“This isn’t the same,” I say, my throat thick, the feeling in my chest so immense I can barely speak. “This is... Ares, this is so much better.” Because maybe I don’t need to be loved by everyone, after all; I just want to be in the same room as everyone I love.
Looking around now, I can’t fathom the amount of planning that must have gone into making this happen. Guests invited from different circles: childhood friends, Xiaohongshu mutuals, models and socialites, the two girls I met at Dave’s thing last summer, the entrepreneur I really hit it off with at a Christmasparty. Somehow, Ares had known exactly who I would want to see tonight—and he would have had to reach out to them. I imagine him, usually so closed off, unwilling and unlikely to even call the doctor if he was in pain, messaging my friends one by one:hey, this is Chanel’s boyfriend, I’m planning a surprise for her. can you make it? would this time work? oh, amazing. dress fancy, you know her.Then ordering the flowers, the dress, the limo, not just making a reservation for two but renting the whole venue. The hot canapés brought out on trays are all my favorites too, and the music playing softly in the background could be taken straight from my playlist.
To think I’d once been afraid of him.
I’m pulled into the crowd, round after round of hugs and air kisses, floating atop the compliments, “You look gorgeous, like a princess, that dress was made for you, an icon, a star,” and Ares stays back, letting me have my moment, walking up to my side only when someone asks after him.
“Hey, man.” One of the guys from my history class offers Ares a tentative fist bump, like he’s half scared Ares will punch him for real. “Um, totally cool if you’re no longer interested or whatever, but just wanted to pass along the message from my cousin to hit him up if you ever need those bots again—he’ll get you a discount.”
Ares darts a glance at me, then nods. “Yeah, sure. Appreciate it, bro.”
“Bots?” I say, confused. “Why did you need bots?”
“Just. Personal reasons,” Ares tells me, but in my head I can hear Henry’s voice telling me slowly, confused, “Someone’sdrowned out the top result already.... Must be bots. Organic engagement doesn’t work this way....”
I meet Ares’s eyes. Ask the question without asking it.That was you?
His smile is an admission.
The crowd surges around us again, and only after the food and the thank you so much for comings are evenly distributed dowe settle into the dark leather couches by the bar. Cherry cocktails red as my lipstick, served with little umbrellas. The air sweet with perfume, flashing jewelry, pearly whites. Youth and our awareness of it, intoxicating even before we’ve finished the first round of drinks, the splendor of a night like this, shrieking laughter and endless conversation and freshly filled glasses raised to me. Rainie is telling an anecdote about someone beatboxing on the train during the school’s annual Experiencing China trip, and Ares is sitting on the other couch across from me, one elbow rested against his knee, swirling his whiskey around and around. Sipping it without haste. He’s smiling, half listening, when his gaze finds mine, as if he’d known I was looking. And I go on talking to the girl next to me about my travel plans for the summer, and he’s reacting at all the right beats to Rainie’s story, but he tilts his head at me, checking if I’m okay, if I’m enjoying myself, whether I need anything. A private language shared between us, unnoticed by everyone else in the room. Team of our own, and how nice that is, to belong in the same camp finally. Another head tilt, his eyebrows lifting. Invitation to get up, which I do, excusing myself as the others push their purses back and shuffle over on the couch.
He joins me at the bar, asks over the music, “Are you having fun?”
There’s something so endearing about the question, an innocence to it. “I am,” I reply. “Time of my life.”
The quirk of his lips, pleased with my response, with himself for earning my approval. “Really?”
“Really, truly,” I say. My fingers find the back of his neck and he leans into my touch, tender, tipsy.Definitely.Definitely in love, god help me. Our foreheads so close I can feel him breathing, and his hands in my hair, open about his desire, and why not? Hardly a secret that we’re together.
The receptive warmth of his mouth when I kiss him, slow and soft, the sound he releases deep in his throat. I kiss him there too, then return to his lips. Taste of whiskey. Rough fabric of his jeans, my pinkie curling into the loop of his belt, pulling him to me. Perfect, pure sensation. Actually can’t remember a time better than this, ever. I should tell him that, maybe later tonight, or tomorrow, there’s no rush anymore, plenty of chances in the future. So many things I want to tell him, can’t believe I get to.
“Okay, so like, I love everything about this place,” I say, breaking away for a moment, “but you know what I’ve been craving all day?”
“What?” he asks at once.
“Your egg-and-tomato noodles.”
He laughs, the sound all the more lovely because of how rare it is, reserved just for me. “We’re at a Michelin-starred restaurant where they serve twelve-course meals, and you want to eat my egg-and-tomato noodles?” he says incredulously.
“Please?”
“You’re not joking?”
“I would never joke about those noodles,” I say. “They’rethatgood.”
He brushes a thumb over my jaw, his laughter still alive in his eyes. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll make them for you as soon as we get home tonight.”
Home.Such a beautiful word. Home, and him; one and the same, in a way. A new life or, rather, a new way of living it, built from the ashes.
