Notes: Post-breakup, sometime between seasons 3 and 4 (mostly because I haven't caught up on season 4 yet :/) This is Nick and Jess start experimenting with dating and/or sleeping with other people. Ness & Schmidt/CeCe. ALSO, it starts out slow but please bear with! I haven't written a fic in a long time and this is my first ever New Girl one, so be gentle. I'd SERIOUSLY LOVE to hear your thoughts so feel free to hit that review button! THANK YOU!

Chapter One.

"Why are we here, Schmidt?" Nick Miller was desperately trying to ignore the fact that he was standing in a fancy coffee shop. He'd tugged the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head and was peering at the people behind the espresso bar suspiciously, as if they could tell that he didn't belong here, that he wasn't the type to order a venti extra shot caramelly latte with no foam and vanilla sprinkles on top. And hell, they weren't wrong. He usually slogged back whatever was left at the bottom of the coffee pot in the loft. No sugar, no cream…just the dregs. And he liked it that way. It made him feel manly.

Yet here he was, a 7:30 in the morning, waiting with Schmidt in a line for the world's most overpriced cup of coffee and trying not to make eye contact with the yuppies in line. They obliged him, mostly because they were looking right through him or instagraming their frothy drinks.

"Seriously, Schmidt, I don't want to pay five dollars for one of those fancy coffee things," he said. Schmidt exaggerated his eye roll and shook his head at his friend.

"You truly are uncultured swine, Nick Miller," he said. He waved a hand, indicating their boho surroundings. "This is where you belong, you know. This is the classic writer's abode. This is where the writing happens. Here, under the warm lights with a cup of coffee to keep you motivated while your mind opens itself up to the words…"

Nick rolled his own eyes at Schmidt's monologue. "I thought bars were the classic writer's abode."

"Not since day drinking on weekdays became frowned upon. Listen, this will be good for you. You'll like it."

"Not likely," Nick muttered under his breath, but he was too sleepy to argue further. The truth was, since he and Jess had split up, his energy levels were at an all time low. Which wasn't to say that he didn't experience bursts of intense emotion, because he did…and then promptly felt like hibernating afterward. He could tell that Schmidt was growing increasingly worried because there were more vitamins crushed into his food these days, and he had been trying to force Nick out of his comfort zone and into unfamiliar territory. Hence this trip to the local coffee shop, filled with kids in their twenties writing their screenplays and dreaming the typical LA dream of movies and money. It wore him out, but these days everything did.

When they reached the register, Schmidt rattled off a complicated and incredibly annoying order. He used the words sugar-free and no foam a couple of times, but the girl behind the register nodded patiently. You could tell just by looking at Schmidt that he was a bit high-maintenance, and frankly Nick thought anyone who didn't make their own coffee in the morning was probably a little bit pretentious anyway.

He finally forced himself to make eye contact with the barista, or whatever her job title was. She was pretty, and paying attention to him in a way that once upon a time would have made him puff out his chest a bit more and try out a joke or something. She smiled at him warmly. He knew he should smile back, but he couldn't muster it somehow. Still, it was nice to know someone was taking a look. Suddenly he realized he'd been standing there without ordering for too long and he still had no idea what he wanted.

"I'll have…uh…"

"Amateur," Schmidt said, and his exasperation at Nick's cluelessness might have been a ploy to get the barista to return her attention to him. Same old Schmidt. Nick could have probably pantomimed the rest of the conversation, but he didn't say a word as his friend took over.

"I'm so sorry, he's new at this. Let's start him off with something gentle, like a vanilla latte. He's delicate, so not too hot."

"I'm not a child, Schmidt," Nick reminded him, but his tone was mild. He really did feel like hell.

"And maybe an extra shot of espresso," Schmidt added, ignoring his friend to smile charmingly at the barista. She was still looking at Nick, grinning a bit at his discomfort. She wrote their cups, charged the order to Schmidt's card, and waved a little as the two of them headed toward the pick-up counter. Nick waved back to be polite, wondering what she could possibly see in him. He was misery in a hoody. How could that possibly be attractive? And he didn't want to be attractive. He didn't want to be anything, except maybe drunk. Or amnesic. That way he could stop thinking about how he had somehow, out of nowhere, lost the love of his life.

"You really gotta snap out of this, my friend. I mean it's just incredibly unhealthy. We're all worried, all of us. Winston thinks we should have an intervention, but Coach and I are pretty sure you just need to get laid."

"I don't want to get laid, alright? Jesus." Nick rubbed his hands down his face, trying to hold onto his patience. "I'll be okay, I just need everyone to shut up about it."

It was incredibly hard to be in the loft with the guys. They all wanted to talk about it, or else they very deliberately talked around it, and everyone kept shooting him and Jess those puppy-eyed looks that made him want to scream even though he knew it was because they all cared for the two of them like family.

"Sure, sure. That's completely immature." Schmidt laughed sarcastically. "Did I say that? I meant understandable. Now wipe that turtle off your face, because I have something that should make you smile."

Nick suppressed, somehow, a groan. "Schmidt, I swear to God, if you try to give me another notebook full of 'Schmidt's Sexiest Sex Tips,' please for the love of everything holy burn it. Burn it in a fire."

"No, although you should be honored that I would share some of my best seduction moves with you, a mere peasant." Schmidt handed him his cup of vanilla-y crap. "Instead, I direct your attention to your delicious, handcrafted beverage."

Nick glanced at the cup in his hand, then lifted it to examine the writing closer.

"That, in case you had forgotten due to your regression to caveman status, is a phone number. Her phone number," Schmidt said, gesturing to the girl that had taken their order. Nick stared at it for a moment longer.

"Yeah, I can see that."

"You should call her. You really should. I mean, please Nick, I'm begging you, call that girl. Bang her senseless. Bang her until your legs get out and I have to ladle water into your mouth to save your life."

"Shut up, Schmidt. Seriously. Just shut up." Nick turned away from the barista and looked around the room, which was full of kids on their laptops or tablets. "So what now?"

"Now," his friend said, pulling Nick's laptop out of his briefcase, "you sit down and you drink that little cup of heaven and you write. No loft, no Jess, no bar…just write, like you're always telling me you want to do."

He set the laptop on an unoccupied table and pulled the chair out with a flourish. "Please, Nick…it will help you, I promise."

Nick gazed at the laptop, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his hoody. He looked a little bit tempted, and that gave Schmidt a burst of hope.

"What are you going to do while I'm…" he gestured lamely at the computer.

"Oh don't worry about me. If you're not going to hit on that sweet little coffee maker, I am."

"Gross, dude. Seriously. Go find a jar."

"Whatever, I'm doing it. Write your fingers off Hemingway!" Schmidt slipped away as Nick settled himself into the chair and flipped open his laptop. This was a terrible plan…it wasn't going to work, he'd just stare at the screen and think of Jess and how miserable he was without her and how he didn't deserve her.

But the vanilla-y crap was pretty delicious.

Nick didn't look up again for hours. It hadn't started out well. There had been a lot of cursing and people had scooted their chairs away from him when he randomly yelled at his empty word processor. But then, fueled with far too much espresso, he just…wrote. Just like Schmidt had said he should.

It wasn't good. Well, it wasn't good yet. But for the first time in two weeks, Nick felt okay. He had a little energy (which could have been from the fourth vanilla latte), and he'd actually accomplished something. Z is for Zombie was actually, seriously on its way.

The barista girl had gone, and so had Schmidt (not together, to his friend's great disappointment). His butt was a bit numb, but for a while he had been able to think about something other than the fact that his heart had been demolished.

He double and then triple checked that he'd saved, then he picked up his laptop, dumped the four empty cups in the trash, and headed home to the loft. Unfortunately, he'd lost track of time and he arrived at the elevator at the same moment Jess did. Her eyes were wide and impossibly blue when she saw him, and he managed a smile. He felt fidgety from all the espresso, and from her proximity to him, and from the fact that they were alone.

"Hey Jess," he said, managing a smile for her. She was the only person he'd made the effort for in the past couple of weeks.

"Hey Nick," she replied, smiling back but without her normal exuberance. She didn't know what to do or say, and her hands fluttered against her pretty yellow dress.

"So, turns out I like fancy coffee drinks." He laughed. It sounded nervous, but he went with it. "Who knew?"

Jess surprised him by actually laughing, and suddenly his smile was genuine. He could feel his chest lightening the way it always did when she laughed.

"What?" he asked, starting to chuckle himself.

"Was that a Schmidt idea? It sounds like a Schmidt idea," she said, and he ducked his head and laughed a little.

"Yeah, yeah it was." He rubbed the back of his neck a little and glanced up at her, still overwhelmed a little by how pretty she was. She spotted the laptop tucked under his other arm and pointed at it.

"Were you writing?" Her smile was full of excitement, and God help him, he wanted to pull her in close and tuck her hair behind her ear and kiss her. He didn't do any of those things, but his hands ached with the need to touch her.

"A little, yeah. So far it's a lot of very graphic zombie attack and brain-eating action, but it's a start. A real start, not the stuff I gave Winston. I think it was the coffee, I dunno, I felt razor sharp. Like, whoa, watch out, don't cut yourself."

Rambling was a good sign. She always made him ramble. Probably because higher motor functions just stopped when she looked up at him with those knockout eyes. He didn't want to leave this elevator because this felt good, it felt nice. He couldn't touch her but hearing her laugh at something he'd said almost made up for it. He felt human again.

But the doors slid open on the fourth floor and they were back in the loft all too soon. And the loft was, completely unsurprisingly, chaotic.

"Winston. Win-ston!" Schmidt was chasing their roommate around in a towel. "Did you mix your utterly inferior conditioner into my Redkin Cool Finish conditioner? Because I can feel the difference, and my hair is already drying out. Winston!"

Jess glanced up at Nick, confused, and he shook his head. "Winston's been practicing his pranks. But I've been messing with Schmidt's fancy shower stuff since college so he's still in the minor league as far as that's concerned."

Coach was standing in the kitchen, his eyes glued to the Pistons game on the television. He in no way acknowleged Schmidt and Winston's antics. He didn't even take his eyes off the TV when he lifted his beer to his lips.

"Hey guys, how's—" Jess started, but then Coach erupted into loud and wordless protest as a foul was called against his team.

"WINSTON! I HAVE A NETWORKING EVENT AND I NEED TO MOISTURIZE MY HAIR!" Schmidt shouted.

"Schmidt, too much, stop it, WHY ARE YOU DROPPING YOUR TOWEL?" was Winston's panicked reply.

Nick shook his head, put his laptop on the kitchen table and then took up his usual position on the couch. This was what it was to be home these days. Normally he would have been giving Coach shit or else helping Winston to perfect his pranks, but suddenly he felt that old exhaustion creep in, and he turned his eyes to the game and forced himself to hope that the Pistons would get destroyed in the last half.

Jess settled onto the couch too, and he could feel her eyes turning to him every once in a while. He wondered what he could say to recapture their earlier lightheartedness, but it was hard in this apartment, surrounded by their idiotic – although lovable – roommates.

"Can I…can I read it?" she asked, her voice soft.

"Huh?" Nick turned to look at her, caught off guard.

"What you wrote today. Can I read it?"

"Oh, uh…" He froze, suddenly afraid that she would hate it. She had taught a creative writing class after all, and his first effort to write his novel had not been a glaring success. "Actually, I think I'd like to polish it up a bit first. It's a bit rough right now…"

"Sure, yeah." She smiled at him, although it was a bit more forced than it had been before. He felt a pang of loss at that, but he wanted his book to be perfect before he handed it over to her.

But now he had a new problem. He needed an editor. A really, really patient editor who wouldn't judge his spelling too much.

Before he could come up with anything, Winston walked out of his bedroom. He was covered in cheap conditioner from head to toe, and he looked as though he had stared into the abyss and then the abyss had stared back into him.

"Uh, yeah. Don't touch Schmidt's hair stuff. Really. He gets…oddly aggressive in a very uncomfortably sexual way," he said, and Nick covered his face in his hands and wondered how in the hell they hadn't all killed each other yet.