He wasn't wondering.

Reindeer boxer shorts rest limply on Conor Buckley's desk chair. It's June, so this is to be expected. The idea that someone would purchase underwear only for a particular season or holiday is ridiculous. He's had to explain this to a variety of overnight guests. He would be better served to use his breath on perhaps explaining why being such a slob helps him focus on his work. However, Conor can't actually do that. He can't do that because he has had "Art Block" for a week, and always does when his life's a mess.

Conor started off college as an English major, hence the borrowing and re-appropriating of the term "Blank Block." Conor would sooner say he had "Sex Block" when he inevitably failed at showing the ladies why he was an OK choice for the night (feel free to substitute: week or month, nothing more than that, obviously), than to admit that he's not always the most suave.

He's not-not suave. He's just, a — a guy — a guy in his twenties. And, he's figuring it out, just like the  rest of them...the guys, the rest of the guys in their twenties. Obviously he's excepting those who got tricked into a young-just-out-of-college-marriage. Everyone has a pair of friends like that, or rather, has a friend who has a wife or husband that you've had to become friends with because apparently they're going to be around for the long haul, probably longer than you in the end.

Conor's apartment definitely looks as though someone lives there, but not as though he plans on living there for longer than three months. Nothing hangs on the walls, but there are framed posters of Fight Club and Warrior leaning on them. The idea was there, it's the execution that's a consistent fail.

"Hey dude," Conor says to Patrick, his roommate, who's sitting on the couch Patrick's mom purchased for the apartment eight months ago. She came to visit from New Hampshire, had nowhere to sit when she "popped by" to say hello, so went to Pottery Barn and "made it right."

"Hey," Patrick returns. "How was yesterday?"

Yesterday? Patrick was referring to their mid-week debauchery. Conor had recently been let go from his job at some call center downtown, so decided to blow a hundred bucks like he had it.

"Fine — Jenn was there." Of course she was.

"Yeah, I saw her."

"Yeah."

Conor walks over to the pantry, opens it, looks into it for a bit, then closes it taking nothing out.

"She was with Katie," Conor continues. Jenn and Conor had never dated. They'd always teetered on the line. Sure, they'd made out. Sure, Conor had invited her over to his house after parties. Sure, they've seen each other naked. But, dated? No. "It's everything but the label," she had said when she explained why she couldn't do it anymore. "It's not the label, Conor, it's the lack of one."

It's not as though Conor thought he blew it with Jenn. By his calculation, he'd been the one rejected.

Flash to last night:
"Hey, there," Jen said, but, really it was more like a shout, from down the bar.

"Hey, hey," Conor said, smiling. "How've you been?"

Conor crossed over to where she was.

"I'm good. I'm fine. Katie's here."

"Yeah, I know. I saw her from the balcony."

"How mysterious..."

When Jenn smiles, she shows all of her teeth. She smiles, and she laughs. And it makes the people around her do the same. Conor never understood the phrase laughter's contagious until he met Jenn.

"So mysterious."

"How've you been?"

"Pretty good. Just working." Conor paused remembering he'd been let go. "I mean, I'm looking for work right now. Feels like a job. But I'm painting, and stuff. So..."

"Tell me about it."

"I just did." The two laughed.

"Funny. Anyway, I should get back —"

"Of course. Good to see you."  Jenn turned to go, then spun back around quickly. Conor was still looking in her direction.

"I'm here with someone."

She said it like he was wondering. But he wasn't wondering. And that's what's made the moment so awkward.

"That's great," Conor said, then smiled out of the side of his mouth.

They looked at each other, said goodbye again, and Conor proceeded to spend money like he had it.

"Anyway, she looked good," Conor said.

"Not a surprise, man."

Conor walks back into his room, closes the door, collects last night's clothes from the floor, then puts them on his bed. He picks up his jeans, examines them, smells them, then slides them on. He does the same with a green-grey t-shirt, then sits down at his desk, looks at his sketch pad, his reindeer boxers still on the seat-back.