“Yeah?” I asked, just barely holding back a smile. “Let me see.”
I took her bag as she leaned against the wall, saying something about macaroni and cheese that I didn’t quite make out as I dug through her bag to find her keyring. Sure enough, like everything else about her, it was Christmas-themed with a big elf stuffy attached to the ring.
“Show off,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me as I stabbed the key in the lock, then pushed the door open.
“Ready?” she asked.
“For what?” I asked, unable to see much of anything in her pitch-black apartment.
“This!” she said with a flourish as she threw a hand out, feeling for something. “Hold on. I just… okay. This!” she said when her hand finally found the tablet she was looking for and hit a few buttons.
Then the lights flicked on.
And I didn’t just mean her table lamps.
Nope.
The whole fucking apartment was lit in the warm glow of colored lights. On the tree, framing the windows, strung over the top of the kitchen cabinets, over the doorways.
“I know you’re a grinchy kind of guy,” she said, already kicking off her shoes, and nearly toppling over in the process. “But even you have to admit it’s pretty.”
“It’s pretty,” I agreed, glancing from the twinkling tree back to her as she—I shit you not—started to strip out of her layers. “Whoa, what are you doing?” I asked, grabbing her coat and gloves off the floor to set them neatly on the couch.
“Yeahhh,” Sammy said from the doorway. “She does that.”
“Does what? Strips when she gets home?”
“When she’s had tequila, yeah. Best to just get her in bed,” she offered.
“I’m right here,” Stephanie grumbled, trying to fiddle with her button and zipper on her pants.
“Listen, my dear,” Sammy said, moving forward to grab Steph’s hands before she could shimmy the material down her hips. “While I fully respect your desire to side hustle as a midnight ballerina, we’re going to need you to keep your clothes on right now.”
“They’re just underwear,” Stephanie grumbled, tripping over a fallen throw pillow and dropping backward onto the couch.
“Gonna get you some water,” I said as Sammy tried to refasten Stephanie’s pants for her.
With the distraction of Steph—and my seemingly overwhelming attraction to her. Even when she was belting out an off-key pop song with her (even more off-key) best friend. Actually, that shit was a lot hotter than it had any right to be.
Maybe it was just because it was so free.
I lived a very rigid life within an organization of people who mostly took themselves very seriously. Then my home, well, it was rare that people living in such economic straits let loose. Systemic poverty tensed up every muscle, ground down each drop of joy, gobbled up every bit of dopamine.
So, yeah, Steph’s happiness was hypnotic.
The quiet lilt of her voice as she spoke to her friend still washed over me as I moved away, even if it was impossible to make out the words.
It let me focus more on her apartment.
That made me acutely aware of just how bare my own was. While it wasn’t a huge space, and the original cabinets, floors, and white walls could have easily felt lifeless and uninteresting, Stephanie refused to allow that to happen.
She breathed her personality and interests into every inch of this place.
The walls featured random art. Her kitchen counters were scattered with cooking utensils, flour and sugar canisters, a crock full of brightly colored utensils, pictures of nights out with her friends pinned to the fridge with magnets made of clay in the shapes of anthropomorphized fruits and vegetables.
I went through her cabinets to find a glass, coming across her mug collection instead. There were two shelves full. One featured her Christmas collection—mismatched Santa prints, reindeer, elves, you name it. The other was her everyday collection, which was equally varied.
I found a glass, the pitcher of water in the fridge, and a packet of electrolytes.
