Chapter 46

It’s a happy affair, really – everyone seems eager to greet me, to bring me plates of food, to ask me about my life, my studies, and my career.

As people start to settle in for the evening and stronger liquor starts to be poured into everyone’s cups, I start to notice…well. That there are a lot of boys around.

I look around the circle, noting that there are, of course, women – aunts and cousins, many of them. But I’ve also been introduced, this afternoon, to a variety of handsome young men. All here alone. And all, apparently, single.

For instance, the one who is talking to me now – or, should I say, who has been talking at me since he sat down in Tristin’s seat as soon as she abandoned it to go feed the baby.

“Yeah, I’m in finance,” he says, taking a swig of his beer. He gives me a little smirk. “So, you majored in psych, right?” he asks.

I squirm a little in my chair, uncomfortable. “Um,” I say, “how did you know that?”