Page 18 of Waves
“I’m sorry about all this.” Mary sighed while she poured wine for herself. Her half-full glass in hand, she turned and leaned her butt against the edge of the counter while she drank and talked. “Andy asked Eric if he could pop in tonight, and then suddenly, all three of them were on my doorstep.”
While I appreciated the explanation, I was well aware of how this happened. Mary finally got engaged to her boyfriend, Eric, last year. He ran a fairly popular podcast with another guy: reviewing the more local music scene, as well as shows and venues. He was a small-town celebrity out here, but I wasn’t so sure I would like the guy until I actually met him. Eric was a beer-chugging, gun-toting, self-proclaimed anarchist, and probably one of the kindest and most tolerant people I had ever known. This was also why he didn’t have the heart to refuse an invitation to vermin like Andy and Cathy.
Andy rented a two-family a few blocks over, where he lived with his roommate and partner in crime, Cathy. Unfortunately, they were both what I once considered friends. Hell, Andy was even the one who introduced me to Thom at one of these shindigs once Mary and Eric began dating. Despite the rift between us after Thom and I split, Andy and Cathy still hung around my best friend, since Andy and Eric went way back and were still on okay terms. Needless to say, bumping into them again had always been inevitable.
“I said it before, and I’ll say it again: you guys don’t need to pick between your other friends and me.” I shifted my weight from one leg to the other, staring at the retro green flooring beneath my shoes.
“Friends? Are you kidding? You are my friend. Fuck Cathy and Andi. They’re fair-weather friends at best and care about nothing but chasing the next party. And they’re the sort of guests who snort coke in your bathroom, then leave with whatever isn’t nailed down.”
I snickered at Mary’s savage, yet accurate, portrayal.
“Listen, if any of those snakes give you a hard time, you tell me. Or better yet, tell Eric. He’s always liked you best.”
“Well, duh, I’m his only male friend who won’t hit on you.”
“That’s not why,” Mary said with a roll of her eyes.
I rolled my eyes right back and decided it was time to brave the living room. Cathy and Andy stuck out right away, sitting on the couch while a rom-com softly played in the background and ripping the actor on the screen to shreds. They were like vultures on a carcass right now, so I steered clear of them. Natasha, who used to bartend with Mary, was here with her flavor of the month. I had long since stopped trying to remember their names. Across the room, one of Mary’s many bridesmaids chatted with Claudia, fag hag extraordinaire.
At one time, I had been as close to Claudia as I was to Mary, but that sentiment ended over a year ago. And just like I called her a friend before, I also found her to be quite pretty once (despite having zero attraction to women). Since then, she ruined most of her features by partying too hard. From what I understood, Claudia and Thom still crawled the bars together because they both liked to feed their noses and get fucked by men who didn’t love them. Her presence usually guaranteed Thom was not far.
Despite not seeing him, I knew he was here by the sound of his laughter (not that I bothered to scan the sea of bodies crammed in the living room). When I dared to glance toward the painfully familiar sound, I spotted Thom leaning on the home bar and getting acquainted with a baby-faced stranger. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes because his taste in men had not changed in the slightest. Thom liked them younger and dumber, but never better looking than himself. I still wondered what he really thought of me.
Since I’d been standing around like an idiot, I picked the lesser of the evils in the room and approached Natasha with a small wave and a smile.
“Ezra, darling,” she chirped while she wrapped her arms around my neck in a tight hug.
I cringed like a turtle trying to retreat into the safety of his shell. I forgot how affectionate Natasha could be. “Hey, Nat, how are you?”
“Fine, I’m fine,” she said when she released me. “I was just saying to Mary how we never see you anymore. You’re spending too much time with the otters.”
“Seals,” I quietly corrected.
“Same difference,” she quickly interrupted. “You should come ashore and be with people more often.”
“Well, you know.” I hinted by flicking my eyes toward the bar.
“Oh, that was like two years ago. No one cares anymore,” Natasha said with a dismissive wave of her hand before she took a gulp of her cocktail.
“Thirteen months, but who’s counting?” I muttered through a forced grin.
Natasha laughed into her glass and licked her lips at the opportunity to gossip. A year later, I remained unsure if this was a shared trait among this group of friends, or if all townies had nothing better to do than talk, primarily about each other.
“Then, I suppose you don’t care to know who that hunk he’s talking with is,” she said, her lips curled and her eyes slit.
I snorted at her choice of words because I refused to call that curly-haired kid standing at the bar anything but a child. He didn’t even look old enough to drink, never mind mingling at a gathering of almost entirely thirtysomethings.
“Scott showed up with him. Apparently, they go to the same school where he’s studying philosophy or something.”
“You mean physics?” I raised a brow. Even I knew how Scott, Eric’s younger brother, worked hard to get his free ride in mathematics. I could only guess he happened to be visiting from college for Memorial Day weekend.
“Yeah, whatever,” she interrupted. “No one cares what he’s studying. What they want is to study him.”
My eyes flickered almost involuntarily over to the bar again, but they were gone. When my gaze returned to Natasha, she glowed over this recent development. This—this right here—was why I couldn’t be normal anymore. Normal people went to parties and had fun. I ran out of things to say within five minutes, watched the door for another fifteen, and left within the hour because I met my social requirement for the week.
“I, uh, I’m going to go find Mary,” I said after taking a step back. “Nice seeing you, Nat.”
I scurried down the hall before anyone else could catch me and found Mary still in the kitchen, shoving toothpicks into a meat and cheese platter.