21. Midnight Initiative
Chapter twenty-one
Midnight Initiative
Micah
Dex has been gone for almost four hours, and somehow he’s still the loudest person in the room.
My phone buzzes against my thigh while Griffin is explaining, for the third time, why Cami cannot retroactively change the rules of the game just because she’s losing.
I glance down
Dex
Update from the trenches:
someone has already thrown up in a planter
it’s 9:47
A second message appears before I finish reading the first.
Dex
tips are disgusting, so I forgive humanity
I smile despite myself.
Cami is sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the coffee table, leggings tucked into thick socks, cards fanned in one hand. She catches the expression immediately.
“That was Dex, right?”
Nobody else picked up their phones.
“Who else?”
Griffin looks up from his own cards. “What happened now?”
I read the planter update aloud.
Cami groans. “Ew.”
From the armchair beside me, Ronan takes a slow drink of whiskey and says, “This is why I prefer libraries.”
“Library patrons don’t tip,” Griffin points out.
“They also rarely vomit into decorative landscaping.”
“Rarely?” Cami asks.
Ronan gives her a look. “Public libraries contain multitudes.”
I laugh and put my phone back on my thigh.
The house is quieter without Dex, but not actually quiet. The television is on low in the background, tuned to one of the New Year’s broadcasts, even though none of us has really watched it.
Cami made too many snacks because apparently New Year’s Eve requires at least three kinds of dip. Griffin has been steadily eating all of them while insisting he’s not hungry.
There are drinks on the table.
Nothing serious.
I’ve had one beer over the last two hours.
Ronan has been nursing the same whiskey long enough that the ice is mostly gone.
Griffin switched to water after one beer, and Cami has champagne chilling in the refrigerator because she informed us at approximately six-thirty that midnight without champagne was “incorrect.”
It is not a party.
That’s probably why I like it.
No crowds. No shouting over music. No strangers pressing too close.
Just the four of us scattered around the living room in sweatpants and T-shirts while Dex financially exploits drunk people downtown.
He’d been completely unconcerned about missing this.
That part mattered more than I expected it to.
When he left for work, he’d kissed me in the kitchen with one hand already reaching for his keys.
“Have fun tonight,” he’d said.
“You too.”
“Oh, I will. I’m going to make rent in like four hours.”
I laughed, but he’d caught the back of my neck before I could move away.
“And don’t sit around feeling guilty because I’m working.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
His eyebrows went up.
“Okay. Maybe a little.”
Then he’d kissed me again, softer that time.
“I’ll be too busy to miss you until at least one-thirty.”
“Very romantic.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Apparently that phrase has infected all of us.
He’d left smiling.
And now, hours later, I haven’t had to wonder once whether he’s bothered by the fact that I’m here. With Cami, Griffin, and Ronan—especially Ronan.
That’s the part I try not to think about too directly.
I’m not particularly successful.
“Micah.”
I blink.
Cami is staring at me.
“Your turn.”
I look down at the cards in my hand and realize I have absolutely no idea what happened during the last thirty seconds.
Griffin smiles.
Not enough to be obvious.
Enough that I know he noticed.
“Sorry.” I play a card mostly at random.
Cami’s entire face lights up. “Oh, you fucked up.”
“I gathered that.”
“You gave me exactly what I needed.”
Ronan looks at my cards, then at hers. “He did.”
I turn toward him. “Whose side are you on?”
“The side of objective reality.”
“Helpful.”
His mouth curves slightly.
He has been smiling more around me lately.
Or maybe I notice it more.
That’s the problem with wanting someone for long enough. Eventually you stop knowing whether anything actually changed or whether you’ve simply cataloged every tiny thing they do until all of it feels significant.
Except things have changed.
Christmas Eve changed something.
Ronan’s hand at the back of my neck in his father’s office.
His fingers in my hair.
That should have made this easier.
Instead, it has made every interaction feel like standing one step from the edge of something while both of us politely agree not to look down.
Cami wins the game—of course she does.
She celebrates like she just took a national title instead of beating three men at a card game in her living room.
Griffin drops his cards onto the table. “You changed the rules.”
“I clarified them.”
“You clarified them after you realized you were losing.”
“That’s called adaptability.”
Ronan starts collecting the cards. “That’s called cheating.”
She gasps. “Et tu, Dungeon Daddy?”
“I am not participating in whatever Shakespearean defense you’re building.”
I lean forward to help him gather the deck.
Our hands reach for the same card.
Neither of us touches the other.
We both stop.
It lasts maybe half a second.
His eyes lift to mine.
There is nothing accidental in the look.
Then Cami reaches between us and steals the card.
“Mine.”
The moment breaks.
Ronan leans back while I exhale through my nose.
This man is going to kill me.
By eleven-thirty, we’ve abandoned games.
Griffin has claimed one end of the couch with Cami beside him, her legs draped over his lap while they argue about which New Year’s broadcast has the least irritating hosts.
I sit at the other end of the couch.
Ronan takes the chair nearest me, one he rarely sits in.
Again, probably not intentional.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
The television shows Times Square packed shoulder to shoulder, which looks like my personal version of hell.
Cami watches with fascination. “I want to do that just once.”
Griffin looks at the screen. “Why?”
“For the experience.”
“The experience of being trapped outside for eight hours with no bathroom?”
She turns toward him. “You destroy magic.”
“I’m practical.”
“You’re a buzzkill.”
“You married me.”
She smiles. “I contain multitudes.
Griffin groans at the overused phrase.
My phone buzzes again.
Dex
eleven thirty update
I have been proposed to twice
one was a woman
one was a man named steve
I said no to both because I am TAKEN and also steve was wearing plastic shoes
Micah
Your standards are inspiring
Three dots appear immediately.
Dex
I HAVE STANDARDS
they are low but they are load bearing
ps tell ronans sexy ass happy new year for me if I die here
Heat climbs the back of my neck.
I turn my phone face down.
Ronan looks at me. “What did he say?”
“Nothing useful.”
Cami looks at me. “That means it was about one of us.”
“It was about Ronan,” I admit.
Ronan’s eyebrows rise.
I sigh and hand him the phone.
He reads the message and his mouth twitches. “Tell him plastic shoes are not, by themselves, sufficient grounds to reject a proposal.”
Griffin looks over. “You’re defending the shoe choice?”
“No. I’m defending methodological rigor.”
Cami laughs.
I take my phone back and type exactly that.
Dex replies with approximately twelve vomiting emojis.
The conversation drifts after that.
We talk about nothing particularly important.
Resolutions come up briefly. Cami says she refuses to make them because she doesn’t need a calendar to tell her when to improve herself. Griffin says that sounds suspiciously like an excuse not to set goals. Ronan points out that technically campaign planning already gives us quarterly objectives.
I listen more than I talk.
Mostly because I’m comfortable.
Partly because every few minutes my attention pulls toward Ronan.
His foot is less than a foot from mine.
His sleeves are pushed to his forearms.
He has one hand resting loosely around his glass.
I know those hands.
I’ve watched them build campaign maps, turn pages, bind and steady Cami, guide Dex, and settle at the back of my neck like he knew exactly how much pressure I needed before I did.
I have spent months waiting.
Longer than months, if I’m honest.
The attraction itself has been around far longer than any of us had language for what we were becoming.
But lately it has become impossible to file away as background tension.
Ronan looks at me differently now.
Touches me differently.
And maybe the most dangerous part is that he lets me see him wanting to.
At eleven fifty-five, Cami gets up abruptly. “Champagne.”
Griffin catches her hand before she makes it two steps. “Slow down.”
“My blood sugar is fine.” Her tone is colored with annoyance.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
“You made the medic face.”
“I made the don’t-trip-over-the-coffee-table face.”
She looks down.
Her shin is approximately one inch from the corner.
“Oh.”
Griffin’s eyebrows rise.
“Fine.” She disappears into the kitchen.
Ronan looks at Griffin. “That was impressive restraint from you.”
“I’ve learned.”
“I heard that,” Cami calls from the kitchen.
Griffin smiles.
When she returns, she has four glasses and the bottle tucked against her side.
“I realize Dex isn’t here,” she says as she pours, “but this is still our first New Year’s together and an actual… whatever we are.”
“Polycule,” Ronan supplies.
“Household,” Griffin adds.
“Cult,” I offer.
Cami points at me with the bottle. “See? Multitudes?”
We all stand and raise our glasses.
“To us,” she simply says.
Nobody adds anything.
“To us,” I echo.
Ronan’s eyes meet mine over the rim of his glass.
Something in my chest pulls tight.
The television volume gets slightly louder as the countdown coverage shifts fully to Times Square.
Outside, somebody in the neighborhood starts setting off fireworks early.
A deep boom rolls through the windows.
We all stay standing, but Cami settles against Griffin’s side again.
Ronan steps closer to me.
Not touching, but close enough that I feel the heat radiating off of him.
My body notices before my brain finishes pretending this is casual.
The countdown clock on the television hits sixty seconds.
“It’s almost midnight,” Cami announces.
Thirty seconds.
The room changes.
Not dramatically—just enough.
The talking stops.