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So, I took the beer offered to me and downed about half of it in a few gulps, right in time for Seth and Nadir, a neighbor from down the street, to show up.
I’d started hosting these once-a-month poker nights about three years ago as a way to fill up the time and space of this house, which, at the time, was in need of a major renovation. But now, I was starting to see, no matter how hard I’d tried to show my friends—the world, really—that I was fine, I had moved on, I hadn’t. I couldn’t move on. I didn’t know if there was such a thing as moving on from grief.
Because for the last six years, I’d been standing still.
And in the middle of a game that I’d all but forgotten about, I picked up my phone and texted Taylor.
I was thinking about what you said.
Beelzebub
Oh yeah?
Beelzebub
You’re going to take it easier on the Axe?
It’s NOT Axe. I told you.
Beelzebub
Well, whatever it is, you don’t have to bathe in it.
It’s beard oil.
Beelzebub
The three whiskers on your face barely qualify as a beard.
Stop pretending you don’t love it.
As I recall, you had your face all up in there last month.
Beelzebub
I don’t remember. I was in a bad place and nearly delirious.
I remember.
It took her so long to respond, the current round had ended with Seth taking the pot, and Nadir had already dealt a new hand.
Beelzebub
Is there a reason you’re texting me right now?
Beelzebub
Shouldn’t you be talking to your friends?
I have a question.
Beelzebub
So get on with it, Hargrove.
Do you think it would have been easier or harder for you if you’d hung out with your friends after your dad died?
Another long while passed, another hand completed and begun.
