The Housewarming That Changed Everything
Part 1: The Invitation
The night he said it, I was on the kitchen floor in our tiny Seattle apartment, half under the sink with a wrench in my hand, hair tied up in a messy ponytail, jeans stained with grease from the elevator shaft I’d been working in all day. The front door slammed hard enough that the picture frames on the wall rattled in their hooks. When I slid out from under the cabinet on the rolling mechanic’s pad I’d borrowed from work, he was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, jaw set, looking at me like a manager about to fire an underperforming employee.
“We need to talk about Saturday,” Derek said, his tone making it clear this wasn’t actually going to be a conversation. Saturday. Our housewarming party.
Thirty people expected. Music, food, drinks. His coworkers, his gym buddies, a few of my friends from work and softball.
Our first “real” party since moving in together six months ago. “What about it?” I asked, wiping my hands on the grease-stained rag I kept tucked in my back pocket. He straightened his shoulders, planted his feet shoulder-width apart—a power stance he’d probably learned in some leadership seminar at work.
Like he’d rehearsed this entire scene in a mirror. “I invited someone,” he said carefully. “She’s important to me.
And I need you to be calm and mature about it. If you can’t handle this like an adult… we’re going to have a serious problem.”
“Who?” I asked, though something in my stomach already knew. Already sank.
“Nicole.”
His ex-girlfriend. The one from all his stories. The one he’d dated for three years before me.
The one he still followed on every social media platform because, as he’d explained when I’d asked about it early on, “blocking people is immature and petty.”
The one whose name came up just a little too often in casual conversation. I set the wrench on the counter with deliberate slowness. The small metallic clink sounded way too loud in the sudden silence between us.
“You invited your ex-girlfriend to our housewarming party?” I said, keeping my voice level. He didn’t even flinch. Didn’t show a trace of uncertainty or guilt.
“We’re still friends,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Good friends, actually. We ended things maturely and maintained a healthy relationship.
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