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@kingdonmicrofic day one: confetti - 382 words - slight references to addiction

New Year’s Eve is not a children’s holiday. It is, however, a lover’s holiday. Frank and Mel are not lovers. They’re two lonely people, watching the fireworks, with no lovers. They’re off shift. They’re together because Frank asked Mel to be here, at his apartment. They don’t talk about what this means. They don’t talk about Abby and who she might be with, or Becca celebrating alongside Adam. They don’t talk about why they both declined Jack’s New Year’s Eve party invitation.

“Do you think they’ll keep airing this?” Frank asks her as they watch this year’s Times Square Ball Drop hosts patter on with B-list celebrities in anticipation of the ball drop. “I mean, do you think anybody watches this anymore?”

“We’re watching it,” Mel says, gesturing to the screen with the bottle of non-alcoholic cider she’s been drinking.

“I don’t think our taste in entertainment aligns with most people’s.”

Mel smiles, thinking about renaissance fairs and historical reenactments, musical theater, long multipart documentaries, all the shared interests they’ve discovered over the course of a few years. “Yeah, that’s true.”

Frank wraps his arm round her and brings her into him. He’s warm and solid. She finds it hard to believe that he hurt his back while moving, even though she knows all the various way a person’s bones and muscles can twist and turn, even in a young, healthy man in his physical prime. His back still hurts him, sometimes, and when it does, she’ll help him apply heat patches and pain relief cream. They don’t talk about her hands on him, just like they’re not talking about her tucked into his chest at the moment.

When the ball drops they leap up. Mel, feeling antsy down to her toes, reaches into her pocket and throws the confetti she tucked there. This is more than just to celebrate the New Year—Mel knows, down to the minute, the anniversary of Frank’s sobriety. She burns with the urge to tell him, but she knows it’s not appropriate, and trusts him to understand the gesture.

She turns to him, beaming. “Happy New Year’s,” she says, bouncing on her heels, and he takes her by the wrists, confetti flakes in his hair. He leans down, kisses her. They don’t talk about this, either.