Page 22 of Dearly Unbeloved
I’m not even sure my dad knows I’m allergic to bananas. What the fuck?
“Favorite sport?”
Sierra hums, considering. “Women’s ice hockey. I like to see them fight.” She sounds downright dreamy just thinking about it. “Yours?”
“I don’t really like watching sports, but I like running.” Watching other people do things has never been exciting to me. All it does is make me wonder if I could do it, and if I could do it better.
I scroll down the list and snort. “Favorite flower?”
Sierra is obsessed with the things. I swear it feels like we’re living in a flower shop sometimes. I did put my foot down on only having one vase at a time, but she seems to have forgotten about that over the past couple of weeks.
“Itwasroses, but you’ve kind of ruined that for me. What with your thorny demeanor and all,” she replies dryly. “But from a semi-fake marriage point of view, that’ll be my answer if anyone asks. Not that anyone is going to ask.”
“I don’t have a favorite flower.”
Sierra pulls into a parking space on the street outside Lisa’s house and turns to face me. “Yeah, no shit.”
We both look up at Lisa’s house. From the outside, it’s perfectly unassuming, all-American. But there’s so much riding on this fucking picnic. Too much. If we can’t convince a group of relative strangers that we’re happily in love, we might as well give up and admit everything to our families.
“You ready for this?” Sierra asks, because she knows as well as I do that she’s not the issue here. I nod, and she unclips her seatbelt. “Then let’s do this—wife,” she adds, sarcastically, scrambling out of the car before I can protest.
I jog along the sidewalk to catch up. “Don’t call methat,” I grumble as she loops her arm through mine. It feels unnatural, walking up to Lisa’s front door, so close together.
“It’s technically true,” Sierra points out. “And if we’re going to sell this, you might want to look a little less disgusted at the thought of spending time with me.”
She knocks on the door and pastes a perfectly neutral smile on her face as we wait for Lisa to answer. It’s not too over the top, to the point it feels fake, and it doesn’t feel forced. I try my best to emulate it, hoping it doesn’t show how out of my depth I am.
The door swings open and Lisa beams at us. “Rose! I’m so glad you came. And you must be Sierra. It’s great to finally meet you. I’m Lisa.”
Sierra takes her offered hand and shakes it. “You too! Rose talks about you all so much that I swear I feel like I already know you. I can’t wait to meet everyone.”
Fuck. She really is a natural liar.
Lisa leads us into the house, through the bright, airy hallway and into the kitchen, where a bunch of my colleagues are standing around with plastic cups in their hands. The conversation hushes immediately when we walk in, like no one actually believed I’d show. I would feel worse if I didn’t know myself.
Thankfully, Lisa is in hostess mode, and she introduces everyone without me having to do more than wave and say, “Hello.”
Sierra nudges me gently. “Honey,”—what the fuck?—“the donuts.”
She nods to the paper bag I’m holding.Right. “We brought donuts,” I say, passing the bag to Lisa, awkwardly.
“They’re from our favorite donut place. We go, like, every Saturday morning. Well, when Rosie can get me out of bed early enough! I’m not a morning person,” she says with a self-deprecating eye roll. It’s actually kind of impressive how comfortable she seems in a room full of strangers, lying through her teeth—not about not being a morning person. That part is true.
“We’re not either,” Jenna, one of the other lab techs, pipes up. “There’s this breakfast place downtown, though, and it’s totally worth getting up early for.”
And just like that, the whole group starts talking about their favorite Seattle cafés and restaurants, like Sierra didn’t lead them toward the conversation. It’s fascinating to watch.
And it’s an easy conversation for me to keep up with because, though I might not be the most sociable person in the world, I like coffee and treats. I’m able to chime in with recommendations and talk about some of the places I’ve been recently without too much of a struggle—and every time I do, Sierra manages to twist what I’ve said into something more couple-y.
“There’s a coffee place by my sister’s house that has amazing brownies,” I say, and she immediately adds, “Oh my god, they’re so good. We went with Rose’s sister and her husband a few weeks ago, and all ordered different flavors so we could do a brownie flight. Amazing!”
As we move to the yard, where Lisa has tables andpicnic blankets set up alongside a buffet, the conversation turns to eating while traveling.
“And speaking of traveling, I believe congratulations are in order. Vegas, right?” Collin, one of the senior lab techs, says, smiling at us. At work, Collin scares the shit out of me. Here, standing and lying to his face? Somehow worse.
“Thank you,” I reply, hoping like hell my cheeks aren’t burning as much as they feel like they are.
“It was the perfect weekend,” Sierra adds, squeezing my arm. The cool band of her ring bites into my skin, but it’s clearly intentional, because everyone immediately zeroes in on it.
