i am of nervous disposition

“Here.” She holds out a styrofoam bowl just in time. The ice cream tips and slides and she catches it deftly, sticks a plastic spoon straight up in the middle, and hands it to the kid watching across the counter wearing a dubious expression.

“S’posed to be $4.99, but….” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder at Randy, rolls her eyes. “We’ll call it even.”

“Cool!” The kid scurries off, wet feet slapping on the concrete.

Jess turns around slowly to face Randy, hands on her hips, a pitying look on her face. Abashed, he drops his eyes to his flip-flops. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Don’t apologize to me,” she says. “Apologize to yourself. We’re supposed to take turns back here, but if you suck that bad, there’s no way we’re trading off. That means I get to stay in the shade and you get to clean the pool.”

Randy sighs. “I mean…it’s only my second day,” he mutters.

Jess is unimpressed. “Still. It’s not that hard.”

Randy sighs again, but he doesn’t try to argue. Obviously, objectively, he does suck that bad. Plus, Jess has been here longer—she worked here last summer, even—so if she wants to kick him out of the snack shack, he supposes she has seniority.

That being said, if he ends up spending his entire shift in the sun every day…he’s going to blow half his paycheck on Banana Boat. And he’ll probably still get melanoma, what with his five hundred moles.