Page 65 of Tied Over

“I suspect that if you’d married the first guy, all the house stuff would have been taken care of, and you never would have had to worry about the bats.”

“Or have videos of screaming kids and my man yelling at the bats to, and I quote, ‘Come out of that vent, you fuzzy little fuckers!’”

Since I knew them all now, I could imagine the scene unfolding, Thomas explaining all the facts about bats, Brandon wanting one for a pet, and Margo running around thinking it was all a game. I couldn’t help laughing because I was certain, at the time, Zach had been very angry and forgot that his children were there, thus the swearing.

“What I don’t understand is,” Angie went on, lost in the memory, “the bat guys leave an exit for the bats to come out. Why would they be in the house?”

“You know, just because there was an exit doesn’t mean all the bats were in a place to be able to get out that way. Perhaps they got into the space in the walls while looking for a way out because they were too stupid to use the door put in for them.”

She made a face like perhaps.

“Listen, Ange, I—”

“Oh, Josie calls me Ange,” she said, waving at her sister.

Josette waved back, smiling crazily because, unlike their feelings for their brothers—they didn’t seem all that crazy about Keith, Giles, or Hayden—the two women were deeply bonded. It was easy to see it in the way they talked to each other, whispered, and laughed. They also included Shae, which was nice. It was the same with lots of siblings; I knew that. You could love your family out of familial obligation, but then there were siblings, like me and Lisa, who were friends as well. Angie and Josette were actually friends first.

“Food!” Josette took that moment to yell over the crowd.

Angie gestured with her hands, first down, then straight, then to the left.

Josette gave her the thumbs-up. Apparently, they knew a place.

“Okay,” Angie announced, taking hold of my good arm and walking me toward the stairs. “Back to our discussion.”

“No, we don’t hafta—”

“When Bodhi is with Hayden, he’s lovely. I’ve thought from the beginning, what a charming, handsome, easygoing man.”

“Okay.”

“But what I didn’t know until this weekend is that he’s been lifeless.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, I’m sure you don’t because I can’t imagine you’ve ever seen him like that.”

“What does that even mean?”

“The man I saw yesterday is not docile, he’s actually more than a little loud, has an opinion on everything, and he laughs. A lot. He’s also a bit combative.”

“A bit combative?” Had she met him? Bodhi would argue about what color the sky was.

She laughed. “Yes. But see, before yesterday, I never saw that. With all of us he’s been the go-along-not-to-make-waves guy. I told Zach, he’s the most agreeable man.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “But see, yesterday, he said no, he wasn’t going out to dinner, and then no, he wasn’t going golfing, and hell no, he wasn’t going to a party with Hayden at friends of my parents’ tonight, and he’s very, like, this is the way about it.”

I grinned. “That was a pretty good Pedro Pascal impression.”

“Shut up. It’s terrible, but you get my point. When he says no, it’s like move on.”

“Yeah. It’s not great when he digs in.”

“And that party tonight is a big deal.”

“Then he should go.”