Page 72 of So Thirsty

“I used to. I feel like the older I get, the less sure I am about anything. It’s annoying. Is it like that for you?”

“I’ve never been sure about anything. Just careful about everything.”

“Mm,” she says. I wonder if she’s procrastinating.

“I could play ‘Kitchen Floor’ if you think it’d help.”

She laughs. “Don’t.”

She takes her phone out of her pocket. She calls him. It rings twice; then he answers.

“Hey, babe. You here?”

“Yeah,” she says, unbuckling her seat belt. “Come outside.”

The front door of the house opens, and Lee steps out. He’s in gray sweatpants, combat boots, and a Sherpa jacket. He lights a cigarette.

He didn’t quit when Naomi quit. Not a fan of lollipops.

I’d asked her at the time, “Does it bother you that he still smokes?”

“Does it bother me that he’s a fucking asshole?” she’d said. “Nah, not really.”

Whenever I spent time with Lee he always went out of his way to be nice to me, but I never got a real sense of who he was. He grew up in Pittsburgh. Started playing guitar in the seventh grade. Went to SUNY Purchase. Moved to Brooklyn after graduating and started his band. Met Naomi at a show, asked her out. They split a pitcher of cheap beer and were living together a week later. He doesn’t care about sports, pretends to care about politics. He can be funny and loud and can hold his liquor. He loves Naomi. That I never doubted. It’s obvious.

I trusted Naomi to pick her own partner, as she did with me. Maybe we both picked wrong. Or maybe there is no picking right, just getting lucky.

Naomi unlocks the car.

“What if you just roll the window down?” I say. “Crack it. We stay in here. Use the glass as a buffer.”

“Sloane. I’m not gonna hurt him,” she says, opening her door and stepping out onto the street. She meets him halfway down the driveway.

“What’s going on?” Lee asks. It’s hard for me to hear them at this distance, their voices muffled. “Is that Sloane? Why are you with Sloane?”

He goes to embrace her, hug her, but she jumps back.

“Can you just…stay over there?” Naomi says, holding a hand up. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Uh, okay? Is this some kind of game?”

“No, Lee. I need to talk to you. I need you to listen to me.”

“It’s fucking freezing out,” Lee says. “Can we go inside? What’s going on? Why are you acting like this? Did somebody die?”

I shift in my seat.

“No,” she says. A lie. “I…”

She looks down at her feet, struggling for words. Or with her thirst.

“What?” he says. “You’re freaking me out.”

“I’ve done a lot of thinking. For the both of us.”

Oh Christ, is she really going to go full Casablanca?

“If we stay together, keep going like this, we’ll regret it. We’ve had a good run, Lee. But I’ve been feeling for a while now that—”