âso,â jonah begins, about as nonchalantly as a person with an agenda can. he leans across his lab table to the student at the other end, pushing his goggles up the bridge of his nose as he rests on his elbows. âhow was your weekend? do you have plans for this upcoming one? are you good with children, at all?â questions punctuated by more questions, word vomit floods from his mouth quicker than he intended. it went much more smoothly in his head. but he knows, as a retail employee constantly asked to pick up other peopleâs slack â my dogâs got a vet appointment tomorrow, can you take my opening shift? or, the second stall of the ladiesâ room is flooded but iâm due for my 30, could you handle that? â that favors, plainly, suck. the delivery probably wouldnât have mattered. either way, he wasnât going to dwell on his mistake. a master of persuasion, he follows up with a personal anecdote. âlisten. my kidsâ mom has been seeing someone new, i think. from what i could hear eavesdropping on her phone call like the very mature adult that i am last night, sheâs getting picked up at 7 on friday night. i canât be there, i canât.â his brows draw together for a moment, as if really emotionally compromised by the idea. and maybe he was, on some level, but only because heâs had no luck in the romantic realm himself. âi donât wear jealousy nearly as well i do as these glasses,â he says, a beat later, pulling them from his face and taking a plastic arm between his lips; a fashion model seducing the camera. âso my plan was to pretend i have epic plans of my own. a wacky coincidence. weâre both being wined and dined that night. so i arranged forâŚâ he pauses, so wrapped up in himself that his classmateâs name has escaped him. âyou, my best friend from chem lab, to babysit.â he crack a smile, all teeth and no sincerity. âin reality, iâm thinking i might hit up the taco bell drive-thru and eat in my car. i can provide compensation in the form of a crunchwrap supreme. take pity on me, please.âÂ