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“I'll reach out to both of you, and we'll plan this together, okay?” Ben gestures between Cass and Amy with his index finger, and both nod at him in agreement.
“I don't even get a say in this?” I ask, both amused and stunned.
Ben looks at me and tilts his head as if he's looking over nonexistent glasses. “Oh sure, what would you like the theme to be?”
Well, it's something, I guess. I lift my shoulders. “The movie Titanic, I guess?” I mean, we met on a cruise ship. Maybe he'll find it endearing and adorable. Or he will finally realize that I am weird and have been weird all along, and he won't want to see me anymore.”
With that unsettling thought, their words and plans fade into the background. My friends are very silly and sweet, but deep down, I feel something else. Internally, I'm torn between this hopeful, optimistic feeling that maybe Damien's the right person for me and the absolute fear that he's going to discard me the same way Jake did and find someone new.
This is the problem with rebound relationships - I haven't had a chance to heal from what Jake did to me, but here I am already falling head over heels for someone new.
But is it real?
Everything I know about Damien indicates it is, but what if I'm wrong? What if I get hurt again? But what if I'm right and he's the man that will make me happy for the rest of my life? As I think about him, I smile. I can't wait to see him again.
But as much as I want to tell him how I feel, I worry how he'd receive the news. What if he doesn't feel as strongly about me as I feel about him? What if I tell him I have feelings for him, and he laughs at me and says he doesn't feel that way for me? Sure, he said he really likes me, but there's a big difference between liking someone and having real, legitimate, deep feelings for them.
We haven't been together long enough to be in love, have we?
And if we haven't been together long enough to be in love, then what is this I feel? Even with these unsettling thoughts swirling round and round, I realize I'm happy and peaceful, enjoying this moment of bliss with my friends while thinking about the man I care about. Life is good, and I feel like it's only about to get better.
A little while later, we firmly settle into game night. With the Scrabble board in front of us, I stare down at my letters, biting my lower lip and trying to think of a word. The doorbell rings and Ben leaps to his feet to go answer it for the pizza delivery.
Next to me, Cass finishes her wine, studying her own letters, and Amy gives us both a covert smile that leaves me worried what she's going to do next. Amy is too good at this game - it makes me feel almost ashamed. But it's all in good fun and I'm still enjoying myself.
Ben walks back in with the pizza and I play the word quartz.
Amy nods her head as if she's impressed as Cass pulls out three letters and spells the word boob. I almost spit wine out of my nose as I laugh, and Ben walks over with two boxes of pizza, asking what he missed.
I speak up. “You missed boobs.”
“Uh, boob,” Amy says, correcting me as Ben chuckles.
“Sounds about like my luck,” he says.
“You can say whatever you want. You're all just jealous that I have boob and you don't,” Cass says, making us all laugh as we dig into the pizza. Once again, I'm glad that we don't keep score. We just play for fun and the memories. It's not about winning. It’s about being present, being friends, and just enjoying ourselves.
“Well, I hate to upstage Cass’ boob,” Ben says as he puts his tiles up, spelling fart with the t in my quartz.
We all share another round of laughter. I can't help but wonder how Damien would feel if he was here right now, playing this game with us. Would he be absolutely disgusted or laughing with us?
“That's it. I quit,” Cass says, and we all laugh again before calling out our next choice of games the way we always do.
Both Ben and I call out Crabs Adjust Humidity - a play on Cards against Humanity, and we settle in for fun and insanity.
A half hour later, we're all winding down, and I stare at the latest board game. It's one that Amy brought, and we're supposed to figure out who killed the victim and why. Since we all love murder mysteries and this one's fun and challenging, the debate has been lively. But as I think about Damien 's past, I feel a chill run down my spine.
This feels less like a game and more like the real life struggle he's going through trying to get answers. It's hard knowing that the man that I'm falling for is still trying to figure out who killed his father, or if his father's death was an accident. I still can't imagine what it must feel like living with the weight of that. Not to mention the fact that he's been blown off by law enforcement and told that it was just an accident, even though his gut tells him otherwise.
If his father was murdered at the company Damien now works at, and the killer was never caught, is his life in danger? My stomach twists as if the pizza and wine there wants to come back up when I swallow hard.
“You don't look like you're having fun anymore,” Ben says, leaning in and speaking quietly in my ear.
I shake my head, not sure how to tell him the complicated news. I'm wondering what I'd even say. How do you tell someone that the person you're dating thinks that his dad was murdered, but doesn't have any proof?
Even now, my heart breaks in my chest for him. “It was the janitor,” I say. All of my friends look at me with curiosity and I run them through my line of thinking. “If the murder happened after hours and no employee key cards were swiped and the only person with actual keys is the janitor, then it must have been him.”
Of course, I'm discounting the CEO being the murderer.
