“What if I wanted something else?” Alex grumbles.
“You didn’t.” Dupe Leo grabs the Angel’s Envy from the shelf behind him and tops up the makings of an old-fashioned.
“Freddy, this is Casey,” Alex says.
The bartender looks at Alex, then turns his gaze on me. “Oh, you—I thought you just walked in at the same time. Sorry.” He reaches out a sticky, orange-scented hand for me to shake. I push my palm against his, and Freddy’s eyes dance.
“I do have other friends besides you, Frederick,” Alex says.
“You really don’t.”
I look at Alex. “We’re friends?”
I meant that as a genuine question—Are we? Friends?—but Freddy laughs like I’m the funniest thing since Andy Samberg. “What would you like to drink, Casey?”
I lean forward on my elbows, considering my options. “Ummmm,” I mumble, stalling. God, I’m so indecisive. Why can’t I have a “drink” like Alex apparently has a “drink”？ And seriously, Angel’s Envy? In this economy?
“Should I make something up?” Freddy suggests.
“Can you make it nut-allergen-friendly and less than eleven dollars?”
He shrugs. “Sure.”
“Go for it.”
The hum of voices coupled with Shwayze music fill the silence between us as Freddy whips up my drink. He pulls apart a grapefruit, and the spray of citrus tickles my nose. I wrap my hands around my elbows and take a deep breath, relaxing into the bar stool. Beside me, ice clinks in Alex’s glass while he shakes it.
It’s starting to settle in—how novel this is. The two of us together outside of work hours, and on my suggestion, at that.
I really, really need to apologize to Alex.
I really, really need to find the right words.
“This a date?” Freddy asks, as if he can sense my inner turmoil. “Did you finally download Hinge, Alex?”
He spits onto the counter. “Fuck’s sake, dude—”
“We’re coworkers!” I squeak, blushing.
“Oh, thank God.” Freddy shakes his head. “Alex, I was going to throw hands if you brought a date to this bar so you could force me to third wheel.”
Completely against every rational thought telling me not to, I am dying to sneak off to the bathroom and redownload Hinge to see if he’s … found me.
Yes, I have a profile. Yes, I download, use, and delete the app （in that order） every couple of months. It has led to bad sex, good sex, chlamydia （now expelled from my body）， an adorable picnic in Central Park with a guy who was sweet but told me at the end of the date he was only practicing so he could ask out his childhood crush when he moved home next month, and a guy I went on three dates with before realizing he was my Subway Nemesis’s roommate.
When it comes to dating in New York, my policy has always been: I’m not looking, and I’m not not looking. Miriam once phrased it as window-shopping. Try before you buy. It’s what I wished I had done in college, but when a handsome older student basically picks you out of a lineup and makes you feel chosen, you don’t ever pause to consider you never really chose him back.
I’m not making that mistake again. Clawing your way out of the wrong relationship is always harder than waiting for the right one.
Alex pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales. “It’s been a long week, that’s all. We’re just … commemorating it with booze.”
“Uh-huh.” Freddy strains the freshly squeezed juice into a shaker, narrowing his eyes at Alex. “You run into your dad or something?”
Alex glares.
Freddy just smiles innocently. “You should have led with that, Al. I could have made yours a double.”
“It’s fine,” Alex says, waving a hand. “Nothing to write home about.” But then he takes a big slurp of his drink.
“Right, because you getting a job at his own company under his own nose is soooo not a thing.”
“I didn’t do it under his nose,” Alex retorts.
“Uh-huh.” Freddy passes my drink across the bar.
I take a careful sip, savoring the flavors on my tongue. Freddy throws a towel over his shoulder as my face lights up. “Hey, that’s great!”
He winks at me. “If you’re being forced to hang out with Alexander, it needed to be.”
Alex rolls his eyes and turns to me. “Freddy and I went to boarding school together for eight years. We’ve known each other since puberty.”
“Did you go to Harvard, too?”
Freddy pulls a face. “Hell no. I took my high school diploma and brought it straight to the New York City bar scene, where it belonged. Been here seven years now, but Alex and I stayed in touch. We both had those fractured families to keep us close.”
Alex traces the rim of his glass with his middle finger and shakes his head in exasperation, but he’s smiling down at the bar top. Freddy wanders down to the other end to check on the rest of his patrons, and I sip my grapefruit-brown-sugar-basil-bourbon drink, which is quickly becoming the best alcoholic beverage I’ve ever had.
I tilt my head at Alex. “So, before boarding school?”
He grimaces, palming the back of his neck. “International school, in a city outside of Seoul. I lived there with my mom from the ages of three to eleven.”
Every time he answers one of my questions, I come up with five more. It’s becoming a problem. But I don’t know if I can ask them because I’m not sure if the answers fall under Alex’s definition of my “owed explanation.” Freddy offering up details is one thing. Me seeking them out on my own is entirely different.
Maybe now would be a good time to start my line of inquiry about Dougie. I almost do it, but it just feels …
Wrong.
“What about you?” Alex asks. I blink, meeting his eyes. He’s watching me with exacting, focused attention.
“What about me?” I repeat.
“You said you’re from Tennessee?”
“Oh. Yeah, I’m from Nashville.”
“Are you a fan of country music?”
I tilt my head from side to side in consideration. “Middle of the road, I’d say. My dad’s a songwriter. He’s done some Billboard hits for a few big-name country artists, but lately he’s been into writing folk and bluegrass.”
“And your mom?”
“Died when I was six.”
His shoulders point toward me, and I catch a whiff of his cologne. His lips part in careful hesitation before he says, softly, “Mine too, when I was eleven.”
“Cancer?” I guess, my heart pinching for him.
“Yeah. Ovarian.”
“Lung.”
Alex smiles, just a little. “There it is.”
“What?”
“Our thing in common.”
I snort. “How maudlin.”
Alex shrugs. “So it goes.”
“Got any allergies?” I ask. “That’s a much less depressing thing to have in common.”
“None.”
“Must be nice,” I growl.
Alex smirks. “Tell me them.”
“You got three hours?”
“Then make me a copy of your spreadsheet,” Alex says. “I know you have one. It’s probably color coordinated, each allergen listed by category and subcategory, cross-referenced against level of severity.”