Chapter 8: Dinner and Questions
2923 Words
Lil's POV
“So, wait your ex-boyfriend cheated on you with multiple people and when you found out, you embarrassed him by sending a photo of him in bed with a different woman to his parents,” Jazz asked laying on the bed.
“Yes” I replied from the couch.
“His parents took your side and apologized to you for their son's behavior.”
“Yeah. They also took me out to eat for dinner and helped me collect my things from his place as well.” I laughed.
“Damn…did anything else happen?”
“Well, he doesn’t have a car at the moment, and he is bald.”
“What!” she shouted and sat up straight. "What happened? Did you do it?”
I was laughing so hard since it really did sound like something I would do but didn’t this time. “I told the guys and Amber what happened. They went and destroyed his car and Amber put Nair in his shampoo.”
“Wait, how did she get into his apartment to put that in the shampoo?”
“She picked the lock.”
“Dang, they had your back and were pissed.”
“I told them thanks but don’t do that again.” I paused and then grinned at her. “Without me.”
“You are evil,” Jazz said with a laugh. If she only knew how true that statement really was. I could tell her stories of things I have done for work that would give her nightmares for months if not years.
“Enough about my sad social life, what about you? I remember that you were into a guy in one of your classes and were thinking of asking out.” While we don’t always see each other, sometimes we would text, call or video chat with each other about what all we have been up to.
“You know the phrase all the good guys are taken?”
“Who doesn’t know that phrase?”
“I got the courage to ask only to find out that he already had a girlfriend, so that bummed me out. So, like you, I am single.”
“Sorry girl, you seemed really excited.”
“I was. Oh, well.” She looked off into space for a moment. “Let’s head downstairs. I bet dinner is almost ready.”
We both headed downstairs to see if dinner was done yet or not. I hope it is ready soon because the smell from the kitchen was heavenly.
Jazz poked her head in the kitchen. “How much longer we are dying from hunger?”
“About 10 more minutes. You will survive,” Damien said.
“That’s too long. We are going to die right now”. She pretended to faint. Which just made me laugh.
“We will be fine waiting,” I said, grabbing Jazz’s arm.
“Can you tell the guys that food will be ready soon? They are in the library.”
“Sure Ms. Dramatic will help me tell them.” I dragged her with me to the library she showed me earlier. The door was open now, and I could hear the guys chatting.
Jazz skipped into the library and went over to the guys who were sitting at a little table. “What are you guys doing?” She asked.
I was busy looking at all the books in amazement. I went over and read some of the books' titles off the spine.
“Those are family journals and dairies.”
“What?” I was in my own little world.
“Those books you are looking at,” Luka pointed to the shelf. “It's full of family journals and dairies.”
“This whole shelf?” I was shocked.
“Well, this side of the library,” he pointed to the right wall. “It is all family journals.”
“This wall is full of informational books that they have gotten over the years,” Aaron said, pointing to the back wall.
“Yep, the back wall is a historical wall, so your kind of thing,” Luka said with a smile. He remembered that from earlier. “The last wall is just a bunch of random books,” he said, pointing at the left-hand side of the room. I walked over and saw that they were playing a card game.
“What game are you two playing?”
“We are playing 21. What did Luka mean by your kind of thing with the back wall?” Aaron asked, looking up from his cards.
“Lil is a history buff and has degrees in history,” Jazz answered for me, pulling out a chair to sit on.
“Oh wow that’s cool.”
“By the way, the guys said dinner would be ready soon,” I told them.
“Okay” Aaron said, looking at me with a smile. I looked at the deck and looked at his cards and Lukas. I smirked, knowing that Luka was about to win.
“What are you smirking about?”
“Nothing”
“Lil is excellent at card games. I have never seen her lose a game,” Jazz told them.
They both looked at me, setting their cards down. I just shrugged, “I’ve lost games before, but I do like card games.”
The guys looked at each other, then tossed all the cards into a pile and Aaron collected them and started shuffling. “Let’s see how good you are.” He smirked.
“Okay, are we playing for something or just for fun?” I asked, pulling out a chair to sit on.
“How about the winner can ask any question they want?” Aaron said while passing out cards to everyone.
“I’m not playing but will watch,” Jazz stated.
“What is with you guys and all the questions? Sure that’s fine. Jazz, since you are not playing, you can pass the cards out if we ask for a card.” Jazz smiled at me and grabbed the deck from Aaron.
We each had two cards and each took a look at our cards.
“Okay, Luka hit or pass?” Jazz asked.
“Hit” Jazz flipped a card over that we could all see.
“Hit, pass or fold”
“Dang it fold,” Luka said, guess he went over the magic number 21.
“Girly”. Jazz smiled at me. “Hit or pass”
I had a 5 and an 8, so I had some room before getting to 21. “Hit”
She flipped the card over for all to see, and it was a 7. So, I was still under 21 but didn’t want to push it. I looked up at Jazz, who was waiting for me for my next response. “Pass”.
“Okay, finally, Aaron hit or pass?”
“Hit”, he responded, looking at me.
Jazz flipped him over a card, and it was a king, which was 10 points. He looked and saw the card too. Then he turned back to me and said “Hit.”
Jazz flipped over another card and it was a 3. Now he had two cards showing that gave him 13 points and made me wonder what cards he had. I made sure to have my poker face on so he wouldn’t see my emotion.
“Pass or fold,” Jazz asked.
“Pass”
“Okay, you two show us the cards.” We both flipped over our cards.
He had a 4 and a 2 plus 13 from the cards, making him have a total of 19 points.
“My girl wins by having 20 points,” Jazz laughed.
“Guys, food is ready.”
“About time,” Jazz said, running out the door. I laughed at her. I stood up and started to head to the door.
“Since you won, you get to ask a question,” Aaron said, coming and walking beside me. Luka was walking behind me.
“Okay, how old are you?” I was curious. They knew my age seemed only fair. I know their age. We started heading to the kitchen.
“Marcus, Damien and Aaron are 30, while I'm 29 and will be 30 soon though,” Luka answered.
“Huh. I thought you guys would be older than that.” I was thinking they were all about 35 or so. I guess I was wrong.
“What were you wrong about?” Marcus asked when we stepped into the kitchen.
“Oh, I won a card game, so I got to ask a question, so I asked how old they were,” I said while heading to the dining room. "I thought you were older than you were. Luka said he was 29 and the rest of you are 30. I thought you were all 35 or older.”
“Oh” Marcus replied. I guess he didn’t expect to hear me say that. We all sat down in the same seats we sat in this morning. Marcus passed me a bowl and the others grabbed other bowls and plates, and we all filled our plates with the food. The food looked amazing, and I still found it interesting that these guys could cook.
I took a bite of the pasta….there were no words for how good it was. “Wow! This is the best food I have ever eaten.”
“Glad you like it. It's an old family recipe,” Damien said, smiling. It looked like he was blushing too.
“Thank you both for cooking.”
“Your welcome.” They said at the same time.
We all ate in silence until Luka broke it. “So how was work?”
“Mine was boring. I had two meetings back to back. We are trying to expand the company and running into problems,” Marcus said.
“I just needed to make a few phone calls to distribution centers and then my day was done, so a nice short work day for me,” Damien answered next.
“My day was stressful, and I had to give several patients bad news and then did a quick surgery this afternoon,” Aaron said, looking down at his food.
“Patients?” I asked.
“Oh, sorry I am a surgeon,” he said, looking up from his food.
I was now curious, “What kind?”
“I am a sports medicine surgeon, so I work on people's hips, knees, ankles, so basically, if it’s the lower half of the body, I work on that.”
“Wow, that’s cool. Though sorry you had to give your patients bad news. That is never an easy thing to tell or even receive,” I said. It was then noticed it got really quiet, so I looked up to see I was being stared at. “What?”
“Were you told bad news?” Aaron asked.
“She was told about 7 years ago that she would never be able to walk without a cane,” Jazz stated for me. I didn’t like talking about it, but she had been there for me during that time.
“What?” Luka asked, shocked.
“I have terrible knees, and my knee caps like to pop out of place and one of them I had to have surgery on. The doctor said I would always have the pain and would walk with a cane when I was about 30. The pain part is true. I still have issues with them, but I hate when people tell me something like I can’t do this or that or even make it sound like I am weak, so I did really intense physical therapy, and I am doing fine. I only see that doctor every 2 yrs or so.” I finished saying everything and put a bite in my mouth.
“Well, at least you are doing okay now. Right?” Aaron asked and I shook my head yes.
“I do have a question though,” Aaron said. “When you were outside earlier you got off the phone fast and seemed worried why?”
I choked on my food. Jazz patted my back. “You, okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, taking a sip of water. I didn’t think he would have noticed that, since he seemed far enough away not to see or hear me. “It was a work call.”
“Is that why someone named B.E. was blowing up your phone?” Jazz asked.
“He is my boss. B.E. stands for Boss Erik,” I said calmly and not making eye contact with anyone.
“You said he was a coworker.”
“I said whatever I thought would get me my phone back fast. My boss has a rule about not letting people answer my phone when he calls." I really need to be careful about what I said. “I am sorry I lied to you, Jazz."
“Your boss sounds like a control freak,” she stated.
“He is, but I am used to it.” I laughed. “I live with three interesting and sometimes crazy roommates.”
“Yeah, that is true. They are interesting.” Jazz agreed.
Buzz, buzz, buzz.
I pulled out my phone and saw a message from Drake. Speak of the devil.
‘Sorry to bother you while you are spending time with Jazz, but I wanted to know if I could have some of your whiskey.’
I rolled my eyes and replied to him, “No, you cannot have my whiskey.”
‘Please’
“No, you want more booze. Go get yourself some more."
‘Fine, tell Jazz I said Hi.’
Looked at Jazz. “Drake says Hi.”
“Tell D I said Hi back.”
“Doing that now. You know they love you. You will need to come over to see them before leaving.” I told her while telling Drake that she said Hi.
“Is that your boyfriend?” Marcus asked, looking mad.
I put my phone back in my pocket. “Drake is not my type. He is more like a brother.”
“He could have feelings for you even if you are not attracted to him.”
“Well, I’m not an Asian, and I am not a guy with long blonde hair, so I know I am not his type,” I replied.
“Wait… Drake goes both ways. I thought he was gay,” Jazz asked, shocked.
“He prefers guys, but he dated a girl two months ago. Though it didn’t last long.”
“So, you really have no problem with gays, lesbians and all that,” Aaron asked, shocked.
“I have no problem with it. Like I said, as long as they are happy, I don’t care. Besides, my other roommate, Amber, is also bi. Matt and I are the only straight people in the house,” I said, leaning back in my chair.
“WAIT! Amber also goes both ways?” Jazz screamed.
“Yep. She thought you were hot when she met you and asked me if you date girls. I told her you only like guys. She was so sad but still thinks you're hot and cool to hang out with as just friends.”
“Really…..good to know. I will take that as a compliment,” Jazz said, smiling.
“Wait, you said Matt? You live with two guys,” Damien asked.
“Yes, I live with two guys. The house we live in is Matt's, but we all help with paying bills and for groceries.” I told them but could tell they wanted to know his relationship information too. “Mattew or Matt is straight like I said, and I am his type. I also think he may like me, but I don’t see him like that, so even if he asked me out I would turn him down.”
"Smart girl dating roommates and coworkers is never a good idea,” Jazz said.
“Yeah, I learned about the coworker the hard way,” I told her.
“So, you are single?” Aaron asked.
“She is single. She told me so earlier.” Luka answered for me.
“Yep, I am, but I just had a bad break-up, so I'm not looking to date for a while,” I added.
Buzz, buzz, buzz
I grabbed my phone and saw a message from B.E.
‘EMERGANCY CALL NOW!’
“s**t”
“What?”
“Did I say that out loud?” I asked.
“Yeah." Jazz told me.
"Everything is alright, I think, but I need to make a phone call.” I stood up. “Do I need to put my dishes in the sink?”
“Your good.”
“Okay, thanks, I am going to go upstairs to make my call.” I wanted Jazz to know where I would be.
“Okay, when you finish, why don’t you and I work on making some cookies?”
“Sounds like a plan.” I smiled at her, heading upstairs to have what would be a very stressful and bad phone call with my boss.
- Writer
