Marco smiled. “I had a grandpa who cared about me. He liked those kinds of jokes, too.”
I knew he was trying to make me relax, and under normal circumstances it might have worked, but these were not normal circumstances.
He reached up and knocked on the door, which was good because I currently felt like I was holding on to a live wire that was going to electrocute me at any moment and there was no way I could have knocked. My right arm actually felt numb. Was that the heart attack arm? I couldn’t remember.
Because my entire brain was scrambled, and all he was doing was holding my hand.
Good Baby Yoda, I was in trouble.
Catalina opened the door with a big smile on her face. Her expression changed to one of complete shock before she got ahold of herself and, smiling again, said, “You made it! Welcome! Come on in!”
She stepped back to let us inside. Marco waited for me to enter first, and it was really odd to be pulling this giant of a man in after me. I told myself to think of it as passing through a portal and that I had to keep our hands linked.
Maybe if I thought of our hand-holding as some kind of safety tether instead of one of the greatest yet scariest things that had ever happened to me, things would feel better.
Instead, my hand was starting to sweat profusely. He was going to let go, and there would be a puddle of sweat that was going to form on the floor between us.
“I’m Marco.” He introduced himself to my best friend, and I felt stupid for not jumping in right away. I should have made those introductions. Maybe I would have been more up on my social graces if I wasn’t so busy trying to keep the molecules in my skin from spontaneously combusting.
“Catalina,” she said. He offered his right hand, but she said, “Oh, I’m a hugger!” Marco released me to hug my best friend, and I tried to secretly rub my palm on the back of my jeans so no one would know that I’d been in danger of drowning Marco with my hand sweat. She hugged him for a bit longer than what might have been considered typical and then said, “Nice to meet you. I like you already.”
She had to start things off by embarrassing me. I should have known.
“I’m assuming that means someone’s been talking me up?” His sly smirk was aggravating.
“All good things,” she assured him. “Can I get you two something to drink? Some of the guys are rolling new characters in the dining room, so we haven’t started yet.”
There were some people sitting at the dining room table, which was where they usually played their game. Other guests were standing around talking, eating the snacks that Catalina had provided.
Zhen passed by, and Catalina grabbed him by the arm like he was a life preserver. “Zhen, this is Marco, our boss. I’m going to get them a drink. I’ll be right back.”
I folded my arms across my chest so that no one would touch my somehow-still-sweaty hands ever again. “Zhen, good to see you.”
He smiled at me but was still giving Marco a fair amount of side-eye. I guessed he probably hadn’t been expecting the CEO of his company to show up to their bimonthly game. “You too, Anna.”
“How’s work?” I asked.
“Same old. We do have a lot more to do—I don’t think anyone realized how many projects you handled solo. You have big shoes to fill.”
It was an expression, I reminded myself. He wasn’t making fun of my size-twelve shoes, but I did notice Marco glancing down in my general shoe area. He was about to make a joke about my feet, wasn’t he?
“Thanks,” I said to Zhen.
“Yeah. Hey, are you guys creating a new character tonight before we start?”
“I’m not,” I said.
“I’d like to,” Marco responded, surprising me. “It seems like the kind of thing a boyfriend would do. Roll a character to participate in his girlfriend’s best friend’s game.”
I had an internal freak-out at his casual use of the word girlfriend. Like, obviously that was the plan, but I felt unprepared for its usage.
My former coworker didn’t seem to notice how stilted Marco’s declaration was. Instead, Zhen’s eyes had gone wide, and he glanced back and forth between us like he was trying to solve a particularly difficult equation that just wasn’t adding up for him.
I understood.
He cleared his throat and said, “Come on over and join us. We’ll get you set up. Good seeing you, Anna.” He left, and Marco was still looking down at the floor.
I said, “They’re smaller than yours. By a lot.”
“What?”
“My feet.”
“What about your feet?” he asked, the picture of innocence.
“You were—never mind.” It wasn’t worth arguing about if he was going to play dumb. Or maybe I was making mountains out of molehills again.
“I’m going to go make a character. Will you be okay on your own?”
Aw. It was sweet of him to ask. I mean, most men would have assumed that I’d be fine, considering I was at a party surrounded mostly by people I knew. But Marco seemed to get it. “Yes.”
“I’ll be back,” he promised. Then he paused and got that wolfish grin that let me know he was up to no good. “It’s a good thing to know which fairy tale you wouldn’t be the star of.”
There it was. That was a Cinderella jab. I wanted to run my sweaty palm all over his stupid face. Well, his face wasn’t stupid. It was gorgeous. But the principle still stood.
Yes, I had big feet, but I could be Cinderella! I was in love with a prince! Well, a millionaire, and in this day and age, wasn’t that basically the same thing?
I could be the princess in my own love story. I mean, I didn’t need a prince to rescue me. It was coincidental that Craig had money. I did want the fairy tale, though. The happily-ever-after aspect. I knew it could happen. Like it had for my parents.
He left, and all I wanted to do was find a place to hibernate for the rest of the evening. I wished I had an escape hatch, but leaving would defeat the entire purpose of coming here in the first place.
Catalina had a little nook / window seat in her living room, and I headed over to sit. I settled onto the cushion and looked at the windows. They were painted shut. Which was probably a good thing so that I wouldn’t consider using them to make a potential getaway.
I flexed my right hand because it was literally still tingling from where Marco had touched me. Like some kind of phantom imprint that I couldn’t shake off. Real but not real.
This was the first night. The. First. Night. How was I going to keep this ruse up for any length of time?
I currently did not have a single drop of alcohol in me, but even I had to admit that I was attracted to Marco. I tried reminding my hormones that I loved Craig, but they did not care.
I was a victim of my own biochemistry, and my hormones were trying very hard to stage a coup against my brain.
Catalina came over with the drinks. She handed me one, looked around to find Marco, and then apparently made an executive decision to keep his drink for herself. She squeezed onto the window seat next to me, her legs pressing against mine.
“First, Anna, are you ducking kidding me? Why didn’t you tell me how tall he is?”
It was a fair question. It seemed like the first thing I should have mentioned—I always noticed how tall people were. I wondered if people of average height did the same thing.