Cheating on Myself by Erin Downing Page B

overly-designed space needed.
    Lily grabbed me a wine glass, but I reached past her and grabbed a martini glass instead. “Chad is here. Do you want him to make you something?” Chad was a cocktail expert—he even hand-stuffed his olives with blue cheese before serving.
    “Yes, please. I’ll take a Bombay martini, extra olives, please.”
    “Hitting the hard stuff?”
    “Yup.” I waved, noticing Cat and her husband, Travis, had just walked through the front door. They were dressed as Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Cat obviously recognized my costume, since she gave me an exaggerated thumbs-up. “I think I deserve a night of drunken irresponsibility after my week of winner dates.”
    Lily called Chad over to order my drink, then pulled me aside to quietly ask, “Do I have any bra line spillage?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I’m going to turn around, casually, and I need you to take a quick peek to see if my back fat is spilling out around the edges of my bra line.”
    “Lil, you don’t have any back fat.”
    “When Chad hugged me earlier, I felt his hand linger near my shoulder blades, and then there was some definite squeezing. The bad kind.”
    “He was just being affectionate.”
    Lily wriggled uncomfortably in her skin-tight nurse costume. “Just check, okay?” She spun around, and I was forced to admire her enviably tight backside. I could never understand how someone who looked the way she did could ever grapple with self-consciousness. Chad pushed my drink across the kitchen island and winked.
    “Your lines are clean,” I whispered.
    Lily beamed at me. “Thanks. It’s just been a while since Chad and I have been together, and I want him to want me, you know?” I did know. And when Lily headed off in the direction of the front door, I thought about how, early in our relationship, I’d wished Erik would look at me like I was desirable or sexy. I’d forgotten to want that after a few years. It just never happened—we were too practical for passion—and I never really thought it was worth wishing for anymore. Well, now I did want someone to want me… but maybe not immediately . After all, I was dressed like a male rockabilly band member with fluffy hair. Anyone who was inclined to hit on me had pretty bad taste.
    I recognized a few people from work, and saw Cat and Travis making their way toward me in the kitchen. As I waited for them to finish chatting with a couple wearing matching bathrobes, I felt someone pluck my hat off my head.
    “Hey!” I said, turning to find one of those vinyl gorilla masks staring back at me. “A band leader needs her kick-ass hat. Can I get it back please?”
    Whoever was wearing the mask ignored me, and placed the hat on their furry head instead.
    “Who’s in there?” I asked, annoyed at the gorilla’s juvenile behavior.
    Silence. I could tell it was a man—his slim hips and muscular thighs were perfectly wrapped inside a pair of Levis. The legs didn’t look familiar—I’d remember those legs—and the strange plaid shirt didn’t look like anything one of my coworkers would wear. Was it one of Lily’s ex-boyfriends? Unlikely, since she only dated hipsters, investment bankers, and guys who were far too obsessed with their own image to wear that specific style of plaid.
    “I’d appreciate my hat back,” I said again, a little more insistently this time. I knew how stupid my hair looked without the hat, and it kinda just looked like I’d picked an ugly outfit instead of attempting a real costume if I wasn’t wearing the hat.
    “Greg?” I asked, wondering if maybe it was Greg Kling, from HR. He had a tendency to act like a sixth grader on occasion, and he’d been laid off yesterday. Maybe he was expressing his anger by annoying me.
    The gorilla grabbed a beer off the counter. He stuck a straw in the top of the bottle and pushed the straw inside the vinyl gorilla mouth to take a swig.
    Just as I was starting to get weirded out, in addition to annoyed, Cat