Alarmed

Round 32: August 2036 (Winter)

Connor's last update/Josh's last update/next update

Connor Novak is 23 and Josh Royce-Nihill is 22.
(Max is 49, Lila is 23, Elspeth is 22 and Veronica is 19)

Narrated by Josh Royce-Nihill

My grades at Suffolk were good, but not so good that newspapers were falling all over themselves to try to hire me, so I wasn’t able to get a job in my field right after graduation.

Fortunately, Dad came to the rescue and hired me as a waiter at Front Page. He needed someone to work nights and I was happy to get a paycheck.

I thought I’d hate it but it’s actually not bad. Most of the customers are okay and Dad is laid back and doesn’t mind if I chat to them a little while I’m serving.

I don’t want to do it all my life or anything but a job’s a job. It pays the rent.

Connor pays the other half of the rent and was lucky enough to to get a job within ten minutes of arriving back in Sullivan. I’m kind of jealous.

He really loves his job and he can see himself in that line of work for life.

All I can do is keep looking and continue to work on my writing, and hope someone will take a chance on me. I’ve written a few paid articles for blogs and things, thinking that will look better on a resume than someone who’s done no writing at all.

Living with Connor is definitely different from living at home. Neither of us can really cook, so we’re not eating any better than we did in the dorms.

Connor can’t believe my dad is a chef and I learnt absolutely nothing from him. All I can make is mac and cheese.

Connor and I are living just a couple of streets away from the basketball court, so we head down there together on Monday afternoons. I think we’ve finally seen the last of the snow, so we’ve been able to start playing again.

We both have Mondays off, when everyone else is working. Restaurants are often closed Mondays and Connor has two days off during the week in exchange for working weekends. Life's good.

The only real problem with my current living arrangement is Lila. She’s with Connor now and it’s a little strange, having your roommate dating your ex-girlfriend.

Connor told me about it quite soon after they got together, so it didn’t exactly come as a surprise to me. She's always thrilled to see me.

She really still loathes me, some would say with good reason. It's pretty awkward having her around sometimes.

We’re okay when Connor is there as a buffer, so I hope things can be smoothed over eventually. It’s not like we’re really able to avoid each other forever.

Lila and Connor seem pretty solid and very happy together, so she’s going to be hanging around here a lot.

And I’m still close to Elspeth, who lives with Lila, so I’m over at their place sometimes as well.

Thought I have to say, I really try to avoid that. Elspeth has said that Lila doesn’t mind us hanging out but I’m pretty sure she’s not thrilled about it either, especially at her home.

Nothing is going on between me and Elspeth but a couple of months ago, I did try to make a subtle move on her.

It didn’t go so well.

Elspeth thinks we’re better off staying friends.

I really think we could have something, if she’d give it a chance, but I’m not going to push it. For now, anyway.

I’m not going to just wait around for her though, so I’ve started dating someone else. Her name is Veronica and she’s a sophomore at Suffolk.

We met last year, when I was still living on campus. I was interested straight away but she turned me down more than once. I’m nothing if not persistent. She was dating someone else then but they’ve since broken up. She’d been contemplating ending things for a while and his loss is my gain.

All of her classes this semester are while I’m at work, so our schedules match up surprisingly well. We’ve been seeing each other a few times a week and it’s going pretty well so far.

She gets really mad when I even mention sports but that’s not a huge deal. We don’t need to have everything in common.

We don’t click like I do with Elspeth though and it’s something that comes to mind every now and then when I’m with Veronica.

Elspeth and I have been friends since we were 10 and have been through so much together though. Our relationship didn’t develop overnight, so I’m trying not to think about that in relation to Veronica.

Seeing Veronica only just broke up with Oliver, she’s not ready for anything serious yet. I’m happy to keep things casual for a while too and just see where it goes.

Extras:Susannah tried to grab Caleb's ass and he was not happy about it!

And she wasn't very happy about the rejection either!

The girl must be getting desperate, hitting on her sister's father-in-law! I'll have to find her a nice boy. ;)
And this would be why I had Veronica break up with Oliver. Josh booty-called her and she was willing to do absolutely everything with him, except woohoo. So given the way her wants looked (none for poor Oliver, plenty of generic ones), I decided that the fact that she was technically still committed to Oliver was the only thing stopping her and I had them break up "off camera". I really like Oliver though, so I'm still hoping one of my other girls takes a liking to him.

Notes:

• Title is from Alarmed by Built to Spill.
• Josh got a job in journalism literally seconds before I left this house. It pays about $80 more than he was making at Front Page, which is still not great, but he has his foot in the door now. He's doing better than poor Hope. She had the same GPA but is still waiting for a job in natural science.
• Veronica and Josh have two bolts, so they're moderately well-matched. But Josh is still holding a massive candle for Elspeth and Veronica doesn't seem into anyone in particular, so we'll see what happens between them.