Set after "Quick Hardening Caulk". Sure this idea has been done before, but... oh well.
.
If anyone asks, she didn't mean to do it.
It was just one of those things that happens. Like when she says "au revoir" when she's trying to say "oeuvre" but she really means "repertoire". Or when she accidentally says "shit" in front of a class full of seventh-graders and tries to sing-song her way out of it. Or when she puts on her right-turn blinker when she means to turn left and then she nearly swerves straight into the Accord next to her and then he starts honking and she tries to wave apologetically but he takes it the wrong way and begins driving after her until she's screaming into her phone for Nick and Winston to come save her.
Yeah, it was just like that. Does she feel bad about it? Sure. Not that she has anything to feel bad about. Because it wasn't her fault. But she feels bad about a lot of things, like the rainforest dying, or Happy Endings being canceled, or that guy in 3C who walks his seven-year-old on a leash, because seriously what is up with that? She's good at feeling bad, she likes feeling bad, and she's not going to let anyone tell her that because she feels bad that means she feels guilty. Because they're different, see?
She didn't mean to put up two fingers instead of one. It just happened. She had a Jess moment.
(Although to be fair, her options were limited. If she'd put up a four, it would have been her and Holly sucking face, though she's pretty sure neither of the guys would have been that sad about that. And if she had put up a three, it would have been her and Schmidt making out, and, uh, no. She's glad she put up a two rather than a three, thank you very much.
Wait. What she means is… oh, shut up.)
She does feel bad that it's awkward now. She feels sad, and confused, and okay, sometimes, when he's shouting at her and she's shouting back at him and it's like they're two people in a movie, or an old novel, or a sitcom on Fox - in those moments, maybe she feels a little turned on, too. But that's his fault. Him with his stupid stubbly face, and his occasional beard, and his thin maroon v-necks, and his gargling, and the way he says "yuh" instead of "you", which she's always thought makes him sound kind of like the hero of a 1940s crime movie.
It's natural. Just her body reacting. So she likes it when he fixes the latches on windows around the loft. And the way his deodorant smells (especially when he wears it under both arms). So what? Any girl who didn't like that would be crazy. Even Sadie would like that, at least when her baby was making her have straight urges.
She realizes that's obsessing over this, at least maybe a little. She's been staring at the same page on her Kindle for the last five minutes, but it's hard to read when he's right there, sitting in his spot, drinking a beer, acting all cool and grizzled and attractive. Like, jeans? Seriously? Who's he trying to impress? Can he not just wear baggy unflattering sweats with holes in the thighs, like a normal person?
"Damn it, Lightning, can't you see you're pushing Mack too far?" When he's done shouting he just shakes his head and sips his Heisler. Then he looks at her. "I don't know why I get so worked up over this movie. Especially since the cars-as-humans things really starts to freak me out when I'm driving."
Jess blinks.
"Oh, uh, yeah, I know, Pixar's great, right? And they've got, uh, you know, really good songs in the end credits, too."
He's looking at her like she's crazy, and she wants to dive down into the cracks between the cushions and never come out again.
There are probably colonies of dust mites down there. She could be their queen.
"Totally," he says, and she knows she's just turning red. "I'm gonna get some ice cream. You want some?"
Except he says it as "yuh want some", and it makes her feel like she's being hit on by a smooth-talking bootlegger in a speakeasy in Prohibition-era Chicago.
But that's not the point.
"Sure," she says, and he sets his beer down and shuffles off to the kitchen.
So maybe she did want to bone him, a little bit, when she thought he was putting himself together and showing some ambition, showing that he cared enough to try at something. Maybe she even wanted to bone him a lot, and maybe she would have if he hadn't broken that stupid aquarium with the hammer. But that was a one-time thing, a freak occurrence, because one, there's no way someone could ever say "Take off your clothes" that sexily twice in one lifetime, and two, Nick's not the kind of guy to actually show ambition.
He's not the kind of guy to stay at work late, making sure the job gets done right. He's the kind of guy that goes to work late because he's playing Toss the Papaya into the Sombrero with Winston. Or the kind of guy that leaves work early because she's alone and had a terrible day and needs to vent about it while they throw darts at the picture of Aaron Rodgers in his room.
He's the kind of guy who leaves a bar where a smoking babe is totally into him because she's called him and told him she thinks the Bloods are trying to break into their apartment.
And that's not that attractive.
Really.
"Here," he says, and she wordlessly takes the bowl from him, because she doesn't exactly trust her mouth right now. He plops down into the Nick-shaped indentation in the couch and kicks his feet up, placing a big spoonful in his mouth. "Chocolate fudge and some white chocolate chips I found in the back of the pantry. Fair warning, I think they've been here since before Coach moved out."
She picks at the ice cream and takes a tiny bite. Nick's watching TV again, alternating scoops of ice cream and swigs of beer. He's got a tiny bit of chocolate fudge ice cream on his upper lip, coloring his stubble. Not that she notices or anything.
He catches her staring. She wants to look away, but doesn't. He smiles at her, cheeks full of ice cream, and she has the sudden image of a happy turtle and chuckles, but it's inside her throat and she coughs, and then she's choking and then he's slapping her back and standing over her.
"You okay?"
He's looking at her, with his stupid face, and his stupid eyes, and that stupid turtle mouth, looking all dashing and worried, and it makes her angry, but also makes her kind of breathless, and maybe they're connected or something?
"Yeah," she says, cheeks flushed. "Just got a little too excited about the white chocolate chips is all."
He stares at her for a long moment, like he's looking through an X-Ray, making sure that everything inside her is working right.
"Okay," he finally says.
When he's taken his seat again she catches him looking at her every couple of minutes, but she makes it through the next ten minutes of the movie without choking again. And if she's being honest, she likes how he looks in jeans and a hoodie, relaxed on a Thursday night, eating ice cream and drinking beer and saving girls from white chocolate chips.
And while she's being honest, maybe she did think about it a little bit when it came time to put up their fingers to decide who would be frenching behind the Iron Curtain. Maybe she thought about how he had sat with her on the hood of a car outside a middle school and been mean to her until she felt better, or how he had built her a dresser and run into a haunted house to stop her from getting her heart broken (and ended up punching her in the face instead).
Maybe she thought about how he looked in that wedding photobooth, or after Angie left, or after Julia dumped him over the cactus, and how she'd decided in each of those instances that she never wanted to see him look like that again. Or maybe she thought about how good it had felt when she'd heard AC/DC blasting from his room and she'd known that he was back for good.
And when he and Schmidt were yelling at each other, trying to convince Holly of how many fingers to put up, maybe she even thought about what it would be like to kiss him, just for a second.
But if anyone asks, she didn't mean to do it.
At least not at first.