“Um, I’m actually at dinner, but I’m at a friend’s. Do you want to come over? There’s plenty if you’re hungry.”
He chuckled.
“I’m starving, actually, and totally sick of eating Ramen.” I gave him directions to the apartment and then walked back out into the main room.
“What was that?” Will said, alarmed.
“Eddie wants to apologize for coming to the batting cages and for all the crazy that caused. So I invited him over for dinner.” I waited for the reaction.
“Oh. Okay,” Will said. “I guess. I mean, yeah, sure. I’m cool with that. Sure. Yeah.” Shit. He definitely wasn’t cool with it.
“It was one drunken night, Will. It didn’t mean anything and it was a long time ago. He’s not a bad guy, Will, you know that.”
“I know, I know. It’s just, hard. You know?” Everyone else seemed to be watching our interaction and reserving judgment until after Will had finished.
I leaned into his arms.
“I know it’s a hard situation, but I really think you’ll like him if you get to know him. And he’s going to save my daughter. Don’t forget that.” Will stiffened and I could tell he’d forgotten about that part.
“Shitfuck, now I look like a complete ass**le. I am so sorry.” He kissed me on the top of my head and I hugged him harder.
“It’s okay. That’s why I’m here to remind you not to be an ass**le.”
Lottie sighed loudly.
“That used to be my job. I’m so happy to pass it on to someone else. I have a tiara if you’d like it, Aud.”
“There’s a tiara? Yes, I definitely want that.” Lottie laughed and ran back to her room and came back a few seconds later with a plastic tiara with pink rhinestones. It had probably been a joke gift.
“There, I pass the custody of Will off to you. No refunds or exchanges.” She jammed the tiara on my head. I pretended I was overcome with emotion.
“Thank you so much, this is so unexpected. I don’t even know who to thank.”
Will just rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah. Enough.”
“It looks very fetching on you, Aud,” Stryker said.
“I want a tiara. How come she gets a tiara?” Katie whined.
“I think we should all get tiaras,” I said. “Or I could just break this one into a bunch of pieces like in Mean Girls.”
“NO! Don’t destroy my tiara,” Lottie said and we dissolved into a debate about tiaras and crowns and other random things like we usually did.
It took Eddie a while to get to the apartment, and I felt kind of bad for making everyone wait to eat dinner until he got there, but I didn’t want him to feel even more awkward by walking in halfway through.
Finally there was a knock at the door and I went to answer it. The room went silent and I realized I probably should have warned him what he was walking into. Too late now.
33
I wasn’t going to say that I liked the guy. I still had a little leftover animosity from when I’d thought he was sleeping with Audrey. I also had a little bit of jealousy that he’d shared something with her that I wasn’t a part of. I’d told Aud that I wished it had been me with her, and I meant it. But I hadn’t been with her. Eddie had, and I just had to get used to that.
I could do that. I could be civil. I could be cool.
She opened the door and Eddie walked in, his eyes going wide at the amount of people in the apartment.
“Whoa. When you said you were at a friend’s, I didn’t think I was crashing something.” He took his coat off and Audrey hung it up on the coatrack Lottie had recently found at a discount store. It was already pretty full, but she found a space as Eddie’s face went red and he shoved his hands in his pockets.
“It’s my fault. I should have told you how many people would be here. Um, you know Will.” He nodded at me and I got up from the couch and came over. I meant to shake his hand, but that seemed weird, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to hug him. Fist bump? High five?
“Hey,” I said. That seemed good enough. Right?
“Hey, I’m, um, so sorry about that whole thing. I should have just told her over the phone, but I was so excited and I wanted to share it with her. I knew she’d want to know. But when I saw you, I should have reeled it in. Sorry, man.” It wasn’t the best apology I’d ever gotten, but I had to admit that it wasn’t his fault I’d jumped to conclusions. The whole situation was a cluster-fuck that wasn’t any one person’s fault. No, I wouldn’t blame Aud for it.
“No worries. It was a weird situation and it’s water under the bridge. I’m really happy that things turned out.” He smiled a little and held out his hand, so I shook it.
Audrey relaxed next to me and a smile lit up her face.
“Okay, now that’s over with, you can meet everyone else.” She led Eddie around the room, introducing him to everyone.
“So, uh, I guess you all know about our daughter.” They all nodded in unison like bobbleheads. Sometimes I wondered if we spent too much time together and we’d ceased to be individuals and just become like bees, with a hive mind.
“Yeah, I told them all. So, um, you can sit wherever you want. Dinner is in a few minutes and, um, yeah,” Aud said, sensing the awkwardness of the situation. It definitely was. No way of getting around it.
“This is awkward,” Eddie said as he sat on one of the spare chairs Lottie kept for when we all had dinner.
“I like him. He states the obvious,” Trish said. I’d never heard such a ringing endorsement from her before.
“Uh, thanks,” Eddie said.
“Eddie goes to Pine State College,” Audrey said, trying desperately to make things less awkward.
“I have a cousin who goes there,” Simon offered.
“Oh, yeah? What’s his name?”
“Bertram Stevens?”
“Bert? Hell yeah I know him! He lives down the hall from me.” The chances of you knowing someone’s cousin in Maine were high. It was like one gigantic small town. Eddie and Simon started talking about Bert and soon the tension broke and Eddie was absorbed into the group.
“Thank God,” Audrey said under her breath. Once Eddie got comfortable, we got dinner going, which was spaghetti carbonara (with and without bacon), garlic asparagus and chocolate pudding for dessert.
Eddie got in line behind me and I felt the need to further explain that I was cool with him and Audrey and the whole situation.