Chapter 42 | The Things She Wasn’t Supposed to Notice
The kitchen didn’t look like his anymore.
The counters sat clear, wiped down to a shine he was fairly sure they hadn’t seen since he’d moved in. The sink stood empty, drying rack stacked with plates in an order that actually resembled intention.
The mystery shoe was gone entirely, banished to whatever dimension mystery shoes retreated to once a woman decided they had no business existing in a kitchen.
Even the light in the room felt different somehow. It was brighter, or maybe just less apologetic, like the space had been quietly waiting this whole time for someone to remember it existed and finally treat it like a room instead of a storage unit with a stove attached.
Jason stood in the doorway and surveyed the damage to his own life.
"This is unsettling," he said.
"It’s clean."
"That’s what’s unsettling."
Sarah wiped her hands on a dish towel and tossed it onto the counter with the particular satisfaction of someone closing out a job well done. "You’re welcome, by the way."
"I didn’t say thank you."
"You were about to."
"I was about to ask if you’d broken in."
She rolled her eyes and walked past him into the living room, and Jason noticed not for the first time that night, that she moved through his apartment like she’d been issued a floor plan at some point without his knowledge.
She dropped onto the couch, tucked one leg underneath her, and looked entirely too pleased with herself for someone who’d spent the last hour bullying him about a shoe.
"So," she said. "Now what?"
Jason leaned against the doorframe, notebook still tucked under one arm like it had taken up permanent residence there with satisfaction that his notebook secrets were not revealed.
"Now what, meaning?" Jason said
"Meaning the kitchen’s finally safe to exist in, and my roommate’s not expecting me back for a while yet." She gestured vaguely at the room around them. "So entertain me."
"I’m not a service."
"You’re currently the only one available."
He considered pointing out that she’d invited herself into his kitchen, his sink, and now apparently his evening, and he decided for the second time that night, that the argument wasn’t worth the energy it would take to lose it.
"Fine," he said. "What do you want to do."
Sarah patted the empty cushion beside her like she already knew the answer.
Jason set the notebook down on the side table deliberately, cover facing away from her, a small habit he was fairly sure she’d clocked and was choosing not to comment on yet
My long lost notebook that contains a weird list of attractive girls that were in my class with extra details on their sizes. It’s safe now, probably going to throw it later...nah, I’d rather burn it
He then dropped onto the couch. Not right beside her but close enough to count as an answer, far enough to still claim plausible deniability.
Sarah reached for the remote before he could and pulled up his streaming app like she owned the account.
"Do you just take things now," he said. "Is that a permanent personality trait or a tonight thing."
"Depends how the night goes."
She scrolled without asking what he wanted, which should have annoyed him more than it did. He watched her thumb move down the list, action, something with subtitles, a rom-com he’d apparently added months ago and never watched.
He found himself less interested in what she picked than in the fact that she was picking it on his couch, like it was a normal activity they’d already done fifty times before.
"You don’t get a say in this," she said, without looking up. "You lost veto rights when you made me clean your kitchen."
"You volunteered for that."
"I was drafted."
"You drafted yourself."
She landed on something, hit play before he could object, and set the remote down out of his reach with the calm efficiency of someone closing a negotiation. Then she reached for the blanket folded over the arm of the couch and pulled it over her legs.
She glanced at him. Then, after a beat just long enough to register as a decision, pulled it over his knees too.
Neither of them commented on it.
Jason looked at the shared blanket, then at the six inches of couch cushion still technically separating them, and had the distinct sense that the six inches were not going to survive the movie.
"Wait, pause it."
"We just started."
"Pause it, I need to know something." She grabbed the remote back before he could argue and hit pause on a very dramatic close-up of the female lead and Jason couldn’t ignore that she had a massive chest
"There’s a chessboard on your desk." Sarah said pointing at it
Jason followed her gaze across the room. "It’s mid-game. Don’t touch it."
"I wasn’t going to touch it. I was going to ask about it." She twisted around to face him fully, blanket sliding off one knee. "It’s an actual position. Not just decorative pieces someone bought at a home goods store."
"It’s mine."
"You actually play?"
"I actually play."
Something shifted in her expression, genuine surprise, the kind that wasn’t performing. "You’re a nerd."
"I’m selectively a nerd."
"No, this is–! " she sat up a little, "I need you to understand that I did not clock this. At all. You’ve got the whole broody guy with a secret thing going on, and it turns out part of the secret is a chessboard you keep mid-game in your bedroom like it’s a pet you’re nursing back to health."
"I resent the framing, but the facts are accurate."
"This changes everything I thought about you."
"For better or worse?"
"Undetermined." She grinned, tucking her legs back under the blanket.
"I used to play too. My dad taught me. I was aggressively mediocre at it, but I liked it. There’s something satisfying about a game where losing is entirely your own fault. No luck to blame. Just you, being bad, in real time."
Jason looked at her for a second longer than the comment probably warranted. "That’s a bleak way to enjoy a board game."
"I contain multitudes."
"Clearly."
"Who are you even playing against? Yourself?"
"Does it matter?"
"It matters a normal amount." She narrowed her eyes slightly, "Filed under ’things I’ll find out eventually.’"
She tilted her head, studying him. "You strike me as the type who narrates his own moves out loud. Like a little chess commentator having a breakdown alone in his room."
"That’s oddly specific slander."
"I’m rarely wrong about oddly specific things."