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“Do you want me to say something to him? Casually?”

“Fuck no, Hasan.” He was the least casual prober—probist?—I knew. “I will divorce you and take your great-grandmother’s china if you so much as wink at him.”

Has deployed Smug Satisfaction, and I let out a groan. “Not now, Ass-san,” I said, only momentarily triumphant before the corners of my mouth turned down. One weekend in Boston, and my insults were already losing their edge.

Has was mocking me with boo-hoo hands—Ooooh, that hurt so bad I’m crying!—when I dragged him around the corner, “There’s something we need to do first.”

An hour passed, and we’d offered Will at least eight bottles of water. He’d drained every last one, and I wasn’t confident that Has or I could outlast him. He was a camel, and I tried to picture him with a hump to keep my mind off of how badly I needed to pee. Hey Siri, how should one make the most of a hump?

Finally, after my toes had frozen solid and we’d watched three full episodes of The Sopranos, Will got up.

“I gotta take a piss, and then I’m going to head back to our room. It’s cold as fuck in here…” He raised the volume of his voice as he walked away and continued, “Lou, why don’t you come to our place?”

Has and I were frozen, his hand gripping my thigh under the blanket, when the bathroom door snicked shut.

“What the fuck!” Will roared, and we both jumped simultaneously, squeaking like children or prey. “Oh ho ho,” Will chuckled ominously as he opened the bathroom door, looking like a wet Doberman. Water dripping off his nose and fingers. His clothes were plastered to his body, a terrifying smile on his face. He peeled his soaked shirt off and let it slap wetly on the concrete floor. “I hope you slept well last night, friends.” Oh shit!

I shrieked, frantically kicking off the blankets, and launched myself over the back of the couch while Has was stabbing me in the fucking back, “Oh my God, Will, what happened? Why are you wet?” Et tu, Brute?

Will methodically unbuckled his belt and slipped off his uniform pants. He stood there in the tiniest green shorts. I wanted to laugh, but he looked hot as fuck.

Then, in a quick burst of movement, he covered fifteen feet in two steps, planting his foot on the back of the couch with the third, and leaping over it like Jason Bourne in his underwear—and I had nowhere to run.

I stared at him wide-eyed for a long moment… and then he came for me.

21

Pivot

Boston, MA

Will

Lou looked like a cornered bunny, with round eyes blinking at me and remnants of her heart-nose and whiskers from this morning on her cheeks.

She would find no pity here.

I had been playing the part of a gentleman, inviting her to sleep at our place, where it was warmer, when I shut the door to the bathroom, triggering some kind of Rube Goldberg shit that ended with a bucket of ice water dumping on my head. It soaked my undershirt and started seeping through my pants—I’d stripped to silkies to spare my balls.

There’s nothing more unnervin’ than a man standin’ about naked when yer sure he should be dressed.

I had to admit, they were good. Now all the bottles of water made sense. That’s why Has was pissing into the utility sink earlier. Unfortunately for Louisa, this just meant she had a very serious vulnerability, and I was about to exploit the shit out of it.

“Do not tickle me, Hawkeye… oh my god, no!” She was squealing like a stuck pig as soon as I started slow-wiggling my fingers in her general direction. “I am not joking, Will!”

She crumbled—seriously, no survival instinct at all—and covered her head with her hands, elbows tight against her sides, laugh-crying preemptively. I knew how much damage could be done with only the threat of being tickled. This would not be over quickly.

“How bout them apples?”

“I just don’t understand why you had to put me on the couch, Will. My floor is concrete with a floor drain; it was ideal… PI-VOT!”

We were carrying Lou’s new couch into her studio a few days later. She had to replace the other one after she pissed approximately nine gallons into the cushions. Fucking wrecked.

“Say ‘pivot’ one more time, Louisa, so help me, God…” I said under my breath. It made me laugh every time. “And you were thrashing around like I was murdering you. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“It felt exactly like you were murdering me, Will. I had no control over my body. What you saw was a woman fighting for her life,” she said, then quietly, “pi-vot.”

I roughly set my side of the couch down, unable to contain a crack of laughter. She dropped her side, and I sat on it, refusing to move the sofa any further. It was half in the hallway and half in the “kitchen.”