Page 7 of A Very Friendly Valentine's Day
The One with the Awkward Broment
Oh my God, it’s after eleven p.m. When are those animals going to go home? Things were starting to quiet down about half an hour ago. I was feeling optimistic that the party was drawing to a close, but then Eddie turned onHamiltonand instigated a contest to see who could do the best Thomas Jefferson impression. Now people are having fun again, dammit.
Still, I’m grateful that he flew down from Vancouver for this. He got here early, set up a Spotify playlist for me on my old phone, adjusted the lighting in my apartment and did a liquor run when he saw that all I had was wine. I mean, it was really great wine and there was plenty of it. It’s not like I’m a cheap hostess. I just don’t want people to havetoogood a time or to stay too long.
I, myself, have enjoyed exactly one and a half glasses of red wine tonight and I’m feeling fine and ready for bed.
But I can cross “Host a party” off my list now, and it’s still only January. I crushed it! I didn’t leave my apartment to drive around. I didn’t spend the whole night texting with Eddie because he was here. So far, my fictional Great Aunt Mindy is still alive and kicking. And while I may currently be alone in my bedroom, it’s not because I’m hiding—it’s because I have to jot down these ideas for a new musical before I forget them.
When you live in LA, you never know when you might run into Lin-Manuel Miranda, and I need to be prepared to pitch my Lucretia Mott musical to him. If anyone can make a Nineteenth-Century feminist abolitionist Quaker woman’s story both interesting and crowd-pleasing, it’s him. My total lack of understanding about music or lyrics will be offset by my passion for bringing American feminist history to the mainstream in a fun way. As long as he can make it fun. Or maybe Eddie can help me work on making my pitch entertaining.
There’s a cautious knock at my door, and I don’t even tense up because I can tell just from the knock that it’s Eddie.
“Come in.”
The door opens and his appallingly handsome head pokes through, peering around. His lips curl into a grin when he finds me sitting cross-legged on my bed, on top of about twenty coats.
“Come in and shut the door!”
He closes the door behind himself. “You’re in here alone?” It’s half statement, half question. He sounds so relieved, I could cry.
“On the contrary.” I hold up my notebook. “I’m in here with my thoughts and one of the greatest women in American history. Are people having fun out there? It’s a good party, right? Do you think they’ll go home soon?”
“Bird…” He rubs his forehead, like I’m giving him a headache. “Why did you force yourself to throw a party if you don’t actually want people to have fun in your home?”
“I totally wanted people to have fun here. I just don’t see why they need to stay for more than two hours. Isn’t there an after party they can all go to now? Or, I don’t know…maybe someone could…” I smile at him, batting my eyelashes.
He crosses his arms in front of his chest. His sweater is thin and tight, and he looks like Captain America. It’s so annoying. “I am not going to pull the fire alarm.”
“Fine,” I huff. “Be that way.”
He takes a seat at the edge of the bed, about a foot away from me. “What are you working on?” he asks, shaking his head.
“When you put onHamilton,I had an idea for a hip-hop musical about Lucretia Mott!”
“Oh yeah?” He lies down on top of the coats, raising his arms above his head to touch the wall behind him. This causes the bottom of his tight sweater to rise up, exposing the pelvic area above his jeans. There are a couple of notable and surprisingly attractive protruding veins on his lower abdominal area—the common iliac arteries, if memory serves. And the upper portion of his groomed sagittal hair growth below the naval, otherwise known as his happy trail, is visible. And it’s a very happy trail indeed.
“There a part in it for me?” he asks. He is languid, and his deep voice is somehow even huskier than usual.
He’s nursed two cans of Guinness over the course of a few hours since he’s driving tonight. Still, it has taken the edge off, and he is just a tad flirtatious with me. It never used to unnerve me when he gets like this becausehe’s a flirt.
Eddie Cannavale flirts with women. That’s just what he does. He likes to make women feel beautiful and he’s good at it.
I could see that he was making a special effort tonotbe flirtatious with me when we became friends in college—in a good way—and that actually made me feel special. He’s like a brother to me. I mean, I don’t have an actual brother, so I don’t know exactly how brothers treat their sisters. But it has always comforted me to think of Eddie as “like a brother to me.” Lately, though, whenever he lowers his voice that tiny bit, whenever he alludes to our relationship in some way…it makes me a little uncomfortable. It may just be that I can sense a little more tension because he hasn’t actually put his P in a V for about a month and a half, I think, since he’s trying to be faithful to Alana… Which is like saying he’s trying to be faithful to a phone app basically, but whatever.
I can feel him staring at me as I study his impossibly tanned and taut skin.
I slowly meet his heavy-lidded gaze and clear my throat as I open my notebook. “Of course. You could play Charles C. Burleigh. He was an abolitionist lecturer and close friend of Lucretia Mott’s.”
“Close friend, huh? And what is this future Tony-winning musical going to be called?”
I raise my pen in the air. “It’s Gotta be Mott!”
“Hot to Trot with Mott,” he offers.
“Like it or Mott, Here I Come.”
“I’d Rather Mott, Thanks.”
