Chapter Text
*Desperate Woman Seeks Plus One*
“Change that” Petra says cackling. “Jesus Christ, you’re sure you don’t want me to come as your plus one?”
“I’ll look pathetic.” I say.
She gives me a look.
“Contrary to now.”
“Petra, you know I can’t, my family knows you, and if I want to beat the lesbian allegations that won’t do.”
“‘Cause posting about needing a plus one is much better,” she says. “And you do like women.”
“That’s besides the point,” I argue. “I need to take a man, I’m a bridesmaid for fucks sake, I won’t hear the end of it if I go alone. You know how my aunties are.”
“Babe, you need to get your shit together, and your cousins are worse.”
“See? You do know they’re awful.”
“So? Ask Erwin.”
“They will never buy it!”
“Fair point, you’re too much of a mess for a guy like him.”
“Gee, thanks Petra!”
“What happened to self-awareness?”
“It jumped through the window,” I quip, “Man, I really need it, I’m tired of the looks, and I’m sick of her condescending comments, ‘meh, I’m an architect and my life is perfect’ you don’t know how bad it is, I need this Petra, my ego cannot take it anymore.”
“And you agreed to be her bridesmaid?”
“It was a lapse of judgment.”
“Well, now you’re fucked.”
“Oh, tell me about it!”
We end up finishing the carton of wine.
Then the next morning, my head is throbbing like a dick after dry humping for two hours.
I groan.
Petra is gone.
I love bitching and moaning like the next person, but man, my ego had to be bruised yesterday for me to be drinking carton fucking wine.
I look for my phone and cuss loudly the moment I see what time it is.
If I don’t hurry I’ll miss Ethics, not that I mind—I do, my grades are slipping fast and hard— but then I see notifications about the fucking post.
Oh my god.
I’m halfway through Linguistics by the time I’m finally able to read the answers to my post.
I blink at the dick pic on my screen.
There’s a guy whose only comment was ‘8”’
Some weirdo is trying to ask for my bra size.
And then I see it.
‘Is this post for real? If you’re not a creep, and you’re willing to go up to $300 cash only, then dm me’
I stare at the comment.
Is the guy for real?
I go to his profile.
It looks real enough.
Joined in 2009, has made some exchanges, the profile pic is just a black cat. I cannot help but wonder, does he own a cat or did he take a random pic of a black cat off the internet?
I should tell Petra about this.
We would laugh and forget about the whole humiliating ordeal.
But here I am.
Sending a total stranger my phone number over an ad that reads ‘Desperate woman seeks plus one for cousin’s wedding. Requirements include tolerance for passive-aggressive relatives, decent acting skills, and willingness to pretend you’re totally whipped with me’.
I lock my phone and push it to the mysterious confines of my never-been-cleaned bag.
I almost forget all about it and attribute it to a fever dream or a post drunk delusion, when my phone rings in the middle of our parks and rec rewatch.
“What is it?” Petra asks.
I open the notification hoping that it’s the pizza we irresponsibly order while high.
Instead, there are messages from an unknown number.
‘Hey’
‘This is dontbotherme7328, from craigslist.’
‘In regard to the ad you posted, about a plus one? You gave me your number.’
“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod” I repeat barely enunciating each word, absolutely mortified. “What was I thinking?”
“What?” Petra pauses the show, finally looking away from the screen. “You forgot to add cheese to the crust?”
I shake my head.
“What did you do?” She asks, genuinely confused.
“I gave a guy my number.”
“That’s great!” She sounds excited, almost offensively excited. “Unless, he turns out to be a stalker like the last guy.”
I keep reading the messages.
Petra looks at me expectantly.
“Vi, what did you do?” She must have realized by now that me giving a guy my number is an actual disaster.
“A guy answered the ad,” I admit.
Petra snorts. “For fucks sake Vi.”
The wedding is in two weeks.
If I consider my options in a rational manner, I don’t have much of a choice.
The grown-up, put-together, well-centered version of me would probably go alone and deal with it.
But the person I know I am, the little girl that never did well enough in school, and wasn’t a cheerleader, and just wasn’t a stuck-up bitch is dying to show up with a fucking date to the cousin’s wedding that was in fact all of that.
I reply three days after.
Maybe it’s too late.
Maybe it was a scam and I didn't reply fast enough for their scammy evil standards.
Unknown number sends me a text two hours later.
‘Offer still stands?’
‘I thought it was a scam’
I laugh, of course I laugh.
“You’re seriously considering this?” Petra is absolutely judging me.
And for Petra to be judging ME, I know I have to be in deep shit. I thought that at this point nothing I did could surprise her.
“Yup.” I pop the p. I know that annoys her. Also the vagueness.
“For all we know the guy could be a homicidal murderer!”
“That’s awful redundant.” I deadpan.
She groans clearly frustrated.
“Petra, love, don’t worry,”I say. I can’t annoy her too much, she might not feed me. “I have a plan.”
“Oh, really?” I think she’s mocking me. “Let’s hear it, the amazing Violet has a plan! I’m so relieved.”
“We’ll go for a coffee tomorrow,” I tell her my well thought out plan. “I need to interview him, we need to do a chemistry read.”
Petra actually laughs.
“You’re ridiculous” she says. But I hear the love in her frustrated laugh.
The café is deserted.
If tumbleweed were to roll by, I wouldn’t even blink.
Which means he’s also very much absent.
What if he stands me up?
What if it was never real?
What if the asshole only agreed to the coffee so I would come and wait for hours to then realize how truly and utterly pathetic I am?
Then he texts. ’Be there in five’
I’m spiraling.
I got it under control.
Petra made me live-share my location, my phone’s battery life is being drained at the same rate my will to live is.
A girl from my Literary Theory class leaves the café.
I start texting Petra when a guy drags the chair in front of me.
“Seat’s taken,” I say. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“You’re Violet” It’s not a question.
This guy is stupidly hot.
What the fuck?
Is this him?
“Dontbotherme7328?,” I ask. “You’re shorter than I thought.” I say like an absolute idiot.
“You’re funny,” he deadpans. “Looking” he then continues.
I wince.
“Fair enough.” I put my hand out, ‘cause apparently I’m awkward like that.
He looks at my extended hand and raises an eyebrow.
God, he’s infuriating.
And also, infuriatingly good looking.
“So,” he says. “This the chemistry read?”
I hate that I laugh.
There’s a twitch on his lips, a shadow of a smile.
“You joke,” I tell him, “but this is a very rigorous screening process.”
“Right.”
“I have questions.”
“I figured.”
“You could be a serial killer.”
“You could be a serial killer.”
“I’m too anxious for murder.”
“And talk too much, too.” He points.
Who does he think he is?
I squint at him.
“You talk weird.”
Again with the talking?
“I’m an English Major.” I say as if that explains it all.
“Hence the dramatic.” He counters.
I gasp.
“You’re being incredibly judgmental for a man who answered a craigslist ad offering fake emotional labor for three hundred dollars.”
That finally gets a real laugh out of him.
It’s unfairly nice.
“It was two.”
“Huh?”
“You offered two hundred.” He says, all business again.
“Right.”
“Upfront.”
“Nuh-huh.” I shake my head, so this is a scam after all. Probably wants me to hand him the money and disappear. “Half before, half after the deed is done.”
Again the twitch.
There’s a trace of humor in his dark blue eyes.
“Do you have to say it like that?” He’s making fun of me.
“I talk how I talk,” I say dismissing his evident try to make me falter.
“Evidently.” He drinks from his cup.
“My name is Levi.”
Truce?
“So tell me Levi…” I try to regain control, “Are you plus one material?”
“What’s the standard?” He asks.
“The ad explains it, you sit there for a few hours while my family silently or not so silently judges us. Any questions?”
“How soon can I leave after getting there?”
“I’m a bridesmaid, so not that soon.”
At that he looks shocked.
“You’re a bridesmaid?”
I don’t see the point in asking.
I’m sure he heard me.
Is he slow? He didnt sound like it up until now.
“Yup.”
“No offense,” he starts like any person that is very much trying to offend. “But you don’t exactly look like the bridesmaid type.”
“Not pretty enough?” I brace for the insult.
He shakes his head. “Not tamed enough.”
Oh.
I slurp my caramel frappe loudly.
“Any other relevant question?”
“Dress code?”
“Black tie.”
“How predictable.” He says.
A laugh almost slips from my lips.
“Anything else?”
He shakes his head again.
Is verbal communication equivalent to torture for him?
“Then you’re hired.”
“He said what?” Petra seems to be having the most fun she’s had in a while.
Erwin looks at me. ‘Are you okay’ his eyes silently ask.
I nod.
“Can you believe that?” I say to Petra.
“The nerve, man, the fucking nerve.”
“What I can’t believe is that your first words to him were ‘you’re shorter than I thought’ that is so you.” She laughs again.
Erwin actually smiles at that.
He’s been silent for the most part of the conversation.
“You should’ve asked me” he says again.
“It wouldn’t have worked, Erwin.” I repeat for the third time.
“Because?” He asks, he sounds hurt.
“You’re too Erwin.” He looks like he wants to argue.
“It’s a compliment, take it.”
“The guy could still be a serial killer,” Erwin says, he’s joking. For the most part.
“Nah, he’s not.” I assure him.
“How can you be so sure?” Petra is siding with Erwin for the sake of arguing.
“Don’t get me wrong, dude’s an asshole, but doesn’t strike me as a murderer.”
“You have shitty instincts.” Petra says.
“You’re not always a good judge of character.” Erwin says at the same time.
I try to act offended.
“Some friends you are.”
Erwin closes his laptop and comes to sit at my side.
“What are you writing?” He asks intrigued.
He’s always interested in what I write, which is a boost to my ego as a wannabe writer slash english major. But right now I don’t want him to look at the list of facts about me that I’m about to send the Levi guy, alongside a script with possible scenarios.
“Nothing.” I say trying to change tabs and failing stupendously.
“I hate fake ties?” He reads.
“What are you doing?” Erwin’s nosy.
“I’m sending him a document a ‘Know-your-date’ of sorts, he needs to know this as my loving and totally committed boyfriend.” I say.
A bit too much of sarcasm.
“What if the guy is an actual psycho, Vi?”
Dear Erwin sounds truly concerned.
Petra seems busy and uninterested so I allow myself to be honest for a second.
“It’s always a possibility” i admit. “But what if it isn’t, Erwin? I could really use the win right now.”
Erwin looks at me with something that looks too close to pity for me to like it.
“I need to do this, I need to stop feeling like such a failure all the time.” My voice is barely a whisper now, and I feel tiny and miserable behind it all. “Besides, you’ll be there to save me if the entire thing goes sideways.”
His look softens, his thick eyebrows crease and his forehead folds funny, it’s so Erwin I kind of want to scream, or cry or hug him.
He speaks before I can do any of those things.
“You know I am, Vi,” he hugs me anyway, the guy seems to get a better reading at my emotional state than me most of the time. “I always am.”
By the time he answers to my 7 page long document on how to behave there’s only 6 days left for the event.
‘We need to set some rules’ the text says.
“Great!” I muster, the guy sitting next to me in Advanced Composition gives me an annoyed look.
I roll my eyes at him.
I’m going through my mailbox, procrastinating answering to the damn text.
I sigh.
‘We do’. I agree.
At least he’s not looking at me with his judgy, inquisitive, intense eyes.
‘This is ridiculous’ he writes as response to the document attachment.
‘Coffee at 5?’ I write back.
'We can discuss finer details over a frap, my treat.'
‘Can’t’ It’s the only response.
I type and erase for approximately 20 minutes before he sends another text.
'Meet me at Sina’s Pub at 8’ he sends.
He’s not asking. And the fucking audacity of this dude has me seething. But again, I’m desperate.
I search for Sina’s Pub in Google Maps, can’t believe the dude is actually trying to take me to a dinky pub that probably reeks of cigarettes and piss.
I should be paying attention to the lecture, but there’s only so much I can do about rhythm and metrics before my soul quietly exits my body.
The guy sitting beside me has been peeking at my screen. Nosy fuck.
‘Fine’ I agree just as the lecture ends.
I make it to the only class I actually enjoy just to spend the entire time planning outfits in my head instead of actually listening to my professor.
Creative writing is by far my best subject, but making up scenarios about Levi entering the pub while I’m sitting on a stool at the bar sipping on a sad mojito is far more entertaining.
“Good writing isn’t just expressive, it has cadence. It has pacing. It has intention behind every pause.” The rest of the professor’s words get lost when I try to remember Levi’s voice.
By five pm my bedroom is a mess.
Petra storms in complaining about a group project, looks at the state of the room and stops talking.
She gives me a look.
“Plus one meeting at 8” I say.
“And that explains this?” She asks looking at half my wardrobe over the floor.
“Nothing’s giving ‘Cunty, but I mean business’ enough.”
“Babe, get the red dress,” I can’t believe she’s actually going along with this.
The red dress is an institution on self-confidence, I bought it after I went from cup A to a D. Freshman in college and ready to take on the world. It all came crumbling down after that, but it’s still a great dress that sells my assets.
“I’m trying to negotiate, not hook up,” I say.
“Oh, come on Vi, you been talking about the guy nonstop, you definitely want to jump his bones.”
“No, I’m not!” now I’m completely offended.
I haven’t, have I?
“Is he hot?” Petra knows me too well, damn.
“Very” I admit.
Petra’s face lights up.
“But…” I say. “This is just about the wedding Petra, I can’t fuck the guy, heck, I don’t even think he’ll be down to it.”
“Honey, I say this objectively, the guy would be lucky to have you.”
“Petra, shut up.”
“Fine, suit yourself, pay a guy to take you to a wedding you don’t want to go.”
Her words hit a a tiny part of me that I usually keep hidden.
I think she knows she hurt me.
I end up wearing slacks and a vest.
What can I say?
I am theatrical, I know that.
I hope the outfit gets the message ‘this is purely transactional’ across.
Petra makes me share my location again, and wishes me good luck.
Things are a bit awkward but we’ll get over it.
Our friendship has recovered from worse.
I’m expecting him to be late just like last time.
I’m expecting him to be an asshole and say he forgot.
I’m expecting him to text me saying he’s no longer interested.
What I’m not expecting is for him to already be here.
Dressed up. Apron on. Behind the bar.
He’s a waiter.
He nods when he sees me.
I go straight to the bar.
He’s drying glasses.
“You’re working” I say.
I want to hit my head with a bat.
Why am I like this?
“Evidently.”
Does he only speak in one-word sentences, or is this just his default personality setting?
I take a seat.
“You seem surprised.” He points.
“That explains the place.” I say.
He looks at me confused.
“You working here, I mean, I thought it odd for you to suggest we meet here.”
“Too lowly for you?” He asks.
There it is.
A voice that apparently comes in two modes: silence or insult.
I lean back slightly on the stool.
“I’m just saying it’s not exactly neutral ground.”
“Neutral ground,” he repeats it like it’s funny.
“Yeah.” I stick to it.
A person with a messy, short ponytail and weird glasses appears behind the bar.
Levi tsks at his coworker.
“What are you taking?” They ask me.
Levi answers before I do. “It’s okay, shitty glasses, she’s with me.”
“Oh, short-stuff has a date?!!”
They sound too energetic.
Levi makes a face.
“She’s the wedding girl,” he says way too harsh.
I’m guessing by his tone that they’re friends. Only friends can talk to each other like that.
If they’re not, this is a terrible working environment.
Shitty glasses—as Levi called them— starts cackling.
“I’ll have a margarita,” I interrupt them. “Three ounces of Don Julio”
“Top shelf, huh?” They ask. “I’m Hange, by the way, Levi’s best friend, It was me who sent him the ad. Really funny ad, I love your style.”
They sound unhinged.
And Levi looks like he wants to protest when Hange says ‘best friend’.
I decide I like Hange right there and then.
“Thanks,” I give them a smile.
They hand me the margarita.
Oh heavens, it’s good.
“Ceremony starts at 6 and party at 9?” Levi cut straight to the chase.
Right, the reason why I’m here.
“But we have to be there around five thirty.” I lick the salt around the glass rim.
I swear I see his eyes widen for a moment.
But he finishes drying the glassware and leaves me hanging for a second only to return with a a piece of folded paper on hand?
He unfolds it with the patience of someone who regrets every life choice that led him here. He clears his throat once, then reads.
“Clause three. Subsection B. ‘Arrival time shall be no later than ceremony minus zero point five hours to allow for controlled emotional preparation, seating strategy assessment, and introduction to hostile relatives under supervised conditions.’”
He looks up.
“You wrote ‘controlled emotional preparation.’”
Hange is openly laughing into their hand.
Levi continues, unfazed.
“Clause five. ‘Plus one must maintain plausible romantic affiliation for the duration of all wedding-adjacent events, including but not limited to: ceremony, reception, photographs, and unsolicited interrogation by elderly family members.’”
He taps the paper once.
“That part I can do,” he says.
I sit a little straighter.
"Good.”
He flips another page.
“Clause seven. ‘No excessive drinking prior to family interaction phase. Emotional stability must be preserved at all times, even when provoked.’”
“It applies to me too,” I try to defend myself.
Levi doesn’t react. He just keeps reading.
“Clause nine. ‘Physical affection is permitted strictly for performance purposes. Any deviation will be considered a breach of contract.’”
He pauses there longer than the others.
Then he folds the paper neatly, like it’s done being useful.
“You forgot clause eleven,” he says.
I frown. “There is no clause eleven.”
“There is now,” he replies.
He slides the paper back under the bar and leans slightly forward.
“No improvisation,” he says. “No surprise social experiments. No last-minute changes because you get anxious and decide to ‘optimize outcomes.’”
I open my mouth. He cuts me off immediately.
“And,” he adds, tone sharpening just enough to make it known that he's serious, “no dancing.”
A beat.
I stare at him.
“No dancing?”
Levi doesn’t blink.
“No dancing, this is non-negotiable.”