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“Is this like playing keep-away on the playground, but for grown men? Ridiculing the only friend who has successfully remained single?” I asked.
“No, we’re pointing out the fact that our choices have made us happy,” Kyle said with his typical wise-and-serious tone of voice. “And we want you to be happy with your choices as well.”
“Is this where we talk about issues with my parents, and you try to make me cry?” I inquired with a chuckle.
“I’m here for a drink, and some peace and quiet,” Kyle said. “Not therapy.”
“Peace and quiet? In a bar?” I said dubiously, looking around, indicating the loud music and the din of fifty different conversations.
“Compared to living with twin toddlers, absolutely. This is the sound of silence,” he laughed.
Drake nodded in solidarity, “Amen. There’s noise but not from anyone who wants you to watch this one thing on YouTube that you’ve seen six times and is literally just some kid opening a new toy…”
“Or shouting that they pooped and want their sticker and their butts wiped!” Kyle cracked up.
Everyone laughed but me. I felt wistful, and not because I wanted to watch YouTubers’ unboxing videos and clean up bowel movements. Because they were joking fondly, about people they loved and incidents they found humor in. Because their lives were populated with families that counted on them, waited for them to get home, were happy to see them.
At my place, I had a rowing machine and the latest Bowflex and a plasma TV. I liked those things, but not a damn one of them ever ran and threw their arms around me when I walked in the door. I felt the grating sense that something in what my friends said had touched a nerve. I wasn’t going to go out and buy a ring and join a dating app with a bio that said, ‘looking to settle down’, but I wasn’t far off. Being alone was getting pretty fucking old, and I was about ready to admit it at least to myself.
“It’s Aaron’s turn next,” Drake pointed out. “He’ll break the rules and fall head over heels, and we’ll get to drink round after round on his tab, because he swore up and down, he’d never go down that road. The taboo relationship.”
“Look, I don’t have a teacher-student kink like the rest of you. I’m not looking for a twenty-two-year-old to call me Mr. Parks and ask me to spank her,” I laughed.
Kyle leveled a glare at me that said he was going to snap in about ten seconds and give me a lecture on misogyny and not being an ass. I glanced at Rick.
“I miss the days when you were the jackass,” I said ruefully.
“At least you admit it,” Kyle said, easing back in his chair. “Because that was the kind of trash we don’t talk.”
“I remember. Implying that anyone’s wife or fiancé fits a sexist stereotype is off limits. No school uniform, Aerosmith video, hot for teacher jokes allowed,” I replied.
“Well done,” Rick said. “I couldn’t have recited it better myself, and God knows I’ve had the opportunity.”
“Yes, it’s a wonder you still have your own teeth,” Kyle remarked. Of all of us, Kyle was both the most serious and the most likely to lose his damn mind if someone even hinted anything negative about his wife. His loyalty ran deep, and you didn’t want to trip over it. I nodded and took a drink.
“Your love affair will be next,” Hamilton said. “Trust me, famous last words of ‘I would never’…you’re doomed.”
I shrugged, “I’m pretty set on being different, staying the only one of us not to get involved with a student. It gives me status in a way,” I teased. “Not giving in to temptation. Not that I’m tempted or that I will be.”
“Just you wait,” Rick said. “I never thought it would be me, and then, bam! A student who was also my intern and my sister’s best friend. It was some kind of evil trifecta that karma thought was funny.”
“You’re saying that Hailey was the result of bad karma?” I asked, busting his balls. His face fell.
“No, never. Not at all. God,” he said, shaking his head. “When I think of what I’d be without her,” he seemed shaken, not like I’d teased him about misspeaking but like I’d brought up something that bothered him.
“Sorry, man. I was joking.”
“I know, I just, it hits me sometimes, you know? How much my life is different now, and how I’m so glad I ended up where I am. It could’ve turned out another way and I never would’ve had this life. Is that just me?” he asked.
“God, no. Me, too. I think about it when I’m driving sometimes, what would it be like if I went home, walked in, and there’s no Luke, no Carla, no big noisy dog laying on the couch and barking at me. How goddamn empty that would be. I scare myself with it,” Drake said.
“When I tuck the kids in at night, I remember what it was like when I was on my own with Collin. I love my son, and I wouldn’t trade the time we had together in the early years just the two of us, but I’m so much happier now and more relaxed. Roxanne has my back, and I can count on her and she counts on me. We’re partners in every way, and it also kind of removed a layer of anxiety for me of, what if something happened to me? What would become of Collin? I know my sister would’ve taken him—but this is different. He has a mom, a little brother now. A whole family. And I have the woman I love, who understands me. I wouldn’t want to go back to the way things were before,” Hamilton said, his face looking haggard at the thought.
“Same,” Kyle put in. “I couldn’t go back. It’s not in me to live like that any longer. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I know now what it means to be a man, to be a husband and a father. It’s changed me for the better in every way.”
“Is this like an intervention for me?” I inquired, shifting uncomfortably in my seat.
The fact was, it occurred to me that I might never have that: fatherhood, marriage, the kind of love and understanding and comfort that a family of my own would provide. I didn’t want to think or talk seriously about that, especially not with these guys who in addition to being my best friends were also my mentors, the men I had always looked up to in one way or another. Men who were now, unintentionally, pointing out how my life was lacking. A spike of antagonism zipped through my competitive nature because it made me feel like they were winning somehow.
