"Why are you staring at me, you weirdo?"
Britta watches Jeff over her slice of pizza, her head cocked to the side. "You always sit hunched over. I never noticed it before."
Jeff looks over his shoulder, as if he could see the curve of his spine. "What?"
"No, really. You sit like this." She droops her shoulders and bends over slightly. "And when you're sitting at the study room table, you slouch."
"Is this your idea of foreplay?" He tosses his empty paper plate onto the coffee table, where it lands on top of a pile of magazines and take-out menus. "Because I gotta tell you, it's not working for me."
She nudges his leg with her foot. "Don't be gross. I'm just saying that you could be like, two inches taller if you just stood up straight. Not that you need to be any taller, since you're already a giant."
The cat jumps into his lap and Jeff stares at him for a moment before begrudgingly scratching behind his ears. "And here I thought you liked me because of my height. Why are you so obsessed with my posture all of the sudden?"
Britta picks a mushroom off her pizza and pops it in her mouth. "I'm not. It's just something I noticed," she says while chewing. "And you're like, the vainest person I've ever met, so I kind of thought you'd be one of those people who walks around with a book on top of his head."
"I was never a contestant on Toddlers and Tiaras, so no, I didn't."
"Oh, I have an idea!" She grabs a magazine off the table and stands up. "Here, do it now. It's never too late to improve."
"You're kidding me, right?" Britta raises her eyebrows and smiles slightly maniacally. He sighs and pushes the cat off of him, stands up and takes the magazine from Britta.
"Happy?" he asks, balancing the magazine on his head.
"No, no." Britta hops across the room. "Walk over here."
Jeff rolls his eyes but takes a step forward. The magazine slides off his head and hits him on the nose before falling to the floor.
She laughs. "See? I was right! You have terrible posture!"
"Shut up. I wasn't ready." He straightens his shoulders and puts the magazine back on his head. Slowly, he takes another step, a successful one this time. "Ha!" he says through clenched teeth.
"One step. Keep going."
"You're doing this next." The magazine falls one more time, but he eventually makes it to where Britta is standing. "Let's see what you've got, Miss Colorado."
With a smirk, Britta balances the magazine back to the couch in a third of Jeff's time. "I have excellent posture, as you can see, Quasimodo."
"You little…"
Britta screams as Jeff lunges at her, knocking her to the couch. He kisses her to shut her up.
The morning is windy and cold and Britta shivers, miserable, in her Converse sneakers, gym shorts, and Greendale sweatshirt. She pulls her hair back into a messy ponytail and pulls it tight. "Why do we have to get up so early again?" she asks through a yawn.
"Because this is when I do my morning run," Jeff says, stretching his arms over his head. "You're the one who wanted to come with me. I told you to stay in bed."
"Excuse me for trying to be a good friend and express interest in things you like," Britta pouts.
He points to her shoes. "If you run in those, you're not going to have enough arch support and then you'll have back problems."
"These are the only sneakers I have."
"Okay, don't expect me to give you a backrub later."
She scoffs. "When have I ever asked you for a backrub? Never. Because you'd never do it anyway."
"Probably not. Are you ready to go yet? I could have done like, four miles by now."
She shoots him a dirty look and they start running, slow at first. They round the corner onto the next block and Jeff picks up his pace. Britta manages to keep up with him for three blocks and then stops, bending over and wheezing.
"What are you doing?" Jeff asks, running in place beside her.
She clutches a stitch in her side. "I smoked for ten years, okay? I have the lung capacity of a 300-pound man."
"You're serious?"
"Yes," she gasps. "Can we please go back to bed?"
Jeff stops running. "Four blocks? You weigh five pounds and are in the worst shape I've ever seen in my entire life. Can you walk back or do you want me to get the car?" he asks dryly.
"Piggyback ride? My ankle hurts, too."
He looks at her incredulously. "This is not happening. Next Sunday, if you so much as open one eye when I get up to run, I'm going to smother you with a pillow." Neither of them bats an eyelash at the reference to them doing the same thing next Sunday.
"Promise," she says quietly.
He crouches down in front of her and she climbs on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck. "This is like a workout, you know. Lifting weights!"
"I hate you," he says.
He carries her all the way up to his apartment, though, and throws her on the bed. "I'm going to at least do some push-ups so my morning isn't a total waste. Go back to sleep, Breathless Betty."
She kicks her shoes off and burrows under the covers. "I think I'll just watch your workouts from now on and make coffee for when you're done."
"Good idea," he says sarcastically, kicking clothes into a pile in the corner. He pulls off his shirt and drops to the floor in push-up position.
Britta props the pillows up behind her back. "Give me fifty!" she says, seemingly much more content to be in bed, not running.
Jeff doesn't answer and Britta is silent until he hits his fortieth push-up.
"You look like you have boobs."
He stops and looks up at her. "What?"
She points to his chest. "Right now, your boobs are bigger than mine."
"Well—"
"Don't say it!" she interrupts. "I don't care how small you think they are because a) you never have a problem touching them and b) your boobs should not be bigger than mine!"
"I think I'm going to invest in a gym membership."
"But really, you look pretty ridiculous. How did they get bigger from, what? Twenty push-ups?"
Jeff sits up. "That was forty, thank you very much. Can I get you some popcorn over there, peanut gallery?"
"How have I never noticed this before? I mean, I was there when you and Troy got into that push-up contest. Stupidest thing ever, by the way. You guys should have just whipped your dicks out and measured. Although, you know what they say about black guys, so maybe that was a good idea on your part after all."
"Ha, ha." Jeff stands up and pulls his shirt back over his head.
"I get it. Men have this weird inferiority complex around other men and feel the need to exert their masculinity, especially in a small group like ours. But do you see the irony here? You're trying to exert your masculinity by partaking in a physical activity that gives you breasts. Like, womanly female breasts. I think I'm going to add this to the paper I'm eventually going to write about men and fighting."
"I'm never having sex with you again."
"And men do these things in order to attract women, because they're under the delusion that humans are animals and women flock to the guy with the most testosterone. But in this case, it actually looks like you have the most estrogen because your boobs are literally bigger than mine and that? It's not what I wake up in the morning lusting after, sorry to say."
"I'm going for a run," Jeff says loudly. "An actual run that will last longer than four blocks."
"Oooh, stop at Starbucks on your way home!" Britta yells at his retreating form. "Pumpkin spice lattes are back!"
"We have to be at school in twenty minutes!" Britta yells, pounding on the bathroom door. "Just let me in. We can share the mirror!"
"I'm not ready yet!" Jeff yells back.
Britta stomps her foot and then is immediately glad Jeff can't see her. "Jeff, I have to brush my teeth and do my hair. Not to mention that I haven't even peed yet today. I'm coming in, and I don't care about whatever you're doing, unless it's jerking off because that's gross. We had sex like an hour ago."
She pushes the door open and finds Jeff standing in his underwear in front of the mirror, the counter completely covered in bottles and jars.
"What is all this?"
"My morning regimen. Do you think this all comes naturally?"
Britta picks up the closest bottle and examines its label. "Well, yeah, kind of. My morning regimen is some Dove soap and a tube of Wet n' Wild lipstick."
Jeff looks at her like she has three heads. "Do you even exfoliate?"
"My elbows." She holds up her arm for examination. "See? Smooth."
"You're a heathen. And you can't brush your teeth until I'm done, anyway. I need the sink."
"What?" Britta peers into the sink, which is filled with pink-tinted water. "What is that?"
"It's something I invented. I mix some cleanser with water and then soak a washcloth in it and then wash my face."
Britta wrinkles her brow. "What is wrong with you?"
"Uh, nothing, because I have great skin."
"How am I supposed to brush my teeth?"
Jeff points toward the door. "There's a sink in the kitchen."
Britta stomps her foot again and this time doesn't even care that he can see her. "You know what? I will brush my teeth in the kitchen. Because I hate your stupid bathroom. And your stupid skin and your dumb bottles of lotion that cost so much they could probably feed an entire family in Africa for a year. And have I mentioned that I hate your bathroom? Because I do! The mirror is dumb and your shower curtain is weird and the floor tile looks like someone threw up on it!"
She snatches the tube of toothpaste off the counter and knocks over a few bottles in her haste.
"Hey! Those are expensive!" Jeff protests.
"Yeah, well, I still really have to pee!" she yells. "And I'm going to spit toothpaste all over your kitchen sink!"
Britta listens to the phone ring as she circles Jeff's parking lot. One of his neighbors must be having a part or something because there are cars everywhere, even in the visitor spots where she usually parks. He's still not picking up the phone, but he's been acting weird for the last two days.
He gets like this sometimes, she notices. Things will be going fine between them and then all of the sudden he'll withdraw, not answer her calls or come over on Friday night the way he usually does. Or he'll ignore her in school and they won't sleep together for a week and then when he feels better he'll burst into her apartment with Indian food and an insult and that will be that.
"Hello?" he picks up on the sixth ring.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"Shouldn't you be on a date right now?" his voice is low and extra-sarcastic. Moody Jeff prevails.
"He turned out to be a genocidal war criminal," Britta says. "I'm trying to figure out how to tell Troy and Abed without them accusing me of ruining him, like I always do."
"What does that mean?"
Britta rounds the corner and makes a face at the rows of cars. "They said that I sleep with guys they want to hang out with and then say things that make those guys not so cool to them anymore. Like I did with you."
"Wha—"
"I kind of told them that thing about your nipples."
Jeff sighs. "Whatever. You didn't tell them we were sleeping together now, did you?"
"That's it? That's all I get for that one? I tell our friends about your sexual fetishes and all you're concerned about is if they know we're still sleeping together?"
"Do they?"
"No! We both agreed and I've kept up my end. What's up with you? Is Chang doing something weird in your apartment again?"
"He's not even here. He said he was going to circle Shirley's block hoping to catch Andre doing something bad."
"And you're not going to stop him?"
"Not my business."
There's a spot up ahead, but when Britta finally gets to it there's a motorcycle—a fucking motorcycle—in it. "So what are you doing?"
"Watching TV. I kind of figured you'd be busy tonight having sex with your new boyfriend."
"I told you, he's a war criminal! And I did not have sex with—wait. Are you… you're not jealous, are you?"
"What? No. Why would I be jealous? I just went out on a date last weekend."
Britta smirks. "No, last weekend we drank too much and spent all of Sunday hungover on my couch."
"The date was on Friday, idiot."
"Friday? You mean when you made me go shopping for those ugly, overpriced boots?"
"Okay, so maybe it was the weekend before. I can't keep track."
"You know what I think? I think you haven't been on a single date since we started sleeping together. And now I went out with a guy and you're jealous, even though I didn't have sex with him and I sincerely hope I never see him again. And you can't admit you're jealous because you're Jeff Winger and you're in one of your weird moods where you're being an asshole for no discernible reason. So I'm going to bed and I'll talk to you tomorrow or whatever."
He hangs up before she can and she rolls her eyes before driving away.
Jeff snores slightly. Britta can't sleep. They just had sex for the third time ever, but it's the first time it happened in a bed in one of their apartments and not on the study room table or in the backseat of Jeff's car. And it's the second time they've slept together in the last three days and Britta doesn't know what to make any of it.
Jeff sleeps on his stomach, his head turned to the side, face smashed into the pillow. He looks strange in her bed, his feet hanging off the end, her purple thrift store sheets strewn over his torso. This is the first time he's ever even been in her apartment.
"This is so weird," she whispers. She kind of likes silent, sleeping Jeff. It's almost like he spent the entire summer lifting weights; his back is somehow more muscular than it was when they slept together last spring. Maybe he worked out to abstain from having sex with Annie all summer. Britta hasn't found out how to get over that yet.
He shifts in his sleep and the sheet slips down to his lower back so it only covers the lower half of his ass. Britta's eyes are drawn to it—she can't help it, really—but upon further inspection, she realizes that the sheet is still covering his entire ass. It's his butt crack that can't be contained.
It's something she's never noticed before on anyone that she can think of. Sure, she's had sex with plenty of guys, and she's seen plenty of naked people. But none of them have ever had a weird butt crack. Jeff Winger does.
She puts her hand on her own back and tries to get a sense of where her own ends. There's a good few inches between the top of her butt and the small of her back. But Jeff's seems to go on for ages, finally stopping at the dimple she's seen when he bends over to tie his shoes and his shirt rides up. It's such a strange, small imperfection, but now that Britta's noticed it, it's so glaring that she can't turn away.
Finally, she reaches over and pulls the sheet up to the middle of his back. She's just about to resettle in to her spot when he shifts again. "What're you doing?" he slurs, still half-asleep.
"Nothing," she whispers. "Go back to sleep."
He does and she rolls over, facing away from him, so she can laugh a little bit to herself until she's tired.