“so,” 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. “how was your weekend? do you have plans for this upcoming one? are you good with children, at all?” 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 people’s slack – my dog’s got a vet appointment tomorrow, can you take my opening shift? or, the second stall of the ladies’ room is flooded but i’m due for my 30, could you handle that? – that favors, plainly, suck. the delivery probably wouldn’t have mattered. either way, he wasn’t going to dwell on his mistake. a master of persuasion, he follows up with a personal anecdote. “listen. my kids’ 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, she’s getting picked up at 7 on friday night. i can’t be there, i can’t.” 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 he’s had no luck in the romantic realm himself. “i don’t wear jealousy nearly as well i do as these glasses,” he says, a beat later, pulling them from his face and taking a plastic arm between his lips; a fashion model seducing the camera. “so my plan was to pretend i have epic plans of my own. a wacky coincidence. we’re both being wined and dined that night. so i arranged for…” he pauses, so wrapped up in himself that his classmate’s name has escaped him. “you, my best friend from chem lab, to babysit.” he crack a smile, all teeth and no sincerity. “in reality, i’m 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.”
evan watched with a straight face as jonah floundered. “ is this forty ? is this what i have to look forward to ? soliciting childcare from freaks in my community college gen ed because i’ve got a point to make ? ” she sighed, setting her pen down and resting her head in her hand. “ i’d love too, believe me, as you can clearly tell by everything i bring to the table, i’m great with kids. but i’ve got plans, dude. it’s friday night. hot delinquent shit, and all that. ” the fact of the matter was, she was on the schedule to work that night, and would need at least a couple hours before that to mentally prepare: her temperament is hardly that of someone you would expect to work in the service industry, and to even consider playing nice with some of the bar patrons, she had to be well primed for any of her shifts --- but that was neither here nor there, and simply not jonah’s business. “ maybe we compromise though. if you’ll finish the lab report, i’ll facetime you before she leaves and really lay it on thick how bad i wish we could hang out. like, oh my god, if only you didn’t have to be such a good dad and hang out with your kids tonight, i so wish i could be sucking you dry in your mini-van right now, that kind of thing. ” evan offered, putting on a voice, as the little character she proposed couldn’t be further from the way she’d conduct herself in an actual relationship. “ so see, it’s free, it gets the point across for you, and it doesn’t make you the sad middle-aged man eating alone in the taco bell parking lot. and i don’t have to figure out how to write a conclusion. sounds like wins all around to me. ”
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