Page 54 of A Very No Strings Halloween
I just know that it felt so good to say it.
I think the ghosts are gone.
But now I feel haunted by what we just said.
THIRTEEN
Billy
IT’S THE WICKED GREAT PUMPKIN ALE, BILLY BOSTON
Manhattan:Hey, Boston. Come meet us for lunch. We’re going to Harvard Yard Sale for apps over in Worcesterboroham. Then we’re gonna hit up Manwich for some brisket over in Lagerdale. I know a guy who owns an ale house called Party for Your Gullet down by Foxenchester by the Sea. You in?
Manhattan:PS it made my thumbs itch just typing those words.
Fucking Nolan:Come join us for lunch, fuckface.
I stare at my phone. This text chain is totally normal. For us. NoHey we’re in town. No explanation on how they were able to get away from their families to visitBoston. JustCome meet us. Only usually I’m the one who does the inviting. And implicit in a simple lunch invitation is the promise of absolute fucking debauchery.
What is not normal is my reaction.
I’m not sure I want to go. Because going would mean I’d have to exit my apartment. And if I time that wrong, I might run into Donna. And if I run into Donna, we might have to unpack what happened at her house the other day, and I don’t want to scare her.
Because as I was reading Lars’s words in what I imagine might have been Lars’s voice, they didn’t feel like just his words to Lara. They felt like my words to Donna.
To paraphrase Robert Downey Jr. in one of the greatest films of all time—Tropic Thunder—I know who I am! I’m the dude playing a dude, disguised as another dude who’s reading a letter to a dudette who’s possessed by another dudette, and they’re pretending to be in love with each other!
Except I think it might be the opposite of that. I think Donna and I might be pretendingnotto be in love with each other. At least I know that’s what I’m pretending. And I want to believe that she feels the same way—about only pretending to not be in love with me, I mean. But if I’m wrong, I ruin everything and it’s all over.
Knock, knock, knock.
I put my phone away. Maybe it’s her? Maybe she’sbeing braver than I’m willing to be. I suck it up and open the door.
“Hiya, fuckhead.” Instead of Donna, I find Nolan staring at me, with his evil blue eyes.
“Too busy to respond to texts from your favorite cousins?” Declan asks.
“I was getting to it. Why are you so impatient that you showed up at my home?”
They share a look. A look I don’t trust.
“We’re husbands and fathers now. We’re just excited to go out.”
“Yeah, that’s all it is,” Nolan adds, completely unconvincingly.
I narrow my eyes. “What else?”
They look at each other again, then back at me. “What do you mean ‘what else’?” Nolan, that Irish demon, asks, all innocent-like.
“I know you’re husbands and fathers now. Softer. Fat and happy from marriage. However. You may leave the game, but the game never leaves you. I know you hear glasses clink on a warm, dark night and think about our epic nights of debauchery. The Blue Moon calling to you like a werewolf.”
“I don’t drink Blue Moon, ya gobshite.”
“I was being poetic, fuckface. The point is you are caged animals who’ve been recently released. Tired and broken down dads that you are, you’re coursing with adrenaline. If youwanted the kind of night you know only I can provide, I’d already be kidnapped and have half a bottle of Jack Daniels poured down my throat by now.”
They look at each other again. Then back at me.
“Piper told us there was a girl, and our wives told us we have to help you with her,” Declan says.
