In the Basement, In the Sky

Seven

Smartypants agrees to help you with your resumes. He doesn't have much going on right now, he says, so he can help you make sure each one caters to the job. He can teach you how to do that, he says.

You're so, so grateful.

But by the time you get your resume sent to the cupcake place, they've already finished hiring. None of the retail shops want help; they're full up with holiday part timers. Even the used bookshops and cafés are full up. Even Kylie's job, who's always hiring busboys, just did a bunch of hiring and doesn't need help. Nobody is hiring. Nobody wants you.

You pick up odd jobs off Craigslist, but they're almost always just one-time things -- someone needs help moving, or wants to set up Christmas lights for their family and can't use a ladder, or whatever. It brings in small amounts of money, but nothing like a job would.

You try so hard to budget what little money you have. But everything is wrong all the time. Even with the Adderall, you can barely think, and it takes everything in you to drag yourself out of bed every morning. Even weed doesn't help much. It helps you sleep, sure. But you're still tired and depressed as fuck in the morning.

Then, early one morning, while Kylie is still asleep, your phone rings. You fumble awake and look at the call ID to see whether you'll need to yell or not.

It's Funshine.

You swipe up. "Funshine?"

"Smarty," a slightly more androgynous voice says.

"Smarty?" you repeat dumbly. "Why are you calling so early? Why are you using Funshine's phone? What --"

"There was a fire at our apartment complex," Smartypants says.

"Are you--!?"

"We're both fine," he assures you. "It was a few doors down. But our place is fucked with smoke and water damage. We salvaged what we could, but most of our electronics were pretty fucked up. My phone is done with."

"Do you need a place to stay?" You offer without even thinking of Kylie's opinion. Funshine and Smartypants are your best friends, and Kylie would be okay with them crashing in the living room a few days under these circumstances, as long as there are no club drugs.

"That's... why we're calling, actually," Smartypants says hesitantly. "Look, I know Kylie doesn't like us, but we just need a place to stay one night while my family gets the living room set up for us, and we don't have the money even for a cheap motel. Is it --"

"You can take our couch," you offer immediately. "Kylie will understand."

He breathes a sigh of relief so heavy you can hear the change in tone even through the phone. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

Funshine's voice in the background, then Smartypants, muffled: "Yeah, we can stay. For the one night. Yeah." A little louder. "I don't want you and Kylie to get in a fight over this, so if he prefers, we won't come over until we're ready to go to sleep and we'll be out first thing in the morning."

"It's okay," you insist. "This is different. It's not like we stayed out too late partying or something. Your apartment building caught on fire! And it wasn't your fault."

You can almost hear Smartypants's smile in his voice. "Thank you, Jen. I mean that."

You don't talk much longer, because while you and Smartypants can go for hours under the stars or a string of fairy lights alike, you're both crap on the phone. So he says he and Funshine will be by at nine and you warn them that Kylie won't be home until eleven or so, so if they aren't asleep by then that's bedtime so the light doesn't bother Kylie.