Off Book

5. Ian

5

IAN

“Things growing are not ripe until their season . . .” Act II, Scene II

“Are you serious?” Jade asks when she opens the door. She blinks a few times, and in the span of those blinks I run through a million options of what might be wrong but come up empty.

“Uh . . .”

She gestures to the flowers, her brows knitting in confusion.

“Oh!” Relief floods me, tension releasing in my shoulders. “I just thought it was a nice . . . They’re for you.”

“Um . . . okay,” she says, taking the flowers from me with the most neutral reaction I’ve ever seen a girl have toward receiving flowers.

I grew up with a dad who bought flowers for my mom and my sisters on Valentine’s Day, and on every birthday. He even bought me flowers after all my shows. “ Flowers aren’t just for romance, Ian. Everyone deserves to get flowers once in their life. ”

I guess maybe not everyone likes flowers.

Jade walks through her living room and into her kitchen, and I follow her, closing the door behind me and trying not to panic that I’ve made a bad second impression.

“Can you lock it?” she asks casually, as if it’s not my first time here and I’m a regular houseguest.

I lock the door and take the opportunity, while her back is to me, to wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. I wander through the living room, which is a lot nicer than I expected it to be. There’s a large, comfortable-looking couch and a massive entertainment center housing a really nice, obviously new TV that is definitely not a hand-me-down from someone’s older sister. There are real curtains on the windows and a curtain rod that looks like it cost more than ten dollars. I live in the apartments too, but neither my roommate nor I have made half this effort. We have an old futon and didn’t even bother with curtains. Our TV is on a stand from my roommate’s parents’ basement and has definitely seen better days. This place looks professionally decorated, and it smells pleasantly of cleaning solution.

“Okay, what the fuck is this?” Jade asks, a half-laugh in her words.

I join her in the kitchen to see what the problem is. Did I accidentally stick the condoms in the flowers or something? Are the flowers dead? I look for something amiss, but all I see is Jade holding out the flowers.

“What?” I ask.

She points to a small circular sign in the middle of the flowers reading “Congrats! It’s a girl!”

My stomach drops to my feet and my throat drops into the space where my stomach used to live. My face heats so fast that I worry for a split second I might actually faint. Which would still be less embarrassing than bringing baby flowers to this already weird potential hookup situation.

Whatever Jade sees on my face must delight her, because she throws her head back in a howling laugh. It’s loud and kind of honky, and despite wanting to crawl into a tiny cave and never come out, her unselfconscious laugh elicits a smirk from me.

“This is hilarious,” she says and finds a mason jar to put the flowers in. She cuts the stems, fills the glass with water, and arranges the bouquet in the jar, not removing the “congrats” sign.

“I’m sorry. I was sort of in a rush. I just grabbed the first ones?—”

“You are adorable, Ian.”

My face, which had finally cooled down, heats again. My cheeks burn, and the tips of my ears must be bright red if how hot they are is any indication of how hard I’m blushing. Does she always offhandedly compliment people like that? I’ve never had anyone call me adorable except my grandma. Is that a bad sign for building chemistry? A good sign? I slide my hand into my pocket and hold my phone. The temptation to text Seth quickly to check almost compels me to ask where the bathroom is, but before I can say anything, Jade is sliding a beer across the counter toward me.

“Catch,” she says as the beer stops a few inches away from me.

I take the cold glass bottle and follow Jade to the couch, where we both sit. It’s as comfortable as it looks, with big, plush seats and the kind of material you want to run your hand over just to watch the pattern it makes.

“I’m impressed by your apartment. Did you do all this?”

“Nah. Mac’s mom is super into decorating, so we just let her go to town.”

She says this person’s name like I know who they are.

Jade takes a pull of her beer and shifts her body so she’s facing me.

“Who’s Mac?” I ask.

“Mac’s dating my best friend, Jessie.”

“You live with your best friend’s boyfriend . . .?”

“It’s only slightly less weird than that. I live with my best friend and her boyfriend. They have the big room. I’m in the smaller room.”

“Oh,” I say.

“I can feel you judging me,” she says with a sly smile.

I shake my head to assure her I’m not.

And I mean it. Although I find the setup weird, I have a feeling this is just scraping the surface of all the weird things I might find out about Jade. I’d like to know more about her, but I can’t tell if she is interested in sharing anything.

We both take a sip of our beer and let an awkward silence fill the space. Should I start a conversation, or should I wait for her to start it?

The beer is already working its magic and I’m distinctly less nervous. In fact, I can’t remember why I was freaking out in the first place. Jade is cool and very chill and obviously not nervous, and dressed as she is in a crop top and leggings, with her hair in a ponytail, it all feels very casual and like maybe I was nervous for absolutely nothing.

Seth’s advice about keeping an open mind is working. I feel like I’m going with the flow, and as long as I don’t think too much about if we’re going to kiss or if I should go at all, I actually feel very relaxed.

“So this is your first play, huh?” she asks, shifting her body to face me, one leg crossed over the other. The way her lips are turned up in a smile, I feel a little bit like she’s mocking me, or like maybe we’ve got an inside joke but I’m not on the inside.

“Yeah. Gotta graduate on time,” I say with a nervous laugh.

“Is that all this is to you—a credit to graduate?” Her eyes are intense and she’s not smiling anymore.

I swallow hard, wondering if I missed a cue, because I thought things were light and fun, but she looks dead serious right now.

“I’m a tech kid. I won’t pretend like I’m excited to do this, but I’m not going to phone it in, if that’s what you’re worried about. I know, no one wants to be paired with the non-actor, but I’m going to work my ass off. I promise.”

I meet her gaze, trying to match her intensity. But something in her eyes tells me she doesn’t fully trust me. On one hand, that’s fair. In her shoes, I might be wary too. But on the other, I work really hard at everything I do, and I don’t like having my work ethic questioned.

I’m just as committed to this one-act as Jade is, and if that means we need to build chemistry, then by god, we will build chemistry. Interest be damned, I’m going to try it Seth and Jade’s way.

In one swift motion, I set down my beer and lean into Jade, pressing my lips against hers. Her lips are soft, and when she moves them against mine, opening and deepening the kiss, I taste the beer she’s been drinking.

It’s a nice kiss, but it sort of just feels like I’m being kissed. I don’t hate it, but I’m also not particularly enjoying it.

She must sense something, because she breaks the kiss, and for a second she searches my eyes. I don’t know what she’s looking for or what she finds, but she leans in again to kiss me. This time I lean in a little too, but then there’s a loud CLINK , and both of us rear back, clutching at our mouths.

“Ow!”

“Fuck!”

I touch my front teeth, checking to make sure I still have all of them. Jade does the same thing.

“Shit, that hurt,” she says.

“I’m sorry. I think that was my fault,” I say.

“It’s fine.” She waves her hand and leans back in toward me, but apparently I didn’t learn my lesson, because I lean too, and this time our foreheads collide.

“Ahhhh,” I groan.

“Oh my god,” she says, clutching at the spot where our heads collided. “Fucking ouch.”

“I’m sorry. I swear I’m not usually this awkward,” I say, but it’s not entirely true. I am always this awkward. Not that this has happened with other people or anything, but I am always awkward.

So much for building chemistry.

“Should we try again?” she asks.

“Actually,” I say, “I thought we could?—”

But the sound of a key in a lock interrupts me.

The door opens, revealing a tall, tanned guy with brown, well-styled hair and a girl about half a foot shorter than him with darker hair and a pale complexion. This must be Jessie and Mac.

“Jade, I’m so sorry. I’m not feeling good—we needed to come home. I gotta lie down. I’m so sorry,” the girl, presumably Jessie, says.

The guy holds up his hand as he passes by. “Hi,” he says with a friendly smile.

I hold up my hand too in kind of a lame wave.

“I’m so sorry, but I’ve got such a bad headache,” the dark-haired girl says as she walks past the couch. She gives me a friendly smile and a wave, but her brow is furrowed and her eyes look droopy, so I’m not the least bit offended when she doesn’t stop.

“I’m going to get you some water,” Mac says to Jessie. “Hi, Jade.”

“Mackenzie,” she says in greeting.

Jade hasn’t looked at me yet. She isn’t blushing or anything, but she does seem annoyed. She stands, gesturing for me to follow her. I do, walking from the living room through the small dining area and down a short hallway to her bedroom.

“Feel better,” she yells in the direction of the other bedroom before closing her door behind us.

“Now, where were we?” she asks and backs me into the door. She presses herself against me, sliding her hands over my chest and up my neck. Instead of leaning in to kiss me again, she kisses my neck.

“So this is nice . . .” I say, but I’m using that word generously. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s not doing anything for me.

“Mm-hmm,” Jade murmurs against my neck.

“And this is going to help us on stage?” I ask, and she pauses.

She looks up at me. “That’s the goal,” she says between placing kisses on my neck.

“Sorry. Is the goal for us to get to know each other better, or is it, like, to build a connection? I just want to make sure we’re meeting objectives here,” I say and put some space between us.

She gives a short sigh before she answers. “Building chemistry is a little bit of all those things. Frankly, in my experience, you either have chemistry or you don’t. Anastasia seems to think we can build it by spending time together. I’ve never really had this problem with anyone else, but I have slept with my scene partners before, and it sometimes made the onstage relationship a little easier,” she says.

“Which is why you thought we should . . .” I gesture between us.

“Yes, so . . . shall we?” Jade gestures to her bed, which is neat and made up with a white duvet and matching white pillows, a dark purple blanket draped over it. It’s been made up by someone who clearly makes their bed every day, not someone who threw it together because they knew they were having company.

It surprises me about her. For some reason, I expected more chaos.

“Um, well. So the thing is, I don’t— I’ve— I . . . don’t think this is working for me.”

Jade tilts her head to the side like a puppy hearing a funny sound. “Are you gay?” she asks. “Because you definitely should have said something before?—”

“I’m not gay,” I say. “I mean, like, the kissing was . . . You’re a good kisser, but I don’t feel any closer to you. Like, if we’re supposed to be getting to know each other and building a connection, just kissing you isn’t going to do it. Not for me, anyway.”

Jade leans against the bed, crossing her arms over her chest. She studies me, narrowing her eyes, pursing her lips. The silence is killing me. Like the urge to vomit, the need to explain myself comes out almost against my will.

“It’s not just you,” I say. “It’s, like . . . always like that. I know it’s weird, but I just can’t . . .” I gesture between us. “It’s like, that doesn’t happen for me unless there’s already some kind of emotional . . . Not that we— ’Cause it’s not like we’re?—”

“Have you just casually hooked up with anyone before?” Jade interrupts my stuttering, and thank god, because it was getting weird.

I shake my head to answer her question, dropping my gaze to the floor. “Not really. There’s just not . . . like, I have no interest in it. Not until I know them and have some kind of authentic interest in them as a person.”

“Are you demi?” Jade asks like she’s putting some puzzle pieces together.

“Demi?”

“Demisexual.”

I almost roll my eyes at the second label someone has thrown at me in two days, but there’s no need to be rude. Jade, like Seth, is just trying to understand me, and I have to remember that is not a bad thing.

“I don’t know what that is,” I say. “Is it like asexual?”

“It’s like what you’re describing. It’s an orientation like asexual. For someone who identifies as demisexual, the sexual attraction follows an emotional bond.”

Unlike when Seth shared the definition of asexuality, this definition lands.

There’s a word for this?

“So it’s not . . . it’s not just me? I’m not weird.”

“Well, you might be weird, but everyone is a little weird. And being demisexual isn’t the thing that makes you weird. There are a ton of people who identify as demi.”

I feel like my world just got flipped on its head. I’ve been thinking I’m the oddball, that everyone else experiences attraction in a “normal” way and I’m the only one who doesn’t, but Jade has given me a new word to explore. Now isn’t the time to do a deep dive and figure out if I really might be demisexual, but this certainly has given me something to think about.

“I don’t know if I am demisexual,” I say, trying out the word. It feels foreign on my tongue but not wrong. “But either way, I—I’m sorry I can’t just casually hook up with you to help us build chemistry.” I walk over to lean against her bed next to her. “What if we just . . . hang out? Become friends. Anastasia isn’t asking us to fall in love, right?”

Jade chuckles. “That’s probably too far even for her.”

“And if we share a few meals, maybe do whatever else friends do, we’ll build a connection—a friendly one—and then our stage chemistry will get better, right? Theoretically.”

“Theoretically,” she says with a reluctant nod.

“We . . . sort of tried it your way. It didn’t work for me, so what if we tried it my way?”

“And what if it doesn’t work for me?” Jade asks, being more impertinent than rude.

“We quit and tell Anastasia to go fuck herself,” I say.

This makes Jade properly laugh, and something stirs in my stomach. I like the way her eyes come to life when she laughs.

“Deal,” Jade says, and we shake on it.

I text Seth once I’m back in my car to tell him the night ended in a handshake and nothing more. He sends a series of GIFs that portray both his disappointment and that he’s proud of me. I don’t tell him about the demisexuality conversation. It doesn’t feel right yet. Right now, it feels like a word just for me. Something I can swim around in and decide if it feels right.

Maybe Jade and I will become friends or maybe we’re only able to tolerate each other until the one-act is over at the end of the semester. Either way, she’s given me a gift tonight, and I only hope one day I can return the kindness.