As I walked her out through the lobby, she stopped when a black-and-white picture on the wall caught her eye. It was Mia sitting on my lap at the piano, both our faces frozen in laughter.
“She’s beautiful. What’s her name?”
“Mia.”
Charlene nodded. “Ah, well, good for you.” She stuck her hand out for me to shake. I knew she’d realized it was the girl I was pouring my guts out to her about that night back in the hotel room. “We’ll be in touch, Will.”
“Bye, Charlie.”
She smiled genuinely for the first time and then walked out the door.
My phone buzzed loudly in my pocket. I took a long breath and looked down at the screen. It was Mia and I was relieved the drama was over for the day.
“Hi, babe. How was the fitting?”
“Good. The dress should be perfect.”
“I can’t wait to see it.”
“I want it to be a total surprise.”
“Yeah,” I said, but I was still preoccupied, thinking about the cluster-fuck that had just transpired over Chad. I should have been happy; it had basically gone in my favor.
“What’s wrong, Will?”
“Nothing.”
“I thought about you all day today. I just couldn’t stop thinking that something was bugging you.”
Mia could always sense things. Call it female intuition, who knows, but I couldn’t get anything past her. “Why?”
“I don’t know, just had a weird feeling.”
“I’m okay. Everything’s fine and it’s all good now. Don’t worry.”
“You’re gonna have fun with the guys tonight, right? By the way, I’m meeting Martha for an early dinner, so I probably won’t see you.”
“Okay, tell her I said hi. I won’t be too late.”
“Just have fun, baby,” she said vehemently.
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
When Tyler got to my apartment, he looked disappointed. Scowling and shaking his head, he said, “What are you wearing?”
I had on a red T-shirt that said “Sup” on it and black jeans. “I like this shirt. What’s wrong with it?”
“Don’t you have any shirts that don’t have writing on them?”
I walked back to my room, tore my shirt off and threw it on the bed. I stared up into my closet.
Tyler came to my room and stood in the doorway. “How do you have f**king abs? You don’t even work out.”
“You admiring my physique?” I said to him without taking my eyes off the closet.
“It’s just not right.”
I pulled a plain black T-shirt off the hanger and slipped it over my head. “How’s this?”
“Better.”
As we headed down the stairs, Tyler yelled back, “We’re meeting Josh and Kyle.”
“Are you kidding me? I can’t stand Josh.”
He turned to me just before walking out into the street. “He’s fun.”
“He acts like a fool. He’ll either get into a fight, get kicked out of the bar, or get arrested.”
“He hasn’t been arrested in two years and anyway, so what if he does? It’s entertainment.”
He had a point. “Yeah, I guess. Where are we headed?”
“We’re meeting the guys at the Red Bar.”
“I love that place—they have the best jukebox.”
We entered the tiny red bar and found Josh and Kyle sitting at the end. As soon as they spotted us, Josh stood up, threw his pudgy arms into the air and yelled, “Dicks before chicks, man!”
I ducked behind Tyler, shaking my head. In the five seconds it took us to reach Josh and Kyle at the end of the bar, they had already ordered me an Irish Car Bomb. After high fives and fist bumps, Josh pushed the beer and shot toward me and started chanting, “Chug, chug, chug.”
Josh was a cross between Chris Farley and Jack Nicholson. He was overweight with plenty of stupid energy, but he had these really exaggerated eyebrows and an overbearing forehead, which gave a permanently sinister look to his face.
I dropped the shot in the beer and downed the whole thing in three huge gulps, then slammed it back down on the bar.
Kyle, who was always with Josh, was the perfectly innocent sidekick. He was skinny, blond, and a virgin at the age of thirty, which basically made him the butt of all jokes. He and Josh were Tyler’s old roommates. They’d met in college when all three of them worked part time at Subway. They still called themselves sandwich artists—ridiculous.
Kyle was a decent-enough-looking guy, so it was hard to understand how he hadn’t gotten with at least one girl. The only explanation I could come up with was that he was always with Josh, who was the female deflector. In bars, women wouldn’t come within ten feet of Josh, yet he always found a way to get a girlfriend. At the time, he was dating a belly dancer he’d met while she was performing at a Mediterranean restaurant.
“Speaking of chicks, how’s your girl, Josh?”
“She’s great. She’s working tonight. You guys want to go check her out?”
“Uh, no,” Tyler said.
Josh objectified his own girlfriend in the strangest way and then told everyone she liked it, another reason I couldn’t stand him.
“What’s her name again, bro?” I asked.
This time Kyle chimed in. “Saphir!” he blurted out.
Josh turned toward him and glared before turning back to Tyler and me. “That’s her stage name. And Kyle here got to see her perform last weekend.”