“Will do.”
“Tell Naomi she’s welcome to swing by any time.”
“Not happening.”
Liza J’s house no longer smelled like a mothball museum. It might have had something to do with someone opening the door to let four dogs in or out every five minutes.
Then again, it probably had more to do with the fact that rooms that hadn’t been touched in fifteen years were getting Naomi’s floor-to-ceiling treatment. Dusty drapes and the windows behind them opened wide.
The lights were on in the den, a room that hadn’t been used since the house had welcomed paying guests. I spied Stef behind the desk on the phone, staring at the laptop in front of him.
There was music coming from the kitchen, and I could hear the sounds of people socializing in the backyard.
Maybe not all change was bad.
I knelt to give the pack of dogs their rubs. Naomi’s parents’ dog, Beeper, was standing on one of Waylon’s ears.
“Fuck yeah!”
The exclamation came from the den. Stef closed his laptop triumphantly and stood behind the desk, arms overhead in a V.
The dogs, excited by his excitement, charged the doors and barreled into the room.
“Okay, no. Everyone out,” Stef said. “These are very expensive Gucci loafers you’re destroying with your doggy toenails.”
“Good news?” I asked as he exited the den. The dogs took off toward the kitchen, moving as one clumsy organism of slobber and barks.
“Don’t buddy up to me. I’m still mad at you,” he said.
When Naomi and I brought her parents over to meet my grandmother, Stef had tried to cover the fact that he’d been in town for days.
No one would have bought his “what a coincidence, I just got here this morning” bullshit for long.
I just helped them get there by telling Mandy and Lou what a relief it was to have Stef under Liza’s roof for such a long visit.
“You’ll get over it,” I predicted.
“Just wait until you disappoint Mandy,” he said. “It feels like kicking a litter of kittens.”
I didn’t really have anyone in my life to disappoint.
I followed him into the dining room, where my grandmother’s buffet had been transformed into a high-end bar complete with cut lemons and limes, an ice bucket, and several bottles of decent liquor.
“What are you drinking?” he asked me.
“Bourbon or beer.”
“It’s too hot for straight, room temperature liquor and beer isn’t celebratory enough. We’re having G&Ts.”
I could roll with that. “What are we celebrating?”
“Naomi’s house,” he said. “It went on the market two days ago, and she has three offers. Let’s hope she thinks it’s good news.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t she?”
Stef shot me a bland look, then started scooping ice into two highball glasses. “You know how some people have dream houses? Well, Naomi had the next-step house. She loved it. It was the perfect place to start a family. The right neighborhood. The right size. The right number of bathrooms. Giving up that house is like giving up on all her dreams.”
“Plans change,” I said as he cracked open a bottle of tonic water.
“I’ll say since she had no intention of getting in bed with you.”
“Here we go,” I muttered. “This is the part where you tell me I’m not good enough for her and I tell you to fuck off.”
He poured a healthy slug of gin into each glass. “Let’s skip to the bottom line. She’s giving up everything to clean up Tina’s mess. Again. As long as you’re a pleasant distraction and not another mess to fix, I won’t destroy your life.”
“Gee, thanks. By the way, same goes if you hook up with Jer.”
To Stef’s credit, he didn’t fumble the lime slices or sprigs of rosemary he was adding to each glass when I mentioned my best friend.
“So that’s what it feels like to have an obnoxious meddler sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong,” he said evenly.
“Yeah. Not great, is it?”
“Message received. Maybe a short-term palate cleanser is exactly what she needs to get Warner Fuckface the Third out of her head and start planning a life for herself and Way.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I said, ignoring the way “palate cleanser” rubbed me the wrong way.
“Cheers. Let’s go tell our girl that in fifteen days her money troubles are officially over if she’s willing to kiss her dreams good-bye.”