Apartment 3B

19. The Dinner

Lainey

The day after my little adventure with Luna, we discussed the plan for Kabir and Jesse's bar. Luna had gone to the bank to procure the forms needed to fill for a joint loan. In short, shit was getting serious. The plan was in full swing and the nitty gritties were being typed out on a Google Doc with all of us. All our inputs and findings were being consolidated. After the research was done over this week, we would take a break from all the planning, for the holidays.

Hayley and Luna were also going back home over the winter break. For about a week, it would be just me and Jesse until Kabir came back a few days after Christmas. Everyone would be back for New Year's and Luna had already decided the five of us would stay up on the roof to watch the fireworks. Jesse's homefront wasn't looking too good and he'd probably just go attend midnight mass at his church with his parents, other than that, we'd have the house to ourselves.

If it was Kabir, I would've been awkward about spending all that time alone, but it was Jess. I was rather excited to have some time away from the exhausting routine interactions with everybody but I was pretty bummed to not be going home.

The day of the Hayley Luna duo's departure came rather  quickly. Everyone was busy with work to wrap up before the break and the days passed by in flash. I had to stay home in case any student needed help over Christmas. It was a difficult holiday for some kids because of all the noise and hustle bustle, I had to stay in case I was ever needed by them.

It was an anti-climactic airport scene where I said goodbye to my girl and Jess and I had an uneventful Uber ride home.

We were relaxing with some mellow music in the living room when Jesse started to speak but it was barely a mumble.

"What are you saying, dude? Get it out," I got frustrated.

"Soooo-" he said, drawing out the o's to no end, "-I went on a date with Gabriel a while ago and we've been texting for like, I don't know, quite a few hours a day. And night."

"Ooooh," my curiosity piqued and I inquired, "what was the date like? What's he like. Tell me EVERYTHING." My face was visibly lit up and excited while Jess was absolutely flustered.

He eventually spilled his guts after I basically pried it all from him, about the (totally adorable) dance in the park, how they've been texting about literally all their life details; from their childhood to how their days go by. He's lovestruck and my mind brews up the perfect idea.

"Okay, so here's what you're going to do now. Ask him out tonight for dinner. At home." I say with the tiniest bit of authority I've started feeling over him because of our straightforward no-nonsense friendship.

"What? No! He'd think I want to-" he started mumbling again.

"Ugh, of course he'd want to have sex with you, Jess and I know you damn well. You obviously want him just as much," I showed him the mirror and he'd realized it was visible how much he liked Gabriel.

"But he's a boy, I don't know how that'll work. Even though I've been doing some Googling. He's... a he. I just don't know what to do." Jess laid out his concerns.

"I'll tell you what to do. Go with the fucking flow. That's it. I don't care what values you've been brought up with, but I know everything has been changing since you've moved in here. So might as well just see if you like this or not."

He nods at my pep talk and asks, "Uhm, so, when are you leaving?"

And I burst into laughter.

Jesse

"I'll leave when I help you out with the date set-up, of course," Lainey nudges my shoulder.

"Wait but where will you go?" I ask.