Meet Cute

Chapter 9

"There she is!" I was greeted by the glowing faces of Casey, Jules, and Estelle as I got back from work. "Hurry up and change so we can start drinking now." Casey told me as I shut the door behind me.

"I didn't realize we were having a little shindig this evening." I said as I walked back to my room and stripped out of my work clothes and changed into something more comfortable. As I changed I heard Estelle working the blender, clearly preparing margaritas for us all. "I hope you are actually doing an acceptable ratio of tequila to mix this time." I said as I sat down at the kitchen counter next to Jules. "Last time we were basically drinking an entire glass of tequila."

"Not to mention it was the worst tequila I've ever tasted in my life." Jules added with a shudder.

"Hey, give me a break. Last time I had spent most of my pay check covering part of that ones rent." She raised her eyebrow at me and returned to the margaritas. 

"And I have never been late on rent since then." I responded. 

Estelle started pouring her concoction into our glasses when Casey exclaimed from the couch. "Oh my God. Laurel, come here." I tried to protest, but she kept insisting.

"What are you even watching?" I asked as she rewinded the tv.

"Just shut up and look." She finally pressed play and I realized why she was so insistent.

"In recent news, Chris Evans is back in LA after finishing up filming on The Avengers. And it seems like he's back with Mystery Woman from earlier this year." The disembodied narrator spoke as a picture of Chris and I at dinner when we saw each other again was plastered on the tv. As much as I hated it, it was a great picture. The two of us were mid-laugh, but he was looking right at me and the look on his face... I don't even know how to describe it. 

I could feel all my friends eyes on me as I sat there looking at the tv, trying to figure out what I was thinking. I turned to Casey. "It's okay, really. I honestly can't be surprised about it anymore so it is what it is. Now let's completely ignore this and get back to getting drunk." 

And drunk we got. Jules and Casey passed out in the living room and Estelle and I covered them with blankets and brought out a wastebasket just in case. After I said goodnight to Estelle and went into my room, I saw that I had two unread texts, one from Adam and one from Chris.

Adam

I should be back from my conference on Thursday, wanna get together next weekend?

I closed out of that conversation without answering and opened Chris' message.

Chris

Are you free tomorrow night?

Laurel

Depends on what the activity is.

Chris

How good are you at planning parties? I've been roped in to hosting a Halloween party this year and I think I'm in way over my head.

Laurel

I guess I'm coming to your rescue.

*****

So we were friends.

And it was fine. We were making it work.

It wasn't like we were spending all our time together either. We would see each other a couple times a month, and everything was normal. Well, I wanted to seem like everything was normal. I had told myself that I didn't have feelings for Chris anymore as an excuse to get to see him and not feel guilty about it. That didn't work so well for me.