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Ethan throws his hands up at the hopeless case before us. “Jesus, man. How long have you lived with her? Girls eat ice cream all the time. You’re telling me you never saw the ice cream she eats? You never even stole a little of it out of the freezer? Man, I always knew you were hopeless but notthishopeless.” He turns to his computer screen. “I gotta get back to work. You guys need to skedaddle. Stop stinking up my office.”
Whether Jasper’s still in the dog house or not, the three of us are on a group text from Ava a couple hours later, with an invitation to trivia night at some bar across town. I don’t have anything else going on, so I immediately say yes. If the others can’t make it, all the more for me.
Unfortunately, they accept her invite nearly as fast as I do. It’s all good.
The three of us arrive at seven p.m., just like she told us to. She already has seats for us, close to the table where the quiz master is set up. To our utter delight, tonight’s trivia game is featuring sports. Personally, I couldn’t be happier to have the opportunity to show off and look smart for my girl.
Shit. I just called her ‘my girl.’
We settle in and Ethan heads to the bar to get us beers.
Did I mention how nice it was to see the lovely Ava? I haven’t spotted her in the elevator or building lobby for a couple days, and I can swear she’s more beautiful today than the last time I saw her.
Ugh. I am so fucked.
“Ava, before we get started, I want to say I didn’t mean to insult you with my article. It was just tongue-in-cheek fun, ya know?” Jasper says sheepishly.
She waves away his concerns. “Oh, Jas, that’s so not a big deal. It was quite clever. Let’s just move past it and have fun tonight.” Her eyes twinkle.
Jasper’s shoulders drop with relief at her magnanimous answer, and I’m pretty sure no man has ever been so happy to be let off the hook so easily.
“All right, guys. Here we go.”
* * *
36
LEO
The Quiz Master,who looks like he’s not old enough to be in a bar, clears his throat right into his microphone to get our attention. Satisfied that all chatter has been reduced to a minimum, he looks over the crowd as he reads us the evening’s rules, with special emphasis on not cheating with our phones.
“For God’s sake, this is a freaking game,” someone in the back calls out, and the crowd snickers.
The Quiz Master throws a stink eye in the direction of his heckler and, satisfied everyone knows the rules, reads his first question.
Which country won the first-ever World Cup in the sport of Kabaddi?
Ethan furrows his brow and Jasper wrinkles his nose. Ava just smiles like the freaking Mona Lisa.
“What the fuck isKabaddi?” Jasper asks.
“I’ve heard of it…” Ethan says, scratching his head and looking around the room to assess the other teams’ Kabaddi acumen. Some looked as confused as us, and another smugly scribbles down an answer.
I know a little about the sport but not enough to answer the trivia question. “Guys, I heard some other photographers talk about it at a shoot last year. It’s weird as hell. Kind of like tag on steroids. And the players have to hold hands and shit.”
Jasper and Ethan cast me a horrifiedwhat the fucklook.
“Where do they play it?” Ava asks, as if we might actually know.
I shrug. “Middle East and Asia, I think.”
Ethan shrugs. “That covers a lot of territory.”
We’re interrupted by a loudbuzz.
Shit.
“Time’s up, ladies and gentlemen,” the quiz master says happily, collecting everyone’s responses. That is, everyone who managed to come up with an answer, or at least a guess. And that does not include the four of us.
