Page 50 of Royally Knocked Up
Luca picked up another shot and lifted it. “I don’t know,” he said.
Enzo took a shot as well and threw it back. His head was beginning to feel pleasantly foggy, and the sharp anguish that had settled over him upon hearing about Hailey’s deception felt as if it had happened to someone else. That was a blessed relief. “You’ve got to do something,” he said. “I mean, you can’t just spend your life in bars.”
“Oh, for God’s sake — did your father tell you that?”
Enzo scowled. “Don’t be rude.”
“Sorry. It’s just that I’m not used to you talking like this. Usually you’d be the first one to chime in about how annoying our fathers’ expectations are. Now you’re telling me to get a job?”
“I’m not telling you to do anything. I’m just saying that if you don’t want to work for your father, you must have something else in mind.”
Luca laughed. “I just want to enjoy life,” he said. “I guess, if I could do whatever I wanted, I’d go out on my yacht and live there. I’d bring a bunch of friends and invite a lot of women. I mean, that sounds like a pretty good time, right?”
“Living on a boat with a bunch of random women? You don’t see yourself ever settling down?”
Luca stared at him. “What happened to you at that resort?” he asked. “Settling down? Why would I want to do that?”
Enzo’s head spun. On one hand, he knew that this was exactly the way he and Luca had always spoken to each other. They had always talked about life as something that was to be enjoyed, first and foremost. Anything that felt like responsibility was best avoided.
But now, when he thought of his friend’s fantasy life, all he could think was that it made no sense. It was no way to live. Spending day after day, night after night, with a bunch of random women? Women who meant nothing at all to you?
It wasn’t real, what Hailey and I had. I shouldn’t long for it.
No, it hadn’t been real. He knew that. But it hadfeltlike something real, and that feeling had changed the way Enzo thought about the world. If it was possible to have somethingso special with a woman, he realized, that was what he wanted. One-night stands weren’t going to satisfy him anymore.
But what if it wasn’t possible to have something like what he’d believed he had had with Hailey? He had never experienced that kind of bond with another person before, and to discover that it wasn’t actually special and rare, the way he had believed it to be, was heartbreaking. What if he had been set up to crave something he would never actually be able to find?
The thought was crushing. He picked up a third shot and drank it down, followed by a fourth.
Luca was watching him closely. “Are you all right?”
“Sure,” Enzo said gruffly. “Fine. Why?”
“You’re going at those shots pretty hard.”
“We came out to have fun, didn’t we?”
“Sure,” Luca said. “But you don’t look like you’re having that good of a time, truth be told, Enzo.”
A half-truth would have to suffice. There was simply no way he was going to confess his feelings for Hailey to his friend. Luca was a good person, but Enzo saw now that he would never understand this. If he found out that Enzo had gotten someone pregnant, he would probably just say it was a lucky thing she hadn’t turned out to want a serious commitment.
Enzo thought he might lose his mind if he had to try to conceive of Hailey’s deception as good luck for him.
“I got into it with my father,” he said. “That’s all it is.”
“Well, let’s cut loose,” Luca said. “You’ll feel better with a few more of those in you, I think.”
“Yeah, that’s the idea.” Enzo took another shot. “You’d better order some more.”
“Now it’s a party.” Luca’s tone was delighted. “I haven’t spent time with you in far too long, Enzo. We need to make sure we don’t let that kind of time go by again. I don’t have as much fun with anybody else as I do with you. You know how to have a good time.”
He pushed another shot to Enzo.
Enzo knew that he should slow down. He should split these up with a glass of water, maybe some bar nuts. He should give them time to take effect, so he could see how drunk he was before continuing.
But all he could think of was the fact that Hailey’s name no longer made him feel sick to his stomach. He could think of her — for now — without wanting to crawl into bed and pull the blankets up over his head, without wanting to get in a car and drive over to her hotel and come up with words to explain to her just how much she had hurt him. He could think of the child he knew she was carrying as something abstract — a story that was almost funny — instead of as the worst betrayal he had ever suffered in his life.
He threw back the shot and smiled at Luca. “I wouldn’t worry,” he said. “After the way things went between my father and I today, he’s going to have his work cut out if he ever wants me to worry about making a good impression on the family again.”
