Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
The bar is decked in holly and lights, giving this rustic space a Christmas glow.
Though the glow may end at our pool table, as Rosalie is currently giving her best friend the evil eye.
And while I haven’t hung out with the guys or Fran all that much, I’m very aware that she’s often cooking up a scheme.
Lucca has told me as much. He loves Fran’s schemes.
“Shot for shot?” Rosalie says to Fran, one hand on her hip. She’s suspicious of the game that only Fran seems to know, which means we should possibly all be ducking for cover.
“Yep,” Fran says, her tone innocent.
Stella doesn’t look worried, but I’m unsure if that’s because she knows this game or she just doesn’t know Fran well enough.
“I don’t know that game,” Rosalie says.
“I do,” Lucca says. He winks at me, and I’d bet good money that the man has never heard of this game. None of us has. In fact, Fran might be making it up on the spot.
Callum and Zev hold pool sticks in their hands, like me, watching the encounter.
“You don’t know all my games,” Fran says to her friend, ignoring helpful Lucca.
“Yes, I do. I’ve been your best friend for six years. We’ve lived together for five. I know all of your games.”
Fran shrugs like Rosalie’s gripes don’t bother her one bit. “Not this one.” She swivels to look at the rest of us. “Okay! Here’s how you play: If you sink a shot, you get a shot.” She holds up a Ziploc bag with folded pieces of paper.
“A shot?” Callum says. “What does that mean?”
“Well, Soccer Star, it’s a surprise. But all good things. You’ll want to take your shot.” Her brows lift, and when none of us looks convinced, she throws an arm around Stella’s shoulders. “Stella’s in,” she says.
And suddenly, everyone’s eyes are on my wife. Who I know really doesn’t care for attention.
“Um. Yep.” Stella nods. “I. Am In.” She clears her throat, her eyes on Fran, avoiding the rest of us.
I clap—hard and loud—commanding the attention of every person in our group as well as the big, burly guy at the table next to us. I ignore him and look at my teammates. “I’m in too.”
“So is Lucca,” Fran says.
“You know I am, Franny,” Lucca says. Kelli, Lucca’s date, glares at Fran as if she might be her competition. If only she knew Fran only wants Callum. While Lucca might belong to every single woman on the planet.
“You guys chicken?” I say, looking to Callum and Zev.
Zev snorts. “Uh, no. Confused, sure. Chicken, no.”
“I’ll play,” Callum says, reaching out for his fiancée’s hand and tugging her away from Stella. He presses one kiss to her head. “Fran’s ideas are always good ones.”
“You are so completely whipped,” Rosalie tells him. “We both know that isn’t true.”
Zev chuckles beside her.
Kelli giggles—maybe she and Fran will end the night as friends after all.
“Let’s go. Rack ’em up,” Fran says, her trusty Ziploc in hand.
Callum breaks, sinking two balls right off the bat.
“Is he stripes or solids?” Zev asks.
“Neither,” Fran says. “None of that. Just try to sink a ball. If you get a shot”—she motions to the table—“then you get your shot.” She lifts her clear baggie. “Cal, you get one.” She opens up her bag and holds it out to him to choose one of the folded slips of paper.
Callum reaches in and pulls one slip out. Like a personalized Franny fortune cookie, he opens the paper and reads: “Kiss one person in the room.”
“Oo, good one,” Fran says. A low laugh escapes Callum’s throat before he presses a chaste kiss to Fran’s lips.
“What kind of game is this?” Rosalie says, her eyes wide.
Lucca whistles. “My kind of game.”
“I’m with Rosalie. What is this?” I peer over at Stella, but she doesn’t look surprised by Fran’s shenanigans. I lean my head next to her ear. “Do you—”
“Zev!” Fran bellows. “You’re up next.”
“Ah—” He looks at Rosalie.
But Fran’s on it. “We’ve already started. Too late to back out now.”
Zev shakes his head, then sinks his shot. Fran is giddy as she holds the bag out to him. He reads his slip with ease, but Rosalie’s cheeks are pink before he’s even begun. “One hug.”
On the other side of Stella, Fran moans. “I knew I should have stuck with kissing,” she whispers to Stella.
Still, Zev wraps his arms around Rosalie and hugs her tight. This is a child’s game. A middle school, I-just-realized-boys-don’t-have-cooties kind of a game.
And it’s my turn.
Stella’s eyes find me. “You’re up.”
“Oh yeah! Come on, Graveyard,” Lucca calls. “You got this.”
My friend is a little obnoxious. He, along with everyone else in the room, assumes that I am crazy about my wife.
Why wouldn’t I be? I married the girl. And they are all, in fact, right.
However, Lucca knows the truth about our marriage.
He knows there’s never been anything physical between Stella and me.
He knows we’ve been faking up until the point that my feelings got very real. And now he’s making a fool of himself.
Have I envisioned kissing Stella a time or two or twelve? Sure. But here, at a bar, surrounded by strangers and my team, playing a seventh-grade game? This isn’t exactly how I saw that kiss going.
I miss my mark, the black eight ball sitting on the edge of the pocket by a mile. And everyone stares at me, disdain in their eyes. Stella looks too, her cheeks red as a rose and her jaw tight.
But what was I supposed to do?
Next up, Lucca sinks his, and without bothering to draw from Fran’s bag, he dips Kelli, planting a kiss on the woman’s mouth.
Somehow Fran and I end up groaning in unison.
“I would have picked kiss,” Lucca says. “I always do.”
“My turn,” Fran says, missing her pocket by an inch. “Rose,” she says, eagerly passing her stick to her friend.
By round three, Callum has kissed Fran again, Zev has hugged Rosalie twice, Fran has cursed twice, Stella and I keep missing our pockets, and Lucca is officially Casanova.
“You’re either trying to be bad or you’re blind,” Zev says to me on round four. “How are you a Red Tail again?”
I don’t answer. I grumble out nothing and roll my eyes.
It’s clear that Fran is attempting to get her friends together.
But then I already thought they were. I really need to pay better attention.
Tightening my hands over the stick, I hit that cue ball hard.
It knocks into two balls, smashing into opposite pockets.
“About time,” Callum says under his breath.
“Oh yeah!” Lucca sings. “My boy is getting lucky.”
Fran is there in an instant, holding her trusty Ziploc up to me. I feel the heat of Stella’s eyes. I feel everyone’s eyes. I reach in, pull out three papers, let two fall to the ground, and open one. Then, not even making sense of the words, I pretend to read: “Kiss Rosalie.”
“Whoa—what?” Zev says, whipping his head back around to me.
Stella squeaks next to me.
“That’s what it says,” I tell him. Let’s get Fran’s shenanigans over with.
“Does it?” Fran’s lips press together as if she doesn’t remember. “That’s brilliant,” she whispers.
“Well, you aren’t kissing her.” Zev steps half in front of his girl as if he’s waiting for me to assault her.
“Then you better,” I tell him, slapping the slip into his hand.
“Graveyard,” Lucca groans. I have clearly disappointed him.
Callum laughs, and somehow, I can hear his Fran holding her breath—her soft inhale, and then nothing.
There’s a beat where no one speaks. No one moves. And then Zev’s cupping Rosalie’s cheek, peering into her eyes, and moving his mouth to hers.
I am so freaking jealous I can hardly stand it. Not of Rosalie, not of Zev. Just the fact that he gets to kiss his girl.