Chapter 24
I’m leaving the Coffee Shop when I see Gabe’s Honda Civic parking across the street. I start to jog over there to give him a hard time for skipping work when the door pops open, and a petite woman with curly hair steps out.
Bex.
I trip over myself, spilling my iced coffee down the front of my shirt. A hushed “shit” slips out, much to the chagrin of the mom and her toddler walking by.
I’m so used to seeing Gabe in the car he’s had since before I met him, I forgot he passed it down to Bex.
I could say hi—I want to say hi—but instead I go back in to buy another iced coffee. And maybe get some napkins for my shirt.
The gala for my mom’s charity is rapidly approaching, and I have to find a way to get Bex there with me. She is still avoiding anything resembling a relationship, going so far as to say that she, Luci, and Riz had the tradition of spending all of Valentine’s week together so she could avoid having to do anything too couple-y.
That didn’t stop me from delivering a single red rose and her favorite homemade artisanal pizza to her front step that night.
She sent me a red heart emoji in return so I think that means she liked it?
I really have no idea where I stand with that woman, but I get the feeling that she needs me to keep showing up, so that’s what I’m doing. I don’t let a day go by without letting her know that I’m thinking about us because that’s the truth. Not a day—frankly, not a minute—goes by that I don’t think about her.
But I also don’t want to freak her out.
I’m a tightrope walker, offering my hand out to Bex to join me. I can see her desire to take my hand, take a step, but she has yet to do it. And it’s getting lonely out here on my own.
My phone buzzes while I’m on the way to Monday’s Intro to Acting class—another one of my many alarms that have become helpful post ADHD diagnosis—and I have to balance mine and Bex’s coffee in one hand so I can pull it out and turn it off. Instead, I see that it’s a text from my father.
Erik Olsson
See you this weekend. I have a room at The Plaza reserved under your name. Check-in is at three. Your mother expects you in the ballroom by seven.
I grimace and tuck my phone back in my pocket.
“Hey, killer. What’s got you so moody?” I hear her voice behind me and my shoulders instantly relax. She’s my own personal Prozac.
“Just my dad,” I reply, turning toward her with a smile. I hand over her coffee cup and almost go in for a kiss before realizing where we are. Not before Bex notices, though, and widens her eyes in surprise. “Sorry,” I mutter. “Forgot where we were for a second.”
A smile crawls up her face. “It’s fine.” She hesitates for a moment. “So, not a big fan of your dad?”
“That’s the understatement of the century,” I laugh.
Her eyebrows go up. “Wow, I—I didn’t know. Anything I can do to help?”
Ask her. Ask her now to go to the city with you this weekend. Make facing your parents that much easier because you’ll have this beautiful, caring, funny woman on your arm.
But instead of asking her, what comes out is, “Come over for Margarita Monday tonight? It’s this thing Gabe and I have done since freshman year. Margaritas and Chinese takeout. Kind of weird but it works for us. Bring Luci and Riz… we can make a night of it.”
She stares at me for a moment, as if in a daze. “Margaritas… and takeout?” she asks. A strange sense of awe in her voice.
“Yeah, like I said it’s kind of weird but it’s what we’ve always done.”
She shakes her head. “No, that, uh, that actually sounds perfect. I’ll text them now to let them know.”
“Sounds good.” Anytime I get to spend time with Bex sounds good.
“You don’t see Bex enough in class, she has to crash Margarita Monday too?! This shit is sacred,” Gabe complains.
“Dude, in the immortal words of Taylor Swift, you need to calm down.”
“But this is like a bro slash roomie slash besties thing. Boys only, no-girls-allowed, Little Rascals He-Man Woman-Haters, and all that,” he continues, waving his hand dramatically in the air.
I poke my head inside the freezer to grab some ice for the blender, casually throwing, “Luci and Riz are coming too,” over my shoulder.
He groans and throws himself onto our sofa. “Fine. I guess these three girls are allowed but that’s it! And if I hear one word about how weird the combo of margaritas and Chinese takeout is, I will kick them out!”
“Aye, aye captain!”
Just then a knock comes at the door. “Get that will you?”
For someone who was just complaining about letting women in on our man night, Gabe is at the door before I can even finish that question.
“Welcome, ladies!” His voice booms through the apartment. “Bexy! You never come over here, don’t you love your favorite brother enough to grace him with your presence?”
I laugh as Gabe pulls her into a comically tight hug before pulling back and pinching her cheeks. A full force glare is directed at him but she can’t do anything about it because her hands are full of two six packs of canned margaritas.
She sees me and raises one in the air. “Didn’t want to come empty handed. And I also know that Gabe makes a weak-ass margarita so I figured we should bring our own.”
“They’re only weak because Anders doesn’t drink. God, don’t be so insensitive Bex,” he says with a wink toward me. It’s all in good fun, it always is with Gabe, but I realize in that moment that we haven’t had the sober talk. Bex is rightfully looking at me like I’m a Rubik”s cube she’s in the middle of solving.
She remains frozen in place as she asks in a voice that is barely audible, “Anders doesn’t…”
“Yup, almost two years sober,” I say, trying to be nonchalant because I don’t want to worry her, and I know we can’t really have this conversation here. My girl is smart though and I can see her putting the pieces together in her head. My time in New York City, when I returned back to Sassafras and Hawthorne for my MFA, what must have happened to lead to my sobriety.
I walk over and grab the cans from her hands, whispering, “We’ll talk later,” quiet enough that Gabe doesn’t hear me.
“So whose idea was the margarita-Chinese-food combo?” Riz asks from the barstool at the kitchen island.
Gabe cuts in before I have a chance to respond. “Don’t even start with how weird we are! It’s a combo we’ve had since freshman year and it’s not going anywhere now!”
“Geez, Gabe, she wasn’t going to say you guys were weird,” Luci cuts in. “What’s weird, is that we’ve had the exact same combo since we all moved in together. Except we don’t have a blender so canned margaritas are our usual drink of choice.”
My head snaps toward Bex. “You guys also have margaritas with your takeout?”
She just shrugs before replying, “It just happened one night. We ordered takeout and all we had in the fridge were canned margaritas. Luci started going on and on about the midnight margarita scene in Practical Magic and viola!” She circles her hands. “A new tradition was born.”
“That movie is so good,” Luci sighs dramatically. “I also love getting takeout because I’m convinced that fortune cookie fortunes always come true. Just look at the last one Bex got!”
Bex coughs loudly before quickly diverting the conversation. “So, what are we ordering tonight? I want extra crab wontons, please!”
I want to break open the fortune cookie conversation, pun intended, but I appease her by adding an extra order of crab wontons to our usual menu items.
There’s nothing she could ask for that I wouldn’t give her.
I underestimated how difficult it would be to get away from Gabe.
Every time I try to find an excuse to pull Bex away, Gabe has some story he has to tell or some interesting fact he found while scrolling TikTok. He is a fount of useless wisdom.
I also underestimated how much I would love these two parts of my life intersecting. I know we’ve all been together at Bardot family dinners, but there’s something special about having my two favorite people together in my domain.
Watching them bicker over which words counted while we played Scattergories has been the highlight of the evening. Bex is a competitive person, I’m coming to find out. The way her face scrunches up in anger made me choke on a laugh more than once tonight, which I’ll need to get better at hiding judging by the daggers she’s metaphorically throwing my direction.
A few hours into the evening, I’m able to pull her away while Gabe is busy making more virgin margaritas.
“Hey, I have that play that you asked about in my room. Want to go grab it with me?” I ask loud enough for Gabe to hear so he doesn’t question why his sister and his best friend disappeared.
“Boo school! None of that here!” he shouts over his shoulder.
Luci just gives us a wink as she walks into the kitchen, hopefully to distract Gabe. I try to convey my gratitude in the small smile and nod I give her as I guide Bex out of the room.
As soon as we round the corner down the hall, Bex is shoving me up against the wall and crushing our mouths together. Her hands roam my body, temporarily distracting me from the fact that her brother is around the corner.
“Are we going to try to get in a quickie?” she whispers between kisses.
I laugh in disbelief, realizing those margaritas hit her harder than I noticed. I peel her hands off me and whisper back, “Okay, my little sex kitten. Didn’t realize we were into that… noted.”
“If that’s not what we are doing, why are you trying to get me alone?” she asks.
“Maybe because I like spending time with you.” I bop her on the nose. “Ever think of that?”
She huffs but before she can say anything else, I pull her into my room and shut the door. This time, I’m the one to pounce on her.
Our lips meet as my hands slide down her waist and over the curve of her hips. I know people think of love handles in a derogatory way, but as I grip harder on Bex’s middle, I can’t help but think of how much I love her body exactly the way it is. She fills my hands perfectly no matter where I touch, and the thought makes me insanely hard.
AnnnndddI’m distracted again. I push away from her hoping that the distance will help. “Wait! Wait. Though it’s one of my favorite activities”—I reach out and cup her cheek—“I actually did want to talk to you and not just make out.”
“Stop teasing me, Anders! Out with it.” She crosses her arms under her chest, pushing her perfect breasts up.
“Fuck. Can I just—Do you mind if I shut my eyes? You are exceedingly distracting.”
Her melodic laugh fills the room. “Sure, killer. Whatever you need.”
I sit on the edge of the bed and pull her down next to me before leaning my forearms onto my knees and covering my face. I’ve learned it helps immensely with my distractibility when having tough conversations.
“First, I want to apologize that that’s how you found out about my sobriety. It’s not necessarily something I was hiding from you. I’m actually really proud of it, I just never found a good time to tell you.”
I feel her hand come to my back as she rubs soothing circles over my shirt. Up to my neck and back down to the waistband of my jeans, a pattern that lulls me, making me lean into her touch and giving silent permission for me to go on.
“It’s a long story, one I’m happy to tell on another night. But it’s part of what led me back here. Back to you.” I look up at her now. She looks much more sober than she did when she was shoving me against the hallway wall a moment ago.
She stays silent but nods slightly for me to continue.
“There’s this gala,” I blurt. “It’s this weekend for a charity that my mom is on the board of. The Kids in the City Foundation? I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it. Anyway, my dad insists that I come. And I’d really like for you to be there with me. Just as friends if that’s what you want.”
“Okay,” she says.
“Okay? Really? It’s in the city, obviously, but I can drive us down on Saturday. There’s already a room booked at the hotel so we wouldn’t have to worry about driving back late at night.”
Bex places her hand over my fidgeting ones. “Okay, Anders. I can go with you if you need me to be there.”
Need, not want. Because she can see that being around my parents is difficult for me. And I really do need her there as much as I want her by my side.
“I do. I need and want a lot from you, Bex. And it makes me feel really selfish sometimes. Something I’ve tried not to be these last few years. But I feel extremely selfish when it comes to you. I want you by my side this weekend.”
She sighs. “I already said yes, killer,” she says with a wink. “And I know what we have isn’t enough for you, but—”
“Woah, hold on. Whatever you give me will always be enough for me. Do I want more? Absolutely, but you are enough, Bex. And I’ll be here waiting as long as you need me to.” I see the words relax her, like a balm to her soul.
I untangle our hands, bringing one hand up to plant a kiss on her palm.
“Come on, let’s get back out there before Gabe comes crashing in here.” It wasn’t enough alone time, but it feels like I’ll never get enough time with her.
We walk back into the living room and Gabe hands me another margarita. He starts to walk away but then looks back and forth between us quizzically.
“Where’s the play you were looking for?” he asks.
Bex has to hide her face behind my shoulder so Gabe can’t see her huge grin, leaving me to answer this question on my own.
“Oh, uh. I couldn’t find it. Weird.”
He shrugs and returns to the couch with his own drink.
Bex’s grin doesn’t disappear the rest of the night.