Page 11 of Last Night Was Fun

What’s yours? If you say a Tarantino film, I might “lose” your number.

What’s wrong with Tarantino?

Is that what you were going to say?!

...

Wow, Axe Murderer. Things were going so well.

Don’t hold it against me.

Redeem yourself, then. Favorite book?

Oof. Too many to list.

Fair.

I take it you like to read given your polite acceptance of my dodge.

Accurate. I couldn’t pick one either, so I’ll give you a pass. As long as you aren’t secretly a pretentious Lit Bro who worships the Jonathans and pooh-poohs romance as a genre.

I don’t even know what half of that means, so chances are slim I fall into that category.

Good.

Best concert you’ve ever been to?

Ooh, good one. My parents took us to see the Rolling Stones when I was little. It was amazing.

I bet. You must have cool parents.

A sharp pain lanced Emmy’s heart at the family memory. She’d opened the door herself without even thinking, a door she kept closed.

“Um, Em? Are you going to put that down anytime soon?” Her best friend, Beth, cut her text conversation short.

Emmy looked up to see her sitting next to her, one eyebrow raised. She’d met Beth Coolidge in a computer science class freshman year of college. As a software engineer for a biotech company, Beth too knew what it was like to live in Boys Town. She wore slip-ons and jeans and lanyards at work, downplaying anything feminine about herself, but unlike Emmy, she turned into a glamazon outside of business hours. Winged eyeliner, tumbling blond beach waves, chest out and chin high. This early evening, she wore a candy red maxi dress that turned heads while she walked, and a pair of platform sandals fit for a Spice Girl. Not exactly baseball game garb, but Beth was Beth. The two of them sat next to each other sipping margaritas high up in left field at the ballpark.

The exclusive patio nearly had a bird’s-eye view of the field with the city skyline peeking in from outside the stadium. Beth had all but begged Emmy to meet her downtown for happy hour, and when Emmy asked for a rain check yet again because she was working late, Beth compromised by showing up at the game. She’d sent Emmy aLet me intext, to which Emmy, still in her office, respondedWhere?in confusion, and then received instructions to meet her at the ticket gate. Guilted into hosting her guest, Emmy met Beth at a side entrance and grabbed them both wristbands before heading to what Beth referred to as “the best seats in the house.”

Arguably, the best seats in the house were behind home plate, or in one of the private boxes, but neither was an option, seeing as they showed up when the game was already underway.

First pitch had been at 5:05, which meant they were somewhere near the fifth inning now, but Emmy had been so distracted by texting Axe Murderer she’d lost track—which was saying something. She didn’t even know the score.

She glanced at the towering scoreboard across the field and saw the game was tied.

“Sorry. I lost track of time,” she said to Beth and set her phone on the bar in front of them. The narrow railing facing the field dropped straight into the lower decks below them.

“Thank you,” Beth said with a flip of her silky hair. “I came here to hang out with you, not watch you crunch numbers on your phone.You can’t constantly work, you know. I mean, it’s awfully telling that the only way I can have a happy hour with you is if I literally come to your place of employment. You don’t see me hanging out in the server room at my office after hours, do you?”

A pang of guilt hit Emmy like a foul ball. Her history of skipping out on Beth’s invites was well documented, and when they did go out, Emmy was notorious for checking scores and updating stats between conversations. “No. But to be fair, my place of employment is a lot more entertaining than yours,” she said, and nodded out at the field.

Beth gave her a frosty glare. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m sorry. But if it helps, I wasn’t working.”

“Oh?” Beth asked with a curious tilt of her head. “Were you talking to someone? Is your sister having another bridezilla meltdown?”

Emmy snorted. “Thankfully, no. But the night is still young.”