As the weeks passed since the infamously awkward dinner with Rosé, Chris and his new lady love, Jennie, Lisa tried not to dwell on the events of the evening too much, though she did find her thoughts drifting every so often to the dark-haired woman and the gummy smile that was almost permanently in place by the end of the evening. She wished she could have talked one-on-one with Jennie once more before parting ways that night, but Jennie and Chris had left first, making some excuse about Jennie having an early therapy session the next morning. Rosé and Lisa had just turned and winked at one another knowingly. They both knew Chris wanted to get home and get the most out of what was left of his evening with his beautiful girlfriend while she was still relatively uninhibited from the wine. He wasn't fooling anyone. Shortly after Chris' departure, Rosé had said goodbye and ran off to snuggle in for the night with Jisoo, who had texted Rosé during dinner to let her know she would stay up until she got home. Not quite ready to go home to her quiet apartment, Lisa had made her way back to her favorite leather sofa and watched the remains of the fire glowing in the fireplace and reflected back on the evening's events. She felt oddly lonely in that moment. Not just alone, but truly lonely. It had been a couple of years since her last boyfriend and, though she hadn't really been interested in putting herself back out there, maybe tonight had changed her mind for her. She really did miss the companionship and the feeling of being physically close to someone. Lisa's strange brush with Jennie in the restroom earlier that evening had reminded her of what that closeness felt like.
Lisa was startled to see how close they were standing to one another, their sides lightly pressed together. Lisa found herself enjoying the warmth emanating from the woman in front of her. "You are..." she let out a slow breath"... beautiful. And wildly entertaining," Lisa finished, resting her hand softly on top of Jennie's which was back at work dabbing at her blouse like a nervous tic. Lisa's gesture caused her to still in her motions for a moment and she glanced between Lisa and the hand touching her own, making no move to pull it away.
But she didn't want to misplace that loneliness and need onto Jennie. Besides, she seriously doubted that Jennie felt anything at all in that moment. It was all so silly, really. She had chuckled softly to herself as she pried herself up off the couch to begin dreaded trudged through the snowy night, sans boots, back to the comfort of her apartment.
Swallowing her pride, Lisa had called Chris the next morning to apologize for her odd behavior and to assure him that she really did love his new girlfriend and couldn't wait to see more of her. Chris had sounded genuinely pleased by her words, and with an enthusiastic goodbye, promised to talk to her soon about something that he didn't have time to get into at the moment. With Chris' cryptic goodbye hanging over her head, she willed the days to go by just a bit faster until she had a chance to speak with him about it.
The day-to-day pictorials was wearing on Lisa. Don't get her wrong, she loves to be in front of the camera same as behind it but sometimes she just wanted to sleep the whole day. Doing nothing. As a particularly grueling week came to a close, she decided she needed to decompress a bit and immediately picked up the phone to see what Rosé and Jisoo were up to. Five minutes later, she had secured herself a date with the two women; she was even promised her favorite meal, some excellent conversation, and a movie - though they made no promise that any of them would be awake enough to make it to the end. When did we become such boring old fuddy duddies? Lisa wondered, chuckling to herself. The anticipation of an evening with friends was what got her through the remaining hours of her day. With a terse goodbye to Harry, her manager, she put her favorite plaid wool pea coat on in its place and headed out the door.
Rosé and Jisoo conveniently lived in the apartment building around the corner from Lisa's, so they saw each other relatively frequently, but that didn't mean she was any less excited about being invited over – or more accurately, inviting herself over - for the evening.
