She looked at me with suspicion before saying, “Not sure. Why do you ask?”
Ah, smart girl. I could be anyone, so she was playing it cool, trying her best not to put Asher in a sticky spot. “I was his roommate in college. If he’s here, could you tell him Theo wants to see him?”
Her face relaxed a little. “Well, I’ll check and see if he’s working tonight. Wait here.”
She walked through the double doors leading to the kitchen. A couple of minutes later, my phone buzzed.
Asher: Dude, what are you doing here?
Me: I’m driving you home tonight. I wanna tell you something.
Asher: What? Is something the matter?
Me: No, nothing like that, but I’ve been trying to tell you something, and you’ve been avoiding me. Is something the matter with you?
Asher: I haven’t been avoiding you…
Me: Lies.
The three dots appeared, disappeared, then reappeared a few times before he replied.
Asher: I’m sorry. I’ve just been busy. It’s not you. I can’t go home with you tonight. I have a ride.
That fucking does it.
Me: YOU ARE AVOIDING ME! What the fuck did I do, man? Just tell me and stop being a bitch about it.
Those dreaded three dots came back. It took Asher alongtime to reply.
Asher: Okay. I’ll meet you at your car in thirty. I gotta finish up here.
Theo: Okay. Don’t fucking try to run or something. I have news! Good news!
Asher: I won’t bail. Promise.
I thanked the host and headed back to my car to wait for Asher. My hands went to connect my Bluetooth to listen to some music, but Dean Martin was blaring from the speakers at the front entrance of Fiorello’s.
When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.
I started humming along. It reminded me of Sunday dinners at Grandma’s house. I won’t lie, my family never went to Fiorello’s because we were snooty as hell about Italian food, but I had to hand it to them on the music.
Three songs later, I was belting “Mambo Italiano,” when the man of the hour opened the front passenger door and slipped in.
“You fucker! Where have you been?” I asked. My mood was still sky high from the music. The impulse to pull him into a hug was strong, but then I stopped.
He had his work hat down over his eyes, and he fidgeted with his cuticles as he said, “Sorry, dude, I went back to work right after I got home, and I’ve been fucking busy. How are you? How’s life? Sorry, I haven’t been in touch. It’s just been a lot, what with—”
He had his work cap down over his eyes, but I could see the shadow of a bruise on his cheek. He picked at his cuticles and rambled. I couldn’t tell if he was rambling because he was trying to distract me from the bruise that he was clearly trying to hide or because he was excited to see me. It felt like the former.
I reached over and tried to pull off Asher’s cap, but he grabbed my wrist. Hard.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
His hand gripped my wrist with a force that didn’t match themoment. Something was wrong. I’d yet to see anything above his nose since he sat in the car, and every fiber of my being was telling me that something was wrong with my buddy.
“What happened?” I asked. “Do you have a bruise?”
Asher’s hand trembled briefly, then he assumed an entirely new energy in the blink of an eye. “Oh! This?” He tore off the hat and revealed the dark bruise around his eye.
