meeting her

Jonathan looks over my shoulder, "Oh look who finally turned up!"

I look around to see Kacey Spencer entering the room as flamboyant as ever. Tailing after her is her rather flustered friend. She seems to be overwhelmed by everything that's going on around her. Kacey has clearly not prepared her for what kind of get-together this would be.

The friend catches my eyes and turns red. Jonathan chuckles and I turn around to look at him. He raises an eyebrow at me and I shake my head slightly.

"You really need to stop asking me that." I say to him.

"Asking what?" He asks innocently.

I sigh, knowing Jonathan, he won't be stopping anytime soon. Ever since he heard that my parents had started complaining about my nonexistent dating life, he's been continuously asking me about my opinions on women around my age that I meet. It's like he thinks that I would just pick a random person off the streets go on a date with them on a whim.

Kacey drags her friend over to the bar and immediately starts pouring drinks.

"Oh God Kacey!" Her friend exclaims, grimacing.

"Ryden."

I turn around to see who's calling me.

"Ryden, you didn't answer my question." It's Sophia. I adjust subtly in my seat, I haven't been paying attention to the conversation because my focus has been on Kacey and her friend. There's nothing in particular that has piqued my interest in the two. But the newcomers have been much more interesting than the bland conversation that we were having before they arrived.

"I'm sorry, can you repeat what you just said?"

Sophia smiles, her smile seems stiffer than usual and a feel a twinge of guilt. I didn't mean to ignore her. Jonathan speaks up. Is he coming to my rescue? "Come on Sophia, he was just distracted by the girl that Kacey brought with her."

I groan internally. It must have been a moment of insanity that made me believe anything coming out of Jonathan Kamper's loud mouth would do anything but escalate awkward situations.

Sophia looks over at the bar where I'm sure Kacey is still pouring liquor down her poor friend's throat. It's probably not a good idea to add alcohol in to the poor woman's already nervous system. But then again, she's Kacey's friend, so maybe Kacey knows what she's doing. I resolutely keep my face looking straight ahead as Sophia stares. She looks back at me eventually with a frown on her face, "Jonathan stop messing around with Ryden, there's not much to stare at in that corner."

My brows jump up and Venice and Cat glance at each other. We all sense the slight hostility in Sophia's voice. I don't know what the newcomer has done to offend Sophia in the few minutes that she's been here. It may be true that nothing particularly interesting is going on in the corner, but everyone here knows that Sophia was insinuating something else about Kacey's friend.

Sophia smiles, pretending as if she said something perfectly normal and continues the conversation. Some of her questions are thrown at me, but I just respond to them as generically as possible. To be honest, the only reason I am friends with Sophia...if we can be called friends...is because our parents are friends. We've known each other since we were children.

There once was a time when Sophia was like any other willful child. She had been someone who was genuine and eager to make friends with everyone. But as she grew older, her personality changed into a more judgemental one, and she began to blame others for her own fault. The girls of our friend group continue to be friends with her, but I know that they are uncomfortable with much of what she says and does. The guys, Dylan and Jonathan, have always been neutral about her, but I've slowly begun to distance myself with her after we graduated.

I hear Kacey's distinctive voice say bitch rather loudly and we all look over. She smiles and waves us away. I chuckle, I think I faintly heard the name Sophia in that sentence as well. Sophia shoots me a look and I quiet down. Kacey is the only one in the group who has ever actively called Sophia out for her words, other than me. But she goes a more direct route than my diplomatic approach.

Jonathan catches Dylan glancing down at his watch and grins. "Hey Dylan, looks like you're bored. Why don't we meet the new person then eh?"

Cat nods in agreement and shouts over to the two, "Kacey, bring your friend over, you haven't introduced her to us yet. Don't just keep her to yourself!"

The friend looks startled at being directly mentioned and moves stiffly over. Her name is Lacie.

We all introduce ourselves one by one, i'm last. "I'm Ryden, nice to meet you." I say, trying to seem welcoming.

We all make small talk for a while. I see Kacey check her phone and I look down at my watch to see that an hour has passed to my surprise. Her friend, Lacie, shuffles slightly and I see her checking the time as well. The two seem bored and I can't blame them for it. I tap my foot slightly wondering how much longer this will go on.

Sophia suddenly stands up and announces some sort of game, Lacie's friend blurts out "So like truth or dare but without the truth?"

Sophia stares at her and Lacie looks down, fidgeting. Is she embarrassed? I thought it was a decent analogy, a bit childish but who cares. Looking at Lacie, who looks like she's about to crawl into a hole and die, I decide to ease her discomfort, I rack my head for something nice to say to her, "Yes, that seems like a good analogy."

I wince. That sounded way more formal than it did in my head. But Lacie relaxes a bit, so at least it worked.

I'm handed a slip of paper and just randomly scrawl some bullshit about a collaboration with my business. I'm not very good with games and I'd never be creative enough to come up with a humorous or fun task.

I throw my slip into the basket that Sophia has prepared and she goes around handing us each our slips. I open mine, "Publically embarrass yourself." It's not signed. I glance over at Jonathan, he looks at my slip and shakes his head, he didn't write it. I'm surprised, a prompt like that seems way up his alley. Is it Lacie's?

Lacie looks down at her paper and turns white, Kacey looks at it as well and looks stunned before jumping up and waving it around.

"Marry one of the single people in the room."

Kacey begins yelling at Jonathan while Lacie sits there silently. I don't know what's wrong with me, but instead of trying to calm the two down like I normally would, I just sit there and begin counting off who is and isn't taken in the room. I know Jonathan has a girlfriend. I caught Dylan and Venice together once, so I know they're dating in secret. Cat, well Cat almost got cut off by her parents for her partner so I know she's taken for sure. Kacey is getting married so that just leaves me and Sophia. And judging by the look of disgust on Sophia's face, she would not be up to the task of marrying Lacie.

I glance over at Lacie and a thought bubbles up into my head, I wouldn't mind.

I blink in surprise. It's not like me to think things like that. Lacie seems to be a normal college student, she seems shy in this situation, but from the fact that she's Kacey's friend and agreed to come here, I'm guessing that she's usually more outgoing than this. Kacey is losing her mind over the awkward situation that's been thrown at her friend, and if Kacey is that loyal to her, then I have no doubt that Lacie is just as, if not a more loyal friend to her.

I look Lacie up and down. I didn't really look at her carefully earlier, I just mainly saw her from afar and tried not to stare and make her uncomfortable when she sat down. I knew that she was pretty from the moment she entered, but looking at her now, I notice how pretty her eyes are. Her hair is the same color, it falls around her shoulders, blending in smoothly with the dress she's wearing. It's one of the designs that my parents gifted to Kacey, she must have given it to her. The dress suits her very well, accentuating her body.

What am I doing? I look away.

The group has started going around discussing their own slips. I talk about mine and we eventually circle back to Lacie. She seems very tense and I'm about to mention that Sophia has not read out her slip, but she beats me to it, bringing the conversation right back to Lacey.

Jonathan tells the group that I'm single and I groan, we must be leaving a great impression on Lacie. At least he didn't say something like I'm single and ready to mingle. I would've strangled him right on the spot. He then says something stupid about my dating life and how I've never been in a relationship before and I glance quickly at Lacie. She doesn't seem to have much of a reaction to that piece of information.

It is true that I've never been in a relationship before. But Jonathan is wrong for assuming that I've never been on so much as a date. After having my adolescent and teen relationships constantly monitored by my parents, adult me was expectedly curious about the dating world. Out of the careful radar of my parents, I had accepted the dates with the first two women who had asked me out, but quickly realized that I had to actually be interested in the people that I went on dates with.

I'd asked a classmate out, the dates had been nice, and I had felt genuine feelings for her, but juggling work, family, and school had gradually made it so that I had no time for her and she had found someone else. It was entirely my fault and I was completely fine with how things had turned out.

After graduating last year, I had wondered if I would meet anyone soon, but I haven't yet. I'm not too worried, I'm only 22 and there are so many ways I could meet other people in the future. But my parents have somehow gotten it into their heads that they need to see me married by 23. I don't know how they think they can just give me a timeline for my marriage, but they seem to be really pushing for it.

I might just pretend to date someone to just get them off my back. I tune back into the conversation. Kacey seems to have settled down and Lacie is looking relieved. I feel a bit hurt that she looks so relieved that she doesn't have to marry me and laugh at myself. Of course she's relieved, who would want to marry a stranger on the spot?

I wouldn't.