“No,” Skyler stretched his eyes wide, trying to shake himself out of his relative daze. “No, I’m just tired.”

“Yeah, aren’t we all.” Chloe said as she began to scrub the table with him. She hummed quietly along to the jazz playing in the studio as they cleaned. They didn’t speak any words. After finishing wiping the whole long table, they moved to the work tables across the room and the silence was finally broken.

“So why do you care about this school’s email so much? Didn’t they already agree to your proposed teaching there?” Chloe asked, looking up at him as she scrubbed.

“Yeah, they said I can teach there.” Skyler answered dryly, walking away from the table to drop his sponge in the sink and grab a new one. “I haven’t heard back about who I’ll be working with though.”

“Why does it matter much, won’t they just be there for legality? Can’t you just essentially ignore whoever it is?” Chloe asked

“Well, yeah.” Skyler answered as he walked back over to the work tables, slapping the wet sponge down onto the table as he began scrubbing again. “But it’ll be someone I spend hours with overtime, I don’t want it to be someone I hate… that’s all.”

“Mmh” Chloe mused in response.

“What’s that about?” Skyler said, eyes shooting up to her for the first time since he walked into the studio. His expression indignant and mildly angry was a little too amusing for Chloe who couldn’t help but smirk.

“Nothing, nothing at all.” She said smiling.

“No, what was that noise all about?” Skyler asked again.

“It’s just… didn’t you ask for Mr Lee to be the official teacher for that class? Did he say no or something, is that why you're all pissy?”

“Did you read my emails!?” Skyler asked, throwing the sponge he said at her making a large sponge-shaped clay mark on her black sweater. Lucky for Chloe, the sweater was already caked in clay.

“Hey! Don’t throw stuff at me.” Chloe said smiling, sliding the sponge back across the table to Skyler. “And it’s not my fault if you leave your emails open on your laptop on the desk. I can’t help it if my eyes instinctively read what words are on the page!” Her tone was overfilled with a fake innocence. 

“Don’t–” Skyler paused. Batting the sponge away he sighed again and slumped onto a stool by the table. He laid his head down atop his arms on the slightly wet table, dirtying his previously clean sweater. “Yeah, yeah I asked if it’d be him. He didn’t say no though,”

“Then why are you so down?” Chloe asked, continuing to wipe diligently.

“Because… I don’t know.” He groaned through his arms. Leaning up, he looked to Chloe who was focused on her cleaning. “Do you think he’ll say yes?”

“What is this, Say Yes to The Dress? I don’t know if he’ll even remember us, he had us as students years ago. And it wasn’t even for a full school year,  just when he came to replace that one pervert.” Chloe shook her head as she made the last swipe of the sponge and the table was clean. “Don’t take it to heart too much, I’m sure you'll have a good time teaching no matter who the other faculty is.”

“Yeah… and I could still see him in the teachers’ lounge and such.” Skyler said, flopping his head down onto his arms again. 

“Why do you care about Mr Lee so much?” Chloe asked, “I know you have a crush on him back then, but he has got to be pretty old now.”

“He isn’t thirty yet,” Skyler replied, standing slowly and walking back towards the exit of the studio. “I’ve got some work in the office. You can head out when you’re satisfied with how clean it is here.”

“No, I was wrong.” Chloe called out after Skyler left, “You didn’t have a crush on him then, you still do, don't you!?” 

Chloe cackled as she finished speaking, but Skyler didn’t reply. He simply shut the office door behind him and sat at his desk. When he opened his laptop he instantly refreshed his email. Nothing new.

Finally closing out of that tab, he went back to the work he should have been doing. Ordering more clay –light stoneware and porcelain were low in stock–, buying more tin oxide for the glaze kitchen, and then Skyler found himself once again checking his email. No new mail. 

“Skyler?” Chloe asked, knocking on the door as she opened it. 

“What’s the point in knocking if you arent going to wait for a reply?” He responded indignantly. Shutting his laptop quickly, he glared at Chloe who remorselessly shrugged.

“Get over yourself.” Chloe sat down in her chair next to Skyler’s. The studio only had one office, and while there were two desks on opposite ends of the room there wasn’t much space between them. “Want to get dinner? You weren’t doing work when I came in anyways.”

“I did some,” Skyler said, spinning around in his chair to face her. “I ordered the Tin Oxide and the different clays we need.”

“Oh, really? I was going to do that tomorrow, thanks!” Chloe said, turning to her desk and scratching those items off of her to-do list. “Are you all done for the night then?”

Sighing as he went through his mental task list for the day, half of what came to mind was just checking his email repeatedly. “Yeah, guess so.”

“Dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“Indian?”

“...Yeah.”

“Lets go,” Chloe stood up and grabbed her keys off their hook on the wall. Shutting the lights off as she left. Skyler grabbed his phone and keys as well before following her out of the office and to the front of the studio, pulling the door shut and locking it behind them. The two walked in silence down the street to the same Indian restaurant they had gone to once every week since they opened the studio together.

Skyler had known Chloe since high school, they went to art school together, and when Skyler became famous after college, she was always his biggest supporter. It was she who helped him reopen this studio, so of course Syler hired her on as a teacher and assistant studio manager. Besides, Chloe had minored in business management in college which made her much more adept at running things than Skyler could hope to be.

She had been asking Skyler over the past few weeks “If you can barely stand teaching the teen classes, how are you going to make it working at a highschool?”. He had never given her any answer besides a dismissive grunt, and while he had been reassuring himself that it’d be okay “Because Mr Lee will be there”, Skyler was beginning to worry what it’d be like if that man said no.

Working with some other random faculty, and a bunch of kids– without Mr Lee? If that man truly didn’t remember Skyler, then what would be the point?

No. If he says yes or not, it won’t matter. If he has forgotten Skyler or not, it doesn’t matter. Skyler can remind him, or start anew with him. Or– or, no matter what it’s like to begin with.  Whatever Mr Lee says, it will all work out. Skyler promised himself at that moment, as they entered the Indian restaurant, that he wouldn’t worry about it any longer.

“Table for two again?” the hostess asked, she had seated Skyler and Chloe at this restaurant at least a hundred times.

“Yeah, is the booth in the back open?” Chloe asked as the hostess handed them both menus.

“Yep, y’all can head on back.” She said with a smile, and Chloe smiled back, but Skyler didn’t bother. 

His hand remained clenched in his pocket, gripping his phone. And as they sat down he felt it buzz. 

Is it- he began to wonder, but when he yanked it out Skyler was instantly disappointed to only see a Pinterest notification.

“You good?” Chloe asked, giving him a side eye over her menu, how she still needed to look at it after coming here so often baffled him.

Skyler just rolled his eyes at her, as he set his phone down on the table and tapped his fingers on his menu. He would be ordering the same chicken tikka masala he ordered every time they came, and get it with the same mango lassi he always drank in one gulp. Sometimes he also got a side of garlic naan, but Skyler didn’t feel too hungry today–

Bzzt

Skyler’s eyes bolted to his phone screen, and when he saw the blue and white email app icon he grabbed it quickly. As soon as it was in his grasp, his phone scanned his face and unlocked. 

‘Good news! - J. Hayer’ the notification tagline read, email subject and sender. Tapping the notification Skyler opened the email, and scanning through quite a lot of rambling that could be reread tomorrow he found the sole passage he cared about.

Once again I’m sorry for this late-night email, but I thought I’d share the good word as soon as I received it. Mr Lee agreed to be the official teacher for Ceramics! We look forward to seeing you in a few weeks as we set up the ceramics room over the summer, and sooner as well to have a preliminary meeting between–

A small smile crept up on his face while Skyler read, and he didn’t bother chiding Chloe who stared at him overtop his screen with a sly smirk. Only because she was sweet enough to save her teasing until after Skyler had his moment of joy. 

There would be time for teasing later, but right now was for excitement. 

And good lord was Skyler excited. By the way he grinned now you could think he was still a young student in high school.

He hadn’t even needed to tell Chloe what he was looking at for her to know, they'd been close for long enough that Chloe found it easy to guess. And honestly? If anyone had spent at least five minutes with Skyler over this past weekend they would have been able to guess too.

A waiter came to their table quickly, but Skyler didn’t look up from his phone for a moment. He knew Chloe would order on his behalf anyway, and the staff couldn’t care less if he seemed rude because he always tipped well.

Rather, he opened his Amazon app, went to his cart, and ordered those Sia CDs he had hesitated about earlier. He ordered them, and a brand new CD player with a beaming smile on his face.