Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jess is not cool. She knows this. She's known this for very nearly her whole life and she's generally completely fine with it. Better to do the things she wants to do -- spend a Friday night playing Bananagrams, make up a set of baking-related lyrics to We Didn't Start the Fire while she's frosting cupcakes -- than worry about fitting in with the hip crowd.

Besides, with a sister like Abby and a best friend like Cece, all the cool had been pretty much spoken for way before she got around to figuring things out. So yeah: she wasn't a cool 12 year old or a cool 19 year old and she’s not expecting anything to change now that she’s rounded the stretch into her 30s.

--

She's sent out 43 resumes. Has 12 different cover letter drafts on her computer desktop. She's updated her LinkedIn profile and signed up for like 50 job listing email newsletters.

In a way it's a relief to fill out the Casserole Shack application: one letter per box in ballpoint pen, her date of birth and whether she's ever been convicted of a felony. No need for buzzwordy career goals or thoughtful anecdotes that quantify what a great hire she'd be. Nothing that makes her start to feel pissed all over again about how unfair this is or that deep, panicky dread that she won't ever get another teaching job,

--
What sucks is how jealous she feels watching her roommates go to work and come home: Schmidt and Winston with their schedules and routines, Nick with the unsubtle worried looks he shoots her on the couch.

The kids across the hall, it turns out, don't look at her that way at all. They also don't give her lectures on treating job-hunting like a job (Schmidt) or how she's messing up her sleep cycle (Winston). Not once do any of them make The Face all her roommates get when she's in her Asserole Shanty uniform; somewhere between pity and mortification, like her visor is moments away from turning into a cardboard sign she'll be holding at a freeway offramp, begging for change.

--

In fact, their new neighbors pretty much think the opposite;. Via some mysterious combination of free food, her voices (which make her so popular with second graders and so unpopular with sixth) and not particularly caring what they think of her, she's made surprising achievements. It turns out she IS a cool 23 year old; just, like, a decade too late.

--

"Hey," says Sutton, twining her fingers with Jess's where she's leaning against the kitchen counter. They spend a minute watching Fife and Chaz eat Tuna Surprise Casserole right out of the aluminum tray she brought it in. "Thanks for bringing dinner again-slash-being the coolest new neighbor of the decade."

Jess grins and squeezes her hand, letting her head rest on Sutton's shoulder.

--

"Across the hall again?" Nick says when she wanders back in at 2 in the morning. He's watching the TV on mute in the dark living room and if she didn't know better she'd think he was waiting up for her. "Tell the truth, Jess: are they making you join a cult?"

"Ha ha," she says and flops on the couch next to him. They watch the silent sports scores until she falls asleep there.

--

"Did you get Fife's snap of the K-Pop mashup?" Sutton asks, a Twizzler dangling out of her mouth. Today she's wearing jorts with studs all over them and boots that Jess really wishes she'd owned in elementary school during her Little House on the Prairie phase.

"Ummmmmm," Jess says.

Sutton raises an eyebrow but it feels more amused than judgey, the same look she's so used to from Cece.

"Tell me you're Snapchatting, Jess," she says, even as she leans forward to grab Jess's phone off the coffee table. "Don't worry, I've got you." She tosses Jess a sideways grin as her thumbs fly over the screen.

--

It's nice, lying flopped across the couch, hazy after two-and-a-half PBRs, Brorie's hands on her scalp as she finger combs Jess's hair idly. Even if the incense someone's burning makes this smell exactly like her sophomore year dorm hallway. It’s super late but it’s not like she has anywhere else to be.

This is the kind of thing Sam very definitely does not do: hot, dirty bootycall sex doesn't really leave room for sweet touchy-feely stuff like having her head in someone's lap, cool fingers brushing occasionally against the skin behind her ear. It's so nice she could purr.

“It’s not that I don’t want to make art about the Asian American experience or whatever,” Sutton is saying somewhere above her. “It’s just, like, why can’t I just take some cool photographs and figure that out later?"

--

Jess is so sleepy it feels like being drunk later -- way way later -- when she opens her eyes to feel Sutton crawling onto her lap. Chaz is asleep on the floor by the N64 ("So retro! We had one of these when I was in kindergarten.") and Fife and Brorie are making out in the beanbag chair across the room.

“Hey girl," Sutton smiles, taking Jess's face in her hands, and leans in to kiss her.

It’s not like Jess had been expecting this; but it’s not like she’s completely surprised either. Three things go through her mind in quick succession: not to pull away, because how uncool would that be?; that it’s actually pretty cool they’re not leaving her out; that oh, this feels different than kissing a guy. Sutton kisses softer; her mouth is smaller, the skin on her face is smooth. Her hands are different as they slide up to tangle in Jess’s hair at her temples.

It’s a short kiss but another comes right after and then another and before Jess knows it she’s kissing back. Her mouth opens before she realizes it, Sutton’s tongue a quick, questioning flicker against hers.

--

It's weird, looking at herself in the mirror the next morning (okay, afternoon; her sleep schedule is so whacked) while she brushes her teeth. She knows she's not gay.

Except… could she maybe be a little bit gay? She saw Kinsey, back in her Liam Neeson phase. She knows how the scale works.

"How did you know?" Cece had asked Sadie last year, over wine, still furious and heartbroken over Schmidt. "That you were gay, I mean?"

Sadie had tilted her head thoughtfully.

"Probably how excited I got every year for sundress season," she said. "And boobs in general." She smiled, eyes focused on the distance. "I mean. Have you seen boobs?"

Jess has seen boobs but she never felt quite as excited about them as she did last night when Sutton lifted Jess's hand to cover her breast. She hadn't been wearing a bra and she'd gasped as Jess squeezed experimentally, then arched into her, mouth falling open, as Jess pinched her nipple through her shirt, trying to remember what she herself liked. It kind of rocked Jess’s world, actually, having the power to get that reaction. If there hadn't been three other people in the room she would almost definitely have slid her hands under Sutton's shirt to try again.

--

To her own surprise, it stays secret. She doesn't get the urge she always does to blurt out everything that's happened to Cece or Nick or the loft at large. It's part of this surreal bubble of a make believe life she's living. And she's too generally sleepy or wrung out from 8 hours on her feet at the Shanty to overthink anything right now.

--

Nothing big happens. It could, maybe, if she wanted it to; Sutton somehow always manages to grab the seat next to Jess and it could be her imagination but she seems to generally be spending less time draped over Brorie and Fife.

Not that anybody seems pissed; everything’s chill, everything’s easy. If Sutton comes up behind Jess and slides her arms around her waist while Jess leans back into her it’s no biggie. Just like it’s not something they talk about when they end up making out again, on the floor with their backs against the couch while everyone else is in the kitchen. She’s off the grid. She can stay up all night if she wants to, because it’s not like she has a day job to get up for. She can kiss another girl, giggling into her mouth while they listen to the group in the kitchen arguing about how long it takes to cook quinoa.

--

She's humming in the kitchen when Schmidt pulls out one of his earbuds and frowns at her.

"Is that Jill Sobule?" he says. "What year is it, Jess?” He shakes his head as he fits his earbud back in. "I can’t believe those kids think you’re cool,” he mutters.