ERICA
Chapter playlist:
The Star Spangled Banner — Madison Rising
Zoe’s plan to land me a gala invitation via cleavage and glitter has proven to be somewhat effective.
No gala invite yet, but at least I got the hockey player’s attention.
That part of the plan is working so well it’s borderline unfair to the man.
And honestly, at this point, I’ll take the win where I can get it.
Suri had a candle stuck in a Pop-Tart because we didn’t have cake, and lit it with a blowtorch she keeps in her makeup bag for reasons nobody has ever fully investigated.
Ivy sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed with a glass of prosecco already poured for me, unbothered, because Ivy’s whole superpower is looking effortless regardless of the hour or the chaos surrounding her.
Ginger sang happy birthday in a key that does not exist in Western music.
Tanya cried a little, which she’ll deny under oath, and then blamed it on allergies, in a room containing zero plants.
Then Zoe and Tanya handed me a shirt.
Not a shirt. A crime.
Barely there, white, with KISS ME IT’S MY BIRTHDAY ironed on in red glitter letters.
Blue and red puffy-paint stars scattered across the shoulder like they’d had a party of their own.
Tanya found cut-off denim shorts at a thrift store, and somebody (I have my suspicions who), sourced American flag knee socks, probably from a roller skater’s paradise.
This morning, I walked out into the common room wearing the whole ensemble, and all six women whistled at me like a crew of construction workers annoying a pretty woman crossing the street.
I do a slow turn, arms out, like I’m Wonder Woman or something. “So? How do I look? Fourth of July enough for you?”
Zoe sucks on a lollipop and drops into a Jennifer Coolidge impression so accurate it should require a permit. “Oh yeah. Makes me want a hot dog real bad.”
“Cute.” I glance down at the red and white gingham ribbon Tanya wove into two braids. “But are these ribbons giving… I don’t know. Maryanne from Gilligan’s Island?”
“Trust me.” Zoe points the lollipop at me. “Guys are way more into Maryanne than Ginger.” She glances over at our Fence. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Ginger says, not looking up from her phone.
“These shorts are giving me a wedgie,” I say, tugging at the hem, which is doing structural work it was never engineered for.
“Did Megan Fox complain when her Daisy Dukes rocketed her to international fame?” Zoe waves her lollipop at me.
“No.”
“Then get out there and snag yourself a hockey player.”
Get out there and snag yourself a hockey player. Like it’s a scavenger hunt item. Like he’s a Pokémon and all I need is the right bait.
I lost the outfit battle but somehow convinced all I needed was a high ponytail with the ribbon in a simple bow. The girls accompanied me to the parade and coached me in the art of playing hard-to-get. The Bomb Pop, the coquettish glance over the shoulder. I honestly felt like a fool.
Turns out the bit worked. It worked so well I am currently pinned against a mirrored wall in the world’s stickiest, most disorienting funhouse, Jeremiah’s forearms braced against the glass on either side of my head, his mouth having just, very deliberately, very slowly, pressed itself to my cheek.
My cheek! After all that?
I feel like I just won a small carnival prize and immediately lost it in the parking lot.
I wanted his mouth on mine. I wanted it with an intensity that should probably concern my crew, my conscience, and possibly a licensed professional.
Instead I got a cheek kiss like I’m his weird aunt at Thanksgiving, and now he’s pulling back just far enough to look extremely pleased with himself, like restraint is a personality trait he’s proud of.
Am I a bad person to want more? Probably.
“Give me time,” he says, low, way too satisfied with himself for a man who just settled for a cheek. “I’m a gentleman, after all.”
I make a sound.
I want to be very clear that I did not plan this sound. It escapes on its own, a short, disgusted little huff through my nose, the universal noise for are you kidding me right now, except it comes out sounding a lot more like a wounded groan, and his whole face changes.
Something dawns on him. Slow, then all at once, like a man realizing he left the stove on.
“Oh no,” he says.
Oh no? Is he already regretting kissing me? Is a cheek kiss grounds for regret? Because if so we need to establish new house rules immediately, starting with more mouth, less cheek.
“Oh no?” I repeat, and I hear the wobble in it, because the thought ‘is he already regretting kissing me?’ is doing laps in my skull.
“I’m so gullible.” He drags a hand down his face, and it is deeply unfair how good he looks doing something as mundane as expressing regret. “Is your birthday actually today? Or did I just fall for a genius marketing campaign?”
Oh.
Oh.
He thinks the shirt worked him like a con. Which, to be fair, is extremely close to the actual plan, minus the part where the con was supposed to be about a gala guest list and not a man’s whole heart, but I’m not about to clarify that distinction right now.
“It’s really my birthday,” I say.
“Seriously.”
“Seriously.” I cross my heart, right over the glittery letters currently shedding onto his shirt. “I was born on the same day as this great country.”
He snorts, and it’s such an unguarded, un-cheek-kissing-gentlemanly sound that something in my chest does something embarrassing. “Funny. You don’t look two hundred fifty years old.”
“Drop the zero and you’ve got bingo.”
“Twenty-five?”
I nod. “I can now unironically sing that 4 Non Blondes song.”
“So what do you want to do for your birthday?” One eyebrow goes up. “Take a big breath and scream ‘what's going on’ at the top of your lungs?”
The way he’s looking at me right now, the proximity, the ghost of his mouth still warm against my cheek, is doing things to my internal monologue that a licensed therapist would have a field day with.
I am already internally screaming. I do not, in fact, care what’s going on.
I would like more of what’s going on, please, preferably targeted slightly to the left of where his mouth landed the first time.
Admitting that out loud would be, at minimum, a felony against my own dignity.
Instead, I settle on, “You can buy me a corn dog for starters.”
“A corn dog.”
I drag my gaze across his broad chest and let him watch me do it. “I suddenly have a craving.”
His jaw ticks. “For a corn dog.”
“Sure.” I smile, all teeth. “Let’s call it that.”
We leave the Hall of Mirrors, and the heat outside hits like a steamy towel, but it’s somehow refreshing compared to the Hall of Mirrors.
The Mall stretches out in front of us, packed with families and flags and several thousand strangers who’ve clearly all had too much lemonade.
Somewhere a brass band is murdering “Yankee Doodle.” Somewhere else a toddler is screaming about a balloon animal.
The humidity here is thick and clingy, and within the hour, turns Jeremiah’s white shirt distractingly transparent in places I choose not to comment on.
Abs, okay?
Jeremiah buys me a corn dog from a cart manned by a guy in an apron that says GRILL SERGEANT, and hands it over like he’s presenting a trophy.
“For the birthday girl.”
The way he says it makes my stomach do a slow, embarrassing flip.
I take a bite of the corn dog. It is, objectively, terrible. Deep-fried, slightly burnt, tasting mostly of oil. It might be the best thing I’ve eaten all year.
“So,” he says, watching me chew like it’s the most riveting thing he’s seen all day. “Where’s your friend? The one from the parade.”
“Which one? I had six.”
“I only saw one. The one who looked like she stepped straight out of a K-drama.”
“Don’t tell her that.” I wince. “She’ll be insufferable.”
“Noted.”
“Her name is Zoe.” I lick mustard off my thumb, which he watches with an intensity that should be illegal in a public park. “My best friend, chief architect of this whole outfit, and constant source of terrible advice that somehow always works out.”
“Terrible advice like what?”
“Like these shorts.” I tug at the hem, which feels like it has ridden up where the sun don’t shine. There’s no delicate way to fix a wedgie.
His eyes drop. Snap back up like he’s been caught somewhere he wasn’t invited. “Here.” He’s already peeling his jersey out of his waistband.
“What are you doing?”
“Fixing terrible advice that…” He glances down once more and swallows hard. “Somehow worked out.”
He holds the jersey out, his name PRECIO stitched across the back. “Tuck it around your waist. Like a kilt.”
I take it. It’s warm, and it smells like something unfairly, specifically him. I knot it around my hips, let the length hang over my backside like a makeshift skirt.
“Better?”
“Better.” I glance around to my backside. PRECIO draped over my hips like I belong to him. I don’t belong to anyone. This is just fabric.
“So these friends. Would you rather be with them right now?” He asks it lightly, but there’s a real question underneath. “Instead of wandering around a carnival with a stranger?”
Stranger. Cute. As if the last month hasn’t been a slow-motion collision course of run-ins that were absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent accidental. Not.
“We’ve been celebrating my birthday for a week straight,” I say.
“We’ll probably still be celebrating it next week.
I love them. I do. But I cannot day-drink with those women.
Give me two mimosas and I get a headache, then I get sleepy, then I fall asleep somewhere undignified, like a park bench, or once, memorably, a stranger’s inflatable pool. ”
“That sounds like a story.”
“It is not a story I’m telling on my birthday.”
He laughs, and it’s a full laugh, not the polished press-conference version I’d bet money he uses on cameras. This one has an edge to it, surprised, like it snuck out before he approved it.