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“Hi, darling. Your hair looks lovely.”
“Thanks.”
She greeted her Dad then sat down next to Juniper. “Hey.”
“Hey, you look great.”
“Ah, thanks.”
“Had her hair done,” Rafe said, taking the seat on Mikayla’s other side and giving her hair a tug. “It’s a momentous occasion.”
“Apparently,” Mikayla said with a laugh. “Oh, sushi! I love sushi. Who brought these?” Mikayla reached for a teriyaki nori roll, giving Leah a thumbs up when she said she’d made them. “Delicious. I always wanted to have a go at making sushi, but it’s too fiddly for me.”
She leaned back, hyper conscious of Rafe’s arm, draped casually across the back of her chair. She sighed inwardly. Her plan to maintain some distance between them was off to a pretty bad start.
“Alright, alright ladies and gentlemen. If everyone can please be seated, we’ll get started. First challenge for the night is to choose your table captain. They’ll be in charge of pen and paper and have ultimate authority, so choose wisely.”
“Mum, that’ll be you.” Mikayla picked up the answer sheets and pen and handed them to Nora.
“What? Why me?”
“We need a fearless leader and you’re the best we’ve got.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Nora replied, taking the pen and papers.
They settled into the first round of questions, which went pretty smoothly since it was entertainment questions, which was John’s forte. The sports round caused some angst between William and Callum when they argued over the winner of the inaugural Melbourne Cup horse race.
“I don’t know how you guys remember that shit. That news is like, two hundred years old,” Mikayla said, taking a fortifying sip of wine.
“One hundred and sixty,” William and Callum corrected, in unison, causing Mikayla to roll her eyes. They settled on Callum’s answer after William recalled getting the spelling wrong, it was Archer, not Archie.
“Crisis averted,” Mikayla said to Rafe.
“This one’s for the soccer fans, or football fans if you’re gonna be picky. How many World Cup finals has Argentina played in, and in what years, if any, did they win?”
Everyone looked at Rafe. “Played in five, won two, nineteen seventy-eight and nineteen eighty- six.”
“My hero,” Mikayla said, affectionately rubbing his arm, then hastily pulling her hand away. She frowned as she realized she was totally overthinking it, because she would still definitely do that if they weren’t sleeping together.
At the end of the sports round, the announcer called a break to tally the scores, exhorting the guests to check out the silent auction items and participate in the coin toss, if they felt so inclined.
“I’m gonna check out the silent auction. You wanna come?” Mikayla turned to Juniper.
“Sure.”
They got up and walked across to the table of auction items that lined the back wall of the room. Mikayla put her dad’s name and a dollar amount down for a multicolored scarf. “For Mum,” she explained to Juniper.
“Nice.”
“This is great.” She gestured to a ceramic vase, obviously painted by Leah. “Oh look, someone’s already bid fifty bucks for it.”
“Bargain,” Juniper said with a laugh. “So, ah, how is everything going?”
“Great! What about you?”
“Mikayla.” There was no mistaking the tone of warning in Juniper’s tone.
Mikayla sighed. “Great, honestly, but also a bit weird and confusing.”
