My Favorite Half-Night Stand(33)

“Sharon. Are you trying to make me move in here?” Millie asks her.

“Don’t tease me.” Mom pops a kiss to the side of Millie’s head, then walks ahead of her into the house, calling out, “James! They’re all here!”

Dad yells from upstairs, “You think I didn’t hear that crap music booming down the driveway?”

Chris grins up at Dad as he descends into the living room. “Alex and Ed chose the emo eighties theme for this drive.”

“Who was driving?” Dad asks, laughing knowingly. He doesn’t bother to wait for an answer. “You are too goddamn nice, Chris.”

The two of them disappear immediately to do who knows what. Discuss the weather almanac or the biochemistry of grape fermentation, probably. Alex and Ed look around, hoping to find Rayme, I’m sure, and I smile proudly when Millie reaches out to either side of her and shoves each of them in the shoulder.

“She’s not going to be here until about five,” she says.

I start to agree before remembering that I didn’t know this. “Wait, what?”

“She texted me,” Millie says, all innocent round green eyes and flirting freckles.

“Rayme texted you?” She didn’t text me. Millie didn’t mention it, either.

“Uh, yeah.” Millie follows Mom into the kitchen and I’m left with Ed, whose hands are shoved deep into his pockets—safe, he won’t break anything this way—and Alex, who saunters over and sits on the couch, kicking his feet onto the coffee table.

“Alex,” I say.

He drops his feet.

“Want a beer?” At their nods, I turn and head into the kitchen. Mom and Millie are staring into the oven and moaning over the sight and smells of the roasting meat.

“Christ, that looks good.” Millie’s gravelly voice rockets a gallon of blood down my body and toward my groin, before I remember that she’s talking about my mother’s cooking.

Mom heads out the back door to pick vegetables for the salad, and Millie leans against the counter, smiling at me. It’s a quiet smile, a real one, where her mouth curves but doesn’t open, and her eyes move all over my face, cataloging, almost like she’s reading a news story for the latest update.

“Hey, you,” she says.

It feels like everything finally goes still. With the tenure party, the spontaneous sex, and this last week of cycling work/dating-app adrenaline/sleep/repeat, I realize we haven’t just been us in days. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but Millie is a fixture in my life. When I don’t get time with her . . . it’s weird.

“Hey, yourself.”

“What’s new?”

I shrug. “Work’s been bananas. How about you?”

“Same.” Millie pulls a hair tie off her wrist and bundles her hair on top of her head. “I got started on the book.”

“That’s awesome.” I reach for a high five. Her hand is a soft slap of warmth against mine. “How are things going on the dating front?”

“Meh.” She looks down to the floor. “There’s one guy I’m talking to a fair bit.”

“That’s awesome! See, I told you they weren’t all losers.” She shrugs noncommittally. “Is he cool?”

She nods. “What about you?”

Tension rises like steam in the room, and it feels like every other sound falls away. “Yeah. Same. Well, the two still, really. But Catherine and I stay up late messaging lately. It’s . . . nice.”

Millie gnaws at her lip for a few seconds, and I can’t read the reaction. Is it jealousy?

“Is this the one whose picture you didn’t like?” she asks.

I groan. “Come on, this again?”

She grins. “Tell me about her.”

There’s a flash of annoyance when I realize how easily she’s managed to turn the conversation back to me. She deflects before I realize she’s done it.

“Well,” I start, leaning back against the counter and choosing my words carefully, “I’m not sure what department she’s in, but it sounds like she’s faculty at UCSB. She’s funny—I told you that—and laid-back, but shares these amazing stories. Apparently in college she went to Africa for a month and got into a car with the wrong driver and ended up, like, two hundred miles away from the town she was supposed to be in, but she just got on a bus and went back.”

Millie smiles faintly. “Wow. How cool.”

“She has a sister and—like you—her mom died when she was younger.” I pause, looking at her closely. “You two would probably get along really well, actually. If things don’t work out with us, maybe I just found you a backup best friend for when I’m out of town.”

Millie bites her lower lip, looks at my mouth, and then takes a sharp, deep breath, turning away toward the sink. “Did you notice that neither of your parents have said happy birthday to you?”

A breath comes out of me as a laugh. “It’s not my birthday yet.”

She turns back around to face me. “But isn’t that why we’re here?”

“Only sort of,” I say. “Mom just wanted everyone here so she could brag that I spent my birthday with her.”

My mother has three sisters, and they are notoriously competitive about how great their kids are. Some children have pressure to go to an Ivy League school, some are pressured to become physicians. Rayme and I are pressured to do all the things specifically that Aunt Janice’s kids won’t do, like visit regularly, send thank-you notes, and celebrate Mother’s Day.