The Friend Game (Games for Two #1)

Chapter 18

“YOU’RE JOKING!” I howl with laughter.

“I really wish I was,” Luke says with mock solemnity on the other end of the phone.

“So what did you do?” I ask as I rest my head on Holly’s stomach and she lets out a long sigh.

“Well I had no choice,” he tells me and I can hear the smile in his voice. “I had to call Mary’s mom and tell her that we couldn’t have Mary sneaking in a kiss with the little drummer boy when she’s supposed to be pondering the marvels surrounding the birth of her son Jesus.”

I snort out a laugh. “Oh my. And how did Mrs. Howard take the news?”

“Quite well, thankfully. Her immediate embarrassment quickly faded to amusement when I told her the story of my own elementary school nativity play during which I forgot my main line, so instead of offering good tidings to the shepherds I told them I had brought them some Tide laundry detergent so they could clean themselves up and go see baby Jesus.”

Much to Holly’s dismay I bust out laughing. She wiggles out from under me, clearly affronted. Good thing she doesn’t know who’s on the other end of the phone call or she might start to hold these late night pillow talk sessions against him. It’s been nearly two weeks since that first phone call and while we haven’t seen much of each other in person, we’ve talked every night. Perhaps I should be concerned about how quickly it’s become the highlight of my day, but I’m too happy to worry about things like worrying.

“I know. I thought it was pretty good improv, but my mom was dead embarrassed. Thankfully, since he was the principal even back then, my dad got on stage at the end of the performance to thank the community, then got everyone laughing when he suggested we send a tape of the play to Tide to see if they wanted to use it for a festive marketing campaign.”

I laugh again, picturing a little Luke on stage in his angel outfit.

“I bet you were an adorable angel,” I tell him.

“Eh,” he makes a noise of dissent. “More like adorably disgruntled. I wanted to be one of the wisemen so I could ride one of the fake camels, but our class was really boy-heavy that year, so my mom volunteered me to be an angel since we already had the costume from when Amy had done the role the year before.”

“What an injustice you suffered,” I quip, earning myself one of his signature chuckles.

“I did consider lawyering up, but sadly I couldn’t find a lawyer willing to lower their hourly rate to the five dollars and thirty cents contained in my piggy bank at the time.”

“Ah, see you should’ve gone with the pro bono angle.”

“Mistakes were certainly made,” he says gravely. “But enough about me. How about you,” he asks. “How was your day?”

At his words, my whole body warms like I just sat down in front of a roaring fire. It’s not that his question is anything remarkable or special. In fact it’s rather run-of-the-mill as questions go. But it’s the very simplicity of it that makes it so darn alluring.

I want this with someone. The cozy, comfy familiarity of being someone’s person. The one they laugh with. The one they look forward to seeing. The one they debrief with at the end of a long day.

With Luke these things feel simultaneously so close and yet so far away.

March.

It’s just over two months away now.

But sometimes it feels like it might as well be a lifetime away, because I want him now .

“Hannah?” Luke prompts. “You still with me?”

“Oh, yup. Sorry, I got lost in my thoughts for a second. My day was good. The kids' projects for the art show are coming along really well. You should see the drawing Caroline did. It’s exquisite. She’ll be featured in that category for sure.” I sigh as I think back to the gorgeous picture she drew of herself petting a lion. She said the picture was meant to symbolize the power of facing your inner fears. “I truly think we’ll have spectacular submissions for all twelve of the categories, though.”

“Even pottery?” he teases.

I think back to the secret session I spent with Mia in the pottery room during her lunch period today. She appeared in my classroom shortly after the disastrous art club incident with her mom and begged me to just let her watch me work the wheel for a bit. I don’t know why I agreed to her pleas. Probably because I recognized the hunger I saw in her eyes and, well, I couldn’t just ignore a starving child.

Even if it’s not food that she was hungry for.

Anyway, one thing led to another and before I even knew what was happening, Mia was the one at the wheel, and holy cow, the girl is a natural! It’s as if she and the clay are of one mind .

Still, I’m not sure whether or not I can actually enter one of her projects in the show. Lexie’s response is too unpredictable. No, that’s not true. I can predict exactly what her response would be: abject horror that I allowed her precious daughter to veer away from drawing landscape scenes.

“Maybe pottery,” I answer Luke cryptically. If I don’t submit one of Mia’s creations, I could do the bowl I helped Ellie make after school one day.

But I would feel a little bad since she lost interest about halfway through and I had to finish the thing.

“Well, that’s great. You know I still can’t believe you managed to secure our students an invitation into that show. It’s such an amazing opportunity for them.”

“Wait, what?” I frown in confusion. “I didn’t secure them an invitation to the show.”

“Yes, you did.” Now Luke is the one to sound confused.

“No, I definitely didn’t. I don’t have that kind of clout in the art community. I assumed it was a parent of one of the students or something.”

“Uh, no, not a parent,” Luke says. “My dad said that he got a call from someone at the gallery saying that you’d reached out to them on behalf of your students and asking if the school would be okay with the partnership. ”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense. I never reached out to anyone at the Chapman. I don’t even know anyone there.”

“Well…” Luke trails off. “That’s strange,” he finishes.

“I’ll say.” A strange sense of foreboding settles over me. I can’t explain why, but this revelation deeply unsettles me. Like I told Luke, I don’t have much clout in the art community...but I know someone who does.

But Marshall can’t have anything to do with this. There’s no way. He’s still happily living his life over in California. Probably tricking other unsuspecting young artists into falling in love with him, only to turn around and not only completely destroy their sense of self-worth, but also ruin their good name and any chance they had of taking the moral high ground.

Not that that happened to me.

But if it did, I wouldn’t want to talk about it.

“Maybe it was Jill or Max,” he suggests.

“Maybe,” I agree noncommittally. The thought of Marshall has soured my mood; the shame he left behind in me rearing its ugly head.

“Hey, are you okay?” Luke asks.

“I’m fine. Just tired,” I lie, because I can’t tell him the truth. Not when the truth would surely drive him away. There may be a lot of things Luke can overlook when it comes to the things that make me ill-suited to be a pastor’s girlfriend, but this one, the scar Marshall seared across my chest, it might be too much for even kind-hearted Luke to look past.

So I don’t tell him. Instead I end the phone call and lay back on my pillow, staring up at the ceiling as guilt tears through me. I’ve agreed to go out with Luke once his contract is up, but I’m harboring not one, but two secrets from him—both of which could absolutely be dealbreakers. I should just end things now. It would be better for both of us.

My phone lights up on my nightstand and I grab hold of it like it might be God texting me with an answer to all my problems.

It’s not God, though.

It’s Luke.

He’s praying for me.

My heart flutters in my chest, because dang it if that’s not the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.

He’s praying…for me.

The image of Luke with his eyes closed and his hands folded together as he speaks to God about me comes to mind and I have to fan my face as warmth rushes through my body.

Other than my dad, no man has ever told me that they’re praying for me.

Now that one has, I don’t think I could ever settle for anything less.

Oh no.

I am such a goner.