She gives me a pouty face. “Please! You’re my only hope.”
“Meredith, no way.” Bunco’s mindless, all about luck and a shot at winning a few bucks, and tonight’s guest list averages well beyond my age bracket. “The game will go on, even without the Robertsons.”
“But there should be four people playing at each table,” she says. “Otherwise everything will be thrown off.”
This is technically true. Though players are forever moving seats and changing partners, the game flows best with quartets. That’s why Meredith invited thirty-two people to come over tonight. But that doesn’t mean the game’s going to fall apart if only thirty show up.
“It is sort of annoying to play with empty seats,” Kyle remarks unhelpfully.
I shoot him a dark look. “Even if I play, we’re still short a person.”
“I’d fill in,” he says, “but there’s this root canal I’ve gotta get.…”
“Ha-ha,” I deadpan.
“It’s okay,” Meredith says, waving off our banter. “I talked to Marcy. Max’ll play.”
Incredulity voids my mind of suitable responses.
Kyle’s eyes are wide. “Max? Really? Becky’s cool with that?”
I manage to find my voice. “Uh… isDadcool with that?”
“Jill, your father knows how important this party is. And Max told Marcy he’s fine with filling in, but only if you play, too.”
Wait—what? Why would Max care if I play? We’ve said perhaps twelve words to each other since our post-football-practice encounter a few weeks ago. I tilt my head, considering.
“Oh, just play, Jill,” Kyle says, sprinkling fake snow crystals over his winter scene.
“Please?” Meredith says. “Ireallyneed you.”
I toy with the sprig of mistletoe I’m still clutching.… If Max is getting in on Bunco Night, and if my joining the game means a tally on the Get Back on Dad’s Good Side scorecard I started after Halloween, well… “Fine,” I say, jabbing a thumbtack through ribbon and drywall. “I’ll play.”
Meredith smiles victoriously before toddling back to the kitchen. I hop off the chair and sink onto the couch with a sigh.
Kyle flops down beside me. “What’s with the attitude? It’s just Bunco.”
“Bunco sucks.”
“I bet you and Max’ll have fun.”
“Yeah, he’s a barrel of laughs,” I say, and then, like I’ve stepped through a magical portal, I’m transported to the night of The Kiss. I experience it all over again—the fluttering in my chest, the tingles on my skin, the heat coursing through my blood. Howrightit felt to be in his arms, despite all the reasons it was wrong. I recall the morning after: the fountain soda, Max’s joke about his sister’s tree-trunk ankles, the way he touched my hair like it was spun silk.
Why can’t I let it go?
“Jelly Bean,” Kyle says, bumping my knee. “Something’s bugging you. What’s up?”
I wish I could tell him, then absorb his insight and soak up his guidance. Keeping secrets from him makes me feel ill, but admitting that I was the trite other woman is freaking shameful. More than that, though, I can’t find the words necessary for expressing the weirdness I feel when I think about Max now. It’s like this door—a door I didn’t even know existed—has swung open, giving me a fleeting glimpse of a remote possibility.
Nope.
Not a possibility.
Animpossibility.
“It’s nothing,” I tell Kyle, throwing off a blanket of longing. “We should get back to work, don’t you think?”
We do, and when we’re finished, he kisses my cheek and takes off, probably worried he’ll end up roped into Bunco, too.
