Her Last Name

Xander

“I’m not lovesick,” I protested.

“Have you guys hooked up since the last time?”

It was a direct question. It should have been an easy question to answer. I didn’t want to answer it. It felt wrong to talk about Evie and I hooking up. I was beginning to see it less and less as a hookup. “We spent some time together over the weekend.”

“Oh, that’s right,” he said with a nod. “You were supposed to meet her dad. How did that go?”

I groaned and finished off my beer before getting to my feet to retrieve another. “It went like shit,” I said as I walked away.

I grabbed a couple more cold ones before sitting back down at the table. “You bombed the meet-the-parents thing?”

“I don’t know if I told you her full name,” I said.

He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t remember. Evie, right?”

“Evie Marsh,” I answered.

He didn’t get it. “And?”

“Evie Marsh is the lovely daughter of Dr. Philip Marsh.”

I waited until the name sank in. His eyes bugged out and he choked on the beer he’d just taken from the bottl