“Yep, she happily tells her BFF that, once again, they can share another special date because she had just found out she was having a boy. She had turned the wedding into a freaking gender reveal party.”
Groans echoed all around me with the occasional, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” or, “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”
Arwin chose that moment to deliver our food, and I stared at his name once again; it tickled something in my brain. “Can I get anything else for you ladies?” he asked. When we all said we were good, he left and all eyes returned to me.
“What did you do?” Leo asked.
“I grabbed my two dates and headed to my room.” I stopped talking when my phone started ringing with Erin’s ringtone. “Where’s my purse?”
“Right here,” Stella said, leaning forward and grabbing my phone from the top of the bag. She answered it and pressed speaker. “Yo, bitch, haven’t seen you in fo-ev-ah.”
“Excuse me?” A very male voice came over the line.
I snagged the phone from her. “Hello? Who’s this?”
He chuckled. “Vivian, I assume, how’s the hangover?”
“Huh? It’s fine. Who are you, and why are you calling from Erin’s number?”
“As I told you last night, my name is Aaron, but I don’t know your sister-in-law Eh-rin”—he emphasized the pronunciation of the beginning of Erin’s name—“I’m Air-on.” I glanced up at the group, who were all giggling and wearing shit-eating grins. Great, more people who I will have to kill for witnessing my humiliation. “Truthfully though, I just called to check on you. You were quite a mess last night, I hated hanging up. You were cute in an Isla-Fisher, Wedding-Crashers kind of way.” Several of the girls busted out laughing. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for others to overhear.”
“It isn’t your fault. It’s mine for allowing it to be on speakerphone and theirs for not allowing it to be any other way. Thank you for checking on me, I appreciate it. As you can tell, I’m good, being suffocated . . .” I paused and winked at the girls, so they knew that I was totally joking. “I’m so sorry for drunk dialing and pulling you into the madness. I must have entered my sister-in-law’s new number wrong. I’ll fix it. Sorry again.”
“No worries, it was nice talking to you for four hours. I’ll let you go since you’re with friends. Have fun, we’ll talk soon.” He disconnected before I had a chance to say no need.
“Ooohh, what happened?” Ariel leaned in and asked, her Southern accent thick.
“Talk again?” Leo said as she poked me in the arm.
“No clue, don’t remember it at all.” I opened my contacts in my phone and searched for Erin’s name. Then I groaned because I had two numbers listed for her. “Oh shit, whoever that was must have her old Florida number. I never deleted it when she moved to New York.” I deleted the old number so I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“Give me that.” Stella snatched the phone and typed before handing it back. “I saved Aaron’s number in there so you won’t forget it as well. Besides, if he has her old number, it means he lives here. You never know when you might need another drunk dial.”
“Kill me now, what if I run into this person or he tells people that I’m a nut job?”
“Did you two exchange photos?” Sophie raised one brow and stared at me with her best mom-inquisition look.
“No.” I shook my head for emphasis.
“Did you tell him your full name so he could actually tell people that you are a nut job?” she asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Then stop with the drama and just enjoy.” She shrugged and held her hands out, waiting for me to say she was right, but I wasn’t giving anyone that credit. Instead, I kissed her cheek.
Aaron
We were playing the Bulls, and as usual we arrived early for conditioning but first, we had the concrete catwalk. I glanced around at teammates who were busy trying to fix their laces, smooth out their jeans, and make sure their collar was flat. I was too busy thinking about Vivian to bother.
Exiting the bus, bursts of light flashed as reporters squeezed up to the roped off area to get a shot of who was wearing what. These pictures would go into a file to be used whenever they needed to gossip about us.
As we wound our way inside, I headed to the most remote spot I could find in the United Center and pulled out my phone so I could call her.
I waited as it rang and rang, then her voicemail picked up. “This is, Viv, take me off your calling list. No I’m not interested, but if we really are friends, then you may leave me a message.”
“Hey, Viv, it’s Aaron. I was just calling to say hi. I’ll try you again later.”
I hung up and headed to the visiting team locker room. As soon as I entered, I was assaulted.
“Aaron, Mike Carpenter with AFN Sports, how do you feel going against Zach LaVine again? Last time, he powered through and made the winning shot.”
I smeared on a forced smile. “Thanks for asking, Mike, I feel great. Coach has been working us harder than ever, and I feel that it has really paid off. We’re strong as a team.” I took one step forward to let him know questions were over.
“Thanks, Aaron,” Mike called after me as I rounded the corner to our lockers and changing area.
“Aaron, plans tonight?” Gage, one of my best friends, asked. He was our team’s shooting guard and a lot more levelheaded than a lot of the others. “LeeAnn keeps bugging me to get you to come out with us.”
“Thanks, but I thought you and LeeAnn were having some romantic shit tonight. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be heading to my room and catching up on sleep.”
“No date night,
