Love Interest

“Jer, listen.” I look around at the passengers unbuckling, stretching, standing up to crowd the aisle. Lowering my voice even further—because I don’t want Alex to overhear and think he’s an afterthought—I say, “Alex is with me.”

“Alex…,” Jerry repeats. I’m hoping he remembers that name from Thanksgiving and I won’t have to explain. Jerry’s always been easier to talk to about relationship stuff than Dad. Because at the end of the day … my dad is my dad. “Oh. He’s with you now?”

“Yes. I forgot to tell you guys. It was a last-minute thing. But can you tell Dad, and just, like, be welcoming and not weird about it?”

“Okay,” Jerry says. “You got it, sweetheart.”

“And for the love of God, make Marty Maitland promise he will not ask about Alex’s intentions with his daughter.”

“He said that to Lance as a joke, Casey. It’s not our fault your ex-boyfriend was a total boner.”

“Okay, bye, see you soon!”

“Kisses!”

Ending the call, I rest my forehead against the seat back. Crisis. Averted.

Outside the gate, I wait for Alex. When I see him—hair spiking like untrimmed grass, still in his work clothes, backpack hanging off one shoulder—I let him search, his eyes tracking the crowd, waiting in anticipation for the moment he finds me. When he does, his lips part softly, and he waves a little.

“Good flight?” I ask as we head for baggage claim.

“I watched the first twenty minutes of Across the Universe. And then I read a thriller.”

“You read … a whole thriller. On a two-and-a-half-hour flight.”

Alex glances down at me, lips tugged up in amusement at my tone. “I don’t read like most people read. I skim. If I try to read everything, I get distracted and give up. That’s why I work in short-form media.” He nods, like that settles it.

“Okay.” Does that even count??? But I bite my tongue in an effort not to sound judgmental. “What about audiobooks?”

“I listen to those on two times the normal talking speed,” Alex says. “It’s almost gibberish, but you get done in half the time.”

These are the types of things that petrify me about Alex. Does he think of me as something to skim? To be finished with in half the time?

But then he grabs my hand, kisses it, and says hoarsely, “I’m nervous, Simba.” And it’s so damn cute.

“Alex, you’ve never made a bad first impression in your life.”

“If you’ll recall,” Alex says, “I have made one bad first impression in my life.”

“Well, at least I thought you were good-looking.”

“It was all common ground from there,” he says, winking.

At baggage claim, Jerry and Dad really put it on. I’m genuinely impressed with how quick they are on their feet. They’re all “Hey, Alex, we’re so excited to have you come stay!” and “We’ve been looking forward to meeting you!” and Alex is all, “I’m so thankful to be here!” and “It’s great to meet you both! Casey’s told me all about you!”

I just stand there exhaling.

Dad and Jerry grill Alex on the way home. By the time we get there, it’s well past sunset, the dark street glowing with Christmas lights scattered across the landscaping, wreaths on the doors, icicle strands hanging off the roofs, fake reindeer beaming in the front yards. The weather is muggy but cool, the temperature a near ten-degree increase from New York, but it still feels like a classic December evening for the South.

Dad leads Alex with our luggage to my childhood bedroom (thank God they remodeled it last year) while Jerry and I sneakily put an extra place setting on the dinner table. Cider warming in a crockpot perfumes the room with cinnamon, orange, cloves. I ladle two mugs out before chasing Alex down. Dad has him in the guitar room, trying to run interference but coming across as a show-off.

“And this is the guitar Casey was playing when she got her first period—”

“Dad!”

“Hey, kiddo.”

Alex turns to me, stifling a laugh. Seeing him here—in my childhood home—sends me all the way back to the beginning. What would August Casey have thought about this scene? Me, offering a mug of rum-spiked cider to Alex, letting our fingers graze, letting my focus linger while he blows away steam? She couldn’t have fathomed it. But I’ve colored in the lines of Alex’s edges over the past four months. Sometimes, he seems more real to me, more solid, than anything else I’ve ever touched.

The four of us sit down to Jerry’s home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner (we never did have any turkey in New York), and Alex asks, “Do I get to hear you play one of those guitars?”

I grimace, dishing out mashed potatoes. “Probably not—”

“But your chances increase in direct relation to how much cider she consumes,” Dad advises.

Alex gets up to pour me another drink, not missing a beat. “How did you two meet?” he asks.

Helpfully, I tell him, “They met at my mom’s funeral.”

“Casey.” Dad’s tone comes out scolding, the same he used when I was a kid. Jerry balks, dropping his silverware loudly onto his plate. From the crockpot Alex looks at me, his eyes dancing, trying to figure out if this is a twisted joke or not.

“What?” I say. “It’s true!”

“Okay, yes, that is technically true,” Jerry allows, directing his words at Alex in guilty apology. “I did the flowers for Sadie’s funeral. But we didn’t run into each other again for two years, and then after another year, we officially got together.”

Dad glares at me, his eyes vengeful. “Alex. What are your intentions with my daughter?”

“Um,” Alex mumbles, sitting back down, setting the refilled mug beside my plate.

“Don’t answer that,” I tell him.

“Actually, I think we all need more alcohol,” Jerry says, rising from the table. “Maybe a cocktail? Alex, Marty has this great story he’s got to tell you about a Serbian child named Croissant. The child is, of course, illegitimate.”

“Same,” Alex says, biting back a smile.

This makes Jerry blush, which in turn makes me burst out laughing. “Tell him, Dad.”

Dad tells the absurd story, and Jerry makes old-fashioneds, and over the next forty-five minutes, I get supplied with enough alcohol to play one song only for Alex.

“What do you want to hear?” I ask him as I poise on the living room settee, looping the strap of the Yamaha acoustic over my head. Alex is across from me on a leather pullout chair, but Jerry and Dad are still cleaning up in the kitchen—because they know me, and they know I will positively freak out if I have a whole captive audience for this.

“Whatever you want.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees.

“It’s been a while,” I warn him, tuning the guitar. But the instrument is familiar beneath my fingertips, like the edge of an old photograph or damp beach sand. Holding one of these will always make me feel like a kid again, with a grief I didn’t know where to put because I wasn’t even old enough to name it. For a while, I put it here, in loving something my dad loved—the thing that bound us outside of Mom.

Alex smiles softly at me. “Then play something you know by heart.”

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