Well Played

by Jen DeLuca

  The two men smiled at each other, and I wished I could travel back in time to our high school days. Mitch had always been a larger-than-life blond jock type, a look that he played to great effect now every summer with his kilt and his claymore. Simon was the intellectual, smaller and slender, with dark hair and sharp eyes. He was a quiet, steady man who let his pirate side come out to play during Faire, transforming into a black-leather-clad rogue with a brash and outgoing demeanor that he never showed in real life. In high school, those two hadn’t been friends. If I could tell teenage Simon and Mitch that they’d be having this conversation now, that they’d be sharing a beer and talking about one serving as the other’s groomsman . . . well. Neither one of them would have believed me, and neither would have younger Stacey in her varsity cheerleader’s uniform, big blonde ponytail bouncing down to her shoulders.

  I twirled a lock of my hair—still blonde, but not in a ponytail—around my fingers and turned my attention back to Emily. “So,” I said, “have you set a date yet? Next summer, maybe? We could do it at the Faire.”

  Emily’s eyes brightened. “Yes!”

  But Simon shook his head. “No.”

  She looked at him, a surprised laugh bubbling out of her mouth. “No? I figured a Faire-themed wedding was a given. You don’t want . . . ?”

  His head shake was even more emphatic. “No. I don’t want to marry you in character. This isn’t a joke. It’s not . . .”

  “Hey.” She laid her hand over his. “No. It’s not a joke.”

  “And it doesn’t have to be in character,” Mitch said.

  “Right.” I picked up on his train of thought. “We can skip the costumes. But the chess field would be a great place to set up a wedding. Out in the woods, it would be all . . . I dunno, pretty. Picturesque.” I waved a hand; I wasn’t great with words.

  “Pastoral,” Mitch supplied, and three pairs of wide eyes turned in his direction. He shrugged and took another swig of beer. “What, I have a vocabulary.”

  “Apparently.” A smile played around Simon’s mouth, but he tipped his bottle toward Mitch in a kind of salute. “You do make a good point. And we were thinking about an outdoor venue.”

  “Not to mention, this one would be free,” Emily said. “Free is good. Bookstore managers aren’t exactly millionaires.”

  Simon’s nod was solemn. “Neither are English teachers.”

  “But I’m marrying you anyway.” She kissed him, and her smile transferred to his face.

  “Yeah!” I was getting into the idea now. “It can be in the evening. That way we could start setting it up after the last chess match. Have the reception while the sun’s going down. It would be so pretty.”

  “Except for the mosquitos.” Simon raised his eyebrows.

  I waved a hand. “That’s what those little citronella tiki torches are for.”

  “And you should get married on Sunday night,” Mitch said. “That way we can party longer and not have to do Faire hungover.”

  “Priorities.” Emily snorted. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

  “Let me know what I can do to help,” I said.

  “Well, now that you mention it, how about brunch on Sunday? April’s coming. I’m thinking waffles, mimosas, a silly number of wedding dress pictures?”

  I had to laugh at that. “You have a Pinterest board already, don’t you?”

  “Guilty.” But her grin said she felt anything but guilty. And who could blame her? I’d probably be just as excited if I were getting married.

  The subject changed then, as we talked about the upcoming school year (Simon and Mitch both taught at Willow Creek High, so that was a popular topic), and other local gossip (we lived in a small town; gossip was what we did). But every once in a while, Emily moved her hand and light flashed off the diamond. Every once in a while, Simon looked down at her with a smile in his eyes. And every time, my heart overflowed with love for the two of them, which made total sense. Who wasn’t happy for their friends when they found love?

  But what didn’t make sense was the thought that flashed through my mind—I’m gonna miss her. There was no reason for a thread of panic to grip my heart and make it race. Emily was right there, at the table across from me. She wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, by marrying Simon she was settling down in Willow Creek for good. There wouldn’t be any reason to miss her.

  But my heart still raced all the way home until I pulled into my driveway, the same driveway I’d been pulling into since the day I got my driver’s license. My parents lived in a four-bedroom, two-story house that was way too big for the three of us. Well, the two of them, now that I didn’t live with them anymore. Technically.

  My little apartment was a cozy nest. It ran the length and width of the two-car garage it was built over, with a small kitchen tucked in one corner and an enclosed three-quarter bathroom (no bubble baths for this girl) in another. My clothes lived in two freestanding wardrobes, and my queen-size bed was tucked in the eaves. I’d strung fairy lights on the wall that sloped above my bed, and their soft glow made it feel like I was sleeping inside a blanket fort. A pair of skylights in the kitchen area let in lots of natural light, and when it rained I loved falling asleep to the patter of the rain on the glass.

  It was a great little place, and it was mine. I loved it. I told myself that a lot, and most of the time I even believed it.

  I’d barely closed the door behind me and tossed my keys into the little dish by the door when my phone rang. Not my cell phone, which was silent in my bag, but the old-school landline attached to the wall in the kitchen. It didn’t have caller ID, but I knew who it was. There was only one person in my life who had the number.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hi, honey, I heard your car. Did you have dinner? We just finished eating, but I can fix you a plate.”

  “No. No, I’m fine. I ate when I was out.” I slid my little leather backpack off my shoulders, the buttery blue leather bag I’d bought just as Faire had ended—I hadn’t been kidding about the retail therapy—and dropped it onto my kitchen table. “I’m kind of tired; it’s been a long day. I think I’ll watch a little TV and turn in.”

  See? Semi-independence. Mom didn’t call every night, but often enough to remind me that in some ways—in most ways—I still lived at home. I loved my parents, but it was getting old. Hell, I was getting old. I was almost twenty-seven, for God’s sake.

  That feeling of getting older without really being allowed to grow up lingered, and that feeling combined with the sight of Emily’s engagement ring. I’m gonna miss her. Now that stray thought made sense. Getting married, becoming a wife. And what was I doing? Going out to Jackson’s every Friday night and posting the same selfies on Instagram.

  I needed to get a life.

  I needed another glass of wine.

  * * *

  • • •

  Ten minutes later I was in my pajamas and had flopped onto my old comfy couch with a second glass of wine. I powered up my laptop and hadn’t even logged into Facebook before Benedick was purring in my lap.

  Benedick. My main man. My one true love. Our favorite thing to do on a lazy Sunday was snuggle together and watch a movie. Superhero movies were his favorite, but he tolerated romantic comedies because I was the one who opened the cans around here.

  And no, this did not make me a crazy cat lady. You needed at least three to qualify for crazy status, and I was a one-tuxedo-cat woman, ever since the day I’d found him in the parking lot after Faire three summers ago. I named him Benedick, after the hero of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and I was his Beatrice. See? Who needed a diamond ring? Or a man looking at you adoringly over mozzarella sticks under the crappy light at Jackson’s?

  “Oh, shut up,” I told myself, just loud enough to wake Benedick, who blinked at me reproachfully. I scritched behind his ears in apology as I scrolled thro
ugh Facebook. But the more I scrolled, the more my mood darkened. Two of my sorority sisters had gotten married in the past six months, and three girls I’d grown up with had had babies. How had this happened? We’d all been allotted the same number of years, and they’d taken that time and built lives. Families. Meanwhile I was living in my parents’ attic, working at a job that could replace me in five minutes if I got hit by a bus, with nothing going for me but a fat tuxedo cat—sorry, Benedick—and a half bottle of wine. Emily’s little diamond ring flashed in my mind like a beacon, and I found myself fiddling with my dragonfly necklace again. Change. Bah.

  “Screw you, dragonfly.” I untied the cord and tossed the necklace onto my coffee table on my way to refill my wineglass. Looked like change was happening for everyone but me. When was the last time anything had changed in my life? Certainly not since college, and I didn’t want to think about how long ago that was.

  Back on the couch I took a healthy sip of wine and clicked through to our Faire’s private group page, filled with pics from not only the Faire that had just ended but also from years past. A warm glow filled my chest, which was only partially from the wine. Those few weeks of Faire every year were the best part about living in Willow Creek these days. I’d just put my wench’s costume away for the winter, and I was already looking forward to taking it out again.

  In one of the online albums, Emily and I grinned at the camera in a photo taken the summer before last, our arms around each other in our wench outfits. She’d been a complete newbie then but totally game, and by the end of the summer she’d become a real friend. I’m gonna miss her.

  “Stop it,” I said. “She’s not going anywhere.”

  A couple more clicks, and I landed on a shot of the Dueling Kilts. One that was obviously taken at pub sing; Dex was framed by late afternoon sunlight streaming through the trees. God, he was gorgeous. I missed him.

  That thought brought me up short. Did I really? Or did I miss the whole “friends with benefits” situation? That couldn’t be it . . . we weren’t friends. We’d gone out on what could loosely be considered a date a few times over the past two summers, and we’d hooked up more times than that, but we weren’t friends. We’d hardly even talked this summer. Acquaintances with benefits? I should want a guy who wanted actual conversation with me. Who wanted to get to know me. Relationship material. Dex was relationship Teflon.

  Besides, he had a girl at every Faire. For all I knew, he was with the next girl right this minute. I looked back at my laptop, at the photo I’d blown up to screen-size. Dex cradled his guitar, grinning at something just off camera, his dark eyes doing that crinkly thing at the edges that was somehow ridiculously sexy on guys. He’d smiled at me like that, and every time he did I was lost. Friends, acquaintances, whatever-you-wanted-to-call-it with benefits, he was the kind of guy who gave you his full attention when he was with you. I’d never asked for more . . . but what if I did? Would I stand out among the crowd? I’d stood out well enough for him here in Willow Creek, after all.

  It was the photo that did it. That grin. Those crinkly eyes. What was he smiling at? I’d slept with the guy, but had no idea what made him laugh. And suddenly I really, really wanted to know.

  Well, only one way to fix that.

  The photo was tagged, so it was just a matter of a couple clicks to navigate to a private message screen. I put down my wine and started to type.

  Yes. This was a great idea.

  Three

  The next morning I woke up with a head full of hammers and I pulled the covers over my head. I was usually an early riser, and while the skylights were great for letting in natural light, they were hell on hangovers. I lay back on my pillows—as well as I could since Benedick took up most of the room there—and willed my head to stop pounding. That had been far too much wine last night.

  Eventually I hauled myself out of bed and got some coffee started. Everything was so bright. I squinted against the early morning sunlight streaming down from the skylight over my whitewashed kitchen table, and I almost went looking for my sunglasses. Benedick abandoned my pillows to wind around my legs, reminding me to feed him.

  Cat fed and aspirin acquired, I brought my coffee over to the couch before putting away the mostly empty wine bottle I’d left on the coffee table. At least Past Stacey had had the presence of mind to cork the thing. Especially since I’d left my laptop open next to it, and Benedick liked to roam at night. A knocked-over bottle of wine next to an open laptop would be a disaster . . .

  Laptop.

  The end of the night suddenly snapped into much clearer focus. That third—fourth?—glass of wine. An open private message screen.

  Oh, no.

  I practically fell onto the couch and woke up my laptop as fast as I could. “No. Nononononono . . .” The word was a prayer under my breath as the screen came to life. Maybe in my drunken haze I’d forgotten to hit Send. Maybe my Wi-Fi had gone out and the message hadn’t gone through. Maybe he hadn’t seen it yet and I could delete it before he did.

  No such luck. My screen blinked to life, and there it was. Wi-Fi fully connected, message sent. Even worse, it was marked as read. Crap. Who knew Dex was such an early riser? Certainly not me: our nights together had never evolved into sleepovers.

  I pulled my mug over and took a long sip of my coffee. I barely felt the heat of it, as everything had gone numb. I didn’t move, I didn’t even want to blink. All I could do was read the message I’d sent my yearly hookup, well into last night’s wine-drunk.

  Hey!

  This is Stacey Lindholm. Well, obviously you can tell that since my name is right here. Do you even know my last name? Well, you do now. That’s kind of why I’m writing. Not about my name, who cares about that. But I realized that I don’t know you. I mean of course I know you, I’ve known you for a few years now, right? And I guess I know more about you than you do about me, since you just now learned my last name and I already know yours.

  So let’s start with the basics.

  What makes you laugh?

  How do you take your coffee?

  Do you like cats?

  Do you miss me?

  I should delete that last one. But I’m gonna let it stay up there. Because with merlot you tell the truth.

  So here’s the truth. I miss you. I know I shouldn’t, I know I have no real reason to. But I’m already looking forward to seeing you again next year, and that’s eleven months away. I’m not expecting you to do anything with this information, other than just know it. Know that I miss you, and I wish we had more than those few weekends a year to spend together.

  I hope you have a great run at the Maryland Ren Fest, and the rest of the season. You travel so much, don’t you? Do you like traveling that much? See, something else I’d like to know about you.

  Take care,

  Stacey

  I groaned and leaned back against the cushions. This was pretty bad, but after all that wine it could have been so much worse. I thought about sending another message. Maybe I could apologize for Past Stacey. For Drunk Stacey. But no. That would just compound the awkwardness. Instead I closed my laptop and finished my coffee. Nothing I could do now but wait for him to respond.

  Of course, it didn’t occur to me until the next day that he might not respond at all.

  Between Saturday morning and getting ready for brunch with Emily and April on Sunday, I checked my phone roughly a hundred times. It had been more than twenty-four hours since I’d sent that first regrettable message, and he hadn’t answered. Relief mingled with disappointment, and I couldn’t decide which emotion was stronger. No response meant not having to own up to my drunken words, and I was all for not being held accountable for my actions. But no response also meant that he wasn’t interested, which, let’s face it, sucked.

  I sighed a long sigh, tied back my hair, and put on some pink lip gloss. This wasn’t that big a heartb
reak, after all. Nothing a little brunch couldn’t cure.

  * * *

  • • •

  I adored brunch. It was relaxing, a meal meant to be eaten over a good hour or two, savoring drinks and coffee and carbs in all forms. But brunch with Emily Parker was something else entirely. She had a paper planner already stuffed with printouts and brochures, and her tablet was on her Pinterest page of wedding dresses, which we flicked through while we waited for our waffles and eggs.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to get married in costume?” April shook a sugar packet into her coffee before stirring in the cream. “You’d look so cool as a pirate’s bride.”

  Emily shook her head, not looking up from her tablet. “Simon vetoed that pretty much immediately.”

  “Too bad.” April sighed dramatically. “Because that would have made Stacey and me your . . .” Her voice quavered, and when I looked over at her, she was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “. . . your bridesmateys.” She barely got the word out before she sputtered into a laugh, and my own giggle burst out before I could check it.

  Emily snorted a laugh of her own but shook her head. “You’re the worst,” she said around a grin. “Now, can we look at these dresses, please?”

  “You’ve been engaged for like a week,” I said, wonderingly. “How did you do all this?”

  “I work fast.” Emily flicked through her tablet before passing it to her older sister, April. “This one!”

  April frowned at it. “You’re too short for that.”

  I took a sip of coffee to cover my laugh, and Emily tsked at her sister. “I am not! Show Stacey; she’ll back me up.”

  April passed me the tablet, and it was my turn to frown at the picture. It was a relatively traditional wedding gown, but April was right. The model in the photo was easily half a foot taller than Emily, if not more. Lots of lace, a train, and puffy sleeves . . . Em would be lost in a dress like that.