“For the last time, you don’t have to pay it back. Think of it as a very early Christmas present,” Casey said.
“I don’t know how I’m going to pay it back anyways.” Daniel pulled a hand down his face as he groaned. “I no call, no showed to work tonight. My boss is going to murder me and use my hair to restuff her pillows.”
“If she needs hair, we could shave off Brody’s fuck-ass mullet and donate it.”
Brody shoved Casey, nearly pushing him off the couch. “You like my fuck-ass mullet.”
“You wanted to leave your job, anyway,” Jensen pointed out. “Maybe getting fired would be a good thing. This was the push I needed to quit my job.”
Daniel reared back and put a hand on his stomach. “You quit your job?”
“They wouldn’t let me leave, so I quit. But that’s not important right now.”
“The hell it’s not! Jensen, you shouldn’t have done that. I would have been okay.”
“I wouldn’t have.” He grasped Daniel’s hand in both of his. “I needed to be here with you. Besides, I wanted to quit my job. It might be time you took the same risk in order to open yourself up to other opportunities.”
“Aww, that’s so cute,” Casey whispered.
Daniel ignored his roommate. “And do what?”
Jensen shrugged. “What do you want to do?”
He chewed on his bottom lip for a long moment before slumping back against the couch. “It’s stupid.”
“I doubt it.” Jensen squeezed his hand gently.
“Come on, tell us,” Casey pleaded.
“Well,” he said, begrudgingly, “I thought it might be fun to be an event coordinator. But, like I said, it’s a stupid idea.”
“No way, boo, that’s a great idea,” Casey said.
“I think you’d be good at it,” Brody chimed in. “You already know how to work customer service.”
“I agree,” Arlo said. “It’s actually surprising how much better I’ve gotten at dealing with customers for my corporate job since I started my cleaning job. Calming down an angry customer because their system has a defect is a breeze compared to deescalating a situation when my dick is out.”
Daniel made a frustrated noise and ripped his hands out of Jensen’s grasp. “It’s not a good idea. I have no qualifications or experience. There’s no way a person like Janelle would hire me.”
“Who’s Janelle?” Jensen asked. “And why won’t she hire you? Do you have her number? I can call her.”
He should probably get his mother involved too. She had once talked a grocery store into opening an hour early just for “quiet shopping hours” because Jensen had a difficult time being around so many people with loud music playing when he was a young kid. His mother could do anything, and Jensen wasn’t above calling in the cavalry to get Daniel the job he wanted.
“Yeah, who the fuck is Janelle?” Brody asked.
“This is so fucking embarrassing,” Daniel muttered to himself. “She is the director of the company that put on Casey’s studio’s event the other night. And no, no one is calling her. I’m not qualified to work for her, and they probably aren’t even hiring.”
“I can get their phone number from my boss,” Casey offered.
“You can put me down for a reference,” Arlo said. “Not sure if they’ll care about it, since I work in tech and not events, but I can figure something out.”
Brody snapped his fingers, then pointed at Arlo. “Character reference. We could all be character references.”
“The only reference they’re going to need is a picture of this face,” Casey said and leaned across the couch to try pinching Daniel’s cheek.
Daniel leaned away and glared at him. “They’re going to want more than just a pretty face.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” Arlo said, matter-of-fact, and Jensen couldn’t help but agree.
