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“Are you alone?”
“Yeah. Making a cake.”
“For what?”
“Coworker’s birthday tomorrow.”
I wonder if the coworker is male and good-looking. Suddenly, the TV in the background is silenced.
“Aren’t you at work?” she asks me.
“It’s after seven.”
“Well, I know, but Skye says you don’t usually come in until after eight or later.”
Skye says?Like is Skye offering things up about me randomly? Or is Chloe checking up on me? The first I wouldn’t mind. The second possibility makes me bristle.
“I’m at the Cat,” I tell her. “But I can’t concentrate.”
I tried. Spent an hour playing Billy Joel tunes, but I couldn’t think about my stuff. Truth is, I’m worried about Wamba. Notworried, worried, I guess. But I feel bad for him. Clarice was the love of his life. He always talked about her—how pretty she was, how smart, how fun. They had been together from the time they turned fourteen. I can’t imagine loving anyone like that.
Usually if I feel low like this, the music helps. And the low feeds the music. But not tonight. Because not only am I thinking about Wamba and Clarice, I’m thinking about Skylar Stafford, my current roommate and my sister’s best friend.
I’m thinking about that night she hung that framed print in her room. The little skirt. Her cute little ass in the skirt. The toned legs that went on forever.
“Ooh. What’s got you in a twist?” Chloe asks me. She thinks it’s a woman. I’ve talked to her before about women I’ve dated. The one time I got stung by a woman—bit by a cougar, actually—I didn’t tell her about. It was an affair; Alaina was married, though separated. I knew better. I wasn’t in love with her, but I loved being around her. Loved her singing voice. Loved the cigarettes that dangled from her ruby red lips. Loved the feel of her bare ass tucked up against my junk when we slept. But I didn’t love the idea of being with her forever, so it shouldn’t have hurt when she went back to her husband.
“Wamba,” I tell Chloe, because I can’t tell her I like the looks of Skye in a skirt. Or that she sings along with her music when she thinks I’m not listening. Or that she reads me the riot act sometimes like I’m a kid. “I think he’s still grieving for Clarice.”
“Well, of course he is, Gideon. They’ve been together forever. Do you think Dad would just wake up a year after he loses Mom and be over it?”
Mom and Dad are over the top with the love stuff. Overly handsy. They communicate with just shared looks. They finish each other’s sentences.
“Have you ever loved someone like that?” I ask Chloe. Afraid she’ll see through me, I thump my forehead with the heel of my hand.
“Yeah. Well. I mean, I thought so. But obviously it’s never worked out.”
I stew on that for a few moments, wondering if Skye’s ever been in love like that. But I don’t ask Chloe.
“I can’t go home yet,” I say around a yawn.
Chloe snorts. “Did she kick you out?”
“No. She has a Zoom meeting tonight.”
“Oh yeah!” Chloe sounds too excited about a book club meeting. “The Meet Cute Book Club. She keeps telling me to join.”
“Do they read sexy books?”
“Yeah, pretty sureThe Kama Sutra’sup next.”
Chloe’s trying to freak me out. I decide to one up her.
“Did the whole book when I lived in Vegas.”
“You what? With who?”
