“Fuck off and get me a beer,” I mutter and Collingwood trots off toward the bar.
Crew follows. “Let’s see if those girls are thirsty too.”
Nash starts racking the balls for another game. I can’t get the texts with Mallory out of my head so I grab my jacket and turn to Nash. “I’m gonna head.”
“Seriously? You’re the one that bullied me into coming out and you’re ghosting me?”
I smirk. “That’s not what ghosting is, dude. And I didn’t bully you, you pussy. Besides, you’ve got your brother and Collingwood.”
I point to the bar, where Crew and Collingwood are buying drinks for the two women. “And now you’ve got some women too.”
"Ah fuck." Nash drops his pool cue on the table and grabs his own jacket off the chair at the high-top table. "I'm out too."
I don’t argue with him. I just head to the door and he follows. “Text your brother and let him know we bailed.”
He nods. “I will when I get home. Trust me, he probably won’t even notice. All he cares about since Anne-Marie left is getting laid.”
“I guess that’s to be expected after a life-changing break-up,” I surmise but honestly, I have no fucking idea.
We walk together up Abbott Kinney Boulevard because Nash lives just off it, and I live on it and we’ve both had too many beers to drive. The owner of our wing bar will always let us leave our cars overnight. Nash looks over at me. “So why did you want to bail? You’re usually Crew’s wingman.”
“The friend who is coming to visit,” I explain. “Her text was weird. Something is up and I don’t know what but, I don’t know, I just lost the mood.”
“She a friend with benefits like Collingwood said?” Nash asks.
“No. Yeah. I mean… once.” Nash rolls his eyes and I shake my head. “I know. It was a bad decision and that’s why I haven’t talked to her since.”
"This that tall blonde who came to visit from your hometown? The one with the short blonde friend?" Nash asks.
“It’s the short blonde. Not the tall blonde.”
He stops on the sidewalk, a foot from the crosswalk where he’ll turn left and I will continue straight up Abbott Kinney. His brown eyes are so wide you can’t see the whites at all. “Wait… you messed around with the short blonde? While you were also messing around with the tall blonde? Aren’t they best friends?”
"Yes, they're friends. And no, not at the same time or anything, but Diana—the tall blonde—wasn't, like my girlfriend, and she not only didn't care she urged me to mess around with Mallory. The short blonde." I know defending myself to him is futile because no matter how I word it, it sounds bad.
“Shit, dude.” Nash shakes his head and starts walking again. “You are reaffirming my decision to stay home and read instead of dating. So thanks for that.”
"I wasn't dating!" I remind him. "I was in a mutually beneficial arrangement."
Nash stops as he reaches the crosswalk and turns to stare at me, his face growing serious. “Could she be pregnant?”
“Fuck no!” I snap confidently. “Not a possibility. At all.”
"No birth control is foolproof, fool."
"Not putting your dick in someone is pretty foolproof," I reply flatly, and Nash just shakes his head and keeps walking away.
“See you at practice tomorrow, you non-penetration stud.”
I make it home a few minutes later and get ready for bed. Once I’m under the covers I stare at my phone, scrolling Instagram. My account is run by an assistant who works for my agent but I also have the password. I send her photos that I think are cool and she posts things she thinks fit my brand. I just can’t be bothered to do it myself. Also, I don’t know what the fuck my brand is, and have no inclination to learn.
I don't follow anyone except hockey and sponsorship-related accounts, so like ESPN, Trader Joe's who I did a paid partnership with, Bauer, Under Armour, the league, and my team of course. But I know the socials of some of my Silver Bay friends and of course, my relatives who dare to be online. I scroll to those first. I don't know why, or what I'm looking for, but I feel like there's a missing piece with Mallory and this visit, and for some reason, checking in with other Silver Bay people feels appropriate.
I see nothing overly interesting from most of my relatives. Tenley posted a work shot of her behind the camera and a bunch of professional lights on some school project. My cousin Liv posted a picture of some meal she ate. Grady posted his legs bulging as he did a leg press.
“Thirst trap,” I mutter and punch in Diana’s account. She still hasn’t posted since the day she left for England. Her last photo was sixteen months ago and it was a picture through the window of a plane, with Portland, Maine, below in the distance. The caption was “Leaving on a jet plane. Don’t know when I’ll be back again.”
Why she dropped Insta as soon as she got to England is beyond me. Maybe Mallory can enlighten me when she’s here. I scroll to her account and see nothing has changed. She stopped using it the weekend they came to visit. Her last post is the three of us at that Mexican restaurant we got drunk at in Beverly Hills. Right before we rented the hotel room. It’s just a picture of our three hands clinking our margarita glasses together. No caption.
