It was Friday night, it was nine o'clock and he had a couple of shots in his system so he could feel his tongue had loosened up a little. He had caught her eye a couple of times so that was enough of a green light for him. She was a little out of his league but so what, he had just been promoted earlier that day, he had a new suit on and he was feeling good so to hell with it. He ignored the jibes and the playful jabs in the rib from his buddies and smoothed his hair back, squinting and widening his eyes a few times to keep the warm and fuzzies of the alcohol at bay. He squeezed his way through the crowd in a gentlemanly fashion resting his hand on the lower back of several woman gently ushering them aside until he reached the one he had his eye on. A few guys had their eye on her actually but it was easy to see why, she stood out, she was different to most of the girls that towered around him in their high heels and expertly squeezed together breasts.
He swayed a little as he crossed the room but it was ok, his tipsiness gave him hope that some words would actually come out when he opened his mouth. As he reached her he cleared his throat and stretched across to talk to her. He took her by surprise and she leaned back, exchanging glances with her blonde friend which didn't fill him with the greatest confidence that this was going to go the way he wanted. Seeing her up close he had underestimated how beautiful she was, he had never seen eyes like hers before, they even stopped him from taking a sneaky glance at her chest which he usually found excruciatingly difficult after a few drinks. Unlike the hairsprayed curls that bounced around the shoulders of the girls around him, hers was tied back in a ponytail with just a few wisps neatly framing her face. Her dress was low cut but in a classy way and her face was virtually free of make up, it made a nice change. He did the honourable thing and chatted to her friend who seemed to be on his side in his quest to secure her number which was reassuring but shortlived. The pretty brunette was polite and friendly, she indulged his flirting and laughed in all the right places but it was clear her digits were going nowhere near his phone. He had reached that inevitable fork in the road, push ahead and wear her down or bow out gracefully. He wasn't drunk enough to come up with any more lines so he simply shook her hand a retreated back to his friends to be mercilessly teased and laughed at.
"Are you insane?" Rose spat through a mouthful of wine as she finally and rather abruptly stole back Jess' attention from the gentleman who was now dejectedly walking away from them. "Jess he was gorgeous and he asked you out, he didn't just get hammered and slobber all over you, he was nice and polite and he actually asked you out. What the hell?" Rose was little tipsy but she didn't care, it gave her just the right edge to let Jess know how crazy she was being.
"I wasn't interested." Jess shrugged as she sipped the remainder of her cocktail noisily through her straw.
"Does it matter?"
"Uh yeah, it does to me" Jess laughed incredulously.
"Jess. Question. When was the last time you got laid?"
"What?" Jess screwed up her face unsure whether to convey confidence or offence at the question. "I get laid, I lay...it was...shut up Rose."
"Yeah that's what I thought." Rose replied smugly as she smoothly ordered them another two drinks with the flick of her hand without actually saying a word. Jess lamented the fact that she would never be cool enough to pull that move off. Nick had that move nailed too - she wasn't sure why that popped into her mind. She sighed at herself and shook her head which luckily Rose had assumed was a distaste for the conversation but still she proceeded to interrogate Jess regardless.
"I'm very in tune with all my female friends Jess, it's a gift and I know when they're not getting any. You for example, you sigh a lot, you get snappy, you stare at the the butts of all the guys in school and yes that includes Principal Foster and you sharpen your pencils very... agressively. Aaaaand you only ever get like that when you're in between boyfriends. Boom! I nailed it didn't I? Didn't I?" Rose smiled widely at her perceived success and held her hand up for a high five which Jess left hanging despite being unable to conceal her laugh. Maybe there was some merit to what Rose was saying. Not a lot, but some.
"You're the one who's crazy. Jess chuckled as she toyed with the straw in her drink trying to ignore Rose leaning closer and closer to her until she was right in her face. "Ok, ok it's been a while!" Jess held her hands up in surrender and did a quick scan of the people around her to check they hadn't heard her loud confession.
"Ha I knew it." Rose slapped her thigh in celebration.
"Well I'm glad my sex drought is so amusing to you."
"I'm sorry Jess." Rose giggled, relieved that Jess was taking her teasing in such good spirits. "I mean how long are we talking? Have you been with anyone since..."
"Ryan? No."
"Well I refuse to believe it's from lack of attention, this evening proves that case and point so what's the deal?"
"I don't know." Jess shrugged a little more pensively. "The best sex I've ever had has been when I've been in love and the thought of diving into that again right now just feels...messy. But anything else just seems like a waste of time. I'm not very good at meaningless hook ups I never have been."
"But Jess that's the best thing about it, it's meaningless which means you don't have to worry. You find a hot guy who is willing to partake in a little back scratching without all the messiness of feelings and you're golden. It doesn't have to be the best sex in the world, just a little something to take the edge off you know. Why don't you get your ass over there?"
Jess turned to her new friend Lewis who was still staring at her hopefully but all she could manage was a raise of her glass which she instantly cringed at and it didn't even bother to see if he returned the gesture before she turned away.
Rose's encouragement wasn't completely selfless, these days she seemed to get a kick out of living vicariously through Jess. Rose had been dating Craig, a P.E. teacher she had met at a convention, for six months now. They were edging closer and closer to that comfortable phase and the sex was starting to wind down a little bit, going from seven nights a week to five which amazingly had Rose up in arms. Jess had very little sympathy for her woes. Still, it meant that Rose talked about sex a lot, with very few boundaries, despite Jess' resistance. The truth was Jess admired Rose's openness but she just wasn't like that. Jess was no nun but she did tend to be a little more conservative. Sure her fling with Sam had opened the door to frivolity and set her on the road towards sexual freedom but she still knew her limitations and finding herself a 'fuck buddy,' as Rose so eloquently put it, was most definitely one of them. One night stands, those she understood and had permitted herself a few of them in her life, she knew there was no time for feelings to get in the way. It was one night and then you were gone. Poof. But the middle ground in between that and a relationship was a grey area she feared she would never be able to navigate successfully. How on earth could she set her emotions aside for weeks or months on end and let little Jess take control of the wheel?
But in spite of all her thoughts and considerations one fact still remained. She missed sex. She missed it a lot. It had been six months and one week, not that she was counting, but those were the numbers plain and simple. Aside from her ill-fated attempt to seduce Nick with a piece of porcelain three weeks ago - her toes curled in embarrassment at the thought - there had been nothing, zip, nadda. She was ready for a new sexual adventure, the last guy she had been with was Ryan and she was ready for someone more worthy to take that title. Before that had been Ian but the fun and games involved in getting him into her bedroom had hardly been worth the effort. Before that had been Nick. Nick Miller. Given that she had been thinking about sex and then suddenly about Nick her mind took her to a very surprising but oh so very specific place and it made her squeeze her thighs together at the thought.
Being a bar tender for the last twelve years Nick had developed the skill of watching girls without actually watching them. It was a fine art that involved the interspersion of fleeting but frequent glances with intently staring at whatever he was doing to give the impression of hard concentration. When they knew he was looking they would change, their whole body would arch to push out their assets, they would begin to ignore their friend's conversation and worst of all they would begin to make him uncomfortable because he hated to be stared at. At the risk of sounding like a predator he preferred to see them in their natural state, that was when he got the true measure of them. What they were really like.
He knew every type of girl, what they would wear, what they would order and what lines they would use to try and coax him out from behind the bar. Yet he loved it when he was proved wrong, he loved it when they surprised him and flipped his entire theory on its head. It was a rare thing but he got a big kick when it happened. Those were usually the girls he would wind up going home with. He found he got the best conversation out of them and he usually counted a little conversation as foreplay. But with college finals well underway the last few weeks had brought only students who saw him as nothing but a novelty, part of game of who could get the bar tender, who could impress their friends by scoring a guy in his thirties. That wasn't what got him going. Not anymore.
That's not to say he wasn't considering it as he stabbed a maraschino cherry on to a little umbrella and dropped it in a drink much to the delight of the young blonde in front of him. It had been a while and his judgement wasn't quite as sharp as usual. He let the girl stroke the back of his hand in awe and gratitude, or most likely in a shameless attempt to get him to go home with her. He knew exactly how the night would go, he knew what the conversation would be, what her place would look like, what the sex would be like and how he would feel about it all in the morning but it was sex and his brain and his penis weren't really comparing notes these days. Even though his imagination had explored her body in its entirety and imagined her capabilities in the bedroom in pretty fine detail he still found himself giving her that smile. That smile that said 'thanks, you're cute, but I'm working.' Just like that she was gone and he would be sleeping alone for another night. He could hear twenty three year old Nick cursing at him and giving him a dead arm but thirty three year old Nick was looking for something else. He had no idea what. Just something else.
Winston wasn't looking for something else, he just wanted to get laid and he made no bones about that. He relied on Nick to hook girls in at the bar where he could wade in and test the water but his wingman was letting him down. Nick sighed and let Winston's ranting bounce off him. He had heard this monologue a lot in the last couple of months and he was used to it. How he never brought girls home anymore, how he hadn't been with anyone since Kai, how his dick was going to shrivel up and fall off if he didn't use it sometime soon. He was so used to it he no longer felt the need to listen. He didn't know what he was waiting for he just figured he would know when it was right in front of him.
Some time after midnight Nick lost his sulking loftmate to a group of inebriated students, he was pretty sure Winston had kept quiet on the fact he was a cop on that occasion. Nick wasn't too offended at being ditched, Winston's attempts to get him laid were starting to wear thin. Very thin. Not least because he and Winston had very different taste in women.
As the last few customers started to trickle out into the night Nick grabbed his keys and headed out to his car. One perk of his new, slightly more senior position was that he didn't get stuck with clean and lock up anymore. That privilege was now bestowed up the two twenty somethings he had hired a couple of months ago. Nick didn't feel guilty, he remembered it actually being fun at that age. Once the job was done you got to enjoy some free beer with your buddies in a crowdless bar and have free reign of the jukebox. But he wasn't that age anymore and he would start daydreaming of his bed throughout the last hour of his shift. He would imagine what nighttime snacks he would eat, how comfortable his sweats would be and what sports commentary programme he could fall asleep to.
He didn't expect to return home to anything exciting even if it was Friday night. Schmidt was at Cece's as usual, Winston was most likely in some club he was too old to be in and Jess was out for the evening. He plodded out of the elevator, his feet rapidly becoming throbbing dead weights on the end of his legs that were close to slowing him to a complete stop. He fished round for his keys in his pocket longing to take of his shoes and fill his belly with bread and cheese before sinking in between his sheets for the next ten hours. It would have been nice to sink in there with someone but at least this meant he could eat as much cheese as he wanted and not care. He walked through the front door but as he turned to throw it closed he caught it at the last minute, almost jamming his fingers to stop it from slamming. Jess was settled asleep on the sofa, so deeply buried in the cushions he barely saw her at first. He gritted his teeth as he closed the door as softly as he could manage and toed off his shoes with a less exuberant kick than usual. He stuffed his keys back in his pocket rather than cause a clatter on the side table and padded quietly to the kitchen. With a sleeping Jess the sizzle of grilled cheese was off the menu. He placed some soft bread under the quiet grill and settled for some toast - the poorer cousin of the grilled cheese sandwich - and popped open a beer.
Leaning back against the kitchen counter he wondered why she was home so early, then looking at his watch he realised it wasn't early she had probably just tired herself out from a night of dancing and fighting off countless admirers. Aside from the soft crackle of the grill and the hum of the fridge he could hear her breathing softly, he could see the rise and fall of her shoulder over the top of the couch cushion and it was almost mesmerising in his tired state. Jess was a deep sleeper like him, he figured it was due to her high energy levels during the day. When they were dating he could come home from work at all hours and climb into her bed and she wouldn't move a muscle. He could have been anybody! He wondered if he could get away with half an hour of TV without disturbing her.
With food and drink in tow he edged towards the sofa and lowered his butt slowly, changing the angle every second or so to avoid the creaking of the leather couch. Finally he perched on the edge, careful not to sit too near her feet which were stretched out across the length of the cushion. She had a habit of flexing her toes in her sleep like a cat and it made him chuckle quietly to himself, although it wasn't so funny when she used to claw his shins in the middle of the night, but the memory still made him smile. The blue material of her dress sprawled out across her, he was pretty sure it was a new dress, he'd never seen it before. The way it danced round her thighs and teased around her neckline was nice, he liked it. Not that he was looking anywhere near her neckline and the way her chest heaved slowly up and down under the weight of her slumber. He leaned forward grappling for the remote from the coffee table before flicking on the TV and expertly lowering the volume at record speed. He sat back, pleased with his quiet manoeuvres, that was until he reached for the beer he left on the coffee table knocking it with his fingertips and sending it crashing to the surface of the wood. He clenched his jaw and turned his head slowly.
"Sorry Jess." He whispered even though the damage was done.
She stirred slowly as he continued to offer words of apology. As she made her way upright she seemed to have forgotten where she was for a second. She had a crease up the right side of her face and her ponytail hung loose as she blinked her eyes open like a newborn animal. It was the kind of cute that sometimes he didn't know how to deal with.
"Hey Nick." She mumbled groggily.
"I'm sorry Jess." He repeated even though she didn't seem to mind.
She moaned a sleepy noise and kicked her legs underneath her, nestling against him a little. "S'ok...Mmmm whatcha got there."
"Just some toast. You want some?" He waggled the plate in her direction.
"Yeah thanks."
They crunched their toast as Nick took in the game highlights and Jess stole a sip of his beer every few minutes.
"How was work?"
"Hmm same old, I don't know why I have a job where you don't get to sit down. You know how much I love sitting down."
"I do." She chuckled lightly.
"How was your night?" Nick muffled through a mouth full of bread."
"It was good. Rose reached her three drink limit so we had to call it a night. She was trying to play matchmaker with all these random guys."
"Really? Where did you guys go?"
"Oh some new bar called The Ballroom, just a couple of blocks from school. We thought we'd try it out."
"Any good?"
"Hmm it was ok, a little pretentious and uppity for my liking."
Nick chuckled, only Jess would used the word 'uppity' about a cool new LA bar. He swallowed his last mouthful and stretched out even further, resting his beer on his belly as Jess continued to lean gently against his arm. It was just what he needed after a long, hard night at work. Just to unwind with his best friend felt good. He had been ready to take himself off to bed but suddenly he was strangely awake. With the loft a little more quiet these days they had found themselves spending more time alone together than they had done in a long time, he had almost forgotten what it felt like to be at the centre of her attention and he liked it. After the break up they had questioned every move they made, was it right? was it appropriate? were they crossing a line? and it was exhausting. At some point in the few months they had silently agreed to stop questioning everything and allow themselves to simply exist together without so many rules.
Occasionally there were little consequences but nothing they couldn't handle. The more comfortable Jess was with someone the more tactile she became and she sometimes forgot herself around Nick. As the food filled her up to the point of being sleepy again she let her head drop against his shoulder as she listened to him talk. When she felt the soothing heat coming off his body it was all she could do not to tuck her feet under his thigh and her hands under his shirt to rest against his belly to warm herself up the way she used to. She could feel his breath blowing against the hair on top of her head as his low voice lulled her into utter relaxation.
"So Rose was trying to set you up huh?"
"Mmmm she was trying to set something up."
"What, you didn't see anyone you liked the look of?"
"Nope."
"Nobody?"
She shook her head softly against his shoulder.
"I don't know if I believe that."
She paused for a long time and closed her eyes as the weight of the day pulled them down. Sinking a little further into him she murmured. "Well maybe there was one guy." As she drifted off she would never be sure if he heard.
