Rory
Gareth, an awkward sort of a guy I’ve spent most of the year working alongside, sits across from me.
Seemingly enraptured by his own conversation about our CPA certifications.
I stopped listening twenty minutes ago because the Grease soundtrack started lightly playing in the background of this restaurant.
This really strange restaurant.
I can’t say I’ve ever been to a Galentine’s brunch, even in New York, that feels more like an after-hours club in the eighties. Like straight from a Leonardo DiCaprio movie, when coke was sexy and fur was okay.
To be honest, I’d completely forgotten it was almost Valentine’s Day, which is why I said yes when Gareth offered to throw me a going-away party.
My eyes drop to the pink paper heart attached to the front of the menu promoting the specials for today: $5 Linguine and Lo Mein.
What is that? Definitely not the kind of fusion I’ve come to know and appreciate.
But here we are.
“Hey, when is everybody else showing up?” I say with a smile before I take a sip of my complimentary mimosa, heavy on the cheap champagne.
Gareth stops nerding out about work and grins back at me.
“Uh-oh. I didn’t tell you?” My face answers that question, but he brushes it off. “Maybe I forgot . . .” He takes a very long sip of his drink before saying, “It’s just me and you . . .”
“Say what?”
Silence.
You know when your phone does that emergency alert sound? The one designed to tell you something awful is about to happen? That’s what’s going off in my head right now as Olivia Newton-John croons “Hopelessly Devoted” in the background.
See, I’ve known for a whole year that this guy has a crush on me, but I’ve literally never given him any indication I was interested back. Because I’m definitely not.
He uses crystals as deodorant, and not even the ones designed for it . . . He just bought some random ones at Hot Topic in the mall and constantly rubs them on his pits during work hours.
Gareth wags his eyebrows like he’s letting me in on a secret as he licks his lips. Ewww, no. I wince, realizing I’ve been set up . . . in a possible elaborate love trap. It’s making me want to gnaw off a limb.
I take another hit of my mimosa before drawing my brows together, hoping beyond hope that I’m wrong as I say, “What do you mean, just me and you? Like, for brunch? Because we’re meeting everyone else after?”
Say yes, or I’m decidedly crawling out of a very small window in the bathroom.
Gareth leans forward, his elbows on the table, and I can’t help but stare at a singular nose hair peeking out from his right nostril. It’s waving at me with each breath he takes.
“Come on, Roars . . . let’s stop pretending,” he says like I’m missing the point.
I’d love to be missing it . . . Please, let it fly right by me. Also, Roars? Who is Roars? That’s not my nickname . . . no, no, no. This is not happening. I don’t have the energy or patience for this.
Why are men so . . . themselves?
And not to blame the victim . . . me . . . but this is my fault. I should’ve known better than to accept this invitation. I’ve spent the better part of the last three years with my nose in a spreadsheet, barely saying a hello to anyone else in our corporate office.
I mean . . . who was coming to say goodbye?
“Gareth,” I start, “I don’t think we’re on the same—”
I don’t get to finish my thought because he says, “Shhh,” then bites his bottom lip.
All I can picture is an old Google image my older sister made me look at of a boy band from the ’90s called Color Me Badd . . .
It was awful, and so is this.
“This last year . . .” he says dramatically, before taking a deep breath. “It’s meant a lot to me. And who are we kidding? From the moment I joined Baker and Fields, it’s been the me and you show, amiright? We’ve been inseparable.”
His eyes drop to the table and then flick back up to mine. I flinch.
Is he being coy? Are men allowed to be unironically coy?
I shake my head. “Gareth, we worked for the same partner . . . we shared an office. That’s not chemistry, that’s geography.”
I watch him swallow as he slowly slides his arms across the table as if I’m expected to hold his hand.
Oh no . . . no no no no no no no.
“Um, Gareth . . .”
Momentarily, I think I’m saved by the bell because the music in the restaurant changes as the lights dim. He keeps staring at me, but I start looking around.
Come to think of it, I did notice a sign when we walked in saying something about entertainment, so hopefully this is it.
But Gareth doesn’t seem to notice, because he says, “You don’t have to be nervous. I know you’ve felt something stirring . . .”
Only my nausea. Once I actually saw him lift his hand from under the conference table and smell his fingers . . . Where were they, Gareth? It’s a question that haunts me.
“Listen—” I rush out, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he locks his eyes with mine and cuts in, “I have a confession to make . . .”
Oh god. A panicked laugh leaves me. I’d literally rather hear he has bodies hidden in his basement than what I think he’s about to say.
“You know what . . .” I toss out quickly. “Why not keep it to yourself? I think people share too much nowadays, and they say mystery is key.” I hitch my finger over my shoulder. “I’m gonna head to the ladies’.” And actually crawl out of the window.
Who cares if it’s small, I’ll happily break a rib to fit. I start to stand, but Gareth all but lays over the table to grab my hands.
I squeal. “Oh my god.”
He’s looking up at me. It’s disconcerting.
“Did you know that tomorrow two comets will cross, and it’s been four decades since the first time that happened?”
“No,” I eke out, trying to remember a TikTok video I saw at one a.m. about how to break out of someone’s hold . . . I think it involved a belt, so that’s not really helpful in this moment. Shit.
He clears his throat too loudly, making my brows shoot up. “We’re like those comets . . .”
“I didn’t know you forty years ago . . .”
He shakes his head. “We’re meant to be. There’s no mystery in how perfect we are together,” he rushes out. “Think about it. I even know how you take your coffee . . .”
“You’re in charge of it for the whole office . . . You know everyone’s.”
The “Cupid Shuffle” starts playing over the speakers as I tug my hands, unsuccessfully freeing them. What I wouldn’t do to have sweaty hands so they’d just slip right out because, Jesus, he’s really got a grip on me.
His voice grows louder. “I understand you, Rory . . . Remember that time I calmed you down after Mr. Baker yelled at you?”
My eyebrows hit my hairline. “You didn’t calm me down . . . He was yelling at you.”
It’s as if it’s opposite day and he’s hearing nothing of what I’m saying, because he closes his eyes and chuckles, saying my name a few times over.
I look around, hoping someone else is seeing this and will save me. There are tons of women here, I just need one girl’s girl to help me dislodge myself from this nerd. But instead of help, all I get is a disco ball making the room suddenly sparkle.
My head whips around again. What is happening?
A guy I want to call Joe Pesci begins clapping, getting the crowd going. And my face shoots back to Gareth’s, hoping he’s going to release me from this trauma, but he smiles and takes a deep breath, like this is his moment.
No. Don’t say it.
“I like you,” he yells, like some kind of declaration in a rom-com starring Kate Hudson. “Rory . . . I want you to stay in New York and be mine.”
“Nuhooo . . .” I draw out, because this is a horror film made just for me. “Gareth. Take it back . . . please.”
I swallow as we begin to play tug-of-war with my hands and women begin to scream.
“Roarsss . . . my Roars . . .” he says way too romantically.
I shoot to my feet only to hear “Sit down” hurled at me from the table next to us. Gareth licks his lips again, angling them at the tops of my hands. Oh god. That’s too much glistening. Why is there so much spit in his mouth?
My whole body wiggles, our joined hands almost knocking over a water glass. So he stands too, giving up but still holding my hands hostage.
“You are a beauty,” he bellows. I want to die. “A mythical creature. So please, little cutie—”
Good god. He’s reciting homemade poetry. This just keeps getting worse. I wish I knew how to disassociate.
I look over my shoulder again to see a guy in gold short-shorts and angel wings gyrating, much to the delight of the crowd, and to Joe Pesci’s. I feel like I’m losing my mind.
Gareth tugs at my hands for my attention as he yells his dumbetry over the cheering.
“Let’s be together, forever and ever . . . ’cause we are the two most clever . . .”
How do I call in a bomb threat with my mind?
This is the worst day of my life. Because not only am I holding hands with a man I want to kick rocks at, but he thought bringing me to a pre-Valentine’s strip show to declare his love was the winning call. What does this say about me?
I can feel myself start to sweat.
I’m looking all around, the grimace on my face evident, but all I get is “Sit down, losers,” again, from the same horny girl next to us.
This scene will stay with me forever. Because this is either ending in the most hilarious story I tell over and over at every dinner party I attend . . . or . . . it’s the intro to the unsolved mystery of how I was murdered.
“Gareth,” I say sternly, cutting off his poem and finally wringing my hands free with a grunt.
But he stares at me with puppy-dog eyes. Joke’s on you, I wish you had distemper. Please, god, get me out of this.
As if in answer to my prayer, rose petals begin raining down around me, making my shoulders jump. What the hell?
Gareth tries catching them, but I have no interest in Stripper Cupid’s gift.
“No. No, thank you,” I blurt out, plucking them off me and handing them back to him, slapping them into his palm before I face Gareth and motion between us. “This isn’t going to happen . . .”