Chapter 13
When we arrive at Rose’s party at nine o’clock, she is already a particularly lethal combination of drunk and hyper and maybe a little high, and her level of enthusiasm borders on alarming.
“Hey, you!” Rose shrieks at Harrison, not even bothering to acknowledge me or Jo.
After Harrison revealed that Rose had also invited him to this party when he stopped by the coffee shop earlier this week, I begged him to accompany me.
Unfortunately, I am now realizing her crush is exponentially stronger under the influence.
Even I’m not that enthusiastic about seeing Harrison, and I’ve been in love with him for almost ten years.
“Ohmygod, so you two do know each other?” she asks. She has to yell over the music.
“We went to college together,” Harrison says.
That’s one way to put it.
“I KNEW it!” Rose shouts. “I LOVE this. Emma, now you can stop being boring at work and tell me embarrassing stories about Harrison!” She shoots Harrison a saucy look, and Harrison looks like he regrets all his life choices.
“Harrison doesn’t do anything embarrassing,” I say at the same time Harrison says, “I’ve never done anything embarrassing.”
Rose doubles over in a fit of giggles, and when I make eye contact with Harrison, his brown eyes crinkle as his dimples appear.[*1] Jo rolls her eyes next to us, but I can see from the twitch at the corner of her lips that she’s enjoying this. Just like old times, I suppose.
“Not even that time I spilled an entire beer on your shirt?” he whispers, taking advantage of a quiet moment as Rose gets distracted by someone doing a keg stand.
“At my twenty-first birthday party, you mean?” I scoff. “Please. I was delighted. That’s the coming-of-legal-drinking-age version of getting sprayed with champagne. I think I never washed the shirt again.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Well, one of us has to be embarrassing.”
Harrison chuckles, and when we make eye contact, we hold it for a bit too long, music fading into the background.
Jo clears her throat, and Harrison and I jump as if we’ve been caught red-handed. “You two are ridiculous,” Jo says.
“But you love us,” Harrison volleys back. Jo playfully slaps his arm.
I love you, I think. Jo looks at me as if she can tell what I’m thinking, her face a mixture of warning and encouragement. Tell him, she says with her eyes. But if you tell him, you better not fuck it up.
Except I would fuck it up, because I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, and also my vagina doesn’t work, and also I don’t know how to act like a normal human being around him. Also, I have a date tomorrow. With someone who is not him.
The entire party is crowded into Rose’s living room, and the only light is from string lights—Christmas lights, to be specific—hung between secondhand bookshelves and Command hooks. A Himalayan salt lamp glimmers in the corner, and a guy holding a blunt leans forward and licks it.
“Why are we here?” I ask, leaning into Harrison’s side as he stares at the salt lamp and shivers with disgust.
He bumps his shoulder into mine. “I’m here because you told me to be here.”
“You literally told me you were going.”
“I told you I was invited,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “There is a massive difference.”
“Ugh. I had to come. I need my co-worker to like me.”
“I’m your co-worker, and I like you,” Jo offers.
I groan. “You’re my boss. And my friend. You’re obligated to like me. But Rose, on the other hand, thinks I’m lame. Why am I so boring?”
“You’re not boring,” Harrison says. “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.” He blinks, then looks back at the Himalayan salt lamp, his ears turning red.[*2]
You’re interesting, too. Actually, I’m interested in you, I think.
I think it so loudly the words almost come out, and maybe they would if Jo weren’t shooting me a slightly crazed look, but just at that moment someone puts on “Timber” (you better move, you better dance, etc.) and turns the speaker up to full volume.
“SHOT?!” Rose screams at us, balancing three red Solo cups between her hands.
Jo and I take them from her immediately, but Harrison takes it more cautiously, peering into the cup. “And just to confirm. You poured this yourself ?” he asks.
“Yep,” she says, then gives him a look most appropriately described as salacious. “Poured it just for you.”
I take the shot without waiting for them. It burns my throat—vodka, for sure. Something cheap. Something I should’ve stopped drinking after college but definitely have had more recently than that.
“Cheers,” I say, gasping for breath. Harrison chuckles, then knocks back his own shot.
Two hours later, I’m three shots in, and I’ve decided Rose is both my favorite co-worker and also my least favorite person of all time.
She brought Harrison an additional two shots, touched his arm twice, and tucked her hair behind her ear while making eye contact five times.
That’s not normal. Straight hair stays behind your ears without incessant touching. I know that from experience.
When Harrison takes a bathroom break and Jo gets pulled into a conversation with some recent college graduate who wanted to hear everything there was to know about home-dyeing your hair the exact shade of burnt auburn that Jo has been rocking for ten years, Rose takes the opportunity of my moment of solitude to part the crowd and approach me.
She leans into my ear as if to whisper, then yells, “I have a secret to tell you.”
“I promise you, Rose,” I say, “your crush on Harrison is not a secret.”
She smirks, then takes a sip of her beer. “My secret is that I know Harrison has a crush on you.”
My mouth drops open, but she’s too busy drinking to take in my full reaction. “Give me this,” I hiss, grabbing the cup out of her hand. “You’re clearly drunk.”
“Ugh!” She swats at me as if I’m a fly. “Ugh! You suck. That’s the point.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demand.
“You took my drink!”
I push the cup back into her hands, and beer splatters onto both of us. We let out a simultaneous “Ugh!”
“Fine,” she grumbles, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Yes, I did have a crush on Harrison. Until like five minutes ago when I saw how he looks at you when he thinks no one is watching, and then I realized I have no shot with him.”
I glance at the bathroom door. Still closed. “How does he look at me?”
Rose ignores the question. “Listen,” she says, reaching out and grasping my arm with a sticky hand. “In the spirit of sisterhood, I’m going to let you have this one. As a welcome to Boston gift.”
I blink at her. “What?”
She removes her hand from my arm and snaps her fingers in my face. “Harrison, dumbass. I’m going to let you have him. Unless you’re not interested in men and/or you have bad taste in men, in which case I’m stealing him back.”
“I think you’re probably wrong about Harrison. He’s been telling anyone who will listen that we’re friends and always have been friends. He’s going through a breakup. And I think he’s into casual dating now. Like, dating apps and all that. That’s not really my speed.”
“I’m definitely not wrong. I’m incredibly observant.” She widens her eyes so aggressively a vein pops in her temple. “You can’t possibly tell me I’m the first person to tell you this.”
I grunt in acknowledgment. “Jo says we couldn’t stay away from each other if the fate of the world depended on it.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right. That’s the vibe I’m getting from the way he looks at you. And to be honest, the way you look back. There’s a lot of chemistry happening there. Like, sexual chemistry. To clarify.”
The vodka churns in my stomach. “Do we know each other well enough to be having this conversation? Like, am I going to get in trouble with HR?”
Rose snorts. “What HR? Jo? And besides, we wouldn’t get punished for this sisterhood. It was meant to be. We’re, like, the same person.”
The Himalayan salt lamp flickers as someone bumps into the table. “Sorry, how exactly are we the same person?”
“We have the same job.” She puts up one finger.
“I’m pretty sure you also have a crush on Harrison based on how red your face is, so we have the same taste in men.
” Second finger. “I don’t know this, but I’d bet money you live in a shitty apartment.
” Third finger. “I know you’re older, but you give off the vibe of a college student.
Or at least a recent graduate.” Fourth finger.
“And in summary, you’re a mess; I’m a mess. Same person.”
I do not feel good about any of those comparisons.
The bathroom door opens, and as Harrison exits and scans the room, there’s a slight frown on his face, the left corner of his mouth tugged downward.
He brings a hand up to his forehead, brushing the waves away from his eyes, and as soon as he pulls his hand away, they plop back into place one by one.
He finally spots me, and I don’t bother to hide that I’ve been staring at him.
His eyebrows relax, the left corner of his mouth shifts from down to up, and a dimple slowly forms. When neither of us breaks eye contact, the right corner of his mouth joins the upward trajectory, creating a full soft smile.
[*3] I’ve been known to define this look as affectionate.
Generally, it’s platonic, but in this moment, I’m not so certain.
“Oh, he is whipped,” Rose whispers.
“I don’t know what that means,” I whisper back. Harrison keeps looking at me as he walks.
“It means I’m going to kill you if you mess this up,” she says, then disappears into the crowd.
I take a sip of shitty beer to force myself to stop looking at him. I think it’s Natty Light. Liquor stores should only sell this to college seniors. If you’re twenty-two or older, you have no business drinking this.
Nonetheless, I take another sip, and as Harrison walks up to me and my vision goes pink and heart-eyed, I realize I may have made a grave error.
I’ve gotten drunk on shitty vodka and cheap beer.