The Engagement Game (Book 1)

3. 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.