Page 72 of Four Weekends and a Funeral

Chelsea greets him with a hug, and now we’re all stuffed in my tiny entry.

“Adam.” Mara widens her eyes at me. It’s not as discreet as she thinks it is. “Glad you could join us tonight. We’re a teammate short and need the numbers if we want to dominate. Do you know facts about any sports other than football?”

Adam blinks in the face of Mara’s competitive ferocity. “Hockey and a little basketball.”

Mara clasps his hand in hers, closing the deal. “Perfect.”

I shake my head at them. “He said he’s leaving.”

“I can stay if you need me.” Adam looks at me as if waiting for my approval. It makes my pathetic heart leap in my chest.

Mara pulls her beeping phone out of her pocket. “Our main rival’s there, so we need the win.”

I reach into my closet behind her for my jacket. “How do you know Risky Quizness’s schedule?”

Mara absently shoots off a text. “I do my research. I follow the team members on my catfish Instagram. That’s how I knew this guy’s a Vikings fan.” She tilts her head at Adam without looking up from her phone.

I narrow my eyes. “You stalked him?”

Mara shoos away my concern. “Lightly. The most basic of recon.”

“What did this invasion of his privacy produce?”

Mara’s unruffled. “Mostly public information. I did one sketchy thing, but he was clean, so no harm.”

“Mostly?!” I squeak just as Adam responds, “So I passed the background check?” He’s fighting an indulgent smile that puts me immediately at ease.

Chelsea pops an eyebrow. “You reshare too many pictures of chairs in your Instagram stories.”

“Yeah. Cool it on the chairs, bro. Mix up your content strategy,” Mara piles on.

I raise my hand in Adam’s defense. “He likes chairs, guys. Let him live. Now, are we doing trivia, or what?”

Adam bounces on his toes, nearly concealing his amusement and possible aftershocks of his earlier caffeine overdose.

Mara finally stuffs her phone in her pocket and accepts his enthusiasm as a formal request to join our team. “Know that if you choke on any Vikings questions, I’ll forgive, but I’ll never forget.”

•••

“So which member of Risky Quizness are you catfishing?” Chelsea furtively examines the group across the room as we settle into our usual table. It’s one of those anonymous modern bars that pops up in any vaguely historic building in Saint Paul: infinite craft beers on draft, warm wood accented with brick, and high industrial ceilings bedecked with Edison lightbulb fixtures. It’s the kind of place that is always enjoyable and never memorable. “ ‘Glasses,’ ‘Beanie Boy,’ ‘Handlebar Mustache,’ ‘Too Tall,’ or Amélie Haircut’?”

Adam, like every oblivious man ever, openly gapes at the subject of our gossip. “That table over there? None of them have facial hair.”

I gulp my complimentary water, already overheated by the proximity of Adam in the crowded bar. “The guy in the Hawaiian shirt shaved the ’stache last summer, but it’s all we’ll ever see.”

“Poor Handlebar,” Chelsea says, pouting. “We should give him a new signifier. Unless Mar caught feelings in her catfishing scheme. Then we should really learn his given name.”

“I don’t actively reel anyone in, but I use Ashleigh with a gh to keep tabs on my nemeses,” Mar explains, perusing the menu lazily, despite never having once deviated from her deceptively nonalcoholic drink of choice: soda water with lime.

“A person probably shouldn’t have more than one nemesis,” I say into the void. Mara spares me a glance.

Chelsea and Mara discuss fake Ashleigh and her interests in knitting, Grey’s Anatomy, and Target designer collaborations, until Mara pulls the profile up on her phone. “Only Beanie and Too Tall followed me back.”

“I think Ashleigh and Too Tall would make a cute couple. She could knit him an extra-long scarf!” Chelsea claps her hands together gleefully.

“Too Tall doesn’t know how to turn off geotagging, so he’s the most useful for my purposes.” Mara winks conspiratorially.

“What constitutes ‘too tall’?” Adam squints at the Risky Quizness table, searching for clues.

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