Terms and Specific Conditions - Chapter 12

Joint Idiot Custody

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.

—

Two hours later, Penelope was sitting in a much smaller, much brighter glass room, trying to decide if it was better or worse that HR’s fishbowl had a ficus.

“So,” the HR woman said, folding her hands in that trained, neutral way. “You and Jack.”

Penelope stared at the little knot in the table between them like maybe it would open and swallow her. “We work on the same product,” she said. “We share a backlog. Very romantic stuff.”

A tiny smile flickered and vanished. “We’re not here to police relationships,” the woman said, which absolutely meant they were. “We just want to make sure everyone is comfortable, and that there’s no…perceived pressure or power imbalance.”

Penelope’s stomach did a mortified swan dive.

“There isn’t,” she said quickly. “I mean, there’s…us. But there’s no weird power thing. I’m not being coerced into…whatever you think is happening in conference rooms.”

Wow. Nailed that.

“We’ve just had a few comments about the level of, ah, physical affection on site,” HR said.

Penelope’s face went nuclear.

“From who?” she asked, then immediately regretted it. “Never mind, don’t tell me, I’ll kill them.”

“We’re not here to point fingers,” HR said, which absolutely meant Brandon. “We just want to make sure you’re aware of how it can…look. Especially when there’s a…visual element.” The slightest pause. “People notice.”

There it was.

Penelope’s jaw tightened. “So you’re saying I look unprofessional.”

“I’m saying,” the woman replied carefully, “that people may perceive you as…less serious. And that’s not always fair. We want to protect you from that.”

Fantastic. She was being “protected.”

“And Jack?” Penelope asked. “Is he being protected? Or is everyone just giving him a high-five for finally getting laid?”

The woman’s mouth did something complicated. “Jack’s situation is…unique,” she said. “People…tend to assume different things.”

Penelope stared at her.

Right. Jack was inspiring. Penelope was messy.

“Okay,” she said finally, voice thinner than she wanted. “So what exactly are we asking?”

“Just…be mindful of public displays of affection in shared spaces,” HR said. “Closed doors you can’t be seen through, fine. But glass rooms, break rooms, hallways…those are tricky. Optics matter.”

Optics. Of course they did.

Penelope nodded like a reasonable person. “Got it,” she said. “Less visible necking, more…emotional professionalism.”

HR relaxed a fraction. “Thank you. And again, this isn’t punitive. We just want you to feel supported.”

She smiled in that way that said: consider yourself gently scolded, please sign here emotionally.

Penelope walked out of the glass box feeling weirdly…sticky. Like she was wearing someone else’s reputation.

As she passed the kitchen, she caught sight of Jack leaning, forearm on the counter, talking to one of the sales guys. She slowed automatically, like her homing beacon had locked on.

The sales guy clapped Jack on the shoulder, laughing. “Seriously, man,” he said, too loud. “Good for you.”

Penelope watched Jack grimace-smile his way through it, then spot her over the guy’s shoulder. His eyes flicked to her face, scanning. A question: You okay?

She plastered on something she hoped read as normal and not just HR’d. He tipped his head, unconvinced, but let her pass.

Support, she thought. Right.

—

That night, she was on his couch, bare feet tucked under his thigh, trying to explain without actually combusting.

“So they called you in,” he said slowly when she finished. “Just you.”

“Yes,” she said. “Because apparently I’m the office homewrecker now.”

“You are,” he said. “Famously wrecking homes. Mine, specifically. Can’t get anything done.”

She glared at him, even as her toes curled a little deeper against his leg. “I’m serious.”

“I know,” he said, sobering. “Sorry. Continue your villain origin story.”

She picked at a loose thread on the throw blanket. The TV volume was low, looping some reality show reunion where everyone looked like they’d been airbrushed into the same face.

“They said optics,” she muttered. “That people might…perceive me as less serious. That I should be ‘mindful’ about how it looks when I climb you in a glass room.”

“That was once,” he said. “Today.”

“Okay, but apparently it was enough to generate a narrative,” she said. “And the narrative is: poor Penelope, making terrible choices, throwing her career away to sit on the guy in the wheelchair.”

Jack’s mouth twitched. “Direct quote?”

“Implied energy,” she said. “You know how it is. People never say the thing, they just tilt their head a certain way and ask if you’re ‘okay.’”

He watched her for a second. She could feel it, even while pretending to be very invested in a commercial for laundry detergent.

“For the record,” he said, “no one asked me if I was okay.”

“I know,” she said. “They were too busy high-fiving you.”

He snorted. “It was not high-fives.”

“You literally just told me Trent said ‘good for you’ and did the shoulder pat,” she said. “That’s the emotional equivalent of chest-bumping.”

Jack made a face. “Please never say ‘chest-bumping’ again.”

She dropped her head back against the cushions. “This is what I mean,” she said. “You get congratulated. I get…coached. Same situation, completely different memo.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Welcome to gender.”

She huffed out a laugh despite herself. “I hate it here.”

“Same,” he said lightly. “Mine just came with wheels.”

That shut her up for a second.

He reached for the remote with his free hand, turned the TV volume down another notch. The room shrank a little around them; the glow from the screen painted his face soft.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I get the…being looked at thing. It’s just usually aimed the other way.”

“At you,” she said.

“At the thing attached to me,” he corrected, tipping his head toward his chair parked a couple feet away. “The Population: Concerned are very invested in my daily comings and goings.”

She smiled, then sobered. “Yeah, but that’s different,” she said. “People stare at you like you’re a public service announcement. They stare at me like I’m bad life choices in lipstick.”

He made a low, amused sound. “You’re not wrong.”

“Thank you?”

“I just mean,” he said, “I’m used to being the weird variable in the room. The visual glitch. The ‘oh, something’s happening there’ guy. Today it sounds like you got to be the headline.”

She winced. “Yeah. Turns out I hate that.”

“Shocking,” he said dryly. “You, hating people trying to write a boring story about you.”

She nudged his leg with her toes. “I just…don’t like that the story is ‘what is she thinking,’” she said. “Like I’m some cautionary tale.”

“Yeah,” he said, quieter. “I know that one.”

She looked at him.

He shrugged, picking at the label on his beer bottle. “I’m used to people looking at me and trying to solve a puzzle,” he said. “What happened, how bad is it, would I date someone like that, would I be able to handle it, am I a good person for even considering it, blah blah blah.”

“That’s a lot of internal monologue to project on a stranger,” she muttered.

“Oh, for sure,” he said. “But you can see it. The…calculation. The little ‘huh’ face. I’ve had ten years of people running silent ethics debates in my general vicinity.”

It made her teeth hurt.

“And today?” she asked.

He thought about it, and she watched the tiny crease appear between his brows.

“Today in the hallway,” he said slowly, “when Trent did the ‘good for you’ thing, and Mark made the ‘you dog’ joke, and HR apparently decided to make you their Q3 optics project…”

He trailed off, then huffed a humorless breath.

“Today was the first time I wasn’t the variable people were trying to solve for,” he said. “You were.”

She blinked.

“And that’s…better?” she asked carefully.

He shook his head. “Not better,” he said. “Just…new data. I didn’t realize how used I was to being the questionable part of the equation until suddenly you were the one getting pulled into a room about it.”

Something twisted under her ribs.

“Great,” she said. “Love that for us. Joint custody of everyone’s bad takes.”

He smiled a little at that. “I will say,” he added, “there’s a petty part of me that was like, ‘oh, so we’re all in agreement she’s obsessed with me. Cool.’”

She snorted. “You’re disgusting.”

“Fair,” he said. “But also: they’re not picturing some tragic Florence Nightingale scenario. They’re picturing you choosing me and then making terrible HR decisions about my lap. That’s…closer to the truth.”

A laugh punched out of her, unexpected anyd sharp. “I can’t believe my legacy at this company is ‘reckless lap use.’”

“Could be worse,” he said. His fingers slid from her ankle up to her calf, abs working a little as he shifted to face her more fully. “At least they’re not whispering about whether I tricked you.”

Her jaw tightened. “Has that happened?”

“Not here. Other…places. Other lives. You learn to clock the look.”

She stared at the TV, feeling the urge to go back in time and fight strangers on his behalf.

He nudged her ankle. “Hey,” he said. “You’re doing the face again.”

“What face?” she asked, still not looking at him.

“The one where you’re mentally punching every previous employer I’ve ever had,” he said.

She exhaled, the air leaving her in a small, helpless laugh. “I hate everyone,” she said.

He shrugged one shoulder. “Mostly it was people working through their own…stuff. I just happened to be the group project.” He tipped his head, meeting her eyes. “But. Today’s idiots are ours. That’s an upgrade.”

Her mouth curled, despite everything. “Gross,” she said. “We have shared idiots now.”

“Joint idiot custody,” he confirmed. “Very serious relationship milestone.”

She let herself smile at him for a second too long. Then, because the feeling was getting big again, she shifted closer, swung one leg fully over his and settled more firmly against his side.

He pretended to protest, swatting lightly at her knee. “You know HR specifically said less of this.”

“You going to file a complaint?” she asked, tucking herself in under his arm.

He snorted. “Yeah, hi, I’d like to report excessive affection from this deranged lunatic, please make her stop sitting on me in emotionally meaningful ways.”

She laughed at that. “Weaponized optics.”

His arm curved around her shoulders on instinct, fingers rubbing a slow line up and down her upper arm. Her hand found the hem of his T-shirt and stayed there.

“For what it’s worth,” he said after a beat, voice lower, “I did notice something today that I…liked.”

She tilted her head against his chest. “If you say Trent’s shoulder pat, I’m breaking up with you.”

He huffed a laugh. “No. Worse.”

“Oh boy.”

“When that woman in the bar gave us the dog-with-a-too-big-stick look?” he said. “Today felt like the office version. People seeing you all over me and going, ‘huh, look at that,’ and then going back to their day. No pity, no quiet horror. Just…interest. Mild judgment. Maybe envy.”

Her fingers tightened briefly in his shirt.

“That’s deviant,” she said. “I respect it.”

“I’m just saying,” he went on, “usually the headline is ‘wow, she’s a saint.’ It’s weirdly nice that the actual story is ‘she’s kind of unhinged about him.’”

That landed right under her breastbone.

“Good,” her voice was rougher than she meant it to be. “They should be jealous. You’re extremely worth getting in trouble for.”

His hand stilled on her arm for a second, then started moving again, softer.

“Yeah?”

“Obviously,” she said, like it was the most boring fact in the world.

He relaxed back into the couch, pulling her an inch closer without seeming to think about it.

“Just so we’re clear,” he said into her hair, “HR can give you whatever speech they want. I’m still going to be a visual hazard, and you’re still going to be…you. People will stare. That’s kind of their whole deal.”

She huffed against his shirt. “Great pep talk.”

“But,” he added, “if they’re going to stare anyway, I’d rather it be at you deciding I’m worth getting in trouble for than at me trying to prove I’m not a downgrade.”

Her heart did something deeply stupid.

“Oh great,” she said. “You're emotionally literate, disgusting.”

“My therapist is going to be so smug about this.” 

She sat with that for a second, listening to his heartbeat under her ear, the hum of the muted TV, the soft whir of the fridge in the kitchen. Her hand slid a little higher under his shirt, palm warm over his ribs. He pretended to swat her away again, but his fingers tightened on her shoulder.

“Just so we’re clear,” she said eventually, “I’m still going to be very dramatic about HR.”

“I would be offended if you weren’t,” he said.

“And I’m still going to sit on you in glass rooms,” she added.

“We’ll angle the chair away from the hallway,” he said. “Accessibility and optics. Synergy.”

She laughed. “You’re annoying.”

“You’re the one getting HR lectures for climbing me in public,” he said. “I’m just here, being loudly dated.”

She smiled into his shirt and let herself relax fully against him, letting the day’s sharp edges blur.

Let them stare, she thought.

They could write whatever boring stories they wanted.

—

By the time they made it to the Thursday happy hour, the HR thing had already calcified into rumor. Jack could feel it the second they walked into the bar: that barely-contained hum of people desperate to act normal while also absolutely not acting normal.

It was one of those faux-industrial places with Edison bulbs and cocktails named things like “The Absinthe of Doubt.” Management had sprung for three long pushed-together tables in the back. Half the team was already there when they arrived: hoodies, blazers, a couple marketing girls in dresses that said I will regret these shoes later.

Penelope walked in first, a little ahead of him, hair still damp from his shower and twisted up in something messy that made his brain short-circuit if he looked at it too long. She’d thrown on jeans and a black tank and one of his flannels like it was hers now.

He wheeled in behind her, and there it was–that tiny hitch in the conversation, the tilt of heads as the mental spreadsheet updated:

• Jack & Penelope: arrived together.
  
• Penelope: Jack-flannel, Jack-laugh, Jack-radius.
• Status: …ah.

She did that thing where she waved too big at the table, then immediately realized she’d overcommitted and turned it into a hair-adjust. He loved her. God, he was fucked.

“Hey, you made it,” Cal called, sliding down the bench to make space near the end.

Jack pulled into his usual spot at the corner, at ninety degrees to the long side of the table. Penelope grabbed the chair beside him, dragged it closer than was strictly necessary, and sat sideways so one knee bumped his wheel and her shoulder pressed into his upper arm.

There were other seats. She did not care.

Someone shoved a menu at them. The conversation reoriented, splintering into little pockets: product gossip down one end, meme discourse in the middle, two PMs in a serious discussion about whether the fries here were better than the fries at the place across the street.

Jack let his hand rest on his own thigh, close enough that if she shifted even slightly, they’d be touching. She realized it about three minutes in and casually dropped her hand onto his knee like it lived there.

Cal’s eyebrows did something acrobatic. Across the table, Jared tried very hard to look at the menu.

“Okay,” Penelope announced to the immediate area after her first drink hit, “I need everyone to stop saying ‘so I heard’ like we didn’t all watch the HR Slack channel light up in real time.”

The PM across from them–Jared, maybe, one of the Js–raised his hands. “Hey, no judgment,” he said. “I mean, it was a glass room. During work hours.”

Penelope rolled her eyes so hard it was an Olympic event. “They weren’t mad,” she said. “They were just–” She waggled her fingers in the air, searching. “Optically constipated.”

That got a laugh all down the table.

Jack watched her from the corner of his eye. This was her favorite terrain: righteous, tipsy, a little too honest. She started talking with her whole body without noticing. As she ramped up, she unconsciously slid closer, hip bumping his arm.

“Like, I promise you, Karen,” she went on, “no one in this building was emotionally damaged by seeing me sit on my boyfriend’s lap for five seconds in a conference room.”

Boyfriend.

Jack’s hand tightened on his beer without meaning to. The word pinged around his ribs like someone had dropped a marble in there.

Across the table, marketing-Lily’s eyes went cartoon-wide. One of the devs tried to smother a grin behind his pint glass. Jared made the exact expression of a man telling himself to stay out of it and failing.

Jack took a sip of his beer to hide the way his mouth wanted to do something stupid.

Jared cleared his throat. “I’m just saying, it was…visible.”

Penelope whipped around to face him fully, which meant she practically rotated onto Jack. One hip hooked over the edge of his wheel; her elbow landed on his chest like he was suddenly furniture.

“Sir,” she said, like she was addressing a council. “I have literally seen you tongue your wife in the break room over Costco cake.”

Laughter detonated. Jared put both hands over his face.

“That was my anniversary,” he protested, muffled.

“Exactly,” Penelope said. “I’m just out here normalizing morale.”

She gestured so broadly she knocked into Jack’s shoulder. He put a steadying hand at her waist on instinct. It stayed there. He did not move it. Neither did she.

If anyone at the table had somehow missed it until that point, they did not miss it now.

“Look,” she said, leaning back but staying pressed against him, “if I’m going to get a stern HR chat about optics, I want equal-opportunity puritanism. I want a memo. I want a rubric.”

“A rubric,” Jack repeated, amused.

“Yes,” she said, pointing at him without looking. “Kissing scale from one to ten. One is, like, cheek peck at the holiday party. Ten is Jared annihilating boundaries over sheet cake.”

“Uncalled for,” Jared said, but he was laughing.

“And where do we fall on this extremely scientific scale?” Cal asked, eyes dancing.

Penelope drew herself up, thoughtful. “I’d say we hit, like…a five? Medium spice. You saw less skin than you do on Casual Friday.”

“Interesting,” Jack said. “Given that I almost sent us both into the wall.”

“Okay, fine, maybe a six,” she said. “But that’s just because you’re a very hot Roomba. I nudge you and you just go.”

Jack choked on his beer. The whole table lost it–delighted, horrified laughter rippling down the line.

“Jesus, Nelson,” Cal wheezed. “You can’t say that.”

“What?” she said, blinking, fully guileless. “It’s a compliment.”

She leaned back into him, still talking, fingers tracing an idle pattern on his shoulder. Not for the table. Just for him.

He got it then–the sprawling, the volume, the boyfriend thing said loud enough for the far end to hear. She wasn’t proving anything to HR. She was rewriting the story for everyone who’d ever made him the anxious footnote.

He knew exactly what they were seeing: her, pressed into his side like she’d been hydraulically installed there. Him, not even pretending to mind. His hand still absentmindedly anchored at her waist, thumb under the hem of her shirt.

For once, the chair wasn’t the lead story. The glances didn’t linger on the wheels, the angles of his legs, the logistic weirdness of the whole setup. They stuck on her–the way she was sprawled across him, the ease of it, the obviousness.

He recognized one of the expressions from earlier in the week, in the hallway: the “good for you, man” look. It landed differently tonight. Less pity. Less awe. More okay, wow, these two are a whole thing.

Lily leaned forward, chin in hand, drunk and delighted. “You know HR is going to have a stroke if they see you two like this at the next one,” she said.

“We’ll give them a rubric,” Penelope said serenely, stealing a fry off Jack’s plate without asking. “Pros: improved company culture. Cons: none.”

Jack bumped her knee with his forearm. “You skipped the part where we both get written up,” he said.

“Oh, I’m absolutely getting written up,” she said. “You’ll get a framed certificate. ‘Congratulations on your bravery during this difficult time.’”

The table laughed again. Someone down the line went, “Honestly, fair,” and raised their glass.

Jack let it soak in for a second: the warmth, the noise, the fact that they were, unmistakably, being perceived.

Penelope reached for her drink, bracing her hand on his chest to leverage herself, fingers splaying over his ribs like it was nothing. She kept talking, but some traitorous part of his nervous system did a quiet, impressed little oh.

He filed the moment away. Another data point in whatever they were running now: public, messy, loud.

If people wanted a story, fine.

At least this one had the decency to be honest.

—

They didn’t make it past the couch.

Jack had barely settled into the corner before Penelope was climbing into his lap, one knee already wedged between him and the cushion, hands yanking his shirt free.

“You know that was insane, right?” she said against his mouth.

He kissed her back, breathless. “Gonna need you to narrow it down.”

“Letting me sit on you like that. In front of everyone.”

He huffed a laugh, hands sliding to her hips as she pressed closer. “You say that like I had a choice.”

“You didn’t stop me,” she said, kissing his jaw, his throat. “You just put your hand on my waist like, ‘yes, this is my assigned seat, thank you.’”

“Pen,” he said, voice already rough. “You’re narrating. It’s making it worse.”

“Good.”

She slid off his lap, dropped to her knees between his legs.

His eyes went wide. “What are you–”

“Shoes,” she said, already tugging at his laces. “Off.”

He leaned back, palms braced on the couch. “Is this a house rule or–”

“Stop talking.”

She got his sneakers off, then his socks. His feet settled on the rug, relaxed, one tilting slightly outward.

Then she went for his belt.

It slid free with almost no resistance–worn leather, extra holes punched in, barely holding anything up. She tossed it aside and popped the button on his jeans, knuckles brushing the soft skin low on his stomach.

His breath stuttered.

Her eyes flicked up. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely the vibe I’m getting.”

She pushed the waistband down.

They caught immediately at his hips.

She tugged. Nothing.

“Help,” she ordered, looking up at him.

His mouth twitched. “Hang on.”

He pressed his fists into the couch, shoulders and arms doing all the work, lifting his hips just enough for her to drag the denim down.

The jeans slid over his hips, then his thighs, bunching at his knees. She had to work them the rest of the way–past his calves, over his ankles–pulling fabric down over legs that didn’t help or resist, just went where she moved them.

And then they were off.

She sat back on her heels, jeans still in her hands, and just… looked.

She’d seen his legs before–in jeans, under blankets. But this was the first time they were just… there. Bare. Close enough that she could see the way the skin thinned over bone, how his thigh looked almost too narrow for the rest of him. The way the line from hip to knee was more angle than curve now, all long and straight and still.

Up close, she could see the faint shadow of hair catching the light, the soft hollow where muscle had faded, the little notch above his knee where a tendon stood out. They looked younger than the rest of him somehow–boyish and quiet next to his solid chest and arms.

It shouldn’t have hit her.

But it did.

That stupid, tender ache in her chest–the reminder that these legs used to move. Used to run. Used to do all the things legs do.

And now they were just still.

Resting wherever he put them.

Waiting for nothing.

Her throat went tight.

Jack saw it.

The exact moment it landed.

The way her eyes lingered too long, the way her hands stilled on the denim, the way her mouth went soft around whatever thought she wasn’t saying.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

Her gaze snapped up. “What.”

His mouth curved, wrecked and knowing. “What’s going on up there?”

“Nothing,” she said too fast.

He huffed a breath. “One day you’re gonna drop a bomb on me, and I’m gonna deserve it for every time I ignored this face.”

Her stomach flipped.

She huffed a laugh, tossed his jeans somewhere behind her. “Shut up.”

Not a denial.

They both knew it.

But she didn’t let him sit with it.

She planted her hands on his knees–bare now, skin warm under her palms–and used them to climb back up, straddling his lap in one smooth movement.

His hands shot to her waist, fingers digging in.

“Pen–” he breathed.

“You let me sit on you in front of the entire company,” she said, already rolling her hips once, slow and mean. “You don’t get to act surprised when I do it here.”

“Not surprised,” he managed. “Very on board.”

His grip tightened, pulling her down hard, and his back hit the couch as his shoulders took the weight of both of them. She felt the strain immediately–the tremor starting in his arms, the way his chest went tight under her hands.

A breath punched out of her, somewhere between his name and a swear.

“Yeah,” he said, dragging her down into a kiss that made thinking impossible.

His hands were already under her shirt.

Whatever thought she’d been holding onto a second ago-

Gone.