His name was Craig. He was an estate lawyer who I met at a child’s birthday party. Summer said there was no bigger red flag than a forty-year-old man giving his number to Sleeping Beauty at his niece’s birthday party, but that’s what happened. I threw his number away, because nothing about a man who wore his company logo stitched onto his puffy vest which he then wore over a button-down shirt screamed, “I will find your clit!” When I didn’t call Craig, he got my number from his sister and called me. He was wildly charming on the phone—charming enough for me to forget the fact that he purposefully popped his shirt’s collar. Craig was the type of guy you want to introduce to your mom. He adored his family—half of the pictures in his phone were of his niece, Noa. He made more money than he knew what to do with, so he donated to the Frick, the Met, MOMA…yes, he cared about art. He traveled from Tribeca to the worst bar on the Lower East Side just to watch me sing on a rainy Tuesday night. He had a soft speaking voice, cute dimples, and a sparkly smile. I enjoyed his company, and there was absolutely no good reason to stop seeing someone this perfect in person and on paper. He was blue skies. But unfortunately for Craig, every Monday night when I stepped into Trader Joe’s, I was reminded that fireworks existed.
I exhaled as I looked at my newly bronzed, newly twenty-four-year-old face in the mirror. “Mr. Brightside” boomed through the walls, where outside this bathroom, blue skies and fireworks would light up the night, bursting my bubble.
Summer opened the door, grabbed my hand, and tugged me out of the bathroom. We shoved our way past the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, toward the stage room’s bar. I slowed my steps, my insides growing hot as I spotted Garrett by the bar. He leaned one broad shoulder against the brick wall with a beer in his hand, watching the drunk singer onstage butcher the Killers. Garrett went to Trader Joe’s straight from work, so the only casual I was used to seeing Garrett wear was business. Rock and Roll Garrett did everything for me—forest-green Henley, fitted dark jeans, damp tousled hair.
My heart pounded faster as I approached his body. He turned in my direction and momentarily froze, clenching his jaw, swallowing hard, and blinking me back. I glanced down at my floral off-the-shoulder dress, realizing that Garrett hadn’t seen me this dressed up…ever. He inhaled, then melted into a smile, wrapping his arm around my bare shoulder and bringing me in close for a hug. He was freshly showered, and spicy musk and vanilla swirled around me, a scent I had only gotten a hint of, because he rarely held me this close inside a grocery store.
“Happy birthday.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you going to introduce me, or what?” Summer interrupted.
We broke out of the hug, turning toward Summer, who stared at us as if we were a complicated painting. His arm was still loose around me, his fingers grazing my waist.
I’d give anything to stand just like this—his skin pressed against mine—until the sun comes up.
“Summer, Garrett. Garrett, Summer.”
Summer nodded at him, tipping her wine to his beer. “Grocery Garrett.”
“Oh, is that what she calls me?” he asked, giving me the side-eye.
My cheeks grew hot. Now he had confirmation that I talked about him outside our bubble—that he also mattered to me on Tuesday through Sunday.
“What do you call her?” Summer asked, playing the role of the protective parent.
“Maggie May.”
“I think that one’s my fault,” Summer noted.
I hid my mouth behind my empty drink, my cheeks burning.
“Can I get you another?” he asked me, nodding to my beer.
“It’s my birthday, so I’ll allow it.”
I’d allowed him to buy me a lot of things over the last year. He did so slyly, never outright asking, but rather, he would place random food, candy, or drinks inside my shopping bag as we left Trader Joe’s. I would sprint the long three blocks back to my tiny apartment, race up the four flights of stairs, giddy to discover what mystery lay inside—what little piece of Garrett I could bring into my real world. And here we were, in the real world.
“Let me guess. You’re drinking some fruity, made in your mama’s backyard, weird drink disguised as beer?”
“It’s blueberry beer, and it’s delicious.”
Garrett shook his head at me and turned to Summer. “Can I get you something? Maybe something less offensive?”
Summer’s eyes were pointed across the bar, at the bartender with a tattoo sleeve and long red hair.
“No thanks. I’m good,” Summer said, not breaking eye contact with the bartender.
We watched Summer float around to the other side of the bar, where the redheaded bartender shot toward her like a magnet, taking her drink order.
“It happens wherever she goes,” I noted as Summer leaned her head back in a cackle, charming the bartender. “I wonder what it’s like to be that beautiful.”
Garrett leaned in closer to me.
“Tell me. What’s it like?” he asked, his eyes dead-set on mine.
I gripped one hand onto the counter to keep from falling over, as his hardened stare unscrewed every joint in my body.
“What do you want?” I heard a voice ask.
Him. I want him.
I couldn’t look away. Garrett tugged his eyes off mine and turned to the impatient bartender, ordering our drinks. Meanwhile, my mind went into a free fall. Had Garrett just implied that I was beautiful? Had he just looked at me, here in public, like he wanted to take me somewhere private?
My phone pinged, bringing me back to earth. I pulled my phone out of my crossbody, seeing a text message from Craig.
Stuck in traffic, almost there xx
I swallowed the guilty lust in my throat, glancing to the ceiling. I had forgotten about Craig. Garrett did that: made me forget about the world outside his smile. In public, Garrett and I had other people who looked at us the way Garrett had just looked at me. I didn’t definitively “have” Craig, but we spent a couple nights a week together, and he had asked me if I was sleeping with other people last week, and seemed pleased when I said no, and even happier when he asked if we could keep it that way, and I said “of course.” Even worse, Garrett was in a year-long serious relationship with a speech pathologist. Maybe he needed a reminder, so we could cool down before Craig walked in on us tearing each other’s clothes off in the middle of the bar.
Garrett handed me my beer, and I broke eye contact quickly, looking down at the drink in my fidgeting fingers, wondering how to seamlessly bring up Other People. Masochistically, I wanted to know everything about Quinn Parker. Garrett rarely brought her up, but when he did, he called her affectionately by her last name, which made me hate her blameless existence even more. The less I knew, the less I could hold on to and tear apart in my head. The more I knew, the more it hurt my heart.
“So, I thought…I thought you might bring Quinn tonight. I really want to meet her,” I said in a high-pitched voice that made my statement wildly unconvincing to absolutely anyone with ears.
Garrett shot me a one-sided grin, which called “bullshit” louder than he could have said it.
“Quinn and I broke up.”
Oh.
He pursed his lips together in a blank expression. He wasn’t even referring to her as Parker anymore. She was just Quinn. Dead-to-him Quinn. My heart beat faster as I stared wide-eyed up at Garrett, the way you’d look at someone who had gone from a fantasy to a possibility.
“I’m sorry.”
I was not sorry.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine. Honestly. It was a long time coming. It’s kind of…” He trailed off, and I watched his strong jaw twitch.
The guy who had the perfect response for everything was suddenly having a hard time finding the right words. Garrett seemed to effortlessly turn a phrase, with a bright smile to go along with it. Here, he was missing both: the words and the smile. He looked down at his beer bottle, unpeeling the sticker with his fingers, until his eyes settled back on me.
“It’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said.
“You wanted to talk to me about your breakup?”
“No. I wanted to talk to you about why I broke up with—”
“Garrett Scholl, to the stage,” an MC said over the loudspeaker.
Garrett drew a deep breath of air and set down his beer.
“Hold that thought,” he said.
He turned and hustled toward the stage as Summer sidled up to me. I glanced at her flushed face.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“Azi.”
Summer tilted her head, watching Garrett climb onto the stage.
“This guy really does it for you?”
“Summer.”
“He’s just…” Summer shrugged her shoulders dismissively.
“He’s objectively very attractive.”
“Not my type.”
“Well, yeah, he has a penis.”
“Speaking of, he wants to use it to fuck you.”
“Ew. Can you say that nicer?”
She crouched down to my eye level, speaking slowly the way you would to a toddler. “Maggie, do you see that guy onstage? He wants to make sweet, sweet love to you.”
I smiled like an idiot at the thought, doe eyes watching Garrett unfold the songbook, staring longingly at him as he ran a hand through his thick blond hair.
I wonder what those fingers would feel like running up my thigh?