Page 36 of The C*ck Down the Block

“And he just asked you out, like, all of a sudden?” Elisha asked. She leaned in closer too, and I got the impression Marie wasn’t the only woman who felt protective of Chris. “What changed?”

Chris had said tell them the truth. So that’s what I was gonna do. Well, most of it anyway. “Actually, I asked him.”

To be my fake boyfriend. And that had turned into something more. Something confusing.

“Girl, you have some steel ovaries.” Fluffernutter, I mean Fern, shook her head at me. “I’ve never asked a man out in my life. And someone you’re long-time friends with? Mmm-mmm. I’d be all kinds of afraid to ruin a friendship. I didn’t even like Derek when he asked me out.”

I almost threw my hands up and declared that I’d worried about that exact thing. In fact, I was already worried that I’d changed our friendship as it was, and that put a kibosh on the idea of exploring these feelings, and Chris’s lips.

“Wait, was this before the restaurant opening the other night?” Marie asked, squinting her eyes like she was recalling that night.

The truth. “No, we really did go to that as just friends.”

“But that’s where you realized you had feelings for him, right?” Elisha asked. “Because we all saw that picture in the paper.”

What was the universe seeing in that picture that I wasn’t? “I just asked him if he would go to my high school reunion as my date.”

Marie’s squint got infinitely squintier. Like she was reading between the lines, and I didn’t want her to see what was there. Or what wasn’t. “So you just wanted to show off to your high school pals?”

Crap. Kind of. Which made me a giant asshole, didn’t it? I guess I already knew that. But then this whole pretend dating thing had gone, so… different than I expected.

“Umm, if I’m totally honest, a little bit.” I made a regret-smile and shrunk down a little. “I swear I’m not normally that girl. Don’t hate me.”

“I see you.” Kelli put her hand on my arm. “You had bullies in high school you want to show up, huh?”

Wait, how did she know that?

“Yeah, your face tells all, sister.” She laughed, but it wasn’t an entirely humored kind of thing. There was some bitterness there too. “I get it. I was chunky in high school, and that shit’s traumatic. Kids are dicks to each other. It took me a long time and seeing myself through my husband’s eyes and the way he loved me to face some of those demons. I get it.”

Almost every other woman there nodded and ruefully smiled at me in solidarity.

I put my face in my hands and shook my head back and forth. “They are the worst, and I am on the reunion committee with them.”

Lulu was the only other person that ever understood any of this, and to a certain extent, my mother. I definitely never expected a group of women I’d never met before to see me the way my best female friend did. I’d always been the kind of person that just had one or two close friends. But maybe I had been missing out by not trying to find myself more a part of a community of women.

Marie’s squinty glare had lessened, but she still wasn’t ready to let this go. Even though I was the one going through the AITA gauntlet, I had to be happy that Chris had someone like this looking out for him. She clearly grilled all the women the players brought around. “Does Chris know about these bullies, and why you asked him to go?”

“Absolutely, 100%.” I nodded vigorously. That was the truest thing about this whole relationship, besides the being friends for a long time part.

Marie gave one simple dip of her chin and that seemed to be her stamp of approval. She clapped both her hands down on her legs and said, “Well, then, that settles that. So then I think you should take the mustang by the horn, so to speak, and ride him like a cowgirl.”

“Marie!” Several of the girls all squealed at the same time.

But several more practically battle cried out “Ride ’em, cowgirl.”

Marie simply shrugged and smiled at me. “We don’t call ourselves the cowgirls for nothing.”

Oh my god. I got it now. Because cowgirls ride mustangs.

Chris came back over with several of the other players in tow, all of them with plates of food. He had a little bit of a frown on his face, and if I was reading it right, he was worried about me. Either that, or he’d overheard too much of my conversation with the girls.

“Hey, chickadee. I brought you some food.” He handed me a plate loaded with things I liked to eat. Although, those portobello mushroom kabobs were burned all to hell. Johnston must have been on grill duty.

“Oh my god, why are you two so adorable?” Fern said. “If you start feeding each other right now, I might throw up from cuteness overload.”

I picked up a carrot from the plate, swirled it in a little bit of ranch, and held it up to Chris’s mouth. He grinned and grabbed my hand, pulling it even closer, put the whole carrot and the tips of my fingers into his mouth. And sucked.

And my ovaries exploded. Was I pregnant now? I think so.

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