We slam ourselves against the door to shut it, catching our breath. “I feel like we’re in Jurassic Park,” he says, which makes me laugh harder.
“What,” I gasp.
“Like we just slammed the door against a bunch of raptors,” he explains.
“I don’t think Dorner’s teeth pose that kind of threat, Miles,” I say. “I’m fairly sure he wasn’t even wearing them.”
“You know what I think?” he says.
“What?” I ask.
“I think we should just fucking do it,” he says.
My heart spikes upward. My skin goes very hot, then very cold. “What?”
“Let’s RSVP,” he says. “Let’s go to their wedding. And get wasted. Eat the cake before they’ve even cut it, and puke on the dance floor.”
I laugh. “Okay.”
“I’m serious,” he says. “Let’s go.”
“No way,” I say.
“Okay, fine,” he replies. “Then let’s just say we’re going.”
“Miles,” I reply, “why?”
“To make them sweat,” he says. “And pay ninety dollars a plate for dried-out chicken that no one’s going to eat.”
“Their parents will pay for that chicken,” I say. “And I don’t know about the Comers, but the Collinses are lovely people.”
He flinches. I’m not sure at which part, but something I said definitely shifted his mood a bit. “They’re also rich,” he says. “Ninety dollars is nothing to them, and at least this way, they have to spend the next few months worrying that we’ll show up and ruin their big day.”
“Maybe they don’t care,” I say.
The smirk seeps from his face. “Shit,” he says. “You’re right. I guess that’s why they invited us.”
I snort. “You know why they invited us, Miles. Because they’re both addicted to being universally loved. And they’re good at it. Good enough that they don’t realize you don’t get to be loved by people whose hearts you completely fucking destroy. They think they’re being the bigger people right now. But they don’t get to be the bigger people. For the next few years, they have to live with being the assholes.”
He seems unconvinced, but now I’m sure.
“We should RSVP,” I say. “They’re not the bigger people. Fuck that!”
“Fuck that!” he agrees.
“Fuck that!” I half shout.
Mr. Dorner pounds on the wall. Miles presses a pointer finger to my lips. “Fuck that,” he whispers.
“Fuck that,” I whisper back.
He watches my lips move against his finger. I feel another pleasant zing. “We should go to bed,” I say.
And then, because it came out a little too low, I say, “I mean, I should get to bed.”
He lets his hand fall away. “After we RSVP.”
I awake to bright midday light and a walloping headache. Last night returns to me in bits and pieces, in no particular order.
A drunken walk home.
The tattered felt of a pool table.
A rough finger against my lips.
Laughing in the hallway.
And then Mr. Dorner? Was? There? For some reason? At some point?
Before that, or maybe after, Miles and I drank red wine straight from the bottle.
At some point, we were out on the street, walking with our arms around each other, his hand curled against my waist where my shirt had ridden up. My neck and face go hot.
I’m trying to fast-forward through the memories, to be sure I only did anything mildly embarrassing and nothing irrevocably humiliating.
The fast-forward doesn’t help. I remember falling into bed, exhausted, only to realize I couldn’t sleep, because I was also a little bit turned on.
Oh my god, did I cry at some point?
Wait. Did Miles cry? Surely not.
I feel around for my phone and find it tangled in my sheets. I guess I at least had the wherewithal to turn off my alarm. It’s almost noon.
I never sleep this late.
I scroll through my texts, searching for incriminating evidence of my drunkenness. But I didn’t send a single message after work.
There is, however, something else worrying on my home screen.
A new icon.
A dating app.
I have no recollection of downloading it. I don’t really remember anything after the bar.
I clamber out of bed and wait for the pounding in my skull to subside before staggering out into the living room. I feel like I’m made of nuclear waste.
