Page 95 of Just For Her

“Uh…” Tove’s problem wasn’t that her girlfriend had invited her best friends over for dinner to celebrate her moving out of their house. It was the small detail that Tove hadalsoinvited a couple over for dinner that night as well – and she had fully intended on cooking too!

Sure enough, it wasn’t just Chrissy and Huey attempting to find a place to park now that both Tove and Kayla’s cars occupied the two-car driveway. It was Thomas knocking on the hood of his car because his very pregnant wife had no way to get out of the passenger side.

“I see there is an issue,” Kayla said in the front doorway.

“I swear I was going to tell you as soon as I got home, but then I was distracted by your gorgeous self.”

Kayla placed her hand on Tove’s chest. “Stop, you! We’ve got to sort this out! Hey, Chris! You guys can park where I’m at! I know a spot across the street where I can put my car!”

Tove didn’t know what impressed her most: that they had four guests there for dinner, or that Kayla had sorted out the confusion in fewer than five minutes.

Since Kayla was in such a good mood, her girlfriend let her sort out dinner, which was a basic but tasty pasta dish with vegetables and garlic bread. One of the most amusing “consequences” of Kayla’s lies over the past few months was that she became more adept at vegetarian cooking.I’m shocked she didn’t try shoehorning tofu into this dish.However, this supper fit to feed six didn’t have to be anything more than a carbo load slathered in flavor. From the moment the onions and garlic hit the stove, everyone commented on how good it smelled… especially Polly, who positioned herself on the edge of the kitchen with her nose stuck in the air, both nostrils so wide that her husband could drive his BMW through them, almost made Tove feel bad when she got out a bottle of wine and passed a glass to everyone but Polly.

The woman soon found herself at home on the sofa, chatting with Kayla in the kitchen and Chrissy standing halfway between them. Tove insisted that the men come out with her to the deck, which she had recently stained all by herself in time for the winter snows. Huey was impressed not only with her handiwork but with Garrett Tenet’s ranch lands next door. When Tove told him that he owned not only what was behind Tove’s house, but across the street as well, he laughed so hard that Thomas had to ask what was so funny.

“You know, the three of us haven’t done terribly.” Huey shook the last of his wine at the bottom of his glass. Tove thought about going inside and grabbing a heavier sweater now that the nights were cold. Yet she was too curious to know what this man meant. “Of course, I’m partial to my wife since she’s exactly my type, but you Fredrikssons know how to pick a pretty lady. Really, Tove, you can’t do better than Kayla. She’s a great gal and has been the perfect guest at my house for the past few months. I never once thought about charging her rent!” He laughed again as if he now kicked himself for not taking anything but what Kayla insisted he have.

“Kayla’s a dream.”

“Best woman I’ve ever smacked with my car,” Thomas said, “but only because I’ve never almost hit Polly.”

“I thank you every day for bringing her into my life.”

Huey waggled his eyebrows in Thomas’s unsuspecting direction. “Good on you for that wife of yours, too! When’s the squirt due? Have I told you two that I have some big kids of my own? Being a dad is a blast.”

“With any luck, she’ll be here before Christmas.”

“A girl! Congrats to you!”

Tove decided that was a toastable comment, although Huey’s empty glass was a silly sight next to how much wine was still in Tove's, whereas Thomas had cut himself off. When they drank, Huey pounding back the last two drops in his glass, Tove almost choked.

Voices had risen inside. Tove cracked open the sliding door to hear, “…She really thought she was in contention!” It was Chrissy, who commanded the space around her as she commented on an episode of some reality TV show. “Can you believe it? If she were in my circle, I’d take her aside and be like,‘Girl, your roots are showing, and you’ve got a massive camel toe. What makes you think that thirsty dude is gonna giveyouthe time of day? You want the gold, you get yourself a respectable shovel, ‘cause you ain’t it!’”

Both Polly and Kayla erupted into laughter and added their opinions. “Dare I ask?” Tove said, leaning against the island counter while her male guests stepped inside and latched the sliding door behind them. “Wait, is this about that show you’ve been watching? OnmyHulu account?” Never before had Tove been so inundated with reality TV recommendations. She still wasn’t sure what “Ninety Day Fiancé” was, and she didn’t want to know.

She quickly discovered that itwasthe reality dating show whose title escaped Tove’s mind. Not only were all three women religiously watching it, since the concept was about self-proclaimed “gold diggers” going after wealthy men, but they were all convinced that they woulddominatehad they been cast. Especially Polly, who said – loudly, in front of her husband – that the only reason she didn’t apply earlier that year was the whole “bun in the oven.”

“To be fair,” Thomas said to his cousin, “she would crush it.’

Tove did not have a comment about that.

“We should watch it after dinner!” Kayla yelled over the clattering and sizzling of food cooking in the kitchen. “I think the new episode dropped today!”

“Oh, no…” Tove said.

“Yes!” Chrissy leaped for the TV remote and flopped onto the couch next to Polly, who munched on some sunflower seeds and got half of them stuck between the cushions. “Oh, my God, do you think that bitch Eleanor will be trying to steal Sam from Rachel again?”

“Why?” Polly asked. “He’s only worth like a million dollars, and he’s not that cute.”

Thomas moved eerily close to his cousin. “Welcome to the real Fredriksson life, cous. They do like to throw it in your face every day.”

Tove scoffed. “I’m not threatened by that. Are you?”

His shrug made her laugh. “Get ready to watch some scripted drama and evil editing. It’s all we watch in my house now.”

“Sounds great.”

As soon as Kayla was done in the kitchen (with Tove’s help, when she jumped in at the end to help mitigate a messy disaster) they gathered around the kitchen table to talk about whatever fancied them at the moment. As they bounced from the baby preparations to Huey’s recent travels to Alaska, Tove reached beneath the table and squeezed her girlfriend’s hand.

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