Messy by Choice

Mess 1 (Lenox)

"Lenox!" is screamed at me as I'm strong-arm into a hug before I've even fully stepped through the front door's threshold. A head of blown-out hair smushes itself in between my shoulder blade and knocks a gust of air out of my chest. "Happy Thanksgiving!"

"Happy Thanksgiving, Mrs. Lin," I say, with a one-handed side hug back, just barely manage to keep my store-bought pumpkin pie from splattering onto the terracotta tiles and offer it to the host. "Thanks for inviting me."

"Thanks for coming!" she says, snatching the pie as she descends back into the vigor of her family's rousing holiday party. She's a pretty well-known figure in my life, despite lack of blood relation, and seeing the signs of age in her graying brown hair makes me sentimental.

"Lenox!" echoes again from across the living room, and I shoulder my way through the disordered, merry chaos to my oldest friend. Two young kids collide with my legs on the way, dust themselves off, then spring back into their chase.

"Apologize!" a little balding middle-aged man, who I assume to be their father, yells after them. 

I, from that point on, safely get to John.

"Hey man," I greet him with a fist bump as John grabs himself a beer from a cooler.

"Glad you could make it," John says with a tap of his fist back. "Want one?"

"Hell yeah."

This week has been exhausting. I thought I might get a break during the holiday season, but my firm had been solidly overbooked. Of course, as one of the newest hires, I had been firmly held at the office until just an hour ago, looking, probably, as drained as I now felt.

John's magnanimously quick in getting the beer into my hands. And I just begin to savor my first bitter sip when I pull a double take so hard, I nearly pull a muscle in my neck.

A curved silhouette in a red dress with long, flouncy blonde hair is sashaying in from the outside patio. Her eyes aren't on me but on the many people she's having to navigate around, but eventually, her eyes do gaze up to find mine—unabashedly ogling her like some kind of dumb lovestruck teenager.

I swallow, even though there's no beer in my mouth, before facing away and hoping I didn't get caught.

But, fuck me, Flouncy Hair's en route towards me, and with every step, her hips bounce as much as her hair starts too. I, again, swallow no beer.

"Hey, John," she says, bending a hand into the cooler.

"Ally," John replies, "Have you met my friend, Lenox?"

Ally doesn't spare me more than half a second glance. "Hi," she greets with an almost offensively mere attempt of a smile before weaving away. She's nicer to John, who she pats on the shoulder with an actual smile. My eyes are glued to her swaying ass as she goes. I blank and forget to say anything back. Fuck.

"So, how's work?" John asks me, running a hand through his brown curls that's causing its premature thinning.

"Busy," I reply, trying to steer my brain back to civil thoughts. "You?"

"Fucking hell," John says, downing his beer. "But what else is new?"

We go back and forth with catch-up. We've known each other since being little league teammates at the ripe age of ten and then survived a college and fraternity together. His house had been a pretty consistent stomping ground growing up, but this is my first time coming to one of his family parties that wasn't his birthday. It's definitely my first-time laying eyes on Flouncy Hair—no, wait, Ally. My eyes, against my better judgement, dart to her whenever she brushes near my field of vision.