Page 49 of Yours, Unexpectedly

“That’s the understatement of the century,” I laugh.

Her eyebrows go up. “Wow, I—I didn’t know. Anything I can do to help?”

Ask her. Ask her now to go to the city with you this weekend. Make facing your parents that much easier because you’ll have this beautiful, caring, funny woman on your arm.

But instead of asking her, what comes out is, “Come over for Margarita Monday tonight? It’s this thing Gabe and I have done since freshman year. Margaritas and Chinese takeout. Kind of weird but it works for us. Bring Luci and Riz… we can make a night of it.”

She stares at me for a moment, as if in a daze. “Margaritas… and takeout?” she asks. A strange sense of awe in her voice.

“Yeah, like I said it’s kind of weird but it’s what we’ve always done.”

She shakes her head. “No, that, uh, that actually sounds perfect. I’ll text them now to let them know.”

“Sounds good.” Anytime I get to spend time with Bex sounds good.

“You don’t see Bex enough in class, she has to crash Margarita Monday too?! This shit is sacred,” Gabe complains.

“Dude, in the immortal words of Taylor Swift, you need to calm down.”

“But this is like a bro slash roomie slash besties thing. Boys only, no-girls-allowed, Little Rascals He-Man Woman-Haters, and all that,” he continues, waving his hand dramatically in the air.

I poke my head inside the freezer to grab some ice for the blender, casually throwing, “Luci and Riz are coming too,” over my shoulder.

He groans and throws himself onto our sofa. “Fine. I guess these three girls are allowed but that’s it! And if I hear one word about how weird the combo of margaritas and Chinese takeout is, I will kick them out!”

“Aye, aye captain!”

Just then a knock comes at the door. “Get that will you?”

For someone who was just complaining about letting women in on our man night, Gabe is at the door before I can even finish that question.

“Welcome, ladies!” His voice booms through the apartment. “Bexy! You never come over here, don’t you love your favorite brother enough to grace him with your presence?”

I laugh as Gabe pulls her into a comically tight hug before pulling back and pinching her cheeks. A full force glare is directed at him but she can’t do anything about it because her hands are full of two six packs of canned margaritas.

She sees me and raises one in the air. “Didn’t want to come empty handed. And I also know that Gabe makes a weak-ass margarita so I figured we should bring our own.”

“They’re only weak because Anders doesn’t drink. God, don’t be so insensitive Bex,” he says with a wink toward me. It’s all in good fun, it always is with Gabe, but I realize in that moment that we haven’t had the sober talk. Bex is rightfully looking at me like I’m a Rubik's cube she’s in the middle of solving.

She remains frozen in place as she asks in a voice that is barely audible, “Anders doesn’t…”

“Yup, almost two years sober,” I say, trying to be nonchalant because I don’t want to worry her, and I know we can’t really have this conversation here. My girl is smart though and I can see her putting the pieces together in her head. My time in New York City, when I returned back to Sassafras and Hawthorne for my MFA, what must have happened to lead to my sobriety.

I walk over and grab the cans from her hands, whispering, “We’ll talk later,” quiet enough that Gabe doesn’t hear me.

“So whose idea was the margarita-Chinese-food combo?” Riz asks from the barstool at the kitchen island.

Gabe cuts in before I have a chance to respond. “Don’t even start with how weird we are! It’s a combo we’ve had since freshman year and it’s not going anywhere now!”

“Geez, Gabe, she wasn’t going to say you guys were weird,” Luci cuts in. “What’s weird, is that we’ve had the exact same combo since we all moved in together. Except we don’t have a blender so canned margaritas are our usual drink of choice.”

My head snaps toward Bex. “You guys also have margaritas with your takeout?”

She just shrugs before replying, “It just happened one night. We ordered takeout and all we had in the fridge were canned margaritas. Luci started going on and on about the midnight margarita scene in Practical Magic and viola!” She circles her hands. “A new tradition was born.”

“That movie is so good,” Luci sighs dramatically. “I also love getting takeout because I’m convinced that fortune cookie fortunes always come true. Just look at the last one Bex got!”

Bex coughs loudly before quickly diverting the conversation. “So, what are we ordering tonight? I want extra crab wontons, please!”

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