Page 31 of One on One
I join the circle. “The last time I saw you guys, we were all wearing the same dress.”
“Annie!” Jade hugs me first, then Talia and Grace. One of them pours me a glass of wine and they ask me about the move and the new job. I haven’t seen them since the wedding.
“What happened with the guy?” I ask Grace.
“I DM’d the other girl. She asked me for screenshots of the texts but as far as I know they’re still together.”
I make a disgusted noise.
I ask Jade about her mom’s health and chat with Talia about her Etsy shop. I’ve only met them a handful of times, but there’s an accelerated familiarity there, the kind that applies to close friends of close friends. Cassie talked about them for years before I met them, so I’ve always known about their jobs and personalities and love lives, the same way I know about the characters on the teenage murder show Kat talks about even though I’ve never seen it. And then I did meet Jade and Talia and Grace, and drank a lot of tequila with them at Cassie’s bachelorette party, and boom. Bonded.
I take one of the blank brackets from the pile on the counter. “I’m guessing I need to fill this out.”
“Oh, yes.” Jade hands me a pen. “Eric’s orders. Episode one for now. We’ll do the rest after tonight.”
“Was I supposed to do research?” I eye the names running down each side of the page.
“We have a printout of their headshots here. For the first episode you’ll have to go purely on looks.”
The structure of the show is only vaguely familiar to me. There’s a romantic element, where people have to couple up to stick around, but there’s also a monetary prize at the end. I pick a few people from the photos based on gut instinct and fill in the rest of the names at random. When I’m finished, I make my way over to Eric, who’s standing by himself, studying everyone’s brackets.
He takes in my outfit. “Did you just get out of ballet practice?”
I roll my eyes and hand him my bracket.
He appraises it with interest, running his finger down each column. “Lots of people picking Jasmine,” he says. “We’ve got ourselves a front-runner.”
“Well, yeah. It’s because of her face.”
There’s a group of guys on the other side of the pass-through. I recognize them, other athletic department employees who aren’t exactly in my orbit. One of the academic advisors, a guy from the development team, the football facilities coordinator.
I introduce myself. They’re friendly enough, and they talk to me for a bit, but after a few minutes they fall back into the conversation they were having before, about people I don’t know doing things they haven’t explained to me.
I’m considering returning to the kitchen when I see the dog. A Lab mix, curled up into a U-shape on the floor.
I crouch down. The dog sniffs my hand, and I scratch it behind the ears. It groans and leans into my palm.
“What’s your name?” I murmur. Eric and Cassie don’t have any pets.
I look up to ask someone about the dog. That’s when I see Ben, sitting on the couch next to Cassie. They’re laughing and he’s slouching back against a pillow, one foot on the opposite knee. His hair is damp and undone, sticking up in every direction.
My stomach tightens. How am I supposed to interact with him after our conversation before the holidays? Fighting, playing that game, laughing. Me needling him, him sharing something deeply personal with me. I haven’t even concluded whether the whole thing went well or poorly.
“Annie! I didn’t know you were here.” Cassie hops up.
I climb off the floor to hug her. “I was saying hi to everyone. How was New Orleans?”
Cassie tells me about her time at home, the family parties, the attempts at warding off questions from aunts and uncles about her plans for her uterus. She brought back andouille sausage in her suitcase, which means there’s a tall pot of gumbo on the stove. She looks rested, like she might make it through the entire episode tonight without passing out in a chair.
“I didn’t realize this was an actual party,” I say.
“Did we not tell you that? Sorry, I thought you knew. We’ve been doing this for a few years now.”
“Whose dog is that? I love him. Her?”
“Ben’s,” Cassie says. She leans over the coffee table and picks up a near-empty bowl of tortilla chip crumbs. “She’s a girl. Right?”
Ben nods. “Sasha,” he tells Cassie, and not me.
