“So I can exploit it.” He rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”
In the end, I get a seven-dollar pleated maroon skirt, snowy-looking knee-highs, and a green button-down sweater. Alex gets that atrocious vest and the Santa hat.
We break up our subway trip to the Upper East Side with a stop in Koreatown—a small stretch of blocks near the Empire State Building—and go to a barbecue spot, randomly selected by Alex based on nothing other than “gut instinct and the fact that a fifteen-minute wait feels promising but not daunting.”
Inside, he makes me create a shared note on my phone, where I type out all my allergies. He considers them for a moment (sesame being the trickiest culprit), and then orders for both of us.
The meat comes out raw, and our waiter tells us about each selection before he cooks it on the hot plate in the middle of our table. It’s kind of awkward at first, the waiter just standing there cooking while Alex and I watch, but eventually, Alex starts telling me about Seoul dining, regional Korean foods you can’t get here, and American staples harder to come by over there. I’m shocked by the list of things he’d never heard of until he moved to Connecticut. The waiter listens in, too, offering up his own opinions, and at one point they both start slipping into Korean.
Then we receive the banchan, some of which I am familiar with (read: kimchi and cucumbers), some of which I am not (read: gamja salad). Truthfully, I’ve only had chain-restaurant Korean food before (read: bibimbap with steak and a fried egg on top), which I admitted to Alex on the subway here. Now he’s watching me try everything, face attempting to conceal his curiosity, asking me if I’m still hungry and ordering more meats and banchan accordingly. Normally when I’m anxious about something, my appetite deserts me, but the food here is so amazing that I leave the place stuffed.
When we’re through with dinner, he presses an unsolicited kiss to my temple.
“Why did you want me to come tonight?” I ask on the subway up to Lexington and Eighty-First. My fingers fiddle with the hem of my cheap skirt, already unraveling. “Also, should we do some sort of feature in Bite the Hand about the Christmas impact on fast fashion?”
Alex looks down at my fingers picking at loose threads. “I wanted you to come because I miss you,” he says, and my stupid heart acts like it just inhaled a Red Bull vodka spiked with an espresso shot. “I am both terrible at saying no to things and selfish, so this is my solution.” He smiles at me apologetically. “And about holiday-driven fast fashion—I like it. You should pitch that to Gus.”
I snort. “You should pitch it to Gus.”
Alex shifts, facing me with his body. His thumb traces the shell of my ear. “You’re doing it again,” he murmurs.
“Doing what?”
“Acting like you’re not an inspiration for people.”
That’s the first moment I ever think it: I love you. But it’s splintered apart by the very next thought, crowding in to destroy the first: Everybody loves him, you idiot, because he makes everybody feel like this.
Regardless, I want to hold his words in my pocket, take them out when I’m feeling lonely or sad or boring.
Two minutes later, we step into the bitter December cold, and nervous anticipation takes root in my gut as Alex navigates us inside an apartment complex.
It has a doorman.
It has an elevator operator.
Motherfucker.
At the door to the apartment, Alex rests his hands on the varnished golden knob. “Don’t leave my side, okay?” His tone is earnest.
“That’s my line,” I say.
Alex opens the door a crack. His throaty voice is underscored by a thrash of Christmas music within. “I think, by now, you and I are off script.”
Well. I’ll have to unpack that later between bouts of overthinking and eggnog.
The apartment is designed with chic furniture, ambient lighting, and an aesthetically muted color palette. It has things like Pampas grass sticking out of a floor vase and honest-to-goodness wall art. A white Christmas tree stands by the window. There is a counter full of drinks boasting top-shelf liquor and a tray of cookies from Levain. The room is littered with people in their holiday best, all of whom turn to face us when we walk in the door thanks to the jingle bells someone hung on the handle.
“Oh Mylanta!” shouts a man in a red-and-white-striped jumpsuit. He smiles at us, mouth agape. “The rumors are true!”
“What rumors?” Alex asks.
“Didn’t you read your own YouTube video comments?” says a woman wearing a SANTA’S HELPER T-shirt. (Personally, no, I do not read the comments. I have a modicum of self-preservation, thank you very much.) The petite woman strolls forward. “Honestly, guys,” she says, gesturing between us. “The whole internet picked up on this.”
“Hmm.” Alex leans in to hug her. “Oops.”
I am slightly more concerned about this revelation than Alex seems to be—particularly because if HR discovers whatever’s going on between us, there will be conversations, and also because some random girl just clearly took our photo—but I sweep it under the rug so I can survive the next few minutes.
“Casey.” Alex pulls me up beside him. “This is Erica, our host.”
This introduction is followed by hugs and thank you for having mes and questions about what she can she get me to drink.
“Um, the Ho Ho Hot Toddy?” I say, reading off the list Erica has hung by the bar.
“I definitely want the Naughty or Spice,” Alex says.
Erica scurries off, and then the introductions begin anew.
“Casey, this is Josh. We studied abroad together in Spain.”
My eyes narrow at Alex. “I thought you studied in London?”
Patiently he says, “That was for a summer program. Spain was during my sophomore year.”
“Of course it was,” I reply with just a touch of sarcasm. Alex smirks.
I am then introduced to Josh’s girlfriend, who is from Birmingham. She’s very easy to talk to, says she loves southern sports rivalries, and asks how on earth I ever made Tennessee orange fashionable.
“I didn’t,” I reply, laughing, as Erica slips my drink into my hands and then vanishes again. “Did you go to Alabama or Auburn?”
“Dartmouth,” she answers.
My cheeks turn as red as my skirt.
“Casey, this is Armand.”
“Casey, this is Savannah.”
My head is swimming.
Alex is wearing that first-day smile, the one that melts hearts and disarms even the most curmudgeonly. He listens, makes people feel heard. This is the opposite of Alex’s fatal flaw. It’s his best, shining trait, and honestly, it’s addictive to watch.
“Casey, this is Sonja.”
Sonja.
My brain short-circuits.
The girl Alex dated for three weeks when he was twenty-one!
She’s tiny, with curly black hair and doe eyes that give her the look of someone who should be protected at all costs, and even though I’m positive she’s shorter than me, right now she’s wearing gargantuan heels that make my pointy work flats feel like training wheels.