Chapter 11 #2
“SWIPE RIGHT!” Em shrieks from on top of the coffee table.
I’ve swapped fulfilling my fifteen-year-old Coyote Ugly dreams for the sofa, leaving Em to solo on the karaoke machine she got me for Christmas when we first got our teaching jobs and knew we’d landed the jackpot of getting paid to party all summer long.
Is it old? Yes. Do we only have one CD remaining that isn’t scratched? Also yes.
I’m holding my phone out for her approval. On screen is Morgan 2.0. “He’s wearing a fedora! A V-neck T-shirt! It’s a gym selfie! He’s perfect!” A smile spreads across my face while Em attempts to fight the moonlight. And can’t.
My thumb hovers over the image, ready to swipe right when I remember Xander.
Xander, who I promised I would not spend my days “boning it.” Xander, who I’ll be seeing in two hours. Fucking Xander.
I take a screenshot of Morgan 2.0 and open my messages to Xander.
I attach the photo and type out a message: This is who I’m declining for you.
Send.
I throw my phone across the sofa. And right when I think LeAnn Rimes is done, the song starts up again. I look up at Em, who casts out a fishing rod and reels me in. With this much vodka running through my veins—I can’t help but oblige. I take Em’s hand and she helps me up on the table.
She hands me the only working mic, like she’s handing over the reins to the show.
Considering she’s the self-proclaimed thespian in this duo, I am honored, and so I prowl around on the coffee table like I’ve just arrived in New York to pursue our dreams of becoming songwriters while working for tips.
And I too, cannot fight the moonlight, no matter how hard I try.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see my phone lighting up and I immediately know it’s Xander. He replied. I know it’s going to be a master class in dry humor. Instead of dreading it, I feel every inch of skin prickle with anticipation.
Em must track my smile back to my phone because after she hands me one of the two shots of vodka, she walks over to the discarded phone to see what’s distracted me mid-performance. “You know who you should swipe right on?” I know the answer before she says it. “XANDER!”
She raises her shot glass up at me from across the living room, beaming. I hold mine up, saluting her. And damn it, I find myself smiling back.
“You!” I say/shout/slur in Xander’s general direction, pointing/waving/swaying.
Oh, she’s drunk, all right. I’m momentarily distracted by the Uber driver who floors the engine in reverse, grinds the clutch, and kicks up dust as he leaves the parking lot.
Was he not happy with me serenading him at the top of my lungs?
Blame Em, passing her panache onto me via vodka shots.
I blink a few times before my eyes land back on Xander, standing by his car.
He’s got that dumbass smirk plastered across his face.
He holds up his phone, arm outstretched, the screen displayed for me to see.
Yeah, like I can read that from nine yards away.
I begin dragging my feet toward him, slinging my bag over my shoulder and forgetting that there’s a rogue bottle of wine in there (oh yay, wine …
tonight is already looking up). That’s how I end up stumbling the last few steps.
That’s how I end up officially entering Xander’s personal space.
The unexpected close contact makes me breathe in sharply and definitely not gasp in his presence.
“Hutchinson?” he says, smirk ever present.
“Miller?” I say, mimicking his tone, although I’m currently not a good judge of whether I pulled it off. The ever-growing smirk on his face tells me I did not.
“You good?” His smile unable to smile anymore, for he is wearing his biggest smile. And so he raises his eyebrows at me.
“Good?” I say, scoffing. “I’m fuckin’ gre—” I smoosh my words a little too close together to get away with it. “Great. With a T,” I say. Smooth. Nice recovery.
He studies me, so I hold his gaze, which is infinitely easier when your reflexes have slowed significantly over the last few hours.
Then, he tilts his head at his phone, waiting for an explanation. I reach out and grab his phone. He lets me take it, so I bring it right to my face to read whatever is sooooo important to him.
The messages from me.
I scroll to the top of the thread and land on the photo of Xander with Cardi B.
“I still don’t understand how you were at a Cardi B gig,” I say, more to the photo than to the man standing in front of me. He laughs at this. That full-body, deep and husky one. “You go to gigs?”
“Keep scrolling,” he says. I start scrolling, but the tiny words blur on the screen.
Why does he want me to read the messages I sent him when I was in the Uber?
After I sent him a screenshot of Morgan 2.
0, who I would (sigh) not be sleeping with, he texted back and said, “You’re so welcome,” to which I texted back and said, “Why am I thanking you?” to which he texted back and said, “That guy doesn’t know how to satisfy you,” to which I barked a laugh in the back of the Uber before texting back, complete with eyeroll emoji, “What? And you volunteer yourself as tribute?” I threw in a laughing emoji and proceeded to put my phone in my bag, extremely satisfied with my response.
Instead of rereading this, I shove Xander’s phone back into his hands. He takes it.
“Your point?” I say.
He studies me. Again with the staring. I widen my eyes and lean in, imitating him.
“Holy shit, you’re drunk,” he says, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s delighting in the discovery.
Cat’s out the bag. Alcohol’s out the bag too.
“If finding out my dad is getting married in a few weeks and then proceeding to drink a bottle of Tito’s with Emily while she forces me to do living room karaoke all afternoon,” I say, like I’m a mumble rapper, words just blending in together, “then yeah, I’m drunk.
” This time I over pronounce everything to within an inch of being equally unrecognizable.
His eyes roam my face at this admission.
Shit. I hold my breath, hoping that if I don’t move, he won’t ask about why my dad getting remarried drove me to day drink.
While our chemistry might be repeating itself like the dodgy half-eaten burrito you can’t help but take a bite of the next morning after a particularly ambitious night at the bar, there’s absolutely no need to connect with him.
Then he makes the right decision by cocking his eyebrows and saying, “What song?”
“ ‘Can’t Fight the Moonlight,’ ” I say, straight-faced. Daring him to make fun of me. “Want to know a secret?” I lean forward, not realizing how close we’ve actually been this whole time, because now, I can practically taste his neck. Sweet and salty.
“Sure.” He tilts his head ever so slightly to me, and I feel his breath hit the shell of my ear. It sends shockwaves through me.
With Tito’s running through my veins, my filter is nonexistent, and I let out a squeal as my body squirms and I jump back, the movement causing my bag to pull me off balance.
Again. This time, instead of watching and waiting to see if my body will recenter itself, Xander decides intervention is necessary and puts his hands on my shoulders, steadying me.
“What was that?” he says, still holding me. It has the centering effect my balance is incapable of giving me right now. Rock solid.
“What are you talking about?” I say, playing dumb, which seems to pair perfectly with vodka on the rocks.
“The squeal?” He must decide that I’m capable (just) of holding myself up because he lets go of me.
“A bug. Landed. On me,” I say, impressed with my improv.
He bends down so his head fills my vision, curls curling, and says, “And the secret?”
“Wine,” I breathe out in a terrible whisper. This time unable to hide my amusement. “I’m getting you drunk.”
I start to stomp toward the building, and this time, I am nimble like a dancer because I do not stumble, sway, or struggle to put one foot in front of the other.
I’m basically sober at this point. All the more reason to open that bottle of wine.
I don’t plan on nursing a hangover before falling asleep.
“I’m getting you water,” he says, and I turn around in dramatic fashion and find him assessing me. I stomp back a few steps so I’m standing in front of him.
“Whatever,” I say, pulling on his T-shirt sleeve to bring him in line with me.
He reaches over and hooks his fingers under the strap of my bag, slipping it down my arm and slinging it over his.
This catches me by surprise in the sense that no man has ever carried my bag for me.
“What. Are you doing?” I say aloud, unable to process my shock internally.
“Carrying your bag,” he says, shrugging like he does it all the time. “I fear your magnum of wine is trying to take you out.”
“Chivalry’s not dead,” I say, like I know what the latest reports are on chivalry. Because I sure as shit don’t know from firsthand experience.
“No, it’s in the kitchen where you ghosted it,” he says, fucking flawless with his comeback as ever.
“You know there’s too smart. And I fear you just crossed that line,” I say looking over at him, one eyebrow cocked. He tips up one side of his mouth in a half smile. Almost apologetic. Like he’s acknowledging he can’t help being this clever.
“I’m not just going to get you legless, Miller. I’m going to ply you with so much wine it’ll render you speechless,” I say, vowing to get Xander so drunk, I have the final say.
“Red or white?” he says, accepting my challenge.
Bring it on.