My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren
chapter fourteen
reid
There are few things that settle me more when I’m stressed or preoccupied than going into the lab, grabbing a set of slides from one of my graduate students’ cabinets, and heading into the dark calm of the scope room.
My newest student, Gabriel, is measuring dendritic spines in the visual cortex, and he’s really starting to get the hang of the staining protocol. The fluorophores are brilliant green, sharp, low-background. As I go through his latest experiments, a thrum of pride begins to take over that space where the anxious gnawing resided only twenty minutes ago.
In the darkness, my phone lights up with a notification from IRL: a new message from Cat. Within seconds, my stomach is tight again. This is it: after all of our messages, we are going to meet.
From: Catherine M.
Sent: 5:54 pm, April 7
Hi Reid,
There was a lot to unpack in your last message, and some things on my end have shifted, so I’ve been taking some time to find the right words.
First up, I just want to say thank you for being so honest with me, and for being willing to just put it all out there. The information about your friend wasn’t upsetting to me, I know how this works. I really admire how you cut right to the chase and shared what you need and want. It’s something I need to learn how to do better myself.
Second, what I’m about to tell you sounds insane, but this shifting I mentioned came at such a weird time in our “relationship.” I found out this morning that I’m being transferred to a different research site, in Cambridge MA. I think it effectively mutes our ability to make anything romantic out of this, but I’m obviously a bit gutted over it since I do think we could have had some really great chemistry. That said, there really isn’t any reason to prolong the misery, and there certainly isn’t any reason for us to meet in person.
I’m sure if I were you I’d be reading this thinking, Ok I’ve definitely been messaging with a dude who lives in rural England somewhere and is having a laugh, but I promise. I am a woman, who came into this with good intentions.
All this to say, I really do hope that things work out with your friend.
Sometimes, the thing we want is right in front of us, and we’re the last ones to see it.
Take care, Reid,
C.
I read it again, because it doesn’t feel like it sinks in the first time. After all of that—every letter, every bit of honesty—we’re never going to meet?
The feeling of bewilderment that slams through me is almost impossible to describe. On the one hand, realistically, I’m no worse off than I was a month ago when this entire adventure started: things with Millie are murky, and I’ve got no other relationship prospects in sight. Sure, the romantic life has no momentum, but in all other respects, I’m fine.
On the other hand, I feel like I’ve just been dumped twice.
I’m halfway into my third read of Cat’s message when Millie’s photo—one she took and entered into my contacts, and is of her with a huge cheesy grin while wearing my Cal baseball hat and Chris’s sunglasses—pops up on the screen.
I want to laugh. Cat just blew me off. I haven’t talked to Millie since last night, so of course now she’s calling.
“Hey, Mills.”
“Hey, Reidy.” On the other end of the line, she sounds either sad or nervous. In any case, she’s subdued enough to make me wonder whether she realizes that her postsex routine wasn’t great.
In her beat of silence, I pull the slide off the microscope tray and file it back in the slide box. “What’s up?”
“Would you come over?” she asks. “For dinner? Or I can come to you?” Another unsure pause, and then, “To talk.”
“Talk?” I ask. Millie doesn’t ever ask to talk.
“About us,” she says, clearing her throat. “The other night. I mean, the first night, the night at your parents’, last night. All of it.”
Wow. I feel thunderstruck. “Sure. I’ll be there in twenty.”
She lets out a shaky laugh. “Take your time. I have to get a little drunk first.”
I pause, quietly annoyed, and in the silence she goes still, too, and then she groans.
“I’m kidding,” she says. “God, I am so terrible at this. Reid, just come over, okay?”
Spring is creeping into Santa Barbara with warm fingers; the heat from the day lingers after sundown, and even inside my car, the scent of the blooming vines outside Millie’s town house makes my head feel full and claustrophobic.
At the curb, I pull out my phone and look at Catherine’s profile. Honestly, I’m bummed that she’s moving. I wanted that level of connection with someone. I thought maybe Millie and I could go back to being just friends. Maybe Catherine was it for me somehow. But even in the past hour, her profile has gone inactive—I can’t click through to her pages anymore. There’s only the photo she’s always had: that turned-away jawline, the bare shoulder, the tiny scar. Over time, I actually liked that she didn’t give everything of herself up front but seemed to share much more than I’d expected in her messages.
“Well,” I say into the quiet car, “I guess that’s it.”
With my thumb pressed to the IRL icon on the screen, I wait until the app goes wobbly, and then delete it.
Looking up, I see Millie is waiting for me on the porch, her hands clasped together tightly. Everything about this scene feels strange: she’s out here waiting for me, she wants to talk, she looks anxious, she breaks into a huge grin when she sees me.
“You’re being weird,” I say when I hit the first step up to her porch.
“I know. I know.” She wipes her hands on her jeans, and my attention is drawn to her bare arms, her long, smooth neck. “Just go with it. I’m super nervous right now.”
And as soon as she walks toward me, it’s like I’m deflating in relief. I’m bummed about Cat. I’m worried about me and Millie. I’m disappointed that Daisy was such a bust. And the reality that I’m about to get a hug right now makes me want to melt in front of Millie’s door.
She steps into my arms, wrapping hers around my neck, pulling me close. I have the sense of homecoming, some weird trip of déjà vu in my blood that makes me squeeze her tighter. It’s the kind of hug that comes after a fight, or a long time apart. There’s relief there, a giant exhale into the soft skin of her neck, her shoulder, where I press my lips once, and again, against her faint scar.
Her scar.
My heart shoves against my breastbone in warning, and then lurches: a heavy, meaningful pulse. I mentally file back to one of Cat’s messages:
managed to make tit halfway through the attraction without peeing my pants or otherwise embarrassing myself
The same stupid tit typo that Millie always makes.
The same scar.
I step back, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes. No way can this be right.
“Reid?”
I try to be objective, to take the data in front of me at face value.
Millie’s mom died when she was young.
That friend of hers, Avery, mentioned that Millie’s dad was sick.
And now, Millie’s scar. Millie’s typo. The Monopoly joke. Girls Trip. And Cat is moving just when I tell her I want to meet.
The last line echoes in my memory: Sometimes, the thing we want is right in front of us, and we’re the last ones to see it.
What the fuck?
“Reid?” Millie’s hand comes over my forearm, gently squeezing.
“Sorry, just—light-headed.”
I stare at her, into her mossy green eyes, and try to puzzle this out. I want to turn her jaw just so, ask her, Look down a bit, to the side, just like that. I need to see if you’re her.
Am I crazy? Is this connection absurd? But I know it’s not. I know in an instant that Catherine is Millie. I know it in the way that Dad knows when it’s going to rain, and the way that Mom knows exactly when her bread is baked without setting a timer.
And I know it because it’s been there in front of me this whole time.
The information is almost too new for me to know what to do with it. I’m standing with her on her porch—with Millie, with Catherine—realizing that she’s not only my best friend and the woman I’ve been having sex with, she’s also the woman I’ve been spilling my heart to online.
Amid the chaos of my reaction—embarrassment, relief, hope, thrill, confusion—I can’t find my grounding.
Is this why she asked me to come here?
I blink tightly to clear my thoughts, and then look down at her.
She’s worried; the little line on her forehead has deepened, her lips arc downward. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, taking a deep breath and then letting it out slowly. I’ve been falling for two women, and they’re both her. “Just got dizzy for a second.”
“Come inside,” she says, “get some water.”
Through this fresh lens, everything in here feels new. The couch is where she probably wrote to me as Cat. The kitchen where we first kissed—I was kissing Cat, too. Down the hall, there’s her bedroom, and about half as far is the wall against which we had sex only last night. I left her, and immediately wrote another woman—also her—and told her everything.
Oh my God, I want to remember verbatim what I said in that last message. How much did I tell Cat about my feelings? I said Millie made me feel terrible! And Millie responded as Catherine by telling me she was leaving.
My stomach drops.
“Reid, you look sort of . . . green.”
“No, I’m good.” I take the water she offers, and down half of it before coming up for air. “What did you want to talk about?”
She laughs shakily and motions that we should go sit on the couch. Slapping her hands on her thighs, she says, “Right. That. Okay, so last night, after we”—she waves her hand vaguely in the direction of the hallway—“over there . . . and you left . . . I thought maybe I did something wrong.”
“You mean like shutting me down when I tried to talk about what the sex means to us and then suggesting I could make myself at home while you went back to work?” The words surprise even me a little bit.
Millie laughs uncomfortably again and runs shaking fingers through her hair. “Yes. That. I guess . . . I guess I was freaking out a little. I mean, I did have to run in for a few minutes, and I thought maybe it’d be nice to have you here when I got home, but I realize the way I said it just sounded really . . . wrong.”
I lean back against the couch, closing my eyes. There are two ways this is going: Millie realizes I’m falling for her and is ending all aspects of our romantic relationship, including as Catherine. Or, Millie realizes I’m falling for her and wants to get Cat out in the open so we can be together for real. It worries me that I don’t have the faintest idea which route she’s taking.
It all makes me feel really tired. “It’s okay, Mills.”
“It isn’t okay,” she says quietly. “I want to be better about those things. Talking, I mean. I think . . .” She pauses, glancing at me and then rolling her eyes at herself. “I think—I mean I know—that I want to . . .”
“Spit it out.” I laugh a little, trying to be gentle about her fumbling.
“I want to try to be with you. Like . . . that.”
“Like that?” I tease.
She reaches over and tries to tweak my nipple. “Romantically, okay?”
I weasel out of her reach. “What’s more romantic than a nipple twist?”
“Right?” She breaks out into an enormous smile. Flowers push up through the dirt to see that smile. Relief is like light hitting my retina, illuminating everything. “So, is that a yes?”
She leans forward, I lean a little, too, and her mouth meets mine for a single, sweet kiss.
And the moment turns a little shadowed.
That’s it, I realize. She hasn’t said a word about who else she’s been. She hasn’t admitted to being Catherine.
Am I okay just letting that go? Regardless, if we’re going to be together for the long run, she’s going to have to learn how to talk to me. She’s going to have to not lie to me. As it stands, Millie and I have no history going anyplace deeper than where we are right now.
“I want to try this, too, I think. But I want to be honest with you.” I meet her eyes, looking for some fault line there. She’s calm, but there’s anxiety beneath her expression. “There was someone else,” I say, and notice the way her cheeks pink just slightly. “Cat, remember?”
“Right, I know.” She shrugs. “It’s okay. I was writing someone, too.”
No, Millie. Don’t.
I watch her carefully, and she blinks away.
“She was . . .” I trail off. How do I describe Millie’s vulnerable side to her tough one? “She was really great, and I thought maybe we had something. She talked to me about things. It felt like we were really becoming friends. And,” I say, wiping a hand down my face, “I’ll admit—I maybe wanted more.” I pause, waiting. “She’s moving and it’s sort of a bummer that I’m not going to meet her.”
There. Take it, Mills. Take the opportunity. Own this. Tell me.
She searches my eyes, back and forth, back and forth, and then smiles with effort. “That is a bummer.”
My heart drops. I give her another few beats.
“Do you think your feelings for her will affect . . . ?” she starts, and then motions between us. Cat would have just said it outright: Will your feelings for her get in the way of starting something with me?
So why can’t Millie do it?
“I’m not sure,” I tell her, honestly. “I liked our dynamic of straightforward honesty. I want that in a partner. I’ll be frank, Mills, I am intensely attracted to you—to the point of distraction—and I love spending time with you, but I need to know you can talk to me about things. Things that really matter to you.”
“I can,” she says immediately.
Like this, I think.
“I need to know you’ll be honest.”
She nods. “I can be. I will. I know I’m not the best at being open, but it matters to me that I get better.” She lifts my hand, kisses it. “I want to be better for you.”
Then, as if a flip is switched, she stands quickly, using my hand to tug me up. “Hungry?”
And I see now that she’s going to let Catherine go. She’s going to send her alter ego away and pretend that it never happened—hilarious, given we’re having this conversation about her ability to be open and honest.
I shove my shaking hands deep into my pockets. “Do you mind if I take a rain check on dinner?”
“You want to go?” she asks, realization settling into a small V on her forehead.
“I want to think about all of this before we move forward. You’re my best friend, you know. Seems like we should make absolutely sure we’re ready to do this.”
Millie tries to hide a deeper reaction, but I get a small glimpse of it when her face falls for only a breath.
“Sure,” she says. “Of course. I’m just springing this on you out of the blue.” She runs a fingernail over the fabric along the back of the couch. “I get it.”
I lean forward, kissing her cheek, and then robotically make my way out of her house, down her steps, and to my car at the curb.
“Reid!” she calls out.
I turn. My stomach has dissolved away. “Yeah.”
She stares at me for a few lingering seconds. “You sure you’re okay?”
She knows.
She knows I know.
I hold her gaze.
“I’m not sure,” I tell her honestly, before climbing into my car.
After all of that, the strongest sense I have is mortification that I’ve been played. That Millie has been sleeping with me, and writing me as another woman this entire time, and probably never planned to say anything. That she thinks I wouldn’t eventually figure it out. What is she getting out of being Catherine? And if she wants to be with me—really be with me—why does she think we can start with a lie?
I lean back, turn on my car, and take a long, slow inhale, trying not to get back out and confront her. Trying not to jump to conclusions. Pulling away from the curb, I keep my hands steady on the steering wheel and try not to think about anything except the road in front of me. I certainly try not to think that I may have just lost my best friend.
Reid Campbell
Arranged marriage is looking pretty tempting.
Christopher Hill
Man, it’s just a dinner.
Stephen (Ed) D’Onofrio
Who’s getting married?
El Cabrón
Reid is being rhetorical dumbass
Stephen (Ed) D’Onofrio
Wait. Who is that? Alex?
El Cabrón
Yeah.
Stephen (Ed) D’Onofrio
What the fuck with your name?
El Cabrón
I took out a chick from the UC tech department and it didn’t go well.
Christopher Hill
So all your outgoing information is from ‘the asshole’?
El Cabrón
Pretty much.
Reid Campbell
Emails?
El Cabrón
Everything. Emails, IMs, my name in the grading portal, on the department website.
Christopher Hill
Holy shit that is hilarious
El Cabrón
My admin doesn’t think so. But he can go fucking fix it, I’m not going down there.
Christopher Hill
I want to meet this woman.
Reid Campbell
Ditto
El Cabrón
Trust me, you don’t.
Reid Campbell
At least she wanted to meet in person
Stephen (Ed) D’Onofrio
Uh oh. Are things not going well with Catherine?
Reid Campbell
Dating in my early twenties was amazing. Dating in my early thirties is a drag.
El Cabrón
You know, the thing you all are failing to remember is that WE DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE TO BRING A PLUS ONE TO THIS EVENT
Reid Campbell
I know.
Reid Campbell
I realize we all got wrapped up in the date thing, but I think it was time we all got out there anyway.
El Cabrón
Um, hello, I’ve BEEN out there
Christopher Hill
And it’s clearly going well for you, El Cabrón
Reid Campbell
Yeah, plenty of action to be found in the darkroom
Christopher Hill
What?
El Cabrón
Ed’s running his mouth, apparently.
Stephen (Ed) D’Onofrio
Oh, my bad, was it a secret?
El Cabrón
lol
Reid Campbell
Can I sit down with you guys later today? Under the cloak of confidentiality?
El Cabrón
I mean, if there’s a cloak, sure
Christopher Hill
You want to meet up at lunch?
Reid Campbell
I’d rather do it over drinks. Tonight at the Red Piano, 8 pm?
Stephen (Ed) D’Onofrio
I just realized Mills isn’t on this thread. Is this a guys-only thing?
Reid Campbell
Oh yes.
The bar has the same calming darkness as the microscope room, but it has the added benefit of booze. I’m two beers in before Chris shows up, followed closely by Alex and, ten minutes later, a harried Ed, who must not realize he’s still got a pair of lab goggles atop his head.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says, and startles when Alex carefully plucks the goggles from his mess of curls.
“Everything okay?” I know he was helping Gabriel with an experiment today that they’d been planning for a few weeks. One look at Ed and I’m guessing I don’t want to know how it went just yet. “Never mind. I’ll ask you later.”
He rakes a hand through his hair before reaching for the beer menu. “Probably a good idea.”
“Okay, so,” I start, staring at the remaining foam in my half-full pint glass. “I feel like a bit of a dick doing this—talking about this here—but I need some advice and I think I need all of your input because I suspect you’ll each tell me something different.”
Alex shifts in his chair, glancing at Ed.
Chris is the only one looking directly at me. “Sure.”
“Chris knows this,” I say, “but about a month or two ago, Millie and I slept together.”
There is no reaction to this. No gasps, no outburst. Just even expressions and expectant silence. So apparently Chris wasn’t the only one who assumed we’d done this a long time ago.
“It happened again at my parents’ place,” I continue, “and again a couple nights ago.”
Alex nods slowly. “Okay?”
“But during all this, I’ve also been talking to Daisy online—which by the way, didn’t work out in person—and Catherine.” I take a quick sip, and focus my attention on the table. “After leaving Millie’s the other night, I was a little messed up about what we were doing, and I messaged Cat and sort of laid out what was going on.”
Ed coughs into his fist.
“I told her that I have feelings for this friend of mine—Millie—but that I also wanted to meet Cat as well. Long story short, Cat wrote back and told me she was moving to Massachusetts.”
“Dude, seriously?” Chris asks. “That’s . . . that’s weird.”
I don’t miss the way Alex bends and cups his forehead. Watching him, I say carefully, “If what you’re thinking is that Millie is Catherine, you’d be right.”
All three of their heads shoot up and they stare at me.
“Wait, what?” Chris says, pulling back.
“I figured it out at her place last night,” I tell them. “She was telling me she wanted us to try to be together, and when I bent to hug her I realized she’s got the same scar on her shoulder as Cat did in the profile picture. And Cat always made that same typo, the ‘tit’ typo, that Millie makes.” I look up at them, making sure they’re not looking at me like I’m insane. “A few other things, too—her dad being sick and her mom dying when she was younger. Her little sister she’s not so close to. I figured it out and gave her the chance to tell me about Cat . . . and she didn’t. I’m, like, ninety-nine percent sure she’s Catherine, and I gave her so many openings to tell me, and she didn’t. She just continued the lie.”
No one says anything. They just absorb all this in shock.
“And on the one hand, I get it,” I say. “Something happened between us in person and she doesn’t want this other persona in the way. But on the other hand, why the fuck did she do it in the first place, and why would she keep it from me?”
“Man,” Chris says quietly. “If this is true, this is fucked up.”
It takes me a few seconds, but then it registers that Ed—who has something to say about everything—is dead silent. His expression is tight, like he’s waiting any second to be yelled at . . . the way he looks when I catch him staring at grad students’ asses.
“What’s with you?” I ask.
He doesn’t look up from the napkin he’s methodically shredding. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit.” I’m reminded of that morning on the patio at my parents’ place, when he was acting like a lunatic. “Seriously, Ed.”
“I just . . .” He glances over to Alex. “I told her she should tell you.”
This honestly doesn’t penetrate at first. I know what he’s said, but at the same time, the meaning doesn’t fully hit me until he glances at Alex again, and Alex lifts his beer to his lips, shaking his head.
“Dude, you were the one who helped her write that last message,” Alex says under his breath.
“I’d told her a million times to tell him!” Ed protests to Alex.
“Wait.” I put my glass down, hold up a hand. “Wait. Wait. What is happening?” I am so flustered I don’t have any more words. I just stare at Ed, and then Alex, and then back at Ed again.
Ed drops his hands to the table. “This kind of shit never works out!”
A hush falls across the table, and Chris lets out a low whistle.
“You knew?” I ask, hearing the angry lean to my words. “Since when?” I stop, shaking my head. “Wait, you knew that morning at my parents’ place, didn’t you?”
Ed seems to shrink into himself. “I heard you guys.”
“You heard them having sex?” Chris asks, laughing. “That is unfortunate.”
Alex signals to the waitress that he wants another beer. “I’m still laughing that they had sex at his parents’ place when we were all there.”
I turn to Alex. “When did you find out?”
“I only found out like two days ago.”
“ ‘Only’ two days ago?”
My blood is rioting.
Anxiety builds in Ed’s expression. “I’ve only known about it for a week. You should know she’s been a total stress case about this.”
Chris shakes his head, staring at Ed like he’s unbelievable. “She should be, though.”
“She came over and wanted advice on what to do. She read your last message and—”
“Did you read my message?” I ask.
Ed looks to Alex and then back to me. “We both did, yeah.”
“Holy shit.” I press the heels of my hands to my eyes. “You guys. This is so fucked up.”
“It just only recently got out of hand,” Alex says, trying to smooth things over. “Seriously. All of this happened really fast. She’s been a mess, man.”
“Regardless, I gave her a dozen openings today, and she sat and lied to me. Again,.” I say.
“Okay,” Alex says, “to be fair, though, she wanted to tell you, but we thought it would be easier if Cat just vanished. She didn’t ever mean to be malicious.”
“If she wanted to tell me, then why didn’t she? How am I supposed to feel about this? She wants to start a relationship with me but she can’t even be honest on day one?”
“I mean,” Alex says, “you sort of played her, too, because the whole time today you knew that she was Catherine but she didn’t know you knew.”
“Oh, I think she knows I know,” I tell them. “And it’s not the same.”
Chris drops his head into his hands, groaning. “This is making my head hurt.”
“Why did she even start a separate account?” I ask, feeling my patience fraying. “Why did she let me view her full profile?”
“Honestly?” Ed spreads his hands, shrugging. “I think she assumed you’d figure it out. It sounds like it started as a way to not get so many dick pics, and to be able to be more ‘herself,’ ” he says, using air quotes, “then she matched with you and thought it was funny, and it just . . . grew.”
“That’s pretty reassuring, though,” Alex says, nodding. “Isn’t it? That it turned into something real for her, too?”
“Are you really fucking defending this right now?” I ask him.
“I’m just saying, I think shit can snowball, that’s all. You can start off with good intentions and . . . things can get out of hand.”
I gape at him. “That’s a decent excuse when it’s a total stranger, not your best friend who you are concurrently fucking.”
Everyone goes quiet, and I get it: I don’t often yell. But I am on fire right now. Alex and Ed knew that Millie was lying to me, and then encouraged her to keep doing it. And she’s so goddamn out of touch with herself that she couldn’t just do the right thing.
I feel like an idiot.
I feel like I’m on the outside.
I feel totally humiliated.
I stand and toss a couple of twenties down onto the table. My heart feels like a boxer, beating and beating at my ribs. “Fuck you guys.”
