Boobs, or Violet, makes another face. It rivals one of April’s. “Not that kind of friend. I’m married.”
Violet holds out her left hand and nearly blinds me with the giant rock on her ring finger. Her nails are pretty and fancy. I can’t have long nails because of my job. They also can’t have polish on them. Hers are painted in Chicago’s colors.
She points to the girl beside her, Lily. “And this one is living with Balls.”
At my furrowed brow, Lily elaborates. “I’m Randy Ballistic’s girlfriend. We live together.”
“In his house,” Violet says. They both snicker.
“Am I supposed to understand what’s going on here?” I ask.
“Um, probably not. Sorry.” Lily looks apologetic.
“We’re here to stage an intervention,” Violet declares.
“I still don’t understand.”
“Me either.” April moves to stand beside me. She crosses her arms over her chest. She’s not very threatening, though. She’s too sweet looking, and gangly.
“To get you and Lance back together,” Lily explains. She looks at Violet. “Maybe this wasn’t a great idea. I think we just look like nutters right now.”
“It’s a fantastic idea,” Violet counters. “Lance is the reason Alex and I are married. Lance is part of the reason you and Nut Sac christen every bathroom in the greater Chicago area. It is our job to give Lance his happy ending.” Violet scrunches up her nose and makes a jerking-off motion. “But not that kind of happy ending. Well, maybe. Hopefully, actually.”
“Violet,” Lily hisses. “Sorry. We’re not crazy. Well, she is, but I’m not. Look, Lance is really sad, and we know it’s because he’s missing you. Randy says he moped around the entire time they were on the road, and he’s been moping around since he got back to Chicago last night. So we want to sort of help smooth things over.”
“Look, I appreciate you trying to help, but I need time to figure this out on my own.” This is so weird.
April coughs a word that sound a lot like liar.
“I don’t think we’re doing a very good job here, Lily. I knew we should’ve brought Sunny.”
“Sunny?” April asks.
“Sunshine, my sister-in-law. My stepbrother, Miller, knocked her up, so now she’s like my stepsister-in-law and my sister-in-law. It’s all very incesty soap opera. Except there’s no actual incest,” Violet explains.
“Is Sunshine a yoga instructor?” April asks.
“You know her?” Violet’s eyes light up.
“We took her class until she went on maternity leave. We miss her so much, don’t we, Poppy?” April nudges me.
“We do.” This is the most bizarre conversation ever. Talk about six degrees of separation.
“I’ll tell her that when I see her later. She’ll probably cry. She cries over almost everything right now. Yesterday Logan made spit bubbles, and she cried over the cuteness,” Violet says.
I’ve stopped speaking, because my brain can’t fit all these puzzle pieces together.
“Oh my God. What a small world! Did you know this?” April gives me an accusing glare.
“Yeah, I guess I did,” I say. There’s a little nugget of his outside life I did know about, I suppose. “Did he ask you to come here?”
“No. Oh, hell no. If he knew we were here he’d probably shit a pot of gold.” Violet shakes her head vigorously.
“He’s Scottish, not Irish, Vi.” Lily rolls her eyes.
I think I might like her despite all of this.
“Whatever. It’s the same part of the world. Just like Canada and the US are almost the same.”
Lily’s eyes nearly pop out of her head. She looks so horrified. “Not even fucking close.”
“You say eh and corner the market on all the real maple treats. We say hey and like the fake maple-flavored garbage, and you call mac and cheese something weird.”
“It’s KD, and that has nothing to do with you always mistaking Lance for Irish. That’s not the same as Scottish. Anyway, we have a purpose here.” Lily shoves her hand in Violet’s purse, rummages around, and produces an envelope. It’s bent at the corners. She flattens it and pulls out the contents. “We have two tickets to tonight’s game.”
“Really great seats right on center ice behind the bench,” Violet chimes in.
I take them from her. “Why are you giving these to me?”
“We want you to come,” Lily says.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” I finger the tickets. The seats are incredible. They must cost a small fortune. “I haven’t spoken to Lance in a while.” And he’s never wanted me to come…
“Look, we know Lance’s reputation isn’t great, and it’s not all rumors making it that way, but he’s a good guy, and he’s, like, totally into you. He’s moping, and Lance doesn’t do the moping thing, like, ever.” Lily gives me an imploring look. “Violet and I both know how hard it can be to date one of these guys.”
“When I started dating Alex I heard the hat trick rumor,” Violet offers. “Later I found out it wasn’t actually true, but when I thought it was… Well, I puked all over his shoes. It was epic. But now we’re married.”
“And Randy had a huge player reputation. I mean, most of it was actually legitimate because he was a player, but well, that’s changed.”
“We’ve known Lance for a while now, and neither of us has ever seen him this hung up on anyone.”
“Not even Tash?” I arch an eyebrow.
They exchange a look. “That situation is comp—”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Complicated. So I’ve been told.”
Violet grimaces. “He would probably kill me for saying this, but she really messed with his head, and Lance, he’s not the way the media likes to portray him. I mean, yeah, he’s done the bunny business, but I think it’s blown way out of proportion. He hasn’t had it easy. Anyway, you should come to the game. See him play. We’ll all be sitting in the same section, so you can see what it’s like. And Sunny will be there with the baby, too.”
“Really?” April gets all excited and checks out the tickets. “Holy shit! These seats are killer! We have to go.”
“So Lance doesn’t know you’re doing this?”
“Hell no. He’s been adamant about making sure you have your space. I tried to get him to call you, but he refused. He said he doesn’t want to do to you what Tash did to him.”
If Lance wants this to work, and it certainly seems like he does, he has to let me into this part of his life. Which is why I decide to take the tickets.
“Okay. We’ll come.”
“Yes!” April begins to bounce.
“But you can’t tell Lance. It has to be a surprise,” Violet says.
“I don’t know…”
“I bet he’ll be so happy when he sees you sitting in the stands; he’ll forget to be mad at me for doing this. When Alex was a stupid dick and told the world we were just friends on national TV, I stopped talking to him for a month. Then he was so excited when I showed up at the final game of the Cup championships. Chicago won, and he stole his own thunder by grabbing a microphone from a reporter and asking me to be his girlfriend.” Violet sighs.
“She rambles a lot,” Lily says.
Violet blinks a few times, like she’s coming out of a daze. She waves the hand with the ring on it around. “Anyway, we have a car picking us up at six at my place. We can swing by your house on the way if you’d like, so you don’t have to worry about getting there.”
“Yes. That’s perfect! Thank you so much,” April answers for me. “Come on, Poppy, you’ve been sulking for almost two weeks.”
She’s right. I have. And this scenario is exactly what I need to put into action what I’ve already decided in my head. I’ll get to see firsthand what this world is going to be like outside the confines of my bedroom and my house. And how Lance handles me being there.
We exchange numbers, which is strange all over again, and Violet and Lily high five each other, hug me, and leave.
“That was surreal,” I say once they’re gone.
“And awesome!” April adds. “Oh my God. We’re going to a hockey game! And our seats are amazing.”
I share her excitement and fear what it means that my heart is beating so hard right now. My decision is made. And my heart is terrified.