Page 19 of Pansies

“As if we’d ever let you do that.” Kitty leaned into him and rested her head against his shoulder, tight spirals of honey-brown hair tumbling over his arm. “Sartre only thought hell was other people because he never went to a rooftop hot-tub cinema on his own.”

“That’s not a real thing, is it?” Alfie could hear the horror in his own voice. “Because nothing on earth is getting me to a…what was it…a rooftop hot-tub cinema?”

Kitty seemed to be struggling with inappropriate mirth. “You said that about the hydraulics plant.”

“And I was right.”

“The food was nice,” offered Greg plaintively.

“Yeah, but power stations aren’t edgy features of the urban landscape. They were, like, somebody’s livelihood.”

“Isn’t it better these places get used for something?”

Alfie snorted. “Take a hipster to a restaurant in a hydraulics plant and you will feed him for a day…”

“A hipster,” returned Kitty gravely, “is for life, not just for hydraulics.”

“A hipster in the hand is worth two in the turbine.”

Greg glared at them over the rim of his martini glass. “Oh, why don’t you two just fuck off and get married.”

“Yes”—Kitty shrugged—“we already thought of that, but unfortunately, he turned out to be gay, so what’s a girl to do?”

Alfie shifted uncomfortably on the church pew that passed for seating in this bloody place. It had been more than a few years since he’d dated Kitty, but it still wasn’t nearly as funny as Greg thought it was.

“The good ones,” murmured Greg infuriatingly, “usually are.”

“Snobbish and smug, you must be beating them back with sticks.”

Not for the first time, Alfie wondered if it was weird that his two closest friends in this part of the world were his ex-fiancée and his ex-boyfriend. Of all the people he knew, they were the ones with most reason to hate him. But the breakup with Greg had been so easy, it had almost freaked Alfie out. With Kitty it had been more complicated, but once she’d stopped yelling and throwing things at him, and after they’d had some time apart andshe’d had a high-profile fling with a rap artist, they’d gradually drifted back into each other’s lives.

“As it happens,” Greg was saying, “I have other talents.”

Alfie nodded. “It’s true. He can play the ukulele.”

“I’m so glad you said that. For a moment”—Kitty arched a brow—“I thought he was crassly implying he was good in bed.”

Greg had gone a little pink. “My reputation speaks for itself. And, for the record, I rock that ukulele. Wild thingplink plink. You make myplink plink.”

“Can’t believe you let this one get away.” Kitty gave Alfie one of her most sardonic looks.

Alfie shrugged. “He dumped me.”

“Well,” said Greg, with typical nonchalance, “you didn’t love me. You were just incredibly excited I had a dick. I can see how you got confused, but it’s not exactly a kiss to build a dream on.”

“A dick to build a dream on.” That earned him a look from Greg that could only be described as withering.

“Wait a minute.” Kitty shoved her hair over her shoulders. “Alfie broke up with me because I didn’t have a dick, and you broke up with him because you did. I’m going to become a nun.”

Greg laughed and lifted his glass. “I propose a toast. To love, to sex, and to dicks. Whether we have them or whether we don’t.”

“Or whether we are them,” Kitty added.

Theyclinked.

“And,” Greg went on, “don’t think I haven’t noticed this transparent attempt to be evasive. How’d it go back home, Alfie?”

Alfie stared into his drink. “Weird.”

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