Alex nods. “Your flight leaves for Nashville tomorrow.”
His cousins aren’t coming home for Christmas this year; too much holiday shipping to deal with, apparently, and his aunt Jane is already in LA, helping her son pack orders. Freddy is spending the holiday with his dad’s proper and straitlaced side of the family (not his mom’s, which is the side that always welcomes Alex with open arms). Freddy told me this when I texted him to confirm Alex’s holiday whereabouts, gearing up for what I’m about to say:
“Come with me.”
His face snaps up to mine; he’s shocked out of his daze. “What?”
“Book a flight, my flight, and come to Nashville with me.” I am surer of myself with every word. “We can spend your birthday at the park playing soccer in our sweatshirts. And maybe we can go on a hike. I feel like you haven’t done much of that. And we’ll get tickets to some expensive bar downtown on New Year’s Eve.” I bite my lip and exhale.
He looks shocked, but his eyes are smiling in amusement. “Is this a pity invite? I was going to be perfectly content with Cleopatra and Calliope, watching Wes Anderson films and drinking hot chocolate.”
“Convincing, but no. I’ve been thinking about this for days. Mainly because every time I picture you spending Christmas in New Haven with Sonja, I see red, but also because I just want you with me for however long we’ve got.”
Alex’s eyes warm into a bourbon color. “Really?”
“Really. If it feels like too much pressure, you can think of it as your introductory tour to the South,” I offer. “I’m your tour guide. I even accept Venmo tips.”
Alex laughs. “Okay. His grin is so wide, it takes up his whole face. “The answer is yes, jagi. Of course I want to come home with you for the holidays.”
“Famous last words,” I try to joke.
Emotionally, I’m aware this is a horrible idea. Alex Harrison is not my boyfriend and certainly isn’t going to be if I get good news after my interviews on Monday. He likes to move around, is interested in freelancing. Maybe that means London for him, but maybe it means New Zealand. I don’t have any answers, but it doesn’t feel right to demand them from him, because the launch he’s been working so hard for didn’t get approved, and our company is about to get acquired—which might just change everything.
Yep. Emotionally this is not a genius move. But right now, I just don’t care. I’m operating on one self-imploding goal now: make me love you enough to trust you.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Miriam rides to LaGuardia with us. She’s headed to Charleston, where her aunt and uncle live, but we planned our flights so they’d be only thirty minutes apart. In the Uber ride there, Miriam grills Alex about his Instagram aesthetic.
“You need one,” Miriam says.
“It was two YouTube videos,” Alex retorts.
“You literally majored in digital media, Alex. I don’t understand how you don’t understand the importance of this. Take Casey, for example.” She pats my head affectionately. Hair falls into my face, and I blow it back out with a grumpy exhale. “She gave me her Instagram password years ago, and now she has an aesthetic: sweet autumn child who doesn’t own a hairbrush posts pictures from wherever it’s cloudy or raining and filters it with moody Victorian undertones.”
To this, Alex says nothing, momentarily caught out.
“I own a hairbrush.”
“You should use it sometime.” Miriam throws me a wink.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to hand over my Instagram password,” Alex admits.
“Fair. The day will come. I’m not worried.”
At the airport, chaos ensues, with long lines and oversize luggage and a single, twenty-dollar draft beer split among the three of us “for good luck and a travel buzz” before Alex and I drop Miriam off at her gate.
“Meet you at home,” she tells me as she squeezes me close for a hug. She’ll be in Charleston for Christmas, but she’s coming to Nashville after so we can all get together with Sasha and Miguel for New Year’s Eve.
She hugs Alex next, whispering something that makes him blush. He smiles sheepishly and then shoots me a guilty look.
I probably don’t want to know.
Since Alex booked his flight so last-minute, his seat isn’t near mine. I board first, and when he passes me in the aisle of the plane, he tugs softly on my braid and keeps walking.
On the runway—literally, as we’re about to take off—it dawns on me that I forgot to tell my parents he’s coming.
It’s been a crazy twenty-four hours. After Alex and I talked last night, we double-checked that there were still seats available for this flight; he got the last one. Then, when Miriam came home, Alex left so he could pack and get ready for the trip.
“I was right,” Miriam said to me once he was gone.
“About?”
“Feelings.” She grabbed theatrically at the empty air with her fist. “You caught them. Hook, line, and sinker.”
I walked over to the bar cart and started uncorking a bottle of red. Soundless flashes of his body twisting toward me, the light dappling over his hair, his tattooed arm splayed out against a bedsheet all hit me in succession. I couldn’t deny it to Miriam any more than I could deny it to myself. “I … Yeah. But it’s different with Alex. There’s not, like, a future with him. He’s just a person who really makes sense for this stage of life.”
“The stage of life where you are happy,” Miriam deadpanned. “Why are you acting like it has to be temporary? Case, you’re allowed to want him, okay? Hell, you’re allowed to fall in love with him!” I flinched, hearing it out loud—that thing I’ve been questioning, which is definitely not allowed. Miriam spun around in a circle. “Let Alexander Harrison ruin all your plans! Let him sweep you off your fucking feet!” I am certainly, 100 percent already off my feet. “Maybe he’s just saying he wants you to go to London. Maybe he doesn’t really mean it.”
“He’s really not,” I replied staunchly. “He really means it.”
Miriam sighed, grabbing the remote and flipping on the TV. “Look, all I know is that man looks at you like you are the answer to an existential question.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but before I could turn the exact same observation back on her with Brijesh, she squealed, “Ooh, want to watch reruns of Sex and the City?”
Now I shoot off a text to my parents as the plane lifts into the sky: Bringing home a friend for Christmas who doesn’t have other plans—hope that’s okay?
But it’s too late. The text never sends.
* * *
“Jerry!” I squeak-whisper into my phone as soon as we’ve touched down.
“Casey! We’re at baggage claim!”