“Oh, darling…” Sarah says, her tone laced with fake amiability. “You will always be our first baby. We love you so much.”
“Who’s the dad?” Caleb asks, ignoring his wife and turning to me as I shut their fridge with an armful of an assortment of snacks.
“Tell him,” Sarah says smugly, moving to stand beside Caleb.
I glare at her, dropping my haul onto their counter. “Bo,” I answer plainly.
“Who the hell is—”
“Robbie,” Sarah interrupts, bursting. “Robbie!”
“Oh… shit,” Caleb says, grimacing.
Sarah and I turn toward each other with urgency, terror in both of our expressions.
“What? Why shit? Is he some sort of… delinquent?” Sarah asks, turning to face Caleb.
“No! He’s just…Well, he’s—”
“You wanted to introduce us, Caleb,” I say, my rage piquing within every syllable. “What do you mean oh shit?”
“I thought you’d have fun together!” he says, holding up his hands, his voice reaching an unbelievably high pitch. “I didn’t think this would happen!”
“Spit it out, man!” Sarah yells.
“He’s Cora’s ex.”
Sarah gasps like she’s in one of our favourite telenovelas.
“What?” I ask, deathly low.
Cora, Caleb’s older sister, is the spawn of Satan. We’ve often joked that Caleb is such a good guy because there was no evil DNA left once she left the womb. Cora told Sarah she looked tired on her wedding day. She also asks me to remind her of my name every time we’re at the same event, even though I’ve been an adjacent part of their family for the better part of fifteen years.
Other than her beguiling personality, all that I’ve heard about her in the last few years is that she was recently engaged to and dumped by a man named… Robert.
“Why is he using so many identities?” Sarah asks what I’m wondering out loud, her voice barely audible. “Why did you tell me about a Robbie and not a Robert?”
“Robert is Robbie and Bo,” Caleb clarifies, as if we haven’t put that together. “Cora insisted on calling him Robert. My dad started calling him Robbie, so I did too. I think he mostly goes by Bo these days.”
“So this is Robert who left his fiancée out of the blue? That Robert?” Sarah asks, pacing in small circles.
Caleb grimaces but nods.
“Cool, cool, great. So what I’m hearing is that my baby daddy is known to fall in love with women who seemingly enjoy hunting children for sport”—I inhale sharply, my voice cutting out—“and then proceeds to drop them like they’re hot garbage?”
“Well, I mean,” Sarah says, crouching closer to me across the counter, “some women are hot garbage.”
“That’s my sister!” Caleb protests.
“You know who she is,” Sarah fires back from behind gritted teeth.
“How did you not know?” I shout at her.
“I avoid Cora like the plague. You know that! I never even met the guy!”
“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” I say, nausea climbing. But no one is listening. Sarah and Caleb are squared off with each other. Sarah is poking his chest as he backs away slowly.
“Why the fuck would you try to set Win up with Cora’s ex?”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds. Robbie is a good guy. He’s—”
“This is why you have to run all of your decisions past your wife!”
“Wait…” I say, far too quietly for them to hear as I press my palm into the clammy skin on my forehead.
“I didn’t think he’d even come to the party. But he and Win are very similar. Clearly I was right!”
“Oh, because they’re both disabled? You prick.”
No one else seems to notice that the room is spinning on a tilted axis. I walk over to the tap and try to splash cold water on my face.
“Obviously not just that!”
“So what? What would possess you to do this?”
I’m actually, very much, definitely going to be sick.
“Like I said; he’s a good guy! It’s only the Cora thing. It’s not—”
Caleb and Sarah are interrupted by the sound of me barfing into their kitchen sink.
CHAPTER 7
When I left Sarah’s place, Caleb was still on thin ice and had been forced to tell us everything he knew about Robert, Robbie, and Bo.
According to him, Bo and Cora met when they were both interning at some finance-gig. They didn’t really get to know each other until they were battling it out for a permanent position a year later. Honestly, it sounded like the start of one of Sarah’s romance novels, which only fuelled my annoyance further. I know I have zero claim over the guy, but I don’t particularly enjoy him having an enemies-to-lovers meet cute with the Antichrist.
They dated for a few years, off and on. Caleb said it seemed to be very up and down until, out of nowhere, they announced their engagement. That was just under two years ago. They were seemingly in the middle of wedding planning when, a few months later, Cora told her family that Bo’d left her high and dry. Caleb apparently never inquired further. Because he’s decidedly the worst.
Bo and Caleb reconnected by total coincidence at work this past spring. Caleb happened to have tons of information about the project that Bo had been hired to consult on that neither Sarah nor I wanted. They’ve been friends in a loose sense since—mostly meeting up at the gym, apparently, which Caleb was super vague about—and have never even talked about Cora, or the breakup.
Men are beyond strange.
Caleb had very little else to say. He had no clue about what happened to Bo’s leg, for example. Caleb said when he last saw Bo with Cora, he didn’t have a prosthesis. Then, when he started on the project for Caleb’s company, he did. He thought it would be rude to ask, and I suppose he’s right. But it means what happened to Bo was quite recent. Which, even though I barely know the guy, makes my heart ache. That’s a big, dramatic change to undergo. And Bo’s got no idea what further change is coming his way.
Could that be too much for one guy to handle? I’d understand that. I don’t even like when my manager adds a new menu item at the café.
After climbing up the six flights of stairs to my apartment, I arrive at my front door slightly winded and still a touch nauseous. My neighbours down the hall are arguing again, and the lights in the hallway flicker like a horror movie, but my apartment is my own piece of heaven. Well… it’s perhaps more like purgatory.
This apartment was the only place I could afford on my own after I left Jack, and at the time, anywhere would have suited me just fine. It was a not so perfect solution to a much bigger problem. Though I did think it would be more of a temporary solution. I definitely didn’t think I’d be here four years later. Even still, I’ve made the most of it.
To cope with the brutal Canadian winters, I’ve secured more house plants than your average greenhouse. I consider them excellent investments. A hobby, decor, and air-purifiers all in one. Well, not in one. In dozens. I keep most of them in front of the large square window that sits behind the couch that doubles as my bed. Not that I’m sleeping on a couch—it’s a pull-out.