I leave the party, and Alex stays, and I never learn what he just wishes for.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Where does he think he gets off!”
Sasha hurls her body through my apartment door, stomping inside like the petulant celebrity’s daughter she occasionally still emulates. She kicks off her heels while I set the to-go bag of Chinese food on my tiny, scuffed-up kitchen table.
“The entitlement of men never ceases to amaze me,” she adds.
“Tiger, stripes,” I offer with a shrug.
She exhales, rubbing her hands over the smooth ebony skin of her face. “I’m really sorry about tonight, Case. I know you hate events like that, and normally, I would have brought Miguel—”
“Wait.” My head cocks. “I thought you said he had the flu.”
“I fibbed!” She winces. “I thought it would be cool for you to network with Dougie outside of work, but I’d never really talked to the man before, and, well … I didn’t realize he’d be such a handsy, father-knows-best asshat.”
I wave a hand at her. “I appreciate the thought. I think.”
My roommate, Miriam, appears in the doorway of her bedroom—which is honestly just a partitioned section of our tiny, one-bedroom apartment—still dressed in hospital scrubs. It looks like she’s been sleeping; her bleached-blond bobbed hair is a bird’s nest, and mascara is rubbed under her eyes.
“Food?” she croaks.
I beckon her with my palm. “Got you, lover.”
She smiles sleepily and pads into the kitchen, feet clad in panda slippers. “Whose man is entitled?”
“A mutual acquaintance named Dougie Dawson,” I supply while I open the plastic lid of the pork siu mai dumplings.
Miriam sits down beside me. “Sounds like a cartoon character.”
“He thinks he’s the fucking mayor.” Sasha helps herself to a half-drunk bottle of red wine on the bar cart I’m pretty sure is three weeks old. She pours three glasses and hands them out to us. “No offense to your paycheck, Case, but that guy sucks. After you walked away, I tried broaching the subject of female-focused ads on the jumbotrons at sports events, and he all but laughed me out of the room.”
“He’ll probably die soon,” I mutter darkly.
Miriam laughs. “You spend too much time with Brijesh.”
“You’re the one screwing him.”
Miriam flips me the bird.
Sasha divests herself of her Chanel purse and sits down while I start in on the Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce I ordered. Miriam takes careful bites of everything: sticky rice with Chinese sausage, scallion pancakes, pan-fried noodles. Her nursing hours are weird, and I can never keep up with when she’ll be here or at work, but her daily eating schedule pretty much relies on whether I’ve left takeout for her in the fridge. I just Venmo charge her at the end of the month. It’s a well-oiled system.
After a few seconds of quiet, Sasha groans. “Okay, I was waiting for you to bring it up, but you’re clearly not going to. Can we please talk about that hottie, Alex?”
Miriam tilts her head at me. “Alex…” She drifts off, grasping for context clues.
I was really hoping Sasha had let that part of the evening slip from her mind.
“Alex Harrison,” I grumble.
“Alex Harrison?” Miriam repeats. “The jackass who stole your job? You never told me he was a hottie!”
Affecting the tone of a degenerate grouch, I admit, “He is objectively attractive. His hair is nice. And his eyes are … nice, and his voice is sort of scratchy. And he’s tall enough to loom.”
My friends are quiet for a couple of long seconds, staring at me. I shift in my seat, belatedly realizing how much I just admitted.
To them. To myself.
“Oh, Casey.” Miriam shakes her head. “You always did swoon for a man who loomed.”
“I did not.”
She sips her wine and makes an ahh sound. “You’re in trouble, doll face.”
“They looked very romantic together, out there on the balcony,” Sasha adds.
Unbidden, the scene from earlier strikes sharp and hard behind my eyes. No wonder you said you’re nobody’s dream girl.
“I’d put money on the fact that romantic is not the way we looked.”
I’m prepared to go to the mat on this one with four weeks’ worth of grievances to share, but they just laugh together, proud of themselves for riling me up. Miriam and Sasha—who are friends only because I introduced them during Geology 101 our first year of college—love to conspire against me. It’d be annoying if it were not a reminder they cared.
“Did you guys get Jack and Jill’s save the date?” Sasha asks. “Mine came yesterday.”
Ugh. Hate this subject, too.
Miriam jerks a thumb at the fridge, where the save the date in question is hanging behind a Brooklyn Bridge magnet. “They addressed it to Casey and me together, like we’re an old married couple.”
“I sometimes wonder,” Sasha deadpans. “Weddings are expensive. So what if they didn’t want to waste an extra stamp?”
“Especially since Casey’s going to bail anyway,” Miriam intones.
I glare at her. She smirks back.
I hadn’t even … How on earth could she know that? Mir and I have been best friends since we were eleven, but sometimes I think she’s well and truly psychic. I was planning to bail on the wedding. I just haven’t come up with a creative excuse yet.
Sasha pins me with her mature, woman-about-town look. “Case, you have to go. I know it’s gonna be awkward seeing your ex as a groomsman and all—”
“Never said I wasn’t going.”
“But Jack and Jill were your friends, too.”
“Can we not? I’m begging.” I press my hands to my temples, feigning a headache. After the last couple of hours, thinking about the guy I broke up with on graduation day—and all the reasons why that choice was the right one—is simply too much to bear.
“Fine.” Sasha holds up her palms in submission. “Let’s talk about New Year’s Eve. Are we still planning to go to Nashville?”
Miriam arches her eyebrows, gestures between me and her. “Why are you asking us as if we had any part in that plan?”
“Come on, guys,” Sasha whines. “I want to go so bad, and I need you locals to show me how to ride the mechanical bulls on Broadway.”
“The key,” I say, propping my foot on the fourth chair, “is to flirt with the guy working the bull so he takes it easy on you for ten whole seconds.”
Miriam nods sagely. “Spilling your drink all over your legs a couple of minutes beforehand helps, too. It makes your thighs stick to the leather.”
Sasha blinks. “Neither of you have done it, have you.”
“Of course not.” Miriam sounds genuinely offended.
“Well then.” Sasha crosses her arms. “All three of us are riding the mechanical bull in December, and whoever falls off the fastest has to solo-perform ‘Rocky Top’ at a karaoke bar on wine night.”
I laugh deep in my chest. “Hand to God, Sasha, you have never met an experience you couldn’t turn into a challenge.”