28. Bea
28
Bea
It’s a Christmas miracle—a day late, but there’s an open parking spot right in front of my building. We unload my bags and Charlie helps me carry my stuff upstairs. It’s late in the afternoon the Saturday after Christmas, since we lingered as long as we could with our family before they had to leave for their flights in Albany. We’re just going to drop my stuff off and say hi to Brin and Marco before I drive over to Charlie’s. He wants to show me his new place and I’ll stay the night tonight.
I have the next week off—the Heartly offices are mostly closed between Christmas and New Year’s, and Nash is still out of town. Charlie asked me to show him around the city, and I’ve come up with an agenda: ice-skating at Rockefeller Center, snowman building after a fresh snowfall in Central Park, drinks at my favorite bar, and a colleague at Heartly invited me to a New Year’s Eve party. I also asked Clara for restaurant recommendations, though I apologized for bothering her on her vacation.
“Please,” she’d said. “If there’s one thing I adore about living in the city, it’s being my friends’ go-to person for the best food recs. Now, have you been to that Javanese place I told you about?”
I unlock the door, swinging it open and striding down the hallway to the living room. “I’m home!”
There’s a crash to my right and I glance over just in time to see a flash of skin and Brin and Marco’s bedroom door closing.
Charlie and I glance at each other. And then I catch sight of the living room. There’s wrapping paper everywhere . Rolls of bright silver and blue and patterns of red and green. There are empty tubes, scissors, tape, and shreds of cast-off wrapping paper.
It’s complete chaos.
“Everyone okay in there?” I call out, officially worried about my roommates.
“Yup, just fine.” Brin’s voice is high and muffled, and there’s a scrape and a bang and then she opens the door.
She’s wearing a shirt about two sizes too big, and it’s one I’m pretty sure belongs to Marco. It falls to her knees and I’m not sure if she’s wearing anything underneath.
Behind her, Marco has his face buried in his hands, sitting shirtless on the edge of the bed.
“So, um...” Brin bites her lip and her fingers play with the hem of her shirt. “We may have done a bit more than kissing. Oh, hey, Charlie.”
Charlie waves.
“We’re just dropping my stuff off,” I tell her. “We’ll just be a few minutes and then I’m going to Charlie’s.”
Marco removes his hands from his face. His jaw is set, and at odds with Brin’s cherriness. “You don’t have to go, Bea.”
“Yeah, we can be quiet,” Brin chirps.
Charlie chokes on a laugh behind me.
Marco puts his face back in his hands. “That’s not what I meant!”
I hold up a hand, forestalling any further discussion. “Trust me, I want to go to Charlie’s place.”
Brin’s eyes widen. “Wait, are you...” Her fingers bounce back and forth between me and Charlie.
Charlie grins and takes my hand.
“Aw! So cute! Okay.” She leans toward me and drops her voice. “We really need to catch up. Want to come by for brunch tomorrow? I’m off and we can meet at Pieces.”
Pieces is one of the many restaurants in the company Brin works for, and she gets an employee discount. She and some friends regularly go there for brunch, and she’s usually invited me, but I’ve never actually taken her up on the offer before.
“That sounds great.” I’m sure I can tear myself away from Charlie for a bit.
Surprise flashes in her eyes and then she breaks into the biggest grin. “Yes!” She does a fist pump. “Okay, brunch tomorrow. You can tell me all about this”—she gestures at me and Charlie—“and I’ll tell you all about this.” She hikes a thumb over her shoulder and winks at me before closing the door. I can still hear her when she says, “Hear that, Marco? Let’s make it epic.”
Charlie laughs and follows me to my bedroom. He looks around, politely ignoring my mess and zoning in on the framed photographs of my family on the dresser, including one of the pajama pictures with his family from last year, and pictures from Kayla and Jasper’s wedding.
I quickly throw my dirty clothes out of my luggage and toss clean ones in. I don’t bother shouting goodbye to Brin and Marco, though I do hear murmured voices through their door.
“So, how long have your roommates been sleeping together?” Charlie asks me as we get back into the car, laughter in his voice.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it, so I’m guessing it’ll be a very good story,” I say.
“More epic than ours?” he says.
I tilt my head while I pull into traffic, thinking of how this story didn’t just span this year’s holiday but all the Christmases past. And it’s changed the course for every Christmas that’s yet to come.
“No, ours is definitely more epic.”