Here are a few more chapters in the struggle of my beloved Ilian Jansen.
I would appreciate any feedback.
Thank you very much.
Penelope didn’t plan on seeing Jack that Saturday.
She was already cranky about losing the parking battle to the stroller industrial complex, and the day had started with a text from her mom that just said:
“Do you remember that girl from swim team who broke her arm? The one you liked. She’s engaged now. To a lesbian!”
Which somehow felt equal parts supportive and threatening.
Chapter 3 - Video Games
Jack hated company happy hours on principle.
They were loud, overpriced, and full of people performing friendship like it was part of their job description. Everyone clustered in tight little circles, shouting over music that wasn’t good enough to justify the volume. Someone had already taken their badge off and clipped it to their waistband like it was a personality.
He’d said yes this time only because Penelope asked with a voice that dared him not to.
“You coming tonight?” she’d asked, leaning on the side of his desk, breath smelling faintly like those tiny oranges she hoarded. “Or are you gonna fake a calendar invite again?”
He scoffed. “That was one time.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You color-coded it.”
“It was a deeply important fake meeting.”
She’d just smiled, slow and smug. “So… I’ll see you there?”
The hoodie was technically to blame.
So was the office AC being overaggressive and Penelope’s brilliant decision to wear a sleeveless top. She just hadn’t counted on the meeting room being cold enough to store beef.
By the forty-minute mark of a two-hour strategy session, her teeth were on the verge of chattering. She tried all her usual coping mechanisms: tucking her hands between her knees, wrapping her arms around herself, pretending she wasn’t slowly freezing to death while some guy from finance said “runway” for the sixth time.
Jack caught her visibly shivering.
He didn’t make a thing of it. No grand announcement, no, “wow, someone’s cold.” He just glanced over once, took in her goosebumped shoulders, then peeled off his hoodie in one smooth motion and tossed it into her lap.
She blinked down at it.
Jack found out from Marcie.
Not on purpose–she just intercepted him at the espresso machine like it was a gossip toll booth.
“Just so you know,” she’d said, in that casually-concerned tone people use when they’re absolutely being nosy, “Brandon’s been… circling Penelope.”
Jack had done a neutral face. A professional face. A face that said wow, interesting intel, thank you, valued colleague, while his brain quietly set Brandon on fire.
“Circling,” he’d repeated mildly, watching the espresso drip. “Like a hawk? Or like… a Roomba?”
Jack knew her tells.
The real ones–not the big, performative, table-banging Penelope-isms she gave to the world. He knew the quiet things.
The way she pulled her sleeves over her hands when she was overthinking. The way her laugh got a fraction too sharp when she was dodging something real. The way she tapped her fingers against the side of her water bottle when she wanted to say something but wouldn’t.
Today, she was doing all three.
And trying to pretend she wasn’t.
They didn’t talk about that night.
Not the rooftop.
Not the silence after.
Not the almost.
Instead, they did what they always did.
They hung out.
They made each other laugh.
They sat close.
But the comfort now came laced with tension–like wearing someone else’s jacket, familiar but tight in the sleeves.
It was a Thursday when it finally caught up to them.
Long meetings. Rainy morning. Someone brought donuts. Penelope took two and didn’t eat either.
Jack rolled up beside her desk just after lunch.
“Wanna hit the bookstore after work?” he asked casually. “I need to buy a gift. And someone to shame me into not buying a Star Wars mug.”
Penelope looked up. Smiled too quickly. “Yeah. Sure.”
He watched her for a beat. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
She always said that now.
He didn’t push.
Just waited outside when she clocked out, hoodie pulled over his head, rain speckling his wheels. When she saw him waiting, she felt something in her chest tug.
I feel honored to be able to share my beloved Ilian Jansen with you.
I started this book in September and it has been a great pleasure to tell this story.
Thank you for the feedback. Please let me know if you find any errors or inconsistencies. Advice is welcome.
Thank you for reading..
Penelope woke up tangled in a shirt that didn’t belong to her and a body she suddenly had full access to.
For a second she didn’t know where she was. There was just warmth, and cotton that smelled like detergent and boy, and the heavy weight of sleep pinning her down.
Then her brain caught up.
Jack’s bed.
Jack’s shirt.
Jack’s everything.
Oh.
Oh, last night.
Her eyes snapped open.
They don’t make it two floors.
The elevator doors slide shut and she’s already in his space–one hand on the rail, the other curling in the neck of his shirt, backing him into the corner. His chair bumps softly against the wall and then her mouth is on his, hot and not sorry about it at all.
He makes a low, wrecked sound that lands straight in her spine.
His hand finds her hip, fingers digging in like he’s trying to anchor himself while the floor numbers climb. She kisses him harder, thumb dragging along his jaw, then pulls his bottom lip between her teeth just to feel him shudder.
“Pen,” he manages, but it’s not a protest. It’s a curse, a problem, the way he says her name when he’s already gone.
The little catch of his breath. The way his fingers tighten. Every reaction is a hit and she wants more of them.
The elevator hums. The world shrinks to the thud of her heartbeat, the warm press of his chest against her, the faint squeak of his wheel as she crowds closer.
The doors ding open and she doesn’t even look. She pulls back just enough to breathe, both of them panting.
“Apartment,” she says, voice rough.
He licks his lips, eyes dark and dazed. “Right. Okay.”
They were flat on their backs, starfished, staring at the ceiling like it had answers.
The sheets were a disaster. Her hair was everywhere.
Penelope could feel her heartbeat in her toes.
“Okay.” she said finally, voice rough. "So. Question.”
Jack’s head rolled on the pillow toward her. His hair was wrecked, cheeks still flushed, chest rising and falling like his lungs were catching up.
“Oh boy,” he said, “here we go.”
She kept her eyes on the ceiling. It felt safer.
“Is it always like this for you?” she asked.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw his brow crease. “Define ‘this.’”
She flapped a hand weakly in front of her. “This. Whatever we just did. What we keep doing. Level of…intensity. Time dilation. The whole ‘oh cool, my soul just left my body’ thing.”
There was a pause. She could feel him looking at her now.
“I mean,” he said slowly, “I don’t have a spreadsheet, but…no?”
She winced. “Okay, let me rephrase before you answer for real.”
He snorted. “That was the fake answer?”
They technically started it.
Not HR. Them.
Specifically: Penelope, at 3:17 p.m., perched sideways on the edge of Jack’s chair in an empty glass conference room while he pretended to walk her through a Jira board and actually had his hand under the hem of her sweater.
She’d meant to sit in a normal chair. She really had. But there he was, rolling in, wheeling up close, murmuring, “You good?” after a brutal standup, and the actual chair seemed unnecessarily far away.
So she ended up in his lap, legs crossed over his wheel, leaning into him sideways, scrolling through tickets while he gave real feedback and occasionally kissed the side of her throat.
They were fine until Brandon walked past, did a full cartoon double-take at the glass, and knocked his coffee against the doorframe.
“Uh,” he said, eyes ping-ponging between them.
Jack’s hands vanished from under her sweater like they’d been yanked by a stage hook. “Hey,” he said smoothly. “Just…running through blockers.”
Penelope, who was breathing like she’d just sprinted a mile, raised a hand. “I’m the main one.”
Brandon made a noise that might have been “cool” and fled.
So. Technically, they started it.
They’re halfway through a shared basket of fries when the shadow falls across their table.
Polo shirt. Name tag. Expensive watch. Vibes of “regional sales manager who says girl boss unironically.”
Cam.
Of course.
“Hey, excuse me,” he says, leaning a hand on the back of Penelope’s chair like he owns it. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Jack shifts just enough to angle his chair toward him, easy, relaxed. “Alright, Cam,” he says, half-grinning. “Make it good.”
Cam blinks at having been pre-read, then focuses on Penelope, smile dialed up.
“I just had to come over and say you’re, uh… you’re really beautiful,” he says. “And it’s so nice what you’re doing.”
Penelope’s spine goes cold.
“What… I’m doing?” she says.
“Yeah,” Cam says, with the confidence of a man who has never heard himself. He nods toward Jack’s chair without looking at him. “Being out. Helping him. Are you his nurse or…?”
He lets it hang there like he’s offered them a compliment.
Jack’s face doesn’t change much. Just the tiniest brightening, like somebody handed him a toy.
“Oh, good question,” Jack says. “What do you think?”
Cam blinks. “Uh… sorry?”
It starts the way most bad ideas start with them: Cal saying, “I brought treats,” like he’s a Girl Scout and not a human tornado in a hoodie.
They’re crammed around a four-top at some dim little bar with sticky tables and twinkle lights that think they’re doing something. Jack’s on the long side, back to the wall, chair angled in. Penelope’s sitting next to him at the edge of her seat, already half in his lap–one leg tucked under her, the other bent on the seat so her knee is splayed sideways over his wheel, firmly in his space. Jack’s brother, Cal, is across from them, talking with his hands. Jack’s hand rests easy on her thigh, thumb tracing the seam of her jeans while he pretends to listen.
Cal reaches down somewhere, drops a folded napkin on the table, and grins.
“Pick a mushroom, any mushroom,” he says.
Penelope blinks. “Like…culinary, or felony?”
“Felony-lite,” Cal says. “We’re microdosing. For vibes. For art. For being less of a little bitch about our feelings.”
Jack sips his drink. “I’m not microdosing anything you carried in your sock.”
Cal gasps. “Wow. No trust in this household.”
Penelope eyes the napkin. They’re small and weird-looking, not cartoon mushrooms, just…little dried tan things. Absolutely the sort of thing you should not eat in a bar.
Her brain: We’re adults, we make good choices, we research dosage, we–
Her mouth: “Give me one.”
Jack turns his head, eyebrows up. “Pen.”
“What,” she says. “When in Rome.”
“This is not Rome,” he says. “This is a bar off Fourth Street that fails every health code on sight.”
“Exactly,” she says. “I need help coping.”
Cal wiggles his eyebrows. “See? She gets it. It’s a Very Small amount. You’ll barely feel anything. Just a little…truth sirum.”
“Serum,” Jack corrects automatically.
“Don’t correct my artistry,” Cal says.
Jack sighs, long-suffering, but he reaches for the napkin anyway.
Penelope watches the way his fingers move–careful, strong. How he rolls his chair an inch closer to the table, forearms braced, legs slack and easy in front of him. The bar noise fuzzes into the background for a second, everything narrowing down to this tiny triangle: Jack, Cal, the napkin of bad decisions.
He catches her looking.
“Are you going to do it or just stare at it until it gets a complex?” he asks.
“I’m considering my options,” she says.
“You have no options,” Cal says, popping one in his mouth. “We’re on a journey now.”
Jack looks from Cal to her, then back. He shakes his head, amused, resigned.
“Peer pressure is so embarrassing at our age,” he says. “Fine. Give me the smallest one. Like, legally distinct from a mushroom. A mushroom suggestion.”
Cal obliges. They each take one, chase it with whatever drink is in front of them.
Penelope chews, makes a face. “Tastes like dirt and wet cardboard, and…sock.”
“Good dirt,” Cal says. “Expensive dirt.”
Jack swallows his like he’s taking medicine he doesn’t believe in.
“If I start seeing sound, I’m suing you,” he tells Cal.
“You’re going to start feeling sound,” Cal says dreamily. “Your aura’s going to cry.”
“My aura already cries,” Jack says. “It pays rent, it’s exhausted.”
Penelope laughs, leans into his shoulder. He bumps her lightly with it, automatic, like a punctuation mark.
For a while, nothing happens.
They slip back into their usual–Cal telling some unhinged story about one of their coworkers who tried to expense crystals, Penelope heckling, Jack adding quiet sniper comments that make her choke on her drink.
And then, somewhere between one song and the next, the room…tilts.
Not a big dramatic spin. Just…softens at the edges. The fairy lights above the bar seem to breathe, a little. The wood grain on the table goes from “sticky” to “cosmic.”
Penelope blinks, then laughs.
“Oh no,” she says. “I’m…nice.”
Jack is staring at the glass in his hand with mild fascination.
“Huh,” he says. “My drink has, like…depth now.”
“You okay?” she asks.
He looks up at her.
And that’s when she sees it.
The heart eyes.
Not new, exactly–she’s caught glimpses before, in quieter moments–but now they’re…turned up. Like someone took the dimmer switch on his fondness and just cranked it.
“Hi,” he says.
His voice is the same, but the way he’s looking at her is not. Open. Unfiltered. No little jokey deflection sitting in front of it.
Her stomach drops pleasantly.
“Hi,” she says back, softer.
Cal claps once, delighted. “Oh, this is going to be good.”
“Don’t narrate,” Jack tells him, but he’s still staring at Penelope like she hung the fairy lights personally.
“How do you feel?” she asks.
Jack considers. Really considers.
“Honest,” he says finally. “Like my inside voice and my outside voice swapped.”
Cal cackles. “Truth. Sirum.”
“Stop saying serum like that,” Jack says, wrinkling his nose.
Penelope is half horrified, half fascinated. “So…you’re just going to say whatever? That’s…terrifying.”
He nods, solemn. “Yeah. I feel like if I try to lie I’ll get a nosebleed.”
“Please don’t,” she says. “I’m not emotionally prepared to be in your anime arc.”
He laughs, eyes crinkling. Then he tilts his head, studying her.
“Okay,” he says. “Ask me something.”
The invitation sends a little electric snap up her spine.
“Anything?” she pushes.
He nods. “Anything. I reserve the right to say ‘pass’ if it involves my browser history.”
Cal leans on his elbows, eager. “I would like to subscribe to this content.”
Penelope ignores him.
She turns sideways in her chair now to face Jack; one leg tucked under her, the other on the lower rung so her knee is hitched up.
“Fine,” she says. “Why do you…look at me like that sometimes?”
He blinks. “Like what.”
She makes a vague, anxious gesture at her face. “Like you’re…storing me. Like I’m a document you’re saving to three different drives.”
He stares at her for a long second.
“Oh,” he says. “That’s easy.”
“Okay,” she says. “Terrifying.”
He shifts his hands, one coming off his lap to rest lightly on the table between them, fingers twitching like they want to reach for her.
“I look at you like that because I don’t understand you,” he says. “And it's fascinating.”
She blinks. “Rude.”
He smiles, slow.
“You…walk into rooms like you own them,” he says, words spilling now, loosened. “You sit on furniture wrong. You steal my food. You talk with your hands like you’re conducting an invisible orchestra of nonsense. You touch me without thinking about it. Shoulder, hair, whatever part of me is closest. Like I’m…default. Like of course you’d lean on me, why wouldn’t you.”
Her chest tightens. The noises of the bar dim.
“And?” she says, because she’s apparently a masochist.
“And I’m still not over it,” he says simply. “Every time. My whole body goes, ‘oh, we’re someone’s home base now.’”
Cal makes a strangled, delighted noise. “Oh my god.”
Penelope’s face is on fire. “Stop,” she says weakly.
“I can’t,” Jack says, almost apologetic. “You asked.”
His eyes flick down to where her knee is touching his wheel, then back up.
“You know how many people flinch around my chair?” he says. “How many people talk to my friends instead of me. Or stand three feet away like I’m going to roll over them if they get close.”
She swallows. “Yeah,” she says. “I’ve seen.”
“You never did that,” he says. “From day one you just…sat on my desk and started talking. Like I was a person. Like the chair was…a chair. And I know that sounds like the bare minimum, but I promise you, it’s not.”
The way he says it–flat, factual–makes her feel dizzy.
“And then you started doing all this extra shit,” he continues, oblivious to the effect. “Like grabbing my hoodie strings, and bumping my knee with your leg, and leaning your whole body weight on my shoulder when you’re bored. And every time, I feel…” He trails off, searching. “Included. In your…gravity. I guess.”
She stares at him.
“My…gravity,” she repeats, dazed.
“Yeah,” he says. “You’re very…gravitational.”
Cal is full-body grinning. “This is my favorite movie.”
“Stop listening,” Penelope tells him, eyes never leaving Jack.
“No,” Cal says happily.
She drags in a breath.
“Okay,” she says. “New question.”
Jack’s smile tips wider. “Hit me.”
“Why do you…let me do so much?” she asks. “Like. With you. Around you. To you. I joke, I lean, I mess with your chair sometimes, I…exist at you. You never tell me to back off.”
He looks genuinely confused by the question.
“Because I like it,” he says. “Because it makes my day better. Because I spent a long time being…handled. People taking things from me without asking–control, independence, all of it. You’re the only person who’s ever gone, ‘hey, can I load eight emotional suitcases onto your lap and still expect you to push?’ and I went, ‘yeah, sure, that’s ideal actually.’”
She laughs, startled.
“You realize you’re saying this out loud, right?” she says.
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s awful. I’m having a terrible time.”
He studies her again.
“Can I tell you something else?” he asks.
She’s not sure she can handle more, but she nods anyway.
“When I first met you,” he says, “I thought, ‘oh cool, a chaos raccoon.’”
She laughs. “Thank you?”
“You were loud,” he says. “And funny. And your clothes never matched and somehow always looked good. And I figured, okay, she’ll be a fun friend. She’ll send me unhinged memes and convince me to leave my apartment.”
“Correct,” she says faintly.
“I did not account for you…rearranging my brain,” he goes on, straightforward. “I did not plan on lying awake at night thinking about how you sit on my desk and how your ankle hooks my wheel. I did not pencil in catching feelings because you put your hand on my shoulder in a meeting.”
Cal makes a tiny, high-pitched sound and covers his own face like he’s embarrassed for them.
Penelope’s heart is trying to exit via her throat.
“Jack,” she says, barely audible.
He leans in a little, like he’s telling her a secret in a crowded room.
“And the worst part,” he says, “is that you have no idea. You walk around being yourself and my whole system is like, ‘oh we’re done for.’”
“That’s the worst part?” she manages.
“Yeah,” he says. “Because I have to pretend I’m fine. I have to sit in meetings next to you and act normal while you do things like…” He waves a hand vaguely. “Breathe. And exist. And occasionally touch my arm.”
She wants to laugh and cry and possibly leave her body.
“How do the mushrooms feel?” Cal asks, gently mocking.
Jack doesn’t look away from her.
“Honest,” he says again. “Dangerous.”
She swallows, throat tight.
“Okay,” she says softly. “My turn.”
“Good,” he says, eyebrows ticking up, like he’s bracing for a present. “I’m scared.”
She laughs, nervous. “You should be.”
She shifts closer on her seat until her knee bumps his, until she’s in that bubble of his space that always feels…right. His chair, his body heat, the little scuff on his wheel from where she kicked it earlier.
“You know why I’m always…on you?” she asks.
“Because you have boundary issues,” he says immediately.
“Yes,” she says. “And also because…you’re my favorite place to be.”
He blinks.
“Like,” she continues before she loses her nerve, “I walk into a room and my brain immediately goes, ‘where’s Jack, we’re going there.’ It feels like…breathing out. Like when I lean on you, my whole nervous system goes, ‘okay. We’re home.’”
His face does something. Softens and tightens all at once.
“That’s illegal,” he says quietly. “You’re not supposed to say that.”
“Truth serum,” she says, shrugging helplessly. “Talk to your drug dealer.”
Cal salutes with his drink. “You’re welcome.”
She keeps going, because she’s already halfway off the ledge.
“And when I sit on your desk, or your lap, or your bed,” she says, voice dropping, “it’s…not an accident. I’m not doing it because I don’t have anywhere else to sit. I’m doing it because I want to be as close to you as possible without making it weird.”
He stares at her like the lights behind her are the northern lights.
“You’re not…making it weird,” he says, almost hoarse.
“I am constantly making it weird,” she says. “You just like my version of weird.”
He smiles, helpless.
“Yeah,” he says. “I do.”
They sit there for a second in the noise of the bar, in their own little bubble, high and overly honest and so annoyingly, ridiculously into each other.
Cal clears his throat.
“So,” he says, cheerful, “as your unofficial shroom shaman, I’d just like to say this has been extremely cathartic. Ten out of ten emotional purge. Would recommend.”
“Shut up,” Penelope and Jack say in unison, without looking away from each other.
Cal beams. “Look at that. Harmony.”
Jack pivots toward her, plants one hand on the table and slides the other around her knee, using it to pull himself closer until his chair slots neatly into the space between the table and her raised leg.
“You okay?” he asks her again, quietly, thumb tracing the seam of her jeans.
She looks at him–eyes bright, edges soft, truth serum sloshing around in both their systems–and realizes she’s weirdly, absurdly calm.
“She huffs a laugh. “No.”
“Cool,” he says. “Because I’m going to forget at least half of the exact words I used, but I’m not going to forget the part where you said I’m your favorite place.”
“Yeah, well,” she says, cheeks hot. “Don’t get cocky.”
He grins, that lazy, devastating thing that rearranged her life without asking.
“Too late,” he says. “You’re very bad at hiding it.”
Her gaze flicks to his mouth and back before she can stop it. “Likewise.”
They sit there, two high idiots at the sticky table, fairy lights breathing above them, while the mushrooms quietly dissolve whatever plausible deniability they had left.
It feels, Penelope thinks, like the universe tilted just a little in their favor.
Or maybe that’s just the floor.
Either way, she’s not mad about it.
—
The air is cool, almost delicious in her lungs. The streetlights are halos; the pavement under Jack’s wheels makes this quiet, satisfying sound she could listen to forever.
She’s walking close, one hand landing on the nape of his neck, fingers grazing the soft line of hair. She doesn’t need to hold on–he’s steady–but it feels good. Anchoring.
“Everything is sparkly,” she says. “Including you. Especially you.”
He smiles, a little crooked, a little dazed. “Same. My chest feels like… very warm glitter.”
She laughs, delighted. “You’re so cute like this.”
“I’m always cute,” he objects.
“You are,” she agrees. “But this is like… limited edition whipped-cream Jack. Very soft. Very sweet. Might dissociate if you look at him too long.”
He laughs, head tipping back, and it does something ridiculous to her ribs.
His apartment feels different the second they roll in–not because anything’s changed, but because everything is turned up. Lamplight is extra golden. The wall texture is suddenly interesting. Even the scuff on the baseboard looks like it has lore.
Penelope closes the door and leans back against it, taking a slow breath.
“Whoa,” she says.
“Yeah,” Jack agrees quietly.
He’s watching her again. Really watching–no deflect, no joke. Just openly gone.
It makes her want to climb him like a tree.
“What?” she says, half laughing, half breathless.
He rolls a little closer until the toe of his shoe bumps her shin. She looks down at him; he looks up at her. The angle makes her feel tall and dangerous and unmade.
“I feel suspiciously lucky,” he says. “Like some intern coded the universe wrong in my favor and no one’s caught it yet.”
Her throat does something stupid. She’s already grinning like an idiot. “Shut up,” she says, laughing.
Something bubbles up deep in her chest. Giggles? Vomit? Hard to say.
“Bedroom?” he asks.
“Obviously.”
—
His room is the same as always–low bed, cheap projector on the dresser, a leaning pile of books–but the mushrooms and the situation have upgraded it to “personal planet.”
She perches on the mattress long enough to watch him transfer: hands planted, shoulders working, body lifting. His legs trail loose, then he pulls them up with his hands, one at a time, feet landing wherever they feel like.
The second he’s settled, she drops sideways into the space beside him, half across his chest, one leg slung over his.
He lets out a soft “oof,” arm going around her automatically, palm spreading warm between her shoulder blades.
“Okay,” she says into his shirt, already smiling. “I need to know something.”
He hums. “Hit me.”
“Do you have a playlist about me?” she asks.
His whole body goes still.
She pulls back just enough to see his face. His pupils are huge, and there’s a blush creeping up his neck.
“No,” he says. Way too fast.
She gasps. “You do.”
“That is… privileged information,” he says.
“Oh my God,” she laughs, delighted. “I was joking.”
“I am very emotionally available right now,” he groans, dropping his head back. “This feels illegal.”
“Jack,” she says, fisting his shirt. “Put it on. Immediately.”
“I am not–”
“You brought drugs into this relationship and now I get your secret playlist,” she says. “That’s the law.”
He stares at the ceiling like he’s petitioning higher powers. Then, with a martyred sigh, he reaches blindly for his phone on the nightstand.
“You’re going to be insufferable,” he mutters, unlocking it.
“I’m already insufferable,” she says. “This is just content.”
He connects the phone to the little speaker on his dresser. There’s a pause, then a song starts–soft, pulsing, a voice that sounds like it’s singing from underwater.
She recognizes it instantly. “You put this on a playlist about me?”
“Do not analyze it,” he says quickly. “Just… let it happen.”
She cannot not analyze it.
It’s the song that was playing at Mira’s the night she got too stoned and accidentally fell asleep against him. Another from that night on the rooftop. One she mentioned months ago.
Her heart does a very undignified swell.
“Oh,” she says softly. “You memorize me.”
He makes a strangled noise. “Why would you say that.”
“Because it’s true,” she says.
He’s looking at her now like the mushrooms peeled away the last of his defensiveness. “Yeah,” he says. “I do.”
She doesn’t know what to do with that except put her mouth on his again.
The music wraps around them, low and steady. She pulls back long enough to grab the projector remote.
“Wait,” she says. “I want to try something.”
A few taps and the projector hums to life. A movie menu splashes onto the ceiling–the last thing they watched, some animated sci-fi from the 70s with too many colors and not enough talking. She hits play and mutes it.
Light pours over them–deep blues, sharp greens, sudden washes of red sliding across his ceiling.
They both look up.
“Whoa,” he breathes.
“Right?”
The bed becomes its own little planet–ceiling doing a slow kaleidoscope, music pulsing, their bodies both heavy and floaty.
They lie on their backs for a minute, shoulders touching, just staring up. The movie throws a wash of cool blue over them; then a flash of neon; then soft amber.
He turns his head to look at her. Her face is half green, half shadow, eyes huge and shiny.
“You’re unreal,” he says.
She laughs, soft. “You’re on drugs,” she says again, but there’s no real tease in it.
“I was like this before,” he says. “I just… hid it better.”
“What, completely deranged about me?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says simply.
Her chest feels too small.
“I like you like this,” she says. “Loose. You always say things like this in pieces. Now it’s just…” She gestures helplessly at him. “All at once.”
“It’s terrifying,” he admits.
“It’s hot,” she corrects.
He rolls onto his side, propping himself on his elbow to look down at her. His legs lie still and a little twisted from the move. The light swings red, making everything look more intimate.
“The mushrooms turned my risk assessment off,” he says. “I can’t help it.”
She stares at him for a second, heartbeat doing that stupid little stutter.
“Say more crimes,” she blurts.
He laughs, low. “You’re drunk on this.”
“Correct,” she says. “I want to know all the things you think and don’t say. Tell me another one.”
He considers her, eyes flicking over her face like he’s checking if she’s sure.
“You’re not going to make fun of me?”
She hesitates. “I am absolutely going to make fun of you,” she says. “But in a ‘my heart is melting’ way, not a ‘you’re a loser’ way.”
“Comforting,” he mutters, but he’s smiling.
The ceiling shifts to violet.
He flops onto his back again, staring up like the colors are easier to talk to.
“Okay,” he says. “Here’s a good one. You asked earlier how long I was… gone. How bad it was. Want the real answer?”
She swallows. “Yes.”
“I knew I was in trouble the night you called me from the grocery store because you couldn’t reach the salsa,” he says.
She squints. “That’s so specific.”
“Yeah,” he says. “You FaceTimed me from the aisle. You had one foot on the shelf like you were about to free-climb, hair in a bun, fully prepared to die for a jar of medium chunky.”
A laugh escapes her; she feels it fizz through her whole body.
“And you went, ‘Jack, look at this bullshit,’” he continues, “and then you kept the camera on you. Not the salsa. You gave me a forty-five second rant about shelving inequality and I realized halfway through I had completely stopped listening to the words and was just… watching your face.”
She goes quiet.
“And when you hung up,” he adds, “I sat there in my kitchen staring at my phone like an idiot, and my first thought was, ‘I wish I was there. Not to get the salsa. Obviously. Just… to be the person she’s complaining to in person.’”
She covers her face with one hand, groaning.
“Oh nooo. That’s… horrible,” she says. “That’s so cute I want to peel my skin off.”
“Yeah,” he says. “It was alarming.”
“I remember that call,” she admits. “And I remember hanging up and thinking, ‘Wow, this man is very patient. I should bring him chips.’”
He barks a laugh and turns his head, smiling. “We’re idiots.”
“Prize idiots,” she agrees.
The ceiling tips green.
“What’s one thing you like about me that you’re… low-key embarrassed by,” he asks. “Like, if you said it in public, people would be worried.”
She stares at him. “That’s a whole list.”
“Pick one,” he says, smug.
She hesitates, then sighs.
“Fine,” she says. “It’s… your sound effects.”
He blinks. “My what.”
“The little noises you make,” she says, flapping a hand. “When you move. When you transfer. When you’re concentrating.”
He looks personally attacked. “Penelope.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “You don’t just sit there silently. You do this tiny ‘huh’ noise when you reach for something a little far. And you groan when you push up hills. And when you slide from chair to bed you always do this little breathy ‘okay’ like you’re narrating to yourself.”
He covers his face with both hands. “I am… so upset right now.”
“It is devastating,” she says. “My brain hears all those little sounds and goes, ‘oh, we live here now.’ I hear you grunt at a door and I’m like, ‘ah, yes, romance.’”
“That’s not romance,” he says. “That’s my core engaging.”
“Exactly,” she says. “Five-star content.”
He lowers his hands just enough to squint at her. “So you’re telling me you’re in love with my… effort noises.”
She doesn't even consider it. “Absolutely, yes,” she says. “Top five. At least.”
He exhales, then chuckles, unexpected. “That’s so weird, I should be repulsed. But honestly, that’s… weirdly nice.”
She smiles. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he shrugs one shoulder. “Like… if I’m going to be over here narrating my life like a grandpa getting out of a recliner, it’s nice that somebody’s enjoying the soundtrack.”
She laughs, soft. “I am enjoying the soundtrack. In, again, a very concerning way.”
He rolls onto his side now, mirroring her, close enough that she can see the flecks in his eyes even in the weird light.
“You know what’s happening, right?” he asks.
“What, mushrooms? Feelings? Cardiac event?”
“All of that,” he says. “And also–we’re basically doing the relationship talk without saying the word ‘relationship’ once.”
She makes a face. “Don’t jinx it.”
“I’m not jinxing,” he says. “I’m observing. Like a scientist. On drugs.”
She huffs, but she feels it too–that sense that some invisible line has been crossed and neither of them is interested in finding it again.
The projector slides them into deep blue.
“Okay,” his voice a little wrecked but playful. “My turn.”
She squints. “Make it gentle.”
He pretends to think, then: “Penelope Nelson, truth serum question boss level: on a scale of one to ten, how gone are you for me right now.”
She laughs. “What?! No, that’s illegal.”
“Answer,” he says smugly. “Instant karma for the playlist interrogation.”
She groans, drags a pillow over her face. The mushrooms hit send for her mouth.
“Ten,” she mutters into the pillow.
He pokes her side. “What was that, couldn’t quite–”
She whips the pillow away, glares, and blurts, louder, “Ten. Obviously. Are you happy?”
He’s grinning so wide it looks permanent.
“Yeah,” he says. “Actually.”
Her heart punches her in the throat. She flops onto her back, throws an arm over her eyes.
“Okay,” she declares. “We’re cutting off the serum before I propose.”
“Noted,” he says. “For the record, I’m also at a ten. But I assume you read the playlist.”
She lets out a strangled laugh-scream hybrid. “I hate you,” she says, softer.
“No you don’t.”
The ceiling goes soft gold.
“Okay, scientist,” she says. “Final truth serum boss level question. Then we sleep or make out until we pass out. Your choice.”
“High stakes,” he says. “Go.”
She swallows.
“If this all goes to hell,” she says carefully, “if we fight, or get weird, or life… lifes, what’s one thing you want me to remember you said tonight. Like… your pinned comment.”
He goes quiet.
The projector holds them in warm light.
He thinks for a long moment, looking at her. The jokes are still there around the edges, but he’s not using them for armor.
“Okay,” he says at last, voice low. “Pin this one: I am… obsessed with you, Nelson. You’re in my playlists and my grocery list and my stupid morning commute. You’re… the whole thing.”
She feels it hit like a physical blow. Her breath skids.
“You make my life harder,” he says–and she almost flinches until he adds, “and so much better I’d do it again on purpose. I didn’t know I could have this. You. This.”
“Jack,” she says, helpless.
“And that’s… not going to change,” he goes on. “Even if we do. Even if we have a season where we’re a mess. I don’t want less of this. Of you. I only want… more time to figure it out.”
She stares at him, every stupid nerve ending lighting up.
“That’s the serious one,” he adds. “For balance, I’d also like you to remember that you admitted you’re in love with my effort noises, and I will be weaponizing that forever.”