Vince

“How do you spell ‘eunuch’?” I ask Davis as he walks into my house. “Did you knock and I didn’t hear you?”

He eyes the crossword puzzle on my lap and then the television, which emits a ball-jarring explosion. Probably I didn’t hear him.

“How many times have you watched that?” he asks.

I lift my chin and see Bruce Willis’s badass receding hairline and wonder if I’ll look that cool if mine goes in that direction. “Not sure. It’s either my third or fourth viewing since yesterday.”

Davis mutters something that sounds like “It’s worse than I thought” before he sits next to me. “I’d rather you watch sappy, weepy movies than Die Hard. I feel like this is a cry for help.”

“This is a man’s movie.” I gesture to the television with the pen in my hand. “I’m fortifying myself for what’s to come.”

“You’re walling up and trying to grow a callus or two.”

Eyes back on my puzzle, I try spelling “eunuch” with a K in the margin. That still looks wrong.

“So what?” I say as I scribble through the word. “I could use a callus or two. I finally think I understand you.” I look at him. “Why you’re a serial dater. A fan of the one-night blonde.” Gripping his shoulder, I level with him. “It’s a superpower, my friend. I was shitty at the one-night thing, but you have it down.”

I give myself a pitying head shake, since I’ve mastered the art of feeling sorry for myself, and return to my margins and my spelling challenge. I wonder if it starts with a Y?

“They should make phonetic crossword puzzles,” I say, jotting down my new favorite made-up word: “younick.”

Davis snatches the newspaper from me and tosses it on the coffee table, knocking over the beer cans sitting there. He grumbles as he picks them up off the floor and walks them to the kitchen. He returns with a wad of paper towels and swipes the spilled beer—only a few drops—off the table before scolding me like my mother.

“They aren’t from this morning,” I say, thinking his concern stems from my day drinking. I planned on starting early, but not this early.

“I’m making you some coffee.”

Never mind, he reminds me more of Leslie. “Good, you can be my new ex-wife.”

Davis storms back into the living room, paper towels gone, something else notably missing.

“Hey, where’s my coffee?” I ask.

Then I’m zooming upward, a little too quickly, considering the beer cans from last night Davis just collected. My head is swimming from a few too many and not enough sleep. My best friend holds me by the scruff of the T-shirt.

“What is going on with you?” Davis asks through his teeth. “Stop being so goddamn flippant and talk to me.”

“And tell you what?” I swipe his arms away, a surge of anger shooting down my limbs. I scrape my hand through my unwashed hair and stalk into the kitchen, simply because I can’t stand still. “Tell you that Jackie underestimated, undermined, and underappreciated me?” I call out. “Tell you that I was going to tell her I was falling for her”—I open a cabinet and pull out the coffee can and a filter—“but no, she—”

I cut myself off when I realize I’m shouting and Davis is standing a few feet away from me. I continue at a normal volume as I scoop the coffee. “I thought she was different, that we had a shot at something real. I never believed she’d assume the worst about me.”

My heart does that thing where it hurts so much I wonder if I need to call an ambulance. It’s been happening every day since the morning I talked to Riley and found out Jackie had come to her own conclusions—albeit happily fueled by my troublemaking neighbor—about what transpired between Leslie and me.

“After Leslie left,” I tell Davis, “I swore I’d never think about permanence again. Jackie made me hope. Made me take back that vow and imagine a future with her.” I gesture around the kitchen with the scoop. “Her here. Living here. Maybe more,” I mumble, miserable about…well, just about everything, frankly.

I fill the pot with water and pour it into the machine. “I was wrong. Maybe she was right and she was my rebound. Maybe she’s better off with Jaundice.”

I punch the button and the brew starts. Only then do I realize that Davis is leaning on my kitchen table, hands gripping the edges, a look of uncertainty on his face.

“Jackie-O was a rebound,” he states flatly.

I shrug, my heart shredding, but it’s only been a few days. It’ll heal. I healed from Leslie and we were married for years. Jackie and I only had sex a few times.

“I’ll be over her soon,” I say, as if I can also erase the memory of her being my other best friend for the past few years.

“How you planning on getting over her?” he asks. “By turning into me? Reentering the singles scene, this time with your callused heart so you can continue sleeping with women who mean absolutely nothing to you? Forgetting their names? Forgetting yours? Just empty sex to fill the void because you’re too much of a coward to tell Jackie how you feel?”

“Sounds like you’re talking about you, bro. And to answer your question, yes,” I decide, because decision making gives the pretense of control when in reality my life is spinning out of it. “When the time is right, I may do that. I’m not a coward because I saw the end coming from a long way away. I didn’t see the end of Leslie and me until it was too late. I don’t care to repeat that disaster. And you’re one to talk,” I add. Angry and decisive feels so much better than unmoored and sad. “You didn’t see the end of you and Hanna until it was really too late.”

I half expect him to walk out of my house cursing my name as he goes, but instead he nods solemnly. “You’re right. I didn’t. Continue in your misery, Carson.”

He pushes off the kitchen table and ambles to the front door. I follow, feeling guilty that I sniped at him, because this wasn’t his fault at all. “Davis. Wait.”

He faces me, maybe because he expects an apology. He’s not getting one.

“You’ve had six years to work through this thing with Hanna, and I’ve been friends with you the entire time. I never walked out on you, and trust me, you’re a pro at wallowing.”

His jaw tightens along with his fists.

“Give me that same courtesy. Are you staying for coffee or not?”

He marches to the front door and slams it behind him.

“Not” it is.

Great. Now I’ve got no girl and no friend.

Good thing I have plenty of things to do.

“Siri!” I shout at my phone sitting on the coffee table. “How the fuck do you spell ‘eunuch’?”

Jacqueline

I’ve been cleaning nonstop since eight this morning. I’m in cutoff sweats and an old T-shirt, and I haven’t showered. I ate a doughnut for breakfast and drank coffee for lunch, and I’m considering eating a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos for dinner. I did brush my teeth today, which qualifies as a win.

I’m not expecting anyone, so when the knock comes at my closed front door, I semipanic. A figure stands on my doorstep. The FedEx guy has seen me in disarray before, but it’s not a delivery guy. I part one curtain and blink in surprise. Davis?

He nods from his position on my stoop.

“Jackie-O,” he greets me when I open the door. His hands are in the pockets of his suit pants. He’s not wearing a tie or jacket today, but his ever-present button-down shirt is there, open at the collar. Davis is tall, a little taller than Vince, so I have to look way up at him.

“I wasn’t expecting company.” I self-consciously tug on my worn OSU T-shirt. There’s nothing to be done about the hair. I don’t even bother straightening the bandanna serving as a headband. “What are you doing here?”

It’s not like him to show up unannounced—or announced, for that matter. Davis and I know each other through Vince, not personally. I’m not sure how he knows where I live. He steps toward me in a presumptive manner. Curiosity wins. I let him in.

“Know what’s worse than being left behind?” he asks, strolling into my living room. He doesn’t wait for me to guess. He turns around and states, “Nothing.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I ask with an incredulous snort.

“It messes with your equilibrium,” Davis continues. “Makes you do dumb things. Makes you seek the next thing and the next thing because the current thing has the potential to hurt you all over again.”

I can’t tell if he’s talking about me, Vince, or himself…or the three of us simultaneously. He stops pacing long enough to pick up a figurine on a nearby shelf. My sister bought it for me after the divorce. It’s a unicorn, head thrust up proudly, one hoof in the air. The plaque attached reads BELIEVE IN YOURSELF.

It’s cheesy, but after the divorce that was the exact sentiment I needed.

Davis puts the figurine down without comment. “I’m overstepping my boundaries by being here.” I’m opening my mouth to agree it’s inappropriate to barge in on me when he says, “Vince is my best friend. I should be at his place getting drunk with him. Again.”

It might hurt to hear that Vince is hurting if I hadn’t spent the past few days swimming in a bottle of wine myself. “Why aren’t you?”

Davis fastens his gray stare on me. “Because he’s lovesick and miserable and I hate seeing him like this. I can’t fix it. But you can.” He takes a breath and says, “When he told me Leslie came over, I thought for sure a confession that he slept with her would follow. Like, in a fit of nostalgia or desperation or sparked by some memory of what they used to have together. I told him as much. Know what he said?”

“I hope he said no.”

“He said no. And he looked at me like I put a poisonous snake in his pants when I suggested it. He was appalled. And not because sleeping with Leslie is an appalling idea—she’s hot.”

I grimace. “Thanks for that.”

“Keeping you honest,” he says. “He was appalled because you are the only one he wants to horizontal mambo with, honey. You.” He points and then walks his pointing finger to me. “He’s gone for you, sweets. It’s obvious. And yet you two are avoiding each other when you should be screwing each other’s brains out.”

Davis is a lot of things, but eloquent isn’t one of them.

“I appreciate you coming here, Davis, but you’re wrong. I made a mistake and Vince didn’t forgive me. One snag and he was done.” That’s on him. It doesn’t make being without him any easier, but at least it wasn’t me who gave up.

“I’m not wrong.” Davis casts a look around my house before sitting on the sofa and resting his elbows on his knees. The next words he says are spoken to his hands. “You know my story. How Hanna wrecked me.”

I do know it, because Vince told me about it, not because Davis talks about it. Yet here he is. Talking about it.

“You don’t get over something like that.” He rubs his thumb on the palm of his other hand in a nervous gesture before he turns the tables and starts in on me. “You wrecked Vince. He let down his guard and was about to step toward you in a big, big way when you snatched away your trust. You compared him to Lex, who he hates, by the way.”

“He doesn’t hate him. He hates J.T.”

“He hates them both. Men always hate the exes of the women they love.” He lifts his brows. “Like you hate Leslie.”

Fair point. If I’m being one hundred percent honest, I do kind of hate her.

“He didn’t sleep with Leslie. They didn’t make out or talk about how they wished they still had each other. Yeah, they may have traipsed down memory lane, but only in relation to you. He was starting to have permanent feelings for you that were more than him just getting his rocks off.”

I let out a tiny laugh. “Did he put it that way?”

“Probably not. He’s better than me. He’s a better person than me. He has boundaries. Knows what’s right. But lately? He’s been reminding me a lot of me. I can’t have that. I can’t have him turning into Davis from six years ago and ending up like Davis right now. That’d be devastating for all of us.”

I don’t want that for Vince either, but I don’t know what Davis expects. So I ask.

“He’s the one mad at me. What do you want me to do about it?”

“Swallow your pride and tell him how you feel,” he answers without hesitation.

“Shouldn’t he be the one coming to me?” I bark, because what Davis suggests is terrifying. It involves me creeping onto a very narrow ledge when the wind is just starting to pick up speed.

“Do you love him?”

I press my lips together as my shoulders fold forward. I love Vince so much I’m having trouble staying upright.

“That’s what I thought.” Davis stands, but as he passes by, he squeezes my arm and lowers himself so that he can look into my eyes. “Don’t give up on him, Jackie. He’s hurting and it’s not your fault. It’s Leslie’s, Lex’s, and partially J.T.’s fault. Are you going to let the three of them come between you?”

He straightens and I turn around and ask the question I have to know the answer to before he goes. “Why didn’t you have this conversation with Vince? Shouldn’t he ride over here on a white steed and confess his feelings?”

“Yes. He should. But Vince is in drown-the-sorrow mode and he’s a few months out from that epiphany. Maybe longer. I didn’t want to wait, in case things really went south. Like maybe one of you decides to Band-Aid that pain by sleeping with someone else. Or rekindling what you had with the guy who runs by your office window every weekday.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I mutter, my pride stinging as much as the blood rushing to my cheeks. “J.T. and I are…I wouldn’t do that.”

“Trust me, Jacqueline, you’d be surprised what the right kind of pain can make you do.” There’s a pregnant pause where neither of us says anything. “You want to be with Vince? Why not start now? One of you could be hit by a car later this year and die and you’ll have lost months of mind-blowing sex.”

“That’s macabre.”

Davis sends me a tight smile. “Think about what your pride’s worth, and then tell me I’m wrong.”

He salutes and steps off my stoop, and I do as he says.

I think about it.

It’s all I think about.