Page 20 of Wedding or Not

“Yeah, that sounds right. Thanks for helping with this.”

“I don’t mind.”

I’m embarrassed for no good reason. Hot and jittery, I keep staring down at the pages.

I suspect almost everyone at the table is watching me and Wes with interest.

Aunt Grace saves me by waving Wes over to the table. “Come and join us.”

“I couldn’t intrude on family time.”

“You’re mostly family,” Parker tells him. “You’re around all the time.”

“Is that a hint I should make myself scarcer?”

“Oh, I don’t care what you do.” Parker isn’t being rude. She’s turned back to the game and is only half paying attention to Wes now.

But her words make everyone else snicker.

“I’m not sure this visit is turning out to be good for my ego.” Wes has stepped closer and is studying the game board, studying my impressive number of troops crowded into Australia.

“You can be on Ella’s team,” Audrey tells him. “She’s the only one on her own.”

“Wait!” Tessa is immediately on alert at a possible threat to her supremacy. “Are you any good?”

“I haven’t played this game for years and years.” Wes goes to grab the last stool from against the wall and squeezes it between me and Iris. “I’m sure I’m no good at all.”

“Okay. You can be with Ella then.”

“Thank you for the permission.” Wes’s tone and expression is bone dry. “I need a moment to catch up and discuss strategy with my new partner.”

When we lean toward each other, our faces are less than an inch apart. My heart jumps, and my flush deepens down my neck.

Wes makes a show of keeping our whispered discussion secret by picking up the top of the box and blocking our heads from the others with it.

Our conversation is mostly a brief, good-natured debate about how aggressively we can expand out of Australia.

When the game resumes, the competition heightens because the rest of them rightfully understand that my team might now be a threat. Over the next half hour, thanks to Wes’s sharp thinking, we’re able to take over New Guinea, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia.

“No!” Tessa howls, falling to the floor and clutching an invisible wound in her chest. “We never should’ve let Wes play with us! He’s too good!”

Parker is also visibly annoyed by the new competition, and even Natalie seems good-naturedly frustrated when gameplay is harder than it was before. Grace, Iris, and Audrey don’t care much about winning and so are enjoying the way Wes’s presence is disrupting our typical dynamics.

At eight forty-five, Aunt Grace calls an end, which is just as well since Tessa is starting to get a little grumpy.

Wes and I didn’t have time to make up ground, so a tie is declared between Parker and Natalie’s team and Tessa and Audrey’s.

The safest outcome for the preservation of our good moods.

Grace and the younger girls leave after the final decisions are made because having them help clean up always extends the process. Wes does stay to help me pick up the game and straighten the furniture as Natalie and Audrey clean up the kitchen.

With all of us working, it doesn’t take long.

I don’t have any particular desire to see Wes leave, but there’s no way to have him stay longer without me dissolving into a puddle of self-consciousness.

Maybe if it was only the two of us but not with Audrey and Natalie watching and whispering from the kitchen.

Wes looks from me to them and then back. “Okay. I guess that’s it for me. Thanks for letting me join. It was really fun.”