Jones: We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.
They made it in ten. When Warren swung the door open after waving off the housekeeper, Jonas and Hendrix both stood on his doorstep.
Jonas held up a six-pack of longnecks. “Figured we’d come fortified. The girls went somewhere that I have absolutely no desire to hear about later, so you’re stuck with us until maybe Monday.”
Rolling his eyes, Hendrix barged into the house without being asked. “Such a liar. They went to a spa that shows romantic movies while they’re doing nails and some such. Viv will talk about Hugh Grant when she gets home and you’ll listen to every word.”
“That’s frighteningly true,” Jonas agreed with a nod and followed Hendrix, pulling out a beer to hand to Warren, who was still standing at the door with his hand on the knob.
“Please. Come in,” Warren told both interlopers sarcastically. “I insist.”
“The Tilda story is a doozy,” Hendrix said to Jonas in a loud whisper that deaf people in Timbuktu heard. “I told you to get two six-packs.”
“I have my own alcohol.” Warren shut the door because the smart-ass duo was already in the house. “Is there any chance you’re going to shut up and let me sulk in peace?”
“None,” Jonas and Hendrix chorused. “We can do this in the foyer or you can let us spread out in the game room. The Devils are playing.”
Basketball sounded like as good a distraction as anything. Warren took the lone leather chair that reclined, leaving Yin and Yang to lounge on his couch as they jabbered about their fantasy basketball brackets.
Beer flowed, and in the middle of his second one, Warren started to relax. The name Tilda hadn’t come up yet and he appreciated his friends’ glaring omission of it more than he could possibly say.
They’d come right over, no questions asked, to keep him company without fully understanding why he’d needed it. Which was a trick and a half considering that he hadn’t even known he needed them.
They were his friends through thick and thin. Even when the thickness was his own skull.
“Tilda’s green card was denied,” Warren muttered.
Jonas and Hendrix both glanced away from the second-half tip-off in progress on the screen, their attention firmly on him instead of the game.
“That’s rough, man,” Hendrix said sympathetically. “Did they say why?”
Warren nodded and threw out the legalese from the letter. “She left this morning. She’ll work remotely until the project is done, and in the meantime, I don’t know. Maybe I can fly down there occasionally to attend some in-person meetings. Not really sure there’s a point in that, though.”
His friends glanced at each other, their expressions laden with meaningful eyebrow gymnastics.
Jonas held up his beer in a pseudo toast. “You’re a rock. A total inspiration. You escaped that marriage without falling in love and I have to say, I’m impressed. I’m fifty bucks poorer, but eh. Easy come, easy go.”
“You bet on me?” Warren tried to get up enough energy to be mad, but pretending he wasn’t thinking about Tilda was exhausting.
“Of course,” Hendrix threw in. “We had a pool. Roz won. She said you’d never unbend long enough to see that Tilda is as perfect for you as if we’d ordered her from a catalog. Me, I was, like, no way it could fall apart. If she’s perfect for you, she’d figure out how to pull that CEO stick out of your butt long enough for you to get there.”
The circular logic made his head hurt. Especially given that he’d always thought the same thing. Tilda was a female version of himself, save one aspect—she deserved happiness. He didn’t. “Get there? Where is ‘there’?”
“If we have to tell you, you’re hopeless.” Hendrix sipped his beer and high-fived Jonas as the Devils scored a three-pointer.
They let Warren stew in his own juices for an agonizing five minutes until he muttered, “I don’t have a CEO stick in my butt.”
“Figure of speech,” Jonas answered pleasantly, without looking at him. “And we were wrong to bet on Tilda, obviously. Sorry about the lack of faith in your ability to stick to the pact.”
Was it going to feel like a hot iron poker had stabbed him in the gut every time someone mentioned her name? How was he going to manage working with her for the long term? “We can stop talking about this any time now.”
“You brought it up,” Hendrix reminded him. Also without looking at him, because the game was apparently tight enough to keep their attention riveted on the screen.
Geez. His friends were something else. They were supposed to notice that he was quietly coming apart and, like, care or something. “Because I figured you wanted to know, or you wouldn’t be here. Your sympathetic ear leaves a lot to be desired.”