The No Kiss Contract (Jensoo)

12

Jennie heard footsteps in the hallway as she sat on the floor in Louis's new room, unpacking his clothes and organizing them into piles.

"Jennie?" Jisoo's voice was hesitant.

"In here." It was sometime in the late afternoon, and the slanting sunlight had softened to a golden glow as it imperceptibly crept across the wooden floorboards. The movers had dispatched her belongings to the various corners of Jisoo's house with deadly efficiency and departed hours ago.

Jisoo appeared in the doorway. "Hi. How did it go?"

"Very smoothly. If you don't like where I placed any of the bigger pieces, we can switch it around. And I put my kitchen stuff where I thought it should logically go, but if it interferes with yours, I can move it."

Jisoo sat on Louis's mattress, yet to be covered with his favorite undersea sheets, which Jennie hoped would reveal themselves sooner rather than later. "No, everything looks good downstairs. Your sofa looks really comfortable. And it'll be nice to have a table to sit at in the kitchen."

"Okay, good. But you can still let me know if anything bothers you. How was your day?" Jennie abandoned the clothes and maneuvered herself so her back rested against Louis's dresser.

Jisoo blew a raspberry and flicked her hand in a way that said don't want to talk about it. "What can I do to help?"

"You can sit here and keep me company while I take a break. I've been at it all day."

She moved a few stacks of clothes and stretched out on her side, propping her head on her hand. "I guess this is when I congratulate myself for my impeccable timing."

Jennie laughed. "I was thinking. Tonight's going to be like a first date for us. We have the cliché beat big time. The moving van arrived before even our first date."

"The cliché?"

"Or joke, maybe."

Jisoo raised her eyebrows in inquiry.

"What does a lesbian bring on a second date?"

"Right. A U-Haul." She gave Jennie a wry smile. "We'll have to get our stories straight, like how we met and that sort of thing."

Jennie directed her gaze at the floor. Even though it was a necessary request, something about manufacturing their courtship rankled. "I'll agree to whatever tale you want to tell. Might as well make it something that advances your cause."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. You want to be seen as someone who cares about family and community, right? Maybe we met at the women's march or a local protest of some sort? No, too political, probably. How about you asked me out when you were helping me with a legal matter?"

"Nope. Unethical."

"Really? What if I was a former client at the time?" At Jisoo's forbidding expression, Jennie changed tacks. "How about we ran into each other on the street and you spilled orange juice on me? Or you gave me a few bucks when I was short at the supermarket checkout?"

"Those scenarios sound vaguely familiar."

"Yeah, maybe I saw them in a movie." She thought for a moment, but the only ideas coming to her were from rom com meet cutes. "Maybe it's Louis you helped. You helped him find me when he got lost in that supermarket. Or got him down when he climbed up a tree too high?"

"Jennie, he's not a cat. And nobody would believe I climbed a tree for any reason."

"That did happen once, when my mom was watching him, but he was only a couple of feet off the ground. How about you pulled him from a burning car?" Jennie knew that one was ridiculous.