“It’s not thieving,” Mal protested. “I’ll put them back when we’re done today.”
“And I’ll drag them right back in next time Parker and Nylan come to hang out.” Emerson grinned devilishly.
“Co-work,” Nylan said, and then laughed at the look Parker shot her. “Respectfully! Respectfully! It just sounds so silly.”
“Well, we have to do theworkpart if we’re going to call this co-working,” Parker said, and her reminder was enough for them to do just that. With Parker and Nylan at one corner of the big green table and Mal and Emerson sharing the editors’ desk, they got to work, each on their own things, all together.
At first, Mal felt awkward. Itchy. Like the first time they wore a new sweater before they threw it in the wash. As they worked on editing a printed-out copy of Kodi’s essay, the red pen filled the margins in stilted little jerks, and they corrected at least two mistakes that weren’t actually mistakes, carefully adding a comma back in black ink.
But as more minutes passed and everyone fell into the steady pace of working on their tasks, Mal did too. At the endof a paragraph, they sat back in their chair, letting their eyes rest and looking around the room. Parker was working on her laptop, bopping and dancing to whatever music she was listening to through her big baby-pink headphones. Mal could hear a faint, frantic up-tempo beat if they strained their ears for it. Nearby, Nylan worked in fits and bursts, typing furiously for a few minutes and then stopping to look out the window.
She caught Mal looking at her and smiled.
Mal gulped and went back to work, scooting their comfy chair closer to the desk.
The movement made their knee brush against Emerson’s, who sat with her legs crossed precariously on the very edge of her rolling chair. A surge of warmth flooded Mal’s body, followed immediately by one of embarrassment. They overcorrected, jerking their knee away and readjusting their seat to put space between themself and Emerson. With pointed interest, they kept their eyes on their editing work andonlytheir editing work, no matter how badly the blush in their cheeks burned for them to look over and see what Emerson’s cheeks looked like in that moment, if they were red and warm too.
A flash on Mal’s phone screen drew their attention. They flicked their thumb over the screen to wake it up.
Hey
You can put your knee back
It was nice
The red in Mal’s cheeks flared hotter. They didn’t look across to where Emerson sat beside them. Instead, they justblinked at their screen for a few breaths, and then texted back,Okay.
And, shifting quietly, they moved so their knee would rest against Emerson’s again. There was a rattling sound, and a scooting, and Emerson’s chair—and Emerson’s body—pressed closer so her knee bumped harder into Mal’s and then came to rest.
Mal inhaled, sure Emerson could feel the nervous energy sparking through their skin, then exhaled and tried very hard to relax into the touch. Much like co-working, they at first felt a little on edge, but they quickly became comfortable with the gentle pressure of Emerson beside them.
With their knee knocked against Emerson’s, Mal got to work.
They kept waiting for it to be hard—for the periodic squeak of Parker’s folding chair as she boogied to the beat to be a distraction, or to feel watched as Nylan gazed at the leaves falling in bright crimson waves outside the window, or at the very least for the warmth of Emerson’s skin beneath her faded gray jeans to pull their attention away like a pulsating beacon.
Instead, they worked through James’s short-story submission, which was as formal and as (mostly) free of flaws as ever. Emerson interrupted them only to share the second of her Pop-Tarts with them, and Parker got up once to wander off for the bathroom, but otherwise it was only the printed page and periodic red ink. It felt correct and comfortable, and before Mal knew it, their work for the afternoon was done.
“I think that’s it for me,” they said, putting their pen back in one of the mugs on the corner of the desk.
“Yeah,” agreed Emerson, cracking her knuckles and thengiving Mal’s knee a squeeze, which spread warmth through Mal’s whole body. “If I look at one more word, I think I’m going to lose my Pop-Tarts.”
“Gross,” said Nylan, “But also, same? I got some words down, though, which is more than I can say for the rest of the week.”
“Me too,” said Parker. “And my Spotify suggested a new artist who is totally fire.”
Mal nodded. That must have been who she was dancing to, then.
“This was really cool, though,” Parker added. “Not to be super corny on main, but this beats doing this alone in my bedroom with cosplay YouTube playing in the background. I could even put up with all of Emerson’s crunching.”
“Pop-Tarts don’t even crunch!” Emerson protested.
“And yet you have found a way,” Mal teased back, without even trying. When they caught themself, they felt a little embarrassed, but Emerson’s grin softened the glow of their cheeks into something else entirely.
“Even with y’all bullying me, I have to agree.” Emerson stood, and Mal tried hard not to frown. “We should do this more often.”
“Well, like, do you have office hours?” Nylan asked. “Like Ms. Merritt used to?”
“I don’t know.” Emerson shrugged. “Do we, Editor in Chief?”
