Page 27 of Hard to Score

Everyone at the table introduces themselves. There are two couples who know the bride and groom from work, two childhood friends and their spouses, an empty chair where my plus-one would have been, and then there’s Mildred.

Sweet Mildred with her auburn-colored hair and raucous laugh, and who has declared herself to be ninety-five years old and states, “I’m too old for this shit,” when a salad is slid in front of her.

She’s my kindred spirit, and I think she knows it too by the way she keeps eyeing and smiling at me through the centerpiece on the table.

“Mildred? How do you know Archer and Jules?” I ask.

“I’m Archie’s great-grandma.” She waves a hand. “We go way back.”

Everyone at the table stops chewing at her comment and then starts laughing when we all comprehend her joke.

“You don’t want to sit with family?” the lady to the right asks.

Mildred snorts. “Family is boring. I already know their secrets. I asked to be put at a table with some hot young men so I at least have something good to look at.”

There are several coughs mid-chew in response. Luckily, we’re all saved by the main course being served, because Mildred is a lot to take in and you’re not sure if you should encourage her or fall silent.

“You ready for Sunday?” I ask Drew quietly, cryptically asking about their upcoming game without outright asking so he won’t get the million questions that normally follow when one learns you’re an NFL player.

“Drew?” When he doesn’t answer, I touch my hand to his arm to ask again, and he politely but deliberately moves his arm out of the way.

“We can’t do this,” he murmurs. “This can’t happen.”

I turn and look at him while he waves to someone across the room, and I swear it’s just to avoid me. “What can’t happen? Me sitting with you?” I emit a disbelieving chuckle. “I’m not sure you get a say in that since it was Archer and Jules’s decision where we sit.”

“Not that. This.”

“This?” I ask.

“Do you two know each other, dear?” Mildred asks from her prying perch across the table, drawing eight sets of eyes our way.

“No,” Drew says.

“Yes,” I say at the same time.

I offer a tight smile in response, hoping the servers clearing dishes and asking if we’d like more to drink will be enough distraction so we don’t have to answer.

I turn to face Drew and lean in. “I don’t understand what your problem is. Is this about the other night?”

“Drop it, Brex.”

“Why?” I demand in a hushed voice. “We had a good night. Then we didn’t.”

“It’s complicated.”

“How so? I wasn’t asking for anything more than friendship,” I say and know deep down I’m lying. Making a house call to a client who isn’t yours is just a piss-poor excuse, even to my own ears, and yet, what else am I supposed to say?

“Are you two ex-lovers?” Mildred asks loudly.

“No,” we both say in unison.

“Just friends,” Drew corrects.

“It seems you two are in the middle of a juicy fight and frankly, my ninety-five-year-old self misses those kinds of fights where you claw at each other until it turns into you can’t take your hands off each other.” She wiggles her shoulders. “Is that what we’re in for? Should I see if the staff here can procure a hate-fuck room for the two of you?”

“Oh my God,” the guest to Drew’s left laughs out as I stare at Mildred with a lax jaw and shock. She really did just say all of that.

And by the way I accidentally hit Drew’s knee with mine and he yanks his away, I know for a fact she did just say that.