The next day, Jack seemed eager to spend time with me, but I was still glum. He tried making jokes and more innuendos, but I wasn’t really responding. I wanted to avoid him at lunch, waiting for him to finish eating, but he came back to join me anyway. He canceled an online appointment just to do so. He was trying, but I was still a mope.
On the second day, he asked me to play a game of chess after dinner. I wasn’t much of a player, but he assured me, neither was he. It turned out to be accurate as I beat him for three straight games. Was he letting me win?
“I’ve taken your queen, my queen,” he said at one point, winking at me.
I was beginning to soften. The line brought out a smile on my face. Still, I was trying hard to stay mad. I felt I had to be to make a statement. And, of course, if I decided to be happy right away, he might stop paying attention again.
“I honestly don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Isabella said that night on the phone. “You have a handsome, rich guy trying to woo you, and you complain.”
“I’m not complaining, I’m just trying to figure out where I stand in our relationship now. Oh, we’re faking an engagement, by the way,” I mentioned.
“What?! You didn’t tell me that! Since when?!” said Isabella excited.
“It’s a fake engagement, it’s not real,” I reminded her.
“Still, can I be your fake bride’s maid?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. I’ll start looking at catalogs!”
“It’s fake, Bella!”
“I still want to look at bridal catalogs.”
“Fine,” I relented. “Are you going to be like this when I actually get engaged?”
“The fact that Jack even wants a fake engagement tells you something. He’s the marrying type. Or at least the fake marrying type.”
“No, we’re only lying so we don’t get in trouble at work,” I explained. “One of my cousins came out to the house and everything.”
“Which one?”
“Jake Davies.”
“Oh. He’s a bear.”
“Yeah, but somehow we convinced him,” I said. “I think once we call off this fake engagement, I’m probably going to get a lecture.”
“Look, you should let Jack woo you,” she advised. “Maybe he’ll change his mind, and the engagement won’t be fake.”
“I think that’s way too unrealistic,” I sighed. “Jack is not going to get married. Have you seen some of the other women he’s been with?”
“Have you been on Facebook again? I told you, don’t do a deep dive on guys you’re dating,” she repeated. “It gives you a bad impression.”
“But the girls are right there, and they’re still friends.”
“Facebook friends,” she corrected. “People don’t keep up with their social media. Especially guys. Half the guys I know barely do updates. A guy I was dating let me do the updates for him once.”
“What happened to him?”
“He cheated on me, so I deleted his account.”
“Harsh.”
“My point is, Facebook and all social media is poison,” insisted Bella. “You get a really false impression about a person from it. And Jack’s a busy lawyer, he doesn’t have time to update that.”
“You update yours all the time, so do I,” I reminded her.
“Yes, but we’re women. It’s what we do,” she countered. “How many selfies of yourself did you take today?”
“I don’t know. Maybe ten.”
“Ya see? And that’s a slow day for you. I’ve been stuck in the apartment for weeks, and I’ve must’ve taken a hundred this afternoon,” she explained. “I’m changing my profile picture.”
“Yeah, you need a new one,” I agreed.
“When’s the last time Jack updated? Probably two years ago or something, right? Guys just don’t do that stuff,” she proclaimed.
“You’re probably right,” I agreed. “God, this is making me crazy. I don’t know if I can take this.”
“You already took it. Right up the ass.”
“Bella!”
“Pretty much all downhill from there,” she joked. “Look, you’ve already had sex with the guy a bunch of times. Get to know him now. Let him woo you.”
“Fine. I guess.”
“Worst case scenario, if the sex goes bad, you dump him. Go on with your life and forget it happened.”
“But, I’m stuck in the house because of the pandemic.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’ll be over soon,” she assured. “They’re talking about some kind of cure today. Either way, I’m sure it’s not going to last past May. I mean, people would start losing their minds.”
On the third day, Jack invited me into the kitchen. He had shrimp, sausage, onions, peppers, and various other ingredients out on the counter.
“I was going to make a gumbo,” he stated. “But I’ve never really made one before. I have this recipe I found on YouTube. You wanna help me make it?”
“You’re not ordering me?” I asked a bit aloof.
“If you don’t wanna do it…”
“No-no, I do. I guess. Yeah, you know, it’ll be fun,” I decided.
And it actually was kind of fun. To speed the process, Jack cooked the sausage ahead of time on the grill to give it a smokey flavor, while I chopped up several of the other ingredients. Then Jack came in from his patio and started cooking down some of the onions and peppers. Eventually, all our separate endeavors were brought together in one big cooking pot. Then we let it simmer for an hour.