Hanna spent more time than she normally would have on her hair, telling herself it was the nerves of meeting new people. She brushed her teeth and pulled the sundress over her head, the strappy back way too cute to hide under a jacket.
When she’d decidedly run out of distractions, she crossed the hallway, hovering outside unit three.
This is stupid, she told herself, forcing her fist up to rap on the door three times. She was about to go for a fourth when the door cracked open.
“Hey! Sara had to call her mom real quick. She said she’d meet us in the lobby.”
Milo glanced at the door behind them.
“Perfect,” he mumbled, checking his phone. “That means we have time to pre-game. Camila can talk.”
“With or without a partner,” Hanna agreed, following him into the apartment. His unit was nearly identical to Matty and Sara’s in layout, but the smell was all new. There was no tidal wave of nostalgia, only a combination of whiskey and leather, mixed with a faint waft of weed coming through his patio door. Where Sara and Matty had photos of vacations and holidays, Milo had vinyl sleeves and movie posters. His apartment faced the street and Hanna figured it must have been where Sara was waiting for her.
He didn’t ask if she wanted anything. Instead, he poured a few ounces of something from an unlabeled bottle over ice and handed it to her.
She pulled the bottle off the counter and examined it, only a hand-scrawled date on some masking tape to be found.
“Am I about to drink something you made in a toilet?”
Milo laughed. “Too good for prison style?”
She rolled her eyes as he took a long sip, confirming it was at least tolerable. He pushed his flannel sleeves over his elbows, the fabric flexing as he set the glass down.
“My friends work at a distillery over in Oakland. They’re always making weird shit in specialty barrels. The flavor profiles are unique. This one was casked in an old rum barrel. Promise it hasn’t touched a toilet bowl.”
Hanna smelled it, the notes prickling against her nose. It hit like a typical whiskey, but there was something warmer in the depths of the scent. Spicier. Maybe the hint of an orange peel, or something citrusy. It was like inhaling a half-formed memory.
She took a sip.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Goddamn,” she said, exhaling. It was bright, warm—everything she loved about a good bourbon but with a surprising twist. It was smoother than it had any right to be with a certain darkness on the finish. “Jesus.”
“I’ll have to take you out there. They have this sour cherry mash cocktail, it’s incredible in the summer.”
He finished his glass and Hanna remembered that they did, actually, have somewhere to be, throwing hers back in another long pull.
“We should probably go,” Hanna said. Milo nodded and grabbed his wallet and keys from his counter as she opened the front door. His hand caught her elbow, pulling her back.
“Hey,” he said, the low volume drawing her in. “I, uh—” he stopped.
For a second, she expected him to bring up the elevator incident directly, and she braced herself against the doorframe. She couldn’t read a thing in his face, but after a few seconds, he picked the thread up again.
“I just wanted to say it’s good you’re out here. I haven’t seen Sara this excited since they got engaged.”
Hanna smiled. “Oh. Yeah. Good.”
It was barely a whisper. He was too close to her. She could lean forward just another two inches and?—
“Cami’s probably done by now,” he said, releasing her elbow.
“Right.”
Hanna stepped out and waited while he locked up. She made sure to put as much distance between them as possible in the elevator to the lobby.
She was four dumplings away from a food coma.
Another swell of laughter careened over the table. Sara and Matty’s friends were unsurprisingly lovely, and she regretted how many weekends she’d wasted alone in her crumbling fixer-upper.
