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“We are so screwed.”
“No we're not.”
“Oh yes, we are.”
“It's going to be fine.”
“Screwed with a capital ‘S’. No, actually. With an ‘F’, for fired.”
They were sat in the front seat of Amy's fifteen year old Civic, a car that was almost as old as Emma, parked in the back row of the Cloud 9 lot. The engine wasn't on, and Amy didn't remember inviting Jonah in, but after exiting the photo lab to the raucous applause of their coworkers and the news that their little rendezvous had just been broadcast around the world, Jonah had been one step behind as she booked it out of the store and into the privacy of her little sedan.
And so they sat, debating the level of screwed they were going to be in come the next day. Amy's position could be summed up in one word: very.
“This is not the worst thing we've ever done.” Jonah was clearly determined to take the more optimistic approach.
Amy couldn't help but laugh at what, to her, was a massive understatement. “Jonah, what scale are you going off of that ‘global sex tape’ doesn't rank at the very top of our transgressions?”
Jonah’s face broke into a grin. “Transgressions? Are we facing Glenn's judgment tomorrow or the pope’s?”
“Come on man, you know what I mean. We're not going to get written up like we took too long of a bathroom break or forgot to punch out at the end of a shift. We banged in the photo lab for the entire world to see.” She leaned back into her headrest and heaved a large sigh. “Screwed,” she muttered again, under her breath.
“Well first off, I now get why you said they call it the bang room.”
“Yeah, because off all the banging, we've been over this.” She waved her hand, signaling him to get to his next point.
“Yup, right. Second, I wasn't talking about bathroom breaks or clocking out. We organized a walk out and we didn't get fired. You ran over the district manager with a golf cart, and you're still here. I once walked through the store butt ass naked except for an apron. Granted none of those things had quite the…international impact that this did, but still.”
Amy shook her head. “Maybe you have a point. Maybe. But I don't think it's going to make a great argument tomorrow. ‘Look at all this other stuff we've gotten away with, can't you let this slide too?’”
Jonah didn’t look bothered by her point. “Well then we go with plan B.”
“We have a plan B? Are we really counting ’it'll probably be fine’ as plan A?”
“We have an email sent from our CEO, with every district manager on copy, instructing them on how to fire elderly employees without making it look like they're targeting those exact employees.”
Amy twisted in her seat and gave Jonah an appraising look. “You should have opened with that. That one should have been plan A.”
He smiled, looking pleased with himself. “I told you earlier, I generally like to believe that things are going to work out. But I also believe we work for a soulless corporation that probably thinks child labor laws are for the weak, so I like to have a contingency plan.”
“Except we would have to explain how we got a print out of a private email. Plus there's no way to prove it's real, that's why we needed Jeff in the first place, to corroborate it.”
“I don't think we're going to have to explain anything,” he replied. “The only person we're going to confront with it is Laurie. She'll know it's real the second she reads it. After that, we just have to trust that the company is going to do what it always does: follow the path of least resistance.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning they'll do whatever they think is the easiest thing to do in order to make this whole thing go away. And as much as I'd like to go in and demand health insurance and paid vacation and a livable wage, that would probably be overpaying our hand. I think the only thing we need to ask for is that we keep our jobs, and that the whole - what did you call it?”
“Global sex tape?” she offered.
“Yeah, that. The whole global sex tape thing is quietly forgotten.”
“You really think that's their path of least resistance?” she asked skeptically.
“Sure it is. They avoid a potentially huge scandal being leaked to the press and a few rounds with the ACLU over age discrimination in exchange for letting two minimum wage employees in Missouri keep their jobs.”
“Yeah, but those two employees did just have graphic sex televised in every Cloud 9 in the world. They can't just not address that. ”
“It wasn't that graphic, you kept your bra on!” Even Jonah knew it was a weak argument as soon as he said it.
Amy gave him an incredulous look. “Jonah, people in Mumbai know that you're circumcised. That's pretty graphic.”
“...we kept our socks on too,” he added weakly.
Amy tried to hold back her laughter and instead ended up letting out a rather undignified snort. “Yeah, I'm sure that's what everyone was paying attention to. Not, you know, my vagina.”
Jonah smirked and rubbed his palms into his eyes, feeling a loopy sort of high from sex, an attempted employee uprising, and too little sleep.
“Okay, fair point. The socks were not the most interesting thing in the shot.” He paused for a moment, considering his next words. “So are we just not going to talk about it?”
“The sex?” she asked, as if there were anything else he could have meant.
“Yes, the sex. The sex that we just had. Like twenty minutes ago.”
“I didn't forget.” She wasn't avoiding the topic, but she clearly didn't feel like diving in head first either.
“So…” He let the word hang in the air.
“So…what do you want me to say? Do you want, like…a performance review?” Her tone wasn't sarcastic so much as it was unsure. It was easier to make the joke then it was to talk about all the ways their relationship was never going to be the same, no matter what they decided to do next.
“No, I don't want a - well I mean if there was anything you think I should know, just for future - nope, no, not the point.”
“It was great,” she offered, throwing him verbal lifesaver. “You were great.”
Jonah’s brows shot up in surprise, and a self-satisfied smile bloomed on his face.
“Really?”
“Really. It was probably the best sex anyone's ever had in the photo lab, and that's really saying something. But don't let it go to your head.”
He chuckled. “I'll try not to. Look, as much as I'm a sucker for positive feedback, I was really asking what this means for us. Or, I guess, what you want it to mean for us.”
“Does this have to happen now?” she asked, trying not to sound desperate.
He hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. “No, it doesn’t. But there’s a window for this kind of conversation. And I’m going to go ahead and speak for both of us when I say we fucking suck at finding that window.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry, but we do. We either avoid talking about important things until it’s too late, or we push each other to talk before we’re ready and then that just ends with us saying all the wrong things instead. So I get that you might not want to do this right now, but we’re going to have to talk about what’s going to happen with us sooner rather than later.”
Amy stared down at her hands, absentmindedly tracing the outlines of her keys.
“I don't know,” her voice was low but the only thing that broke the silence in their confined space. “Is there even an us?”
Jonah turned his body towards her, reached over, and took the keys out of her hand, placing them on the dash. He lightly squeezed her hands in his until she finally looked at him.
“I'd really like there to be.”
Amy shook her head. “No, you'd like for there to be an Amy and Jonah. But that's not what you get. You get me and Emma and Adam and the three month work in progress I've got going on in here.” She pulled her hands from his and placed them over her just noticeable belly. “I'm a package deal, and that package is filled with a shit ton of responsibility and personal baggage. That's what I mean when I say ‘us’.”
Jonah didn't say anything for a moment. He stared at where her hands rested across her stomach, and a determined look grew in his eyes.
“You offered me a fresh start. Before we…before. You said we could start over.”
She nodded. “I meant it. I still do. We can call this now. I'm not going to judge you for it. No one would blame you for wanting to hitch your cart to a significantly less pregnant horse.”
His face softened into an expression of bemusement, and he shook his head. “If you keep offering me fresh starts, I'm just going to keep sleeping with you.
“...what?”
“That…that sounded more romantic in my head.”
“I would hope so.” God the boy was a mess. Earnest, and occasionally charming, but a mess. Not that she was in any position to comment of the messiness of any person's life at the moment. Or probably ever again.
“I meant that I'm in Amy. For all of it. I don't want to be with someone else just because their life seem uncomplicated. I'm not Cloud 9, I'm not taking the path of least resistance. You are the pregnant horse that I want to hitch my cart too.”
“Maybe that’s the last time we use that metaphor,” she replied, frowning down at her stomach.
“Gladly.”
So maybe he was more than occasionally charming. A hundred counter arguments swam in Amy’s head, but it was hard to focus on any one when all she could really think about was how he was looking at her, like she wasn’t just the only other person in the car, but possibly the only woman in the entire world he wanted to be looking at. Werner Herzog could have been dancing the hustle just outside the window, and he wouldn’t have looked away from her. She tried to remember if anyone had ever looked at her like that, but came up blank. Definitely not Adam, not even when she believed they had actually been in love. The realization didn’t bother her as much as she thought it would.
Jonah could see the wheels spinning in her mind. “You okay?”
She leaned back into the headrest and allowed her shoulders to drop. She stared up at the ceiling of the car and tried to force out a coherent thought. “Yes...no...both. If that makes sense.”
“You can be both,” he offered. “Most people are, like, all the time. We just don’t admit it.”
“It’s just,” she paused for a beat to find the right words. “It’s just that all of those things sound wonderful. Seriously, that was probably the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to a single pregnant mother in the Midwest. Which might sound like a really low bar, but it was actually lovely.”
“Well thanks, I think. But I’m sensing another ‘but’ coming.’
Amy nodded. “But, it’s not that easy. We’re in a bubble here, and that bubble is filled with emotions and hormones and this weird post-orgasmic haze, but the real world is still going to exist tomorrow, and it’s going to pop the shit out this bubble.”
To his credit, Jonah didn’t immediately disagree with everything she had said, or try to downplay her worries. “You’re worried that tomorrow reality is going to hit and I’m going to want to take back everything I just said?”
She shrugged. “Probably not, no. I have to give you a little more credit than that. But it scares me that you make being together sound so easy when I know from experience that it’s so fucking complicated.”
“Of course it’s going to be more complicated than that. But I know that my life is better with you in it. I know that. And you can start piling on every potential obstacle you want on to that, but that’s still going to be true.”
She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Do you just rehearse really romantic shit to say in the shower? I’m not complaining, you’re just a little too good at it.”
Jonah threw his head back and laughed. “Nope, definitely not. Most of my shower conversations are different ways I would tell off customers if I knew there was no risk of me getting fired. The romance stuff is pure improv. I actually did a little improv in college -”
“Nope, I’m going to stop you right there. I love you, but not enough for me to sit through another college improv story.”
Complete silence filled the car. Unless you counted just how deafeningly loud Jonah’s smile was despite not making a sound.
Amy stared at the steering wheel, filled with absurd belief that if she stayed perfectly still and didn’t make eye contact, she could avoid the onslaught that she knew was coming her way. Like Jonah was an emotional t-rex whose sight relied on movement.
“What was that?” He sounded entirely too pleased with himself.
“Dude can we -”
“Nope.”
“Just pret -”
“Absolutely not.”
“I didn’t mean -”
“Oh yes you did. You love me. You said you love me. I love you too by the way, but really the focus here is on the fact that you love me.”
“Fuck me.” Amy dropped her head on to the steering wheel, accidentally landing on the horn which startled her straight back into her seat.
“Already did.” That earned him a sharp punch to the shoulder, but he was still grinning as he rubbed at the future bruise. “Sorry, that was crude. But punches aren’t going to get you any take backs.”
Amy groaned. “No take backs? We’re playing by kindergarten rules now?”
“I will play by any rules that get you to own what you just said.”
“Okay, fine. I said...what I said. And I don’t take it back, but I also don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m not saying never. Just not right now, okay? This has been the longest day of life and there’s still technically still an hour left in it.”
Jonah threw his hands up in surrender, the smile slipping slightly from his face, but not disappearing entirely. “No argument from me.”
“Really?” She sounded relieved.
“Really really. Go home. Shower. Sleep.”
Amy grabbed the key-ring off her dash and spun it in her fingers a few times. “Where are you staying tonight?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the keys, and hoping that her voice sounded as casual as she wanted it to.
“Well I asked Garrett if I could move back in with him. He kind of grumbled and cursed a few times, but technically I never heard him say no. Also Kelly gave away a decent amount of my earthly possessions, so at least he can’t complain about how much space I take up anymore.”
“What if you stayed at my place tonight?” she asked. “Just for tonight,” she added quickly.
He looked a little taken aback by the offer, but pleasantly so. “I mean, yeah. That would be nice. But you’re really not obligated or anything.”
“I know I’m not. But we both work the mid-shift tomorrow and we should probably figure out exactly what we’re going to say before we have to come in and face Laurie together. And I’m pretty much tapped out on important conversations happening in my car for the night, so…”
“So we can strategize over breakfast?” suggested Jonah.
“Breakfast which you will be cooking, yes. Also you’re sleeping on the couch. And we’re not having sex again tonight. Okay?”
“No sex, no bed, and I get to make breakfast in the morning? Why Miss Sosa, you do know how to treat a man.”
She leveled him with glare that dared him to try to negotiate but he just laughed instead. “It sounds great.”
“You sure?”
“Yup. No other place I’d rather be.” He settled back into his seat, and pulled out his phone to text Garrett not to wait up for him. Not that he would have anyway, but he did it out of courtesy.
Amy jammed the key into the ignition and started the engine. As she pulled out of the lot she felt Jonah’s hand slip into hers where it rested on the center console. It was warm and soft. He probably uses more expensive hand lotion than I do, she thought to herself. She stole a look at him out of the corner of her eye, but made no comment.
“You said no sex. You said nothing about holding hands.” She kept her eyes on the road, but could hear the smile in his voice.