Game night at the Walshes is no joke—running tallies, razzing and competitiveness that put me, Grady and Dax to shame. I’ve seen Zoe in tears, I’ve seen Skylar punch her brother in the shoulder. The Walshes are ruthless and as much as they laugh during these nights, they bicker, too. It fascinated me at first until I realized it’s survival of the fittest. I don’t cry, and her brother and I don’t fight, but Skylar didn’t talk to me for a week once. Long story.

Skylar’s putting out the chips and her mom’s seven-layer taco dip, while I’ve made sure the fridge is stocked with beer. The door opens, and I wait to hear the thumping of little footsteps, but Zoe and Vin round the corner with a brown grocery bag and a case of beer.

“What’s this?” Skylar rears back from the table, surprise written all over her face.

“We’re kid-free!” Zoe starts shaking her hips and then her and Vin start grinding with the bag between them.

“Aw, I’d rented some kid’s movies and everything.” Skylar hurries over and takes the bag from her sister’s arms.

“Vin’s parents wanted them for a night and who are we to deny them their wonderfully well-behaved grandchildren.” She cocks her eye to Vin who looks like he’s about a second from laughing.

“They helped mold them,” he adds, raising the case of beer in his hand. Alpha Beer, the Greek beer he says grows thicker hair on your chest. Must work for your back, too, based on the time Vin and I hit the hot tub when they visited in Utah.

Vin and I take a seat in the adjoining living room while Zoe and Skylar continue preparations in the kitchen. The two of them are laughing off and on and I can’t help but think how since she met Mauro, Skylar’s been in a good mood. I have no idea if they’ve talked or texted, and part of me wishes her phone would malfunction and lose just his number altogether.

“Hello, hello!” Chelsea walks in with a bag full of liquor. “I heard a rumor.” She stops in the middle of the room, looking right and left. She holds her finger to her lips and we all play her little game of keeping quiet. “Adult night!” her hips slide from side to side as her knees bend and she moves down and twists back up. “It’s party time!”

“Great,” I mumble, getting rewarded with a carrot thrown at my forehead. I pick it up and chomp down on it while looking at Zoe. “Who brought this nutritious crap into the house?”

Zoe smirks and the front door opens again.

Skylar’s brother, Mike waltzes in. Now here’s a guy I like. Carefree, just moved into downtown on his own. He brings a different girl to every game night that I’ve been to and although Skylar’s mom always acts like the random girl could be the one, everyone else is well aware she isn’t.

“Mikey!” Vin and I yell in unison.

He holds up a bottle of tequila in one hand, a bag of limes in the other. “I heard there’s a party here tonight?”

We all look on, waiting for some shy girl to join him at his side, but no one comes.

“What gives?” Chelsea asks, looking behind him into the hallway.

Mikey shakes his head. “I’m flying solo. Guess you can be my partner tonight.” He wraps his arm around his cousin’s shoulder.

“Who says I don’t have a date coming?” she mocks offense. Chelsea would never bring a guy around. As much as she likes to throw stones, she was already married once and from the little that Sky says about it, it failed spectacularly.

“Is Mr. Snuggles here?” Mikey does his best kiddie voice and Chelsea shoves him, joining Sky and Zoe in the kitchen.

Mikey walks over to Vin and me, giving us each a handshake. “Who’s Mr. Snuggles?” I ask.

“It’s a stuffed animal from when we were little. I may have hidden it from her numerous times.” He shrugs. “One time she cried so hard she threw up.”

We laugh, but we don’t have a lot of time at the bar getting drinks before the girls are preparing a card game.

“We’ve got a new one for you boys tonight.” Zoe waves a box in the air and all I catch is the word Meme.

Mikey snaps his finger and points. “And my friends asked why I’d come here on a Saturday night.”

“Without the kids peering over the shoulders and with Mom and Dad in Arizona we can have some real fun,” Zoe says.

“Shit, what kind of game is it?” Vin asks and we all take our spots around the table. Skylar on my left and thankfully Mikey—not Chelsea—on my right.

“Hey, I heard I missed you guys last weekend?” Mikey sips his beer and glances over. “I also heard the dance floor was hot.” He raises his eyebrows a few times.

Chelsea laughs next to him. Neither Skylar nor I look at each other or react. We still haven’t talked about that night. Thankfully, Zoe’s already down to business and begins to explain the game to us.

“Okay, I pick a card with a picture on it and then you each are going to pick a line to go with it from the cards you get so that you make a meme.” Zoe passes out the cards.

“Shit, Zo,” Skylar stares down at her selection of phrases to use for the picture.

“It’s like caption, but you have to use the cards you’re given. I’ll read them through and pick the winner based on which one is the funniest. Then that person grabs a meme and we do the whole thing over until we finish and whoever has the most meme pictures wins.”

We all nod in understanding.

Zoe puts down a picture of a man sitting back on his couch with his hands linked behind his head, his feet up on the coffee table.

We each put down our caption face down and Zoe picks them up, reading them out loud. “When you invite them over to Netflix and chill when you know you don’t have Netflix.”

The table laughs because it was the funniest one.

“That’s a bad thing?” Mikey asks. “I never get any complaints.”

Both sisters roll their eyes, Zoe grabbing a pretzel and throwing it at him. “You’re such a manwhore.”

“Manwhore? They know what they sign up for, sis.”

Zoe shakes her head, passing the meme cards to Chelsea since she picked the winning caption. She looks through the heavy stack and Skylar’s phone lights up between us.

She quickly presses the side to make the screen go black. As if that move wasn’t bad enough she glances quickly to the side to check if I saw her.

“Who’s that?” I ask, tossing a pretzel into my mouth and hoping to appear more casual than I feel right now.

She picks up her phone and puts it on do not disturb. “No one.”

“Bullshit,” Mikey coughs out.

“Mauro?” Chelsea raises her eyebrows.

I wish red wasn’t the first color that falls like a curtain over my eyes. Followed seconds later by green.

“Who’s Mauro?” Mikey asks.

“A firefighter she met. Super hot,” Chelsea adds in her unwanted two cents.

“Why don’t you pick a card?” I say to her and she rolls her eyes, a smirk on her lips.

“Here.” She places a meme of two confused kids with their hands up in the air. “Happy?”

“Yes.” I look through my caption cards and put down the one I select.

Vin’s taking a while, so I grab a handful of pretzels and lean back.

“Is it? Mauro?” I ask even though I know I need to let this shit go.

Skylar nods, but never makes eye contact with me.

The table grows quiet and I feel like there’s a spotlight over my head while everyone waits to see how I react.

“He seemed cool,” I say and shrug, feigning nonchalance.

Chelsea roots through all the caption cards and starts laughing. “This is so the winner…When you ask for directions and the dickhead uses east and west.”

We all laugh and the tension from moments ago evaporates.

For the next hour, the meme game turns into a tequila shot drinking game for everyone who doesn’t get his or her caption picked.

I blame Mikey.

Two hours later, the memes and the captions are thrown on the kitchen table as more and more people arrive with alcohol in their hands and party time in their head.

Three hours later, I’m cornered, alone in the kitchen with Skylar, trying to remember why I keep insisting it isn’t a good idea for the two of us to be together.