Frenemies(7)

It was the same one-bedroom I’d been living in since I left college, for anyone keeping score on their “she’s a loser” card. It was the one-bedroom that had been considered flashy and high-end by my friends back then, as they huddled in studios or shared places with the hygienically challenged while I got my master’s degree at Simmons. The very same one-bedroom that was now considered a breath above squalor by these same friends, who had moved on to Real Adult Homes now that we were all about to hit the Big Three Oh. I would have liked to move on myself, and would have, were it not for the whole mortgage issue. But then, no one was a librarian for the money. (I repeated that phrase to myself sometimes as often as seventy times a day.)

And anyway, I had my dog and my books, so what more did I need?

When I pushed my way through my front door, my silly dog was jubilant at the sight of me. Linus leapt into the air and wriggled madly, which he would keep doing until I stopped everything and concentrated on saying hello.

I tossed my mail across the counter in my little galley kitchen—a selection of credit-card and utility bills along with two large, brightly colored square envelopes I suspected contained more holiday invitations. It had been suggested to me that deciding to become a recluse just as the holiday season was swinging into gear was like shooting myself in the foot, and I had to admit Amy Lee had a point. We had a big group of friends, all of whom believed in throwing parties. People who could barely afford to pay rent went all out to send engraved invitations. Every party was an opportunity to one-up the previous one, and we were nothing if not competitive. It wasn’t as if I thought Nate and Helen were likely to keep themselves in seclusion to spare my feelings. So why should I hide myself away, as if I were the one who’d done something wrong?

I looked at my silly dog instead of following thoughts of Nate and Helen to their usual depressing conclusion, as he cavorted around in circles—a completely unapologetic spaz from his black-and-tan head to his oversize paws. I held his furry head between my hands and kissed him on his doggy forehead until he was calm and I was smiling.

Dogs: better for what ails you than the latest pharmaceuticals.

When the phone rang, I was feeling better. So much better, in fact, that I failed to check my caller ID before picking up the receiver.

I was a dumbass.

“Gus?” drawled the familiar voice. I froze. There was a pause, and I was sure I could hear him smirk. “It’s Henry. It’s been a while.”

Several consecutive life sentences would not be long enough to have not seen or heard from him, I thought. Several consecutive life sentences spent burning alive, in fact, would not even begin to be long enough.

And anyway, it had been about a week. Hardly long enough to qualify as “a while.”

I wasn’t exactly rational when it came to Henry. I could admit it. Even thinking about him made my stomach hurt. Hearing his voice made me break out in a sweat. He was like the flu.

“Henry,” I bit out, by way of a greeting. It wasn’t actually rude, I told myself. It was just his name.

To say that I disliked Henry Benedict Farland IV, known more simply as Henry and/or Beelzebub, was to so vastly understate my feelings that it was almost funny. Among other things, he was Nate’s roommate and one of the people in my extended group of friends I’d known without knowing well for years.

Nate, naturally enough, adored Henry. I’d long suspected this had something to do with the fact that Henry was tall and in phenomenal shape, while Nate was shorter, stockier, and was obsessed with the size of his biceps in comparison to Henry’s. It was a guy thing.

But the most important thing about Henry was that he was the one who had let me into the house that night eighteen days ago. If he hadn’t opened the door, I would never have seen Nate and Helen together in the kitchen. If it hadn’t been for Henry, I would still have Nate.

I just couldn’t forgive him.

“So this is the situation,” Henry said in that overconfident, lazy voice of his, the one I figured they taught on the beaches of Cape Cod. “Nate’s convinced that you’d rather be dead than seen in the same room as him. Tell me that’s just Nate being dramatic.”

“Help me out here,” I said, ignoring him. Along with the sickening image of Nate and him sitting down for a cozy chat about me. Because why shouldn’t they? They lived together, after all. What a nightmare. “You’re calling me why, exactly? To explore my emotional terrain?”

“I’m not much for exploring,” Henry said. And why should he be? With ancestors who partied it up on the Mayflower, the “explorer” gene had probably been bred out sometime around the Boston Tea Party. The only thing Henry ever explored, as far as I knew, was the number of little floozies he could hook up with in a single evening. (And he could hook up with quite a few.)

“Thanks for calling—” I began in an overly chipper tone, meaning to hang up on him as quickly as possible.

“Here’s the thing,” Henry said smoothly before I could slam the phone back into the cradle and pretend he didn’t exist. “You never RSVPed to the invitation for the party tomorrow.”

That was because I’d received the invitation the day after discovering Nate and Helen in that house. The day after Henry had made sure I’d discovered them. I’d shredded it into bitty pieces and laughed at the very idea of entering that place again. I opened my mouth to tell him so.