“He’s a guy.” She shrugs. “I’m going with super-clueless.”
Junie grabs the bottle of sparkling cider and refills her glass before reaching for one of the homemade gluten-free crackers Lisa always brings for her. “Ask him if he’s married,” she says.
I’ve gotta hand it to Junie—her directness has its merits.
But I’m not ready to be quite that direct.
No husband, no kids, no boyfriend. Just enjoying a little birthday bubbly at home. Cheers!
I snap a quick photo of my hand holding my half-empty champagne flute, then click to send that with the message. Ian responds with a thumbs-up emoji, which would normally signal the end of this exchange.
Normally.
Hell, I’m thirty, right? Time to be a little bold, to do things outside my comfort zone? Maybe I owe it to myself to be a little more like Junie.
I hesitate. Then I start typing again.
How about you? Married? Kids? The whole ball of wax?
I flip the phone face down, feeling silly. What does that even mean, ball of wax? And why am I keeping this going? I’m here to enjoy a night with my girlfriends, not a flirtation with some long-lost guy friend.
I grab a piece of salami, determined to get this ladies’ night back on track.
“What are you doing?” Cassie’s question sounds exactly like it would if she caught someone urinating on the Mona Lisa.
“Uh, eating salami.”
“No.” She waves at my phone. “Keep chatting with him. We’re living vicariously through you.”
“Way better than soap operas,” Junie says. “And maybe there will be kissing.”
“There will be no kissing,” I insist as my phone buzzes with an incoming reply. I do my best to ignore it.
“If you don’t look, we will,” Cassie says. “And that could be embarrassing for you.”
“Very,” Lisa agrees. “We’re very nosy.”
“Please,” I mutter. “You guys know all my secrets.”
Most of them, anyway. I sigh and pick up the phone.
Not married. No wife, girlfriend, or badly deflated blow-up doll in my bed. Hey, remember that pact we made?
Holy shit. He remembers? I sit back on the sofa, too stunned to reply.
Cassie gives me an odd look. “What is it?”
I hold out my phone for her to see, and she passes it around the group. The ladies nod thoughtfully.
“What?” I ask. “Is it weird that he remembers?”
“You remember,” Cassie points out. “Why would it be weird?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “He’s a guy.”
“I’ll say he’s a guy.” She taps the phone screen. “Is this his picture?”
“Yep,” I say, noticing she’s pulled up an image of him running shirtless through the finish line at some Ironman event. “He—uh—works out a lot.”
