Snapshots | ✓

Thirty Five: Hayes

Thursday, December 24th, 2015

"This was a terrible idea," Hayes said for the twentieth time, peering out the windshield at the house they were parked in front of.

"It's going to be fine," Micah assured her.

"Lenore and Andrew are super nice," Arianna added from the backseat.

"Micah's the most difficult person to win over in this family and you've got him wrapped around your finger, so you're going to do great," Leo said, earning a glare in the rearview mirror from Micah.

"Plus, you and Micah aren't even dating," Arianna continued, breathing a nearly silent yet before finishing, "So you're not even meeting a boyfriend's parents, just a friend's parents."

"At least if we were dating I would have a reason to be here," Hayes grumbled.

"Well that's easy to arrange, huh Mickey?" Leo said. Arianna snorted a laugh and fist-bumped her boyfriend.

"You're both walking back to the city," Micah declared, turning off the engine and exiting the car. Leo and Arianna booed him loudly but got out of the car. Hayes hesitated for another moment, then took a deep breath, gathered her courage, and followed the three to the front door.

Lenore greeted them at the door, hugging everyone tightly. She didn't even hesitate when she got to Hayes, just enveloped her in a hug and introduced herself. They were ushered inside and had their coats taken. Andrew got up from an oversized chair to hug them, again including Hayes as he went. She had never felt so welcome at a stranger's house before.

"We have another twenty minutes before Misha and everyone in her car show up, so get comfortable," Andrew said, gesturing them into the living room.

Hayes looked to Micah with confusion as she followed him to the couch. He smiled. "Remember when I said Misha hasn't been on time to anything in her entire life?"

"I didn't think you were serious," she replied.

After that, Hayes kept mostly to herself as the others chatted, catching up on everyone's lives. She learned that Leo was a freelance photographer and that Arianna did market research for a tech company. Arianna was terrified of flying and had been severely drugged up to make the flight from Portland to New York, only the effects had kicked in right before they went through security and she'd almost been prevented from boarding the plane. Andrew was close to retiring and was planning on celebrating with a cross-country roadtrip. Lenore worked as a software engineer at Google's New York office, and had to dumb down nearly everything she said about her work so that the other people in the room could understand.

"And what do you do, Hayes?" Lenore asked.

"Oh, I, uh, I bartend. It's far more straightforward than your job," she replied with a shy smile.

"You moved to DC to bartend?" Lenore pressed.

"I'm also attending GWU to get my Masters in Museum Studies."

"Oh lovely! What are you hoping to do after?"

"Curate highly interactive exhibits at whatever museum or gallery will hire me," Hayes responded. "Or if that fails, I can always go back to law school. My 172 is still good for another year, so hopefully they'd let me back in."

"You hated law school," Micah said.

"I remember, I'm just not confident in my ability to get a job in my desired field."

"You got that competitive internship so you must be good at whatever you're doing," he argued. "And the app prototype you showed me for that experimental photography exhibit was incredible."

"That's high praise from Micah," Leo chimed in.

"What kind of an app was it?" Lenore asked.

Hayes shot Micah a helpless look but he just smiled at her. She pulled out her phone and moved to sit closer to Lenore and Leo to explain the app and the photography being exhibited. They grilled her on specifics and she answered as best she could. She remembered most of the details from the project but they had a tendency to ask questions about the few aspects she hadn't quite figured out yet, which they then decided to figure out for her, volleying ideas back and forth with occasional additions from the others.

It was difficult to concentrate when she was so keenly aware of Micah watching her from the other side of the room, a barely-there smile playing around the corners of his mouth. He didn't even look away when she glanced at him. It was infuriating and weirdly attractive, not that she would admit to the latter.

Misha and the others finally arrived nearly an hour late. All four of them easily fell into their spots on the couches and the chairs they dragged over from the dining table. The room got significantly louder with Misha and Finn, allowing Hayes to once again put herself in the background to listen to what everyone was saying. Gelsey was an executive assistant to a CFO of some kind, Finn was a real estate agent, Misha was working at a fancy hotel and trying to get a job in television production, and Cameron worked in biotechnology. Everyone listened with rapt attention as Gelsey updated them on office drama that had apparently been going on for some time, and laughed as Misha told the newest stories of the ridiculous people she had to deal with. It was noisy and boisterous and it delighted Hayes to no end.

Cooking ended up being a group activity, with all ten of them moving around each other in the large kitchen and trying not to burn anything. It was the very definition of 'too many cooks in the kitchen' but it worked somehow. Hayes put herself in charge of the mashed potatoes so she could make sure there was enough cheese in them, and managed to keep her breathing normal when Micah put his hands on her hips to move her to one side.

The food was wonderful and Hayes found herself participating more in the conversations as the evening wore on. She found the groove she'd gotten into the night before and settled into it. It twisted her insides to admit, but she was more comfortable than she'd ever been with a group of people she wasn't related to.

It broke her heart a little bit that the evening might be the only one she spent with them all. It made her wish, more than anything else, that she was brave enough to risk losing Micah from her life for the chance to be more than just-friends with him.

But she wasn't. So just-friends they would remain until they were forced apart.