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"Hey," you say, knocking on his door as you open it.
"Hey!" It's a little too loud, he's a little too jumpy about switching tabs—he was just writing an email, what gives?—and you can tell all too easily that he's flustered.
For all that he tries to hide what he's feeling, he's really not very good at it.
"Sooo you busy?"
He startles again. "What? Busy? No! Haha nope, just, you know, surfing the web, being bored, nothing special. Why?" You resist narrowing your eyes at him.
You fail.
You also fail to resist crossing your arms and leaning back, and along with narrowing your eyes you twist your mouth to one side.
You raise an eyebrow at him to top it off.
He shrinks under this look as you know he would, because it is the I Know What's Up Mister look and no one can resist it. He looks sheepish, which is something, but he's still not talking.
You see his zipper mouth and raise him a tapping finger.
This works extra well because it means "I know you're going to give up eventually but I'm getting impatient." He wilts.
"Look I was just emailing someone okay?" You lower your head to give the impression that you're raising your eyebrow further, because you can't actually raise it higher than that. He pulls at the back of his neck awkwardly. "Jade, come on…"
For a moment you consider telling him he has to explain, but then you decide it will be better if you just keep looking at him.
Finally he sighs.
He gestures toward his computer as he switches tabs, and you know that's an invitation to see what he's doing so he doesn't have to explain.
This is a totally bogus method! You think it's dumb that he can't just tell you. But you let him off the hook this time in favor of looking over his shoulder.
"… Just don't tell anyone, okay?" He says, because although his email doesn't really include anything incriminating, you both know that it's pretty clear why he didn't want to show you.
"So you've actually been emailing him, huh?" John rubs the back of his neck again and shrugs.
"Yeah."
"Does he know it's you?"
His eyes widen behind his glasses. "What, no! No way. I mean I wanted to talk to him, but…" He shrugs again after a pause.
"So you didn't tell him you liked him?" You're pretty sure he just choked a little on the air he was breathing.
What a doofus.
"Who says—" he starts, and you just roll your eyes.
"Okay you are being so completely obvious here. You talk about him like he's the greatest thing ever, you laugh at every other thing he says—"
"He's funny," he interjects weakly, and, okay, true, he's pretty hilarious, that's not the point. You huff at him. He makes a sort of resigned face and sighs. "No, I didn't tell him. It would be weird anyway, he's way older than me."
"At least you get to talk to him!" You tell him, chipper again now that he's given in and stopped trying to be secretive. He nods and smiles a little.
"He's actually really nice," he tells you.
You know the beginning of a rant when you hear one, so you sit on the desk to listen.