Chapter 2

BET ME

“What’s been a long time?” Elizabeth asked.

“It’s been a while since I saw you last. How have you been?”

“Oh right. Yes, I guess it’s been since their wedding?” Elizabeth gestured towards Jane and Bingley who were, at that moment, strolling among their guests with matching beatific smiles on their faces. Someone—likely Fran—had made them sashes emblazoned with ‘Mama in the Making!’ and ‘Proud Papa to Be!’. The sashes coordinated perfectly with their pink and blue madras plaid attire—a shift dress for Jane and a matching shirt for Bingley.

Darcy evidently noticed it too, remarking, “Quite the fashion statement.”

Although she had been thinking the same only seconds before, his remark made Elizabeth bristle. “They’re happy and it’s sure not hurting anyone; so be it.” She then gave him a tight smile. “I don’t like to interfere in the happiness of others.”

He did not respond to her not-so-veiled reference to their contentious past, choosing instead to begin some small talk. After a torturously awkward discussion centering on the health of her family—who were all sitting just feet away, staring at them with unabashed curiosity—her job, his job, and his sister, a painful silence ensued.

“Well!” she said. “Good to catch up with you but I should really?—”

“Don’t go.” His eyes were dark and intent upon her face.

“I have to, um,” she searched her mind frantically, “get a notebook for when we open the gifts.”

“The gifts have already been matched with the registry,” he said. “I saw the printout. Addresses and all.”

She rolled her eyes but could think of nothing to say.

“I feel like we have some unresolved issues between us that need to be discussed.”

“Do you?” she asked. “Because I don’t feel that way at all.”

“Look, I know you’re angry with me?—”

“I’m not angry at you. I’m not anything, actually. I never even think about you.”

“Well, I do think about you,” he said quietly. “I think about you a lot.”

Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest and heaved a sigh, her eyes directed at the present table. There was one enormous gift in the center of it. It was probably the one Darcy brought, wanting his gift to dominate and outshine all the others. “I don’t believe that for a moment.”

“It’s true.”

“If you do, then it must be only to congratulate yourself for keeping as far away from any Bennets as possible.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, quiet but insistent.

After another brief, but still awkward silence, she looked up at him again. “Look, I know that this shower is positively mind-numbing, and likely neither of us really want to be here, but I don’t want to entertain myself by arguing with you. This is Jane and Bingley’s moment, and I want to participate enthusiastically and willingly in whatever torture they have in store for us.”

“As do I.”

“Then, I think what would be best is if we simply avoided one another because heaven knows we can’t be in a room together for thirty minutes without breaking into some argument or another.”

“We have already been in this room for thirty minutes and if you’d just go along with my plan, then we wouldn’t run any risk of arguing.”

“Your plan?” She raised her brows at him. “You have a plan?”

He nodded, taking another sip of his drink.

She followed suit, wondering vaguely as she did what exactly was in the blue drink. “What might that plan be?”

“To make this fun.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and put one hand on her hip. “How might we do that?”

“How about a little contest to see which of us wins the most games? Make things interesting. You know, I let you win that time we played chess at Netherfield.”

“You certainly did not,” she protested immediately. “I beat you fair and square.”

“I was sick that day. I was recovering from a horrible migraine the night prior. When I get them, I can’t even think straight, much less play chess.”

“The day prior? You were fine,” she protested, laughing a bit in spite of herself. “You got beat, by me. Suck it up.”

“I just want a re-match, that’s all. Make this whole thing a bit more palatable for both of us.” He paused, taking a long, calculated sip of his drink. “Unless you’re scared?”

“Oh, I assure you, I’m not afraid of you,” Elizabeth said. “Fine, let’s make it interesting then. What’s the plan?”

“Do you know how many games are on the agenda?” he asked.

“I was told there would not be games,” she said grimly.

Charlotte had returned from the bathroom but showed no sign of approaching. When Elizabeth called her, she glanced over but didn’t join them again.

“How many games are there?” Elizabeth called.

“Five,” Charlotte called back, holding up one hand with all five fingers splayed out.

“Five,” Elizabeth reported to Darcy, though he had likely seen and heard Charlotte himself.

“Great. Five games, a point per game depending on who either wins it, or scores the highest.”

“Okay then,” she said. “Let’s do it. And the prizes will be?”

“What do you want?”

She considered a moment, drumming the fingers of her left hand against her thigh while she did. At last, she said, “Ok, so if I win, you have to stop all your...your cruelty to G-Dub.”

“G-Dub? Who is that?”

“George Wickham. G-Dub is his stage name.”

“Oh right, he needs a stage name,” Darcy said, his incredulity not even slightly disguised.

“His YouTube channel has thirty thousand subscribers, you know, and his career as a DJ is really taking off,” she replied tartly. “He has gigs set three months out. Anyway, whatever happened between the two of you that you feel justifies turning your back on him…your former friendship... fine. It’s in the past, let it go, and just let him... just let him alone. Stop talking badly about him, stop your ridiculous attempts to ruin his life. It’s a bad look for you if you really must know. Jealous and petty.”

Darcy’s face was not what she had expected when she said it. She had expected a flash of remorse, or guilt, or arrogance…instead he looked sad. Really sad, although he covered it quickly. “You’re very protective of him. I didn’t realize you two were so…” Darcy swallowed hard. “Close.”

She took another drink and shrugged. “We’re friends.”

“Just friends?”

She scowled at him. “Yes, just friends.”

“You’re not…going out?”

“No, I am not going out with him,” she snapped. “I like him. I don’t need to be dating him to want to help him. He’s been through a lot.”

Darcy rolled his eyes. “What is it, exactly, that you think he’s been through?”

This. This was why she could not stand this man. The fact that he could stand there, so superior and condescending, acting skeptical about poor George’s difficulties…absolutely disgusting.

“If you must know,” she said through gritted teeth, “he’s just had his car repossessed because the idiot dealership messed up the paperwork and he?—”

“Yeah, the Mercedes dealership does that a lot. Randomly messes up the paperwork on the poor victims who are just trying to get the G-class they deserve.”

Elizabeth paused and took a deep breath, willing herself to be calm. “This is probably a mistake. You and I are not capable of having fun together, we are too diametrically opposed?—”

“In what sense?”

“In the sense that I abhor abuse of power and you seem to get off on it.” Elizabeth recognized that her voice had gotten a bit strident when she noticed Jane glance her way and frown slightly. She smiled apologetically at her sister.

“Not true in the least bit. I agree with you, one hundred percent. Abuse of power is abhorrent.”

“You do not agree with me in the sense that I think George Wickham should get what he deserves.”

“On the contrary, I do agree with that. In fact, I think there are very few people who want George to get what’s coming to him more than I do.”

Elizabeth pursed her lips, frowning. He was so smug, so sure he was right! How could he act so…so superior when he had taken so much from poor George? She was about to walk away, contest be damned, when he said, quickly, “You win, and I will see to it that George gets what he’s due. Is it a deal?”

“You would give him the money you owe him?”

A small smirk flashed briefly across Darcy’s countenance. “I will, but first I will explain the circumstances to you—just so I can make sure the bet is fulfilled to your satisfaction.”

“Excellent. Thank you.” Elizabeth gave a little nod. “Of course, there is always the very remote possibility that you win. What then?”

Darcy looked down at his feet for a moment. She saw him draw a breath as he raised his head, meeting her gaze straight on. “If I win—which I fully intend to do—I want...”

She waited.

“I want you to allow me to take you out.”

“What! Take me out?” Elizabeth very nearly spat the mouthful of blue punch she had just taken all over him. “You don’t mean…not like a?—”

“A date. Yes, I would like one date with you.” Except for a bit of color which had risen on his cheeks, he looked as stoic and disinterested as he always did. “Dinner. Something of that sort.”

Elizabeth was utterly flabbergasted, and for a moment, actually felt short of breath. “Why?”

“Why? Because…I like you.”

“You like wannabe Hooters girls? I bet you didn’t know I heard you say that.”

“I didn’t realize it at the time,” he admitted.

“Just because a person wears orange shorts?—”

“You looked beautiful in your orange shorts,” he said.

“No, I looked like a person who had just finished working out and felt no need to impress anyone,” she retorted, then watched as his eyes slid none-too-surreptitiously over her form.

When he noticed her watching, he jerked his gaze back to her face. His color had turned into a full flush. “I…I find you very attractive, Elizabeth.”

She narrowed her eyes. “We do nothing but argue. We despise one another.”

“I don’t despise you,” he said. “I find your quick wit very enticing. I’ll admit, I’ve started more than one argument with you just to hear what you’d say.”

Elizabeth huffed a bit, feeling unwillingly flattered. She shot back an insult quickly to cover the feeling. “You’re unbelievably arrogant and proud.”

“Being around strangers is difficult for me,” he said. “I admit it. I’m not the most outgoing person. I’m trying to do better with it though.”

It takes the steam right out of an argument, Elizabeth thought, when someone just acknowledges your position. “You tried to break up Jane and Bingley. You were the one who convinced him to leave her that night.”

“I’m also the one who admitted I was completely wrong and the one who drove him, miserably drunk and insistent on listening to really horrible country western music, down to Meryton to beg her to get back together with him.”

“You did?”

Darcy nodded, adding, “And I am the one whose car he vomited in on the way down.”

Elizabeth winced. “He did? Your Range Rover?”

“They say you haven’t lived until you’ve spent forty-five minutes in a rest stop trying to get vomit out of your car with cheap paper towels and hand sanitizer.”

She laughed, unabashedly, at the image that presented. “Oh, that sounds awful.”

“Trust me when I say it was. The only hand sanitizer I had belonged to my sister, those tiny little bottles called Pumpkin Marshmallow Waffles in the Fall or something inane like that. I used about twelve of them. My car smelled like someone threw up waffles for weeks.”

Elizabeth giggled at that but was unsure what else to say. She was glad, very glad, that Darcy had helped Jane and Charles get back together. Then again, if he hadn’t broken them up first, it wouldn’t have been necessary. And now he wanted to date her?

This has got to be at least one sign of the apocalypse. Can we blame global warming? Have the aliens landed?

“I still think a date is a lot. A date requires several hours together, generally speaking. It could be the longest evening of both of our lives, and it could also end very badly.”

“Then what do you propose?” he asked her.

What do you propose, Lizzy? She considered it a moment. “How about a kiss?”

“A kiss?”

She nodded, discomfited by the slow grin which spread across his face. “Sounds good to me.”

“Now I feel like I should have just agreed to the date. You’re way too enthusiastic about one meager kiss.”

“Can’t back out now,” he replied, looking more cheerful than she’d ever seen him. “One kiss, coming my way.”

“If you win!” she protested. “And that is a big ‘if’ to be honest with you. I do not intend to lose.”

“Then it’s all really academic, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is.” She tossed her hair back and set her glass down on one of the nearby trays. “Who knows, maybe once I kiss you, you’ll turn into a prince.”