1
AVERY
“Don’t miss that catch, don’t miss that catch!OH, COME ON!” I hollered, hopping up from the side of the tub as I held my cell phone in my hands. Never in my life did I witness such a heartbreaking play. The football game was only in the first quarter, and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why the quarterback decided to throw the ball to Mr. Butterfingers.
They were lucky the throw wasn’t intercepted like the one a few plays back. My team was making way too many mistakes too early into the game.
A knock on the door startled me.
“Avery? Are you coming out?” my fiancé, Wesley, asked from the other side of the door.
I glanced around the bathroom, slightly panicked, before shoving my phone into my bra.
It was a no-technology event that evening at Wesley’s and my house, which made no sense to me, seeing how it was freaking Super Bowl Sunday. Who had no-tech nights during the Super Bowl?
That seemed like a good enough reason to call off anengagement. Especially when the score was so close. It was anyone’s game, and I was going to miss it. After the foreseeable breakup, Wesley and I would tell people we had “irreconcilable differences” and go on our way.
The following year, I’d throw a Super Bowl party.
Okay, maybe breaking up over a game was a little far-fetched, but it wasn’t every year that your favorite team played at the game of all games. It would probably be another thirty years before we made it back to the Super Bowl.
My dad was probably celebrating at his place with my sisters, Yara and Willow, my brother-in-law, Alex, and our aunt-by-choice, Tatiana, who helped raise me and my two sisters. Tatiana was our mother’s best friend, and after Mama passed away, she stepped up to make sure we had a woman figure in our lives.
Tatiana always made the best dang buffalo chicken dip for Daddy’s Super Bowl parties.
A heavy sense of jealousy raced through me knowing Yara would eat all that dip without me while Willow ate her vegan dip.
“You good?” Wesley asked.
“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” I called out. I smoothed my hands over my black dress and combed my straight black hair behind my ears. I looked in the mirror and saw Mama’s brown eyes staring back at me. I had so many of her features, which felt equally like a blessing and a curse. From her round nose and high cheekbones to her dark-brown skin and jet-black hair.
I took a deep breath and released it slowly, mentally preparing to socialize with a group I didn’t know. I wasn’t the best at striking up a conversation with strangers. Then again, I wasn’t really into striking up conversations with people I knew either. The best types of human beings were the ones who shut up. Or at least the ones who didn’t try to talk to me.
At the ripe age of thirty-six, I was hoping I’d met all the newpeople I’d ever have to meet in my life, outside of my students. Unfortunately for me, my rocket scientist fiancé was a social butterfly. Even worse, the people he socialized with were very intelligent. Likesupersmart. The kind of brilliance that made me feel like a box of rocks. I was talking about IQs of 150 and up.
What was I supposed to talk to those people about? Clearly not the Super Bowl. That was for certain.
When it was just Wesley and me, I could handle his intelligence. We had a normal relationship, except when he was excited about statistics. I didn’t know a man could love stats and probabilities so much until I met him. When he finally convinced me to date him, he showed up with a whole pie chart, breaking down why someone as cold and closed-off as me was a perfect match for his vibrant and social personality.
I couldn’t disagree with the numbers.
We were a match made in a science lab.
Still, the idea of spending the rest of the evening with his close college friends was enough to make me want to break out into hives. I’d been to a few of his work functions and dealt with colleagues of his before, and I always left feeling less than those around me. I didn’t think they did it on purpose, either. They just spoke in a language I didn’t understand. I was pretty sure they’d feel the same way if I had gone full-blown sports talk with them.
Needless to say, I was scared of having nothing in common with the people who meant the most to Wesley.
I swung the bathroom door open and smiled at Wesley. “Sorry, sorry. Got a little backed up.”
He smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Yup. That’s so.”
He reached forward , dug into my bra, and pulled out my cell phone. “So you weren’t just cussing at your cell phone watching the World Series?”
“TheSuper Bowl,” I corrected, snatching my phone back from him. “And no. I wasn’t watching that. Of course not. Not when we decided on a technology-free evening.”
“Good. I’m guessing that means you won’t mind if I keep this,” he said, taking the phone back from me. He slid it into his back pocket and kissed my cheek. “Now, come on. It’s about time you meet my friends. They just texted that they are about two minutes away.”