章節 2: the game
It's been an hour of small talk. I'm bored out of mind, and by the looks of it, so is Kacey.
She checks her phone for the time and groans. I look at the other people here, all pristine and looking perfectly happy with the goings-on of the group. It seems as if they'd be able to go on forever if they needed to.
Out of boredom, I've resorted to staring at Ryden and Sophia. By now, I'm fairly certain that Sophia has feelings for Ryden and that he barely even knows she exists. He's so oblivious to her remarks that its kind of sad to see how often she gets brushed aside.
I can't help but applaud Sophia's valiant efforts. I would've given up and gone home crying a minute in. But I guess this is what makes me different from the people here. They persist through everything while I just put my head down and take whatever comes at me.
Ryden doesn't seem to actually realize that Sophia likes him, he listens to what she says and gives appropriate responses than needed, but never engages in a private conversation with her or looks at her for longer than needed.
Why doesn't he notice? What could make a man so disinterested in her? I wonder. He might have a girlfriend, that would explain everything. I'd ask Kacey but we're all sitting so close together that everyone would be able to hear our conversation, and no amount of explaining away would be able to fix a scenario where a group of friends hears the random new girl ask if the hot guy is single or not.
I decide to just sit on my curiosity for a few more hours. I scoot closer to Kacey and lean over her side to tap on her phone screen. A picture of her and her fiance, Reese pop up along with the time. It's only been five more minutes. I think I'm going insane.
Sophia clears her throat, "It looks like some people," I look away guiltily," are ready to move on to the main event of today.
Main event? I thought that the main event of the day would just be sitting around and talking. Judging by the looks on everyone elses faces, they thought the same thing.
Venice raises an eyebrow, "There's a main event?"
Sophia smiles widely at her, "Yes, there is a main event. We're all adults here, we don't have to sit around and obediently talk to each other every year while our parents watch us from afar."
"No one is observing us this year, I made sure of that this year."
Jonathan whistles, "Thank you Miss Hostess. I appreciate not having my old man breathing down my neck, forcing me to keep it civil with everyone here."
Sophia chuckles, "You know, I'd still prefer if you were still relatively civil with us. But save your thanks for later, I think you'll like what I've planned for today."
Jonathan sits back with his arms folded, "Well? I'm waiting for the grand reveal."
"I've prepared a game for us this time." Sophia walks away from the seats and returns with a small basket and a few pieces of paper.
"Since our parents are always using us to build relationships with each other in order to receive different trades, I thought why not do the same thing?"
She puts the basket and paper on the small table standing in the middle of all the seats. I take a closer look at the basket and notice that there are a few pens in it.
"We are going to be playing a game today. The rules are simple, write down what you want on a sheet of paper, we'll then take turns taking out a slip and give whoever wrote it whatever they want. The papers can either be signed or anonymous."
"So like truth or dare but without the truth?" I blurt out.
The moment the words leave my mouth I feel like a dumbass. Of course its not like truth or dare, its a much fancier game that this group are relating to their childhood and I just had to blurt out some random bullshit about a party game. I look down and twist my hands trying to sink into the ground.
Everyone turns to look at me, there's a moment of silence before a male voice says, "Yes, that seems like a good analogy."
I look up towards the voice and come face to face with Ryden. He's looking at me steadily, and his voice almost feels as if he's silently trying to tell me that I shouldn't be embarrassed. I feel my heart tremble and I stutter out something unintelligible.
"Seems simple enough, Dylan, you in?" Jonathan asks Dylan.
Dylan heaves out a sigh, "Yeah, I'm in." He looks at Sophia, "What happens if we don't do the trade?"
Sophia stares at him, "What do you mean don't do the trade." She looks around at everyone sitting here, "Come on, we're all friends here. I'm sure no one would ask anything too outrageous, I'm trusting that everyone is going to hold their side of the deal."
Venice and Cat frown, and Kacey shifts uncomfortably. I'm also starting to feel uncomfortable. Everyone here is capable of keeping their side of the trade as long as they want to, but if I get a ridiculous deal, I won't be able to do anything.
Sophia passes out paper and pens, she's short one pen. She obviously was not prepared for me to come as a guest. I feel both relieved and silly that I'd even be included in a game like this. I'm not one of them, why would anyone ask me to join them? But before I can continue laughing at myself, Kacey shoves a paper into my hand.
"You can use my pen after I'm done with it."
Oh no. This is not going to end well, I can already feel it.
Kacey hands her pen to me, its warm to the touch, but my heart feels cold. What am I supposed to write? I can't possibly ask for anything business related or for anything ridiculously stupid like "take a shot" or something.
Everyone else finishes writing and its just me left. I quickly scribble down something random and fold my sheet. I'm about to toss it into the bucket when I suddenly get a flood of embarrassment. I uncap my pen and when no one is looking, put a small dot on the paper. I'll just retrieve it when the basket gets passed to me.
Sophia gets up smiling and shakes the filled basket around. She puts a delicate hand into the basket and draws out a slip, she looks at Venice and smiles, handing her a slip. Cat gets one, and then Dylan, Jonathan, and Ryden. Finally Kacey gets one before its on to me. I wasn't expecting to not be able to pick my own slip, my heart sinks as I realize that this sheet of paper does not have a dot on it.
I unwillingly grab it out of Sophia's hand. I turn it around nervously and my heart lifts, on the back of the slip is a pen dot.
Sophia softly returns to her seat and tells everyone to open their slips. I open mine expecting to see my familiar handwriting. But instead, I see an elegant scrawl with the words, "Marry one of the single people in the room."
I blink hard. This has to be a joke. I reread the slip, whoever wrote this had to be joking. Kacey looks over my shoulder to read the slip and her jaw drops. She stands up waving the slip around, "Who wrote this? Are you crazy?"
Jonathan leans in and reads it out loud. "Marry one of the single people in the room." He guffaws, Kacey rounds on him, "Did you write this?"
He quickly raises his hands, "No of course not, I'd never do something like that."
Kacey raises an eyebrow, "Really?"
"Really! I swear!" He says backing away from her, "that doesn't look like my handwriting, does it?"
Kacey looks at him suspiciously while I sit there shocked. Sophia also looks shocked. Regaining her composure, she asks commandingly,"Who wrote this? I was hoping everyone would be taking this seriously, but clearly somebody did not want to respect my wishes."
Everyone stays silent.
Cat breaks the awkwardness with, "Shall I read mine out?"
Everyone murmurs their ascent. Hers is relatively simple, take a photoshoot with Venice's company.
Dylan goes next, he got an anonymous one asking or everyone to get a new car. Dylan rolls his eyes at the uncreativity of the prompt.
He whispers something into Jonathan's ears and Jonathan's eyebrows jump up. He quickly sweeps his eyes over the rest of the group, landing them a second longer on Venice. She cooly looks back at him with a neutral expression. He looks away and grins at Dylan before slightly patting him on the shoulder.
Jonathan gets Kacey's, its just asking for a donation to her wedding, he agrees to talk to her later.
Ryden gets an anonymous one asking him to embarrass himself publicly. We all laugh at this one.
Kacey gets Rydens, it just asks for a collaboration with Ryden's company and their company on a few designs. Kacey asks if Ryden would like to use her wedding as a promotion and Ryden says he'll think about it.
And then its back to me. I glance at Sophia, wondering if she'll read out her slip. I already know what's on it, it could only be mine. But it looks as if she has no intention of doing so, and is staring at me instead.
I fidget around nervously, Jonathan coughs and says, "Just putting it out here, me and Dylan are taken."
Venice raises her hand, "So am I." She glances at Cat, "You too?" Cat nods and turns to Sophia. Sophia stiffly turns her head away in no. Kacey gestures at her ring and slowly turns to Ryden who stays silent.
My heart speeds up. Everyone else has kept their promise, what am I supposed to do? I'd never thought of marriage, let alone marriage before I graduated from school. There's no way either Ryden or Sophia would even agree to this ridiculous proposal. I glance at both of them hopefully to see if they'll speak up and reject the slip, but no one says anything.
"Uh-" I say, "I um, wasn't expecting..." I trail off, too nervous to speak.
Kacey speaks up for me instead, "She wasn't expecting to come here for this kind of bullshit. I don't know which one of you played this prank, or if its not a prank its seriously fucked in the head. Either way, shes not going to be playing around with you, this slip is null."
I breathe out a sigh of relief. I make eye contact with Ryden before quickly turning my head away.
"That's unfortunate," Jonathan says.
"Whats unfortunate?" Kacey snaps.
"Nothing, I just meant, Ryden's family has been looking to marry him off."
"Well then they can go and marry him off somewhere else. Not here." She huffs.
"Thats easier said than done isn't it? Ryden is so picky I don't even think he's been in a relationship before."
"So? That's not Lacie's problem."
"You're right. It's not." Jonathan says, removing himself from the conversation.
I look over at Ryden. He's never been in a relationship before? I'm surprised. I would've thought that someone as attractive as him would have had multiple girlfriends. But then again, Kacie says I'm super pretty, but I've never dated before either.
Ryden stays silent, pondering, I wonder what he's thinking. Or if hes just pretending to think so that he doesn't have to join in this awkward conversation?
Sophia spoke up, "Ryden should be able to choose who he marries, marriage is something off the tables when it comes to the trading game."
"And Lacie, Lacie should be able to choose too." Kacie piped up.
"Yes...Lacie too." Sophia shot a glance at me. "Lets just forget about this and enjoy the rest the night. Help yourselves to the bar if you would like."
People stood up and milled towards the bar to mix themselves a concoction. Sophia headed towards Ryden as he stood up and murmured something to him. He shot her a stern look that shut down whatever she had been asking and strode over to the bar.
Kacey and I joined the group, Kacey mixing, and I drinking. As I drink, I look over at Ryden. I'm mostly relieved that the awkward situation had ended. But a tiny, tiny, part of me feelsa little bit of regret. If..if they had gone through with the dare, he could have been mine...
Who wouldn't want Ryden to be theirs?
I glance over at Sophia, who is openly staring at Ryden with a glass of wine in hand.
She certainly wouldn't mind. I think.
I glance at Ryden and my heart stops. He's looking right at me.
Well, he certaintly would mind. Sophia will just have to accept the fact that some other lucky lady will be getting that fine specimen of a man. Iturned away.
I wonder who it will be?
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