It was probably just the welcome reprieve of air-conditioning on this absurdly hot day, but curling up with him at Target was the happiest I’ve felt in so long. I wonder what Jamie is doing right now. Is he watching a movie with his friends? Drafting his toast?
I load up The Office on my TV and glance back at my notebook. I love the slogan Love, not hate. Say no to H.B. 28, but we need another piece. I just have to figure out what it is. . . .
I glance at the television. Michael Scott is sharing the downsides of depression and deciding if he’ll jump off the roof onto a bouncy castle below, before Pam and Darryl stop him.
“I saved a life today,” Michael says solemnly into the camera. “My own.”
And that’s when it hits me. The perfect slogan.
I pull out my phone and call Jamie.
He picks up immediately.
“Hello?” he says in a hushed voice.
“Oh,” I falter. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. I’ll call back tomorrow.”
“No, no . . . one sec.” I hear some noise in the background, and then a door shutting. “Sorry,” he says. “I was just watching TV. No one calls me, really.”
“Yeah.” I blush. “Same here. I got so excited because I had this idea for our flyer.”
“Cool! What were you thinking?”
“Everyone likes to think of themselves as a hero, right? So, what if we have in big print on the bottom of the flyer: ‘It takes thirty seconds to be a hero—call your state senator today.’ And then we have a phone number. So we have a message, but also an action item.”
“That’s brilliant,” Jamie says. “I can’t believe you came up with that out of nowhere. I’ll fiddle around with the design tomorrow.”
“I was watching The Office,” I admit. “Michael Scott gave me inspiration. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“I’m watching The Office too!” he says. “Which episode?”
“The one where he talks about depression on the roof?”
“I was about to start season two again. The one where he does the Dundies.”
“I love that one!” I exclaim. “Hold up, let me switch over.”
The intro music starts up on his end as it plays on my end too. I settle back onto the couch.
“This guy cannot read the room. Literally no one wants to do these awards,” Jamie says.
“Well, Dwight does,” I respond. “Look, he’s the musical accompaniment to the award night.”
“Dwight is the worst,” Jamie says.
“By worst you mean the best, right?”
“Of course.” Jamie laughs.
We watch the episode together, my phone pressed against my ear. I’ve never seen this show with anyone. I know he’s at his house three miles away, but if I close my eyes, it’s like he’s sitting on the couch next to me.
The next episode autoplays. And then the one after that. I sink further back into the couch, the phone tucked against my ear. We should probably get some sleep, I want to say. Jamie yawns on the other end. But even as my eyes grow heavier, as Jamie’s hot takes get softer and softer, I don’t hang up.
Jamie doesn’t either.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jamie
I wake up in a contented fog, phone still pressed to my cheek. The battery’s totally dead. But when I plug it in, Maya’s name pops onto my screen.
Incoming call. 8 hours. 25 minutes.
I fell asleep watching TV with Maya. Which is . . . kind of the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me.
I mean, yeah, it was technically just a phone call. But there’s something nice about that too. No pressure or weirdness or worrying about where my hands go. Just our voices and Dunder Mifflin in the background and Maya’s soft laughter in my ear. We’d started drifting off after the third or fourth episode, waking ourselves up only enough to migrate to our bedrooms. But we didn’t hang up.
For eight hours and twenty-five minutes.
Probably only six hours of that were actual sleep. I’m definitely having trouble keeping my eyes open. To be fair, it’s barely seven in the morning, but going back to bed is pointless.
Is there such a thing as being too hazy and happy to sleep?
Turns out, everyone’s awake but Sophie. Mom’s at the kitchen table in her work clothes, frowning at her laptop while she sips from a mug. But Grandma’s pacing all around the kitchen, opening and closing drawers, and stepping over Boomer, who’s gnawing on Mr. Droolsworth in the middle of the floor. “I love that boy, but my goodness.” Grandma clenches