Don't Carry It All (Jesse Eisenberg/Andrew Garfield) 1/3
Title: Don't Carry It All
Fandom: TSN RPF (Jesse Eisenberg/Andrew Garfield) | 25,000 words
Warnings: No sex, but some off-color humor and references to sex
This was supposed to be a cute, short AU based on The Truth About Cats and Dogs, where Jesse uses Justin's picture for online dating. Instead it's long, and of the genre I can only describe as "emotional porn." Have you seen this brilliant fake eHarmony ad? Check it out.
Notes:
Thanks to: Erin for introducing me to these boys, who have cheered up an otherwise miserable winter. My sister, for figuring out how to put the emotional beats in the right order. Elucreh for beta'ing this despite the fact that my spellcheck doesn't work. And Torakowalski for britpicking AND finding about a thousand more mistakes. Seriously, I have no spellcheck. Remaining mistakes are entirely my fault.
+ I have played fast and lose with what investment firms and hedge funds do. I know, I just don't care.
+ Title is from the Decemberists
+ In order for the plot to work I played up Jesse's neuroses, but I would like to state for the record that I think he's incredibly good looking, and he should call me so we can discuss his misapprehension about being an "abstinence symbol." (This would be a pants-free discussion.)
Standard disclaimer applies: It's not meant to be about or imply anything about these actual people, just fictionalized versions of their public personas, ie, if they get to make a movie about Zuckerberg, I get to write this fic. But please don't share this fic with anyone portrayed in it.
It started because Justin decided to set up a dating profile for Jesse against his will. “Dude,” said Justin, “you have cats. You’re a single twenty-something dude with cats. We have got to get you a date.”
It was a slow day at the firm and Justin tended to get douchey when he was bored and there was no one around to flirt with. He was great at bringing in new clients because he was amazingly charming when he wanted to be, but underneath all that charm was a tremendous layer of jackass. Somehow Justin had decided it was his job to drag Jesse kicking and screaming out of the comfort of staying home in his apartment all the time and into the world of... well... Today it looked like internet dating.
Jesse scowled a little and fidgeted with the sleeve of his jacket. “Only two cats,” he said, because the foster cats who went in and out didn’t count. “What are you doing? Seriously, eHarmony? Don’t do that! What are you doing? That’s a company computer. This is such a bad idea.” Justin cackled with glee and started typing, using his elbows to keep Jesse away from the desk.
“Twenty-five,” said Justin. “Male. Single. Seeking a dude hottie.” He stopped and looked at Jesse. “That’s right, right? Or have I totally been misreading your terrible flirting with Steve from payroll when he pops in here once a month?”
Jesse tried to reach for the keyboard and Justin knocked his hand away. “That’s just... I mean. My therapist thinks I need to get more practice interacting with other people my age. This may come as a surprise to you, but I can be a little bit awkward,” Jesse said.
Justin snorted. “Save your hilariously dry sense of humor for when you’re flirting through email. Also, you didn’t answer my question. Dudes: yay or nay?”
“I don’t believe in putting myself in a box--”
“That totally means you’re gay gay gay,” said Justin, typing again. Sometimes it seemed ludicrous that Justin brought so many millions of dollars worth of clients to the firm. “In three years the only person I’ve seen you even try to pick up was a doofus in a sweatervest from payroll. Clearly we need to throw you in to the deep end. Do we have a decent picture of you? I mean, in the entire world is there a decent picture of you? Some kind of sexy geek thing. Glasses, maybe? To hide all the...” He gestured vaguely toward Jesse’s face.
“You’re not making me feel any better,” said Jesse. Justin was kind of a friend, because they worked together and he didn’t make Jesse feel entirely like a broken robot with a bad emotions chip, but he was also a self-centered jackass.
Justin sighed. “The point is not to make you feel better, the point is to get you laid, which will make you feel better and get you to stop moping at work and adopting cats. No man needs that many cats.”
“I like my cats,” Jesse said. “My cats have never tried to sign me up for eHarmony. What are you typing? My hobbies are not watching indie bands or collecting ironic t-shirts.”
“Well, they should be,” Justin said, mostly ignoring him. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m going to set it so there’s no picture for now. Once you get to know someone you can ‘reveal your picture’ to them.”
“Thank you so much for confirming my belief that I’m basically a troll,” said Jesse.
Justin waved him off. “This is about matching you on deeper levels, man. This is about meeting your soul mate. This is about you having somewhere to go on a Saturday night so I don’t feel bad when I’m out at the club.”
Justin was so full of shit. And only partially because Jesse didn’t even believe in the concept of love and soul mates; he was pretty sure people just dated until they found someone who was the minimum level of tolerable and then stuck it out together because they thought it was better than an apartment full of cats. But Jesse had made his peace with the cats, no matter what his therapist said. And Justin definitely didn’t feel bad about leaving Jesse behind when he was out clubbing.
“It’s about how unlikely two human beings are to meet in New York City,” said Jesse, “unless one of them is giving the other one directions for the subway.”
“You don’t meet anyone because you never leave your apartment,” said Justin.
“I like my apartment,” Jesse protested. “All my stuff is there.”
“And your cats. It’s creepy. I’m gonna get you a date and I’m gonna get you laid and you’re gonna name your first adopted gay-ass kid Justin Randal Timberlake the Second.” Jesse lunged for the keyboard again but Justin had already hit ‘submit.’ “Bam!” said Justin, holding up his arms in victory.
“This is going to be awful,” said Jesse.
“Oh please,” said Justin. “There are so many geeks on the internet you probably seem normal. You can be their king.”
Jesse moaned and tried not to secretly wonder if maybe, possibly, Justin had gotten this idea from Jesse’s mom.
“You’ll feel better after a couple of orgasms that don’t come from your own right hand,” said Justin.
The awful part was, Jesse suspected he might.
--
So Jesse didn’t delete the stupid profile but he didn’t look at it, either, and every morning he woke up to twenty emails he immediately deleted that said things like, “Rick wants to contact you!” and “Message from Joe!” After a couple of days Justin got bored of looking over his shoulder at work and saying, “Well? Any luck yet? You gonna hit that?” or maybe Justin just forgot about it. Long-term thinking wasn’t Justin’s strong point.
Jesse intended to act like the whole thing wasn't happening. He wasn’t lonely; he liked being on his own, because he never surprised himself when he did something incredibly weird or awkward or wanted to put on the soundtrack to Carousel for the fourth time in a row. The idea of explaining himself to another person seemed so daunting as to make just giving up easier.
On the other hand, Jesse felt a strange sense of responsibility toward his own profile. He went back and clicked all the little buttons about his likes and dislikes and things that were important to him, so that at least all the people on the internet he was ignoring would be matched up properly with the real him. And he deleted Justin’s glib “Dork seeks love” and replaced it with “Real-life Michael Cera shut-in type seeks unlikely companionship -- Must not have allergies.”
Sometimes he was mildly tempted to look at the profiles he was being sent but work was pretty distracting; Jesse was trying to rework the investment funds of the four charities the hedge fund had taken on to improve their profiles during the recession. He’d been given those accounts because normally he felt so insanely guilty about the work he did that he ended doing things like bringing home stray cats and then having to stay with Justin while his apartment was fumigated. Working on the charities at least let him sleep at night.
It took three weekends for him to crack and finally be bored enough to click, and even then it was mostly because Justin was out at a club and sending him texts like, it’s friday night and i just got paaaaaaid followed by gonna get laid aww yeah and meet any cute nerds yet dude?????
Jesse bit his lip and fidgeted a little, digging his fingers into the arm of the couch. His therapist thought it was a great idea, and Justin sporadically remembered and bothered him about it, and he wasn’t doing anything else. It couldn’t hurt just to look. The first profile (Rick, New Jersey, 31) was a guy who clearly belonged on the Jersey Shore and Jesse clicked away again immediately. The next guy was too old, the next one was in the army, the next one looked even sadder than Jesse felt reading these profiles on a Friday night.
And then there was someone from England, of all places. Justin had clearly screwed up the “how many miles away will you date” question and Jesse hadn’t fixed it. There was a message in the email, though, and before he clicked delete Jesse figured he ought to read it.
Hi, I quite liked your profile, very funny I thought, hahaha. This is a bit awkward, isn’t it, meeting people online like this, but I’m busy and I imagine you must be busy, too. If computers make it easier I say why not? Well, really my mum says why not and I have to listen to my mum, don’t I? Perhaps you’re just listening to your mum as well, in which case please ignore all this rambling ridiculousness. Anyway. Hi. :) -Andrew
Jesse read it twice and then clicked on the profile to see who this obviously crazy person was. He was pleasantly surprised to find Andrew was cute. Or, he had a nice smile but he looked a little like a British hipster and his hair was sort of ridiculously puffy. Also, there was a picture of him riding on a Vespa, which was honestly the dumbest thing Jesse had ever seen in his life.
It couldn’t hurt just to send a message back. Jesse’s real email was hidden and he didn’t have a picture up yet or anything. Plus, this guy -- Andrew -- was in London. Jesse clicked ‘reply’ and then his heart started pounding and he had to close his laptop and take a couple of deep breaths. Raskolnikov opened an eye and yawned at him, then curled up in a ball again with his tail over his nose and went back to sleep.
Right, it was no big deal. Jesse shook his hands out and picked up his laptop again. This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done, and I listen to musicals on vinyl. Not ironically, either. My mom would be pretty excited if she knew but god willing she won’t find out. Our family has had enough tragedy already, you know, from two thousand years of wandering and all, without her hearing about this. Anyway I’m mostly replying to tell you that you need to buy a car because that Vespa is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. You’ll get bugs in your teeth. Now I sound like a neurotic New York Jew... Hey. That works, actually.
His hand hovered over the ‘send’ button. He was going to press it, and then he wasn’t, and then was, and then he wanted to rewrite the entire thing to sound like less of a douche. He pressed it finally, frantically, and then closed his eyes and hyperventilated for a minute.
“That was so, so, so dumb,” he groaned, hiding his face behind his hands. If the cats had opinions they didn’t share them.
--
Jesse, I think you’ll find it is you who are wrong. My Vespa is adorable and I never have to sit around in traffic. I shudder to think what it must be like driving a car in New York traffic. I’ve seen pictures of New York, which is obviously rife with mobsters and Newsies and Donald Trumps in the wild. I did notice the absolutely miserable traffic. You should consider a Vespa. I’d lend you mine but you made fun of her, and now her feelings are hurt. :(((((
When you say ‘musicals’ do you mean proper ones? Are we talking Gilbert and Sullivan or Andrew Lloyd Weber? I’m afraid I’m a bit more into music that people might accidentally hear on the radio. I think you’ve got your profile wrong; it says you’re 25, but surely you meant 85. Hope that helps!
Andrew
--
“What are you doing?”
Jesse made a totally undignified squawking noise and nearly fell out if his chair. “Get out of my ear, Justin!” He flailed a little bit but Justin was an unmovable wall when he was curious about things. Really, Jesse should have known better than to try and read his email at work in peace. There was no such thing as a private office with Justin around.
“Who’s Andrew?” Justin demanded, leaning in farther over Jesse’s shoulder. “Is that him on the bike? Dude, he’s hot!”
Jesse tried to close his laptop but Justin had his hands all over the screen. There were going to be fingerprints. “He’s no one, it’s nothing, go away,” said Jesse.
“Aww, dude, you like him!” Justin crowed.
“I’ve exchanged a couple emails with him and he lives in London. I don’t know anything about him except he can’t punctuate and he thinks motorcycles have feelings," Jesse lied. It was weird how much he felt like he already knew about Andrew. "Please go away?”
“What you need to do,” said Justin, totally ignoring him, “is send him a naked picture of yourself. That’s how this shit works. I saw it on To Catch A Predator.”
“You must have been dropped on your head,” said Jesse.
“I send naked texts all the time,” said Justin. “It’s like catnip for the ladies.”
“Eww.”
“You need to put up a picture or he’s going to think you’re all weird looking,” said Justin. Jesse waited patiently for the inevitable. Justin opened his mouth, hesitated, then shrugged and closed it again.
“Seriously?” Jesse asked.
“Well, when you meet him in person he’ll find out anyway,” Justin pointed out. “Why not let him know up front what he’s dealing with? If he runs screaming he’s a dick. You’re not ugly. You just kind of... stare a lot. Really intensely. Maybe you should let me buy you a hairbrush."
“Get away from me,” Jesse said, trying to wave Justin away from his hair.
“Relax, dude. You’re like, at least fifty percent less completely weird-looking than you were a few years ago.”
Jesse elbowed him in the stomach and Justin finally went away. But not before Jesse realized that Justin was sort of right; if they met in person Andrew would find out that Jesse was awkward and strange and had unruly hair. But Andrew was in London, so it probably didn’t matter at all. Who would fly intercontinentally for a date with someone they’d never even met? He felt abruptly a lot more relaxed about the whole thing. He was never going to have to try and pretend to be normal around Andrew, because he was never going to meet Andrew.
Your Vespa definitely has feelings but I’m betting they’re mostly shame, he typed. I avoid New York Traffic by riding my bike pretty much everywhere I go. It gives me the double advantage of avoiding traffic and avoiding ever having to talk to people. I like basically all musicals, although I have a soft spot for the unloved ones. Someone has to stick up for the singing underdog. It’s the same reason I have cats. Guilt. I thought about trying to come up with a cooler answer so I googled ‘cool music’ but all that came up was children’s songs. I don’t know if being into cool music for kids would make this conversation better or worse. -J
He hit send before he could think about it too much. If that didn’t scare Andrew off nothing was going to.
--
Hahahaha. Oh, that’s brilliant. You’re really funny. I just realised that might sound sarcastic since this is electronic text. I am not being sarcastic. Your emails make me laugh. Most of the twats on here just want to brag about how much money they make. Have you really got cats? Are you sure you meant eHarmony and not Dreadful Old Spinsters dot com? Either way I think you’re charming. Why haven’t you got a picture up? I promise I won’t stalk you. Unless you’re in to that kind of thing. (This is the internet. You never know what people might be into. I think fetishes is probably a not-until-the-third-date conversation.) Do you watch movies or travel or go out to eat? Those are my hobbies when I’m not working, except I’m never not working, which is why I'm emailing a stranger on a dating site.
I will make you a mix tape. A downloadable one. The fantastic thing about music is that you can share it with people. I quite like sharing, and I’m looking forward to a PICTURE of who I’m sharing with. And you can send me whatever dreadful musicals I should know about, but please don’t send Oliver! or Annie because I’ve heard those and they make me want to stab my ears with a chopstick. Cheers! -A
PS You should upload a picture so I know you're not secretly my mum.
--
The amount of time Jesse spent agonizing over which musicals to recommend was... Well. It wasn’t healthy. His therapist actually thought it was sweet (“It’s nice to see you emotionally engaging with someone!”) but she didn’t see how long he spent trying to decide which cast recording of Into the Woods was the best. There were a lot of factors to consider.
Over the course of the next two weeks he learned the following things about Andrew:
1) He thought Jesse was funny, even when Jesse was being deliberately awful and awkward and talking total bullshit.
2) He seemed pretty able to tell when Jesse was bullshitting and he rolled with it.
3) Every email dripped with the kind of cheerful happiness Jesse normally associated with Disney princesses right before they finally worked up the pluck to run away from home. Jesse was emotionally unprepared to try and reason with someone who was genuinely bubbly.
4) His pictures ranged from pretty attractive to annoyingly, stupidly attractive.
5) Jesse couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Andrew. Something had to be, didn't it? But he didn’t have any obvious blinking, flashing crazy going on. Other than liking Jesse, that was. Jesse had done everything he could to make sure the emails reflected his most hermit-like, neurotic self, and Andrew had replied with generally sweet and hilarious advice to eat healthfully, get more sleep, do nice things for his family, and find a tree to climb, because that always cheered him up.
6) He was serious about seeing a picture of Jesse. In fact he'd started adding things like, Hint hint, do you have a picture yet or are all the cameras in New York still broken you lying liar who lies? The only reason Jesse was able to make himself continue this whole farce was his confidence that he was never actually going to have to meet Andrew and try to... You know, hit on him in person, or whatever. He was morbidly curious about what might happen if he did but he was pretty sure it would end in tears. Andrew’s tears. He probably cried big Disney princess tears, too.
7) He was starting to feel like he actually knew Andrew. They were emailing every day, and Andrew kept dropping in funny little asides about his favorite bands, what he was eating for lunch, the weird British candy he liked, and how stressful his job was. (Jesse had figured out that Andrew worked for some kind of non-profit but he hadn't demanded details because he was trying not to be a creepy stalker.) Jesse was pretty sure he knew enough about Andrew to write a book, or a pamphlet at least. He'd call it In Over Your Head: How to Differentiate Between Making A Friend and Becoming Obsessed With Someone. (Andrew Wears Underwear Called Y-Fronts. Why Do I Know That?)
--
“I don’t get it; we’re never going to meet. Why does he keep asking me for a picture?” Jesse complained to Justin late one Tuesday when they were the only people left on their floor.
“He needs an image to jerk off to,” said Justin, mouth mostly full of take-out Indian food. Jesse groaned and wondered why he’d broken down under Justin’s relentless demands to know how online dating was going. “Just use whatever picture you have on Facebook.”
“I don’t have a Facebook,” said Jesse.
Justin groaned. “Dude. You’re the worst geek ever.”
“I’m not that kind of geek,” Jesse protested.
“I don’t even know what that means. Here. God, just let me, okay?” Justin pulled out his iPhone and scrolled through a bunch of pictures until he got to one from the Christmas party last year. He and Jesse were standing with their arms around each other in front of a Christmas-light covered copy machine, ties loose and faces a little flushed from champagne. “You look hot here, okay? I mean, at least you’re not wearing glasses and adopting a cat. I’m emailing this to you and you’re going to send it to this dude. That way he’ll know you can party and get wild.” Justin did a weird little dance in his chair.
“But I don’t get wild; I had two glasses of champagne and passed out on your couch,” Jesse said.
“Well, maybe don’t put that in the email,” said Justin. “Okay, go ahead. Do it.”
“Do what?”
“Upload the picture! If you don’t do it while I’m watching you’ll ‘forget.’” Justin’s air quotes were particularly uncalled for, Jesse thought. Not inaccurate, just rude.
“I hate you,” said Jesse.
Justin just crossed his arms.
Jesse sighed really, really loudly to let Justin know what a bad idea this was and how much he didn’t want to do it. Justin didn’t seem particularly moved. Jesse reminded himself a few more times that it didn’t matter because Andrew was in London and opened his email.
You bring this on yourself. Here is a picture. I wanted to send you one where I had a bag over my head but I was overruled.
-Jesse
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Justin asked. “Also, did you know you’ve brought in thirteen percent more revenue in the last two weeks? Being in looooove agrees with you.”
“I'm not -- I haven’t even met him, you’re insane.” Jesse scowled and closed his laptop. Justin had taken the last of the rice and the nan. “Why am I even doing this? What kind of weird voodoo mind-control do you have over me?”
“I’m helping,” said Justin smugly. “You’re my bro, and all that twitchy never-getting-laid energy drives me nuts. He digs your soul, he’s not going to care that you dress like a schlub. And if he does care I’ll take you shopping.”
Jesse almost blacked out trying to imagine how horrible that would be. “You -- I --- What -- No!”
“Pop quiz,” said Justin, mouth full of saag paneer. “Where did you buy that suit?”
Jesse looked blankly at his own shirt. “Uh... Canal Street? Two for $125.”
Justin shook his head mournfully. “Let’s just hope he’s not a fashionista or a hipster. Are you talking to anyone else online? Do you have any other prospects?”
“Uh,” said Jesse, fiddling with his plastic fork. He thought maybe Andrew was the kind of person who cared about clothes and music and coolness. “I uh. Well. I haven’t actually looked at any other profiles, but I get them in my email. I could. I just, uh. Don’t.”
Justin whistled. “This is serious. You like like him.”
“Yes,” Jesse said, “I like like him. Also, next week I hope to find some new Lisa Frank stickers in my Trapper Keeper so I can put them on the papers where I write ‘Mr. Jesse Garfield’ over and over and over.”
“Whatever floats your boat, man,” said Justin. “Don’t sweat the photo too much. You’re pretty cute. Like a stray puppy that needs to be adopted. I bet he digs it.”
“I don’t care,” said Jesse, and didn’t believe himself even for a second.
--
Andrew didn’t email him back right away-- it was the time difference, Jesse told himself, digging his nails into the arm of the couch -- but Jesse couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t totally insane; he knew he wasn’t Quasimodo, but he hadn’t considered what he was going to do if this whole thing fell apart. He’d started counting on Andrew’s obnoxiously cheerful emails when he woke up in the morning.
At four in the morning Jesse stopped pretending he was sleeping and pushed Mrs. Pennyfarthing off the bed so he could open his laptop. There was no email from Andrew. That was weird, usually there were two or three every day. Jesse's chest hurt.
I knew the picture was a mistake. Would you like to hear more about my cats? I am an excellent foster dad for three cats right now. They can provide me with references if you need them.
-Jesse
If sending the first email hadn’t been a mistake then this one definitely was. Jesse hit send and then stared at the screen for a full minute, willing Andrew to answer.
Nothing happened. Jesse’s heart was racing and he was hot all over; way too hot, especially too hot to sleep with Number Three trying to curl up on his head. He got up and made himself a cup of tea and sat looking out the window over the sun coming up behind the buildings in New York.
--
"Wake up," said Justin, poking Jesse's shoulder. "We have clients to talk to. Walsh wants to see you bringing in new money. I know you suck at talking to people one-on-one, but you do great presentations if you can get over your nerves, so get up. I need you."
Jesse groaned and waved one hand around in the hopes that Justin would see it and understand it meant go-away-the-coffee-isn't-working. He didn't move his head off the desk. He probably had a space bar imprint on his cheek.
"Bad news on the boy front?" Justin asked, hopping up to sit on Jesse's desk. "Yo, you mind if I steal your coffee?"
"It isn't stealing if you ask if I mind," Jesse mumbled.
"I'm a polite thief," said Justin, waggling his eyebrows. "Now tell me all about it. You have the look of a man who was up all night, and not in the fun way."
"Don't you have clients?" Jesse asked hopefully.
"Yeah, but I need coffee before I can schmooze," said Justin. "C'mon, dude. Spill."
Jesse groaned and peeled himself off the desk. "It's no big deal."
Justin snorted. "True or false, man. This guy, this Andrew guy, he knows about the cats thing, and the musicals thing, and the maps thing, and how you can't be in a car for longer than ten seconds without fucking honking at someone."
"True," said Jesse.
"And he thinks your sarcastic asides are funny instead of totally annoying, which by the way, they are."
"True. Not that last part, I mean. He knows."
Justin waved that away. "And he knows you love your mom and your grandma more than any normal guy, and he knows you never wanted to get into finance but you can't help being wicked smart, and he knows you work on the charity accounts out of guilt but you wish you did a job that was more like that all the time."
"What's your point?" Jesse asked, crossing his arms.
"The point, my friend, is that you have crossed a line." Justin nudged Jesse's knee with his sneaker. Somehow he had circumvented the normal rules of suit wearing to include his ridiculous, sparkly, expensive sneakers, and no one ever said anything about it.
"I didn't tell him my social security number or anything. I don't even know the name of his non-profit."
"No, like, an emotional line," said Justin. "He knows about the stuff that makes you twitchy. It matters to you what he thinks. He's inside your crunchy chocolate coating, all up in your creamy nougat center."
Jesse spluttered for a minute. "No, I mean, that's not… Most of our emails are just about, like, bands he likes and how I almost killed myself biking to work."
"Yeah, but that shit means something," said Justin. "How many times did I give you a CD you never listened to? But I have totally heard The Decemberists in here, and that is a my-British-hipster-boyfriend-gave-me-a-mix-tape red flag."
Jesse grabbed his coffee back so he could hide his face in the mug. Justin would know if Andrew really was a hipster, wouldn't he? Jesse had a vague idea that meant he went to a lot of parties and wore unflattering jeans, although he couldn't really imagine anything being unflattering on Andrew. But it definitely meant he cared what people looked like. And that would explain his insistence on seeing a photograph of Jesse. "He's not my boyfriend," he mumbled. "He hasn't even emailed me back about that stupid picture."
"Awww, baby, don't sweat it," said Justin. "I'm sure he loves you just as much as before he knew your tie is always crooked." He reached over and ruffled Jesse's hair before he could duck away. "Are you two having email sex yet?"
"No! Seriously, he's not my boyfriend." It was entirely possible, Jesse knew, that Andrew would not love him as much after he saw Jesse. Jesse wasn't a troll, not really, but he wasn't… Well, he wasn't Justin, either.
"It's a dating website," said Justin, rolling his eyes. "What do you think you're there for? You signed up. He signed up."
"His mom signed him up. You signed me up."
"Whatever! Tell him you want to get him off. You need some digital get-down."
Jesse said plaintively, "I just want him to email me back."
"Come on, let's go talk to some investors," said Justin, hopping off Jesse's desk. "You use the big sad puppy eyes and the magic of PowerPoint, I'll use my dazzling charm."
"What charm?" Jesse grumbled.
"Right, use your sparkling sense of humor, too," said Justin, dragging him down the hall.
--
Thank god!!!! You actually have a head. I was starting to worry. Actually though, if the cats are going to email me could they please let me know which of the two people in the photograph is you? They've overlooked that little detail, but I suppose that's cats for you. Also I'd like to know how you've trained them to type. When my mum's cats walk on the keyboard they mostly write ssssssssssssssssssssssssslkkl which I believe translates loosely to 'give me more cat food or I'm going to claw your face.'
Sorry for the late reply, there was a miserable crisis at work, I was there well after midnight and ended up sleeping under my desk. (My mum says this is why I can't meet anyone "in real life," and I have explained to her REPEATEDLY that you are not a figment of my imagination, although I was beginning to wonder because you seemed to be allergic to cameras. And then I pointed out that she was the one who insisted I meet someone on line and that it's actually going fine, except for your being on the wrong continent.) Which also reminds me: I am waiting for your detailed opinions on The Decemberists and Arcade Fire. Yes, I saw that The Fantasticks just opened on the West End, but no, I'm not going to go see it. It would be wasted on me; I don't know the story. Unless you want to fly out here and hold my hand and explain it to me, at least. That's a hint, by the way.
Andrew
Jesse stared at the email, biting his lip and tapping his fingers restlessly against his desk. He reread the end a couple of times, the part where Andrew basically invited him to London. It was absolutely terrifying. He couldn't even pretend he was going to consider it without a horrible stress headache.
A terrible, devious idea was nagging at the back of his brain. "No," Jesse told himself. Raskolnikov stretched and yawned on the couch.
--
"Hypothetically," said Jesse.
Emma, Jesse's go-to lawyer in the firm, sighed and pushed her glasses up on top of her head. "Come in," she said. "Don't linger in the doorway like an unwanted guest."
Emma's office was terrifying; it was all leather and oak bookshelves and heavy dark rugs. By contrast all of Justin's ridiculous Sharper Image beeping toys seemed positively comforting. "Let's say I was considering lying to someone," Jesse said. He took a couple of steps in to her office and then stopped again, because it was making him nervous.
"Is this a business someone?" Emma asked seriously.
Jesse shook his head. "No, I… I know, there are laws, I'm not going to break the law. I mean, not unless you can find a tax loophole for it, I know we do pretty much anything for a tax loophole." Emma pursed her lips, looking faintly amused. "This is strictly a personal matter, I just…. Uh. If there was a situation where I was considering maybe just… Not correcting someone's mistaken assumption, but there was zero percent chance of my ever getting caught, and it was just… You know, a way for me to seem a little bit cooler than I actually am, and no one was going to get hurt. In that situation, how many cats do you think I'd have to adopt to stop feeling heinously guilty about it?"
"Most people are 85 percent water; you're 85 percent guilt," said Emma. "I don't know what the cat-to-guilt ratio is."
"What if I just lie by omission," said Jesse. "How bad is that? How many years in prison?"
"Honey, you're always going to be in the prison of your own crazy head, and I say that with love." Emma sighed. For a ruthless take-no-shit lawyer Jesse had always thought she was pretty sweet. At least, she was sweet to him; she wasn't quite so nice to Justin. "This doesn't sound so bad, though. Are you actively lying to someone or just letting them assume something about you?"
"Uh… Somewhere between the two," said Jesse, twisting his hands around each other. "I just… I just think maybe I'd seem a little cooler that way, and I never get to seem cool, and it kind of… Uh, it matters to me a little bit. Which I also feel guilty about, by the way."
Emma gave him a fond look that made him feel even more wretchedly bad for thinking about lying to Andrew. "I don't think you give yourself enough credit," said Emma. "You're cool, you're just not cool like Justin is cool. But that's nice, because it means you're also not a jackass all the time. Anyone who doesn't love you just the way you are is wrong."
"Yeah, but…" Jesse started, and then stopped himself. "I mean, this has no practical consequences in the real world, so it doesn't matter, right?"
"If it didn't matter I don't think you'd be talking to me," said Emma.
Jesse groaned and hid his face against the wall.
"Okay, fine, I take it back," said Emma. "If this lie will help you get through the day without melting down completely then you should do it. But I think you are totally perfect just the way you are."
"Thank you," Jesse mumbled.
"And for the record, if you ever lie or perjure yourself in a business-related conversation I'll kill you with my own bare hands," Emma added cheerfully. "Unless it's for the good of the company."
"Duly noted."
"Be brave, little toaster. It's going to be fine."
--
So technically Jesse didn't lie. He didn't actually email Andrew and say "I'm the tall, handsome guy with the broad shoulders and the stubble and the ironic glasses." He just sent Andrew a long email about the new map he'd bought and how work was sapping his will to live and why New York was obviously the best place to live. And Andrew emailed back a much longer and more rambling email about the weather in London and how stressful his job was and some shopping he'd done and a concert he'd gone to and ended it with "Fine, if the cats aren't talking you had better be. Are you the one on the left?"
Justin was the one on the left in the photo.
Jesse emailed back, Good guess. It wasn't a confirmation, it just… wasn't a correction. Anyway it satisfied Andrew, and if Jesse couldn't sleep at night for a few days it was worth it when Andrew emailed back, gushing (as he tended to do) about how handsome Jesse was and how nice his suit looked… Jesse donated a check for a hundred dollars to the animal shelter on his way to work and tried not to die inside.
--
The unforgivable part was the other picture he sent. And the other other picture. And the other other other picture. Jesse had never realized how easy it was to find pictures of Justin on his phone or the company website. Jesse was in the background of most of them, at least, lurking like a particularly neurotic shark.
I wish you were closer, Andrew wrote. This is ridiculous, only chatting to you in email. We've definitely passed the point where we ought to have met up for a drink. You'd need one to calm your nerves until you realize how incredibly lovely I am to be around, and I'd need a drink so I didn't spend the whole time embarrassing you horribly with how I'll gush over you. You are really so incredibly good looking. You'll have to take me shopping at some point, I love your taste in ties.
Looking at the "reply" box made Jesse feel like the worst person in the world.
I wish you were closer, too Jesse lied, because he didn't know how to type, "If you were closer you'd hate me. If you were here you'd know what a shitty person I am. The only reason I've been able to talk to you at all like this is because I don't have to do it in person."
You should plan a trip to London. I could show you the sights, we could go to the West End. That's an invitation, by the way. You could stay at a hotel and so on, I suppose. Or you could stay here. Oh dear, it's hard to pull in email. I'm much smoother in a pub. I promise, if we were in a bar you'd find me irresistible.
-A
Jesse wrote back, The problem with London is how far away it is, and how completely not inside my apartment it ends up being. My favorite places are all inside my bedroom. Uh, that sounds kind of dirty. Did I tell you how my teachers in elementary school used to try and bribe me with candy to get me to stop crying because I missed my mom so much? It didn't work.
-J
I have better things to bribe you with than candy. ;)
-A
Jesse slammed his laptop shut. He didn't write "You'd never hit on me in a bar. You'd hit on Justin, because he's the kind of guy who goes to bars and gets hit on while I stand awkwardly by the door, holding my coat and telling people about my cats." At least the photos were working. He wondered if Justin was right, and Andrew was jerking off to them. Then he got all flustered and embarrassed thinking about it, because he was picturing it, and that was… Well, that was another line crossed.
And sometimes that led to what he considered another line, lying alone in bed at night, thinking about Andrew's face and Andrew's pictures and what Andrew might be doing (although he had to compensate for the time zone differences, obviously). He tried to feel betrayed that Andrew was picturing Justin, not Jesse, if he was thinking about either of them at all, but really it was a secret relief, one last shred of a layer of protection between them. It was probably, Jesse thought, the last thing keeping him from falling apart entirely.
--
And then Jesse's carefully constructed world fell apart. He was in the middle of a meeting with Justin and a bunch of other people, talking about the client banquet they were throwing next month. Justin was pretty excited about the chance to schmooze some new businesses in with the ones he already had. Jesse had made a few notes on how to bring in more non-profits, because his ever-intensifying Andrew-related guilt had driven him to work longer, more ridiculous hours.
"What I'm saying is why not have strippers?" Justin said, as if this was totally reasonable. "I mean, we can have dudes and chicks. I don't discriminate."
"Because it's a business dinner," said Walsh, and Justin launched into all the different reasons that they should have a separate lap-dance room.
Jesse's phone beeped under the table. Everyone was listening to Justin, so he sank a little bit in his chair and flipped it on under the desk.
There was a new email from Andrew. I'm coming to New York!!!!!!!!!! It's a bit of a holiday and a bit of work and when they asked me if I was interested I said YES and I expect you could hear me all the way where you are (which is the wrong side of the Atlantic, in case you were wondering). I will brook absolutely no excuses about this, I am going to BE IN YOUR CITY and I am going to MEET YOU IN PERSON and it will be fantastic.
You are worrying, I can tell. STOP WORRYING. It's going to be brilliant. Okay, now that that's sorted tell me what the weather is like there in April so I know what to pack.
I can't wait!!! (Stop worrying!)
-A
Steve from marketing put his hand on Jesse's shoulder. "Dude? Are you breathing?"
Jesse managed to hiccup in a little air but his hands were shaking and he dropped his phone. He slid under the table, crawling after it, and for once he was glad he was the kind of idiot who crawled under tables in business meetings because if anyone in the room had seen his face just then they would have called an ambulance.
He would have stayed down there, trying to pull himself together and figure out what he was going to tell Andrew - I moved to Brazil, sorry? I'm actually your mom pretending to be a boy you should date online? The classic faked online death? - when Walsh announced, "And special congratulations to Jesse Eisenberg, who has more than doubled the non-profit sector for us in this quarter!"
There was applause, and then a pause, and then Justin said, "Yo, J, you gonna come out from under the table?"
"Um," said Jesse. "Sure." He crawled out awkwardly, brushing the knees of his pants off. There was some more applause and Jesse tried not to let his face show exactly how shaky and terrified he was feeling.
"Awesome work as always, Eisenberg," said Steve.
"Uh," said Jesse. "Yeah, um, well, it's my job and I do it, so… You know, I try to do it well. When I can."
Justin narrowed his eyes at Jesse from across the table. Jesse shrugged back what he hoped was a clear, "What?" Justin didn't look at all mollified.
"I bet at the banquet you bring in thirty new clients," Steve added, clapping Jesse on the back.
"Uh, maybe? I mean, if I'm standing at the door, maybe, and I'm the person actually letting people in the room I could probably manage that, I-"
Steve laughed, which was nice because sometimes Jesse was actually telling jokes and not just rambling inarticulately. Okay, a lot of the time he was doing both at once, no big deal.
"Great work today, everyone," said Walsh, which meant the meeting was over. Justin vaulted over the table - show off, Jesse thought resentfully - and grabbed Jesse's arm.
"Can I help you?" asked Jesse.
"Come on," said Justin, hustling him out of the room and down the hall to Justin's office.
"What?" said Jesse, hating that Justin was so much taller than he was. "Oww, that's my arm, owww."
Justin pushed him inside and closed the door. "Spill," he ordered. "Ah!" He held up one finger to stop Jesse from explaining. "Don't even bother, dude, you went white as a fucking sheet and I thought you were gonna pass out. Are you okay? What happened?"
"Nothing," said Jesse, as the insurmountable horror rushed back over him. He'd managed to forget for a good minute or two just how screwed he was.
"Bullshit," Justin said. "Come on. Does it involve your long distance lover?"
Jesse blanched.
"Ah ha!" said Justin. He was way too proud of himself. "I knew it. What happened, dude?"
"Nothing," said Jesse. "Nothing, it's nothing, I just, I can't, I need to-"
"Water," said Justin, grabbing a bottle from the mini-fridge under his desk. Someday Jesse was going to figure out how Justin got all the perks in the world without even trying. For now he let Justin unscrew the top of the bottle and hand it to him because his hands were shaking too hard to do it himself. "Drink, breathe, then tell me what happened."
"Nothing," Jesse repeated. "It's nothing, I'll be fine, I'll just kill myself and that will solve all my problems."
"Kind of drastic, dude," said Justin. He sat down on his desk, giving Jesse his I Am Being Serious Right Now face. "I'm just gonna sit here for as long as you need, man, but you're gonna tell me what just happened."
"No," said Jesse. He took a long drink of water, which brought his freak out level down from one hundred percent to ninety-five percent. Baby steps.
"Orrrrrr," said Justin, drawing the word out with a little bit of glee, "I get Emma on the speaker phone and I let her badger you in to telling us."
"Oh god. No."
Justin tilted his head. "Your choice, Eisenberg. I feel personally responsible for this shit, because I signed you up. Did Andrew cheat on you? Did he turn out to be a 50 year old man named Bob? Or a chick? Or a serial killer? If he messed you up somehow I can find him on Facebook and make him sorry."
"No, no, it's not him, it's me, it's all me. I fucked up and he - Oh my god, I want to die." Jesse closed his eyes briefly and tried to will himself invisible and far away from Justin. Preferably in his apartment with the cats, or even better, home with his mom and his sister.
"Tell me," said Justin. He waited thirty seconds and then a minute, and then he cracked like a toddler. "Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me."
"He's coming to New York!" Jesse blurted.
Justin's face lit up. "Dude! That's awesome! Oh man, is this sex anxiety? Are you a virgin? Because I have a lot of advice for you if this is a sex thing. Like, first of all-"
"No, stop it, augh, no," Jesse said, covering his ears. "It's not that. And I'm not a virgin, you jackass."
Justin made a doubtful face.
"You're gonna be mad at me," Jesse said, feeling twitchy.
"Are you pregnant?" asked Justin, deadpan. "You know that can happen the first time, right?"
"I hate you," said Jesse. "Andrew's coming to New York and I have to be somewhere else before he gets here. Do you think Walsh would transfer me to our offices in Hong Kong?"
"Probably not," said Justin. "Explain to me why you're leaving before you meet the hot guy?"
"I… lied to him a little bit," said Jesse, and then winced. "No, I lied to him a lot. Things were going so well, and I just wanted them to keep going well."
"Uh oh," said Justin. "We may need to conference Emma in on this after all."
"No! Because she's going to hate me!"
Justin sighed. "How bad is it? You're a millionaire from Greece with a private yacht and a booming social life? Or just like, you told him you have one cat but really you have thirteen?"
"I… kind of let him think that I was you."
Justin nodded like that made sense. "Suave, sexy, well-dressed, universally beloved. I can see that. But I thought he knew all about what a weirdo you are."
"No, you dork, you in the picture."
"Oh," said Justin, eyes widening. "Oh. Ohhhhh shit. Why didn't you tell him you were you instead?"
"Because," said Jesse despairingly. "He cares about stuff like clothes and going out and bars and parties. I don't have any pictures of me having fun at parties, I only have pictures of you having fun at parties. I figured it didn't matter because he was in London, but-"
Justin cut him off with a wave of his hand, leaning over to punch numbers into his desk phone. "Yo, Emma," he said.
"No!" Jesse yelped, flailing and spilling water everywhere.
"Hi, Justin," said Emma's disembodied voice. "Hi, Jesse."
"We're having a crisis over here," Justin said. "Can you join us?"
"I clock out at six, Timberlake. Deal with your own problems."
"There aren't problems," Jesse said weakly, leaning against the wall. Justin raised an eyebrow. "Massive catastrophes," Jesse allowed. "Disasters of epic proportion. But-"
"It's not work related," Justin said loudly.
"Ohhh," Emma's voice replied. "Your office?"
"Bring booze," Justin said, and clicked the phone off.
"I'm just gonna…. I’m gonna sit down on the floor," said Jesse, sinking against the wall. Justin had really nice carpet. Jesse liked running his hand across it against the grain. "What do you think Emma is going to do?"
"I think she's gonna bring some booze," said Justin, sincerely sympathetic.
next
Fandom: TSN RPF (Jesse Eisenberg/Andrew Garfield) | 25,000 words
Warnings: No sex, but some off-color humor and references to sex
This was supposed to be a cute, short AU based on The Truth About Cats and Dogs, where Jesse uses Justin's picture for online dating. Instead it's long, and of the genre I can only describe as "emotional porn." Have you seen this brilliant fake eHarmony ad? Check it out.
Notes:
Thanks to: Erin for introducing me to these boys, who have cheered up an otherwise miserable winter. My sister, for figuring out how to put the emotional beats in the right order. Elucreh for beta'ing this despite the fact that my spellcheck doesn't work. And Torakowalski for britpicking AND finding about a thousand more mistakes. Seriously, I have no spellcheck. Remaining mistakes are entirely my fault.
+ I have played fast and lose with what investment firms and hedge funds do. I know, I just don't care.
+ Title is from the Decemberists
+ In order for the plot to work I played up Jesse's neuroses, but I would like to state for the record that I think he's incredibly good looking, and he should call me so we can discuss his misapprehension about being an "abstinence symbol." (This would be a pants-free discussion.)
Standard disclaimer applies: It's not meant to be about or imply anything about these actual people, just fictionalized versions of their public personas, ie, if they get to make a movie about Zuckerberg, I get to write this fic. But please don't share this fic with anyone portrayed in it.
It started because Justin decided to set up a dating profile for Jesse against his will. “Dude,” said Justin, “you have cats. You’re a single twenty-something dude with cats. We have got to get you a date.”
It was a slow day at the firm and Justin tended to get douchey when he was bored and there was no one around to flirt with. He was great at bringing in new clients because he was amazingly charming when he wanted to be, but underneath all that charm was a tremendous layer of jackass. Somehow Justin had decided it was his job to drag Jesse kicking and screaming out of the comfort of staying home in his apartment all the time and into the world of... well... Today it looked like internet dating.
Jesse scowled a little and fidgeted with the sleeve of his jacket. “Only two cats,” he said, because the foster cats who went in and out didn’t count. “What are you doing? Seriously, eHarmony? Don’t do that! What are you doing? That’s a company computer. This is such a bad idea.” Justin cackled with glee and started typing, using his elbows to keep Jesse away from the desk.
“Twenty-five,” said Justin. “Male. Single. Seeking a dude hottie.” He stopped and looked at Jesse. “That’s right, right? Or have I totally been misreading your terrible flirting with Steve from payroll when he pops in here once a month?”
Jesse tried to reach for the keyboard and Justin knocked his hand away. “That’s just... I mean. My therapist thinks I need to get more practice interacting with other people my age. This may come as a surprise to you, but I can be a little bit awkward,” Jesse said.
Justin snorted. “Save your hilariously dry sense of humor for when you’re flirting through email. Also, you didn’t answer my question. Dudes: yay or nay?”
“I don’t believe in putting myself in a box--”
“That totally means you’re gay gay gay,” said Justin, typing again. Sometimes it seemed ludicrous that Justin brought so many millions of dollars worth of clients to the firm. “In three years the only person I’ve seen you even try to pick up was a doofus in a sweatervest from payroll. Clearly we need to throw you in to the deep end. Do we have a decent picture of you? I mean, in the entire world is there a decent picture of you? Some kind of sexy geek thing. Glasses, maybe? To hide all the...” He gestured vaguely toward Jesse’s face.
“You’re not making me feel any better,” said Jesse. Justin was kind of a friend, because they worked together and he didn’t make Jesse feel entirely like a broken robot with a bad emotions chip, but he was also a self-centered jackass.
Justin sighed. “The point is not to make you feel better, the point is to get you laid, which will make you feel better and get you to stop moping at work and adopting cats. No man needs that many cats.”
“I like my cats,” Jesse said. “My cats have never tried to sign me up for eHarmony. What are you typing? My hobbies are not watching indie bands or collecting ironic t-shirts.”
“Well, they should be,” Justin said, mostly ignoring him. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m going to set it so there’s no picture for now. Once you get to know someone you can ‘reveal your picture’ to them.”
“Thank you so much for confirming my belief that I’m basically a troll,” said Jesse.
Justin waved him off. “This is about matching you on deeper levels, man. This is about meeting your soul mate. This is about you having somewhere to go on a Saturday night so I don’t feel bad when I’m out at the club.”
Justin was so full of shit. And only partially because Jesse didn’t even believe in the concept of love and soul mates; he was pretty sure people just dated until they found someone who was the minimum level of tolerable and then stuck it out together because they thought it was better than an apartment full of cats. But Jesse had made his peace with the cats, no matter what his therapist said. And Justin definitely didn’t feel bad about leaving Jesse behind when he was out clubbing.
“It’s about how unlikely two human beings are to meet in New York City,” said Jesse, “unless one of them is giving the other one directions for the subway.”
“You don’t meet anyone because you never leave your apartment,” said Justin.
“I like my apartment,” Jesse protested. “All my stuff is there.”
“And your cats. It’s creepy. I’m gonna get you a date and I’m gonna get you laid and you’re gonna name your first adopted gay-ass kid Justin Randal Timberlake the Second.” Jesse lunged for the keyboard again but Justin had already hit ‘submit.’ “Bam!” said Justin, holding up his arms in victory.
“This is going to be awful,” said Jesse.
“Oh please,” said Justin. “There are so many geeks on the internet you probably seem normal. You can be their king.”
Jesse moaned and tried not to secretly wonder if maybe, possibly, Justin had gotten this idea from Jesse’s mom.
“You’ll feel better after a couple of orgasms that don’t come from your own right hand,” said Justin.
The awful part was, Jesse suspected he might.
--
So Jesse didn’t delete the stupid profile but he didn’t look at it, either, and every morning he woke up to twenty emails he immediately deleted that said things like, “Rick wants to contact you!” and “Message from Joe!” After a couple of days Justin got bored of looking over his shoulder at work and saying, “Well? Any luck yet? You gonna hit that?” or maybe Justin just forgot about it. Long-term thinking wasn’t Justin’s strong point.
Jesse intended to act like the whole thing wasn't happening. He wasn’t lonely; he liked being on his own, because he never surprised himself when he did something incredibly weird or awkward or wanted to put on the soundtrack to Carousel for the fourth time in a row. The idea of explaining himself to another person seemed so daunting as to make just giving up easier.
On the other hand, Jesse felt a strange sense of responsibility toward his own profile. He went back and clicked all the little buttons about his likes and dislikes and things that were important to him, so that at least all the people on the internet he was ignoring would be matched up properly with the real him. And he deleted Justin’s glib “Dork seeks love” and replaced it with “Real-life Michael Cera shut-in type seeks unlikely companionship -- Must not have allergies.”
Sometimes he was mildly tempted to look at the profiles he was being sent but work was pretty distracting; Jesse was trying to rework the investment funds of the four charities the hedge fund had taken on to improve their profiles during the recession. He’d been given those accounts because normally he felt so insanely guilty about the work he did that he ended doing things like bringing home stray cats and then having to stay with Justin while his apartment was fumigated. Working on the charities at least let him sleep at night.
It took three weekends for him to crack and finally be bored enough to click, and even then it was mostly because Justin was out at a club and sending him texts like, it’s friday night and i just got paaaaaaid followed by gonna get laid aww yeah and meet any cute nerds yet dude?????
Jesse bit his lip and fidgeted a little, digging his fingers into the arm of the couch. His therapist thought it was a great idea, and Justin sporadically remembered and bothered him about it, and he wasn’t doing anything else. It couldn’t hurt just to look. The first profile (Rick, New Jersey, 31) was a guy who clearly belonged on the Jersey Shore and Jesse clicked away again immediately. The next guy was too old, the next one was in the army, the next one looked even sadder than Jesse felt reading these profiles on a Friday night.
And then there was someone from England, of all places. Justin had clearly screwed up the “how many miles away will you date” question and Jesse hadn’t fixed it. There was a message in the email, though, and before he clicked delete Jesse figured he ought to read it.
Hi, I quite liked your profile, very funny I thought, hahaha. This is a bit awkward, isn’t it, meeting people online like this, but I’m busy and I imagine you must be busy, too. If computers make it easier I say why not? Well, really my mum says why not and I have to listen to my mum, don’t I? Perhaps you’re just listening to your mum as well, in which case please ignore all this rambling ridiculousness. Anyway. Hi. :) -Andrew
Jesse read it twice and then clicked on the profile to see who this obviously crazy person was. He was pleasantly surprised to find Andrew was cute. Or, he had a nice smile but he looked a little like a British hipster and his hair was sort of ridiculously puffy. Also, there was a picture of him riding on a Vespa, which was honestly the dumbest thing Jesse had ever seen in his life.
It couldn’t hurt just to send a message back. Jesse’s real email was hidden and he didn’t have a picture up yet or anything. Plus, this guy -- Andrew -- was in London. Jesse clicked ‘reply’ and then his heart started pounding and he had to close his laptop and take a couple of deep breaths. Raskolnikov opened an eye and yawned at him, then curled up in a ball again with his tail over his nose and went back to sleep.
Right, it was no big deal. Jesse shook his hands out and picked up his laptop again. This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done, and I listen to musicals on vinyl. Not ironically, either. My mom would be pretty excited if she knew but god willing she won’t find out. Our family has had enough tragedy already, you know, from two thousand years of wandering and all, without her hearing about this. Anyway I’m mostly replying to tell you that you need to buy a car because that Vespa is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. You’ll get bugs in your teeth. Now I sound like a neurotic New York Jew... Hey. That works, actually.
His hand hovered over the ‘send’ button. He was going to press it, and then he wasn’t, and then was, and then he wanted to rewrite the entire thing to sound like less of a douche. He pressed it finally, frantically, and then closed his eyes and hyperventilated for a minute.
“That was so, so, so dumb,” he groaned, hiding his face behind his hands. If the cats had opinions they didn’t share them.
--
Jesse, I think you’ll find it is you who are wrong. My Vespa is adorable and I never have to sit around in traffic. I shudder to think what it must be like driving a car in New York traffic. I’ve seen pictures of New York, which is obviously rife with mobsters and Newsies and Donald Trumps in the wild. I did notice the absolutely miserable traffic. You should consider a Vespa. I’d lend you mine but you made fun of her, and now her feelings are hurt. :(((((
When you say ‘musicals’ do you mean proper ones? Are we talking Gilbert and Sullivan or Andrew Lloyd Weber? I’m afraid I’m a bit more into music that people might accidentally hear on the radio. I think you’ve got your profile wrong; it says you’re 25, but surely you meant 85. Hope that helps!
Andrew
--
“What are you doing?”
Jesse made a totally undignified squawking noise and nearly fell out if his chair. “Get out of my ear, Justin!” He flailed a little bit but Justin was an unmovable wall when he was curious about things. Really, Jesse should have known better than to try and read his email at work in peace. There was no such thing as a private office with Justin around.
“Who’s Andrew?” Justin demanded, leaning in farther over Jesse’s shoulder. “Is that him on the bike? Dude, he’s hot!”
Jesse tried to close his laptop but Justin had his hands all over the screen. There were going to be fingerprints. “He’s no one, it’s nothing, go away,” said Jesse.
“Aww, dude, you like him!” Justin crowed.
“I’ve exchanged a couple emails with him and he lives in London. I don’t know anything about him except he can’t punctuate and he thinks motorcycles have feelings," Jesse lied. It was weird how much he felt like he already knew about Andrew. "Please go away?”
“What you need to do,” said Justin, totally ignoring him, “is send him a naked picture of yourself. That’s how this shit works. I saw it on To Catch A Predator.”
“You must have been dropped on your head,” said Jesse.
“I send naked texts all the time,” said Justin. “It’s like catnip for the ladies.”
“Eww.”
“You need to put up a picture or he’s going to think you’re all weird looking,” said Justin. Jesse waited patiently for the inevitable. Justin opened his mouth, hesitated, then shrugged and closed it again.
“Seriously?” Jesse asked.
“Well, when you meet him in person he’ll find out anyway,” Justin pointed out. “Why not let him know up front what he’s dealing with? If he runs screaming he’s a dick. You’re not ugly. You just kind of... stare a lot. Really intensely. Maybe you should let me buy you a hairbrush."
“Get away from me,” Jesse said, trying to wave Justin away from his hair.
“Relax, dude. You’re like, at least fifty percent less completely weird-looking than you were a few years ago.”
Jesse elbowed him in the stomach and Justin finally went away. But not before Jesse realized that Justin was sort of right; if they met in person Andrew would find out that Jesse was awkward and strange and had unruly hair. But Andrew was in London, so it probably didn’t matter at all. Who would fly intercontinentally for a date with someone they’d never even met? He felt abruptly a lot more relaxed about the whole thing. He was never going to have to try and pretend to be normal around Andrew, because he was never going to meet Andrew.
Your Vespa definitely has feelings but I’m betting they’re mostly shame, he typed. I avoid New York Traffic by riding my bike pretty much everywhere I go. It gives me the double advantage of avoiding traffic and avoiding ever having to talk to people. I like basically all musicals, although I have a soft spot for the unloved ones. Someone has to stick up for the singing underdog. It’s the same reason I have cats. Guilt. I thought about trying to come up with a cooler answer so I googled ‘cool music’ but all that came up was children’s songs. I don’t know if being into cool music for kids would make this conversation better or worse. -J
He hit send before he could think about it too much. If that didn’t scare Andrew off nothing was going to.
--
Hahahaha. Oh, that’s brilliant. You’re really funny. I just realised that might sound sarcastic since this is electronic text. I am not being sarcastic. Your emails make me laugh. Most of the twats on here just want to brag about how much money they make. Have you really got cats? Are you sure you meant eHarmony and not Dreadful Old Spinsters dot com? Either way I think you’re charming. Why haven’t you got a picture up? I promise I won’t stalk you. Unless you’re in to that kind of thing. (This is the internet. You never know what people might be into. I think fetishes is probably a not-until-the-third-date conversation.) Do you watch movies or travel or go out to eat? Those are my hobbies when I’m not working, except I’m never not working, which is why I'm emailing a stranger on a dating site.
I will make you a mix tape. A downloadable one. The fantastic thing about music is that you can share it with people. I quite like sharing, and I’m looking forward to a PICTURE of who I’m sharing with. And you can send me whatever dreadful musicals I should know about, but please don’t send Oliver! or Annie because I’ve heard those and they make me want to stab my ears with a chopstick. Cheers! -A
PS You should upload a picture so I know you're not secretly my mum.
--
The amount of time Jesse spent agonizing over which musicals to recommend was... Well. It wasn’t healthy. His therapist actually thought it was sweet (“It’s nice to see you emotionally engaging with someone!”) but she didn’t see how long he spent trying to decide which cast recording of Into the Woods was the best. There were a lot of factors to consider.
Over the course of the next two weeks he learned the following things about Andrew:
1) He thought Jesse was funny, even when Jesse was being deliberately awful and awkward and talking total bullshit.
2) He seemed pretty able to tell when Jesse was bullshitting and he rolled with it.
3) Every email dripped with the kind of cheerful happiness Jesse normally associated with Disney princesses right before they finally worked up the pluck to run away from home. Jesse was emotionally unprepared to try and reason with someone who was genuinely bubbly.
4) His pictures ranged from pretty attractive to annoyingly, stupidly attractive.
5) Jesse couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Andrew. Something had to be, didn't it? But he didn’t have any obvious blinking, flashing crazy going on. Other than liking Jesse, that was. Jesse had done everything he could to make sure the emails reflected his most hermit-like, neurotic self, and Andrew had replied with generally sweet and hilarious advice to eat healthfully, get more sleep, do nice things for his family, and find a tree to climb, because that always cheered him up.
6) He was serious about seeing a picture of Jesse. In fact he'd started adding things like, Hint hint, do you have a picture yet or are all the cameras in New York still broken you lying liar who lies? The only reason Jesse was able to make himself continue this whole farce was his confidence that he was never actually going to have to meet Andrew and try to... You know, hit on him in person, or whatever. He was morbidly curious about what might happen if he did but he was pretty sure it would end in tears. Andrew’s tears. He probably cried big Disney princess tears, too.
7) He was starting to feel like he actually knew Andrew. They were emailing every day, and Andrew kept dropping in funny little asides about his favorite bands, what he was eating for lunch, the weird British candy he liked, and how stressful his job was. (Jesse had figured out that Andrew worked for some kind of non-profit but he hadn't demanded details because he was trying not to be a creepy stalker.) Jesse was pretty sure he knew enough about Andrew to write a book, or a pamphlet at least. He'd call it In Over Your Head: How to Differentiate Between Making A Friend and Becoming Obsessed With Someone. (Andrew Wears Underwear Called Y-Fronts. Why Do I Know That?)
--
“I don’t get it; we’re never going to meet. Why does he keep asking me for a picture?” Jesse complained to Justin late one Tuesday when they were the only people left on their floor.
“He needs an image to jerk off to,” said Justin, mouth mostly full of take-out Indian food. Jesse groaned and wondered why he’d broken down under Justin’s relentless demands to know how online dating was going. “Just use whatever picture you have on Facebook.”
“I don’t have a Facebook,” said Jesse.
Justin groaned. “Dude. You’re the worst geek ever.”
“I’m not that kind of geek,” Jesse protested.
“I don’t even know what that means. Here. God, just let me, okay?” Justin pulled out his iPhone and scrolled through a bunch of pictures until he got to one from the Christmas party last year. He and Jesse were standing with their arms around each other in front of a Christmas-light covered copy machine, ties loose and faces a little flushed from champagne. “You look hot here, okay? I mean, at least you’re not wearing glasses and adopting a cat. I’m emailing this to you and you’re going to send it to this dude. That way he’ll know you can party and get wild.” Justin did a weird little dance in his chair.
“But I don’t get wild; I had two glasses of champagne and passed out on your couch,” Jesse said.
“Well, maybe don’t put that in the email,” said Justin. “Okay, go ahead. Do it.”
“Do what?”
“Upload the picture! If you don’t do it while I’m watching you’ll ‘forget.’” Justin’s air quotes were particularly uncalled for, Jesse thought. Not inaccurate, just rude.
“I hate you,” said Jesse.
Justin just crossed his arms.
Jesse sighed really, really loudly to let Justin know what a bad idea this was and how much he didn’t want to do it. Justin didn’t seem particularly moved. Jesse reminded himself a few more times that it didn’t matter because Andrew was in London and opened his email.
You bring this on yourself. Here is a picture. I wanted to send you one where I had a bag over my head but I was overruled.
-Jesse
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Justin asked. “Also, did you know you’ve brought in thirteen percent more revenue in the last two weeks? Being in looooove agrees with you.”
“I'm not -- I haven’t even met him, you’re insane.” Jesse scowled and closed his laptop. Justin had taken the last of the rice and the nan. “Why am I even doing this? What kind of weird voodoo mind-control do you have over me?”
“I’m helping,” said Justin smugly. “You’re my bro, and all that twitchy never-getting-laid energy drives me nuts. He digs your soul, he’s not going to care that you dress like a schlub. And if he does care I’ll take you shopping.”
Jesse almost blacked out trying to imagine how horrible that would be. “You -- I --- What -- No!”
“Pop quiz,” said Justin, mouth full of saag paneer. “Where did you buy that suit?”
Jesse looked blankly at his own shirt. “Uh... Canal Street? Two for $125.”
Justin shook his head mournfully. “Let’s just hope he’s not a fashionista or a hipster. Are you talking to anyone else online? Do you have any other prospects?”
“Uh,” said Jesse, fiddling with his plastic fork. He thought maybe Andrew was the kind of person who cared about clothes and music and coolness. “I uh. Well. I haven’t actually looked at any other profiles, but I get them in my email. I could. I just, uh. Don’t.”
Justin whistled. “This is serious. You like like him.”
“Yes,” Jesse said, “I like like him. Also, next week I hope to find some new Lisa Frank stickers in my Trapper Keeper so I can put them on the papers where I write ‘Mr. Jesse Garfield’ over and over and over.”
“Whatever floats your boat, man,” said Justin. “Don’t sweat the photo too much. You’re pretty cute. Like a stray puppy that needs to be adopted. I bet he digs it.”
“I don’t care,” said Jesse, and didn’t believe himself even for a second.
--
Andrew didn’t email him back right away-- it was the time difference, Jesse told himself, digging his nails into the arm of the couch -- but Jesse couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t totally insane; he knew he wasn’t Quasimodo, but he hadn’t considered what he was going to do if this whole thing fell apart. He’d started counting on Andrew’s obnoxiously cheerful emails when he woke up in the morning.
At four in the morning Jesse stopped pretending he was sleeping and pushed Mrs. Pennyfarthing off the bed so he could open his laptop. There was no email from Andrew. That was weird, usually there were two or three every day. Jesse's chest hurt.
I knew the picture was a mistake. Would you like to hear more about my cats? I am an excellent foster dad for three cats right now. They can provide me with references if you need them.
-Jesse
If sending the first email hadn’t been a mistake then this one definitely was. Jesse hit send and then stared at the screen for a full minute, willing Andrew to answer.
Nothing happened. Jesse’s heart was racing and he was hot all over; way too hot, especially too hot to sleep with Number Three trying to curl up on his head. He got up and made himself a cup of tea and sat looking out the window over the sun coming up behind the buildings in New York.
--
"Wake up," said Justin, poking Jesse's shoulder. "We have clients to talk to. Walsh wants to see you bringing in new money. I know you suck at talking to people one-on-one, but you do great presentations if you can get over your nerves, so get up. I need you."
Jesse groaned and waved one hand around in the hopes that Justin would see it and understand it meant go-away-the-coffee-isn't-working. He didn't move his head off the desk. He probably had a space bar imprint on his cheek.
"Bad news on the boy front?" Justin asked, hopping up to sit on Jesse's desk. "Yo, you mind if I steal your coffee?"
"It isn't stealing if you ask if I mind," Jesse mumbled.
"I'm a polite thief," said Justin, waggling his eyebrows. "Now tell me all about it. You have the look of a man who was up all night, and not in the fun way."
"Don't you have clients?" Jesse asked hopefully.
"Yeah, but I need coffee before I can schmooze," said Justin. "C'mon, dude. Spill."
Jesse groaned and peeled himself off the desk. "It's no big deal."
Justin snorted. "True or false, man. This guy, this Andrew guy, he knows about the cats thing, and the musicals thing, and the maps thing, and how you can't be in a car for longer than ten seconds without fucking honking at someone."
"True," said Jesse.
"And he thinks your sarcastic asides are funny instead of totally annoying, which by the way, they are."
"True. Not that last part, I mean. He knows."
Justin waved that away. "And he knows you love your mom and your grandma more than any normal guy, and he knows you never wanted to get into finance but you can't help being wicked smart, and he knows you work on the charity accounts out of guilt but you wish you did a job that was more like that all the time."
"What's your point?" Jesse asked, crossing his arms.
"The point, my friend, is that you have crossed a line." Justin nudged Jesse's knee with his sneaker. Somehow he had circumvented the normal rules of suit wearing to include his ridiculous, sparkly, expensive sneakers, and no one ever said anything about it.
"I didn't tell him my social security number or anything. I don't even know the name of his non-profit."
"No, like, an emotional line," said Justin. "He knows about the stuff that makes you twitchy. It matters to you what he thinks. He's inside your crunchy chocolate coating, all up in your creamy nougat center."
Jesse spluttered for a minute. "No, I mean, that's not… Most of our emails are just about, like, bands he likes and how I almost killed myself biking to work."
"Yeah, but that shit means something," said Justin. "How many times did I give you a CD you never listened to? But I have totally heard The Decemberists in here, and that is a my-British-hipster-boyfriend-gave-me-a-mix-tape red flag."
Jesse grabbed his coffee back so he could hide his face in the mug. Justin would know if Andrew really was a hipster, wouldn't he? Jesse had a vague idea that meant he went to a lot of parties and wore unflattering jeans, although he couldn't really imagine anything being unflattering on Andrew. But it definitely meant he cared what people looked like. And that would explain his insistence on seeing a photograph of Jesse. "He's not my boyfriend," he mumbled. "He hasn't even emailed me back about that stupid picture."
"Awww, baby, don't sweat it," said Justin. "I'm sure he loves you just as much as before he knew your tie is always crooked." He reached over and ruffled Jesse's hair before he could duck away. "Are you two having email sex yet?"
"No! Seriously, he's not my boyfriend." It was entirely possible, Jesse knew, that Andrew would not love him as much after he saw Jesse. Jesse wasn't a troll, not really, but he wasn't… Well, he wasn't Justin, either.
"It's a dating website," said Justin, rolling his eyes. "What do you think you're there for? You signed up. He signed up."
"His mom signed him up. You signed me up."
"Whatever! Tell him you want to get him off. You need some digital get-down."
Jesse said plaintively, "I just want him to email me back."
"Come on, let's go talk to some investors," said Justin, hopping off Jesse's desk. "You use the big sad puppy eyes and the magic of PowerPoint, I'll use my dazzling charm."
"What charm?" Jesse grumbled.
"Right, use your sparkling sense of humor, too," said Justin, dragging him down the hall.
--
Thank god!!!! You actually have a head. I was starting to worry. Actually though, if the cats are going to email me could they please let me know which of the two people in the photograph is you? They've overlooked that little detail, but I suppose that's cats for you. Also I'd like to know how you've trained them to type. When my mum's cats walk on the keyboard they mostly write ssssssssssssssssssssssssslkkl which I believe translates loosely to 'give me more cat food or I'm going to claw your face.'
Sorry for the late reply, there was a miserable crisis at work, I was there well after midnight and ended up sleeping under my desk. (My mum says this is why I can't meet anyone "in real life," and I have explained to her REPEATEDLY that you are not a figment of my imagination, although I was beginning to wonder because you seemed to be allergic to cameras. And then I pointed out that she was the one who insisted I meet someone on line and that it's actually going fine, except for your being on the wrong continent.) Which also reminds me: I am waiting for your detailed opinions on The Decemberists and Arcade Fire. Yes, I saw that The Fantasticks just opened on the West End, but no, I'm not going to go see it. It would be wasted on me; I don't know the story. Unless you want to fly out here and hold my hand and explain it to me, at least. That's a hint, by the way.
Andrew
Jesse stared at the email, biting his lip and tapping his fingers restlessly against his desk. He reread the end a couple of times, the part where Andrew basically invited him to London. It was absolutely terrifying. He couldn't even pretend he was going to consider it without a horrible stress headache.
A terrible, devious idea was nagging at the back of his brain. "No," Jesse told himself. Raskolnikov stretched and yawned on the couch.
--
"Hypothetically," said Jesse.
Emma, Jesse's go-to lawyer in the firm, sighed and pushed her glasses up on top of her head. "Come in," she said. "Don't linger in the doorway like an unwanted guest."
Emma's office was terrifying; it was all leather and oak bookshelves and heavy dark rugs. By contrast all of Justin's ridiculous Sharper Image beeping toys seemed positively comforting. "Let's say I was considering lying to someone," Jesse said. He took a couple of steps in to her office and then stopped again, because it was making him nervous.
"Is this a business someone?" Emma asked seriously.
Jesse shook his head. "No, I… I know, there are laws, I'm not going to break the law. I mean, not unless you can find a tax loophole for it, I know we do pretty much anything for a tax loophole." Emma pursed her lips, looking faintly amused. "This is strictly a personal matter, I just…. Uh. If there was a situation where I was considering maybe just… Not correcting someone's mistaken assumption, but there was zero percent chance of my ever getting caught, and it was just… You know, a way for me to seem a little bit cooler than I actually am, and no one was going to get hurt. In that situation, how many cats do you think I'd have to adopt to stop feeling heinously guilty about it?"
"Most people are 85 percent water; you're 85 percent guilt," said Emma. "I don't know what the cat-to-guilt ratio is."
"What if I just lie by omission," said Jesse. "How bad is that? How many years in prison?"
"Honey, you're always going to be in the prison of your own crazy head, and I say that with love." Emma sighed. For a ruthless take-no-shit lawyer Jesse had always thought she was pretty sweet. At least, she was sweet to him; she wasn't quite so nice to Justin. "This doesn't sound so bad, though. Are you actively lying to someone or just letting them assume something about you?"
"Uh… Somewhere between the two," said Jesse, twisting his hands around each other. "I just… I just think maybe I'd seem a little cooler that way, and I never get to seem cool, and it kind of… Uh, it matters to me a little bit. Which I also feel guilty about, by the way."
Emma gave him a fond look that made him feel even more wretchedly bad for thinking about lying to Andrew. "I don't think you give yourself enough credit," said Emma. "You're cool, you're just not cool like Justin is cool. But that's nice, because it means you're also not a jackass all the time. Anyone who doesn't love you just the way you are is wrong."
"Yeah, but…" Jesse started, and then stopped himself. "I mean, this has no practical consequences in the real world, so it doesn't matter, right?"
"If it didn't matter I don't think you'd be talking to me," said Emma.
Jesse groaned and hid his face against the wall.
"Okay, fine, I take it back," said Emma. "If this lie will help you get through the day without melting down completely then you should do it. But I think you are totally perfect just the way you are."
"Thank you," Jesse mumbled.
"And for the record, if you ever lie or perjure yourself in a business-related conversation I'll kill you with my own bare hands," Emma added cheerfully. "Unless it's for the good of the company."
"Duly noted."
"Be brave, little toaster. It's going to be fine."
--
So technically Jesse didn't lie. He didn't actually email Andrew and say "I'm the tall, handsome guy with the broad shoulders and the stubble and the ironic glasses." He just sent Andrew a long email about the new map he'd bought and how work was sapping his will to live and why New York was obviously the best place to live. And Andrew emailed back a much longer and more rambling email about the weather in London and how stressful his job was and some shopping he'd done and a concert he'd gone to and ended it with "Fine, if the cats aren't talking you had better be. Are you the one on the left?"
Justin was the one on the left in the photo.
Jesse emailed back, Good guess. It wasn't a confirmation, it just… wasn't a correction. Anyway it satisfied Andrew, and if Jesse couldn't sleep at night for a few days it was worth it when Andrew emailed back, gushing (as he tended to do) about how handsome Jesse was and how nice his suit looked… Jesse donated a check for a hundred dollars to the animal shelter on his way to work and tried not to die inside.
--
The unforgivable part was the other picture he sent. And the other other picture. And the other other other picture. Jesse had never realized how easy it was to find pictures of Justin on his phone or the company website. Jesse was in the background of most of them, at least, lurking like a particularly neurotic shark.
I wish you were closer, Andrew wrote. This is ridiculous, only chatting to you in email. We've definitely passed the point where we ought to have met up for a drink. You'd need one to calm your nerves until you realize how incredibly lovely I am to be around, and I'd need a drink so I didn't spend the whole time embarrassing you horribly with how I'll gush over you. You are really so incredibly good looking. You'll have to take me shopping at some point, I love your taste in ties.
Looking at the "reply" box made Jesse feel like the worst person in the world.
I wish you were closer, too Jesse lied, because he didn't know how to type, "If you were closer you'd hate me. If you were here you'd know what a shitty person I am. The only reason I've been able to talk to you at all like this is because I don't have to do it in person."
You should plan a trip to London. I could show you the sights, we could go to the West End. That's an invitation, by the way. You could stay at a hotel and so on, I suppose. Or you could stay here. Oh dear, it's hard to pull in email. I'm much smoother in a pub. I promise, if we were in a bar you'd find me irresistible.
-A
Jesse wrote back, The problem with London is how far away it is, and how completely not inside my apartment it ends up being. My favorite places are all inside my bedroom. Uh, that sounds kind of dirty. Did I tell you how my teachers in elementary school used to try and bribe me with candy to get me to stop crying because I missed my mom so much? It didn't work.
-J
I have better things to bribe you with than candy. ;)
-A
Jesse slammed his laptop shut. He didn't write "You'd never hit on me in a bar. You'd hit on Justin, because he's the kind of guy who goes to bars and gets hit on while I stand awkwardly by the door, holding my coat and telling people about my cats." At least the photos were working. He wondered if Justin was right, and Andrew was jerking off to them. Then he got all flustered and embarrassed thinking about it, because he was picturing it, and that was… Well, that was another line crossed.
And sometimes that led to what he considered another line, lying alone in bed at night, thinking about Andrew's face and Andrew's pictures and what Andrew might be doing (although he had to compensate for the time zone differences, obviously). He tried to feel betrayed that Andrew was picturing Justin, not Jesse, if he was thinking about either of them at all, but really it was a secret relief, one last shred of a layer of protection between them. It was probably, Jesse thought, the last thing keeping him from falling apart entirely.
--
And then Jesse's carefully constructed world fell apart. He was in the middle of a meeting with Justin and a bunch of other people, talking about the client banquet they were throwing next month. Justin was pretty excited about the chance to schmooze some new businesses in with the ones he already had. Jesse had made a few notes on how to bring in more non-profits, because his ever-intensifying Andrew-related guilt had driven him to work longer, more ridiculous hours.
"What I'm saying is why not have strippers?" Justin said, as if this was totally reasonable. "I mean, we can have dudes and chicks. I don't discriminate."
"Because it's a business dinner," said Walsh, and Justin launched into all the different reasons that they should have a separate lap-dance room.
Jesse's phone beeped under the table. Everyone was listening to Justin, so he sank a little bit in his chair and flipped it on under the desk.
There was a new email from Andrew. I'm coming to New York!!!!!!!!!! It's a bit of a holiday and a bit of work and when they asked me if I was interested I said YES and I expect you could hear me all the way where you are (which is the wrong side of the Atlantic, in case you were wondering). I will brook absolutely no excuses about this, I am going to BE IN YOUR CITY and I am going to MEET YOU IN PERSON and it will be fantastic.
You are worrying, I can tell. STOP WORRYING. It's going to be brilliant. Okay, now that that's sorted tell me what the weather is like there in April so I know what to pack.
I can't wait!!! (Stop worrying!)
-A
Steve from marketing put his hand on Jesse's shoulder. "Dude? Are you breathing?"
Jesse managed to hiccup in a little air but his hands were shaking and he dropped his phone. He slid under the table, crawling after it, and for once he was glad he was the kind of idiot who crawled under tables in business meetings because if anyone in the room had seen his face just then they would have called an ambulance.
He would have stayed down there, trying to pull himself together and figure out what he was going to tell Andrew - I moved to Brazil, sorry? I'm actually your mom pretending to be a boy you should date online? The classic faked online death? - when Walsh announced, "And special congratulations to Jesse Eisenberg, who has more than doubled the non-profit sector for us in this quarter!"
There was applause, and then a pause, and then Justin said, "Yo, J, you gonna come out from under the table?"
"Um," said Jesse. "Sure." He crawled out awkwardly, brushing the knees of his pants off. There was some more applause and Jesse tried not to let his face show exactly how shaky and terrified he was feeling.
"Awesome work as always, Eisenberg," said Steve.
"Uh," said Jesse. "Yeah, um, well, it's my job and I do it, so… You know, I try to do it well. When I can."
Justin narrowed his eyes at Jesse from across the table. Jesse shrugged back what he hoped was a clear, "What?" Justin didn't look at all mollified.
"I bet at the banquet you bring in thirty new clients," Steve added, clapping Jesse on the back.
"Uh, maybe? I mean, if I'm standing at the door, maybe, and I'm the person actually letting people in the room I could probably manage that, I-"
Steve laughed, which was nice because sometimes Jesse was actually telling jokes and not just rambling inarticulately. Okay, a lot of the time he was doing both at once, no big deal.
"Great work today, everyone," said Walsh, which meant the meeting was over. Justin vaulted over the table - show off, Jesse thought resentfully - and grabbed Jesse's arm.
"Can I help you?" asked Jesse.
"Come on," said Justin, hustling him out of the room and down the hall to Justin's office.
"What?" said Jesse, hating that Justin was so much taller than he was. "Oww, that's my arm, owww."
Justin pushed him inside and closed the door. "Spill," he ordered. "Ah!" He held up one finger to stop Jesse from explaining. "Don't even bother, dude, you went white as a fucking sheet and I thought you were gonna pass out. Are you okay? What happened?"
"Nothing," said Jesse, as the insurmountable horror rushed back over him. He'd managed to forget for a good minute or two just how screwed he was.
"Bullshit," Justin said. "Come on. Does it involve your long distance lover?"
Jesse blanched.
"Ah ha!" said Justin. He was way too proud of himself. "I knew it. What happened, dude?"
"Nothing," said Jesse. "Nothing, it's nothing, I just, I can't, I need to-"
"Water," said Justin, grabbing a bottle from the mini-fridge under his desk. Someday Jesse was going to figure out how Justin got all the perks in the world without even trying. For now he let Justin unscrew the top of the bottle and hand it to him because his hands were shaking too hard to do it himself. "Drink, breathe, then tell me what happened."
"Nothing," Jesse repeated. "It's nothing, I'll be fine, I'll just kill myself and that will solve all my problems."
"Kind of drastic, dude," said Justin. He sat down on his desk, giving Jesse his I Am Being Serious Right Now face. "I'm just gonna sit here for as long as you need, man, but you're gonna tell me what just happened."
"No," said Jesse. He took a long drink of water, which brought his freak out level down from one hundred percent to ninety-five percent. Baby steps.
"Orrrrrr," said Justin, drawing the word out with a little bit of glee, "I get Emma on the speaker phone and I let her badger you in to telling us."
"Oh god. No."
Justin tilted his head. "Your choice, Eisenberg. I feel personally responsible for this shit, because I signed you up. Did Andrew cheat on you? Did he turn out to be a 50 year old man named Bob? Or a chick? Or a serial killer? If he messed you up somehow I can find him on Facebook and make him sorry."
"No, no, it's not him, it's me, it's all me. I fucked up and he - Oh my god, I want to die." Jesse closed his eyes briefly and tried to will himself invisible and far away from Justin. Preferably in his apartment with the cats, or even better, home with his mom and his sister.
"Tell me," said Justin. He waited thirty seconds and then a minute, and then he cracked like a toddler. "Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me."
"He's coming to New York!" Jesse blurted.
Justin's face lit up. "Dude! That's awesome! Oh man, is this sex anxiety? Are you a virgin? Because I have a lot of advice for you if this is a sex thing. Like, first of all-"
"No, stop it, augh, no," Jesse said, covering his ears. "It's not that. And I'm not a virgin, you jackass."
Justin made a doubtful face.
"You're gonna be mad at me," Jesse said, feeling twitchy.
"Are you pregnant?" asked Justin, deadpan. "You know that can happen the first time, right?"
"I hate you," said Jesse. "Andrew's coming to New York and I have to be somewhere else before he gets here. Do you think Walsh would transfer me to our offices in Hong Kong?"
"Probably not," said Justin. "Explain to me why you're leaving before you meet the hot guy?"
"I… lied to him a little bit," said Jesse, and then winced. "No, I lied to him a lot. Things were going so well, and I just wanted them to keep going well."
"Uh oh," said Justin. "We may need to conference Emma in on this after all."
"No! Because she's going to hate me!"
Justin sighed. "How bad is it? You're a millionaire from Greece with a private yacht and a booming social life? Or just like, you told him you have one cat but really you have thirteen?"
"I… kind of let him think that I was you."
Justin nodded like that made sense. "Suave, sexy, well-dressed, universally beloved. I can see that. But I thought he knew all about what a weirdo you are."
"No, you dork, you in the picture."
"Oh," said Justin, eyes widening. "Oh. Ohhhhh shit. Why didn't you tell him you were you instead?"
"Because," said Jesse despairingly. "He cares about stuff like clothes and going out and bars and parties. I don't have any pictures of me having fun at parties, I only have pictures of you having fun at parties. I figured it didn't matter because he was in London, but-"
Justin cut him off with a wave of his hand, leaning over to punch numbers into his desk phone. "Yo, Emma," he said.
"No!" Jesse yelped, flailing and spilling water everywhere.
"Hi, Justin," said Emma's disembodied voice. "Hi, Jesse."
"We're having a crisis over here," Justin said. "Can you join us?"
"I clock out at six, Timberlake. Deal with your own problems."
"There aren't problems," Jesse said weakly, leaning against the wall. Justin raised an eyebrow. "Massive catastrophes," Jesse allowed. "Disasters of epic proportion. But-"
"It's not work related," Justin said loudly.
"Ohhh," Emma's voice replied. "Your office?"
"Bring booze," Justin said, and clicked the phone off.
"I'm just gonna…. I’m gonna sit down on the floor," said Jesse, sinking against the wall. Justin had really nice carpet. Jesse liked running his hand across it against the grain. "What do you think Emma is going to do?"
"I think she's gonna bring some booze," said Justin, sincerely sympathetic.
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