Page 43 of Joey

“I just told you. I can read in three languages.”

“So you spend your time reading Japanese porn mags?”

“Will you shut up for a second and let me talk?”

I roll my hand at him in a ‘please, go on’ motion.

“And this is how they started.”

I wait for more, but it appears he’s done. This explains everything. “What do you mean?”

“They hired an actress to be the one guy’s fake fiancée so he could get his family off his back because he was kinda having an affair with his best friends.”

“So he was gay?”

“No, he wasn’t gay. He was bi, I guess. They like… whatever. That’s not the point. The point is that one of them needed a girl to get the parents off his back and they hired this actress to play the part for a huge family reunion. But then all three of the guys sorta fell for her… it kinda, you know, devolves out of our scenario from there. But that’s where I got the idea.”

I just stare at my best friend.

“What? Why are you looking at me that way?”

“You,” I say, “are fucking one of a kind, Huck. I swear. Never in a million years will I ever meet another asshole like you.”

“You’re welcome.” He grins. “And back atcha. Now let’s get busy. We have like a hundred posts to write. Here’s the general timeline Wald and I came up with…”

It’s not a general timeline. It’s very fucking specific. But what did I expect with Wald in the mix?

Over the next thirty minutes Huck describes how we passed through seven countries, ten cities, and finally landed back in Tokyo living together in our current place.

“You got any pics of the Kyoto house on your phone, Joey?”

“Why?” I ask, scribbling down the outline of a dinner date we all had in Hong Kong.

“Because we need a pic of us all in front of the house. It’s the best one, don’t you think?”

I look up at him and think about this. “Yeah. It is.”

We have three homes in Japan. One, our main penthouse, in Tokyo. It’s close to everything and that matters. This one he’s talking about in Kyoto. And an apartment in Okinawa right on the water.

“Let me look,” I say, grabbing my phone. “I think I sent one to Johnny right after we bought it.”

“Hmm. What’d he think of it?”

“Never replied.”

“That guy is such a dick. How can the two of you even be related?”

“Don’t ask me.” But then I pause and look up at Huck.

He shakes his head. “Don’t even go there.”

“You know it’s not the first time someone’s asked me that. About Jesse too. Because we’re so damn different.”

“Not that different.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that I was some bastard at this point. But fuck it. It doesn’t even matter.” I start scrolling down through my photos. “When did we buy that house?”

“Five and a half years ago, maybe.”