Wonderful

Stevie is most definitely not nervous.

Stevie most certainly did not throw up three times before eight o’clock.

Stevie totally did not change her outfit more than three times. And she totally did not call Natalia to ask what a good outfit would be for this type of party.

No, Stevie did not do any of these things.

And she is definitely not nervous.

~~~

The party was Bobbie’s idea.

After Hugh had given them the news about getting that job at Reinard and Perkins, she’d been adamant about celebrating. Seeing as Hugh still had to get Stevie home, he’d successfully convinced her to postpone the festivities. Then, after dropping Stevie off at her apartment building (Hugh had not missed Stevie’s disappointment at having their afternoon cut short), he’d come home to an eerily quiet apartment and an invitation to “HUGH BRAVERMAN’S I-GOT-A-NEW-JOB PARTY” in his Facebook page.

He hadn’t had much of a say in the matter, seeing as twenty people had already RSVP’d to the party at their apartment that Saturday night. All he had left to do was meet Stevie the next day and invite her too.

“Which reminds me,” he says, leaning forward on the table, “I tried to look for you on Facebook -”

“I don’t have a Facebook page,” Stevie interrupts.

“Why not?” he asks, kind of anticipating a uniquely Stevie answer.

“I figure if people really want to contact me they’ll ask for my number.” She shrugs. “I like the old-fashioned form of networking, I guess.”

This hadn’t come as much of a surprise to him, of course.

Now he’s sitting on the arm of their old-as-hell couch, a beer in his hand, listening to Howard, a former co-worker from the book store, telling some story about his grandfather. Hugh is surrounded by his friends, friends of his friends, and the odd crasher, and he’s happy.

A few minutes pass and he feels his phone buzz in his pocket. He takes it out, and, yeah, it’s a new text from Stevie that reads We’re outside your door. He smiles to himself.

He gets up from the couch and makes his way through the scattered groups of people. When he gets to the door, he hears a loud thump from the other side. He opens the door and sees Stevie trying to pick up her friend Natalia from the floor. Meanwhile, the guy Hugh remembers as Freddie is leaning against the wall and cackling.

“Shit,” Hugh mutters and makes a move to help Stevie drag Natalia from the floor. “Are you okay?”

“She’s fine,” Stevie grumbles unhappily. “She just had some pre-cocktail cocktails.”

Natalia finally gets to her feet and lets out a few drunken giggles. She eyes Hugh up and down and smirks. “Hello, lover.”

“Natalia,” Stevie hisses.

“I’m kidding, Stevie,” Natalia giggles. “You can have him, obviously.”

At that Stevie turns beat red and immediately goes into what he has started calling Self Defense Mode; her eyes get hard, her back gets a little straighter, and her lips form a firm line, but her face goes a dark shade of red that does not hint anger but embarrassment. Hugh’s become personally acquainted with Self Defense Stevie - not often enough that he knows how to handle it that well, but he knows not to poke fun of her when she’s like this.

“Hey,” Hugh mutters soothingly and helps Stevie walk Natalia inside. “I’m glad you guys could make it.”

“I was too, up to about a few seconds ago,” Stevie grumbles irritably, dragging a giggling Natalia inside with more force than strictly necessary.

“Hey, you could’ve had drinks with us,” Freddie accuses. “You just took fifty years to choose an outfit.”

“No, I just didn’t feel like looking like a fool in front of complete strangers.”

“Come on,” Hugh says quietly, letting Natalia make her way into the party on her own. “I’m not a stranger.”

“But everyone else here is.”

“Not for long,” Freddie mutters, pushing her out of the way so he can follow Natalia into the group of people. Stevie looks disdainfully as Natalia takes off her coat to reveal an all black ensemble of short shorts and a shimmery tank top and proclaim that she needs shots.

“I warned you,” Stevie says, completely letting him know that she did.

“There’s nothing wrong in having a little fun,” Hugh says, shrugging. “Which reminds me-” He breaks off to smile at her. “Connie called me today.”

All blood seems to leave Stevie’s face.

“I guess she got my number from your phone. Anyway, before you panic, all she said was to not take advantage of you or she would know, but also to force you to have fun.”

Stevie seems to relax after he finishes, and she rolls her eyes. “God, she’s so nosy,” she says.

“But she had a point,” he says, leading her into the living room. “I don’t want you to worry about anything tonight, okay? Give me your coat.”

She rolls her eyes again and takes off her coat, revealing a multi-colored long-sleeved dress that ends just above her knees. Hugh is suddenly struck with a thought.

“Holy shit, you’re an adult,” he laughs.

“What?” Stevie asks, not hiding how insulted she is.

“I - I mean,” Hugh backtracks, afraid that he might’ve actually hurt her feelings. “It’s just... I never really got that you’re eighteen or whatever. The Catholic schoolgirl uniform kind of threw me off.”

“I have been telling you that ever since we met.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says, walking toward his room to deposit the coat. She follows. “I guess it only just hit me.”

“Does this, um, change anything?” she asks, her voice getting a little soft. He opens the door to his room and scoffs. “Of course not,” he says, stepping inside. He eyes the purse slung over her shoulder. “You want me to take that too?”

“I don’t know if I should just leave it here,” she answers, unsure.

“Well, you don’t want to be carrying around all night, um.” He looks around his room and yeah, the closet is a good idea. Besides, no one is gonna come into his room anyway. “You can put it in the back of my closet, if you want.”

“I can just keep it with me. It’s just a purse,” Stevie argues.

“Yeah, but what if you wanna, I dunno, dance or something,” Hugh says, making some room for her expensive-looking handbag.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffs.

“What,” he says, turning his head from the closet. “Don’t you dance?”

“Only if social construct asks for it. And I’m not usually at a party that asks for it, so.” She shrugs.

“I guess I should’ve expected that,” Hugh says. She doesn’t seem to hear him, instead focusing on his bookshelves. They are impressive, he will admit. It’s the entire left wall of his room - completely covered in so many books he had to start stacking them on the floor.

He stands and walks to where she is. Gently, he takes her purse from her. She lets him and says, “You really took advantage of your employee discount while you were working at that bookshop, huh.”

“Actually,” he says, closing the closet door behind him. “Most of those I got before I even started working there. I inherited them from my grandfather after he died.”

“Oh.” She suddenly looks uncomfortable, and he knows he should turn the conversation into a more lighthearted direction, but he takes a chance. “Are your grandparents alive?”

“My mother’s parents are,” Stevie mutters, leafing through his Anna Karenina.

“Well, do they live near?”

“They live in Florida,” Stevie says, putting the book down and looking at him. “I see them once in a while.”

“Do you get along with them?” Hugh tries.

“Yes.” She places a hand on her hip. “What’s this about?”

And he can’t really help it. “How come you never talk about your parents?”

She looks down instantly and yeah, that’s Self Defense Stevie again. “There’s nothing to say.”

“Yeah, but you’ve never even-”

“Hugh, it’s none of your-”

There’s a knock on the door, thankfully.

Not waiting for a response, Bobbie pops her head inside and, seeing Stevie, smiles at her. “Hey, girl. What are you doing in here? I wanna introduce you to some people.”

“I thought you hated me,” Stevie says.

“Who cares?” Bobbie shrugs. “Come on. This party’s basically in your honor.”

Stevie hesitates before walking toward Bobbie, avoiding Hugh’s gaze.

“Oh, and I love your friends, by the way,” Bobbie ads, closing the door behind them.

Hugh hears Stevie say “That makes one of us” before they’re out of range.

~~~

Hugh tries to give Stevie some space after that, but he doesn’t want to stray too far in case she feels under attack or something. He lets Bobbie and Mac take turns introducing her to different people. Despite her standoff-ish behavior to him when they’d first met, she is a charming person. She’s a natural conversationalist, and she engages people instantly.

Admittedly, it all seems too rehearsed, too different from how she is with him to be entirely sincere. But Hugh doesn’t think it’s all for show. This is Stevie in what he guesses is her natural environment: networking, socializing, being all around pleasant.

Thirty minutes after she got to the party, Natalia and Freddie are slow-dancing to the soft indie music playing from their home sound system, Bobbie and Mac are sharing a bowl of hummus with some of Bobbie’s friends from the restaurant, and Hugh is watching Stevie talk to a group of his former classmates from Parsons. He decides that she’s probably forgotten about their stupid sort-of-fight, so he makes his way to the group.

“Fuck me, you don’t even look eighteen,” Amy, an old classmate says in an awed voice. “I swear, I was a fucking dumbass at eighteen.”

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” Stevie says good-naturedly.

“No, I was such a fucking idiot it was crazy,” Amy says emphatically. “Once, I fell asleep with a joint in my mouth. I almost set my bed on fire.”

Stevie fights down a snort. “Yeah, I guess that’s pretty hard to argue against.”

“Yeah, well, Amy you’re pretty fucking special so,” Hugh says as he steps in beside Stevie. “You having fun?” he asks her.

She nods, biting her lip a little to hide the smile he knows is in there somewhere. “Your friends are nice,” she says, gesturing to Amy, her boyfriend, Ray, and his friend Bob.

“She’s a really cool person, Hugh,” Ray says. “I should hang around high schools too.”

“Ugh, creepy,” Amy says in disgust. Ray laughs and pulls her in close to kiss her on top of the head. Hugh doesn’t miss Stevie looking down at her feet for a second.

“No, but Hugh, she is great,” Bob says. “I mean, when Mac told me that you had a fake high school girlfriend I was like-”

“I’m not his girlfriend,” Stevie says at the same time Hugh says “We’re not together.”

“Oh.” Bob looks a little struck, and so do Amy and Ray. “I just figured-”

“Well, you figured wrong,” Stevie snaps.

“Hey,” Hugh begins, trying to soothe her.

“Don’t patronize me, Hugh. I am not a fucking child.”

“I know that; I didn’t mean-”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Natalia says, coming up behind them and draping herself over Stevie. “You wanna dance?”

“There’s no music,” Stevie says briskly and turns back to Hugh. “So what exactly have you been telling your friends that we are-”

“What, no I just said that we weren’t, Jesus,” he gets out, exasperated. And it’s not fair, because Hugh has been trying, okay. He is doing all he can to make her comfortable, but it’s like she’s determined to make him feel bad about wanting to be her friend. “Why would you even think that I would-”

“Hey, S, come on,” Natalia says softly. “Come with me.”

“There’s no music, Jesus Christ, Nat-” Stevie stops talking when some hip hop song starts up behind them.

“All right, everybody!” comes Mac’s voice over the music. “Move the furniture and get on your feet ‘cause we’re about to get wiiiiiiiiiiild!”

At that, almost everyone whoops and does as he says. Hugh and Stevie stay put, Hugh still a mix of frustrated and very, very confused. Natalia is still trying to get Stevie to dance with her, but, of course-

“I don’t want to dance, Natalia,” Stevie says, teeth gritted.

“Then have a drink with me?” she asks, gently trying to lead her to the kitchen.

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Hugh tries, because going to jail for serving alcohol to a minor is not ideal. He doesn’t say anything else, because Natalia gives her a threatening look.

“Fuck it,” Stevie grits out, and stomps away to the kitchen, leaving Hugh and Natalia alone where their group used to be.

“You can’t pull shit like that anymore,” Natalia says, point blank.

“I don’t even know what the fuck I’m doing, okay,” he says, knowing full well that he’s coming off as a little bit desperate. “I mean, Jesus, I don’t even know why I’m trying so hard-”

“Because she’s great,” Natalia says with an unheard “obviously”. “But you obviously don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s not something for me to tell you, but you’re smart and I know that you’ll figure it out soon. I just want to make sure that you’re not gonna be a total bitch about it when you do.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Natalia just rolls her eyes one more time and walks away.

Hugh is so fucking confused.

~~~

It’s an hour later when it hits Hugh. Like a fucking school bus.

And he’s sure that his reaction to this sudden realization should be completely different. Like. Um.

Stevie is the most beautiful person Hugh has ever seen; he’s not blind or deranged or anything, so it is one of the first thing he notices. She’s got bright blue eyes, high cheek bones, and plump lips. She’s also insanely stylish, something he’s been able to gather even from how she decides to wear her uniform: always with brightly colored tights, high heels, and a very expensive-looking coat.

Hugh knows that these things make her, usually, the most attractive person in the room. It’s especially true tonight. Everyone else is dressed pretty casually, but Stevie is wearing that bright dress and her hair is up in a bun, revealing her long neck and those dangly earrings (surely more expensive than everything he owns). Objectively speaking, Stevie is hot. She’s hot, and it is not surprising that every guy at the party is staring at her as Natalia and Freddie drag her to the makeshift dance floor.

Throughout the night, Hugh has seen Stevie take some shots from a very encouraging Freddie. She seems looser, easier to smile, and she’s giggling as Natalia tries to get her to shimmy a little. Hugh watches them with some amusement, a little worried that Stevie’s maybe had a little too much to drink.

It’s during his worrying that a pretty blonde girl wearing chunky glasses approaches him, a beer in her hand, and introduces herself as Cindy. Hugh’s never met her before, but she came here with Julie, one of Mac’s friends from work.

Most of the people at that party probably think he’s crazy for not trying to get into Stevie’s pants. And maybe he is, a little bit, because, yeah, Stevie is probably the most beautiful person that will ever give Hugh the time of day. But he just doesn’t feel that way at all, and it’s kind of worrying, if he’s being completely honest.

“So what made you want to talk to me? Was it my innate magnetism?” Hugh asks, only half jokingly. She giggles, even though he knows this wasn’t a particularly funny line, and he kind of melts a little.

As they continue to talk, he can feel the tell-tale flutter in his stomach. It’s only when she’s talking about a new bar her friend started working at that he remembers to look back at where he’d last seen Stevie, to check up on her.

She isn’t dancing anymore.

She isn’t even looking at Hugh, but at Cindy, with something that can only be called murder in her eyes. He wonders if maybe she knows Cindy from somewhere until Cindy asks, “Do you know why that girl is staring at me?”

“I... don’t,” he answers truthfully.

Just then, Stevie seems to make a decision and makes her way toward them.

“Can I help you?” asks Cindy, an edge Hugh doesn’t really like on her voice.

“I need you for a second,” she tells Hugh, not even looking at Cindy.

“We were having a conversation,” Cindy says angrily. “It’s a little rude to interrupt a conversation.”

“Get fucked, four eyes,” Stevie snaps, finally turning her murderous look fully on Cindy. Cindy looks at Hugh as if asking Well, what are you gonna do about that?, and, well, he shrugs, because he can’t really. He won’t. Cindy rolls her eyes and walks away.

“Shit,” Hugh mutters under his breath and weighs the pros and cons of going after her, but remembers Stevie. “Well?”

“I need - I want - to try something,” she says, and he sees the flush going up her neck for the first time.

“Okay?”

“Just.” She takes a deep breath and grabs his hand in hers, which is a little clammy. “Please don’t say anything, okay?”

“I-” he starts, but Stevie is guiding her toward the group of dancing people.

A slow song he doesn’t recognize starts playing.

Stevie places her hands on his shoulders.

She looks up to meet his eyes.

And that it that Natalia was talking about?

Hugh only hopes that he won’t be a total bitch it after this song is over.