Page 103 of Tony

But Vann says, “You know what, Soshee? You’re right. This has gotten messy. Let’s go, Belinda.”

“To her apartment?” Belinda is incredulous. “No!”

But Soshee is smooth and, if I’m being honest, wearing her semi-evil Poison Ivy smile. She hooks her arm into Belinda’s and beams down at her like they are the best of best friends. “You’ve never seen it, have you? Some people think it’s over the top, but I think you’d enjoy it.”

And then she’s pulling her up the stairs.

“Vann!” Belinda is protesting.

I look at him. Waiting to see what he’ll do. But he just waves a hand at the stairwell and says, “Let’s do this.”

Belinda is still protesting, but she and Sosh are already out of view somewhere above us.

“Fine,” I say. “You want to do this? I’ll do this. All day long, Vann.”

“Great, Tony,” he says, pushing past me. “Let’s go.”

The girls are already inside Soshee’s apartment by the time I follow Vann up to the fourth floor. Soshee is still talking. I catch snippets of her one-sided conversation about the décor and the view. Belinda is looking back at Vann for some kind of relief. But he must be on board with this intervention, because he doesn’t rescue her. Instead he walks over to the long line of windows and leans against the window sill.

“Nice view, Sosh,” he says, scanning the street below.

I hate that he calls her Sosh.

I’m not jealous. I just hate it.

“OK, I’m here,” Belinda says, yanking her arm from Soshee’s grip. “Talk.”

She’s looking at me when she says this. I look at Soshee. It was her idea, not mine. “I don’t have anything to say.”

“Yes, you do,” Soshee says.

“Yeah. Let’s get this over with, Belinda,” Vann agrees.

Belinda huffs. “What the hell, Vann? Why are you pushing this?”

“Because you two have unfinished business,” Vann and Soshee say at the same time. They kinda startle at the unison of their words, then glance at each other before quickly looking away.

“I don’t have any unfinished business. Tony and I were never even a thing,” Belinda snaps. “We used each other. That’s it.”

“I’m not going to argue with that,” I say with a shrug. “It’s mostly true, anyway.”

“Fuck you, Tony,” Belinda spits. “You’re the one who showed up here trying to hate-fuck me out of your head. Do you have any idea how pathological that is?”

“Look who’s talking, Rosalinda. You’re the one who—” But before I can get the last few words out, she has crossed the room and slapped my face.

Vann quickly darts into action, crossing the room and grabbing her by the arm before she can hit me again. He barely stops her fist from crashing into my teeth. “Hold up, toots. One good slap is enough to make your point.”

Belinda points her finger right up to my face and snarls, “Do not. Ever. Fucking. Call me that name again.”

I laugh. She swings. Vann intercepts and pulls her back a good six feet.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” I say. “That name is an accurate description of who you actually are.”

“And why is that, Tony? Why do I have two names? Hmm.” She pokes a fingertip into her cheek and pretends to think. “Is it because you decided to fuck up my life eight years ago? You decided that my life was over!”

“What the hell are you talking about? I saved you!”

“Oh,” she guffaws. “Oh, that’s a good one. You think that ripping me away from everyone and everything I know and then sending me two thousand miles away was saving me? Do you have any idea what it was like to get off that plane and be dropped off at the local laundromat?”