Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating

“Just dinner,” I say. “A new ramen place opened up near Emily and Dave’s. Thought we could give it a try.”

  After a small rendition of the Running Man on the sidewalk, Hazel climbs into the passenger seat. Her fingers come over mine when I get behind the wheel and pull away from the curb, and with her free hand, she reaches to turn up the song playing on the radio, singing along badly, loudly, happily.

  “Wait,” she says, looking at me and letting out a bursting laugh. “This is Metallica.”

  I nod. “Takes me right back to the worst concert ever.”

  She lets out a mock scream. “What was I thinking? Tyler!”

  “No idea.”

  “I wanted you to come to my apartment and say, ‘I love you, Hazel Bradford, please be mine forever and ever and ever.’ ”

  “And I did.”

  She nods with vigor. “You did.”

  At the red light, she leans over, kissing me. One short peck turns into a longer kiss, with tongue and sound and the acceleration of her breath and mine. At the green light, she lets me focus on the road but her hand on my thigh soon transitions to her fingers unbuttoning my jeans, her teeth and growl on my earlobe.

  Instead of ramen, we find our way back to my old house—empty, between renters—and return to our roots: making love on the floor.

  ··········

  Our own home is dark when we pull in, avoiding the squeaky step and coming to a quiet stop in front of the door. Hazel—hair a mess, tank top slightly askew, underwear in her pocket—digs in her purse for her key, sliding it into the lock and gingerly letting us inside.

  Umma meets us in the entryway, wearing her small, calm smile.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  She nods, stretching to kiss both our cheeks before padding down the hall toward the separate wing of the house she shares with Appa.

  Hazel turns and grins up at me in the darkness. “Even after that greasy burger, I’m starving.”

  “Want me to make you something?”

  She shakes her head, giving a little shimmy before disappearing down the hall.

  I unload my wallet and keys near the door, slipping off my shoes. From one of the bedrooms I hear voices, and follow the sound, ducking into Miles’s dimly lit room, surprised to find him still awake. Hazel sits at the edge of his bed, food apparently forgotten as she pushes a strand of hair off his forehead.

  “Halmeoni made me do a bath,” he whispers, full of three-year-old outrage.

  “That’s good,” Hazel tells him. “You were stinky.”

  “And Jia told her that I ate the last gummy worm.”

  I sit down beside my wife as she asks, “Did you?”

  “Yes,” he says, “but she had seven and I only had two!”

  Hazel bends, kissing Miles’s forehead. “Big sisters are like that sometimes. Sleep, baby boy.”

  He doesn’t fight, rolling over and immediately closing his eyes. I stare at him a little longer. Everyone says he looks just like me. Hazel stands with a smile, picking up the pile of costumes on the floor—Mulan, Tiana, and Ariel are his favorites.

  We agree that inside, he is all Hazel.

  ··········

  Saturday morning, Miles bounds down the hill, feet barely staying beneath him. Today, he is Elsa—except for his red cowboy boots—with a well-loved Disney wig unraveling behind him as he runs.

  Beside me, his sister, Jia, watches him, eyes narrowed as she pulls long, careful licks across her ice cream cone. “He’s going to fall.”

  I nod. “Maybe.”

  “Appa.” She turns her doe eyes on me. “Tell him to slow down.”

  “He’s on the grass,” I remind her. “He’ll be okay.”

  Unconvinced, she stands, yelling down to her little brother. “Namdongsaeng!”

  Only when she calls out to him does he tumble, tripping over a boot and rolling a few feet on the lawn. He comes up laughing. “Noona, did you see me?”

  “I saw you.” Suppressing a smile, Jia sits back down. Looking up at me again, she gives a dramatic shake of her head. “He’s wild, Appa.” She looks like her mom.

  We agree that inside, she is all me.

  Hazel comes up the hill, holding a tray of coffees and hot chocolates in one hand and catching Miles’s hand in the other. She manages to start running with him, careening up the hill toward us without spilling anything. When she nears, I take the tray from her hand to keep her from pressing her luck.

  “Mama, did you bring me hot chocolate?” Jia asks.

  Bending, Hazel swoops her up from the bench, cradling her for a kiss before spinning in wild circles that make Jia giggle wildly and make my blood pressure spike.

  “I did,” Hazel says, “and had them put extra whipped cream on top.”

  “Haze,” I say gently. “Careful.” She’s nearly seven months pregnant, and it seems like ever since the first, she has more and more energy each time.

  She gives me an indulgent smile, setting Jia down, and our daughter wraps her arms around her mom’s wide middle. She kisses Hazel’s belly. “Mama, tell me about the time when I was in your tummy.”

  Hazel glances at me again, and plops down cross-legged on the grass. “Mama found out she was going to have a baby. She and Appa were so happy.” She cups Jia’s face, leaning forward to kiss her nose, and—not to be ignored—Miles climbs into Hazel’s ever-shrinking lap.

  She sweeps his hair out of his face, speaking to Jia. “But I found out that I had to be very quiet and still for a little while.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “Mama was not good at being quiet and still. Was she?”

  Jia shakes her head, very serious now.

  “But you were,” Hazel whispers, “weren’t you?”

  My daughter nods, grinning proudly.

  “You taught Mama how to be quiet, and calm, and still. And so I did it, because you showed me, and that is how everything turned out okay.”

  “Now me!” Miles roars.

  “You, my little wiggle monster,” Hazel says, “did not know how to be calm or quiet or still. And that was okay, because Jia also taught Mama’s body how to have a baby in there, and so we could be just as silly as we wanted to every single day!”

  “Thank you, Noona!” Miles climbs off Hazel, tackling his sister.

  The two of them wrestle on the grass, tangled up in Miles’s dress, hot chocolates forgotten.

  A hand comes up to my knee, tapping, and I help Hazel up from the lawn, standing to wrap my arms around her. “You sure you’re ready for another one?”

  “No turning back now. Almost three down,” she says, “fourteen to go.”

  “Keep dreaming, Bradford.”

  Stretching, she kisses me, eyes open, lips resting on mine.

  I’m an optimist; I always anticipated having a good life. But to have dreamed something like this would have felt enormously selfish.

  “Sometimes I imagine going back in time,” she says, reading my mind, “and telling myself that I’d end up right here. With Josh Im.”

  “Would you have believed it?”

  She lets out a husky laugh. “No.”

  I can’t pull her as close as I want, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, so instead I dig my fingers into her bun, pulling it apart so that her hair falls around her shoulders. Her breath catches—I think at the hungry, possessive expression on my face. She looks a little wild, too: her cheeks are pink from the wind, her eyes bright and amber.

  “I thought this was your plan all along,” I say, kissing her again.

  “In my dreams.”

  I look over at Jia and Miles. She’s swiping grass from his skirt, helping straighten his wig. And as soon as she’s done, he tears off down the hill again under the watchful eye of his sister.

  “Well,” I say, “I’m pretty sure that if someone went back in time and told me I’d end up with Hazel Bradford, it would sound just crazy enough to be true.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  Some ch
aracters take longer to find, and some burst onto the page, already formed and impatiently waiting for us to start typing it all down. The latter situation was the case with Josh and Hazel. Few people get to say they find joy in their job, but that’s what this book was: pure, unadulterated fun. We are so very lucky.

  Behind every book is a whole team of people who make it happen. Editor Adam Wilson is as instrumental to our books as we are. He helps us find what we’re missing, and makes the things we get right even better. Our agent, Holly Root, is a miracle, seriously. Thank you for always being there to calm our flails and celebrate right along with us. You are our rock. Kristin Dwyer, our moon and stars and magical unicorn publicist, we would be lost without you. You did so good, girl.

  Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books has been our home since we were newborn debut authors. Thank you to Carolyn Reidy, Jen Bergstrom, Diana Velasquez, Abby Zidle, Mackenzie Hickey, Laura Waters, Hannah Payne, and Theresa Dooley (we miss you). Thank you, John Vairo and Lisa Litwack, for the cover that makes us smile whenever we see it. The amazing S&S sales team gets our books on the shelves, and into the hands of amazing readers.

  Thank you, Erin Service, for forever being our biggest cheerleader and most careful set of eyes, and Marion Archer, for the thoughtful reads and all of the heart you put into your feedback.

  Thank you to every reader and blogger and Instagrammer and Booktuber who has ever picked up one of our books or recommended us to someone. We laughed so much while writing this book; we hope you feel that in every page.

  This book is dedicated to Jen Lum, and Katie and David Lee because they are AMAZING. We can’t actually show up on their porches and thank them in person, but we would if it wasn’t creepy. Thank you, Jen, Katie, and David, for sharing your lives and your stories and helping us make Josh and his family feel real. We are very grateful.

  To our families! You are the reason we smile, and also the reason we occasionally drink wine by the bottle. Thank you for putting up with our deadline brains and tours and crazy schedules and our nonstop texts to each other. We love you.

  To PQ, you make me so proud. Working on this felt like the best of what we do, and I love that it still makes us laugh out loud, every single time we read it. I love you!

  To my Lolo, when we first started writing together it was basically to make each other laugh or swoon or blush. Nine years later and that hasn’t changed. Thank you for being patient while I found my voice again and for loving me no matter what. I thank the universe every day that a sparkly vampire brought you into my life. And that you still haven’t managed to escape. I love you.

  Don’t miss the next hilarious romantic fiction from the author who “perfectly captures the hunger, thrill, and doubt of young, modern love” (Kirkus Reviews on Wicked Sexy Liar)

  MY FAVORITE HALF-NIGHT STAND

  Available from Gallery Books in December 2018

  Swipe right for a sneak peek!

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  MILLIE

  When I was in grade school, my best friend, Alison Kim, was obsessed with horses. She was the horse girl—you know the one. She took lessons, came to school in cowboy boots, and always smelled faintly of barn. Not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly unique among the student body at Middleton Elementary. Her room was covered in pictures of horses; her clothes were all horse-themed. She had trading cards and figurines. This girl was invested and could be called upon at any given moment to answer a horsey question or rattle off an equestrian fact.

  Did you know horses can run a mere six hours after birth? Nope.

  What about their teeth—were you aware a horse’s teeth take up more space in their head than their brain? Didn’t know that, either.

  Most little girls are obsessed with something at one point, and for the most part it never gets a second thought. Puppies: standard. Princesses are also frequently idolized. An obsession with boy bands is to be expected. Begging your parents for a pony or unicorn is normal.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been normal. Me? I was obsessed with serial killers.

  More specifically, I was obsessed with the idea of female serial killers. Hear the phrase serial killer, and most of us probably picture a man. It’s not surprising—let’s be real, men are responsible for at least 92 percent of the evil in the world. For centuries, women have been socially programmed to be the nurturers, after all—the protectors, the emotional bridges—so when we hear of a woman who takes life instead of creating it, it’s instinctively shocking.

  My particular fascination started around the time I played Lizzie Borden in my seventh-grade theater class. It was an original musical—the brainchild of our eccentric-would-be-an-understatement teacher—and I landed the lead role. Before then, the concept of murder was still loose and shapeless in my head. But, ever studious as a child, I gobbled up everything I could about Lizzie Borden, the gruesome hatchet murders, the dramatic trial, the acquittal. The fact that, to this day, the murders remain unsolved was enough to get the wheels in my mind spinning: What is it about the male brain that makes it not just more aggressive in general but more prone to serial violence—and what trips that same switch in a woman? It’s why I read every book on the subject I could find as a teen, watched every crime drama and mystery, and why I now teach criminology at UC Santa Barbara, and am working on my own book about the very women who so fascinated me as a child.

  It’s probably also why I’m drinking it up with four of my strictly platonic best guy friends, instead of out enjoying myself on an actual date.

  No man wants to hear “I wrote my thesis on gender differences in serial murderers” during the Tell me about yourself portion of an initial rendezvous.

  “Millie.”

  “Mills?”

  My attention first snags on Ed’s voice, and then focuses on Reid’s. “Yeah?”

  Reid Campbell—one of the aforementioned strictly platonic best guy friends, the reason we’re here celebrating tonight, and a man whose genetics never got the memo that it’s unfair to be both brilliant and beautiful—grins at me from across the table.

  “Are you going to pick your game piece or stare slack-jawed at the wall all night?” He’s still waiting, still smiling. It’s only now that I notice the game board on the table, and the pastel money he begins distributing.

  Apparently while zoning out, I inadvertently agreed to play Monopoly. “Ugh. Guys. Again?”

  Reid, who for some reason is always the banker, looks back up at me with faux-wounded blue eyes. “Come on. Don’t even pretend you don’t love it. Getting a monopoly on Park Place and Boardwalk gives you an obscene amount of joy.”

  “I loved it when I was ten. I still mostly liked it two years ago,” I say. “But why do we keep playing it when it always ends the same?”

  “What do you mean it always ends the same?” Ed—or Stephen Edward D’Onofrio! if you’re his mother—pulls out the chair to my left. Ed’s hair is this wild mop of reddish-brown curls that always looks like he either just got up or should really go to bed.

  “For starters,” I begin, “Reid is always the top hat, you’re the car, Alex is the ship, Chris is the shoe, and I’m the dog. You’ll go to the bathroom twelve times right before it’s your turn so we all have to wait. Chris will hoard his money and then get mad when he keeps landing on Alex’s hotels. Reid will only buy the utilities and somehow still manage to clean the floor with all of us, and I’ll get bored and quit six hours into a never-ending game.”

  “That’s not true,” Ed says. “I quit last time, and Chris bought up all the orange properties to get back at Alex for the rooster-shaped birthday cake.”

  “Man, that was a great cake,” Alex says, dark eyes downcast as he laughs into his drink. “Still worth Chris putting salt in my beer for two weeks.”

  “What’s greater,” Chris tells him, “is how you never once expected the salt, even after the fourth time.”

  In typical fashion, Reid won’t be distracted from his goal, and pipes up
from where he’s organizing the property cards. “The rules were very clear tonight: my party, my choice.”

  We groan in unison because he has a point. Reid and Ed are both in neuroscience—also at UCSB—but while Ed works as a postdoc researcher in Reid’s lab, Reid is a newly minted associate professor, just awarded tenure. Said tenure is why I’m wearing both a dress and a party hat, and why there are somewhat droopy crepe paper streamers hung throughout Chris’s living room.

  Chris is always Team Reid; he’s gathering up the game pieces, but not to put them away, to compromise. “We’ll switch things up. I’ll be the dog, Mills.”

  “I think you’re missing my point, Christopher.”

  Four sets of eyes stare blankly back at me, urging me to give up the battle.

  “Okay then,” I say, resigned as I stand and walk into the kitchen for another bottle of wine.

  ··········

  An hour later, I’ve lost track of how much pretend money I’ve paid Reid, and how many times Alex has refilled my glass. Alex is a professor of biochemistry, which explains how he can always be counted on to get me drunk. Which I am. I don’t know what I was complaining about: Monopoly is awesome!

  Chris reshuffles the Community Chest cards and places them facedown on the board. “Ed, are you still seeing that redhead?”

  I have no idea how Chris remembers this. Between Alex and Ed it seems there’s never a shortage of odd dating stories to go around. Alex, I get. He’s tall, dark, and wicked, and even though he’s originally from Huntington Beach, he spent every childhood summer with his extended family in Ecuador, giving him an accent that stops women in their tracks. He’s also never serious about anyone, and rarely sees someone again after getting a cab home in the morning.

  Ed is . . . none of these things. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not unattractive and he has the aforementioned full head of hair, but he’s more like a grown frat boy than a manly man. If we went to his place right now we’d find ketchup and a case of Mountain Dew in his refrigerator, and a living room full of pinball machines instead of furniture. Still, he goes out more than me, Reid, and Chris combined.