glued to the stairs, her words steeped in exasperation she’s failing to hold back. Funny you should say that since that’s how I feel anytime I exist around you lately but anyway.

“How come?”

“I had that bookseller interview…”

“Oh. And?”

“They had this stupid fucking quiz at the end of the group interview… And don’t even get me started on group interviews,” she draws a circle of impressive proportions with a roll of her eyes; I guess she’s already forgotten about trying not to sound upset. “The quiz had three parts and… I mean, Edward Abbey? Who the fuck cares about Edward Abbey!?” She raises her voice slightly and I give her an animated shrug, trying not to look too amused. “And how is a quiz with thirty questions relevant at all?? I studied postcolonial literature and graphic novels, how about they ask me about that!? I mean…I read!” She stares at me as we reach the top floor and I nod quickly. “I’m sure I’ve read books that these snobs haven’t. What if I gave them a quiz like that??”

“Uh…”

“I just feel like a fraud…”

“Novak, pull yourself together.”

“Just let me be dramatic in peace,” she sighs out and leads the way into her apartment and at this point, I feel like it would be really rude of me to just go to my own place.

“Gladly. I promise not to interrupt the rest of the one woman drama.”

“Woman? Feeling generous today, I see,” she eyes me dubiously right before shifting her manic stare over to Lizzy crouched down on the couch, scratching at it with her nails?.. “What’s going on?” Kat voices my exact thought.

“I spilled some melted wax on the couch…” Lizzy grumbles with a heartfelt sigh and Kat steps over to investigate.

“How did this happen!?”

“I was trying to blow the candle out…”

“Dude,” Kat breathes out impatiently, “you know that you need to put something underneath candles to catch the wax. Come on, this isn’t the first or even the fifth time that’s happened!”

“I’m sorry, Kat, I’ll clean it up…” Lizzy’s compliant tone tells me these kinds of scoldings are not completely out of the norm.

“It’s not hard to just not keep doing it, you know,” Kat goes on regardless. Poor Lizzy really happened to be in the wrong place and at the wrong time, huh?

“Wait for it to harden, it’ll be much easier,” I tell her. “Put something cold on it.”

“It’s going to leave a grease stain on the couch now anyway,” Kat mumbles while kicking her shoes off.

“I’ll clean that too, I have something for that.”

“You’re just spreading it around with your fingers, Lizzy!”

“Novak,” I put my hands on her shoulders and turn her around, away from me, “you and I both know you’re gonna look up all the books from that quiz so how about you go find your library card?” I direct her towards her room because I’m afraid that if I don’t, I’ll become an accessory to a murder – she’ll keep taking her anger over that stupid job out on Lizzy and Lizzy will never stand up to her because she seems to think that the best tactic is to just let the beast keep chewing her.

“Thanks,” Lizzy glances at me with a sour look after I close Kat’s bedroom door. “I don’t understand why she always has to be like that. It’s just some wax. And besides, I already spilled it. It’s not like I’ll unspill it if she just yells at me some…”

“Why don’t you just say that to her?” I ask as I walk over to the freezer and pull out an ice cube tray.

“You ever tried arguing with that girl?” Lizzy says with a shadow of a smile now as I hover the frozen tray above the wax splatter to harden it.

I have and it’s one of my favorite pastime activities. A sport, really. “Fair point. She’s in a bad mood, she just got rejected from that bookseller’s job. I think so, anyway…”

“Oh… See! Why can’t she just say that when she gets home? Then we can bitch about it together or something… Instead, she just takes it out on the first person she runs into.”

Technically, the second person. I somehow escaped unscathed. Uh but that is neither here, nor there, really.

The apartment door flies open and in comes Gwen. “Open the champagne,” she throws her coat on the couch, “first day as an intern at the Mexican embassy has been conquered!” She announces to the room, completely mismatching the mood. That explains the skirt suit though.

“How was it?” Lizzy tries to act like she wasn’t just verbally assaulted by an angry stray cat.

Gwen’s face grows more serious before she opens her mouth, evidently still figuring out her response. “It was great but I will say, there’s…slight sexist undertones…just…everywhere, really. It’s bizarre. Just these little things, little words, little looks…”

“I feel like that should be alarming, considering you’re transitioning from one of Seattle’s shittier bars…” I point out.

“Yeah…” Gwen just stares at – or right through – me for another thoughtful second. “It was good though. And now that I’m there, things will get even better,” she cackles, which I will not question. “We’ll need to go out on Friday to celebrate!”

“Jerry’s meeting up with his ex on Friday—”

“Great, so you’re free! It’s a plan then! You know,” Gwen walks over to the kitchen area, “the stench of sexual tension between you two was getting out of hand. I’m glad we can all stop smelling that,” she laughs while Kat walks out of her bedroom, the same sour expression sticking to her face. She throws a quick ‘hey’ to Gwen and makes a beeline for the bathroom. “What kind of wasp flew up her ass?” Gwen eyes the door that just swung shut.

“Is it wrong that I kinda want her to punch me in the face? Did I just say that out loud? I’m gonna see myself out…” I tip my imaginary hat as I speed walk out the door. I should really go home and think about my life choices while I’m at it.

* * *

“So Jerry and Lizzy are finally done beating around the bush, huh?” Jeff wiggles his eyebrows with a stupid grin as soon as I walk into the coffee shop.

“Huh? How do you know??”

“I don’t know why you’re still surprised that rumors take literally zero time to spread like a wildfire around here. Especially considering that a whole bar full of people saw them last night.”

“Oh, yeah…” I scrunch my eyebrows momentarily, feeling mild annoyance simmer in the pit of my stomach. Not even sure why… I just—I feel like lately, I’m annoyed at the very thought of people having fun and enjoying themselves. Probably because all I do is, well, things I need to do. Things I’ve committed to doing.

“Hey, did you close last night?”

“Yeah,” I mumble as I disappear in the back room and when I come back wearing an apron, Jeff squints over at me from the espresso machine.

“Are you okay?” He asks after a moment.

“Yeah, I’m fine, why?” I slip into customer service autopilot mode.

“I don’t know, you seem off.”

“Someone at the lab fucked up and contaminated all my tadpoles,” I sigh out through gritted teeth. My colleague somehow accidentally used my tadpoles that I’d been carefully monitoring for weeks, causing all my work to go to waste. I don’t understand how, considering that everything, every damn dust bunny in the lab is labelled. I guess some of us missed some stuff in first grade…ugh. I wish I didn’t have to work here today because I really just wanted to stay at the lab for however long it took me to sort all that mess out. Unfortunately, here I am.

“Ah, that sucks.”

“Yeah…” I lean my hips against the edge of the sink as I wash my hands. “And now I get to be here the whole afternoon.” Ugh.

“That’s the spirit,” he laughs, then places a coffee cup he’d just filled with hot liquid on the counter, and calls a Dean. “Hey, just so you know, you left the café unlocked last night,” he returns his attention to me. I remember when I first started working here eight months ago – this kind of information would have been communicated with a pissy pout and folded arms. Now, Jeff’s looking at me like it’s the most boring piece of information that he just needed to communicate. Woah…I can’t believe I’ve worked here for eight months now…

“I definitely didn’t,” I correct him with a slight frown. I know I locked the door, I’m a hundred percent sure.

“Well, it was unlocked this morning so unless somebody broke in just to play a prank on us, you were the last person here before I came in.”

“Maybe you unlocked it yourself and then forgot,” I offer with a half assed shrug and he opens his mouth to say something else but a customer comes up to the counter.

I take the order, Jeff makes it, and once the lady’s been sent on her way with three extra hot cappuccinos, Jeff turns to me again. “That makes no sense, how would I unlock it and forget about it within seconds??”

“I don’t know, Jeff. I don’t know what goes on in that head of yours.”

“Idiot,” he laughs. “I won’t give you shit about it but hopefully it doesn’t happen again.”

Wait a second… I just told him I locked it but he’s still gonna go ahead and act all high and mighty? “Very gracious of you, to not give me shit for something I didn’t do.”

“It’s whatever, Eva. Nothing happened so it’s not a huge deal.”

I swear, I’m gonna stab somebody in the face one of these days… What’s even worse than Jeff being dumb and probably unlocking the door himself and forgetting, is that he seems unable to keep from making jokes about it the whole hour that our shifts overlap. And I’m really not in the mood to argue about it, or even acknowledge him, really. I’ve been so tired and so stressed lately, I’m finally really learning the meaning of picking your battles.

“Are you coming to the park this Saturday?” Jeff asks me while untying his apron. Finally, the asshat’s about to head out and leave me the fuck alone.

“Probably.”

“You didn’t miss much last week, other than Stone having to fill in for you. That was pretty hilarious, actually. He can barely lift the ball,” Jeff laughs at his own joke. Ugh.

“Yeah, I decided to do something more productive and take a nap instead.”

“Just let someone know next time, alright,” he says before disappearing in the back room.

I miss one stupid afternoon of playing stupid basketball with a bunch of idiots and now he’s gonna lecture me about that too? UGH.

“Hey,” our manager practically storms into the café and walks behind the counter. “Did you happen to see if I left my wallet here last night?”

“You were here last night?”

“Yeah, like late last night. I was just dropping off the sugar. Aha!” He spots his wallet on a little shelf next to a big tub of sugar.

“I think you left the café unlocked.”

“Oh shit! Did I really?”

“According to Jeff. You might need to apologize because he can’t seem to let it go.”

“Tell him I said sorry,” he throws me a goofy smile as he runs out the door.

Just then, Jeff comes out from the back, his jacket on and his bag swung over the shoulder. “You all good here? I’m gonna head out.”

“John was just in,” I inform him. “He left his wallet here last night.”

“Oh yeah?” Jeff asks distractedly.

“Yeah, he was here last night after I closed. So if the door was actually left unlocked, which I’m still not convinced that you didn’t unlock it and forget about it…”

“Okay, okay,” he laughs, “I’m not that dumb. Give me some credit.” Not so sure about that, but whatever.

“It was John who left it unlocked then. There, mystery solved.”

“Huh… Weird. Oh well. I’ll catch ya later,” he waves at me briefly and walks out, and I’m just left there, staring at the spot where he just was. Catch ya later??A ‘sorry for being a dick to you for the last hour’ would have been nice, you fucking jackass. Ugh.

#surpriseeee lol #fanfiction #seattle #80s #alice in chains #jerry cantrell #sean kinney #layne staley #mudhoney #mark arm #matt lukin #mother love bone #jeff ament

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