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 lungs. "Happy Thanksgiving!"

"Happy Thanksgiving, Mrs. Lin," I say, with a one-hand side hug back. I 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 into my legs on the way, dust themselves off, then spring up back to 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 was firmly held at the office until just an hour ago. Looking probably as drained as I now felt.

John gets the beer into my hands quick. 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 inside 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 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 it's 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 the first time I came 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.

I want to ask about her. She looks as if she might be there alone. At least, there's no guy she's shown a particularly clinginess to, and the number of guys anywhere nearing our age bracket look to be just me, John, and John's brother-in-law. And after casually inquiring John about his relationship status, it still remains single. So, that shoulder caress is probably just platonic or familial affection. Yet, something about Ally is distinctively cold, like she's intentionally avoiding me. Weird. I wasn't usually intentionally avoided by girls. Not since shooting up to a good six foot one, inheriting my dad's bone structure and my mom's blue eyes and brown hair. I've even recently heard that I perfected the best cut for it. Getting compared to Patrick Batemen is my crowning achievement of last night's bar crawl.