I laugh and say nothing.
Inside my place, Alex evaluates our smorgasbord of an apartment with a neutral expression. Eclectic throw pillows strewn over a couch we got for free when Miriam’s sorority updated their interior design, the bar cart stacked with bottles of wine, our freestanding coatrack sentinel beside the front door. There’s even a photo wall of me and Miriam—one picture from every year we’ve known each other.
Alex points at the picture of us covered head to toe in mud, smiling in braces and matching purple T-shirts. “Explain?”
My lips tug up at the memory. “Crud Day at our church. It was a youth group fundraising event they held every year. Mud games, tug-of-war, relay races. The year after that photo was taken, we tried turning our T-shirts into crop tops and got kicked off the premises.”
Alex snorts, scanning the other pictures: backstage passes at CMA Fest in high school, general admission camping at Bonnaroo in college, standing in front of a jellyfish tank during a middle school field trip to the Chattanooga aquarium.
“You were pretty cute.” Alex grins at me.
“You were, too,” I echo, thinking of the two lone photos, sparse but precious, in his apartment.
There’s a knock on the door, and I retreat to my room, leaving Alex to answer it while I riffle through the Ikea rack for the jumpsuit Sasha wanted to borrow. It’s going to stop at her midcalf, but if anyone could make that a look it’s her.
Her voice filters through all five hundred square feet of our place. “You’re a life—oh, hey, Alex!”
“Hey,” Alex says. “That looks nasty.”
“Someone spilled three-bean chili all over me,” Sasha seethes. “I was running late as it is, and I need to get to DUMBO before they start the Nets booster campaign.”
I walk into the doorway and hold up the outfit. “Here. Come change in my room.”
“You are the number one bitch,” Sasha says.
I giggle. “What they call me.”
“So. Uh,” she says, closing my door and widening her eyes at me, “Alex is here.”
“Is he?”
“Not that you asked, but I like him better than Lance.”
“Not that you asked, but I like Miguel better than all five of the NBA players you dated senior year.”
She snorts. “Glad we established that.”
After she changes, we walk downstairs together, and Sasha hails a cab while Alex and I meander toward dinner, winding up at an upscale Chinese spot. We order our waiter’s suggestions （minus the cashew chicken, because death trap）， then spend dinner talking about Bite the Hand presentation plans. I can tell from his voice how ready he is for this step. Every emphatic idea that pours from his lips wraps me in a bind, tighter and tighter, suffocating until it transforms into something like hope.
He’s just too infectious of a person. His smile is practically a welcome mat, and when he starts talking, everything narrows down to the sound of his voice, the shape of his words. At least for me it does. Without even trying, Alex is making me believe this launch plan will really work. Because what other possible conclusion is there?
As we head back to my apartment, the sky an inky blot and the air frigid, I wrap my scarf around my neck and breathe warm air into it. Alex turns up the collar of his coat and shoves his bare hands deep in his pockets.
On a corner waiting for a streetlight to turn, he steps up behind me, wraps his arms around my waist. Tongue in cheek, he whispers, “I’ll warm you up soon.” When I twist and look up at him, his eyes are both scorched and laughing.
This is dating.
This is not dating.
This is dating.
This is not dating.
“What job will you do after Bite the Hand launches?” I ask. After, not if. “Will you work for the editor in chief?” My voice is faint, half stolen by the wind.
Alex shakes his head and tugs on the belt loop of my coat to pull me across the street with him. “I technically could, but I’ll probably find something else by next summer.”
I frown. “Like, a different job at LC?”
“A different job, not at LC.”
“Oh,” I whisper.
This is not dating.
“They’ll need more staff on the editorial and IT side,” Alex reasons. “Which isn’t my area of expertise. And I’ve got friends in Silicon Valley that could use the project management help.”
I scoff. “You weren’t kidding.”
“About what?”
“About your living situation being ephemeral.”
Alex looks at me, the lines between his eyebrows drawing together as we start climbing the stairs of my building. “That’s not always by choice.”
“This sounds like a choice. One year, and you’re out the door? How long will your next job last, six months?”
“Maybe.” His voice is too calm. It’s unnerving. “This was a project-oriented position. Project complete, job over. And anyway, why does it matter to you? You’ll be in London.”
The crazy thing about it—the weirdest, most bizarre part—is that the more I learn about Alex, the more certain I am that I have to go.
He treats me like a boomerang, pulling me close to whisper against my heart about what I need to experience myself before flinging me out into the wind. I’m even surer of London now than I was sitting in that HR meeting with Molly last August, and Alex Harrison is, without a doubt, part of the reason why. But it doesn’t change my confusion over why he thinks of himself as rootless, untethered, when that’s not the way he wants to be. He got the rose of Sharon tattoo as a reminder that some things can be permanent. So why doesn’t he give this city longer than ten months?
The only thing I can figure is he’s chasing something that keeps slipping through his fingers.
I unlock the door to my apartment and step inside. “I just don’t want you to screw yourself over, getting a reputation as a one-and-done kind of employee.”
Alex shrugs off his coat and rubs at his forehead. “What you’re describing is a very legitimate occupation known as freelancing.”
I frown. “Is this because of your dad?” I ask. “Are you … disappointed he’s not part of the company anymore?”
Alex pushes his hands through his hair, loosening the black strands. “Of course I’m disappointed,” he says, voice like gravel. “There’s no question part of me took this job with the hopes that Robert could be a different kind of role model for me, if not the father I deserved. But his resignation isn’t why I’m planning to move on. That’s just who I am, Case. It’s in my nature to want a new diversion.”
This is definitely, no mistaking it, not dating.
I put my hands on either side of his face, anyway, because like it or not, this man has burrowed his way into my bones, and even if he hears something unrequited in my voice, I don’t care so long as the right message reaches him.
“You are the kind of person people should bend over backward for to keep in their lives, Alex.” My fingers trace along his jawline, past his cheeks, up to the corners of his brown eyes. “Your aunt and your cousins see that, and so does Freddy, and so do I. It’s a real fucking shame Robert won’t bend for you, but that’s his shame to bear, not yours.”