Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Superstore. Or Uber.

I feel a little bit known, watching Superstore. It gets and doesn't get a lot of things. But it gets so many things. Anyway, carrying on.

Amy almost regretted knocking on Garrett's apartment door with a six-pack of store-brand beer and a bag of tortilla chips. It was a Saturday night and she was all alone up until now; if she just turned and went home, it was all good. She was fine. Emma was having a sleepover at one of her friends' houses with the cool mom who let them stay up past eleven watching scary horror films and, well, who knew where Adam was—probably at his girlfriend's house, cooking dinner, enjoying a rom-com together, kissing on the couch—

"I said the door's open!" Garrett hollered, probably repeating himself, judging from the impatient irritation in his voice.

Amy swallowed her regrets and opening the door, wore a big smile as she said, "What's up, Garrett!?"

"Yo, get him!" Garrett sat in front of his TV, his eyes focused on passing level ten of Barbarian's Gate 3. "Blast him! Okay, okay, you play with the bull and ya gonna get the horns!" His fingers danced in perfect rapid motions over the buttons and joystick of his video game controller. Amy's smile disappeared; he wore his headset—he was online with other players.

"I brought chips and a six-pack, since you have the game already," Amy said, setting them on the kitchen counter. She glanced around the place. She hadn't actually ever been to Garrett's apartment. It was rare that anyone actually hung out at each other's houses after working all day together. Most of the time they stuck to bars and movies. She saw why he liked this apartment, though. Everything was at wheelchair height for easy access. He was on the ground floor and didn't have a single stair to face.

Passing her eyes over the furniture, though, she could see the clash of two different tastes. Reclining sofa chairs with cup holders sat next to a futon. Stacks of video games stood next to a bookshelf lined with business books and tasteful little smackerels of meaningless art. The movie and comic book posters contrasted with the abstract pieces of modern bohemian art.

Yep. Garrett and Jonah were definitely roommates.

"If you're looking for Jonah," Garrett said, flipping up his mouthpiece as the game came to break, "he's out with Kelly. I don't expect him back 'til late, so . . . there's that."

"I wasn't looking for Jonah," Amy said, whipping her head back as she cleared her throat. "I came to play video games with you and that's what I came to do, so. . ."

"So," Garrett said.

"So . . ." Amy said awkwardly.

"You gonna join me?" Garrett waved a hand to the controller on the cluttered coffee table behind him.

"Yeah, of course I am." Amy set her purse on the coffee table and got her controller online. She scoffed. "How are you on level ten already?"

"How are you not?" Garrett scoffed back. "It came out two days ago. Get it together, Sosa."

"Well, I didn't have two days off in a row just to play a video game," Amy said determinedly. "Jonah and I could only get up to level five."

"Whoa, so you've been playing this game with Jonah? What, am I second choice or something?" Garrett joked, starting the game back up at the first level under the third account, so he could pick up and play his first game when Amy went home.

"No, of course not! I just wanted to not be alone on a Saturday night, and I'm surprised you even said 'Sure'," Amy said. "You don't like being friends outside of work."

"Yeah, I don't. It's like y'all think I care more about y'all than I actually do," Garrett said, his eyes fixated on the start of their barbarians' journey.

"It's just that . . . I dunno . . . I just didn't want to be alone tonight," Amy said. "I used to do things and be fun to hang out with, but lately it just feels like, I'm alone and stuff, and I don't want to be alone and stuff, so I just figured if I could hang out and talk with someone—"

"Hey, I did not invite you here to talk to me about your feelings and crap." Garrett paused the game. "I invited you here 'cause you were down for Barbarian's Gate 3. So that's what we're gonna do."

Amy scoffed, looking between Garrett and the TV screen. "Why can't we just do both? Talk about what's up in our lives, play some video games—"

"Amy, you don't know me as much as you'd like to think you do, but you should know this—I don't care. If you're feeling lonely and sad and like everyone else in the world is living their best life while you're just trying to survive the day, I really don't care," Garrett scoffed.

Amy scoffed. She felt a little awkward and a little hurt, like she might cry and walk out, since it was a stupid idea to come here anyway. What was she thinking? How did she think that going to Garrett's when she was already an emotional mess would help her out here? "This was stupid," she muttered to herself, shaking her head and grabbing her jacket from the coat rack.

Garrett sighed as he pushed off his headset and reluctantly threw his controller back onto his entertainment center. "Don't go," he said, defeat in his voice. "Sorry. I've been high on doing and saying whatever the heck I want in my own place. That was . . . uncalled for. Just, Amy." He waved a hand to a sofa chair covered in haphazard blankets and misshapen pillows. "Do you want to kick my ass in Barbarian's Gate 3?"

Amy stopped stock still and looked between him and the controller. "Yes," she said hurriedly, almost tripping over herself to take a seat and grab up the controller.

That was the answer Garrett wanted, so he even made the tiniest concession—he signed off on his online chatting and went social-gaming with just Amy in the room.

"So," he said, after they'd passed Gunther's Fort's Main Gate into its inner court, "you have a crush on Jonah."

Amy's fingers stopped on her controller. They rose to the occasion just in time to save her guy from getting beheaded via a swinging battle axe. "No, I don't," she said hurriedly.

"Hmmm, sure," Garrett said casually, just like it was some kind of light conversation. "I believe you."

Amy gave him a look. "You don't sound totally convinced that I am totally convincing."

"No, I totally believe you, a hundred percent. You do not have a crush on Jonah," Garrett said, his eyes innocently focused on massacring some Greek warriors.

"Who told you? Was it Dina? Augh!" Amy's mind wasn't focused on the game anymore. Then again, ever since she and Dina realized it, her once hyper-excitement about Barbarian's Gate 3 became small and insignificant in her mind. This all-consuming knowledge of a relationship and a person spanning something like three years took up most of her mind. She only had so much mental headspace. "I swore her to secrecy, but you know Dina! She loves knowing stuff! And she tells people—and part of me wonders if she can even help it! She's always telling people stuff because, well, I dunno! Maybe she feels like she's imparting knowledge to her ignorant coworkers so they don't continue about their day without knowing the crazy news of Amy having a thing for Jonah! Maybe she's using it as a way to gain friends and trust; nothing attracts workplace friends more than gossip! Or, maybe it was—"

"So, it wasn't Dina. I figured it out all by my lonesome self." Garrett paused the game and smiled innocently at Amy.

Amy, cooling down a little from her quick defensive overreaction, said, "Oh."

"Yeah. Oh. Y'all also forget that I'm, like, super observant. I talk a lot, but think of all that I know and don't talk about," Garrett said, laughing to himself. "You could write whole books of what I've picked up about everybody at Cloud 9."

Amy just stared at him for a moment before saying quietly, "So . . . would you be willing to elaborate on that stuff you've picked up . . . ?"

Garrett thought about it for about two seconds before smiling innocently. "No." He resumed gameplay.

Amy rolled her eyes and snapped off a beer cap, slugging it before continuing. "So . . . is it that obvious?"

"It is to me, but then, I'm especially good at it," Garrett said. "But, if you keep up what you're doing right now, it'll only be a matter of time before Jonah finds out."

"Jonah finds out?" Amy repeated, alarmed. Her barbarian got pumped full of arrows in the gut and she barely noticed. "No, Jonah can't ever find out!"

Garrett growled as he now fought for the two of them. "Why not? You'd rather all the other busybodies in our store—myself included—know, and not him?"

"It'd be so unfair to him," Amy scoffed, like this was ridiculous. "He's with Kelly now, and . . . it's not like he likes me back! The entire thing—it would never work out. Besides, he'd just think that I got a divorce because of him, and—" A second too late she realized her words, so she pressed her lips around the rim of her beer bottle and swallowed the rest of that sentence along with her lager.

Garrett actually paused the game to look at her. "Did you get a divorce because of him?" he wondered.

"What? No! No! Of course not! My marriage wasn't founded on the best foundation. It was all speed and necessity rather than out of our direct choices, right? And Adam and I have been drifting apart for years and it just wasn't going to last and—" Amy caught Garrett squinting at her as she rambled. She scowled and said, "Yeah, a little bit, okay? Part of the reason I divorced Adam was because . . . he and I weren't the best fit. He's not the one I'm meant to be with."

"Are you implying that Jonah's the guy you're meant to be with?" Garrett didn't quite suppress the bemused amusement he felt quite as well as he hoped.

"Maybe," Amy said, her voice lacking that apologetic note and just sounding a little wistful.

Garrett sighed. "This is a nice pickle you've gotten yourself into, Sosa." Eyes wide, he reached for a beer and drained half of it.

"I know, right?" Amy sighed as she leaned against one hand and watched condensation roll under the fingers of the other.

"So," Garrett said after a while, "what are you going to do about it?"

Amy's eyes stared at his TV, but her eyes didn't see the computer-generated scenes of mangled limbs and bloody gore. "I don't know," she said softly.

Garrett finished off his beer and reached for his cellphone. "I know what this calls for," he said.

"Please don't call Dina so we can discuss this situation with her," Amy mumbled.

"Oh, no. As if I'd ever call Dina during off-hours to discuss anyone's personal matters. Who do you take me for, a monster?" Amy smiled as Garrett put the phone up to his ear. "I'm calling for a pizza. I think the only way to get this off your mind is to eat some greasy food, finish this six-pack, and let your mind be given over to mind-numbing video games."

"Sounds like a reasonable solution," Amy said, smiling a little.

Garrett shrugged. "Fixes all my problems."

Amy knew why she came over to Garrett's rather than Dina's (besides the whole matter of her place brimming over with weird birds sporting funny names and awful, unpredictable quirks); sure, she could've discussed it with Dina—another woman who'd once have a thing for Jonah and now just saw him as another employee to order around and make fun of—but Dina would've put him down, brought up all his bad points, and made her feel super weird about it.

Garrett did the exact same thing—Garrett insulted Jonah's taste in art and choices in life as they pounded pizza and pounded Greek warriors; said stuff like "I don't know what you see in this guy" just like Dina would; but somehow, it was fine when Garrett said it. Garrett didn't make Amy feel bad about it at all. He made her feel like she really did see Jonah the way he was, the way Garrett saw him, the way the rest of Cloud 9 saw him; and while Garrett and the rest of Cloud 9 might hold it all against him, the thing that set her apart was that she did not. Dina would've made her feel bad about her being that way. Garrett just didn't care. So, Amy might've come to Garrett instead of Dina just for a little friendly apathy.

Neither Amy nor Garrett noticed that it was past 1 AM when they passed level twenty-two, but despite Jonah's attempts at sneaking in to the apartment, they did notice him.

"Oh, hey, Garrett!" he said, squinting against the light Garrett suddenly flipped on. "Didn't realize you were still awake. You—you didn't have to wait up—"

"Oh, believe me, I wasn't," Garrett said casually, pausing the game. He turned his chair to Jonah and said, "If you realized it was so late, why'd you come back at all?"

"Oh, I just—" That was when Jonah actually noticed Amy. He scrambled to straighten his mussed hair and his half-buttoned shirt. "Whoa, hey, Amy! Wh-what—" His eyes searched Garrett's, like, 'Thanks for the head's up!' as he stuttered, "W-what are you doing here?"

"Garrett invited me over to play Barbarian's Gate 3," Amy said simply. "How's Kelly doing?"

"Well, since you saw her at work just a few hours ago, she'd been about . . . the same . . . since then," Jonah said.

"Oh, good," Amy nodded, smiling pleasantly.

He cleared his throat and said, "I—um. . ."

"Do you want a beer?" Amy said, waving a hand to the coffee table behind them.

"You finished off the last one an hour ago," Garrett reminded her.

"Hmm. So we did. Well, there's still chips left . . . oh, I think there's a slice of supreme left if you want it. . ." Amy stood up to check the pizza box on the kitchen counter, which was conveniently right where Jonah stood.

"Nah, I'm good." Jonah scratched the back of his neck. "I was thinking of actually hitting the hay. I gotta work tomorrow."

"Oh, me too. Yeah, no—good plan, good plan," Amy said, nodding.

If either of them noticed the less-than-six-inches between them, neither of them said anything. But Garrett noticed, 'cause Garrett observed everything.

"Yeah. Yeah. So, I'll see you tomorrow, then," Jonah said, waving a hand.

"Yeah, no. Sounds good. I'll see you then," Amy said.

Neither of them knew if they should hug, or shake hands, or whatever. They just didn't meet eyes as Jonah kinda slipped past her to close his bedroom door.

Once Jonah was outta earshot, Garrett, once again terrible at keeping his hysterical grin at bay, said, "So that was kinda like watching a car crash. Couldn't look away, truly terrible—that sort of thing."

Amy glared at him as she picked up her jacket. "I should go," she said.

"Yeah, let Jonah get his beauty sleep," Garrett said teasingly.

"I'll see you tomorrow." Amy waved a hand at the almost-empty pizza box, the paused game, and the littered coffee table. "Thanks for having me over. And, um," playing with the buttons on her jacket before looking up to meet his eyes, "thanks for being there for me. You know, as a friend."

Garrett conceded this point. He could be a bit of a friend, when he wanted to. "You're welcome." As she stood before him, her tipsy legs wavered and her eyes slid around. "Want me to call you an Uber?"

"Um, I got it. I'll get one. But, thanks." Amy nodded at him. "Good night, Garrett."

"Good night, Amy," Garrett said.

At work the next day, Amy was grateful when Garrett didn't bring up her crush on Jonah to her at all. What she didn't notice was when she and Jonah discussed Barbarian's Gate 3 over in Electronics, Garrett and Dina observed them together from afar. "I just don't get what she sees in him," Garrett said.

"I know, right?" Dina scoffed, glad that at least she had the ability to get over Jonah Simms. Didn't seem like Amy had this ability, or really acted like she wanted the ability to get over him, at all.

Thanks for reading! Review?