“Good Lord,” Gem breathed from the back seat like I told her I ran into the Holy Grail at a vintage store.
“I know,” I agreed.
“I think we all get what a super good guy he is,” Raye put in, a smile in her tone. “And I’m happy you opened up enough after what Kev did to you to give it a shot.”
I was too.
Absolutely.
“Not a lot of women would have that kind of strength, Will,” she went on, making my heart warm and reminding me (again) how much I loved Raye. “I’m not surprised you do, but I’m glad it didn’t take very long.”
“Thanks, babe,” I said quietly.
“I’m glad too,” Gemma added.
Shanti just reached forward from where she was sitting behind me and gave my biceps a squeeze.
Okay…
Totally the best friend posse evah!
“There hasn’t been a definitive winner announced in the pool,” Raye prompted.
Translation: she wanted to know if we’d done it.
“Gabe wants us to have the time to do it right, and I agree. So far, that time has not arrived,” I told her. Then I asked curiously, “What’s your day?”
“We don’t have days, we have timeslots,” Raye answered. “Tex said that these guys ‘move so fast’ it’d be a waste of a bet if it wasn’t broken up into timeslots.”
“This morning was my morning,” Gemma said. “So I’m out.”
“I have Thursday by eleven,” Raye said. “At first, I refused to buy in, doing it in protest at the beginning, then I saw how much fun everyone was having, and I caved. So I got in on the action late.”
“I have by tomorrow morning. My timeslot is eleven to seven,” Shanti shared, and I twisted to look at her and watched her conclude, “So, since we’re doing what we’re doing, I’m fucked.”
“You bought in?” I demanded.
“There’s, like, twenty-five hundred dollars on the line,” she replied.
Two thousand five hundred dollars!?!
“I thought it was three thousand,” Gemma noted.
Three thousand?!?
“How many people have bet?” I asked.
“Everybody,” Raye said. “Including Lucia and Shirleen, and then Martha, Bill and Zach, Patsy, Rhea and Sally bought in. Cap told me Marjorie threw a humongous shit fit about the whole thing. He said it was so bad, he, Brady, Knox and even Mace cleared out and left Shirleen to deal with it. It sounded hilarious.”
None of this sounded hilarious.
Now even the Oasis Square crew were getting in on it!
I harrumphed to sitting straight in my seat.
“It’s not like it’s not gonna happen,” Raye said. “I get it. What you’re feeling. That’s why I protested. Then I realized, mostly, it’s just an indication that everyone thinks you guys should be together. It’s like a weird, warped, somewhat perverse sign the crew approves of you two being together.”
“It’s good you can look at it that way,” I retorted. “People aren’t betting on when you’re gonna get laid.”
