Picked(38)

Smiling at the fresh chunk of pineapple, I sipped my drink. Gale was right. It was the best Mai Tai I’d ever tasted, even if it were the first one. I could taste the rum, but the pineapple masked most of it. It was good, very good.

“I don’t blame you guys. I’d take this over tea, too. Gale, I meant to thank you for the delicious meal.”

“I can’t take credit for it. Britt took care of that. I just served it.”

I turned to look at her. What the hell was this? This wasn’t real life. I was in the game. Yes, that had to be it. This was too crazy to be real. “You are a wonderful cook.”

“Thank you,” she boasted.

This was a family. They talked around the room, including me in everything they talked about. Not one of them seemed to be jealous of Becker’s hand resting on my knee, the way he kept looking at me, or the way he sat right beside me, never leaving my side. I mostly listened, happily. That’s how I felt around them. Happy.

“Becker, I really need to get home. I have an early day tomorrow.” My stomach curled at the thought of spending the day with Matt again.

“What do you do?” Alana asked.

“Let’s save that for another night,” Becker stood, letting me off the hook. I was glad. I didn’t want to explain my boring job that I hated when they were all doing things they loved.

All three of them hugged me, hoping I came back. I wanted to. I wanted to come back every day, but I wouldn’t. There was no way I could get sucked into this mess. My dad would have a heart attack and die. My mother would roll over in her grave and my grandma would do backflips from hers. She would have been the only one okay with it. There wasn’t a more open-minded person than my grandma.

“If it makes you happy then it’s okay. That’s the one question you always ask yourself,” she’d say. My dad would never say that. He wasn’t even capable of thinking like that. His brain worked like the majority. Society wouldn’t understand. I guess I always was a little different in that sense. I didn’t get different.

I could remember walking down the sidewalk, holding my dad’s hand once when I was maybe seven or eight. He pulled me closer as we neared a pair of cross-dressing men. One of them wore bright purple pants with a long pink sweater. He hobbled on heels, flipping his wrists while he joked with his friend that was wearing a black mini skirt.

“That. That right there, Cassandra. That’s why you have to stay close to me. You see what’s out there?” he asked, jerking me along.

“Was his skirt too short?” I asked, looking up at him. I didn’t understand what he meant. They didn’t look different to me. I thought they were pretty and they were having fun. I didn’t understand the concentration on his face, either. He almost got it, but not quite. He went back to being prejudice the very next sentence.

“What do you make of all this?” Becker asked, taking my hand in his car.

“I’m at a loss for words.”

“I’m sure you are. Sleep on it.”

“Sleep on what?” What was he asking me?

“Sleep on us. I don’t want to stop seeing you. I love being around you.”

“Becker, you love three other women. I don’t think there’s room for me.”

“There is, Cass. Let me show you.”

I snorted. This was crazy. Show me? Show me what? “Matt will shoot you in the head.” That’s what came out of my mouth. I wasn’t even thinking that. What the hell?

“Matt’s not going to shoot me in the head. Your dad’s not going to shoot me in the head and life would move on. I’m sure of it. Nobody’s going to hate you for wanting to be happy.”

“I couldn’t be happy like that,” I assured him.

“Like what, Cass? Like Britney, Alana, and Christina?”

Well shit.

“Becker, I’m not like them.”

“Hmm, I wasn’t aware that you knew anything about them. What is it you think you know?”

“I think you sought them out, like you picked them. I read the file on you, remember? I know none of them have pleasant backgrounds.”

“So you think I used their misfortunes to manipulate the situation?”

“Well, didn’t you? Why don’t you have any wives with good backgrounds and families who love them?” I was just patting myself on the back five minutes before and there I was, the queen of closed-minded prejudice.

“I’m going to leave that one alone. How about you ask the girls that one? Ask me anything else. I’m sure you have questions.”

I had a million of them. I didn’t even know where to begin. “Why?”