Page 56 of Dating and Other Theories
“Okay, but you can’t keep doing that after you graduate next year.”
“No, but I might be able to get an adjunct teaching position. There’s a lot of competition for those though. I might try background work—you know, being one of the extras walking around in the background on movies and television shows. If you get a regular spot on a TV show, it’s pretty steady work.”
“Really?” She’d never thought about it before. She’d just assumed all those people were actors too. Or wannabe actors.
“Yeah, I’ve got a buddy who does it on a cop show. He might be able to get me in. And if not, there’s always temping. I’ll figure something out.”
“Okay.”
He looked over at her, and the crease between his eyes made a reappearance. She used to hate that crease, but she couldn’t remember why anymore. Now she found it endearing. It was his worry crease. The one he got when he was feeling sad or anxious. It made her want to gather him up and hug him until it went away.
“I can support myself,” he said. “I’ve had jobs before, you know.”
“Like?” She couldn’t picture him working for a living or doing anything other than writing. In her imagination, he was forever hunched over his laptop. As far as she was concerned, he’d been hunched over a laptop since the day he was born and would be until the day he died—most likely from a caffeine overdose.
“I worked at a Trader Joe’s for a while—that’s a pretty good gig. I could go back to that. I was a barista briefly—wasn’t so good at that.”
Esther tried to imagine him restocking organic produce or whipping up Unicorn Frappuccinos. It was like picturing a cat fetching a Frisbee.
“And then there was one particularly excruciating summer I spent grading standardized tests.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.” It was easier to picture him doing something like that than working a retail service job. Grading was part of what he did as TA in grad school.
He snorted. “That’s what I thought, until I started the job. We worked out of an old supermarket that had gone out of business, filled with rows of tables and cheap laptops. They made us sit on folding chairs and work in complete silence all day. No talking to the people around you, no headphones, no nothing. You even had to ask permission to use the bathroom. I spent eight hours a day, every day, reading high school essays about conservation and trying not to lose consciousness. I lasted six whole weeks before quitting, and spent my last day on the job giving every test I graded a perfect score.”
“You didn’t,” Esther said, grinning.
He nodded, smiling a little. “I did.”
“Nice. Way to fight the system.”
He laughed. “Yeah.” His knee fell against hers again, heavy and warm. “Is everything going to be okay with your mom?”
“Yeah, we’ll figure it out. We always do.” One way or another—usually after a lot of stress and anxiety on Esther’s part. She sighed and let her head fall onto Jonathan’s shoulder. His body radiated a reassuring warmth that made her want to snuggle into him.
Esther didn’t get a lot of physical human contact outside of her occasional sexual hookups. She wasn’t much of a hugger or a toucher with her friends. But it was surprisingly easy being close to Jonathan. Comfortable.
More comfortable than it should be. Guilt twinged in the pit of her stomach, and she lifted her head off his shoulder. He’d dated her best friend. It was massively uncool to cozy up to him now. They shouldn’t be sitting this close.
She should move.
The thing was, though…she didn’t want to.
One of his hands was resting on his thigh, and she imagined taking it in hers, interlacing her fingers with his. She wanted to know what his skin felt like. If it was rough or soft. If his hands were as warm as the rest of him.
“Let’s watch something fun tonight,” he said. “No horror movies.”
“Horror movies are fun.” She was still staring at his hand. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. He had beautiful hands under all the ink stains. Long, slender fingers and neatly trimmed nails with matching half-moons at each cuticle. He could be a hand model. The things he could probably do to a woman with fingers like that…
He nudged her shoulder with his. “I need a laugh tonight. And so do you.”
“Cabin in the Woods?” she suggested, tearing her eyes away from his hands.
“I meant a comedy.”
“That’s a comedy.”
“Satire isn’t the same thing as comedy. And the ending is a total downer.”
