Page 10 of A Hot Sauce Halloween

“Yeah. Someone I can sit down with every once in a while and have a man-to-man about the ins-and-outs of the weaker sex and I figured... how about Anna’s new guy?”

I spread the web out and staple one end to the corner. “Okay, first of all... women are not the weaker sex,” I say. “Trust me on that one. And secondly, why me?”

“Because you’re still fairly new around here,” he says. “You could probably use a friend in the inner circle.”

I stretch the web to the left as far as it’ll go. “Okay.”

“And I could use someone objective to bounce ideas off of. Can’t talk to Vincent about girls because then he starts talking about girls and when he’s talking about girls he’s talking about my little sister and I don’t want to hear about that shit, ya know?”

I nod. “Right. Spiders, please.”

“So...” He pulls out a plastic bag of tiny fake spiders and tosses it up at me. “You and me? Me and you? We’re part of the same circle but not close enough to make things weird. I could care less what kinky shit you do to Anna.”

“Couldn’t.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” I sigh. I hide a few spiders in the web and hop down off the stool. “Sure, Tommy. If you need to talk sometime, I’m here. Sounds good.”

“Awesome.” He follows me to the next corner.“So, I know this girl...”

I turn back as I set the stool down. “Oh, we’re doing this now?”

“Monica. You know Monica, right?” he asks. “The adorable redhead at Muffin Top?”

I succumb to the inevitable and step onto the stool. “Yes, I know Monica,” I say.

He hands me a bunch of webs. “But what you may not know is that she and I have... a history.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“It’s surprising, I know.” He laughs. “Girl like that. Guy like me.”

“I actually hadn’t thought—”

“The thing is... I screwed up,” he says slowly. “It started out good. Real good.No strings attached. Got an itch? Tommy’s here to scratch it! Good.”

I spread out the web and staple it in place. “So, what happened?” I ask.

“Zachary happened,”he says. “One sperm had a good day and baby fever spread through the women around here like the plague. First, Evey. Then, Anna. Then...”

I gesture to the spiders again and he hands them up. “Monica?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I love my nephew. I would take a bullet for that kid — and Charlotte, of course. Has to be said.”

I step down. “Thank you.”

“But as soon as they happened, Monica started talking about marriage. And settling down. About maybe going off birth control. And here I am like...” He twitches nervously. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

“Of course you do,” I answer.

“That’s what I said!” He shakes his head and leans back against the wall. “So, I tell her that and you know what she did? She shrugged and said, ‘Fine.’”

“You broke up?”

“Yeah. Well... We weren’t exactly together. We were just...”

“Scratching itches,” I say.

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