Page 2 of Here for a Good Time
“Mm-hmmm.”
“I just…” He chuckles and shakes his head. “Over the past four months, I have watched you take upa lotof hobbies to, youknow, be inspired. Obviously, some of them have been less, um,logicalthan others—”
“Are we still on about the Legos? Because I would say that, to an extent, constructing a quarter of a Taj Mahal did getsomeof the creative juices flowing. I wrote a full two hundred words that first night. It’s the most I’ve written in… in…” Four months. I don’t need to say it out loud, though, because Zwe knows. Because he’slivedit, right alongside me in our two-and-a-half-bedroom (the half is our converted office space) fourth-floor walk-up.
There were the aforementioned Legos, which came after the violin, but before the cross-stitching. There has also been the ukulele, pottery making, jigsaw puzzles, friendship bracelets, an eight-week planting class that I attended a whopping two times, and bird-watching.
And I know this trip is (arguably) more radical than jigsaws and misshapen “mugs,” but at this point, I need radical.
“Maybe we sleep on it,” Zwe offers. If you looked up “the voice of reason” in the dictionary, you’d find a picture of him, clean-shaven face with a small mole on his right cheek and all, two dimples tacking up either end of his smile. I press my lips and look down at the comforter. “It’s nonrefundable, isn’t it?” He sighs.
“Maybe.”
“There was a refundable option and you deliberately picked the nonrefundable one, didn’t you?”
At that, I look up and hold a finger to stand my ground. “Between flights and accommodation, that would’ve been close to an extra five hundred dollars. Five. Hundred.”
He flicks the tip of my finger. “You realize I know the exact number of your book advance, not to mention your film deal,” he counters, but without much conviction. Zwe is the most carefulperson I know when it comes to anything, including money, and I know that he knows thatIknow he would’ve had a small aneurysm if I’d paid that much extra for the refundable option.
“We haven’t had a best-friend trip in ages!” I point out. Despite his admonishing side spiel, I’m still grinning. “It’s going to be, as the kids say,epic.”
“What kids?” he asks, bemused, and I know he’s beginning to tip over to my side.
“The TikTokers.”
“When did you say we were leaving?”
“Our flight is next Friday at ten thirty-twoP.M.”
“And what do we do with the bookstore for—” He glances around as though there’s an invisible calendar on his nightstand. “How long did you say the trip was?”
“Two weeks. Well, sixteen days. But basically two weeks.”
“The bookstore—”
“Will be fine.” I rush to speak first. “I would bet money your parents will agree that you deserve a holiday, and that they can handle the bookstore on their own for two weeks. Itwastheirs first, remember? Last time I checked, it still is.”
He glares at me. A real glare, not a sleep-shrouded squinting of the eyes. “You are the worst.”
“Oh no, how dare I,” I say, flattening my voice. “I’m sorry I booked us on a two-week luxury island getaway with first-class tickets.”
“First-class—” He takes in a deep breath, and I bare my teeth in an innocent grimace. “You know first- and business-class tickets are the products of a capitalist, classist system.”
“Yes, but it’s a nine-hour flight. I would like to be cozy in a horizontal bed for a nine-hour flight. We don’t have teenagers’backs anymore, old man.” I poke one of his biceps. “These bones be creaking.”
A ridge forms between his brows, and I still, knowing he’s doing that Zwe thing where he comes at it from angles, making sure he’s two—better yet, ideally three—steps ahead of any possible mishap. It’s why he’s my favorite beta reader—there hasn’t been a single plot hole that Zwe Aung Win has missed. That, and the fact that even with my shittiest drafts, he always knows how to deliver criticism with kindness.
I haven’t been the best best friend lately, I know this. Between the editorial meetings and Netflix production meetings and publicity meetings and the cumulative meeting-induced panic attacks and the erratic writing schedules and habits and my “weird” hobbies, I haven’t been there for Zwe like I need to be. To be honest, if we didn’t live together, I don’t know how often I’d have seen him over the last few months. He’s taken point on all the cleaning and cooking and general keeping-the-apartment-in-a-livable-state-ing, and although Zwe has never been someone who explicitly complains about anything, I know it must be taking a toll. For instance, at one point I realized that his morning jogs were about twenty minutes longer than usual, which was strange because Zwe likes to divide up his daily routine into as specific time increments as possible. When I asked him about it, he’d murmured something along the lines ofHave I? Didn’t notice. My stamina must be building up,which was a lie because I know Zwe runs to de-stress, upping his exercise whenever he needs toreallywork through lingering tension. It stung to know that, by process of elimination,Iwas the thing in his life that was causing him stress.
Hell, I didn’t even know his now-ex-girlfriend Julia had broken up with him until I looked up from my laptop one evening lastmonth and found him walking around with a cardboard box in hand to collect her belongings. The memory of that afternoon still hurts, because by the time I’d realized, he’d already gone through the worst of his heartbreak—by himself. My tunnel vision over this next draft has only worsened as I approach my deadline, but this trip will help me become both a better writer and a better friend.
No, scratch that—it will help me gobackto being a better writer and a better friend.
Ithasto.
“I’m still not—” he begins.
“I need this,” I say quickly. And when I meet his eyes, he knows what I mean.
