This particular story always gets an uproarious reaction so it’s one of my favorites to tell when I’m trying to charm a crowd.
Jessa shakes her head again and repeats the twisted plot. “So, for half a semester, she pretended to be a kinesiology major?”
I nod.
“Just so she could get access to the football team’s training facilities?”
I nod again.
“And have access to the underwear of every guy on the college football team?”
I’m laughing too at how ridiculous it sounds. “And then, she opened an auction site to sell the dirty underwear to the highest bidder,” I finish the story.
Lexi watches me, fingers curled around her water glass as she giggles. “And what happened to her when she got caught?”
I pick the broccoli out of the stir-fry with my fork. I shrug. “She got suspended for a few days. One of the rich guys on the team threatened to press charges. Nothing came of it, though.” I bring a forkful of chicken and rice to my mouth.
“Oh my gosh!” Jessa laughs. “I wonder where she is now…”
“Actually, I heard she went on to head up some online pro-athlete underwear crime ring. She was in jail for a little while. I think she’s doing community service for the next few months.” I take another big bite of chicken.
“Wow! Old habits die hard,” Lexi jokes.
The food is delicious. Far tastier than that pre-portioned frozen meal I had planned to eat for dinner. And the girls have loosened up after too many glasses of wine.
I’m sitting between Jessa and Penny. Iris is right across from me, next to Lexi. She’s quiet. Just like she used to be on the rare occasion that a group of us would hang out in college. That’s just how she gets in a crowd.
A part of me wants her to warm up to me the way her friends have. I’m not even sure why it matters. I guess I just don’t want her looking at me like I’m the enemy all the damn time. But she’s been giving me these cautious looks all night, like she’s trying to figure out my intentions.
Jessa notices the tense, fleeting eye contact Iris and I share. She leans an elbow on the table, her glassy eyes evidencing her wine buzz. “So you two were friends in college?” Jessa motions between Iris and me with her fork.
“Yes,” I respond, just as Iris says, “No.”
I turn to her. She turns to me. We stare each other down.
“You wouldn’t say we were friends?” My tone is light and teasing. The question is pretty much rhetorical since I already know the answer.
Emboldened by her wine, she lifts a brow challengingly. “If by ‘friends’ you mean that you excluded me from all social events, tried to come between my boyfriend and me, and generally made me feel shitty about myself, then yes, we were besties.”
Ouch!
I tilt my head to the side. I feel my megawatt grin fading down to barely a flicker of a smile. “Oh, come on. I wasn’t that bad.”
Above the fresh floral centerpiece in the middle of the table, she gives me a you’re-not-serious-right-now look. A flush sprouts up the length of her neck before spilling onto her cheeks. “Jude—you called me ‘Face-in-Book’ all throughout my freshman year. You refused to even learn my name. It was so juvenile.” After the words leave her lips, her eyes widen, telling me this is something she’d never admit sober.
And I’m glad she’s drunk.
At least she’s talking because it’s about time we get this animosity out in the open, address these fucking issues.
“Face-in-Book?” Lexi asks, her tone protective. “What does that mean?” Cannon’s wife may be new to the family but the fierce look on her face tells me if I say the wrong thing to her best friend, she will not hesitate to hand me my ass.
Iris’s pale blue peepers narrow on my face. “Face-in-Book? Oh, it was his not-so-subtle way of calling me unattractive.”
“Unattractive?!” I spit out.
She nods once, full of conviction. “I’m guessing he meant my face belonged behind a book since he couldn’t stomach looking at it.”
A horrified expression covers my sister-in-law’s face. I can feel Penny and Jessa tensing on either side of me. The playful mood of this dinner has evaporated under Iris’s ultra-red glare.
I focus on her, zeroing in on her angry features to the exclusion of everybody else in the room. “That’s what you thought Face-in-Book meant?”
She grabs the wine bottle and tops up her glass. “What else could it mean?” she challenges.
I want to address the ‘unattractive’ comment head-on because it’s the biggest load of crap I’ve heard all day.
Iris Merlini is not unattractive. Iris Merlini pulses goddess vibes every time she walks into the room. Her voluptuous body could make a grown man shaky on his knees. Her soft-looking lips make my own mouth tingle for a taste. Her timidness only makes her more endearing.
Those are the things I want to say.
But I can’t say that to my friend’s ex-wife. Especially not in front of all her girlfriends. Comments like that would send the ‘awkward meter’ into the stratosphere. So, I completely side-step the issue of my attraction to the woman and go with a safer response.
“Face-in-Book meant that you always preferred to have your head in your books instead of looking up and making connections with the people around you. I did not isolate you, Iris. You isolated yourself.”
Her jaw twitches as a response fights to come out. But she swallows it back, exercising her self-restraint. Like I should have a few seconds ago before I went on ranting.
Y’know what? This has been a lovely evening up until this point and I have a niggling feeling that if I stick around any longer, I’m just gonna fuck it all up. Better to quit while I’m ahead.
I rise up from the
