Page 6 of Fun Together (Make Romance #1)

Eli

“It’s a beautiful morning.”

“Perfect conditions for me to wipe the court with you,” Evie says, plucking the strings of her tennis racket.

I do a few stretches and warm up exercises in an effort to make this as painless as possible. “That’s a little brutal for ten o’clock in the morning, even for you. This is already unfair enough.”

“You didn’t have to agree to this.”

“Is it true you made your own teammate cry?” She played on the club tennis team at UNC, and I’d never tell her, but I’m a little scared I’ll be reduced to tears after this.

She tightens her ponytail and adjusts her visor. “How about we also make a bet on whether I can make you cry today, old man?”

“I’m only four years older than you,” I point out.

She serves the ball, and it flies past my face before I even register that she’s hit it.

“Could’ve fooled me. You’ve got the reflexes of a slug.”

I bounce up and down on the balls of my feet. “Maybe if you’d give me some time to warm up first.”

I’m pretty sure I hear her mutter the words, “an elderly slug,” under her breath. To be fair, when I hit the ball back to her, I think my shoulder joint actually creaks.

“I thought you were supposed to be the athletic one in the family,” she says as she serves again, only slightly less aggressively.

I still don’t hit it.

It stings a little, even though I know she’s joking.

Because she’s right. I played every sport I possibly could growing up and it always came easily to me.

I just haven’t felt like doing much since I’ve been back.

Although, I think I accidentally joined a local rec softball league last week when I was walking our dog Pebbles at the park.

I saw some people playing, started talking to the guy on the first base, and suddenly I’m on the team.

“I like to play sports because they’re fun, not because I want to see if I can give my opponent irreparable emotional trauma.”

She rolls her eyes and serves an ace. “Why can’t you do both?”

We play a couple of sets, and I somehow manage to win a few games, which momentarily gets my hopes up. Turns out, she was only taking pity on me, and it wasn’t anything to do with my own stroke of luck.

Eventually, she serves for match point and when I barely shuffle over to make contact with the ball it bounces off the side of my racket into the bushes behind the fence.

“That’s one way to put yourself out of your misery,” she says.

“You’re a humble winner, as always,” I say as I walk over to the bushes where the ball landed. I see that I’m not the only one who’s met this fate. “It’s like a tennis ball burial ground over here. How do I know which one is yours?”

“It has my initials on it.” Of course it does, because Evie would never want to risk someone else taking her stuff.

“Do you really need this tennis ball?” I ask, narrowly avoiding taking a branch to the eye as I dig around.

“Tennis balls don’t grow on trees. I’m a poor college grad, remember?”

After digging around for a few seconds, I finally spot it and toss it to her.

“This isn’t mine,” she sniffs.

“It says ‘E.M.’ on it.”

“Must be someone else with my initials.” She throws it back to me. “Check again.”

“You better not be fucking with me,” I shout over my shoulder as I go back to sift through the balls again.

She doesn’t answer and when I look over, I see that she’s sitting down on the court next to a jug of orange juice and a thermos.

“What are you doing?”

She pours a splash of orange juice into the thermos. “You were taking so long I decided to go ahead and make refreshments.”

“I really hate you sometimes.” I hold up the ball I found initially. “This is your ball, isn’t it?”

“You should learn not to be so gullible.”

“You should learn not to be the worst.”

She takes a couple of red solo cups out of her bag. “Want a mimosa?”

I sit down to join her, taking the cup from her hand. “All’s forgiven if you have food in that bag, too.”

She looks at me like she’s wondering how I could doubt her, and hands me a sausage biscuit. “You find a place to live yet?”

“I just found out last night that I have to move out. And how do you even know about them talking to me about that?”

“Mom told me. And I thought that would have been obvious since you moved back. Were you going to live in our parents’ basement forever?”

“No, it’s just not that easy. And it’s fucking expensive. Maybe once I have a few paychecks under my belt.”

“How is the new job going, by the way?”

“Good so far. You know how the first week is, just meeting everyone and doing orientation stuff.”

“You’re doing recruiting still?”

“Yeah, basically just phone screening job applicants and setting them up with interviews if I think they’re a good fit.”

“So, you get to talk all day? You probably love that.”

Theoretically, I should love that. But calling people and going through the motions of asking the same questions over and over gets old.

And I hate sitting at a desk for hours. But I’m anxious to do well in this role after losing my last job.

I can’t let myself fall into the bad habits I did before.

Apparently, companies don’t like it when you show up to work late multiple times a week, and also fail to meet any of your performance goals.

“Everyone has been pretty cool so far. Someone I know from college works there, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Andrew’s girlfr—ex-girlfriend.” I’m still working through the fact that they aren’t together anymore. The only thing Andrew really told me about their breakup was that it just didn’t work out. Leave it to him to be extremely vague and pragmatic about something that would devastate most people.

She visibly perks up. “Andrew’s single? Interesting.”

“Don’t even start,” I warn her. Ever since Andrew came along with us on a family beach trip ten years ago, Evie has had heart eyes for him. If a fourteen-year-old Evie terrified him as much as she did, I don’t even want to know what twenty-three-year-old Evie would do to him.

She shrugs and refills our cups. “Okay, let’s talk about the party.”

“Why is this party such a big deal to you?”

Evie has always loved a project, but she seems to be a little too into this party for some reason.

“It just is. Last week I was going through old photo albums and found a picture taken of them after dad proposed. I think we should re-enact that moment by having a sunset ceremony that you’ll officiate just as the sun makes its descent below the horizon. Then, we’ll have a?—”

“Officiating? I thought I just had to give a toast.”

“Yeah, basically the same thing.” She brushes me off. “I’m working on the final guest list. I’m assuming you won’t be bringing anyone?”

“Why do you assume that?”

“Name one time you’ve been serious enough with someone to bring them home to meet the family.”

“What about Hannah? We were together for six months.” I didn’t bring her home to meet the family because . . . well, she might have a point there.

“Six months is nothing.”

“Half a year is not nothing.” It was long enough for it to sting when I saw her cuddled up to another guy at our favorite cocktail spot. I stood there in shock watching them before they noticed me. He was twirling his hand in her hair mindlessly, like it was something they did every day.

After I confronted her, she said she was sorry, but she’d been trying to find a way to end things with me because she didn’t think I was serious about her. Or about anything, really.

“You have no goals,” she’d said. “I need to be with someone who is driven and wants the same things I do.”

“I have goals,” I protested. “I want the things you want.”

She just shook her head as if she pitied me. “You have a terrible way of showing it then.”

It felt awful that she saw me that way, but did I do anything to disprove what she said? I don’t want to be the kind of guy who comes across that way to the person he’s with.

Maybe I should start dating seriously again. I had a brief fling with someone right when I got back, but it’s been months since I’ve gone on a date.

The thought of meeting someone new used to excite me.

I’d live for those initial moments of learning and discovering, finding what they like or don’t.

But I can’t help but feel a little exhausted at the prospect of another night spent swiping left or right, coming up with a clever opening line.

If I meet someone now, I want it to be organic.

Two hands accidentally brushing against each other as we both reach for the same avocado at the grocery store.

Or as I’m handed a vibrating box.

I wonder if Faye is single.

It’s a thought I’ve had several times since I saw her yesterday. A thought I need to stop having. I think I’d rather get back on Hinge than get back to nurturing a crush on someone I shouldn’t.

“Well, give me a plus one. I’m bringing someone.”

Surely, I can find someone that I’d like to bring to the party in the next month.

She raises her eyebrows. “Okay. What about Andrew?”

“What about him?”

“You think he would come? I’d love to catch up with him.”

“Aren’t you already dating someone? Dylan? David?”

“You know his name is Daniel,” she says, making herself another mimosa. “We broke up last night.” She says this so casually that it takes me a second to register it.

“Fuck, Eves. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

She sniffs. “I’m fine.” She puts on a tough face, but she was with him for a few years so there’s no way she feels as casual about it as she sounds.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She balls up the biscuit wrapper and shoves it in the paper bag. “Let’s see. Do you want to hear about how I saw him texting another girl while we were at the gym last night? Or how he had the nerve to break up with me because he said I’m just not meeting him where he’s at right now ?”

“What does that even mean?”

“Fuck if I know.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe it’s for the best, though.”

“Of course it’s for the best. But I should have been the one to end things with him. The fucking nerve of this guy.”

I want to laugh, but am smart enough to hold it in, at her only being upset about the breakup because she wasn’t in control of it.

At least that explains her above-average aggression during the tennis game.

“So, back to the party. I’ll send Andrew an invite just in case.”

“I think he’ll still be on his trip.” Which reminds me, I’m supposed to meet him in—“What time is it?”

She checks her phone. “Noon. Why?”

I hop up to grab my stuff. “I was supposed to be at Andrew’s place thirty minutes ago.” I’m taking care of his plants while he’s gone, and he wants to walk me through everything I need to do to keep them alive.

“Tell him I’ll send him an invite just in case!” Evie shouts as I jog to my car.