He's Worth It Page 3

  “So,” Jacob replied, his eyes narrowing. “Your job is the most important thing in your life because you feel that it’s something that you're good at?”

  Chris sat back on the sofa, his eyes wide. “I—I mean, I guess. I wish you hadn’t put it like that, though.”

  “Why not? Everyone likes being good at things, Chris,” Jacob said, shrugging. “It’s pretty normal.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Chris replied, looking down at his fidgeting hands. “You don’t think it’s sad?”

  “No,” Jacob said, far too quickly. “Of course I don’t think it’s sad. I mean, imagine how many people go through life without finding something that they like and that they’re good at. You found something you like, something that allows you to pursue your passions outside of that. That’s pretty cool, right?”

  “Yeah,” Chris said, smiling. He hadn’t thought about it like that, and he found that he quite liked thinking about it like that. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “So the most important thing in your life is your job right now,” Jacob repeated. “Okay, that’s cool, but that doesn’t give us that much to work with. Still, it’s a start.”

  “Good,” Chris replied. “I was worried that you wouldn’t have found a way to start with me.”

  “Don’t be silly, of course I would have found a way to start with you,” Jacob said, smiling back at him. “Okay, now tell me. What kind of acting do you want to do?”

  “Oh, I, um,” Chris replied. “I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. I like movies.”

  “Well, there you go,” Jacob replied, smiling. “That’s our start.”

  Chapter Four

  Jacob woke up after noon. He was a night owl, and he had to train himself to go to sleep early at night. Otherwise, he would get nothing done during the day. There were some errands that he had to run, but nothing pressing. He had scripts for a couple of auditions, but they weren’t until the end of the week.

  He hated when he woke up late, because he felt like he had wasted most of the day. He had a quick breakfast of cereal and lukewarm black coffee, as the coffee machine wasn’t working right, then he went on his computer.

  The online ESL teacher thing had been a godsend. Jacob had tried the whole barista thing, which was what was expected of him as an aspiring actor, but he had found that customer service was just not right for him. He was a good actor, but he wasn’t being paid to act. He was being paid to serve people coffee and not be nice to them, at least as far as he could tell. He had been fired from every single one of his jobs as a barista or in retail, and he didn’t want to take on something that was going to interfere with his acting career.

  If Jacob had told her, his mom would have probably called him naive.

  But he hadn’t, of course, because any news of his failure would do nothing but cheer her up. Well, that was an unkind way to think about it, and he was trying to be kinder to his mother. Maybe it wouldn’t cheer her up, but she definitely wouldn’t be upset about it, and she would try and take the opportunity to convince him to move back to Michigan. He had never considered moving back to Michigan, not even when he was eating beans out of a can and wearing nothing but his underwear because that was all that he could keep clean. Not even when he had met the casting director after he had just moved down to Florida.

  The washing machine had broken months ago, and that was when he had known, for sure, that he needed another source of income. He had looked online and had done a few articles for content mills, but writing wasn’t his forte. He got frustrated researching topics for too long. Chad had offhandedly mentioned something about his girlfriend’s ESL teacher, and Jacob had jumped on it.

  The university needed fully qualified ESL teachers, Chandra had told him, and the competition was fierce. There were a few language schools around, but Jacob couldn’t afford to both get certified and pay his rent and his portion of the bills. He had done his due diligence and looked into it, and he had finally found something that suited him nicely.

  Being an online ESL teacher was surprisingly easy. He was good with children, and the few enunciation classes he had taken back in high school were paying off in spades. The fact that he could sound like a news radio announcer from the fifties was something that parents on the other side of the world seemed to love, though their children seemed to think it was mostly funny.

  He didn’t care what the children thought as long as he got paid. He had some appointments throughout the week, but none that day. He would be able to log in to the dashboard, maybe have a few trial classes with some potential new students. If his computer would finally turn on.

  The laptop whirred and purred, the screen lighting up for a second before it turned off. Jacob checked that the power cable was plugged into the wall, wiggling it as he did. The computer didn’t come back on.

  He sighed. He didn’t really have the money to spare, but he needed his computer. He couldn’t make money without it, not until he booked something big, and that could take weeks. Months, if he was unlucky.

  He couldn’t afford to wait. He looked up troubleshooting ideas on his phone while he gave his computer the stink-eye. It was one of the only relatively new things that he had, and of course it had decided to stop working.

  An online video told him that he could get the computer to restart by holding down the power button for forty seconds, but after three minutes, Jacob knew that his computer wasn’t going to come to life.

  Sighing and rubbing the bridge of his nose, he grabbed the laptop and the charging cable and stuffed them into his traveling bag. If he were lucky, he wouldn’t have to replace the entire thing, just the charging cable.

  If he were lucky.

  ***

  Wire Town was a big store in the middle of a strip mall. It was surrounded by a houseware store and a small organic supermarket that Jacob had originally thought was a locally owned store but later found out was a chain.

  He wasn’t looking forward to going into Wire Town. He was pretty sure that the news waiting for him wasn’t going to be very good. Sighing, he walked into the air-conditioned store and looked around, trying to see where he could find a charging cable for his computer. The one thing he disliked about stores like this was that, unlike the grocery store, nothing seemed to be labeled by aisles, so he would have to walk past a million gadgets that he wanted but he couldn’t afford before he managed to get to where the PC accessories were.

  “Hello, can I help you?” someone said from behind him. Jacob turned around to see a stocky man with kind blue eyes and red hair smiling at him.

  “Hope so,” Jacob replied, taking the charging cable out of his bag. “I’m having a problem with my laptop. It won’t turn on. I’m hoping it’s the cable, because I’m not really in a position to afford a new laptop right now.” He didn’t want to think about what position he’d need to be in to be able to afford one.

  “Yeah, no problem,” the man said. He extended his hand and Jacob deposited the charging cable into his hand. He brought it close to his eyes, narrowing them, as he read the little markings on it. “I think we have some of these on the shelf, but let me just see. I’ll be right back.”

  Jacob watched him walk away. He sighed, his heart dropping in his chest as the man scanned the products on the shelves with his eyes, obviously not finding anything that seemed to be right. Jacob didn’t understand why, since his computer wasn’t old. It shouldn’t have been that hard to find, but the sales clerk seemed to be struggling, and it wasn’t giving Jacob any semblance of hope.

  The man looked at him and frowned. “I’m going to go check our online stock. We may have something for you there.”

  Jacob nodded, his mouth dry. He didn’t even know if that was what was wrong, and if it was, he was going to end up losing at least a day of work. If he didn’t work, he didn’t get paid.

  “Hey,” he heard someone say. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Jacob was too stressed to try and place it right then. He looked up and saw Chris standing in front of him, wearing the blue and yellow Wire Town uniform. He looked so much more relaxed than he had when Jacob had first met him. It was kind of weird, especially because Jacob wasn’t sure that he had ever seen someone this comfortable when they were at work. Chris was supposed to look a little stiff, or something, but he didn’t. His arms weren’t crossed over his chest and his light eyes were sparkling. The whole dressed-up look suited him, too, with his hair slicked back and his clothes all tidy.

  He was cute.

  Jacob didn’t like that he was cute, because he didn’t want to think about the fact that he could probably never hook up with the guy that he had—randomly, for no good reason—decided to take on as an acting protege.

  “Hi,” he finally replied, smiling weakly at Chris. “I didn’t know you worked here. I mean, at this Wire Town. It’s the closest one to my house, but I’ve never seen you here before.”

  “I’m covering the other manager’s shift,” Chris said. “And anyway, normally I’m in the back. You wouldn’t really see me.”

  “Oh, okay,” Jacob replied. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to think I was stalking you or anything.”

  Chris laughed, biting his lower lip. Jacob couldn’t be sure, but he thought that he was blushing. “Should I be worried?”

  “No,” Jacob replied, way too quickly. “No, no, sorry. I was joking.”

  “Okay,” Chris said. “Got it. Is someone helping you?” He said it with so much efficiency and professionalism that Jacob wasn’t sure if he recognized him at all. His expression had totally changed, and Jacob wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  “Yeah,” Jacob replied, nodding at the sales clerk, who was now over by the computers. “He is trying to help me find a replacement for my charging cable. My laptop won’t turn on.”

  Chris nodded. “Well, do you know that it’s that?”

  “Nope,” Jacob said. “I just really, really hope that it is.”

  “Okay,” Chris said, looking him up and down. “Do you have your laptop on you?”

  “Yep,” Jacob replied, tapping the traveler bag with his finger. Chris seemed to think that was amusing, because he smiled, maybe even laughed a little. Jacob wasn’t able to tell. But Chris was straight, he reminded himself. Not just that, Chris was helping him not because he wanted to, but because he was in his place of employment. It was his job to help him. Jacob knew what it was like to be a worker in a retail environment, and he knew that it was Chris’ priority to keep him happy.

  He couldn’t help but feel a bit special, though, as Chris waved the sales clerk that had just been dealing with him over.

  “Hey, Scott,” he said. “Do you have this gentleman’s charging cable?”

  Jacob choked back on a laugh. It was fine when people he didn’t know called him something like that, but it was a lot weirder when people he knew did. The last thing Jacob considered himself to be was a gentleman. It was a little funny, or at least, it would have been funny if Chris actually knew him. Which seemed to be becoming a worse and worse idea by the moment.

  Scott handed the cable to Chris, who was holding his hand out. “Okay,” Chris said. “Don’t worry about this, Scott. I’ll help him.”

  Scott looked at him for a second too long, then he nodded. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  They both watched him walk away before Chris turned back to Jacob. He had been busy inspecting the charger, then glancing back at the stuff on the shelves, his eyes narrowed. He didn’t seem to have a solution, either, but when he spoke, he was positively calm. “So it might be a good idea to test your laptop first, right? You don’t want to buy a cable if it’s not going to help anything.”

  “Right,” Jacob said. He had come fully prepared for that—in fact, that was what he had intended to do. But he was never good in a crisis and this definitely qualified as one, at least as far as he was concerned. Fucking with his livelihood was no small matter, even if it was from something intangible like technology being a dick to him for no reason.

  Chris gave him an easy smile, one that made him feel weak at the knees. He cleared his throat. He didn’t need another problem. Just having his laptop act up was enough; the last thing that he needed to happen was to fall for a straight boy. Especially one that he knew he was going to keep seeing for the foreseeable future.

  It was his own fault. He knew it was his own fault, but he could hardly resist a pretty face. That had proven to be a problem before, and it was proving to be a problem now. There was just something that had seemed so sweet about Chris when he was standing there, in front of him and Mags, acting as nervous as he had. How could Jacob not help him?

  “Okay, follow me,” Chris said quietly.

  Jacob nodded. He thought he was going to follow Chris to a power outlet, but he followed him into the hallway, past the public bathrooms and to the left of the back of the warehouse.

  “It’s employees only here,” Chris said, pointing at the sign above the door. “But you’re my friend, and I’m helping you out. So if my regional manager gives me any shit for this, I can just say I did it on my break. But my regional manager doesn’t really care what I do as long as I meet quotas, so....”

  “Isn’t that, I don’t know, against a bunch of liability laws or something?”

  “Yup,” Chris replied, grinning. “But what do you have to lose? I mean, your laptop already doesn’t work, right?”

  “Right,” Jacob said. It was weird to be the one following Chris’ lead, he thought, though he didn’t mind it. In fact, he found it quite nice. He could definitely understand, now that he was interacting with him at work, why Chris thought this was the most important part of his life.

  He was definitely good at it. He seemed totally at ease here. Jacob wasn’t sure how he was going to help him make that become part of his acting lessons, but he knew that he had to. Chris opened the door to a small white office for him. Everything was white—the desk was white, the chair was white, the walls were white. The only thing that wasn’t white was the Wire Town logo, a blue W with a yellow T superimposed over it. The logo looked a bit retro, especially in the ultra-modern office, and Jacob couldn’t help but stare at it.

  “I know,” Chris said, looking up at the logo with him, his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing a watch, and Jacob wasn’t sure of the brand, but he could tell that it was new and expensive. One of those SmartWatches. Chris probably got a sweet discount on every piece of tech that came out on the market. Wire Town seemed to have a monopoly on that.

  Jacob smiled. “It’s a bit retro, isn’t it?”

  Chris nodded, laughing. “Yeah, it’s a little ‘90s; I’ll give you that.”

  “I suppose there’s no one you can speak to about the logo,” Jacob said as he started to take his laptop out of the bag. “Not really your job.”

  “Customer satisfaction is my job,” Chris replied, smiling at him. “So I can pass it along, though I can’t promise anything. My power is quite limited.”

  “Ohh, power,” Jacob said, and then continued before he could stop himself. “I like men with power, you know, quite a bit.”

  Chris turned to look at him for a second, cocking his head and narrowing his eyes. Jacob tried to swallow down the knot in his throat. Hitting on someone was hardly the ideal way to come out to them, especially when that someone was trapped.

  There was no way that Chris would be able to just leave the office now, so he was stuck there with Jacob, all while Jacob gushed about how powerful he liked his men to be. He didn’t really expect an adverse reaction, because people in this town were a lot nicer than people back in Michigan, and Jacob knew how to deal if things went wrong. He didn’t really think that things would go as far as a physical altercation, but he couldn’t rule it out.

  At a moment like this, when he had forgotten that being smart was important, he couldn’t rule anything out.

  “You’re gay?”

  Jacob nodded, trying to swallow down the knot in his throat. Chris didn’t seem aggressive; in fact, he didn’t even seem overly interested, though his cheeks had gotten a little redder.

  Jacob tried to smile. “You didn’t know?”

  “How could I have known? You didn’t tell me.” Chris said. He opened his drawer and rummaged around in it, finally pulling out a black charging cable. He looked at it triumphantly. “Yes! I knew I had that in there! Can you hand me your laptop, please?”

  “Sure,” Jacob replied. He slid the laptop along the extremely white table and waited until Chris plugged it in. He watched as Chris tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. He tried to do the reset trick, the one that Jacob had done at home, but that didn’t seem to do anything either.

  “I don’t think it’s this,” Chris said, twisting his lips and staring down at Jacob’s laptop. Jacob sat down on one of the white chairs. He would have normally asked, but he didn’t feel like he was fully equipped to deal with the news of a broken laptop that he couldn’t afford to replace right then. “Maybe it’s the fan. Have you noticed it getting hotter than usual?”

  “It’s always ran hot,” Jacob replied. He was choking back tears, so he didn’t want to talk for too long. He didn’t want his words to come out strangled; he didn’t want Chris to know how upset he was about this. He hid his face behind his hands, which he was sure seemed far more dramatic than it should have. “Sorry, I just—I need it. It’s how I make money.”

  “Not through acting?” Chris said.

  Jacob looked at him, ready for a snappy comeback, but Chris had his hand over his mouth and his eyes were wide. “I’m sorry, I totally didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “I just meant, I don’t know, I thought you’d be—you strike me as someone who’d be booking jobs left and right, that’s all.”

  Jacob softened a little. Chris seemed mortified enough, and it was obvious that he hadn’t said what he had because he was being malicious. He was just the same socially awkward Chris that Jacob had met at the studio, instead of the Chris that he was when he was outside, on the shop floor of Wire Town, being a manager and doing his job.