Elevator Pitch (Hapless In Love #1)

4. Brunch Games

4

brunch games

Selah

Brooklyn, NY | September 3, 2023

Weekly brunch always serves as a much-needed reset to get through the upcoming week. The girls can’t wait for the juicy details about my recent SoulBlend date—even if there were just strikes and no home runs. Since we all had dates this week, we’re participating in the “brunch games.” The rules are simple: talk about your bad date or hookup, the table votes for the worst date, and the winner eats for free. It’s become an interesting tradition among us. Fortunately, I’m not the only one dating. We all are, except Audrey. She successfully found a book boyfriend out in the wild, and she restored our faith. We’ve all been unlucky in our romantic endeavors but are still suckers for a good love story. So, it was only fitting that we named our book club “Hapless In Love.”

Our founder, Audrey, is a multitude of things. More than meets the eye describes her best. She’s the big sister, the eldest at thirty-four, and a chaotic Sagittarius. She’s more known for being a billionaire hotel heiress and successful event planner, doubling as a social butterfly. Far from a party animal but can throw one hell of a party. She’ll often throw an event, make sure everything is running smoothly, and leave early to protect her peace.

In her twenties, Audrey got into a bit of trouble for not keeping her hands to herself. And by not keeping her hands to herself, I mean, she was breaking people’s bones in broad daylight.

Allegedly.

She gave absolutely no fucks, and if you started it, she finished it. Sometimes, in public with witnesses.

Allegedly.

The only reason I can talk about this now is because she got off multiple times. I should mention that her boyfriend, Roman, who also goes by ‘Rome,’ is a defense attorney and a damn good one. This behavior led to Rome convincing her family that she needed a bodyguard. That’s where Eric came in. While she’s very capable of handling herself, it’s for the best.

Eric is quiet about his life before moving to New York, which I can relate to. He’s been Audrey’s bodyguard for the past four years, and they’re inseparable. I do wonder if he ever gets lonely, though. I know he takes his job seriously, but I hope one day he gets his own happily ever after too. Reading romance is amazing, but eventually, you start to wonder if your main character moment will ever come along. I can’t be the only one who feels that way.

Neither of them will say it, but they’re like siblings. Not that she needs any more brothers; Avery and August keep her busy. She also has an older brother she refuses to talk about. We know that he lives in Chicago, they don’t get along, and he owns Blood Orange , our favorite brunch spot.

Speaking of Blood Orange, we’re seated on the patio, enjoying the last few days of summer before fall swoops in and the darkness that accompanies it. I don’t enjoy the colder months, but I can't complain too much as someone who’s lived in states with terrible winters. What concerns me most about the season change is Francesca. She seems to be in better spirits than before. The anniversary of her dad’s passing is approaching, and I’ve noticed her drawing back. She would fight every battle alone, and we’re just not the kind of friends to let that happen.

Our co-founder, Francesca, better known as “Chess”, is our resident wild child from Staten Island. She and Audrey met a while back and started the book club. She’ll be turning thirty-two soon, and she’s our lover girl Libra. Chess is fascinating and an excellent storyteller. That has a lot to do with the fact that she graduated from Columbia with a master’s in journalism. She’s now a hairstylist who owns Chessboard , a popular salon in Brooklyn, along with her sister Evangeline.

When she’s not at work, she plays around. That’s precisely where her nickname came from, after Audrey’s favorite game. Chess loves game night and wouldn’t miss it for the world. Her competitive side comes out in full force. And if we’re playing Monopoly, all bets are off. Seeing her win is hilarious because she has a money gun to make it rain Monopoly money on us. The cleanup is annoying, but we all pitch in. Plus, it’s worth it to see her light up over her favorite board game, especially after all that’s happened.

When her dad passed last year, she lost her spark. Just recently, I’ve seen her smiling a bit more, and it doesn’t seem forced. Then again, as someone accustomed to putting on a brave face, I keep a close eye on her. Having her birthday so close to the anniversary and the holidays is just an awful time. I’m surprised to hear she went on a date this week and am hoping it was a good one. Chess could use a fucking break.

“So, I met him on SoulBlend . We agreed to meet and get drinks after work, and after hitting it off, we decided to go back to his place. We’re hooking up, and everything’s fine until I start hearing a squeaking noise. It wasn’t the bedsprings. This was different.”

“Oh, shit,” I say nervously.

“Just wait,” she says with a chuckle. “I stop hearing it, and we change positions. We get back to it, still having a good time. A great time, actually. I grab a pillow to put my face in and scream a bit. Then I feel a light tugging on my hair, which I don’t mind, so I think nothing of it at first. But the tugging continues, and where it’s being tugged doesn’t make sense for how he's positioned behind me. Since I’m bent over, I can look around from there, and I do. To my surprise, I find exactly what is yanking on my hair, and it was…um…a tiny foot.”

“What?” Audrey exclaims.

She takes a deep breath. “Hold on. I don’t want to get sick.”

“Take your time,” Eric urges, scooting his chair to our table.

She takes sips of water before she continues.

“It was a tiny rodent foot. It was a rat in his bed, but it wasn’t a typical New York rat. It wasn’t Ratatouille. It was more like Ravioli. He was on the bed walking across my hair when his foot got tangled in it.

I screamed so loud, and the idiot thought that since I had been screaming before, it was because of him, but no. I couldn’t get much out other than the word rat , so I just yelled that and froze. Scared if I moved too much, it would bite me. So, he stills while he’s inside me and says, ‘Oh, that’s just my pet rat, Martell.’”

“Oh no,” I whisper.

“I tell him I’m going home, and he makes no attempt to pull out. So, I grab the clump of hair and shake it gently to free Ravioli. He scurries away, and I resist the urge to barf because I had my face in that pillow, and this rat was walking all over it and the bed at his leisure. Pet or not, I don’t give a shit. He had company over and should’ve mentioned it. I turn around and tell the guy who’s still inside me, ‘you have two seconds to pull out, or I will dislocate your jaw.’ I heard him gasp, and he pulled out immediately.”

“Oh. This was a WWAD situation,” Dayanara says.

“Absolutely,” she agrees.

WWAD stands for “What would Audrey Do?”

Anytime we need to be brave, she comes to mind .

“He’s throwing on boxers and apologizing profusely while I’m getting dressed. I zero in on the floor to make sure I don’t step on it, but I don’t see it anywhere. All I know is I can’t get out of there fast enough. Once I find my purse, I take off and head straight home to shower. It was all I could think of,” she says with a chuckle.

Eric bursts out laughing, and we join him.

I notice Chess’ tattooed hands beside me are rubbing the condensation from her glass onto her ripped jeans. She’s wearing a coral-cropped tank that compliments her tan olive skin and displays the tattooed sleeve on her right arm. Her long, dark hair is pulled into an elegant updo with curtain bangs framing her face.

“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” I say.

“Evangeline couldn’t stop laughing when I told her,” she says before taking another sip from her mimosa.

“You’re up,” she says over her shoulder.

“I’m not sure how I can follow that, but I’ll try,” Dayanara says as she moves her curls out of her face.

Dayanara is the newest addition to our friend group, the youngest of us at twenty-six and a Scorpio. She’s a tattoo artist from the Bronx, and like me, she started over in Manhattan after a bad breakup. She joined our book club last summer and recommends great authors. So naturally, we couldn’t stop talking about books and are all friends now.

There’s never a dull moment with her, and she brings a lot of laughs, giving Eric a run for his money. She also loves good pranks, won’t turn down a dare, and is no stranger to getting in trouble, and we don’t judge ‘cause we’ve all done stupid shit. She will pull up anytime, anyplace if you need her, and she’ll wait up until she knows we’ve all made it home safely. I’ve never met anyone quite like her. She prefers to be called ‘Daya,’ and how we all met is a hilarious story that I won’t be sharing until the statute of limitations wears off. If anyone asks, we met when she tattooed us. It’s a believable lie if Audrey doesn’t tell it. She only gets tattooed by her cousins, and everyone knows it.

“My night starts off similar to yours,” she says to Chess. “We met on SoulBlend and agreed to a hookup, but I swear this guy misunderstands the concept. He looks at me the whole night like he’s planning the rest of our lives together. The sex isn’t bad. He’s doing a bit too much with the romance, but I’m not judging. I get irritated when he grabs me to cuddle after and immediately falls asleep holding me,” she says with a huff.

We’re on the edge of our seats because cuddling is a no-no for her. She hates it. We don’t know why, but she does.

“I’m stuck in his grip, and he’s snoring hard in my ear. My blood is boiling. Eventually, he rolls over, and I climb out of the bed to get dressed. I don’t make a sound. I’m tiptoeing down the stairs, and you know what happens? This loud, deep-ass bark from the pits of hell roars through the fucking house, and it scares the fuck out of me. I hold in a scream and can’t see shit because it’s dark. I use the flashlight on my phone and find his dog staring at me at the foot of the stairs. I wouldn’t even call it a dog. Marshall is a dog—that thing has done time at Riker’s. Anyway, he was so loud that he woke the guy up, and he caught me trying to escape. I froze on the steps because I wasn’t going to try walking past that thing.”

The table erupts in laughter, and Daya can’t even keep a straight face.

“Holy shit,” Eric wheezes.

“Fucking loudmouth Doberman. At least my dog is quiet,” she grumbles. “Anyway, he wakes him up, and it’s awkward, okay? I let him down easy ‘cause I’m leaving. I was very clear about it being a hookup. He handles it well and goes back to bed after reassuring me the dog is friendly. Once the shock wears off, I realize he’s a cute little menace. Still a snitch, though. He even licks my hand when I pass him to walk out the door,” she adds with an eye roll.

“He wanted you to be his new mommy,” Chess teases .

She covers her face and shakes her head. “Who’s next?”

I tell them all about my hibachi hell date, starting with the shrimp catching and the egg on my foot. I tell them about him ordering my well-done steak, rapping at the table, and calling me his ex’s name all night.

Then he had the audacity to assume we’d be going out again and tried to kiss me at the end of the night. He ended up with six strikes instead of three because I couldn’t bring myself to get up and leave. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and I let him down relatively easily compared to what he deserved. Then he went on to request the funds for my share of the bill because I was being a ‘bitch.’

By the looks on their faces, I think I may have won this week. However, I don’t want a pity vote, and Chess had it worse. Eric stopped laughing a while ago and looks like he’s ready to pay Keith a visit once brunch is over. He always sits at another table close by, letting us have Aud to ourselves. Then he’ll tell us not to disturb him while he’s reading, but he’ll jump into our conversations anyway. By the end of brunch, we all moved around to make room for his chair. You’ve gotta love him.

“Ready to vote for our winner?” Audrey asks the table.

Everyone nods and says ‘Selah’ in unison.

I won’t argue with that.