6 - Jess #2
"I am not going back tomorrow," I said, finally wrenching my hands free and taking a desperate gulp of my lukewarm espresso. "I'm changing gyms. I'll find a nice, quiet YMCA where everyone wears oversized t-shirts and no one has abdominal muscles."
"Coward," he declared, popping his sunglasses back over his eyes with a definitive snap of his fingers.
"Absolute cowardice of the highest order. We are leaving this establishment right now because your negative energy is curdling my oat milk. Slide out of the booth, Seymore. We’re going to walk this performance anxiety off. "
I let out another groan, but I did as I was told, following him as he marched toward the exit. The bell above the door chimed for the last time as we stepped out into the bright, bustling afternoon air of the D.C. sidewalk.
We set off down Eighteenth Street, the weekend crowd swirling around us in a blur of vintage denim, iced lattes, and the heavy aroma of Salvadoran pupusas wafting from a nearby kitchen.
David marched ahead like a runway coach, his cream trench coat billowing behind him while I practically had to jog to keep pace in my sneakers.
"Where are we even going?" I called out, dodging a group of tier-one college kids crowding the sidewalk.
"To the record store," David shouted back over his shoulder, not breaking stride. "Music is therapy, and frankly, your aura is currently the color of unwashed gym socks. We need to find you something from the nineties to ground your anxious little soul."
A minute later, he ducked beneath the faded awning of a subterranean music basement.
The air inside was instantly cooler, slightly damp, and thick with the comforting, dusty scent of cardboard sleeves and old vinyl.
The sensory atmosphere usually made my heart rate drop instantly.
I loved old things. I loved the physical weight of items that had survived decades of human chaos.
David immediately drifted toward the pop section, his fingers flicking through the plastic sleeves with practiced speed. I leaned against a wooden crate of classic rock, watching him.
"Look, Jess," he said, not looking up from a limited-edition Madonna record. "I’m being serious. You need to stop treating every single interaction like it’s a security breach.
You went to the gym, you saw some skin, you got a little flustered.
So what? Have some fun for once in your life. Stop overthinking the narrative."
I let out a dry, humorless laugh, reaching down to blindly flip through a stack of Fleetwood Mac albums just to give my hands something to do.
"Fun, David? My life doesn't exactly have room for a multi-front romantic skirmish right now.
In case you forgot, I actually have a career.
A very demanding, very consuming career that requires my entire brain. "
David stopped his flicking and turned to look at me over the rims of his sunglasses. "Oh, please. Don't use the museum as an excuse."
"It’s not an excuse, it’s reality!" I protested, dropping my voice as the guy behind the counter glanced our way.
"I spent six hours yesterday under a fume hood, wearing nitrile gloves and a surgical mask, trying to stabilize a collection of water-damaged ledger books from the Civil War. Do you have any idea how much focus that takes? The leather has red rot, meaning it turns to powder if I even breathe on it too hard. I’m using micro-spatulas and specialized wheat starch paste to re-adhere fragments of handwritten field notes before they disintegrate into nothingness.
All while my supervisor is breathing down my neck about a new intake I have to finish processing as in yesterday.
Where, in the middle of all of that, do I find time to date anyone? "
I took a breath, the passion for my work momentarily overriding the lingering image of Dane’s cock.
"It’s a big project for the National Museum of American History.
If I slip up, if my hands shake because I’m losing sleep over some guy who happens to have the kind of smile that gets me hot just thinking about it, a piece of actual history is gone forever.
That is why I’m not dating. That is why my life is on pause.
I don't have the luxury of letting three gym gods derail my focus. "
David sighed, a soft expression finally replacing his mocking smirk.
He walked over, gently nudging my shoulder with his elbow.
"Jess, honey. Your work is beautiful. You’re basically a history surgeon, and I love that about you.
But you’re using dead soldiers' journals and whatever else to bury your own life. You’re allowed to have a heartbeat outside of the Smithsonian.
You’re allowed to get hot and bothered by a trainer with muscular thighs without it being a crisis. "