Productive slacking

“It’s only for this week, right? How about you both study here while on your shift? I’m not saying you completely neglect your duties but if you are at the front desk and there’s no members asking you for help then I don’t see why you can’t use the time to study” Grace suggested, perking up a bit as she realised you wouldn’t have to choose between work and school.

“And you are alright with that?” Jessica asked with a look of surprise.

“Sure! You can either study on your own or if you both have a shift then you might as well take the chance to do it together” Grace replied, shooting a look your way as if she was letting you know this was an opportunity for you.

Grace also knew that you only had shifts planned for Monday and Sunday, the next one being after your exams were over. You however had originally agreed that you could come in whenever you wanted if it was beneficial for you and this seemed like one of those cases.

“I can’t work tomorrow but if you are here any other day then I’m happy to do that” you said, letting her be the one to make the final decision.

Jessica didn’t really seem bothered one way or another and the fact that she now had the opportunity to do a little less work seemed to be good enough for her, even if she did seem to genuinely like this place.

“Sure that works for me” she replied, not giving the question much more thought than that.

“Great! Now, I do still have a bit more work to do and this felt like a good enough break. I’ll let you know when I’m nearly done Max and then we can head out after that. Sound good?” Grace asked, getting up from one of the chairs and offering the seat to you.

“Works for me” you replied, happy to follow along with whatever Grace had planned.

Both you and Jessica watched her leave but while you would have usually ogled at her, you stopped yourself to look over at Jessica, seeing that she was watching Grace in the same way that you would look at her.

By the time Grace was out of sight, you knew you could have looked away from Jessica but you continued until she looked in your direction, seeing that she had been caught staring at her boss.

“What?” she asked defensively, averting her eyes from you.

“Nothing. Nothing. Just seems like you have a type” you teased, a smile plastered on your face as you got more comfy in your chair.

“I do not. And I don’t even know what you are talking about” Jessica denied, sounding slightly flustered as she moved to get closer to the desk.

She seemed to want to do something just to get out of this conversation and just started straightening the papers that had been lying around, the desk already looking tidy even before she started.

“Sure you do. Blonde, athletic…” you started to say, seeing her get slightly embarrassed before you decided to take this in a different direction to make her feel better.

“... Sweet but can get angry when they need to. Protective of their family…” you added, seeing her relax a little with that.

“Plus they have a great ass” you ended with a joke, getting the biggest eye roll you could out of her.

“You’re such a dick. And eww, you shouldn’t say that about your own sister” Jessica replied, taking your comment as a joke and sliding back further into her chair as if you had relaxed her even further.

You however, didn’t even realise you had slipped up until Jessica pointed it out, trying not to let it get revealed on your face but feeling a bit of anxiety slowly creep down your spine at the thought of what could have been if she had taken it a different way.

Jessica didn’t notice anything wrong but you took a moment to realise that it had been too close of a call and that you needed to do better in the future, not wanting to reveal anything to someone who wasn’t already a subject that had been given a little bit of a push into accepting what you and your subjects were getting up to.

“Anyway, I don’t have any of my school books with me but we could try and do a bit of studying now?” you asked, getting off of the previous subject as quickly as possible.;

“Uhh… sure. I think I still have at least some books in my bag” Jessica replied, checking the time on her phone before she agreed.

She rushed off upstairs and after giving yourself another moment to breathe on your own, she was back down with little time wasted with some papers and a book that the both of you could use.

The fact that she still had some test papers in her bag for a subject you hadn’t yet had an exam for told you she had already been planning to study but now it seemed like she would get to do that earlier than expected.

You had offered to help her once during class when you were trying to get Sarah’s friends to like you but back then Jessica had blanked you and there wasn’t much more you had thought to do at the time. Now things had changed however and while she was hesitant to reveal what questions she was weaker at, you managed to help her through some of the questions and she was also able to help give you a few tips for some memorisation exercises she was using to help keep some of the information in her head.

Each of you had managed to get through a test paper and spent longer than you would have thought you’d be allowed studying before you decided to call it quits. There hadn’t even been any members coming up to bother you and while you had seen plenty of people come in and out, none of them seemed to need any help and had just gone about their business on their own.

Checking the time showed that you still had plenty of time before you needed to get home and Grace hadn’t sent you anything yet to say when she would be done, letting you check over each other’s work and attempt to grade the tests to see where you had each gone wrong.

Jessica was still snippy at you and you could tell she still didn’t fully accept that you didn’t have any ulterior motives but at least she was actually talking to you and it felt like you had moved from either enemies or strangers to at least now being coworkers.

You had done pretty well and while you were checking your grade, a shadow appeared over the desk as a woman came up to see you both, making you turn your head up from your paper to look at her.