“I swear it.” He kisses my hair. “Can I have Casey back now? I’ve been stressed out of my mind just thinking about how stressedyoulooked yesterday, and I’m usually very easygoing.”
“Well,I’mnot easygoing. And I hate mimosas.”
His mouth twitches. “Do easygoing people usually like mimosas?”
“Most.” I shrug. “It’s linked in my mind.”
“Your mind is weird,” Alex says, and when the subway slows to a stop and we stand, he adds, “I’m starving. Is there any good food in Brooklyn?”
I laugh and say nothing.
Inside my place, Alex evaluates our smorgasbord of an apartment with a neutral expression. Eclectic throw pillows strewn over a couch we got for free when Miriam’s sorority updated their interior design, the bar cart stacked with bottles of wine, our freestanding coatrack sentinel beside the front door. There’s even a photo wall of me and Miriam—one picture from every year we’ve known each other.
Alex points at the picture of us covered head to toe in mud, smiling in braces and matching purple T-shirts. “Explain?”
My lips tug up at the memory. “Crud Day at our church. It was a youth group fundraising event they held every year. Mud games,tug-of-war, relay races. The year after that photo was taken, we tried turning our T-shirts into crop tops and got kicked off the premises.”
Alex snorts, scanning the other pictures: backstage passes at CMA Fest in high school, general admission camping at Bonnaroo in college, standing in front of a jellyfish tank during a middle school field trip to the Chattanooga aquarium.
“You were pretty cute.” Alex grins at me.
“You were, too,” I echo, thinking of the two lone photos, sparse but precious, in his apartment.
There’s a knock on the door, and I retreat to my room, leaving Alex to answer it while I riffle through the Ikea rack for the jumpsuit Sasha wanted to borrow. It’s going to stop at her midcalf, but if anyone could make that a look it’s her.
Her voice filters through all five hundred square feet of our place. “You’re a life—oh, hey, Alex!”
“Hey,” Alex says. “That looks nasty.”
“Someone spilled three-bean chili all over me,” Sasha seethes. “I was running late as it is, and I need to get to DUMBO before they start the Nets booster campaign.”
I walk into the doorway and hold up the outfit. “Here. Come change in my room.”
“You are the number one bitch,” Sasha says.
I giggle. “What they call me.”
“So. Uh,” she says, closing my door and widening her eyes at me, “Alex is here.”
“Is he?”
“Not that you asked, but I like him better than Lance.”
“Not thatyouasked, but I like Miguel better thanall fiveof the NBA players you dated senior year.”
She snorts. “Glad we established that.”
After she changes, we walk downstairs together, and Sasha hails a cab while Alex and I meander toward dinner, winding up at an upscale Chinese spot. We order our waiter’s suggestions (minus thecashew chicken, because death trap), then spend dinner talking aboutBite the Handpresentation plans. I can tell from his voice how ready he is for this step. Every emphatic idea that pours from his lips wraps me in a bind, tighter and tighter, suffocating until it transforms into something like hope.
He’s just too infectious of a person. His smile is practically a welcome mat, and when he starts talking, everything narrows down to the sound of his voice, the shape of his words. At least for me it does. Without even trying, Alex is making me believe this launch plan will really work. Because what other possible conclusion is there?
As we head back to my apartment, the sky an inky blot and the air frigid, I wrap my scarf around my neck and breathe warm air into it. Alex turns up the collar of his coat and shoves his bare hands deep in his pockets.
On a corner waiting for a streetlight to turn, he steps up behind me, wraps his arms around my waist. Tongue in cheek, he whispers, “I’ll warm you up soon.” When I twist and look up at him, his eyes are both scorched and laughing.
This is dating.
This is not dating.
