Waking up, my eyes, half asleep and slightly glazed over, slide around the room. It’s my room, in my apartment. My room is bigger than Ali’s, though not by that much. Really the difference in rent’s because of location and getting to live here without a roommate. Slowly I pull myself out of bed, cracking my neck and heading over to my kitchen area. My apartment has a separate bedroom and bathroom, but the rest is sort of just an open room with several different zones. After cracking open a pair of eggs and washing my hands, I text Ali a simple, ‘morning. Everything going well, I hope’.
I haven’t even finished whisking the eggs before I get her reply. ‘Just woke up did you?’ I can’t help but chuckle. It’s a Tuesday, which means Ali has her office hours in the morning. She’s probably sitting in the passenger seat of that little car, listening to Nat complain about every other driver in the road.
Finishing up the whisking, fast and shoddily as I am want to do with most of my cooking, I place the bowl down and text back, ‘Yep. But you can tell Nat I got some medicinal I can bring by next time I’m over there to help her chill out’ I turn on the burner, put a pan on top of it.
My phone dings while I’m drizzling a little oil over the pan. ‘I don’t want to mess up my phone’s autocorrect with all the naughty words, but she declined. To be fair, she did so in the most polite sentence she’s spoken in the last five minutes’ I laugh as I pour the eggs into the pan.
As it sizzles and I stir, I place the bread in the toaster as well. Real fancy breakfast, I know. I pull the pan off the burner once the toast pops. Then, turning off the burner with one hand, I grab the butter with my other. This process is a difficult one, but one I’ve perfected through months of doing it pretty frequently. I put the toast on a small plate and butter it, then dump the eggs on top of it. Taking my plate of eggs and toast, I start to eat it as I return to my room, to decide what I’m actually going to wear to work today.
I decide on a nice pale blue suit with a white shirt. Generic, for sure, but not risking much by saying nothing. Because I have yet to figure out whether there’s a pattern to the days when some senator’s aide stops by to check in, I’ve taken to not saying much with my work clothes. And I know, technically I don’t need to wear a suit, but it helps give people the impression that I’m competent, which is always useful. Dressed, I place the egg and toast plate in my dishwasher, grab my work bag, and head out of my apartment.
The elevator down to the ground floor takes a minute, I am on the fifth floor after all. I stand in the elevator, leaning against the bar on the back of the car, a couple other regular commuters enter with me. I nod at them both when they enter, one from the fourth floor and one from the second. “Jase, Helen,” the second floor gentleman says after the nod.
“Ryan,” I reply with a slight, friendly smile.
After the elevators open, we walk out together. We don’t work together, mind you, but we’re all the same sort of commuters. We walk together across the street, and take the escalator down to the metro below. We all get on the metro headed in the same direction, but we quickly end up separating. I switch lines once, and then head up to street level. Walking the extra couple blocks, I head into my office building.
The job is pretty boring, ninety percent of the time. But I knew that going in. Most of what I do is manage fires. Well, metaphorically speaking. And ninety percent of the time, they are either real boring fires, or no fires at all. I’m still sort of working for the Magisterium. Adjacently. The lobbying organization I work for is partially led by a Maestro from the local Villa, Mister Ivan Snelling. He works to, in theory at least, ensure the Magisterium is not hurt by the government. Which has the wonderful effect of Ter constantly bothering me about my boss’s boss. But it also means I managed to get this job without too much trouble or questions about my quals. Sitting down at my desk, my coworker, Ginny, looks over at me. “Fuck, Jase, why you always gotta make the rest of us look bad?” she complains.
I look over at her. As per usual, she’s chilling in a hoodie and sweats. “Sorry, I have to look professional if I want to survive. Unlike you, I ain’t got the benefit of actually being or sounding competent.”
“Doesn’t mean we don’t feel bad when you come in all dressed to the nines and shit,” my boss, Kyle, says from behind me. He’s in charge of the IT department and does dress closer to my level than Ginny. Dress shirt, tie, slacks. No jacket though, and he almost always takes his tie off about an hour after lunch.
“It’s not my fault that important people occasionally just show up to the office randomly. If I’m out there dealing with some guy’s computer being frozen because they tried to download a weird porn game or whatever, I don’t want to be caught out there dressed like a stereotypical methhead slash mugger from an early-to-mid-two-thousands TV show,” I insist.
Kyle chuckles. Ginny mocks offense. “Ouch. I’m at least at the fashion level of a famous person pretending to be incognito,” she insists.
I chuckle, and see-saw my hand as though to say, kind of but it’s questionable. Kyle shakes his head at the pair of us. “Alright, just don’t embarrass me doing anything dumb,” he says as he rolls up his sleeves as though he’s going to be doing some kind of manual labor instead of sitting at a desk and typing up reports on what the heck all the alerts actually mean for his bosses.
An hour and a couple calls pass us by, nothing major or interesting. Ginny leans back from her scrolling of reddit. “Hey Jase?” she asks.
It takes me a moment to notice she’s looking at me. Pausing my podcast and taking out my earbuds, I reply, “What’s up?”
“You got any plans with your girl tonight?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Not really, why?”
“Ev, Deshawn, and a couple others were going out to this bar for karaoke night, and I was hoping you could wingman for me. Help me get into one or both of their pants. Pantses?”
I shake my head. Why did I decide to become friends with my horniest coworker? “I’ll join y’all,” I reply, “But not for that. You remember the rule, don’t you?”
She groans. “I don’t shit where I eat,” she says, disappointed.
“Exactly.”
“Kind of rude to compare sex with me to shitting, but I get it,” she says, then quickly adds, “But can I please? Just this once?”
I give her a disappointed look. “Now I’m going to have to go, just to stop you from doing something dumb, aren’t I?” I muse aloud.
She smiles wide, letting out a chuckle. “My master plan worked,” she jokes, “Also, it isn’t dumb if it’s worth it.”
I look around, as though checking to make sure no one’s around. “From what I hear,” I whisper loud enough to be audible to her, “It really wouldn’t be.”
“Really?” she says, rolling her chair over to be close enough to gossip properly. “Do spill.”
“Remember that staffer from the end of last session, Janet? Well, according to her, Deshawn is packing, but clueless on what to do with it,” I begin.
“I could teach him,” she insists.
I give her a questioning look. “Better than her?”
“Fuck you,” she replies. “You’re right, but still. What about Ev?”
“She knows what she’s doing in theory, sure,” I say, “But Janet said in practice, she lacks the control to put that theory into practice consistently.”
“Well, that sucks. And she just told you this?” Ginny asks.
I smirk. “I can be real charming, you know. Also, I had the benefit that I wasn’t trying to sleep with her and we were high on something real strong.”
“Trying?” she said, as though offended, then thinking about the timing had a horrible realization. “Wait, shit, wait, no. She didn’t tell you anything about me, right?”
I grin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t talk to nobody about no one,” I joke.
“Oh no, she probably told you about when -” Ginny begins to babble. I can see this particular joke is going in a direction way too specific to deal with sober.
I interrupt. “Hey, no, stop. I ain’t want no more specifics. I already know way too much about your sex life. Besides, it was the night before you two got intimate, when her boss invited the whole damned office to that speakeasy, not the time the next week when we all were at Mike’s housewarming.”
“Good,” Ginny says, “Some things really don’t need to be known.”
I laugh. “On that, we agree. When’s this karaoke thing happening?”
“Seven,” she says, then her eyes light up, “Wait, that means it’s late enough you could probably bring Alina again. She’s much more fun to talk to than you, and doesn’t spoil any of my daydream fantasies about our hot coworkers.”
“That’s because you don’t tell her those,” I reply, “And maybe, it might be at the sweet spot in the semester where she’s not super busy. No promises.”
My phone rings. Personal cell, not work phone. It’s Ter. With a sigh, I look up at Ginny. “Sorry, got to take this. It’s my actual best friend,” I joke.
“The cruelties I endure,” Ginny jokes as she rolls her chair back to her desk.
I pick up the phone. “What’s up, Therese?” I ask.
“A representative of a Senator stopping by your offices in five minutes to meet with the unaffiliated of your bosses. Be in his path as he walks through and tell him that a favor is owed from August 12th. Then give him the name Fergus Highsmith.”
“Hi, how are you? It’s good to hear from you too. You know, normal conversation stuff,” I mutter at my phone.
“Normal conversation stuff. Would you terribly mind doing it?” Ter asks politely.
I laugh. “Wait, did you make a joke?” I wonder aloud. “It’s a miracle. As far as doing it, will it get me in any trouble? Cause you know I actually like this job.”
“Shouldn’t.”
I shake my head, leaning my forehead against my left hand. “Okay, fine. But next time you call, no schemes, no business stuff. I want to hear more about your new ancient buddy.”
“Tell that to your dear girlfriend. She is the one constantly pivoting my calls to discussions of schemes.”
I smile. “I have,” I joke, “She doesn’t listen to me. I’m hoping you’re more amenable.”
“I will if you count it as a favor,” she jokes right back.
I laugh. “I hate you and I hope you die,” I say through my chuckles.
“Don’t get your hopes up, I’m not planning on dying any time soon. I can’t die until I’m done. Now go, and do be friendly while you’re implicitly threatening a Senatorial aide.”
With a chuckle, I hang up. Turning back to Ginny, who’s once again scrolling through reddit even though she was also definitely eavesdropping on my convo, and ask, “Would you mind holding down the fort for a minute, I need to go grab some water.”
She shrugs. “No problem. Is ‘I hate you and I hope you die’ how you normally say goodbye to your friends?”
“Most of them,” I joke, “I mean, most of my friends can be real irritating at times, you know.”
“Besides me, of course,” she jokes with a chuckle.
I pause for effect, look at her, and say offhandedly with a smirk, “Sure, you can think that.” She bursts out laughing, loud enough to draw Kyle in.
“What’s up?” the head of IT asks us.
I gesture towards the door. “Just going out to grab some water.”
“Yo, accounting had a meeting this morning with full pastry spread, would you mind snagging us any leftover donuts?” he asks.
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