“There’s a six-pack in the bottom drawer,” Antoine responded. He smirked at me as though to say,Everything’s OK, and then asked me to help him carry out the cake. I nodded and we walked back outto find Matías and Rubén sitting at the table talking to Lucas. They had pulled over a folding chair from the balcony and made a space for him. Lucas caught my eye as I set out the plates, and he smiled and said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” I replied, and I admit it sounded cutting, but I was tense, angry, and incredulous. He must have noticed. After all, he always knew what I was feeling. He could see straight through me, but I also wondered if a guilty conscience had put him on high alert.
Antoine introduced himself and told Lucas it was nice to meet him and he’d heard so much about him. Lucas responded with a typical manly handshake.
I was uncomfortable, but the rest of the evening was relaxed. Lucas was spilling over with charm as always, and soon my friends were in love with him. He was like that: He never needed to try, he effortlessly drew people in. He was so self-assured, so seductive, and his presence filled the room. He was himself again, and that somehow disconcerted me even worse. I didn’t get it. I didn’t get what his family and Claudia did to him to split him into two different people who just happened to inhabit the same body.
“Should we catch a cab?” he asked when we walked out.
“It’s not far. I’d rather walk.”
We crossed the deserted street and headed to his apartment. Lucas’s hands were in his jeans pockets. He had changed before coming to Matías’s, but I chose not to say anything about it. I wasn’t going to force the conversation, I’d decided not even to ask him what had happened that afternoon. If he wanted to bring it up, he would.
“I thought you didn’t want to see him again,” Lucas said.
“Who?”
“Antoine.”
I didn’t like that at all, and I think my expression showed it. And under the circumstances, I found his reaction out of place, to say the least…
“Things change. We have friends in common and I thought it was best to play nice.”
“Since when?”
“Since the other day, when I ran into him,” I replied.
“And now you’ve run into him again. Will there be more times? Have there been?”
I stopped and looked him in the eyes, saw the storm brewing behind them, but didn’t care, because I had a storm of my own. “What are you insinuating?”
“Nothing.”
“You want me to spend every day alone, shut up in your apartment, with you barely ever showing your face?”
My cheeks were hot, but I saw a regretful look on his face that made me ease back a bit.
“That’s not what I said,” he responded.
“Good, because I’m not doing anything you haven’t done first. And at least I’m not seeing my ex without telling you.”
“What does that mean?” he asked suspiciously.
“I saw you talking to Claudia and then walking off with her, and you didn’t come out and tell me. Instead you just said something had come up.”
He exhaled and shook his head. “I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“Now. At home. That was my plan.”
“Why not here? On the sidewalk?”
Open, sincere, the way he always was with me, he admitted, “I found her waiting outside for me when I came back from work.”
“I know. I already told you that I saw you. She showed up at theapartment. She wanted to wait inside, but I didn’t feel comfortable letting her in.”
Looking uncomfortable, he said, “She went inside?”
