Raina would know, he thought, and reached for his phone. It was somewhere under the pile of papers that had invaded his desk.
It had to be. Right?
Five minutes of frantic searching, and Jasper found his phone charging in his drawer, where he had put it in an effort to concentrate on the research he was combing through earlier in the afternoon.
He checked the time and winced. And by ‘earlier in the afternoon’, he meant eight hours earlier. Looking at the paper tornado that had landed on his desk, Jasper sighed, and tried to make some sort of it all. It was too late for him to catch a train home at this point, and he couldn’t afford a taxi.
And definitely too late to call Raina. She’d realize that he was still at work and she’d worry.
It was a good thing that he had an extra shirt and pants hanging in the coat room from that night that he thought he was going to have to some event with the Congressperson that got cancelled last minute. He’d sneak out of the office around a half an hour before anyone showed up with his change of clothing, go to the gym for a quick shower and change, and come back like he hadn’t been there overnight.
He really should try to get at least a few hours of sleep—even though there weren’t that many hours left to sleep. But he was a few energy drinks over the limit for human consumption, probably. Way too many to try to fall asleep yet.
There were piles of research for him to still go through, and he was going to do that until he mellowed out a little bit.
* * *
“Jasper. Jasper. Jasper.”
Jasper groaned, and opened one eye blearily, only to see Mel staring at him.
“Hi?” He mumbled, still mostly sleeping.
“Jasper, did you sleep here?” Mel demanded.
Jasper yawned. “I guess so?”
“Jesus Christ,” Mel sighed. “Jasper. What happened?”
“I guess I just fell asleep here,” Jasper said. Not entirely lying.
An eyebrow lifted. “That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“How long have I known you for?”
Jasper sighed. “Forever, give or take.”
“Well, that’s one way to make me feel old.” They rolled their eyes. “Okay, before I book myself a room in a nursing home. How about you freshen yourself up and then we’ll find you some coffee.” They paused, looked at Jasper’s desk. “Or, second thought, maybe you’ve had enough caffeine for now. A smoothie. As green and healthy as I can make it.”
* * *
Forty minutes later, Jasper found himself in the least likely of places—the Congressperson’s new apartment, sitting at the table while Mel made him a smoothie, muttering the whole time.
If it wasn’t all so horrifying to him, it would have been hilarious.
“When Rosie finds out about this, she’s going to kill me,” Mel muttered, sitting down at the table with a smoothie of their own. “Jasper, what’s going on with you?”
“I’m fine,” Jasper protested.
“You’re not,” Mel replied. “And we both know that. But I can’t fix things unless I know what the problem is.”
Jasper took a sip of smoothie, and tried to figure out how he was going to tell Mel that they had hired a failure.
“Whatever the issue is, we can fix it,” Mel said gently. “Unless you’ve murdered someone. Or are secretly spying for a foreign government.”
“Haven’t done either of those,” Jasper said. He sighed. “I just...I think you made a mistake by hiring me for this job.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I don’t have enough money to do this job,” Jasper said bluntly. If he was going to get fired, he was going to be honest about it. “I can’t afford to be here, and it’s affecting the quality of my work. I want to keep working with you, I really do. Hell, I wouldn’t have agreed to take this job if I hadn’t. But working for Congress really is a job for people who have money, people who don’t have outstanding medical bills and family members that need help and the tail end of student loans. People like me don’t survive here long enough to make enough of a difference, or to even have a resume good enough for private sectors.”
“How bad is it?”
“I have twelve dollars right now to last me until next week,” Jasper replied.
“Jesus Christ.”
Jasper sighed. “I know. I’ve tried not to let it affect my work, but…”
“How can that not affect your work?” Mel demanded. “Of course it’s going to.” They paused. “Has this been something that’s been going on since the beginning?”
“No, only since I switched to full time,” Jasper responded. “The hours change up too much for me to be keeping any other jobs.” He looked down at his coffee cup and sighed. “Before I quit the other jobs, it affected my job because I’d have to run out of here to make it to the other job on time. And then once I finished there, I’d go home and do some more work.”
“I’m so sorry,” Mel said. “I should have known.”
“Why should you have known? It’s not like any of us have done anything like this before.”
“It’s my job to know.” They paused. “Okay. Now I know. How can I fix it?”
“I don’t know if you can,” Jasper said honestly.
“Getting paid more wouldn’t fix things?”
“Maybe temporarily.” Jasper looked down at his coffee cup, searching for answers and finding none. “Honestly, at this point, I think I would be more help back home than I am here.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Jasper.” Mel paused. “Let’s stop pretending we haven’t known each other since college, that you’re one of my best friends, and just get to it. I’d love for you to stay here, because I love working with you, and think you’re great for this office. But I also know that you burning yourself out doesn’t help anyone. And if you think you’d do better in the local office, then I’ll buy your train ticket home.”
“I just feel like I’ve failed.”
Mel rolled their eyes. “What a fucking Virgo you are.”
Jasper, for the first time all morning, laughed. “Look who’s talking.”
“Well yeah, but I don’t deny it,” Mel responded. They paused. “Continuing the ‘we’re talking as friends here in a non professional capacity’, how much is you wanting to go home because of Raina?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, please, you know exactly what I’m talking about.” Mel raised an eyebrow. “You know that I realized just how much I was in love with Rosie because of you and Raina, right?”
“What do you mean?” Jasper asked.
Mel looked at him, really looked at him. “Oh, you don’t know,” they said slowly. “Oh boy.”
“Mel. What the fuck?”
“I’ve never met people who were less aware of the fact that they were soul mates than the two of you.” Mel pulled out their phone, and started scrolling. “You used to talk about Raina all the time when I first met you, and then when I found out that the two of you weren’t dating, I had a little existential crisis, because, truly, there are no two people more meant for each other than you two. Remember that time we went back home during break, and the four of us went out? Me, you, Raina, and Rosie?”
“Yeah…”
“And that random dude from another table took pictures of the four of us?” Mel pushed their phone over to Jasper. “That’s when I knew I was in love with Rosie. Like, it wasn’t some college fling or anything, that Rosie was going to be my person forever and always. Look at my face.” Mel pointed. “That’s some Disney true love on my face.”
2011 had been a weird year for fashion choices, especially for a bunch of college kids trying to find themselves on a budget. But there the four of them were, in a shitty karaoke bar somewhere in Chelsea, crowded around a table, piled on top of each other, laughing. Rosie and Raina had hit it off almost instantly, and had tortured Mel and Jasper with terrible versions of every
boyband hit they could find. Mel had searched through the karaoke book and found Don McLean’s American Pie, but because it was an old and shitty karaoke spot, the lyrics that came up on screen were in Russian.
Nothing cemented a friendship than almost peeing your pants over American Pie in Russian while drunk on shitty tequila and questionable karaoke bar French fries that they had gotten without anyone carding any of them.
Not everyone was lucky enough to be able to look back at a picture and say, ‘this was when we all became friends’, but Jasper, Raina, Mel, and Rosie could.
Jasper hadn’t looked at those pictures in years. The last time he had was right before Mel announced they were going to be running for Congress. And he hadn’t really looked at them then, just selected all the pictures on all his social media profiles and had added every possible layer of privacy.
But here they were. Nineteen and still full of boundless optimism and hope, even with everything they had all lived through.
Jasper zoomed in on Mel and Rosie, who had been sitting next to each other. Rosie was laughing, her head resting on Mel’s arm, and Mel was looking down at Rosie like she everything they ever wanted.
“It is,” Jasper agreed. “What does that have anything to do with me and Raina?”
Mel swiped to the next picture. Just Jasper and Raina in that picture, in the middle of singing “Start of Something New” from High School Musical. Raina had been singing Troy’s part, and Jasper had sang Gabriella’s. There had been a lot of tequila involved. “Look at your face. Same Disney true love.” Mel swiped again. The four of them, attempting to sing “I Want It That Way”. “And look at Raina here. Disney true love.” They smiled. “Rosie, too. And that’s when I stopped freaking out about my feelings.”
Jasper just sat in stunned silence.
“And just in case you’re worried that it was just college.” Mel took their phone back, and scrolled. “The pictures from election night are exactly the same.” They pushed the phone back over. “See?”
“I didn’t realize other people knew,” Jasper said quietly. “I mean. People at the office tease. But I didn’t know they knew I love her like that.”
“Oh, we knew,” Mel said gently. “We just had no idea if you and Raina knew or not.”
“Mel, what am I supposed to do now?”
“Go home,” Mel said. “Spearhead the district office for me. We’ll figure out the details, but I’m not losing you like this. Talk to Raina. Call me after and tell me how it goes. Rosie and I are going to be coming back at the end of the month, and we’ll hole up in someone’s apartment and pretend for a minute that I’m not a member of Congress and we won’t talk about work and just hang out.”
Jasper just nodded.
What else was he supposed to do now that he realized he’d been wearing his heart on his sleeve this whole time?
* * *
The next few days were a blur of exhausted confusion, and an endless stream of questioning himself, and if he was making the right decision by leaving. His roommates weren’t thrilled when he told them he was moving out, but Mo had a friend who had just broken up with her girlfriend and needed a new place to stay, so they weren’t all that mad.
Nothing in the past few years had felt as easy as picking up and leaving D.C. and nothing in the past few years had felt harder.
Not talking to Raina didn’t help anything, but Jasper didn’t know what to tell her. Hell, he barely knew what to tell himself.
The conversation with Mel had shaken him more than he wanted to admit. It wasn’t that he hadn’t known that Raina was it for him. He had. But he hadn’t realized just how obvious he had been.
Jasper spent the trip to New York scrolling through memory lane. Between hidden Facebook posts, his camera roll, and all the photos he had saved in digital storage, there was no hiding the truth of his feelings for Raina. He never had.
And if the pictures were what to go on, Raina had never hidden her feelings about him, either. But pictures weren’t enough.
Over two decades of friendship were on the line. He couldn’t just rely on photographs to figure out if Raina did love him like that.
His whole life had already imploded, he told himself as he watched New Jersey roll by. He could tell Raina how he felt about her. And whatever happened, he could handle.
Who was he kidding, this would be the most terrifying thing he’d ever done.
* * *
“Raina?” One of the high schoolers called. “Can we put up a poster on the bulletin board?”
“For what?”
“We’re participating in the school walkout for the environment tomorrow,” he said. “And we want to make sure people have information about it.”
“That’s great,” Raina said. “Let me read it first and approve it.”
“Approve it?”
“Store rules,” Raina said. “Me being the supreme overlord around here means I’m the one who gets in trouble for anything that’s hung up on the board if people don’t like it and go complain to the owner.”
“And people would complain about this?” He raised an eyebrow. “It’s not like I just drew dicks all over a paper and am hanging it up.”
“You’re pointing out inconvenient truths,” Raina pointed out gently. “People aren’t always so fond of others advertising how they’ve failed.”
“Oh.”
Raina smiled. “Basically. But good on you guys for participating. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you.”
Another one of the high schoolers joined them at the counter. “Are you talking about the walkout?” she asked.
“Yeah, I gave Raina the poster to approve so we can hang it up.”
“Awesome.” The girl grinned. “You were on the top of our list for stores to hang up signs, because we knew you’d be into it.” She gestured around the store. “This place is probably the most eco-friendly place in the neighborhood.”
Raina’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s pretty depressing if we are,” she said. “There are so many ways for us to improve.”
“Yeah, but you also offer discounts for people who come in with their own cups, you sell reusable straws, and minus the coffee beans, everything is locally sourced.”
“Wow, you guys did your research.”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Well, duh, why do you think so many of us hang out here?”
“Our chairs are comfortable, we take song suggestions, we have karaoke hour the last hour every Friday, we have free WiFi, and the bathrooms are super clean?”
The boy laughed. “Those definitely don’t hurt. But also because you guys care. About the environment, about the neighborhood, about us.”
Raina teared up a little. “Well, that made my day. Thank you.”
“So can we hang up the sign?” he asked.
“Still have to read it,” she responded.
“Chill. I’ll be sitting at that table, pretending to study for my chem test.”
“You could actually study for your chem test, too,” Raina teased. “It’s not like Earth Science where they give you all the answers on the answer booklet.”
“Did Mr. Corin pay you to say that?”
Raina laughed. “Nah, just remembering studying for the chem Regent.”
“Oh, please, you didn’t study for the chem Regent until two days before,” a voice said. “And then you got hyped up on energy drinks while you attempted to teach yourself an entire year’s worth of science in forty-eight hours.”
“Thanks for exposing me and my delinquent ways like that, Jas,” Raina said, and then all but screeched to a halt. “Jas?” She looked up, and there he was. Looking travel-worn and exhausted and the best thing she had ever laid her eyes on.
“Just hoping they don’t make the same chem mistake that we did,” he replied. “That much caffeine in that period of time was definitely not the smartest thing we’ve done.”
“Jasper!” Raina shrieked, and flung open the little door on the side of the
counter and threw herself at him. “You’re home!”
And because Jasper never, ever, ever let her down, he caught her, rocking back only a little. “Hi Raina,” he whispered, burying his face into her the crook of her neck.
So much for not crying, Raina thought, and burst into tears. “I missed you,” she sobbed, clinging to him, not realizing just how much she had until he was back.
“I missed you, too,” he whispered, rocking her gently.
Raina dropped her legs back down to the ground, and looked up at him. “You’re here,” she said, smiling.
“I am,” he agreed.
“But you’re not supposed to be here yet.”
Jasper glanced down. “Yeah, about that.”
“Raina?” Sanveer called.
“Hold that thought,” Raina said, and turned. “Yeah?”
“You leaving early today?”
“No, it’s fine, stay,” Jasper said, still holding her.
“Where are you staying?” she asked. “At my apartment, right?”
“I was actually going to crash on my sister’s couch in the city,” Jasper said. “This was all so last minute, I didn’t want to bother you.”
“It’s not bothering me, you asshole.” Raina paused. “Unless you specifically don’t want to stay with me?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well, then. Not that our couch is the most comfortable, but we do have a really great blow up mattress?” Raina offered.
“How can I turn down a really great blow up mattress?” Jasper teased. “Did you blow it up yourself?”
“If by blow up myself, do you mean, can I plug it into the wall and have it inflate by itself? Yes, I’m very capable.” Raina dropped her arms and stepped back. “I have another hour and a half left on my shift.”
“I can chill here until then,” Jasper said. “Go reclaim my chair in the back.”
“Want your usual?”
“Make it decaf, please.”
Rogue Ever After (The Rogue Series Book 7) Page 28
