Tamed(46)

“Screw you both—I’m an excellent singer.”

Her cousin chuckles. “Sure you are, Rain Man. Cats come from miles around just to hear you—hoping to get lucky.”

I laugh and tap my beer bottle to Warren’s. Then he ducks as Dee whips a pretzel at his head.

Kate sits back down next to Billy, and I can’t help but notice the space between their chairs. Billy leans forward and says, “So . . . I’ve got some news. That music producer who came to my gig a few months back called. He wants me to come out to California . . . says he can get me into a studio.”

Dee smiles joyously. “Oh my God! That’s fantastic!”

But judging by the look on her face, fantastic isn’t what Kate thinks it is at all.

“When . . . when did this happen?” she asks.

Billy shrugs. “A few days ago.” He sips his beer.

“Why am I just hearing about it now?”

Tension sweeps across the air like a swarm of locusts.

Billy stares hard. “When was I supposed to tell you, Kate? You’re never around.”

Her frown deepens. “We live together.”

“And even when you’re at the apartment, you’re not there.”

She looks away and pushes a hand through her hair. Delores watches them—worriedly—like a child of divorce stuck between two bickering parents.

“I can’t . . .” Kate starts. “I can’t go to California now.”

Billy keeps his eyes on his beer bottle. “Yeah . . . I know. That’s why I’m going by myself.”

Kate looks completely blindsided—hurt, and a little angry.

“But . . . we had a plan. You supported me when I was in school and now I . . . it’s my turn to do that for you.”

Billy pushes his chair back from the table. Defensive frustration makes his hands clench and his expression tight. “Well, plans change, Katie. I mean really, will you even f*cking notice when I’m gone? ’Cause it sure doesn’t feel like you will.”

She’s about to ask what he means. It’s right there on the tip of her tongue. But she stops short and says, “I don’t want to fight.”

This just pisses Warren off more. “Of course you don’t want to fight. You don’t want to do anything with me these days! You’re too busy to go anywhere—”

“I’m working!”

He ignores her. “You don’t want to argue, or talk; you don’t want to have sex . . .”

Kate’s cheeks flush pink, but I can’t tell if it’s because she’s embarrassed or mad.

“All you want to do is look over your f*cking files and decide what suit you should wear to the office.”

“That’s not fair!”

“I know business is a man’s world, but I didn’t know you had to dress the part.”

Delores jumps in. “Don’t be a dick, Billy.”

“Stay out of it, Dee-Dee.”

With fire in her eyes, Kate gets in her financé’s face. “Screw you.”

He laughs in a bitter way. “Interesting choice of words. I’m not sure who you’ve been screwing lately, but it hasn’t been me.”

Kate stands up and rips her purse off the back of the chair. “I’m going home. Good night, Matthew. Dee, I’ll call you.”

As Kate walks out the door, Warren stands up to follow her, but Dee grabs his arm.

“Billy! Don’t . . . don’t say things you can’t take back . . . things you and I both know you don’t mean.”

All he does is nod. Then he’s out the door too.

Dee takes a long drink of her martini. “Well, that just happened.”

“Think they’ll be okay?” I ask.

“No. I’m sure they’ll make up, stay together—do the long-distance thing. But they haven’t been okay in a long time. Their relationship is like a morgue . . . lifeless. And Billy’s right. I can’t remember the last time they argued before tonight.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” I wonder, finishing off my beer.

“Not for them. They don’t not argue because they’re happy—they don’t fight because, I think, deep down where neither of them wants to admit, there’s nothing worth fighting for.”

The most successful marriages and relationships are between best friends—who want to f*ck each other. Trusted confidants who can’t keep their hands off each other. When you’ve been with the same person for years, it’s supposed to get comfortable. Broken in. Like a well-worn favorite pair of sweatpants.

But there has to be heat—desperate attraction. A craving need. Sometimes, like Steven and Alexandra, it comes in waves. They indulge it, when the demands of life let them. But if the passion is gone and you can’t be bothered to even try and rekindle the flame—all you have is friendship. Companionship.

At eighty years old, that may very well be enough. But at frigging twenty-five? You’re just settling for the status quo.

“You ready to head out?” Delores asks.

“Yep. Looks like it’s just you and me tonight.”

She pumps her fist. “Weekend warriors . . . on a Wednesday. Let’s do it.”



Delores and I spend the next few hours bar-hopping. We play darts and pool. She takes me for fifty bucks on our last game because I didn’t realize I was dealing with a practiced hustler.