Affinity

Nice To Meet You

It's been about 30 minutes since Karlie had gotten here to help me set up everything for the party. It officially starts at 7 but it's kind of open to time. People can stop in at will but it's gonna start then. It's about 6 now so we have awhile to set out snacks, bake cookies, get movies playing or something going.

"Karlie, do you know where Elf is?" I ask, walking through the kitchen to get to the living room. It is a Christmas party, after all, at least that's what I'm calling it even though it's officially just a winter party. Whatever it is, I'm playing a Christmas movie and everyone can just deal with it.

"Living room rack." She calls out from somewhere in the apartment. At the same time the doorbell interrupts her sentence and the distance sound of footsteps tell me she's got it.

Like she said, I find Elf a few shelves down from under the tv and slip it into the disk tray. There's some mumbling from the foyer before Karlie appears through the kitchen walkway toting Joshua behind her.

"Look who's here!" Karlie sings, and I stand, opening my arms and giving Joshua a quick hug.

"Nice to see you again! How are you?" I ask, straightening my shirt.

"Good, good. Busy but I'm excited for the party. I think Karlie told you about my buddy Adam? He's running a bit late but I'll introduce you when he comes," He says. "He's doing a bit of work for the ASPCA up here and they had an emergency."

"The ASPCA? I thought he was a writer?"

"He is. But you kind've need a side job since writing isn't really a great money-maker." He explains and Karlie leans in to emphasize the nod.

"He loves animals," She emphasizes, grinning widely. "Sometimes he even volunteers for extra hours."

She looks to Joshua for backup and he joins into the excess of nodding. I roll my eyes.

"I'm starting to think you just came so you can back Karlie up and set me up with your friend," I say to Joshua and turn on my heel towards my room to find Olivia.

"Not entirely but that's most of it," He laughs. I mean, it's not that I'm completely turned off to the idea of dating but I'm not into setups, and it'd take a pretty extraordinary guy to break me from my little pact to myself. He'd literally have to give up his privacy for the sake of me, and that's something you can't just ask someone to do, even if I could find a guy that I could see myself for good with. And, besides, setups usually only work out on commercials or movies.

People start arriving 15 minutes later, starting with Ellie Goulding and continuing until the majority of my friends have arrived by the time the party has officially started. Ed is around here somewhere, also, i doubt I'll find him in this mess. The apartment isn't overrun because there's a good enough amount of room to give people some walking space but it is pretty crazy.

Karlie also disappeared early in the party with Joshua and I haven't seen them since. I feel like I keep seeing glimpses of people but the only one I've been able to keep track of is Sarah, who has stuck close to me since the party began as I tried to greet everyone.

She stands next to me now, scooping dip onto the potato chips i had set out in the kitchen, talking about one of her most recent movies, Date and Switch, that had came out in February. I, personally, hadn't seen it but I heard a lot about it through her.

Honestly, my attention wasn't on her at the moment though, I got a little sidetracked looking through the crowd to notice she was still going on about it.

"I mean, it did pretty good. We had better expectations but.." She trails off as Karlie approaches, though Joshua isn't following. "Hey."

"Hi Sarah!" She smiles, then turns to me and leans across the counter. "Guess who's here."