Blink and we might miss everything.
Moxie's hand in mine is the only anchor keeping me in place. She leads the charge while Lauren trails me and Seira behind her. Girls' nights are important for the soul, and we are all in agreement that this night in Monte Carlo requires some good soul searching.
"Any preference?" Moxie asks once we arrive at the bar.
"Surprise me."
Within seconds, we're all being handed our drinks. Moxie rattles off some French words I've never heard in my life, laughing when I stare blankly back at her because getting over the proverbial hump of understanding how French 'r' sounds work is still a task I've yet to defeat. I take a sip and the flavor of oranges floods my senses.
"Delicious. I feel disgustingly rich just drinking it here."
Moxie laughs, flicking my hair over my shoulder. "You're so rich we should all be paying for the view."
"Pay me in drinks," I reply with a flourish. The pre-game party inside Moxie's hotel room had more of an effect than I thought it would.
"As you wish." Seeing how low my drink is already, she raises a finger in the bartender's direction.
"Wait," I sputter with a laugh and yank her arm down. "I was just joking. I will fight you to pay at the end of the night."
"Good luck with that."
"Don't need to ask me twice about buying me drinks." Darting between us, Seira orders a round of shots."Can I ask you a question? And be honest."
"Sure."
Turning out to the crowd, she points to a group of guys across the bar standing one level up. They're looking down at the crowd like apex predators searching for their prey, and I'm not drunk enough to not find it creepy.
Seira, on the other hand, appears to be.
I nearly barf after she asks me if any of them are cute. "You know how they always tell us not to judge a book by its cover? Yeah, not the case here. They look like walking red flags."
She pouts, squinting as if it'll help prove her point. "I honestly thought I'd had more to drink."
"I'm not encouraging drinking until you blackout but," I give the guys one more grimace, "if you think they're cute, you need to reconsider all of your life choices."
Eyeing the empty shot glass once more, Seira groans at the thought of forcing herself to down another. "Isn't getting more drunk just going to make me think they're even better looking?'
"No. There's a sweet spot."
"What sweet spot?"
Lauren places a hand on Seira's shoulder. "There's a certain level of intoxication where you find even the most basic example of men attractive for no apparent reason. But once you keep drinking and reach that sweet spot, you come back to reality."
"Yes," I add. "Suddenly the basic man is back to looking like the goblin descendent he is."
"I've never heard that before."
"That's because you're usually better at holding your liquor." I move her away from the bar so she can stand in front of me. Placing my hand on her shoulders, I point over at them again and speak into her ear. "Please take another good look and tell me if you genuinely think any of them are genuinely attractive."
"I mean—"
"Not one of them has any seasoning."
"Fine, maybe you're right."
"And hey," I bop her nose, "if you're that desperate, you can call Rix."
She shakes her head, honey-colored locks glowing under the spotlights above the bar. "We're not going back there. He's a friend."
"Not good enough for him to invite you to any races himself. Desperate times call for desperate measures."
She flashes me an amused smirk. "Not all of us can have that kind of race car driver friend."
Lauren gently shoves her shoulder. "Give her a break."
"She makes it so easy."
Ignoring Seira's reply, Lauren turns to me again. "We should go dance."
I wave her off. "You go ahead. I'm just going to—"
"Oh, nuh-uh," she interrupts. Pulling on my hand, she coaxes me away from the bar, only sparing me a few seconds to safely place my empty glass down on the counter. "Don't take this away from me. We're in freaking Monaco. Don't think I won't drag you out there by your feet."
"Think I might get trampled over but be my guest."
"Stevie."
"Lauren."
Stepping up to bat, Moxie nudges my side. "I'm going to have to agree with Lauren here."
"Thank you." The two of them bump fists.
Traitors.
I might be surrounded by people who hate being wallflowers, but I'm a willing participant in the state of being. "I'm not even a good dancer. Let me get drunk on Midori sours by myself."
"First of all, that bartender will judge you for ordering a Midori freaking sour. Second, you're a great dancer."
"Maybe you haven't hit the sweet spot yet if you're mistakenly under the impression that I can dance."
Moxie tugs on my hand, encouraged by Lauren on my other side, and I glance back over my shoulder at Seira for help, but it's a lost cause because she follows along with them.
Despite my protests, the two of them release me into the crowd and I cover my face with my hands, laughing after I bump into someone. Considering the abysmal amount of space on the dancefloor, sending me flying into someone is inevitable and I apologize to them profusely which they brush off casually.
Fluid musical notes rain down on us, courtesy of Tame Impala's Is It True, and we find our rhythm. Absorbing the ambiance of Monte Carlo is easy. Cloaked by momentary bolts of darkness, the four of us dance around in circles, slowly morphing into reincarnations of the song.
Maybe Monaco isn't just Monaco. Maybe there is something magical in the water here.
We spend eons yielding our bodies to the music. After sweating out our pre-game drinks, we dive back to the bar for more fuel, only drinking enough to sustain us for another round of dancing. Each time we return for more, Moxie moves closer and closer to me, and, obscured by the strobe lights, the illusion presents itself through boozy thoughts. Forget the maps; I'm running purely on instinct, lost in the direction of Moxie.
"You alright?" she asks, leaning in closer. With her arm around my waist and her breath hitting the side of my cheek, it's hard to think.
The rational part of my brain screams at me to slow down and take a sip of water. The irrational part of me wants to fall asleep on a cloud.
She brushes a hand through my hair and I think I should probably substitute her for some air as well. Clear my head and render these thoughts sensible for once.
"Yeah, I'm just—" I haphazardly flick my fingers around. "You know?"
She laughs. "Yeah, I get it."
My head spins, but not because of the crowded box of mismatched puzzle pieces I've found myself in. There's a question mark hanging above our heads, and the closer we find ourselves, the more that question is a guillotine dangerously close to wrecking all of my plans.
Guided by the nonsensical thoughts, I find myself pulling on her hand until we exit the club, only briefly pausing to let the others know we'll be back in a little bit.
We don't walk far. Barely a block away from the entrance of the club, there's a small lookout with a perfect view of the water. On any other night, I might suggest we trudge down the small slope. Tonight, we settle for the quiet seclusion of a bench steps away from the Mediterranean Sea.
Mistaking the confused expression on my face for something else, Moxie rubs her hand in circles on my back. Although the motion is not needed, I've not dressed appropriately for the cool night, so I welcome the warmth that blazes along with her touch.
"If you need to throw up, just give me a warning so I can duck and get your hair out of your face."
I flick a tiny wisp of laughter at her. "Thank you but I'm not that drunk."
The back rub stops; maybe believing that fresh air is a singular entity that grants clarity is silly.
"Ok, good. I just figured you were running out of there for a reason."
I suppose that's possible if we believe there is a reason for not having reasons. Maybe I have an affinity for running away from my problems. Or maybe I wish I could be that person. I probably wouldn't be out here if I was afraid of answers to questions I've been avoiding for a while now.
"The first relationship I ever had was with this girl in high school named Mahina." The incandescent glow from the moon casts a shadow against the memories lingering behind me. "I told her I loved her between second and third period. It was a very dramatic day at school."
Moxie laughs. "Did you?"
"No." I shake my head quickly. "But best of luck trying to convince a teenager they don't know what being in love is like."
"It happens." She tucks her hands into her pockets. "I had a Mahina, too. Except her name was Jasmine."
"Did you also confess your love during a school day?"
"Oh, yeah. Right before lunch."
Despite the spontaneity with which Moxie leads her life, she's too practical to burst out a proclamation of love in the middle of a school day. She's the type to take a girl on a surprise date to her favorite place in the entire world before making love seem like it's only for you two.
"We had one fight," I laugh. I tuck my knees under my chin and watch the boats floating around the harbor, with lights that flicker like fireflies against the dark blue waves. "That was it. Took one argument to end the whole thing."
"And how long was this thing?" Moxie asks with a cheeky smile.
"Less than one semester. I know, a whirlwind romance."
"Whirlwind romances can be fun," she says. "But they're not for everyone. Some of us fall hard and fast, like a body from a balcony and all that." We laugh. "Some of us fall like a rose petal onto the water. There's no right or wrong."
"You know what the last thing Mahina ever told me was?" I turn to Moxie, casting aside the view in favor of something far more priceless. Nights like these, as simple as they may be, are a constant reminder of all the ways I love women. Feeling a sense of comfort that can come from no other. An understanding we all love and hurt and fall apart in the same ways together. "She said the reason we'd never end up together was that we knew what we had from the very beginning. There was never a question we liked each other—or, hell, loved each other in the way everyone does at sixteen—but I wasn't made to fall in love that way. People like me weren't supposed to fall in love like a romance that could be plotted. We'd stumble into it without even realizing where we were going in the first place."
"A love that takes so much time you don't even realize you've fallen into it." She nods, a small smile cresting upon her lips. "They're some of the best kinds of love. It suits you."
Mahina's words shine down on us as I lean forward tentatively, holding myself back for a second so Moxie has a chance to answer the question, or, rather, arrive at it side by side with me.
I close my eyes and press my lips against hers, as soft as the clouds hiding above us. In another life, when we meet at a different time and I am a different me, maybe this means something more. Maybe I learn to fall in love at the speed of light from the blaze of a thousand fiery suns. But that version of me exists in a dream, and the more I experience this wild, crazy thing I call my life, the more I realize that reality is underrated.
There's an understanding in the way she returns the kiss. And when she pulls back, she smiles and it's gloriously beautiful.
"You'll find it," she says, caressing her thumb down the side of my cheek. "Sooner than you think."
"It's kind of terrifying, though. Isn't it?"
"The best things always are."
Moxie throws her arm around my shoulder and I tuck my head into the crook of her neck. Life might be a silly game of trial and error, but it's fun getting lost along the path every once in a while, and the perspectives these detours offer often grant us more clarity than any simple breath of fresh air can try to.