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“Not me.”
“Not even if it’s what I want?” She makes her voice a whisper, and her eyes are full of longing.
I know her well enough to understand she’s trying to guilt me, but I can also see the hurt and confusion behind her fury. She thinks the reason I don’t want the whole marriage and two-point-four kids thing is because I don’t love her enough. It’s not, although at that moment, I realize I don’t. But she’s trying to use emotional blackmail to force me to change my mind, because she doesn’t want to lose the prospect of marrying someone wealthy.
I feel a stab of guilt at the harshness of that. She does have feelings for me, I’m sure of it. But I know friends who’ve had similar problems with women who’ve only been after their money, and once that worm has wiggled its way into your brain, it’s impossible to get it out again.
Cassie has many good points—she’s beautiful and smart, and she’s popular in real life and online—she works for a famous Kiwi fashion house, and she’s well known in the industry, with over a hundred thousand followers on Insta. But she’s also manipulative, spoiled, and spiteful. She’s like a hedgehog, covered in prickles, and I’m tired of being constantly stabbed.
“Are you coming in or not?” I snap, and I turn and walk into the bar. She follows, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or exasperated.
We go over to where the others are ordering drinks and say our hellos. Not wanting to sour the evening, I attempt to hold Cassie’s hand, but she pulls hers away.
Alex spots it, and his eyes meet mine. “Drink?” he asks.
“God, yes.”
His lips curve up a little. “Cassie, Chardonnay?”
“Please.”
I join him at the bar. “A glass of Chardonnay, and a double of the Glenlivet, please,” he asks the bartender, “with ice.”
“Missie not here yet?” I ask him.
He shakes his head.
“She still coming?”
He hesitates, then gives a slight shrug. “Time will tell.” A very Alex answer.
The bartender slides over the wine, and Alex takes it to Cassie, then comes back. “Everything all right?” he asks me.
“We had an argument on the way here.”
“What have you done?”
I give a short laugh and accept the glass as the bartender pushes it over to me. “I told her I didn’t want kids.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you not want them? Or do you not want them with her?”
I meet his gaze. I can’t remember the last time we talked about something intimate like this. I’ve known Alex since I was eighteen, and he’s a good friend, but we’re guys, and guys don’t talk about stuff. It’s a well-known rule.
“A little from column A, a little from column B,” I reply.
His lips curve up. The glib reply tells him I don’t want to talk about it.
“Did you know that phrase came from Americanized Chinese restaurant menus?” he says. “Diners picked options from two groups, A and B.”
“I thought it was from The Simpsons.”
He laughs. “Yeah, that as well.”
We walk back to the others, and we’ve just reached them when I spot Mistletoe Macbeth walking through the door. “Target spotted, eleven o’clock,” I tell him.
