“I spent quite a bit of time with Marley Kasey this weekend,” I said to April, deciding that a change in narrative was in order.
“Oh, really,” Vanessa said. “She’s so lovely. Don’t you think she’s lovely, April?”
“Just because she’s the only other gay woman in town doesn’t mean that we’re destined to be together,” April said.
“How often do you tell yourself that?” I asked her.
“Every day that I look in the mirror,” April admitted before she knocked back the rest of her drink in one gulp. She sounded miserable and I hated that for her. “Whoa!” She blinked a few times and set her glass back down with an indelicatethunk. She reached over and snagged a chunk of cheese off my plate.
“Hey! That’s my cheese.”
“Sorry,” she said around a mouthful of smooth, smoky goodness. “God, I feel much better now. All tingly inside.” I slid my plate over to share my cheese with April. I didn’t want her to get too tingly, too fast.
“Why does Maegan get fancy cheese and fruit when the rest of us only get chips and salsa?” Violet asked. “The chips aren’t even warm.”
“This isn’t a restaurant,” Vanessa said. “I don’t warm up my tortilla chips.”
“Well, it’s the least you can do if you’re going to withhold the good cheese. I always knew that Maegan was your favorite,” Candace told Van.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Vanessa said, her lips quirked up into a wry smile. She began slicing off more cheese for April, Candace, and Violet. “Who said that I liked any of you?”
“You love us,” April said, sounding tipsier by the minute.
“I do,” Vanessa agreed.
“Oh!” Candace exclaimed. “I bet Maegan is the first of us to get married.” Cut her off, bartender.
“Huh?” How’d we go from Vanessa loving us to me getting married? That was a big leap.
“Oh! I’ll take that bet,” Van said. “Twenty bucks says Maegan gets married first.”
“That’s not much of a bet,” April hemmed.
“Fifty then!” Vanessa said.
“Not the dollar amount, silly,” Candace told our host. “The point of a bet is to settle a disagreement between two or more people. No one here is disputing that Maegan is now most likely to get married first.”
“Oh! You have a good point,” Violet said. “We need to do a pool like they do when they guess the weight and inches of a newborn baby or predict the outcome of football games. Yeah, that’s it!”
“Where’s a notepad, Van?” Candace asked. Vanessa reached inside a kitchen drawer and pulled out a notebook and pen.
“We need to write it down. Everyone commits to twenty dollars and the one closest to Mae’s actual wedding date gets all the money. One of us is going to win one hundred dollars!” April exclaimed.
“Where do you get that?” I asked. Hell, I hadn’t consumed so much alcohol that I couldn’t figure her winnings were skewed.
“There are five of us,” April said.
“You think I’m entering?” I asked, trying to hold back my laugh.
Candace snorted.
“Eighty then,” Violet said, nodding her head. “I can buy a lot of books for that money.”
“Try sixty,” Candace corrected, shaking her head. “You’ll get your twenty dollars back and an additional twenty from three other people. I wouldn’t count your own cash as earnings.”
“Must you be in CPA mode all the time, Candy Apple?” Violet asked.
“Really,” April agreed. “So I was off a few bucks.”
