Beer, Spaghetti, and Pharmaceuticals ||COMPLETED||

Thirty One

"Is it done yet?" Alice asked, leaning over her desk so her stomach was resting on the wooden surface in order to peek at Isaac's phone over his shoulder. When her chin brushed against his neck, Isaac jolted in his chair and swiveled around to face her.

"Jesus, woman," he said, yanking the phone away from her hungry eyes. "It's the first download in the entire world. Give it a few minutes."

"I can't wait a few minutes," she moaned, sliding down the desk to flop back to her seat. "My entire life's work - "

" - You've only been working on this for six months."

"I repeat: My entire life's work," she said, glaring at him through the corner of her eyes, "is about to be shown to my boss for the very first time. For all we know, it could be totally awful and you're forced to fire me, and then you'll fire Blaise, then you'll get fired..."

Isaac tapped his lips with his fingers, veiling the grin that played on his lips more and more with every anxiety-induced word sputtering out of Alice's mouth. His eyes lowered from hers to glance at his phone and his eyes lit up with amusement. "Oh, would you look at that. It's done."

"What!?" Alice hopped off the chair and nearly tripped over her feet as she rushed over to Isaac. Except once she reached him, he spun around the chair, shuffling his feet to roll away from Alice. "Isaac, what the hell!?"

Holding the phone high above his head, he dodged Alice's hands as they flung towards the phone, and made exaggerated swipes across the screen. He nodded his head and clicked his tongue.

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh, yep," he said. "Sorry, Alice, but you're right. This is terrible. Pack up your desk and get out."

Alice stopped in her tracks and scowled at Isaac's mischievous glimmer in his eyes, pressing her hands into her hips. "That is so not funny."

"It's kind of funny," he said and she rolled her eyes in response. "Seriously, though, there's another minute left in the download."

"Idiot," she muttered under her breath and leaned against her desk. The scowl on her lips reflexively turned into a smile as she watched Isaac absentmindedly scroll through his phone. "You know, I am actually super nervous about this."

"I hadn't noticed."

"I'm being serious," she said. "I know we have this...weird, complicated, friendship thing...so if it is actually horrible, I don't want to you feel pressured to go along with it just because it would be awkward to fire me." She looked down at her feet and scraped at her fingernail polish. "But at the same time...if it is really horrible...at least be nice about it? Maybe...try to set me up with some other job that pays half as well?"

She held out her palms like they were weight scales, and wiggled her eyebrows, wearing her best bargaining smile.

"Yeah, I'm sure there's some janitorial work that could be done..."

Thankfully, Isaac had swiveled back to her so she was just close enough to give him a sharp jab to the arm.

"Relax, Alice, calm down," Isaac said with a light chuckle behind in his words. He reached into his pocket to pull out his stress ball and placed it in her open hand. Rather than letting go, he folded her fingers around the yellow ball and enclosed both of his own hands over hers. Miraculously, Isaac managed to drop his playful grin long enough to grow a look of sincerity.

"Alice, I have complete faith in you," he said with his hands still wrapped around hers. "I wouldn't have hired you if I didn't."

She chose to ignore the melting feeling in her legs from his touch as he continued his pep talk.