“Oh, Isaac,” said Nolan pityingly. “You made friends with internet detectives with a lot of extra time on their hands. They figured out who you were years ago.”
“Oh,” I said. “Huh.”
“And then they sleuthered us,” Kallum said in between slurps of Capri-Sun.
“I wasn’t sleuthered,” Teddy volunteered. “I just came here to meet a DJ.”
“We deputized him to come help when we saw him in the ballroom,” Nolan confirmed. “We thought you could use his wisdom.”
Teddy bit into his doughnut.
“Okay, well, you’ve checked on me, and I’m fine,” I said. “So thank you, and you can go, and you can even have a Capri-Sun for the road.”
“You’re not getting rid of us that easily,” said Kallum.
“We found you on the floor,” Nolan said.
“It was consensual between me and the floor.”
“You have the texture of the rug embossed onto half your face. You look like Harvey Dent,” said Kallum.
“Which is why you should leave. Let me spare you my hideous visage, et cetera.”
“Kid, we’re not leaving you,” said Teddy. He had doughnut powder on his mustache. “Now, why don’t you tell us why you had to talk to the floor, hmm?”
Despite not having a dad myself, and despite the doughnut powder, Teddy’s fatherly tone was very effective.
“I forgot that yesterday—sorry,two days ago—was the anniversary of Brooklyn’s death,” I admitted after a minute.
Kallum nearly dropped his Capri-Sun, while Nolan mouthed,Holy shit.
“Yeah.” I dragged my hands down my face. I felt nauseous remembering the next part. “And I was a dick to Sunny about it. Like... a real shitbag.”
Teddy glared at me, which I deserved.
Nolan pointed at me with the neck of the liqueur bottle. “As the husband of Sunny’s best friend, it’s my job to tell you to apologize to her. And asyourfriend, it’s my job to ask: What the hell does any of that have to do with Sunny?”
Oh boy. I was suddenly very aware that Nolan was indeed the husband of Sunny’s best friend, and also that Teddy seemed to be some kind of emotional stepdad/ porn mentor to her, and that the last couple weeks might not sound so good to them.
But then Kallum said, “Ohhhhh.”
Nolan and Teddy looked over at him.
“Sunny and Isaac—and Jack Hart—hooked up a couple years ago while Winnie and I were makingSanta, Baby,” he explained. And then looked back at me. “Did you smash that subscribe button, bro? Did you and Sunny go back to Poundtown?”
“I—look.” I stopped, lifted my hands. Dropped them again. “It wasn’t like that.”
“I don’t care about Poundtown,” Teddy said dangerously. “But I do care if you made Sunny sad.”
“I’m glad you care,” I replied. “Icare. But I just...”
I trailed off. I had no excuses, no justifications. I’d fucked up so badly that even explaining how I felt was like fucking up all over again.
“I think,” Nolan said, “that you better start from the beginning.”
So I did.
I told them about Bee and Nolan’s wedding, and after the wedding. About waking up in Sunny’s seedy hotel room and how she came to stay here. Asking her to be my muse, agreeing to help her with the screenplay. The muse dates, and how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other despite the dates, and James and Bernice and Ronald, and then, finally, our fight.
