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Lila didn’t answer.

“That’s fine,” Chelsea said, holding the door to the class open.  “You’ll have plenty of time to tell me all about it at this miserable party.  Thank you, again, for being my lesbian date tonight.  If I’d shown up to another one of these events alone, I think my family might die of sheer pity. This is my baby sister’s seventh engagement dinner, the
seventh
man willing to marry her, and I can’t even find one man to escort me.”

Lila’s eyes widened.  “Your sister has been engaged seven times?”

“She’s a touch indecisive.”

“Just a
touch
.”

“At this point I’m convinced she only gets engaged to throw parties and be the center of attention.  But she did make it all the way to the altar with the last victim.”

Lila almost cried out.  “She left him at the altar?”

“That she did.”

“Who’s the lucky guy this time?”

“No clue.  Haven’t met him.  What’s the point?  He’ll be gone soon enough.”

Lila poked her lips out and scrunched her eyes.  “Maybe this “victim” will be the one that sticks.”

“Or maybe you’ll just have to be my lesbian date at my sister’s next engagement party, and the one after that, because there’s no way this guy’s going to stick.  Now come on, girlfriend, we’ve got a party to get to.  I’d be a lot happier if you were a Greek God but, hey…. can’t win ‘em all, right?”

Lila smiled, allowing her friend to link their arms once more as they made their way out of the building.

As they walked across the unusually quiet Harvard campus and towards the employee parking lot, Chelsea looked to Lila.  Her eyes ran the length of her body.

“I can feel you judging me,” Lila grumbled, staring off into the distance as she spoke.

“You
do
remember the time that I
didn’t
tell you about my sister being on your ad hoc committee, right Lila?”

As they made it to the parking lot and circled around their respective cars, Lila had to laugh.  Whenever a lecturer was up for assistant professor, the ad hoc committee doing their review was kept top secret to avoid any unnecessary drama.   In any other circumstance, Lila would have never known that Chelsea’s sister was on her committee.  Chelsea, however
, was
Lila’s best friend. And she also had a big mouth.

Lila unlocked her car door with another laugh.  “Yes, I do remember you
not
telling me that, Chels.”

“And you do know that she’s the bride to be at this affair, correct?”

“Correct.  I know that, too.”

“Okay.  So put on a longer skirt, you little slut-bag.”

--

Still arm in arm, Lila and Chelsea made their way into the meeting hall of the largest five-star hotel in Cambridge.  They’d gotten lost more than a few times, but they were in no hurry as they laughed and joked their way through the busy halls.

“So you let the Greek God take you out of class and fuck you senseless on the desk in your office?  That’s not even your personal office.  That is a
community
desk.”

Lila was still laughing.  “I don’t know, Chels.  There’s something about that man that makes me do the craziest things.  Things I would never dream of doing in my everyday life.”

“Why have I never heard of him before this?”

Because Lila had spent a year trying to forget him.  She’d almost convinced herself that she
had
forgotten Jack Almeida.  That afternoon in her office proved she clearly hadn’t.

“He just… I just… I’m…” Lila held a hand out, struggling with what to say.

“That good, huh? He put it down, so proper, words have completely escaped you.  That’s beautiful, Lila. Good for you.”  Chelsea gave Lila a high five.  “Are you planning on seeing him again?”

Her stomach rolled at the thought.  “He’s
not
good for me.  We’re not good for each other.  Never have been.  Besides, he lives in Manhattan. I’m sure it won’t happen again.  In fact, it shouldn’t have happened at all. I just can’t say no to him.”

“Who could?  He’s breathtaking.  What’s his name?”

Lila blushed down at her feet and went to answer, but she was distracted when they turned a corner, and a large booth came into view.

“Here we go,” Chelsea grumbled, as they approached the smiling young woman at the engagement party’s welcome booth.

“Good evening, ladies. I assume you’re here for the engagement dinner.”

“Unfortunately,” Chelsea confirmed.

The young woman wavered at Chelsea’s tone.  “Oh,” she perked, her brown eyes going large.  “Well then, here are your invitations. It’s going to be the last door on your right-hand side.”

Lila and Chelsea took their invitations, thanked the young lady, and began making their way down the hallway at a snails pace.

Without paying much attention to the nearly unreadable calligraphy on the front of the invitation, they both opened their cards together.

They screamed out when an explosion of paper confetti, glitter, and a banner that said
Truly, Madly, Deeply in Love
popped up out of the card, smacking them in the face. They both stopped in mid-step as a cartoonish, instrumental version of Savage Garden’s song of the same moniker jumped from each card at different intervals.  The empty hallway filled with an uneven musical hum.

Attempting to spit out confetti stuck to her lip-gloss, Lila stared at the open card in shock, wondering if that had just happened.  She looked to Chelsea with a knowing grin.

Chelsea, who was also attempting to blow away the glitter and confetti stuck to her lips, turned to Lila with a cringe.  “I mean just fucking shoot me already.  They can’t be serious with this shit, right?”

Lila slammed her card closed, effectively ending the music from her end, and wrapped an arm around her friend’s waist, leading her back down the hallway.

Chelsea’s card was still open and playing the tune as Lila squeezed her waist.

“Now, now, sunshine.  Try to remember that this is your baby sister’s engagement party.  This is a beautiful occasion.  Two people sharing their love.  We’re here to show them our support.”

“This is fucking bullshit is what it is.”

Lila squeezed her waist tighter, fighting laughter, unable to deny she was right.  “Where’s the bar in this place?”

“Now that--” Chelsea pointed the explosive musical card at Lila before tossing it over her shoulder.  “Is an excellent question.”

Like the pros they were, Lila and Chelsea found the open bar in record time, situated in the hallway outside the actual party. They were the only degenerates there.  They each ordered a double vodka cranberry before making their way into the busy reception hall. It was already wall-to-wall with people.

The bustling room was decorated predictably with white tables and chairs, dotted with baby pink accent pieces. A table full of finger foods, desserts, and a towering pink cake sat in the middle of the room, relatively untouched. A stage sat at the far end, with a lone microphone in the middle of it. Most of the dozen or so tables were already full.  Lila checked her watch to make sure they weren’t late, before looking to Chelsea.

“Are you sure this is just the engagement party?  There have to be at least a hundred people here.”  Lila noted, from where they were still lingering in the doorway.  “This looks like an actual wedding.”

“Kelly never does anything halfway, Lila.”  Chelsea finished off her vodka cranberry.  “You’ll learn that about her very quickly.”

Lila laughed, following Chelsea as she led the way to their table.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite cousin, Chel-Bell!  Whoa, who’s your friend?”  Chelsea’s middle-aged, buck-toothed cousin approached her with open arms and gave her a sloppy, borderline inappropriate, kiss on the corner of her mouth.  Chelsea understandably veered away, motioning her empty drink towards Lila.

“This is Lila James.  My coworker, and lesbian lover.”

Lila’s eyes widened in Chelsea’s.

“No shit, cuz. So you’re a box muncher now?”

Chelsea snatched Lila away.  “And that’s just the first family member,” she mumbled as she and Lila finally made it to their seats at Table 1.

The bride and groom’s seats were the only one’s still unoccupied at the ten-seat table. Chelsea quickly introduced Lila to her immediate family members, including her mother and father, as they settled into their seats.

Once again, she introduced Lila as her lesbian lover.

“She’s kidding.” Lila smiled, with a bashful wave.  “I’m sure you guys know Chelsea’s sense of humor.”

Chelsea’s mother wasn’t laughing.  “We know,” she confirmed, dryly.

“Mommy and Daddy never really ‘got me.’ ” Chelsea made finger quotes to Lila before flagging down a passing server and pointing to her empty glass.   “Double vodka cranberry, please, on the fly.  And keep them coming.  These are my
relatives,”
she explained, motioning to her family.

The server winked at her.  “Say no more.  Double vodka cranberry, coming right up.”

Lila watched Chelsea, unsure of what angle to take with her family.  The vibe at the table was cold.  No one was going out of his or her way to make eye contact with anyone else.   They opted, instead, to appear preoccupied with whatever was going on in the room around them.  To be fair, there
were
a lot of interesting characters milling around.

Lila spoke up. “I actually work with Chelsea at Harvard.”

That caught Chelsea’s mother’s attention.  She was an elderly woman whose hair was still platinum blonde.  Her skin was tight, rubbery, and when her blue eyes met Lila’s, they appeared disinterested.

“We met about a year ago,” Lila said with a nod.  When no one seemed in a big hurry to reply, she went to awkwardly fill the silence.  “It’s actually a funny story--”

Her eyes flew to the stage when the sound of someone tapping the microphone boomed across the room.  The microphone screamed out at the abuse, prompting many of the guests to cover their ears at the unbearable noise.

All conversation came to a halt.

“Sorry about that.” A woman who looked exactly like Chelsea spoke bashfully into the microphone. Her blonde hair stretched halfway down her back in perfect spirals, tumbling into her blue eyes as she leaned away from the backfiring microphone.  If her tight white mini dress and baby veil were any indication, this was the lovely bride to be.

“My darling sister,” Chelsea confirmed to Lila.

“She is absolutely stunning.”

“She is,” Chelsea agreed.  “Too bad she knows it.”

“Where’s the groom?”  Lila asked the question just in time to see the man of the hour step on the stage.  He was in the midst of unbuttoning the jacket of his flawless suit, tossing it open and shoving his hand in his pocket.  He jingled the keys in his pocket anxiously, and the microphone caught the muffled sound.

Lila knew that move.  She’d known it even before he turned towards the reception hall with a forced smile on his face.

The air flew from her lungs.  All logical thought disappeared from her busy mind.  She almost shattered the cocktail glass between her fingers.

Chelsea was squinting up at the stage in question.  She wavered.

“Wait a second…” Turning to Lila, Chelsea cocked an eyebrow.  “Isn’t that the guy?… The Greek God?”

“That is the Greek God,” Lila seethed.  “Otherwise known as the Greek Asshole, Jack Almeida.”  She threw down her napkin and, without another word, stood from the table.  Her action caused her chair to creak loudly across the shiny marble floors.

So loudly that it succeeded in swiping the attention of every individual in the room off the bride, and onto her.

Including Jack Almeida’s.

Their eyes met across the room, and Lila saw it.  The moment that fake smile was wiped clear off his face.  She saw the Jack Almeida that she’d known all those years ago for the first time, clear as day, right there in front of her, at his
engagement party.
Not at the Crimson event, not on the desk in her office, but right there. There he was.

It made her heart start a war inside her chest, desperate for escape.  Without a word, she turned and made her way quickly toward the door, ripping her eyes away from the stage just in time to see Jack bounding down after her.

3

He’d better not be behind her.

That was all Lila knew as she sped out of the reception room and down the long hallway.  She wasn’t sure where she was going, or whether this was the direction she and Chelsea had taken when they’d walked in.  They’d been so busy joking and laughing, Lila hadn’t thought about paying attention to what path they were taking.

Simpler times.  Lila longed to go back to fifteen minutes ago when her biggest worry in the world was how to get the confetti and glitter off her red lipstick.

This building was more complicated than she remembered. As she made millions of desperate lefts, rights, twists, and turns, she knew that she’d gotten lost.

She also knew that he’d better not be behind her.

She was afraid she might murder him.

As she turned down another deserted hallway, she found herself at a dead end. With a curse from deep in her throat, she turned on her heels, ready to move the other way.

The sight of him stopped her cold.  He was behind her, standing dead center in the middle of the hallway, closing in on her with long, slow strides.  His chest heaved under his suit as if he’d just finished running a marathon.

“Get the fuck away from me,” she growled.

He held out his hands and braced himself.  He was ready to catch her if she ran.

Lila thought about trying it.

His hands shook.  “Lila…” His voice shook, too.

Lila clawed at her bedazzled clutch, gritting her teeth against the tears that threatened to sting her eyes.  She’d be damned if she started crying.

“Get the
fuck
away from me.”

“I was going to tell you.”

“Oh yeah?  And when was that, Jack?  Before or after you fucked me?  Because you haven’t had one
real
thing to say to me since the moment we saw each other at that Crimson event.  Or the moment you took me out of my classroom and screwed me in my office.  So, please, tell me… when the fuck were you planning on bringing up the fact that you’re about to be married?”