Chapter One
Gia
"I'm serious. You are going to marry The Rock, live in a shack with four kids, and drive a Jeep to your job as a phone sex operator," Ruby says.
"No way! You totally kept adding tallies after I said stop," whines Bernie.
We are playing MASH and it seems Ruby and Bernie take this childish game extremely seriously.
I'm in the kitchen refilling drinks when I hear the whistle of Morgan's text tone.
I chuckle as I make my way back into the living room where Morgan, Ruby, and Bernie are sprawled across the room. Since all of us girls are here, it must be Dex, Morgan's boyfriend. The two are practically attached at the hip. I laugh because girls’ night has only been going on for less than two hours, and he already misses her.
I probably would have rolled my eyes a few months ago, but he pretty much moved in to take care of Morgan after a horrible car accident several weeks ago. While it was hard at first to have him around, being all bossy and telling me how to take care of my best friend, we found our groove and made things work.
Now that she is heading back to work next week, we wanted to have a girls’ night to celebrate. That means no Dex.
"Well, that lasted all of about ninety minutes," Ruby chirps.
"Oh, stuff it, Rube, he just wanted to see if he left his headset over here."
With raised eyebrows, Bernie asks, "Oh, his Turtle Beaches? Because, I've had my eye on that for a few weeks, and he won't even let me try it out during practice. Please tell me it’s here, I want to wear it," she says longingly.
"That very headset. And yes, I think he did," Morgan says as she retreats to her room to check.
"So, whose turn is it for MASH? I haven't gotten to be the Destiny Keeper yet," I say, snagging the notebook out of Ruby's hand.
"I think it's Morgan's turn. Let's get started without her. Go ahead and list Pee-Wee Herman and Bart Simpson as two of the guys she's gonna marry," Ruby says excitedly.
"And why are we playing this again? Are we going to make those paper fortune tellers next?" Morgan asks as she plops down beside me on the couch.
"Oh, I love those," I add.
"We are playing this because watching movies and playing video games are all we ever do these days. I thought some margaritas and MASH would be fun," Ruby defends.
"Fair enough. But might I point out, that you are the only one really playing video games in your downtime? It doesn't count for Bern since that's what she does for a living. So ..." Morgan trails off as she goes back to reading her texts.
She's right though. Video games have been thrown into our lives ever since Dex came along. He is a professional video gamer, so our little group—Morgan, Ruby, and I—has kind of been taken into Dex's group. Well, more like his team. He's on a team with several other players, Bernie being one of them, so video games are now a very prevalent fixture in our lives.
I don't mind. I used to love playing video games when I was younger. But, I stopped playing them the day my family uprooted our lives and moved to a new state. I pretty much left my life, and those in it, back in Wisconsin. A shiver shoots down my spine at the thought of that mess.
Along with Dex, my best friend from my old life, Simon, came crashing back into my new life. I hadn't thought about Simon in years. Mostly because I taught myself years ago not to. It hurt too much. But now, he's here. He's always around. Things are awkward. I mean, like he-hates-me awkward. I can feel it. I can see it in his face. I'd say I could see it in his eyes, but he'd have to make eye contact with me first.
Redirecting my thoughts, I realize that I'm being watched intently by Ruby. She's on to me. These days, I feel like she is always watching me, waiting for the perfect moment to ask me about Simon. I have this gut feeling that she, and probably Link, have been plotting and planning on how they are going to figure out what the hell is going on with Simon and me.
I've done a swell job of keeping the real history of Simon and Gia at bay. I've told them the basics. He was my friend, we had to move abruptly for family reasons, and we lost touch. The girls questioned how that would have caused the iciness Simon saves for just me, and I let on that we may have been more than just friends and I had let the communication between us drop.
It's the truth. More or less.
Fortunately, they've been so consumed with why after months of coldness between us, they haven't asked why we had to move. I consider that another bullet dodged. For the moment. Simon is the only one who knows why. He knows everything, and I've just got to hope that he will keep it to himself because if he doesn't people are gonna find out I'm really not the cool, easy-going, caring Gia everyone thinks I am.