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“I think this is going well,” Ted says on the forty-third day of quarantining together in Alexis’s apartment as completely platonic pandemic friends who are still a little bit in love with each other. (But, like, they’re growing out of it. They’ll move on just as soon as the world starts moving again, like they originally meant to. It’s just, you can’t spend a pandemic in the Galapagos. Besides, it was one thing to set each other free in a world that was still turning, but she couldn’t just not talk to Ted when all of this started to go down; she needed to hear his voice, to see his cute little pixelated face, to reassure herself that he was still out there somewhere, existing in the same world as she did. And somehow that turned into her telling Ted she was going crazy living alone and Ted telling her he wasn’t wild about the idea of going back to live with his mom, and besides, they’re friends, they’ll always be friends.)
“Totally,” Alexis says over her jar of overnight oats. “It’s going totally well.”
“And your family said we couldn’t hack it as a couple of platonic roomies!”
Her family had actually said: ‘So you’re getting back together. Okay. Give me a minute to visualize–okay. I could see that working–wait. You’re not getting back together? Then this is insane’ (ugh, David), ‘Maybe not the best idea, sweetheart’ (Dad), and ‘Oh Alexis, it’s surely doomed to devolve into a concupiscent rampage’ (Mom). But “couldn’t hack it” about covers it, yep. She had spared Ted the specifics.
“They’re a bunch of dorks,” Alexis declares. She feels a lump in her throat that she can’t blame on the oatmeal. Even if she’s still getting the hang of making it 100% edible. “I just, like, really miss their dork faces. I wish I could see them up close so I could tell them what dorks they are for not believing in us.”
“I know,” Ted says, his eyes full of sweet puppy dog sympathy. Alexis can hear the “sweetie” he doesn’t say at the end of the sentence anymore.
“When are you going to let me braid your hair already?” she teases to distract herself.
Ted makes a pretend-pensive face, putting a finger to his stubbly chin. “I don’t think we’re there yet.”
“Mmmm, I’m pretty sure we are. Look at your luscious locks, Rapunzel!”
“Rapunzel? No way. Snow White, maybe.”
Alexis considers him, lips pursed appraisingly. His hair is doing, like, a weirdly cute chin-length thing. “Yeah, I can see that.” She beams. “Oh my God, Ted, is it finally time to introduce you to my headband collection?”
“Honestly, I kind of can’t believe it’s taken until now. Unless, you know, you’ve got something more important going on today.” This has become their little breakfast time routine: pretending that they’re still very busy, very important people, sneaking some time together before they have to venture into their separate lives. That was a very big thing for them once, after all. Their separate lives.
“Oh, yes,” Alexis says. “So many super important things on the schedge.”
“Me too. In fact, I might not even see you for the rest of the day.”
“Right, totally, that’s fine, since I’m actually getting pretty sick of you, in fact.”
“Oh yeah?” Ted grins at her.
Alexis smiles back. “Yeah.”
“Ouch.”
“Unless you’ll let me braid your hair. That, I’m still very into as a concept.”
“Don’t you think we should save that until you’re really desperate?”
She tries not to look the tiniest smidge hot and bothered at his word choice.
“Um.” She twirls her hair around her finger. “In what sense, exactly?”
“Alexis, it’s important to have things to look forward to in life. And we’ve already done all the jigsaw puzzles. And all the Tiger Kings.”
He’s such a nerd. “I look forward to waking up to your sweet little face every day, silly. That’s enough.”
Ted looks suddenly sort of upset. Not in a hurt way. Just in a way where, well, it’s hard to be platonic besties sometimes when you’re also like sixty percent still in love.
Maybe seventy percent.
Seventy-five.
She keeps forgetting to be careful. It’s hard to be careful when her heart is constantly just fizzing over like Pop Rocks in soda at every single thing he does.
“Now, come on.” She wiggles her fingers at him. “Gimme, gimme, gimme! You played with my hair that one time-"
"I was actually, um, more picking lice out of it-"
"-so let me return the favor."
“Fine,” he relents with a sheepish smile.
“Oh, yay!” She claps. “You won’t regret this, Ted.”
“I know,” he says, still smiling, his little gaze so set on her. It’s funny, because lots of people have looked at her like they really wanted her in her life. But somehow, none of them have ever done it quite like Ted. Like he's already got everything he could possibly dream of. Like she's the most beautiful girl any town's ever seen.
***
“Okay,” David says into his laptop screen, “so, what do we make of this situation? Have they started sleeping together yet, do you think? Is ‘Tedlexis’ back on?” He tries to infuse his air quotes with some extra irony, to make up for how he actually does feel a little invested.
He stares down again at the picture that Alexis just sent to the family text chain. Both she and Ted are smiling into the bathroom mirror, but most of the image is taken up by the back of Ted’s shaggy head, which is sporting a very competent French braid.
The accompanying text reads: Surprise!!!! ✨😘
Which just invites so many questions.
“Braiding can be very erotic,” says Moira through her plague doctor mask. “As we very well know, don’t we, John?”
“Well, Moira, I don’t know if this is the place–” says Johnny from his own Zoom square.
“Just you, me, and a couple of the girls. Talk about a night to remember!”
“Eurgh!!” David cries.
“Oh, David. Calm yourself. I don’t mean actual girls. We’ve never been quite that adventurous. The wigs.”
“That’s not better!”
“Surely it is a little,” Moira protests. “You know I don’t like to hear you disparage your sisters like that.”
“So they’re my sisters now? But also part of your twisted hair stylist sex games? Where does that leave us??”
“Oh, David, must you be so literal?”
“Yes,” David says, aghast. “That’s the problem here! Me being too literal!”
“In fairness,” says Johnny, “parents are sexual beings too, son. You don’t just lose it with age–”
“Just–” David pinches the bridge of his nose in agony. “No. No. None of this, please. You’re going to scare Patrick.”
“I’m just fine over here,” Patrick says jovially.
“No,” David snaps, “you’re not.”
Patrick grins.
“This has been so fun,” Stevie says in a flawless deadpan. “Thanks again for including me.”
“Of course, dear,” says Moira. “In these dark times, we must stay connected.” She taps her plague doctor mask’s beak sagely.
“Why are you even wearing that?” David demands. “You and Dad are a bubble. And you’re in separate rooms right now.”
“One must embrace the fashion of the moment!”
“One must,” Patrick agrees earnestly.
David kicks him. Patrick kicks back.
“I think we can all agree that this has wandered a little off topic,” Johnny says.
“I don’t know,” Stevie replies. “I kind of want to hear more about the wig-braiding.” She lifts her eyebrows mischievously David’s way. He’s not sure how something can be his way in a Zoom meeting, but it absolutely is.
David glares at her. “I swear to God, I will stop having socially-distanced coffee Tuesdays with you on opposite sides of that creepy parking lot.”
“Oh, David,” Moira chastises. “You won’t keep many friends with a countenance that much like a feral rac’coon’s.”
“Yes, David,” says Stevie. Her sarcastic little Daria eyes bore into his soul. Is this a special Zoom feature? What's going on? “Your mother makes a great point.”
David sniffs at her. “Is that so?”
“But,” Patrick says, taking charge, “to get back to the issue at hand, did Alexis and Ted … y’know?”
“Thank you,” David whispers.
“I’ve got you,” Patrick whispers back.
David leans against his shoulder, appreciative.
“They do seem very friendly,” Johnny remarks, staring down at his phone.
“But friendly could just mean friendly,” Moira says. “In the non-concupiscent rampage sense.”
“They are both very hot,” Stevie says, “so it’s probably a constant struggle.”
Everyone gives her a look. Make that a Look.
“What?” she asks, a winsome combo of abashed and defensive. “I’ve got eyes.”
“Gross,” David says. “We’ll come back to that.”
“Give me a break,” Stevie snaps. “You’re not doing lockdown alone.”
That’s fair, actually. And sad.
“Even if they haven’t … ahem … rekindled things,” Johnny says, pivoting the convo for the sake of Stevie’s dignity, “I think it might be only a matter of time. Braiding suggests intimacy.”
“Not this a-fucking-gain!”
“... and that’s all I’ll say about it.”
“Jesus. Thank you. So … should we acknowledge the vibes?” David muses, looking back down at his phone. “Is that what this is asking for? Does she want the eyeballs emoji?”
“Best not spook them,” says Moira. “Let them sort it out in their own time.”
“You think so?” Johnny asks.
“It was a complicated breakup. It follows that it will be a complicated makeup, no?”
“You may have a point, sweetheart.”
“Of course I do, John. He’s the most important thing she’s ever given up.” Moira pauses poignantly. “The second is probably her collection of tiaras.”
“Those were very sparkly,” David has to acknowledge.
“So very sparkly,” Moira agrees, wistful.
“Tell me about it,” Johnny says. “Sometimes I had to put on sunglasses when she’d wear those things. Instant eye strain.”
“Who among us didn’t have a pair of tiara-blindness Balenciagas on hand for an Alexis situation?” Moira replies.
“Wow. You guys are always so relatable,” Stevie says affectionately. “Right, Patrick?”
“Oh,” says Patrick, “the relateable-est.”
“So we play it cool, then?” David checks, just to try to get something definitive out of this chaos meeting. This has to be worse than Zoom school, no matter how many times Jocelyn sends Gone Girl gifs to the Schitts-allowed group chat.
“Yes, my dear,” Moira says. She sounds disarmingly sane for someone in – and he’ll never be able to stress this enough – a plague doctor mask. “We play it very cool.”
***
“What’s the verdict?” Ted asks.
Alexis looks at her phone.
“One thumbs-up emoji?” she says, dismayed. “From my dad? And the rest of them left me on read?”
“Well, I’ll take it. Your dad has style.”
“No, I know,” Alexis says. “In a very old, boring sort of way, like Paddington Bear.”
“I’m pretty sure Paddington Bear is technically a cub–”
She frowns. “I just thought that maybe they’d be more excited.”
“Alexis, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think my lockdown hair journey isn’t as interesting to everyone else as it might be to you.”
“No, obviously. It’s my baby.”
He chuckles nervously. “It is my hair.”
“Yes, Ted, of course it is,” she says, and boops him on the nose. He can keep his cute little delusions. “But. I don’t know. Never mind.”
Ugh, okay. She’ll admit it. She wanted everyone to be happy for her. To give her one, Oh my gosh, girl, go for it! Look at him in his Game of Thrones Jason Momoa era! (To be fair, she’s not sure who would have actually said this. Probably Jocelyn is the most likely candidate, but no Schitts are allowed in their text chain. They’ve got a separate one for that, to accommodate Roland’s very cringe taste in gifs. Twy might be a good ‘Kiss Ted right on the mouth, like, yesterday!’ cheerleader. Alexis should check in on her later.)
“Everything’s weird right now,” Ted tells her reassuringly. “We should all probably just give each other a little grace.”
“You’re so wise,” Alexis praises.
He smiles at her. Looking at him, she’s struck by a precious realization.
“Oh my God, Ted,” she coos, “I can’t believe you have a tendril.”
It’s true. Some of his hair’s slipped out of the braid, and now it’s brushing his beautiful jawline. Maybe the braiding idea was a slight no-no. He looks so much like a dreamy eighteenth century aristocrat on a romance novel cover. The kind that's really in the mood to ravish some lucky girl in a pavilion or something. Well, if a dreamy eighteenth century aristocrat wore checkered pajama bottoms and a Celine Dion concert t-shirt.
He inspects his reflection in the mirror. “Oh yeah!” Then his face goes all goofy. “A tendril,” he asks slyly, “or a Tedril?”
It’s so stupid. It totally gets her.
She throws her arms around him and squeezes him close. Not in a passionate Zac Efron in Mykonos kind of way. Just in a way where she’s suddenly, like, very aware that she needs him as close as possible. Forever, maybe. In spite of all their best-laid no-more-getting-laid plans.
“Whoa,” Ted says, laughing. “What’s that for?”
He pulls back to look at her. He’s always been so into reading everything going on on her face.
“I just really love–” She catches herself, somehow, even though it should be impossible with him staring at her like that. “Your Tedril.”
“I know,” he says. His eyes are suddenly big and somber. “I do too.”
She reaches over and tugs lightly on the te(n)dril in question. How can she not?
It would be very, very easy to kiss him right now. She’s kissed him about a million times, so she would know. She’s kind of the expert.
But she still wants it, the future she’s got all planned out, and she wants his future for him too. And those things are going in separate directions, across the earth, for years and years. There’s no telling how much longer they’ll be stuck here together. But even at the frankly nightmarish rate things are going, it probably won’t be long enough to justify undoing the biggest gift they ever gave each other.
Right. Get it together, girl.
She pats his shoulder, very brisk, and moves past him. “Should we do your silly little Critter Express game now?”
“I think you know it’s called Animal Crossing,” Ted says, following her lead. “And yes.”
“Perfect. It’s a date.” Damn it! “I mean–”
“A friend date,” Ted supplies, very gallant, “between a couple of friends who live together and sleep together – uh, share a bed, in the most boring and friendly way possible, and only because who can afford a two-bedroom–”
“Our pillow wall is very well fortified.”
“Exactly! And if you ever want me to go back to the couch, just holler.”
“I will,” Alexis assures him, “I’ll absolutely holler.”
She won’t. Not ever. But still.
“You ready for Critter Express?” Ted asks.
“You bet your cute little butt I never look at I am,” Alexis says, and then actually hears it outside her head. “Please ignore that.”
“Ignore what?”
“Thank you,” she mutters.
Ted gives her a chivalrous bow, then goes to turn on his little game machine. Just between you and her, she does kind of like this game. Enough to know what it’s called, even. She’s in major need of bright colors and cute little fuzzy guys right now. And after weeks of training, she’s finally figured out what all the buttons do on the controller. Ted’s fingers brushed hers a non-zero amount of times trying to teach her.
It’s okay.
They’ve totally got this.
***
(They don’t got this. They make it to day fifty-two. After that, they figure the rest out together.)