Wendy felt frozen at his brilliant and blinding smile. It was unfair how he could flash a smile like that and she felt weak at the knees. He was so thoughtful. “I was going to be super early so it is okay,” she lied. She would be late and honestly how late depended on how long she could manage to be around him without needing to run. She’d trip up, get nervous, and be the color of a tomato if she spent that long of time with him. “The store is doing really well actually,” she confessed with a blush coloring her cheeks. “Pinterest has a lot of good information on setting up, running, and marketing an Etsy store. Plus I’ve reached out to other successful store owners about tips and the like,” she rambled off as she brushed her hair back behind her ear. Wendy was one to get excited and find herself on a roll but it was different around him. It was a nervous ramble when she did manage to finally say more than three words to him. “Oh,” she said suddenly as she turned away. “You probably mean Isabel’s store- uh that is going really well too.” He totally likely meant the store she worked at and the one she had been flaking on but of course her mind went to her own work which she was proud and excited about.
He noticed how she adjusted her words from being early to being super early but Jack never thought to write that little correction up to lying. If anything, he thought it reflected an eagerness he knew well and it made him grin. “Don’t worry, I know exactly what you mean.” Jack even dropped a wink as if it was some well-kept secret between just the two of them before continuing. “Nothing beats a good work ethic.” He shoved his hands in his pockets with his conclusion. Then, like a perfect self-fulfilling prophecy, listened to her passionately rant on about how much she loved her job. See? He got it right. Alright, maybe, he only picked up and understood half of her droning on and- okay, perhaps it took him until she name-dropped Isabel to realize they were talking about two separate things entirely but… but she’d been smiling, really really brightly, and that had to count as a result of being a good listener. “Hey, no, come on, I earned that smile.“ He pointed at her, as if he was daring her to drop the corners of her mouth while they walked in the sandwich shop. "Even if I was talking about Isabel’s store, you’re more than welcome to talk about the, uh, other one. I think it’s really cool you’re taking on both those… stores.” There almost lay a questioning undertone in there. One that grew within him the more he talked about the (small) part of the conversation he’d accidentally missed out on. And glancing over his shoulder at the counter sadly enough didn’t provide him with any answers. “Okay, you may have lost me a tiiiny bit with the Pintrest? part but no one better to remind me than you what it is you do aside from selling clothes, right Wendy?” And as long as he chewed on a bite of lunch at all times, no one, not even Jack himself, would be able to interrupt her.
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