Chapter 12
twelve
“UNDER PRESSURE” — QUEEN & DAVID BOWIE
Tavey
It’s probably wrong to feel this good on someone else’s “big day.”
All the focus should be on Geeta, right?
But honestly, I’m having so much fun, I’m a little worried I’m siphoning it away from other people.
Of course, Geeta — who is across the room and glowing madly — is doing just fine on her own. And presumably she doesn’t want to be sitting next to Miller, so it’s all good.
Still, this level of happiness feels vaguely irresponsible.
So far, everything has been… easy.
Miller, sitting next to me instead of across the rhombus, is a new experience. He’s close enough that our arms brush every time one of us reaches for something on the table. Every now and then, his hand drapes across the back of my chair like it belongs there. Like I belong tucked to his side.
We’ve been talking, laughing, doing that thing where our conversations overlap and spiral into inside jokes in real time.
At one point, I made a quip that made him laugh out loud.
Yep. Miller. Laughing out loud. Enough that he had to set down his glass.
New proudest moment.
I mean, sure, I graduated from high school at sixteen and came this close to getting my PhD, but making Miller laugh out loud? That’s something to be proud of.
Even better, the moment his hand slid—almost absentmindedly—over mine where it rested on the table.
Not grabbing.
Not claiming.
Just… there.
Like a question.
I turned my hand over.
Answer.
His fingers closed around mine.
My heart pounded dramatically in my chest, like the silly thirteen-year-old-girl she is.
But then… miraculously… everything stilled.
Settled. And all of a sudden, this experience—Miller and I together at the wedding—didn’t feel silly anymore.
It didn’t feel like cosplay. It felt like real life.
Like something that could exist outside the fantasy world of this fantastically themed wedding.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say it out loud. To ask if he felt it too. To verify.
But of course, the moment was all wrong. Someone was still giving a speech. Most people weren’t listening anyway, but blurting out my feelings would awkward. Even for me.
Still, my gaze met Miller’s and the words were there, trapped in my mouth. His gaze dropped to mine and he swallowed.
He leaned closer for a moment, his mouth near my ear, and I caught the hint of his soap — something woodsy and fresh.
Is he going to say the words I somehow can’t?
But instead, he asked, “Do you need another drink?”
So here I am, trying to reinforce the molecular structure of my heart as I watch him cross the room, more aware than ever of the easy way he moves.
Now that I know he’s a former SEAL, that natural athleticism makes sense.
And it’s even hotter now that I know it’s not natural.
It’s earned. It’s something he worked for.
My heart hammers as I watch him walk away. It’s a heady feeling, this feeling that he’s mine. That he’s here with me.
Me, of all people.
That he dressed up for me. That he did something so totally and completely un-Miller-like, for me.
My inner teenage girl flops back on her bed and screams and giggles and kicks her legs with glee.
And then, without knowing why, the giggling stops.
Except, while I’m still processing that, his steps slow and he veers to the left of the line for the bar.
And that’s when I see her. Raquel from marketing. The woman who tried to get our attention earlier.
Marketing is two floors up and parsecs away in attitude. In marketing, they have offices instead of open-concept rhombuses. They have martinis with lunch and wear shoes that need to be polished. Or even can be polished.
I haven’t had a pair of shoes that could be polished since I gave up tap when I was eight.
Polished is the perfect word for Raquel. She’s tall enough that when Miller stands next to her, she meets his gaze with the barest tilt of her head. Of course, she’s not just tall. She’s tall and willowy. I wonder if that’s a requirement in marketing. Though, surely that would be illegal.
There’s a moment in the movie Blade Runner where Sean Young looks so astonishingly beautiful, you know she must be a replicant. That’s who Raquel reminds me of. A woman so poised and perfect she almost doesn’t look real.
I’m still thinking about Sean Young’s ethereal beauty when the chair beside me scrapes against the floor as Devon slides into it.
I tear my gaze away from replicants and shoot my friend a smile. “Hey.”
He shifts the chair close enough to bump his shoulder against mine. “Hey yourself.”
I give him the side-eye. “You didn’t dress up.”
He smirks. “I would never. Besides, the last season of Game of Thrones was such a disappointment, I refuse to participate in anything that celebrates such mediocrity.”
I clutch my hands to my chest. “True. Very true. The showrunners betrayed us all.”
He laughs. “Just a second.” Then reaches up to fiddle with one of my dragon hair clips. “There. Much better.”
“Was it—” My hand flutters to my hair.
He swats it away. “Nope. I just fixed it. Your dragon was listing, but she’s all better now.”
Oh, dear. I hope she wasn’t listing for long. “They’re a bit heavy,” I explain. “All the sparkles, I think.”
He gives me an indulgent smile. “Indeed.” Then he gives me a serious look. “You’re a good friend, you know.”
“Oh, thank you.” I think. Devon is fantastic, but known for his double-edged compliments, so I’m not sure exactly what his point is.
“It was really great of you to come with Miller and act as his wingwoman.”
“His… what?”
Devon nods toward where Miller is still—still?—talking to Raquel. “His wingwoman. So that he can chat up Raquel.”
“So he can what now?”
“They used to date,” Devon says in that offhand way he has of dropping bombs in the water just to see how many dead fish will float to the surface. “This was back before you worked here.”
“Oh,” I say softly, looking at Devon and then back to Miller.
Miller and Raquel.
Still talking.
Still.
Oh.
He left me to get me a drink. Me with my dragon clips and my unpolishable shoes. He left me to go get me a drink, but steered away from the bar to talk to Raquel.
And he’s still talking to her.
I glance back at Devon to see him studying me expectantly.
It occurs to me that maybe he doesn’t know for sure if Miller and I are here together or if I’m Miller’s wingwoman.
Maybe he’s waiting for me to confirm one way or the other.
Is he seeding doubt to season of the soup of office gossip?
Or is he seeking confirmation of potential gossip so he has first dibs?
Or does he know something I don’t and he’s trying to let me down easy?
With Devon, it could be any of the three.
And that’s the problem, isn’t it?
Devon might not know, but I don’t really know either.
I didn’t want to risk ruining our friendship, so I never came out and asked Miller if this was a date or if the drive here was just convenient.
Are we work friends who shared a ride and saved on gas? Or are we more?
It seems like more. I want more. But does he?
Devon is still watching me, waiting for me to confirm or deny or burst into tears, I’m not sure which.
I’m not going to cry in front of him, that’s for sure. So I give a shrug that I hope looks breezy and noncommittal.
Suddenly, I realize why my inner teenage girl stopped giggling.
She’s a smart girl, that one. Knows what she’s doing.
She’s been here before. We’ve been here before.
The social event where we—where I—packed all wrong and brought the wrong clothes and the wrong energy.
When I was twelve, I went to a sleepover.
(Yes, exactly one. I wasn’t the kind of girl who was invited to many sleepovers, but that’s a story for another day.) It was a couple of years after my parents had died.
Just long enough for me to get settled in living with Aunt Jules and Uncle Pete.
Long enough for them to notice I was having trouble making friends.
To be honest, I’ve always had trouble making friends, but they didn’t notice those first couple of years because…
well, when you’ve lost your parents in a car accident that crippled your brother and left you remarkably unscathed…
when you’re suddenly an orphan living with your past-their-prime aunt and uncle in a small town where everyone has known everyone since they were fetuses…
well, no one expects you to make friends right away.
So it took my Aunt Jules several years to realize I was a social misfit and for her to bully the parents of my classmates into inviting me to social events.
So there I was, twelve and heading off to my first sleepover. (I hadn’t been to any sleepovers before my parents’ accident either, because they were both college professors and outright geniuses who assumed interacting with other children my own age would only dumb me down.)
With zero knowledge of the kinds of things that happen at sleepovers, I packed three novels, a flashlight, my Floppy Bunny stuffed animal that I had slept with since I was three, and my Cinnamoroll PJs. My Uncle Pete loaned me the old sleeping bag he used to bring on fishing trips.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t that kind of sleepover.
Nadia Waitts brought THC-laced brownies baked by her older sister. Lillian Zhang had porn downloaded onto her phone. And Alexa Maddox, whose mother had organized the sleepover, insisted we sneak out to go meet some older boys who hung out at the 1 Stop.
And there I was in my Cinnamoroll PJs, smelling like fish.
It was the worst night of my life.
At least, that’s what I thought at the time. Surely, losing my parents was much worse. But that night?
That night I was so painfully aware that I didn’t fit in. That I would never fit in. That I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.
I begged Aunt Jules to never make me go to a sleepover again. She didn’t.
After that disastrous sleepover—which Alexa made sure everyone in school knew about—I leaned in to being a weirdo.
If being normal meant kissing boys who smelled like feet behind the 1 Stop, I didn’t want it.
I had books. I had my own sense of fashion. And I wasn’t going to let anyone make me feel small.
I made that promise, and I’ve kept it.
For the most part.
I am who I am. And I’m proud of that person.
Goofy, loud, inappropriate. Unpolished. Real. Human. Too short and curvy. More box hedge than willow.
But I embrace it. I lean in. And I feel good about it.
Until I don’t.
Until a moment like this. When the reality of my crush on Miller comes back to… well, to crush me.
Because even if I like me as I am—how could someone like Miller like me?
Oh, I know he likes me. I know we’re friends. As coworkers, we’re brilliant together.
But how could I ever compete with someone like Raquel?
I can’t.
And it’s that disastrous sleepover all over again.
I remember lying awake that night in my fishy sleeping bag, long after the other girls finally fell asleep. In the silence of Alexa’s living room, I was almost tempted to eat the brownie I had shoved into my pocket earlier.
Of course, I didn’t. Because the idea of it horrified me. Surely, it was illegal! And probably immoral!
But I’m an adult now. While I don’t have a THC-laced brownie nearby, I do have a themed drink that Miller left untouched.
Miller’s drink is watered down at this point, which might be for the best. It goes down smooth and easy, and by the time I return my attention to Devon, his words don’t pack the punch they probably should.
“I think they broke up because she left to go for a job in the Bay Area,” he’s saying, as he toys absently with his own straw. “They’re almost too pretty together, you know? It’s like staring into an eclipse.”
I take another gulp so that my indistinguishable “hmmm” passes for a response.
Devon’s posture stiffens as he looks over my shoulder.
I turn just in time to see Miller walk up. Relief floods me because even if he was talking to her for way too long, he came back to me. And now that he’s back, maybe I’ll have some clue as to where we stand. Am I his date or his wingwoman?
Then, Miller stops behind me. And puts a hand on the back of my chair, close to my shoulder without actually touching it.
Which feels like exactly what he would do to a wingwoman.