#grace:starter

“Look,” Grace said, her hands spread across various papers, eyes meeting those of the man in front of hers. “I’m going to be honest. It’s not looking very good for you guys, and to be honest, I’m not sure that even the best person in the business could fix it.” She glanced back down at her notes, and then back up. “I mean, I can try, but I’m not making any promises.”

Grace was just counting down the minutes until this dinner was over and she could go back to her room. Alone. Granted, there’d be more stuff to do tomorrow, but...at least this hell would be over. She’d never imagined her engagement party to be an event that she hated, and yet...there she was. Hating every moment of it. She wondered if he was hating it too. She hoped he was. Glancing over at him, she leaned a little closer to him and whispered, “I’ll do anything if you shoot me in the head before this event is over.”

It was rare for Grace to go out with the twenties and thirties group at her church, since, as far as she could tell, a large part of their socializing involved getting drunk in some capacity. It truly amazed her how men and women who were supposed to be adults still got as wasted as some college students she knew. Still, one of her friends had absolutely insisted that Grace go out with them the next time an event came up, and that was how Grace found herself sitting in a restaurant with fifteen other people she barely knew, staring blankly at the menu. Her friend was seated at the other end of the table, next to a man she’d been trying to flirt with for almost six months now, leaving Grace utterly alone. With a sigh, Grace looked up from the menu, and over at the man sitting next to her. “Were you dragged here too?” she asked, a defeated look on her face. “Or do you actually want to be here?”