Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating

  Praise for the novels of Christina Lauren

  “From Lauren’s wit to her love of wordplay and literature to swoony love scenes to heroines who learn to set aside their own self-doubts . . . Lauren writes of the bittersweet pangs of love and loss with piercing clarity.”

  —Entertainment Weekly on Love and Other Words

  “A triumph . . . a true joy from start to finish.”

  —Kristin Harmel, internationally bestselling author of The Room on Rue Amélie, on Love and Other Words

  “Lauren brings her characteristic charm to the story. Holland’s tale is more than an unrequited crush; it’s about self-expectations, problematic friendships, unconventional family, and the strange power of love.”

  —Booklist on Roomies

  “Delightful.”

  —People on Roomies

  “At turns hilarious and gut-wrenching, this is a tremendously fun slow burn.”

  —The Washington Post on Dating You / Hating You (a Best Romance of 2017 selection)

  “Truly a romance for the twenty-first century. [Dating You / Hating You is] a smart, sexy romance for readers who thrive on girl power.”

  —Kirkus Reviews on Dating You / Hating You (starred review)

  “Christina Lauren hilariously depicts modern dating.”

  —Us Weekly on Dating You / Hating You

  “A passionate and bittersweet tale of love in all of its wonderfully terrifying reality . . . Lauren successfully tackles a weighty subject with both ferocity and compassion.”

  —Booklist on Autoboyography

  “Perfectly captures the hunger, thrill, and doubt of young, modern love.”

  —Kirkus Reviews on Wicked Sexy Liar

  “Christina Lauren’s books have a place of honor on my bookshelf.”

  —Sarah J. Maas, bestselling author of Throne of Glass

  “In our eyes, Christina Lauren can do no wrong.”

  —Bookish

  “The perfect summer read.”

  —Self on Sweet Filthy Boy

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  For Jen Lum, and Katie and David Lee.

  PROLOGUE

  * * *

  HAZEL CAMILLE BRADFORD

  Before we get started, there are a few things you should know about me:

  1. I am both broke and lazy—a terrible combination.

  2. I am perpetually awkward at parties and in an effort to relax will probably end up drinking until I’m topless.

  3. I tend to like animals more than people.

  4. I can always be counted on to do or say the worst possible thing in a delicate moment.

  In summary, I am superb at making an ass out of myself.

  At the outset, this should explain how I have successfully never dated Josh Im: I have made myself entirely undatable in his presence.

  For instance, the first time we met, I was eighteen and he was twenty and I vomited on his shoes.

  Surprising no one who was there (and consistent with point number two, above), I don’t remember this night, but trust me—Josh does. Apparently I’d toppled an entire folding table of drinks mere minutes after arriving at my first real college party, and retreated to the shame corner with my fellow freshmen, where I could drown my embarrassment in the remaining cheap alcohol.

  When Josh tells this story he makes sure to mention that before I threw up on his shoes, I charmed him with a dazed “You are the hottest guy I’ve ever seen, and I would be honored to give you sex tonight.”

  I chased down the bitter taste of his horrified silence with a badly advised body shot of triple sec off Tony Bialy’s abs.

  Five minutes later, I was vomiting all over everything, including Josh.

  It didn’t end there. A year later, I was a sophomore, and Josh was a senior. By then I’d learned you don’t do shots of triple sec, and when a sock is slid over the doorknob, it means your roommate is getting laid, so don’t come in.

  Unfortunately, Josh didn’t speak sock, and I didn’t know he was rooming with Mike Stedermeier, star quarterback and the guy I was currently banging. Currently banging, as in that very moment. Which is why the second time I met Josh Im, he walked into his dorm room to find me naked, bent over his couch, going for it on fourth and long.

  But I would say the best example comes from a little story we like to call The Email Incident.

  Spring semester of my sophomore year, Josh was my anatomy TA. Up until that point, I’d known he was good-looking, but I’d had no idea that he was actually amazing. He held extra office hours to help people who fell behind. He shared his old notes with us and held study sessions at coffee shops before exams. He was smart, and funny, and laid-back in a way I already knew I would never master.

  We were all infatuated with him, but for me it went deeper: Josh Im became my blueprint for Perfect. I wanted to be his friend.

  So, I’d just had my wisdom teeth out. I was convinced beforehand that it would be simple: pull a few teeth, take a few ibuprofen, call it a day. But as it happens, my teeth were impacted and I had to be knocked out for their removal. I woke up later at home, in a painkiller-induced sweat, with hollow aching caves in my mouth, cheeks full of cotton tubes, and the frantic recollection that I had a paper due in two days.

  Ignoring my mom’s suggestion that she soberly send one for me, I composed and sent the following email, which Josh currently has printed out and framed in his bathroom:

  Dera Josh.,

  In class you sed that if we email you our paper you would look over them. I wanted to send you my paper and I put it in my calendar so as not forget. But the thing that happened is that I had a witsdom tooth out actually all of them. I have tried very hard in this clas and have a solid B (!!!). You are very smart and I nknw that I will do better if you help me. Can I have a few extra days???? I’m not feeling very well with this pills and please I know that you can’t make exceptions for all the pope but if you do it for me this one thing I will give all my wishes in a fountain for youfrom now on

  i love you,

  Hazel Bradford (it’s Hazel not Haley like you said it’s ok don’t be embearassed emberessed sad)

  Incidentally, he also has his reply printed out, and framed just below it:

  Hazel-not-Haley,

  I can make this exception. And don’t worry, I’m not embarrassed. It’s not like I puked in your shoes or rolled around naked on your couch.

  Josh

  It was at this moment precisely that I knew Josh and I were destined to be best friends and I could never, ever mess it up by trying to sleep with him.

  Unfortunately, he graduated, and sleeping with him wouldn’t be a problem because it would be nearly a decade before I saw him again. You’d think in that time I would have become less of a hot mess, or he would have forgotten all about Hazel-not-Haley Bradford.

  You’d be wrong.

  ONE

  * * *

  HAZEL

  SEVEN YEARS LATER

  Anyone who knew me in college might be horrified to hear that I ended up employed as an elementary school teacher, responsible for educating our wide-eyed, sponge-brained youth, but in truth, I suspect I’m pretty great at it. For one, I’m not afraid of making a fool of myself. And two, I think th
ere’s something about the eight-year-old brain that just resonates with me on a spiritual level.

  Third grade is my sweet spot; eight-year-olds are a trip.

  After two years spent student-teaching fifth grade, I felt constantly sticky and harried. Another year in transitional kindergarten and I knew I didn’t have the endurance for so much potty training. But third felt like the perfect balance of fart jokes without the sometimes-disastrous intentional farting, hugs from kids who think I’m the smartest person alive, and having enough authority to get everyone’s attention simply by clapping my hands once.

  Unfortunately, today is the last day of school, and as I take down the many, many inspirational pages, calendars, sticker charts, and art masterpieces from my classroom walls, I register that this is also the last day I’m going to see this particular third grade classroom. A tiny ball of grief materializes in my throat.

  “You have Sad Hazel posture.”

  I turn, surprised to find Emily Goldrich behind me. She’s not only my best gal, she’s also a teacher—though not here at Merion—and she looks tidy and recently showered because she’s a week ahead of me into summer break. Em is also holding what I pray is a bag full of Thai takeout. I am hungry enough to eat the little jeweled apple clip in her hair. I look like a filthy mop head covered in the fading glitter eight-year-old Lucy Nguyen decided would be a fun last-day surprise.

  “I am, a little.” I point around the room, at three out of four empty walls. “Though there’s something cathartic about it, too.”

  Emily and I met about nine months ago in an online political forum, where it was clear we were both childless because of all the time we spent there ranting into the void. We met up in person for venting over coffee and became immediate fast friends. Or, maybe more accurately, I decided she was amazing and invited her to coffee again and again until she agreed. The way Emily describes it: when I meet someone I love, I become an octopus and wind my tentacles around their heart, tighter and tighter until they can’t deny they love me just the same.

  Emily works at Riverview teaching fifth (a true warrior among us), and when a position opened for a third grade teacher there, I sprinted down to the district with my application in hand. So desperate was I for the coveted spot in a top-ten school that only once I got out of my car and started the march up the steps to HR did I register that I was (1) braless and (2) still wearing my Homer Simpson slippers.

  No matter. I was properly attired for the interview two weeks later. And guess who got the job?

  I think it’s me!

  (As in, it isn’t confirmed but Emily is married to the principal so I’m pretty sure I’m in.)

  “Are you coming tonight?”

  Em’s question pulls me out of the mental and physical war I’m waging with a particularly stubborn staple in the wall. “Tonight?”

  “Tonight.”

  I glance at her patiently over my shoulder. “More clues.”

  “My house.”

  “More specific clues?” I’ve spent many a Friday night at Em’s, playing Mexican Train dominoes with her and Dave and eating whatever meat Dave has grilled that night.

  She sighs and walks to my desk, retrieving a hammer from my dalmatian-print box of tools so I can more easily pry the metal from the plaster. “The barbecue.”

  “Right!” I brandish the hammer in victory. That little asshole staple is mine to destroy! (Or recycle responsibly.) “The work party.”

  “It’s not officially work. But a few of the cool teachers will be there, and you might want to meet them.”

  I eye her with faint trepidation; we all remember Hazel Point Number Two. “You promise you’ll monitor my booze intake?”

  For some reason, this makes her laugh, and it causes a silver pulse of anticipation to flash through my blood when she tells me, “You’ll be just fine with the Riverview crowd.”

  ··········

  I get the sense Emily wasn’t yanking my chain. I hear music all the way to the curb when I climb out of Giuseppe, my trusty 2009 Saturn. The music is by one of the Spanish singers that Dave loves, layered with the irregular sound of glass clinking, voices, and Dave’s awesome braying laugh. My nose tells me he’s grilling carne asada, which means that he’s also making margaritas, which means I’ll need to stay focused to keep my shirt on tonight.

  Wish me luck.

  With a deep, bracing breath, I do one more check of my outfit. I swear it’s not a vanity thing; more often than not, something is unbuttoned, a hem is tucked into underwear, or I’ve got an important garment on inside out. This characteristic might explain, in part, why third graders feel so at home in my classroom.

  Emily and Dave’s house is a late Victorian with a shock of independently minded ivy invading the side that leads to the backyard. A winding flower bed points the way to the gate; I follow it around to where the sound of music floats up and over the fence.

  Emily really went all out for this “Welcome, Summer!” barbecue. A garland of paper lanterns is strung over the walkway. Her sign even has the correct comma placement. Dinner parties at my apartment consist of paper plates, boxed wine, and the last three minutes before serving featuring me running around like a maniac because I burned the lasagna, insisting I DON’T NEED ANY HELP JUST SIT DOWN AND RELAX.

  I shouldn’t really get into the comparison game with Emily, of all people. I love the woman but she makes the rest of us look like limp vegetation. She gardens, knits, reads at least a book a week, and has the enviable ability to eat like a frat boy without ever gaining weight. She also has Dave, who, aside from being my new boss (fingers crossed!), is progressive in an effortless way that makes me feel like he’s a better feminist than I am. He’s also almost seven feet tall (I measured him with uncooked spaghetti one night) and good-looking in an Are you sure he isn’t a fireman? kind of way. I bet they have amazing sex.

  Emily shrieks my name, and a backyard full of my future friends turns to see why she’s just shouted, “Get your rack over here!” But I’m immediately distracted by the sight of the yard tonight. The grass is the kind of green you’ll only find in the Pacific Northwest. It rolls away from the stone path like an emerald carpet. The beds are full of hostas just starting to unfurl their leaves, and a massive oak stands in the center of it all, its branches heavy with tiny paper lanterns and stretched in a canopy of leaves protecting the guests from the last bit of fading sun.

  Emily waves me over and I smile at Dave—nodding like, Duh, Dave, when he holds up the margarita pitcher in question—and cross through a small group of people (maybe my new colleagues!) to the far end of the yard.

  “Hazel,” Em calls, “come over here. Seriously,” she says to the two women at her side, “you’re going to love her so much.”

  So, hey guess what? My first conversation with the third grade teachers at Riverview is about breasts, and this time I wasn’t even the one to bring them up. I know! I wouldn’t have expected that, either! Apparently Trin Beckman is the most senior teacher in our grade, and when Emily points to her breasts, I readily agree she’s got a great rack. She seems to think they need to be in a better bra and then mentions something about three pencils I don’t entirely catch. Allison Patel, my other third grade peer, is lamenting her A cups.

  Emily points to her own A’s and frowns at my perky C’s. “You win.”

  “What does my trophy look like?” I ask. “A giant bronze cock?”

  The words are out before I can stop them. I swear my mouth and my brain are siblings who hate each other and give each other wedgies in the form of mortifying moments like this. Now it seems my brain has deserted me.

  Emily looks like a giant bird has just flown into her mouth. Allison looks like she’s contemplating this all very seriously. We all startle when Trin bursts out laughing. “You were right, she is going to be fun.”

  I exhale, and feel a tiny bolt of pride at this—especially when I realize she’s drinking water. Trin isn’t tickled by my lack of filter because
she’s already tipsy on one of Dave’s killer margaritas; she’s just cool with weirdos. My octopus tentacles twitch at my side.

  A shadow materializes at Emily’s right but I’m distracted by the perfectly timed margarita Dave presses into my hand with a whispered, “Take it slow, H-Train,” before disappearing again.

  My new boss is the best!

  “What’s going on over here?”

  It’s an unfamiliar male voice, and Emily answers, “We were just discussing how Hazel’s boobs are better than all of ours.”

  I look up from my drink to see whether I actually know the person currently studying my chest and . . . oh.

  Ohhhh.

  Dark eyes widen and quickly flicker away. A carved jaw twitches. My stomach turns over.

  It’s him. Josh.

  Josh fucking Im. The blueprint for Perfect.

  He coughs out a husky breath. “I think I’ll skip the boob talk.”

  Somehow Josh is even better-looking than he was in college, all tanned and fit and with his flawlessly crafted features. He’s ducking away in horror already but my brain takes this opportunity to give my mouth a revenge wedgie.

  “It’s cool.” I wave an extremely casual hand. “Josh has already seen my boobs.”

  The party stops.

  Air stills.

  “I mean, not because he wanted to see them.” My brain desperately tries to fix this. “They were forced on him.”

  A wind chime rings mournfully in the distance.

  Birds stop flying midair and fall to their deaths.

  “Not forced, like, by me,” I say, and Emily groans in pain. “But like his roommate had me—”

  Josh puts a hand on my arm. “Hazel. Just . . . stop.”

  Emily looks on, completely confused. “Wait. How do you guys know each other?”

  He answers without taking his eyes off me. “College.”

  “Glory days, am I right?” I give him my best grin.