Ronan laughed. “You don’t have to like football,” he said, and Kiya stood up.
“I’m going to ladies’ room,” she told us, and looked at me.
There was a short silence before I picked up on the hint.
“Oh, me too,” I said. I also stood and we went together.
She started putting on lipstick instead of going into a stall. “Want some?” she offered. “No, wait. This will be too dark on you. What do you have?” I showed her my gloss and she approved. “Nice!” But the next thing she said wasn’t so positive. “I can’t believe that you hate football.”
“I really don’t,” I promised. “I’ve just never watched it, read about it, or cared about it.”
“But you are going to do those things now,” she stated, and waited until I nodded. “Ok, good. Because it’s important for your career and also for your relationship.”
I hadn’t thought of it as a career-breaker but I immediately saw her point. “I’m going to start learning all about the Woodsmen,” I promised.
“And the Junior Woodsmen,” she suggested. “I mean, I really hope that Ronan makes it to the next level, but just in case, you should support him where he is. One of the reasons that I broke up with my college boyfriend was because he was such an asshole about my sport. He never cared about my times, or—”
“But Ronan isn’t my boyfriend,” I said.
“Yeah.” Now Kiya looked sympathetic. “I heard how quick he was to deny it. Did it hurt your feelings?”
“No.”
“Yeah,” she repeated. “It’s ok. You did a good job with what you said.”
“With what I said?”
“How you were like, ‘We’re not together, I don’t care.’ You covered it really well.”
“My feelings weren’t hurt. I swear. I promise,” I told her. “Ronan and I are friends and that’s it.”
“Oh. Why?” she asked me.
I said something about working together, which didn’t make a lot of sense, and then I said something else about not wanting a boyfriend.
“Did you just get out of a relationship, so you’re having fun with him? I did that after I broke up with the guy from college,” she commiserated. “It took me a while before I wanted to even think about being serious with someone and I’m so glad I met Channing when I was ready.”
She was happy to tell me more about him and after a while, we returned to the booth where the two guys were making fun of each other’s golf scores. Kiya joined right in. We talked about fun, non-invasive topics and Channing drank more than his girlfriend and me combined. It was really too bad that I’d shanked that last shot because the tab was a lot and Ronan wouldn’t let me pay any of it.
“That was fun, right?” he asked me when our dinner was over and we were back in his car.
“Yes. My food was great.”
“Why were you so quiet? You’re never very boisterous, but you hardly said three words. Did Channing annoy you?”
He had a little. He was extremely self-confident, which by itself wasn’t a bad thing. But with his girlfriend also blowing him up, it got to be a lot. “I don’t mind him too much. I don’t know why I didn’t talk more.” My mind hadn’t been on the conversation, actually. I’d been stuck in the bathroom—not physically, but my thoughts kept hopping back to what Kiya had said to me in there.
I looked across at Ronan. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shit,” he swore. “Yes.”
“Why are you reacting like that?”
“Because I know that it’s going to be awful.” He sat up straight and stiffened his arms. “Ok, yeah. Give it to me.”
“Why don’t you have a wife or a girlfriend?”
“Phew,” he sighed, breathing out a gust of relief. “That’s easy. The answer is that I don’t want one.”
