Chapter Text
The first time it happens is 13 days after she moves in.
“She” being Jessica Day, and “it” being Nick Miller jerking off while thinking about her.
He’s tried to resist the urge. Really, he has.
But after living with his new roommate for nearly two weeks, he finally and somewhat guiltily gives in: there’s something about Jess that Nick just can’t shake when he’s, um, shaking himself.
Actually, there are multiple somethings.
Chief among them her pink, know-it-all mouth and the way she uses it.
Sometimes, she cajoles him as if they’re lifelong best friends instead of two people who first met half a month ago. (“Nick, you know you want to watch ‘Dirty Dancing’ with me right now. Please? I’ll bake you cuuuuuuuuupcakes later if you do.”)
Other times, she sings. (Which he really should hate.)
But fuck, what truly does it for him is the way she argues.
She's all sweetness and light with Coach and Schmidt, but with him, for whatever reason, she throws these dick-stiffening flashes of being a full-on Fourth-of-July firecracker.
They argue about whether the concept of “ladies’ night” sets back the cause of feminism.
“… in conclusion, Nick, there's ultimately no such thing as a 'free drink.'”
“Wow, ok, then, Jess. Ya know, I was gonna do my usual thing the next time you and Coach and Schmidt came down to the bar and not charge any of ya, but instead I guess I'll let them drink for free and only charge you."
"Wait— gosh dang it— that's different than 'ladies' night— that's 'friendship night,' so'—"
"Nope, Jess, you said it — you believe there's no such thing as a free drink, and I wouldn't want to offend ya by offering you one, so—"
"UGH! Nick Miller, you are TWISTING my WORDS!"
"Yeah, just like I'm gonna twist the lime in that drink you'll be payin' for, Jess."
They argue about whether sinks are things that need to be cleaned.
“Sinks get washed every damn day when we use them, Jess. Unless you’re telling me ya don’t use soap to wash your hands or clean your dishes? Where were ya raised, in a barn?”
“No, Nick, but apparently you were. In a weird, gross barn without proper sink hygiene."
"'SINK HYGIENE' IS REDUNDANT, JESS. SINKS ARE HYGIENE."
"AND YOU, NICK, ARE FREAKING INFURIATING."
They’ve even sometimes argued about arguing itself.
“Debate team does count as a team sport, Nick. It has ‘team’ in the name, and it has uniforms, and it has coaches, and I should know, because I’m one of them.”
“Are ya out of your mind, Jess? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. DEBATE TEAM IS NOT A SPORT. Sports involve being athletic.”
“Hmm, interesting… so you’re saying the brain isn’t a muscle?”
“Oh, my GOD.”
He doesn’t know yet exactly what it means, and maybe he’s fooling himself, but he’d venture that more than half the time, she's the one who initiates their verbal sparring matches. The one who tosses the first lit match — steadily, evenly, knowing exactly what she's doing.
He takes that strange, wonderful gift and runs with it every goddamn time it’s offered.
Because fuck, he's barely just met this girl, but he’s already more than a little addicted to getting her all hot and bothered and indignant; to making her cheeks flush and her lips part and her eyes flash; to being the one who sparks the flint of her doubled-down defiance.
So… yeah.
He’s gonna be in serious, serious trouble, living with this Jessica Day.
Besides her smart little mouth, there's also the highly distracting matter of her short little skirts. A seemingly endless array of them, in fact, all in annoyingly cheerful colors that she’s informed him are called “jewel tones.” (“Uh, as in that singer from the North Pole from the late ‘90s with the song about the really little hands?” “No, Nick! And she’s a singer-songwriter, not just a singer, and she’s from Alaska, and the 'small hands' were a METAPHOR, and her poetry book was my jam in junior high, ok?!”)
And, fuck, there’s that sliver of soft skin above her hipbone that’s revealed every single morning when she rises onto her tiptoes and reaches to get her tea out from the upper kitchen cabinet, to the left of the sink.
It’s strawberry tea, which Nick had no idea even existed until Jess moved in, and which, quite frankly, he kind of opposes on principle: Tea should just taste like tea, like coffee should just taste like coffee, like beer should just taste like beer.
But Jess is really into the stuff, for reasons unknown. Also for reasons unknown, this is the rare something Nick decides not to tease or provoke her about.
Instead, he simply observes — steadily, evenly.
He notices the way she hums to herself — show tunes and/or ‘80s songs, mostly — as she assembles her daily cup, thinking none of her roommates are listening.
Actually, knowing Jess the way he’s starting to, it's more likely that she doesn't care if they're listening. That she's hoping they’ll maybe even join in.
(“I am who I am, Nick,” she’d proclaimed to him the other night at 1:45 am. He’d gotten home, bleary-eyed, from his shift at the bar to find her at the loft table, still trying to finish building a popsicle-stick model of the U.S. Capitol for the kids in her civics class that she’d started before he left for work. He had asked her: "Why are you still doing this?"
At her answer — somehow both perfectly frustrating and frustratingly perfect — something came over him, and despite his tiredness, he said, "It's late, Jess. Ya've gotta be up in what, five hours to teach those damn rugrats? If you're not gonna stop, I'm at least gonna help ya and speed things up a little."
She started to argue — "They're not rugrats, Nick. They're not five. They're middle school students." — but she gave in to him, and he could tell his willingness to help her even though he thought she was maybe a little nuts made her happy, and they had the thing done by 2:15, and he left the table and went to bed with something strange on his face: a smile.)
Sitting at that same table a few mornings later, while Jess is at the counter, Nick notices the way her glasses fog up when she brings her steaming mug of strawberry tea to her mouth and blows — steadily, evenly — to cool the hot liquid down.
And he notices that before she takes her first sip, she likes to sprinkle in some cinnamon (damn, he’s never used sprinkle as a verb before — who is this woman, and what has she done to him?), tapping the small tin four or five times with her index finger before returning it to the spice rack and bringing the cup to her lips.
That night, he thinks about the absolute fucking sass she delivers with those lips, and the rhythm of those finger-taps, and the curve of that damn exposed stripe of smooth skin above her hip, as he wraps his hand around his dick and he pumps.
Steadily, evenly.