erring to. Except, she doesn’t look happy about it at all. Am I imagining it, or does she tuck her shoulder in so I can’t brush my fingers against it anymore?
“This is…my girlfriend, Jessica Barnes. Jessie, this is Dr. Richard Green and his husband Henry. Dr. Green was my mentor in medical school.”
Jessie’s gorgeous, full lips tip into a soft smile, and that’s that. She welcomes them into her friend group with an ease she never gave me, and I have to try very hard not to be jealous. But I am. I’m jealous and wondering what I needed to do from the beginning to get the same sweet treatment as Richard and Henry. Maybe if that day when she showed up ready to fight me on Lucy’s behalf I had just kissed her then and there, we could have avoided all this unpleasant dueling.
But even as I think of all that “unpleasant dueling”, I’m smiling, because truthfully, I needed it. I haven’t realized until this moment how weary I had become of my constant need to remain professional and put together. Even in my family, I’m the one who solves problems, the responsible one, the guy who’s always ready to help when they need me. And don’t get me wrong, I love being that guy. It suits me well, but sometimes I just need a break from it. There’s never been any other force in my life to show me there’s a different way or what I’m missing…until Jessie. After living, fighting, and playing with her, I realize just how deprived I’ve been of pointless joy. Laughter for the hell of it. Smiling just because I feel like it. It’s been good, and I don’t want it to end.
As fast friends, Richard, Henry, and Jessie all make a pact to call each other by their first names, and Henry wastes no time scooting his chair a little closer to Jessie and diving into a long series of get-to-know-you questions. Richard and I head over to the open bar to bring drinks back to the table and spend the next twenty minutes catching up. I try to stay focused on the conversation, but Henry keeps laughing at things Jessie says and I can’t help but glance over frequently. Jessie’s dimpled smile kicks me in the stomach each time I see it, and I wish I could lean over and kiss it. I realize how much more enjoyable these events would be if she always came with me. Jessie even manages to get the rest of the table to ditch their professional medical talk as she animatedly tells a story about when she accidentally cut off the tip of someone’s ear in hair school and then convinced one of the EMTs and the poor guy missing part of his body to let her come into the ambulance and help bandage it up. She walked away from the incident with BOTH of those guys’ numbers. Only Jessie could manage something like that.
When I hear Henry ask Jessie if she knows the sex of her baby yet, I find myself leaning in a little closer. I’ve never heard her mention a pronoun when referring to the baby—in fact, she never mentions the baby much at all. The whole thing feels very mysterious, but I’ve been too much of a coward to ask her about it.
“I don’t. I’m going to let it be a surprise.”
Henry awwws and says it’s the last true surprise you can have in life, and I doubt he even picks up on the tension in Jessie’s shoulders. I do, though. I’ve started picking up on Jessie’s little cues, and I can spot them from across the room now. I also know she has five different smiles. 1) Polite. 2) Go jump off a bridge. 3) Genuine. 4) Sultry. 5) Uncomfortable.
The one she gave Henry was definitely number five, and I want to know why. I want to know everything about her.
Conversation breaks up when servers begin to bring plates of food to the table. I notice something in Jessie’s demeanor change. The spark that was present earlier in the night has dissipated. Maybe she’s tired? Nauseous? I don’t know, and it’s killing me. Jessie is only my fake girlfriend tonight, but I still feel responsible for her. I want to take care of her.
I use the opportunity to lean a little closer to Jessie. My thigh brushes against hers, and she peeks up at me. “Everything okay?” I ask quietly.
“Mmhmm,” she says, with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
She picks up her water, her hand trembling slightly, and she takes a deep swallow. Something is definitely off. And then like a switch was flipped, Jessie’s eyes pop up and she makes me add a new smile to my list: wicked. I watch curiously as she digs somewhat mindlessly in her clutch, looks at me over her shoulder, raises a taunting brow, and drops her eyes to my mouth. Her soft pink lips dare me to lean forward and take them.
My pulse quickens, and I’m so distracted by her lips and whatever it is she’s silently trying to tell me that I barely notice something tumble out of her purse. “Oops. Can you grab that for me, Andrew?” Something in my mind tries to alert me that she used my full name—the one we only use for each other during battle—but the more powerful part of my brain is too busy fantasizing about Jessie to pay attention to it.
Is she giving me some serious bedroom eyes or what? She looks like she wants me right now. It’s the same look she was giving me in the bathroom, but a more intense version. I can’t take my eyes off of her. I’m hypnotized, and she looks like a bronzed goddess in her black velvet dress, green eyes blazing, soft skin begging for me to glide my hands all over it.
Before I even realize it, I’m sliding off my chair a little to grab whatever it is she dropped, eyes never leaving her. My eyes should never, ever leave her again. If they do, it will break the spell, and I’m ready to admit this is not a spell I want to break.
I aimlessly feel along the ground for the item, and I have to stretch so far, my knee practically touches the ground, but I finally grab hold of the little box and hold it up for Jessie to take. It’s then that she bites down on her bottom smiling lip and gasps so loudly I nearly jolt. Her hand flies to her chest and pushes against her cleavage like a dramatic heroine in an old black and white film. The word “YES” tumbles loudly from her lips.
I blink, spell broken, and realize the trap instantly. I don’t need to look down to see what’s in my hand, but I do anyway. Yep. It’s a ring box.
“Yes! Of course I’ll marry you! I thought you’d never ask!” She’s bubbling over with all the excitement of a woman deep in the throes of love.
I’m shocked—and then mortified as the entire ballroom suddenly erupts in applause.
“Show us the ring!” Henry calls above the clapping that’s ringing in my ears like a fire alarm.
I’m still resting on my knee, box poised in front of me, stunned into stone-cold silence. Jessie reacts for me, leaning forward slightly to open the box and reveal a tiny (fake, I’m sure) diamond ring. It’s so small it should come with a magnifying glass. Great. A brilliant addition to the prank, Jessica. Well done. I’ll be a laughingstock.
A fresh round of gasps is released around the table, and I finally look up into Jessie’s eyes. Hers are locked on mine, and she looks as if she’s trying not to die of laughter. I consider telling her to go right ahead, and I’ll get to work on her grave.
“You are a dead woman,” I mumble through my fake smile.
She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip again and slips the ring from the box right onto her finger. She throws the icing on the cake when she pronounces, “You outdid yourself, Drew! You remembered I love grand gestures. You never forget anything, do you?” Her eyes slide from the pathetic excuse for a ring down to me, and I see nothing but bitter revenge boiling in her irises. It’s then I realize she’s been planning this since the beginning. She bends over slightly to whisper in my ear, “What’s worse, Dr. Stuck-up? Being stood up? Forgotten? Or getting tangled in a lie in front of five hundred colleagues with an itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny ring?”
Anger, mortification, and betrayal all war and sizzle beneath my skin. I thought…I thought we were friends now. Apparently I was wrong.
“Bless him, he’s blushing!” someone at the table whispers, and I want to die. No one will forget this, and I’ll either have to keep up a fake engagement for the rest of my life, tell the truth and humiliate myself, or tell everyone I broke things off with the mother of what they believe is my child and look like a complete jerk. Either way, I’m not coming out of this in a favorable light.
I manage to peel myself off the ground and retake my seat, suddenly feeling the need to loosen the tie around my neck. The room is swirling and everywhere I look, smiles are beaming at me and offering congratulations.
“Drew, give her a kiss—don’t leave the poor girl hanging,” says Richard from somewhere within the hazy rush of anxiety I’m feeling.
I slowly turn to Jessie and can see her chest and shoulders shaking with restrained laughter. This only ignites my fury more. I’m angry—no, I’m pissed at Jessie, but I’m also not so far gone that I’m going to waste this moment.