“What about the newest couple?” Ace asked. I turned to stare at him, my face dropping open in shock. He wouldn’t.
Would he?
“Go on,” he said, joined by the cheers of the others around us. “You have to play!”
Oh, god.
He would.
Rowe
My heart thrummed in my chest, an anxious dance of tension. I forced myself to relax my shoulders and push them back.
They were going to make us do this. We had to play.
“Make it easy for us,” I said, entreating them with a smile as if it was all a joke. “We haven’t been together long.”
“Simple facts,” the one Xavi had identified as Ace said. He was good-looking, almost intimidatingly so. Knowing that they had slept together was pressure I didn’t need. I wished Xavi hadn’t told me. “Let’s start with some that I know the answer to. What’s Xavi’s dad called?”
I chuckled, shaking my head. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “He only calls him Papi!”
“What about Rowe’s?” It seemed like Ace accepted my answer – or maybe he didn’t really know the truth, himself, because he’d moved on so fast.
Xavi glanced my way, his eyes almost sending an apology for what he was about to say. Almost. Because he still said it without a second’s pause. “His dad’s dead.”
Ace looked like he’d been punched in the face, his mood fell so fast. I saw him swallow, looking down with guilt.
“I’m sorry,” Keaton said to my other side, his voice full of warm sympathy.
“It was a long time ago,” I said, waving a hand to dismiss it. I didn’t want to be responsible for spoiling the atmosphere at someone else’s rehearsal dinner. “Ask me another.”
Xavi stared at me like he couldn’t believe I’d said that, and I glanced around the table expectantly, ignoring him completely. I didn’t know why I’d said it, either, but suddenly I was feeling a rush of confidence. I actually knew a lot about Xavi. We worked so close together I couldn’t help overhearing all of his conversations. I could probably do this.
“Who is Xavi’s best friend?” Aiden asked, his eyes glimmering with the fun of turning the tables on someone else.
“Easy,” I grinned. “Keaton. They even lived together for a year in high school.”
“Right, after Keaton got kicked out by his homophobic parents,” Aiden said. Everyone groaned slightly and Cade shook his head at him. “What?”
“What’s Rowe’s last name?” Ace asked. He seemed to be getting his second wind.
“That’s easy, too,” Xavi snorted. “Roweishis last name.”
There were a few murmurs of surprise around the table and I grinned. Good trick question. I felt like I was getting to know everyone here, or they were getting to know me – like speed friendship, instead of speed dating – while we played the game.
“So, what’s his first name, then?” Ace asked, not letting the question drop.
There was a beat. Xavi was obviously trying hard not to look at me. “Colt,” he said.
“Short for Colton,” I added quickly. I didn’t want to correct him in front of everyone, but I had never in my life gone by Colt – always Rowe. I couldn’t let them think that Colt was my actual name, like Xavi so clearly did.
He didn’t even know myname.
This had been a stupid idea from the start, but now I was more convinced than ever that this was the final stop of the Save Xavi’s Ass train.
“Does Xavi have any siblings?” Keaton asked me.
“No, he’s an only child,” I said. He’d talked about growing up alone often enough.
