Page 40 of Again with Feeling

Keme whispered something else, and thatreallycracked Millie up. She at least had the good grace to look guilty about it, though.

I was about to respond to that when an excited laugh broke through my thoughts.

Immediately to my right, no more than twenty yards away, Bobby and Kiefer had just arrived. Kiefer was on his feet, holding his hands up as though warding Bobby off, and grinning. Bobby, for his part, sat crisscross on the ground, shaking sand out of his shirt. To judge from the look on Kiefer’s face, I knew who had put it there. And to judge by the look on Bobby’s face—well, he was smiling. But it was clear Kiefer wanted to do some of the playful chasing I’d seen from Keme and Millie not too long ago,and it was equally clear Bobby had no intention of getting to his feet.

“Maybe you should come work over here,” Indira said.

I shook my head and bent over my sandcastle—it wasnota rock. And, just to prove my point, I shaved a bit off the sides to square it up. And then I added windows. And then because there was something soothing about poking my finger into the sand as hard as I could, over and over again, I got a little carried away, and the rock-castle crumbled.

“That’s okay, Dash,” Millie called brightly. “That happened to me all the time when I was little.”

I chose not to respond to that.

The problem, though, was that now that I knew Bobby and Kiefer were nearby, I couldn’t help but notice, well, everything.

“I just feel so bad for her, babe,” Kiefer was saying. “I mean, she’s so talented, and she’s such a good person, and she totally didn’t deserve that.”

Bobby made a noncommittal noise in response. I recognized that noise. I had once, memorably, heard that noise when Bobby had been resting with his eyes closed and I’d ranked all theSpider-Manmovies by gayness.

“I just don’t know how she’s ever going to perform again,” Kiefer said.

Bobby’s response came a moment later—polite, but distracted. “Who?”

“Ariana Grande,” Kiefer said, with all the charmed vexation of someone who is deeply (and newly) in love. “The bombing. Remember?”

“Right,” Bobby said in that same tone. “I don’t know.”

Kiefer gave an exaggerated sigh. Then, without missing a beat, he said, “Oh, remember how I told you Uggs were going to come back? Well, get this: they’re totally coming back.”

Bobby said, “Uh huh.”

Okay, I’m a terrible person. I admit it. But at that moment, I couldn’t help it—I turned my head down and focused on my sandcastle as I smiled.

At a generous guess, I’d say Bobby got about five seconds of precious silence before Kiefer said, “Oh my God, did you watch the clip I sent you?”

It might have been my imagination, but it sounded like Bobby’s troweling was getting a little more…assertive. His voice sounded level, though, when he said, “I don’t know. Which one?”

“Bobby!” But the mock disappointment vanished in excitement as Kiefer continued, “The one fromWatch What Happens Live.You’ve got to watch it—I saw itlast night, and I couldn’t wait to show you.” With that same callow attempt at weariness, he added, “That’s why I sent it to you. It’ll be so nice to just watch all the same shows once we move in together so I don’t have to remind you to watch the clips I send you.”

And there was a mind-boggler of a sentence, I thought.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kiefer showing Bobby something on his phone. (Fine, I admit it: I was watching them.) I knew when the video ended because Kiefer looked at Bobby, clearly waiting for a reaction. Whatever he wanted, though, he wasn’t getting, because finally he burst out, “Doesn’t he look terrible?”

“I think Andy Cohen always looks like that.”

“No, not Andy. Matthew Perry!”

For the first time, Kiefer’s frustration seemed real rather than manufactured. They lapsed into silence. And because I’m a terrible person, I couldn’t help but grin as I went back to work. I could even feel bad for Kiefer, a little. I mean, it was obvious he didn’t know Bobby at all. Celebrity news? Fashion trends? Bravo TV? Getting Bobby Mai to talk—to really talk, not just those polite, noncommittal responses—was no mean feat, but assomeone who was a master at it, I could tell that Kiefer had zero idea what he was doing.

And then, in the tone of someone clearly out of his depths but trying—as always—so earnestly, Bobby said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about that stuff. Matthew Perry was onFriends,right? Why does he look so bad?”

Between one heartbeat and the next, I couldn’t breathe. It was like a big, brass hand had closed around my chest. Tears flooded my eyes, and even though I blinked as fast as I could, they spilled down my cheeks. I staggered to my feet, knocking over the rest of my sandcastle in the process, and lurched into the throng of people.

“Dash?” Millie called after me.

Indira said something I couldn’t hear.

I was fairly sure Fox snorted themselves awake.

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