Page 9 of Mr. Broody

“Are you home for the holidays?” Thanksgiving is coming, and that will run up to Christmas.

“No. Well, yeah, but it’s more because my mom has to have macular hole surgery, and with Waylon and Owen’s busy schedules, she asked me to come home to help. And I was… never mind.”

I really want to ask her to keep going, but the fact she cut herself off from wherever she was going with that says we’re nowhere near where we were before.

“And Reed’s been busy these days,” I say.

She nods. “Yeah, that’s what Mom said. He’s got some big case.”

“He always seems to have a big case since he became the district attorney.” There’s a bit of an awkward pause, so I add, “Waylon and Owen are playing awesome.”

“Do you go to their games?”

Waylon and Owen are her twin brothers and freshmen in high school. Both of them play hockey. The hockey circuit is way more dog-eat-dog than it was when I was coming up, so I feel like they’re a lot busier than I ever was.

“Sometimes. Bodhi… my son.”

The corners of her lips tick up for a second. “I know.”

“I didn’t. I mean…” I take a long pull of my beer. “We haven’t talked, and I didn’t know if you’d remember.”

She nods. “I do.”

Of course she does. “Well, he loves Waylon and Owen, so he begs me to go to games all the time. I think it’s mostly because they parade him around the rink like he’s the next Gretzky.”

“That’s sweet.”

Silence descends, and both of us take a sip of our drinks. I have so many questions I want to ask her, but I fear I’m intruding on subjects she might not want to talk about. When we set our drinks back on the table, and neither of us says anything, I figure, fuck it. Who knows when I’ll have this chance to get answers again?

“I saw you were in Hawaii.” There. It’s out.

Yes, I stalk your Instagram like a teenage girl and her boyband crush.

Her eyes flash up to meet mine. “I was.”

“It looked beautiful.”

“It was. Everything about it.”

“And the guy? Is that your boyfriend?” I never actually saw a guy, but the signs were there in the pictures. In a way, I feel as if I’m baiting her, but my desperation pulls rank on my usual restraint.

The way she stares into her glass confirms I’m right. There’s someone important in her life. And with that confirmation comes the feeling of a swift kick to the nuts. Shit, I am so fucking jealous of this mystery guy.

“He was. We broke up.”

“Oh, really.”

She giggles for the first time, and it lessens the uncomfortableness. “Don’t sound so happy, Henry.”

My own chuckle escapes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

She shrugs. “It’s fine. I’d probably be the same, but your social media isn’t really personal, so I can’t ask anything back.”

So, she checked up on me too?

“I pay someone else to do it,” I confess. I was never really into any of that shit, but I’m happy to know she sought out info on me like I did her.

“Tell me something about your life,” she says.

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