Really, what Brynn needed was to get better at reading people, and luckily for her, she’d met the perfect person to help her do that.
“I cannot in good conscience let you use that photo.”
Brynn had been trying, and failing, to get final approval on her dating profile for the last thirty minutes. And sure, she could have posted it regardless of Hallie’s opinion, but that wouldn’t have been as much fun.
They were down to half a bottle of whiskey, and everything was hilarious right now. “I like this photo,” she argued in between hiccups of laughter, holding her phone aggressively close to Hallie’s face. Spatial awareness was not currently one of her strong suits.
Luckily, it didn’t seem like Hallie minded. She’d moved closer on the sofa once they’d both gotten down to work, and for the last few hours, they’d been sitting next to one another, their thighs and arms touching.
The only exception had been at midnight, when they’d rung in the new year by taking a shot of whiskey and placing a hex on Grant that a woman Hallie had dated in her early twenties, who’d been into the occult, had taught her.
They’d held hands and chanted and run around in circles, calling on the energies of all the women that he’d mistreated over the years. Hallie had made an emphatic plea that she should be included in that group since she’d had to deal with him in a “romantic-adjacent” capacity for way too long.
Brynn didn’t know if she’d ever had so much fun before, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to let Hallie’s rejection of one of her favorite photos go.
It was a shot that someone from her volunteer group had taken in Louisiana while she’d been straining to lift a large bag of concrete mix. “I don’t get it,” Brynn pressed, listing off what she felt like were the photo’s positive points. “It shows that I volunteer. It shows that I’m strong?—”
“It shows that you are very into letting people know that you like to pop a squat in public places.”
“That is not what it means! And I’m not doing… that.”
Hallie leveled her with a wildly entertaining look. “Well, that’s what itlookslike it means. I don’t make the rules.”
For the last two hours, Hallie had been explaining the intricacy of online dating and all its unspoken rules. When had the world gotten so gross? It felt like nothing was safe and that everything could be taken as some kind of double entendre.
“Trust me,” Hallie had said an hour ago, “men will already say gross things unprompted. Some women, too. You don’t need to give them any more ammunition.”
In their present moment, Hallie threw her hands up as Brynn continued to smile at the picture. It made her feel strong. Like she could do anything. “Fine. If you want to leave me the few normal people that may be left on this godforsaken app, then I’m not going to keep fighting you on it.”
Brynn scoffed and rolled her eyes, which earned her a playful slap on her shoulder. Hallie, at least it seemed to Brynn’s untrained eye, was also having a surprisingly good night.
Over the years, Brynn had managed to maintain casual friendships for periods of time, some with women she’d even considered best friends, but she’d never hadthis. A closeness that made casual touches feel comfortable. Conversations where Brynn didn’t have to pick apart every word before she said it.
It waseasy, sitting here with Hallie and talking about whatever came to mind. For all the roadblocks that Brynn’s privilege had removed in her life, things had never felt simple inside of her brain.
But here she was, just hanging out with Hallie, drinking and talking and laughing. It felt better than any fancy night out or over-the-top party she’d ever attended.
There had been so many times in college where she’d wanted this experience, but for whatever reason, it never ended up working out like she’d hoped.
She hadn’t even heard from Jennifer and Carrie, the two women who were supposed to have been her bridesmaids, since she’d left for Louisiana.
Brynn frowned, which made her face feel weird. Wrong. She liked it a lot better when she was laughing and happy, so she pushed the thoughts of her failed friendships away.
When she looked over at Hallie to see what she was doing, she realized Hallie was already looking at her, head leaned against the back of the sofa. They’d lit candles for the hex and dimmed the lights, and the room was bathed in a soft, comfortable glow that made Brynn feel just as hazy as the alcohol.
“Where’d you go there?” Hallie asked softly, the tone of her voice making Brynn surprisingly emotional.
But even if Hallie’s words made Brynn want to melt into a puddle of honesty, she didn’t want to take Hallie to the place she’d just found herself in. She didn’t want to let the bad of the past dim the great time she was having. On top of it all,she didn’t want Hallie to see her the way that other people did. Which, in spite of Brynn being her weirdest, most authentic self with Hallie over the last few hours, still hadn’t seemed to scare her away.
“Do you want to watch a movie?” she asked, desperately hoping she could change the subject.
Hallie lifted a suspicious eyebrow, but in her slightly drunken state, it also made her eyes and nose scrunch up adorably. “What movie?”
Brynn picked up the remote and navigated to the streaming menu, starting to flip through the categories. “We have Disney. We have horror. We have romance. We have thrillers. We have comedies. We have documentaries.”
“Do you honestly think that you could follow a documentary right now?” Hallie yawned, suddenly looking sleepy, her lidded eyes staying closed longer with each blink.
Brynn was tired, too, but she didn’t want this night to end. Instead, she waved the remote at the TV, like she was doing a spell. “Documentaries are out.”
