The Pact(39)

“No fucking way,” says Nadine. “We’re all adults here, we shouldn’t be playing board games.”

“Just because you’re an ‘adult’,” Steph says, making quotes in the air with her fingers, “doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. Hell, I don’t feel like I’m thirty. Granted, I just turned thirty, but still. I feel like I’m twenty-five. Actually, no, I feel like I’m some indiscriminate age. And that’s okay. I would hate to feel my age if that means I can’t have fun anymore.”

“You’d probably sing a different tune if you had children,” Nadine points out with a tilt of her head.

Steph laughs. “I wouldn’t. Just because I’m one of the few among my female friends that doesn’t have children, doesn’t mean I’m any less – or more – mature than they are. Age doesn’t really mean anything these days anyway. Thirties are the new twenties, forties are the new thirties and so on and so on. We’re all still just human beings on a learning experience that I don’t think will ever end.” She catches herself and pauses, taking a breath. “I’m a lot different from the person I was ten years ago and yet there are so many things that stay the same. My brain is the same, my thoughts can be too. I’m sure in twenty years I’ll look back on my thirties and feel like I haven’t grown up in some ways and in others I’m sure it will seem like I was nothing but an overgrown child.”

“We all feel like that,” Penny assures her. “I’m thirty-three and I don’t act my age. So be it. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I don’t have kids or I’m not married.”

“And it’s not like you have children,” I say to Nadine, pointing out the obvious and feeling bad that she seems to be picking on Steph.

She gives me a level look. “Not yet.”

Oh, fucksticks.

“Okay, now things are awkward,” James says, almost gleefully.

I couldn’t agree more. We all reach for our drinks and it’s thanks to the obliviousness of Aaron (who won’t stop humming “Cuts like a Knife”) for breaking up the tension when he says, “Okay so are we playing Monopoly or what?”

For once, I find myself saying that Monopoly is an excellent idea and soon we’re all being greedy wankers fighting for the best real estate. Like most games of Monopoly, this one drags on for hours and hours. Penny is the first one to lose everything so she just turns to drinking and trying to strategize on behalf of everyone.

Nadine is the first to give up.

“I’m going to bed, it’s late,” she says as she stifles a yawn and gets out of her chair.

I eye all the houses she has lined up on the properties and the giant wad of colorful money. “But you’re winning. You’re totally Donald Trumping it.”

“I’m tired,” she says sharply, yawning again. She does look tired, her hair even more coppery red against her pretty pale face, and I guess it is eleven at night.

“Can I take over your holdings? I mean, if this was real life…”

“This is real life. You’re coming to bed. Now, Linden,” she shoots a look at Steph as she emphasizes that last word.

It still really bothers me when she orders me around and especially in front of my friends. I know it’s a bit caveman-esque and maybe stupid to have so much pride in such small things – like the way you’re spoken to – but I guess there is a wee bit of my father in me after all.

I can feel everyone staring at me, wondering if I’m going to get up and follow my girlfriend. I swallow hard and then look her in the eye. “I’m not tired. Think I’ll stay up for a bit. I won’t be too late.”

I hold her gaze because I’m not a man who backs down. But damn, she makes it hard. Her lower jaw is so tense I’m quite certain she’s going to take a bite out of me if not grind her bottom teeth right out.

“Fine,” she says and she whips around heading to the bedroom. To her credit, she doesn’t slam the door.

James is watching me with a “what’s up her ass?” expression on his face. Lately Nadine and I haven’t been hanging out with him all that much, so he hasn’t been a witness to the current downfall of our relationship.

This is the downfall, right? Fuck it, I don’t know anymore. I wait until the game resumes until I put my head in my hands and try to think.

I’m too drunk to think.

When I look back up, I see Steph watching me. She doesn’t look away. I can’t seem to read her eyes, even though they are so big and blue that they beg me to try and understand her. It could be that she’s pitying me, feeling sorry for me, that I’m with someone like that. It could be that she can see just how damn unhappy I really am underneath it all.