I have a comeback at the ready, but then decide against it. My personal opinions on money are very well known by now.
Kyle gets distracted by his cell, buying me some more time to think. This entire situation with Mona is killing me. I can’t stand the thought of never seeing her again. At the same time, I also worry that she’s giving me a sense of false hope by allowing me into her apartment the last couple of times I showed up announced. Then again, there was no way for me to announce myself. I can’t believe that she still has me blocked. She’s willing to fuck me but not to talk to me on the phone? That’s fucked up.
“Hayden says everyone should be there at seven o’clock, sharp, on Saturday,” Kyle interrupts my thoughts. “She’s planning a whole thing now.”
My eyes widen in distress. “I told Mona I’d pick her up at seven. No way we can be out of the city and at Ray’s by seven!”
“Why can’t you pick her up at six?”
It’s a fair question that I don’t know how to answer. I didn’t think of asking Mona how late she works on Saturday, if it’s a full day or half, or somewhere in between.
“I don’t know what time she gets off work,” I admit to my friend. “I just spit out a time when I’d be there, and I left it at that. I don’t even know if she’ll come downstairs.”
Kyle puts his hands up to stop me. “Whoa, whoa, whoa there, buddy. Are you saying that we’re all twisting into a pretzel to put this dinner party together so you can bring your woman, but you didn’t get confirmation that she’d actuallybethere?”
I want to laugh at how distraught he sounds at the idea. But I have a feeling that he’d flip me off and leave my office and the building without another word.
“I’ll come no matter what,” I tell him. I guess I’d have to show up now that they are organizing something just for me.
Kyle huffs in annoyance. “Who the fuck wants to see you? I thought all this was for Mona.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you guys knew her well enough to care.”
“And that is exactly the problem,” he yells back. “We never got to know her that well, and she never got to know us. One would think she was your side piece if they didn’t know you weren’t married.”
“I didn’t treat her like a side piece!” I am offended by the suggestion.
“You didn’t treat her like your main squeeze either,” he deadpans.
“I never mistreated her,” I argue.
Kyle waves me off. “No, but it was always weird. She was never part of the group, you know? We took everyone into the fold… Evie was easy, right? She was funny and cute, and she gave Cal so much shit.”
He chuckles as he speaks. I know this is not meant to make me feel bad about myself but rather to open my eyes about Mona and her role within the friend group.
“Hayden came along,” Kyle continues. “We all love her, right? And that’s after she got Ray arrested and everything.”
We both laugh at the reminder of that. Ray and Hayden’s relationship started on the wrong foot, and it stayed that way for a long time.
“But now we even hang out with Ray’s stepmother. How weird is that?”
“Weird,” I agree.
“And Zara…” A wide grin forms on his face. “I fuckin’ love her so much. I can’t wait to tell her how much.”
After that, the conversation pretty much turn to him and his love for Zara. He waxes poetic until I am close to throwing him out of the building.
“Signing up for theHolidatesapp was the best thing I ever did in my whole entire life.”
“The best, huh?” I shake my head at him.
“You don’t believe me.” He points a finger at me. “That’s because you’ve never been in love. Not real love,” he stops me when I open my mouth to say something.
“It’s not like I am jumping through all these hoops for Mona if I didn’t feel anything for her, asshole.”
“I’m not saying you don’t care,” he shrugs. “But you definitely got some issues that you should work on before pursing Mona all the way.”
I frown. “What kind of issues?”
