Page 51 of Mostly My Boss
Yes, right. I didn’t come here to hang out with my friend. I came here for the business transaction. I’d give her money and she’d give me her notes.
She walked over to her desk and flipped open her laptop. Then I heard the printer going and she walked over to hand me the pages. Almost cautiously, like I might just as soon bite her.
The crazy thing was, I wanted to. I wanted to bite and snap at her until I got a real reaction from her. Like if I could push her enough times on her shoulder, over and over, she would finally snap, and all this emotion would come pouring out of her.
And somewhere in there would be the truth.
But that came with a lot of risk. A risk I wasn’t willing to take. Beyond that it was decidedly unfair because I had no intention of reciprocating all that emotion. It was another reason Julia and I worked so well. Two completely bottled-up humans who recognized we were most comfortable that way.
Or it was the reason why wehadworked.
Now, we weren’t working as well.
I glanced at the notes, skimming them. “This isn’t word for word.”
She shrugged. “It’s a summary of what you need. Trust me, it’s more efficient this way. That’s what you need to know.”
“And you know what’s best for me?”
She paused for a second. “Yes. When it comes to this, I do. Your GPA isn’t close to what it should be. It’s because you get too easily distracted.”
“I’m taking the fucking pills, Jules.”
She shook her head. “Ethan, your father has you convinced that taking Adderall is the answer. But part of it has to come from you and a desire to do the work. You don’t always have that.”
I smirked. “Because it’s stupid and a waste of time.”
“And there it is…” she said, as if she’d been waiting for me to say it.
“It’s true. There is nothing I’m learning here that’s going to change the outcome of my future.”
“Maybe not, but if you’re going to stick it out and make your parents happy, you need to do some of the work. A summary makes that easier for you. Trust me.”
The door to the room opened and Nicki bounced inside. I noticed she did that a lot. Instead of walking, she sort of skipped. Instead of coming inside a room, she bounced in.
It was rather ridiculous.
“Ethan! I didn’t know you were going to be here. Did you miss me?”
Yes. That was it. I missed Nicki. In my head, I was snorting and rolling my eyes. In front of Jules, I got up off the bed and kissed Nicki on the lips.
“Of course I missed you. You want lunch?”
“I could eat a salad.”
Nicki proclaimed that salads were her favorite thing to eat. What horseshit. Whose favorite food was lettuce?
“Excellent.” I looked at Jules. “You want to join us?”
“Nope. I’m good. You two have fun.”
I wondered if she knew what a tell it was. The way she answered a question with that quick rhythm that always included a statement about how fine she was or how good she was.
Always in a way that made me not believe her. Was it working, what I was doing to her? Did it hurt her seeing me with Nicki? More importantly, did it hurt her enough to tell me to stop?
Because that’s really what I wanted.
“See you,” I said, even as I escorted Nicki out the door.
