Page 23 of Falling into Place

“Happy birthday, sis.” Macy sidled up on his other side, and he put an arm around her. “And hello to our ringleader.”

Sasha addressed the twelve or so people gathered around. “This is my long-lost brother, whom most of you have heard about but never seen in the flesh.”

He waved awkwardly.

A chorus of hey s and welcome s went around before they were once again focused on the ongoing game, and the tension left him when their eyes moved on.

“Ready for trivia?” Macy asked Carly.

“Always.” She checked her watch and said, “Game starts in ten. Either of you want anything from the bar before we start?”

“Sure,” Brooks said. “I’ll come with you.”

“Grab me one of their hefeweizens, will you?” Macy asked him, and turned to find a seat.

Brooks and Carly wove through a few tables to the long bar top, found a place between other patrons to squeeze in and place their orders.

“Ever been here before?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No, seems cool, though. I bet it’s packed on weekends.”

“It’ll get pretty busy tonight, too. Trivia nights are always a hit.”

Some guy standing next to Carly leered at her from behind, and Brooks glared at him over her shoulder.

“Hey, you two!” A blonde with a bright smile approached. She held out her hand. “I’m Kendall. Nice to finally meet you, I’ve heard a lot about you from Sasha and Carly.”

“Don’t believe anything Sasha said.” He was curious what she’d heard from Carly, though.

Kendall laughed. “She said you’re a hot doctor. And unless you’re not really a doctor, I see no lies.”

“Kendall’s the shy one of the group,” Carly said, her tone teasing but with an undercurrent of something else. Brooks shot her a side-eye and almost whispered something in response, but Kendall had sidled up next to him and bumped his shoulder with hers.

“Buy me a beer?”

“Sure.” He hadn’t been flirted with so openly in a while. It felt nice, but he was keenly aware of Carly standing on his opposite side. “Order whatever you like.”

The bartender returned with his and Carly’s drinks, and Carly quickly walked away, leaving him and Kendall at the bar while she waited for hers.

She hopped up on a vacated barstool and rotated to face him. “Ever played bar trivia before?”

He shook his head. “I know Sasha loves it, though. I’m not surprised she picked this for her birthday. What kind of questions do they ask?”

“Sometimes there’s a theme, like Harry Potter or nineties music. Tonight’s just general trivia so there’ll be a mix of everything. Pop culture, history, music. Anything, really.”

“Good to know. Are there prizes?”

“Gift cards. But it’s more of a pride thing in our group. It’s all about bragging rights.”

They continued talking while they waited for her drink, and he learned she was an Ohio native, moved to Oklahoma in middle school, and a real estate agent.

She loved country music (did he know Chris Stapleton was playing downtown next week?) and was super into hot yoga (he was welcome to come with her next Wednesday to give it a try).

The conversation required virtually no help on his part to keep afloat, which was kind of nice.

When the bartender brought her beer, they stayed at the bar for a few minutes longer, but then Sasha called out across the tables that it was almost game time.

Once back with the group, he handed Macy her beer and took an open seat. Kendall sat beside him, and he forced himself not to look around to find where Carly had settled.

“Okay, everyone,” a voice boomed from overhead. “You know the drill.”

Heads nodded and everyone around him grabbed little pieces of paper and pencils that a restaurant employee had dropped in the center of every table.

“I actually don’t know the drill,” he whispered to Kendall. “Help a guy out?”

“Three people to a team. You’re with me, and let’s grab”—she half stood and tapped the shoulder of a guy to her left—“Jeff. Get over here.” Jeff shot her a dreamy-eyed look and happily obeyed.

“He wins a lot,” Kendall whispered as Jeff moved seats.

“Okay, so there are twenty questions. We pick a team name and they ask all the questions and we write the answers down before we turn in our papers. No googling or anything, and I’d keep your phone in your pocket if I were you.

People get pretty crazy if they think you’re cheating.

Usually takes them about twenty minutes to review everything and announce the winners.

Top three teams get prizes. In our group, top team gets a free round from the losers. ”

“Who cares about drinks,” Jeff put in. “It’s all pride.”

Brooks held out his hand. “Hey, man. Sorry if I ruin this for you. First timer.”

Jeff eyed him as they shook hands, but Kendall waved the game card in the air. “You’re a doctor. You’ve gotta be super smart.”

Chances were the questions weren’t about sedatives or metabolic acidosis, but ... “I’ll do my best.”

The emcee boomed out a welcome and a cheer went up, followed by everyone taking a drink of their chosen beverage. He went through a quick review of rules, rehashing the No Google portion with particular intensity.

“Told you,” Kendall whispered, and Brooks chuckled.

She smelled nice. Not quite as appealing as the vanilla scent he’d noticed whenever Carly was around, but still nice.

Carly was about two yards away, within his line of vision, but she wasn’t looking at him. She laughed at something the guy next to her said, and he almost smiled just watching her face light up.

“Here we go!”

The room went silent as everyone crouched together with their groups, tiny pencils in hand.

“Question one: Singer Stefani Germanotta is more commonly known by what name?”

Brooks hadn’t even processed the question before Kendall had furiously scribbled a response on their paper. He didn’t see a point in checking to see what she’d written, because he had no idea and wouldn’t know if it was correct or not.

“Question two: How much does the Chewbacca costume weigh?”

What the actual hell were these questions?

“Eight pounds,” Jeff whisper-yelled, straight faced. “It’s eight pounds. Write it down.”

“Got it.” Kendall rubbed her hands together. “Off to a good start.”

“Question three: How many times has Kim Kardashian been married?”

Seriously, how did anyone know any of these?

He glanced up and caught Carly looking straight at him. She was laughing.

He pointed at himself, feigning affront, as if to say, You laughing at me?

She didn’t even try to stop and nodded, then gave him a thumbs-up. You’re doing great.

He wanted to send her a snarky text but didn’t want Jeff to kick his ass. By the time he refocused on the question at hand he noticed Kendall had already written down three .

Brooks wasn’t even sure which one Kim was.

“Question four: What is the body’s largest organ?”

“Skin,” he said automatically, though based on the raucous laughter that filled the room, several people had suggested something very different.

“He’s a doctor. Listen to him,” Jeff said.

Apparently Brooks was too much of a doctor and Jeff was taking this too seriously for either of them to consider a dick joke along with the rest of the room.

That made him think of the guys who put that sort of thing on Carly’s style questionnaire, and he sought her out again. She must have felt his gaze because she glanced up. He pointed to his head and mouthed, brain?

Dick, she mouthed back, and shit, he knew exactly how that word sounded coming out of her mouth. He wished he didn’t find it so sexy, but lately there really wasn’t a thing about her he didn’t.

He only knew answers to two more questions—which country produced the most coffee in the world (Brazil) and which NBA team temporarily relocated to Oklahoma City after a natural disaster in their home state (New Orleans Hornets), but even so, he enjoyed himself.

Kendall knew everything related to pop culture and Jeff had a lot of history and geographic knowledge, and he thought they had a pretty decent chance of ending up in the top three.

Kendall turned in their game card with their team name—Doc Martin, which he had to admit was pretty clever and made him wonder why no one called him that at work—proudly written at the top.

The entire birthday group reconvened to hang out together as the trivia hosts tabulated the answers, asking what other teams had put for various questions.

“You knew the basketball one, didn’t you?” Carly asked, slipping onto the bench beside him.

“Yup. And you knew the most expensive fabric in the world, didn’t you? What is it?”

“Vicuna wool. It’s something like two grand per yard.”

“Holy shit. Never buy that for me.”

She snorted. “I wouldn’t even buy that for myself.”

“We’d probably make a pretty good trivia team, you and me.”

“Yeah, I’d carry us most of the way, but you’d swoop in with the weird anatomy and sports questions.”

He wanted to argue he knew some pop culture stuff, but she was right. He stopped by the bar for another beer, and by the time he made it back to the tables, the emcee was once again tapping the mic.

“Here we go, everyone. In third place with seventeen questions correct is ...” He paused dramatically for several beats. “Let’s Get Trivial!”

A group of people several tables away jumped up and yelled in celebration as everyone else clapped.

“With eighteen questions correct, second place goes to ... I Am Smartacus!” After allowing that team to celebrate, audio of a drumroll played over the speakers.

“And we actually have two teams with near perfect scores tonight, giving us a tie for first place. Congratulations to the Red Hot Trivia Peppers and Doc Martin, each with nineteen points!”

Jeff leaped across the table with a whoop to throw an arm around Brooks’s neck, knocking over several thankfully empty beer glasses in the process.

“Whoa. Yeah, great job, man.” Brooks clapped him on the back. The second Jeff released him, a very different body pressed up against his other side.

“We won!” Kendall said excitedly, giving him a squeeze. “You won your first-ever trivia game!”

Brooks grinned and hugged her back, weirdly proud of the accomplishment.

Sasha gave him a thumbs-up from across the table, and over Kendall’s shoulder he happened to catch Carly looking their way, a strange expression on her face.

Before his brain could really process it, though, she met his gaze and immediately smiled and gave him exaggerated jazz hands.

Kendall pulled away and her face took over his field of vision, blocking Carly, who stood in a small group several feet away. “That was fun.”

“Yeah, it was.”

“So, I have to be honest. I’ve followed along with your dating posts on Sasha’s blog.”

“Oh, yeah? What do you think?” He hoped it was real and sort of funny and was giving some local businesses recognition, but part of him wondered if all it did was make him look like a pathetic dating novice. Or a huge geek. Or both.

“I love it. I recently joined LoveInTheCity, too, and have had a few less-than-stellar dates.” She looked up at him from under long lashes, twisting her lips to the side. “Actually, I’d been thinking about asking Sasha to introduce us. After tonight, I really think we’d have fun together.”

He sensed what was coming and wondered where Carly was or if she could overhear their conversation. Which was stupid, because why did it matter?

“What do you think? Will you take me out, Dr. Martin?”

He regarded her smiling, confident, upturned face, certain she was very different from what he considered to be his type.

If they’d had a lot in common from the dating site questions, they’d have been matched through the software, but he hadn’t seen her name anywhere.

She was outgoing, loud, and fun. She was a lot like Sasha, come to think of it, which explained why they were friends.

Either way, he’d enjoyed hanging out with her tonight, so what did he have to lose?

“Sure, I’d love to.”