Maybe he’d get really drunk and call her.
That moderately cheered him up, but then he glanced out the window and sat up straighter in his seat. “Wait,” he said. “Where are we going?”
John glanced in the rearview mirror, obviously looking for Kiki to answer, and that was when Asa knew. He went to turn, got caught up in the seat belt, and unbuckled it in frustration so he could completely face Kiki, who had a faux innocent expression that would fool no one.
“Why are we going to Lauren’s?”
“Safety first,” she said, pointing at his seat belt.
“If you’re so concerned with safety, why aren’t you answering my question?”
“It’s Lauren’s party,” John said.
They were turning into her apartment complex now. The parking lot was more full than usual, the spot Asa would’ve normally used taken up by an eighties Oldsmobile. He wished he could turn all of this institutional knowledge off, wished he could stop thinking about the tiny little routines they’d built together even in that one perfect week. He thought he must not have heard John correctly, even when they were pulling into a space, the stairs leading to Lauren’s apartment visible just around the corner.
“Lauren’s throwing a party?”
Kiki and Elliot were already climbing out of the car, but John stayed back a second while he turned the car off and pocketed his keys. “Do you want to leave?”
A part of him desperately wanted to. Why was she throwing a party? Was this how quickly she’d moved on? Did she know he was going to be there? Was this Kiki’s twisted way of trying to get them back together? He’d told her everything—he hadn’t been able to help himself, he needed to get it all out and she’d been there—but he had no idea what Lauren might have said. Did Kiki think that there was any chance they could get back together?
Who was he kidding. Of course he didn’t want to leave. Because up those stairs and on the other side of the door—there was Lauren.
“No,” he said. “Let’s go.”
He could hear music coming from behind her door, and Kiki didn’t even bother to knock before walking right in. There was a surprising number of people packed into Lauren’s tiny living room, and Asa recognized most of them from Cold World. He intercepted a weird bro fist bump from Marcus, Saulo’s arm shot up from across the room in greeting, and Sonia smiled tipsily at him while handing him a beer. The one person he didn’t see was the person he most wanted to.
The music was “Party in the USA,” and it was a little too loud. His head was pounding, and he cracked open the beer and took a sip, hoping that maybe it would take the edge off, do something. It was his favorite brand, which made him wonder if Lauren had some extras in the fridge she was trying to get rid of. But no, he’d never brought over a six-pack and left it there—it had to be a coincidence. His brain was concocting the most ridiculous scenarios now.
And then he saw her, and he almost dropped his beer. She was wearing the same red off-the-shoulder dress she’d worn that night in Cold World, her hair loose around her shoulders. She was so beautiful he literally couldn’t take his gaze off her, which was why when she finally looked over, their sudden eye contact was a jolt to them both. He held up his beer in a mini salute, then wished he hadn’t. Who wanted their ex-boyfriend showing up at their New Year’s Eve party, staring moonily at them across the room? This was a mistake.
But she was making her way toward him, weaving her way through the crowd. “You came!” she said when she got closer. She was smiling at him, which was very confusing.
“Was I supposed to?”
“Yes!” she said. “I threw this party for you!”
The music was way too loud. It had switched to another song, this one by the Beastie Boys. What decade was this playlist from? He leaned in, not sure he’d heard her correctly.
“I’m sorry?”
She rested her hand on his forearm, stood on tiptoes to make herself heard better. Her breasts brushed against his bicep, and her breath was warm in his ear when she repeated herself. “It’s for you,” she said. “The party.”
The good news was that his head was no longer pounding. It felt like all the blood had rushed from his head to lower parts of his body, and he felt a little dizzy. “Like a surprise party?” He looked around, but no one had jumped out from behind couches to yell anything when he walked in. They didn’t even seem to register his presence, except Kiki, who was watching them but whipped her head around fast when she caught Asa looking at her.
“Well, it’s kind of for me,” she said. “But for you. Can we talk?”
“Sure.” What else could he say? She threaded her fingers through his, leading him through the party, and it occurred to him that if she didn’t want people to think there was anything going on between them—not that there was anymore, but whatever—bringing him to her bedroom and shutting the door behind them probably wasn’t the best way to accomplish that. But if the thought didn’t occur to her, he wasn’t going to put it in her head.
She leaned against the closed door now and looked at him. Just when he thought he’d go out of his skin if she didn’t say something, she said a single word.
“Hi.”
“Uh,” he said. “Hi.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I’d prepared a whole speech.”
On the wall over her bed, Asa saw that Lauren had hung up the flower painting he’d made her for Christmas. For the first time, he allowed something like hope to bloom in his chest, but he tried to take a deep breath, settle down. Her speech could be about anything. It could be more about why he was wasting his potential at Cold World or how fun their one week together was. He’d listen to any version of whatever she wanted to say.
“Start with the party,” he said. “What did you mean, it was for me?”
“Technically, it’s for me,” she said. “Kiki pointed out that people are willing to show up for me, that I should be willing to let them do it. So what more literal way to put that to the test than a party? I’ve never had this many people in my apartment before. I didn’t even know I knew this many people. But when I asked them to come to a New Year’s Eve party with twenty-four hours’ notice . . . they came. I mean, sure, the free beer and snacks probably helped, but still. And I also did it for you, to show you that I can be more open to this kind of thing.”
He still wasn’t one hundred percent sure he understood, but he knew what a big deal it was for her to invite so many people to her apartment. He gave her a crooked smile. “Is this a return of Fun Lauren? Because the last time she made an appearance, she encouraged everyone to drink antifreeze.”
“I did not!” she said, but she was smiling, too. “Not Fun Lauren. I’m trying to be . . . Brave Lauren. Honest Lauren. The last time we talked . . . I don’t think I was either. All I heard was you rejecting me, and it felt so inevitable that all I knew how to do was curl back up inside my shell like a little hermit crab, wait for the threat to pass.”
Asa swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I never meant to reject you.”
She gave an adorably self-deprecating eye roll. “I know that now. Kiki called me a clown.”
Kiki had called him one of those, too. “I never meant that I didn’t want to be with you. It was just hard for me, keeping it a secret. I want to be able to talk about you, to touch you in public, to go out together without worrying someone is going to see us. I want to make you coffee in the break room or say shit like Let me check with Lauren and see if we have plans or take a picture with you and make it my lock screen.”
“Asa, I —”
“Not flavored coffee,” he said. “I’m aware, believe me. I’ll rinse out the Keurig and everything.”