Dated Friday, June 28th

[a_capella_boy]

Given the late notice he had about Kate's birthday Jesse was a little hard pressed to come up with something to do for her. Given how low key she seemed to want to keep it today though, it wasn't entirely possible. Jesse figured maybe it had something to do with her family not here or something like that, which he could understand. Everyone should have something fun to do on their birthday though.

At work that day, he'd started off by leaving an 'anonymous' note for her. It directed her to the break room where a bouquet of mostly dead flowers he'd found out behind a florist shop were waiting. The next note had a pretty easy to solve riddle that directed her someplace new. That one had a crudely drawn pink flamingo at the bottom, which he hoped would help her realize it wasn't some crazy stalker leaving her the stuff.

There were several more locations, most of them out of the way places only the grunt help like he and Kate knew about or visited, each one with a new treasure hunt note and some little gift. Mostly it was candy or random items he picked up for cheap at the thrift shop like an ornament or a new bathmat.

The last one brought her to the crappy little room they often had to go to if they needed to file something or retrieve a file. It was set up with a completely awesome table he was surprised no one had snatched up from the thrift store after the Furby attack, along with the crappy hot dogs from the cafeteria and two cupcakes he'd bought and decorated to look like eyeballs, one with a candle jammed in it.

Fun, but hopefully nothing too big that made her uncomfortable.

Comments

[everyonetakes]

"Maybe I'll get a bunch more hot dogs bought for me," she says. "Like an apology or something. But probably not, given the people we work with. Have you noticed like, seventy percent of them are total dicks?"

[a_capella_boy]

Jesse would have probably said that only 40% were dicks, but the missing 70% could have been misogynist assholes or something and he just hadn't noticed yet. They pretty much did get treated like scum that could be useful for menial tasks. Still, it was a job.

"Yeah, I have noticed that we're sort of considered sub human. I like to pretend I'm Orgoth of the Cave People."

[everyonetakes]

"Nice," Kate says with a nod. "I just mostly pretend that one day I'll manage to work my way up high enough that I'll be their boss and then they'll have to grovel at my feet all the time, because I would be a total hard ass boss."

[a_capella_boy]

"You will become that which you hate," Jesse said, giving an exaggerated sigh and a 'tsk tsk'. He was pretty sure Kate would be a cool boss but he had no doubt that she could play a total hard ass boss if she needed to.

"Personally, I'm going to find Eduardo Saverin and beg him for a job at the record store he's going to open."

[everyonetakes]

"What? Olive's boyfriend's opening a record shop?" she asks, suddenly interested. It's not like she has some kind of invested interest in music like she knows Jesse does, but she likes it well enough and maybe it would pay better than this place. Plus, she's pretty sure she'd rather work for Eduardo than the douches at this place. She doesn't know him, but he's Olive's boyfriend, so he has to be pretty cool.

[a_capella_boy]

"Apparently so," Jesse said with a nod. He didn't mind the TV studio job all that much but he'd definitely enjoy working at a record store a lot more. Maybe not the best thing in terms of career development, but he didn't care about that all that much right now.

"Do you think we can put Olive down as a character reference?"

[everyonetakes]

"Totally. Or you can anyway, I'm not sure I'd do so well in a record store." She likes music, but she's not really an expert and there's nothing that stands out about her that would make Eduardo want to hire her. She doesn't have any interest in being a musician or producing or being involved in the music industry in any way, so she figures she'd probably be better off at the TV station for awhile anyway.

[a_capella_boy]

"If I get a job there I'll think fondly of you and bring you cupcakes when I can."

It would be kind of sad not to work at the same place as Kate but a record store would be sweet. Plus he'd probably be a lot happier which would make it more likely he'd want to bring people cupcakes.

[everyonetakes]

"You know, it's totally not a very good birthday present to be telling me that my only work friend might be ditching me for a new job," she says, but she's grinning, clearly just fucking with him. "I could like, throw a tantrum and I think it would be totally justified."

[a_capella_boy]

"It would be completely justified," Jesse said with a nod. It was a little cruel, but he figured she could handle it. It's not like they hung out all the time at work. It was nice to see her now and again though.

"But if you did I'd probably distract you somehow and just leave."

[everyonetakes]

"I'm pretty sure you'd have to stay and deal with it," she says, laughing. "Birthday rules say that I get anything I want. At least my birthday rules say that. I should write them all down, then people would be more inclined to remember them."

[a_capella_boy]

"Do you have any other rules for today that I should know about?" Jesse asked. He would actually be okay with doing whatever it is she wanted, especially since her it didn't seem like she had told many other people about her birthday. If he could make it even better for her like that, he would.

[everyonetakes]

"Oh, dude, I don't know," she says, laughing harder now. "I tend to just make them up on a spot as I go along. Like, hey, it's Friday and it's my birthday, so unless you already have other plans, we have to have a birthday night of awesomeness and I don't know how we'd accomplish that, but I'm pretty sure we could do it."

[a_capella_boy]

"Birthday awesomeness for tonight is a go," Jesse said with a nod. He didn't have any other plans, at least not anything he couldn't cancel (because he could always watch movies another night) and hanging out with Kate was a blast.

"And I think we'd have trouble not being awesome."

[everyonetakes]

"Good point. We're pretty much awesome all the time without even trying," she agrees. "Seriously, though, this was really cool of you. Thanks." Kate's not usually very good at saying thank you to anyone, but Jesse seriously deserves it after all this.

[a_capella_boy]

"Hey, any time you have a birthday I'm more than happy to make it awesome," he said, shrugging his shoulders. If she did want to go out and do something though, he could absolutely come through on that.