I give Javier shit, but honestly? These are good. He has a whole spiel about backwoods-cryptids-as-Greek-mythology that he’s told me more than once, but when you’re standing in front of a seven-foot-tall oak Bigfoot wielding a lightning bolt or Mothman made from junked car parts, you don’t need all that. You just need eyes.
The three of us just look at the sculptures in silence for a minute before another thought crashes into me.
“Javi,” I say. “Why does Linda think I’m having a spring wedding?”
“Oh, yeah,” Javier says, casually, tweaking something on Mothman. “That was weird. She thinks she’s meeting your girlfriend tomorrow?”
On his other side, Gideon makes an ungainly noise that is very definitely a laugh.
“Fuck off,” I tell him.
“Don’t tell me to fuck off, you’re the idiot,” he says, still laughing.
“She’s really looking forward to finally being introduced,” Javier, who’s now grinning, adds.
“And to being invited to your wedding,” Gideon adds. “In the spring.”
“Such a lovely time of year, spring.”
“You’re both assholes,” I tell them. “Fuck,” I add, mostly to myself.
“Yes, but neither of us told Linda Ballard that we had a girlfriend,” Javier points out. Gleefully.
“Why does she think—” I start, but don’t bother finishing the sentence because it doesn’t matter. I swallow hard against the knot of anger and resentment that’s formed in my chest, take two deep breaths and stare up at Bigfoot-as-Zeus while the old urge to punch something slowly fades.
It’s not Linda’s business whether I’m dating someone or not. It’s not anyone’s business but mine—and, I guess, whoever I’m dating or not dating but for some godforsaken reason, everyone in Sprucevale seems to think it’s their business, not least Linda Ballard, the office manager at Hayward & Marshall, Attorneys at Law.
Because it’s odd and unnatural to be closing in on forty without a romantic partner. Because if I don’t have a wife or a girlfriend—the possibility of boyfriend or husband doesn’t seem to have crossed anyone’s mind, though it doesn’t apply here—I must be desperately sad and lonely and lacking.
Because there’s no way I could be perfectly happy to be single. No way that, after years of failing to find that special someone, I’d prefer it.
Still, telling Linda that I was seeing someone just so she’d stop asking was dumb, impulsive, and I’ve already lived to regret it.
“I need a reason to break up with a girlfriend,” I say.
“I think you two should try and make it work,” Javier offers, grinning like an asshole. “Have you considered couples’ counseling?”
“Try bringing her flowers,” suggests Gideon. “Maybe a love sonnet.”
“She doesn’t even exist and you two assholes assume I’m the one who fucked up?”
“If she’s not real, can’t be her fault, can it?” says Javier.
Gideon shrugs, his hands in his pockets. I think he’s trying not to smile, but it can be hard to tell behind the beard.
“Tell Linda and your boss that she can’t make it because she’s busy rescuing a bus full of orphans that’s about to fall off a cliff,” he says. “Or… she has a work thing.”
“My girlfriend has had a work thing for almost three months now,” I point out.
“And Linda still believes you?”
I glance over the edge of the stage at the people on the floor below, all setting up cardboard carnival games, dragging coolers around, putting pies on a table, and hanging glamour shots of various cats and dogs. I should probably be down there, helping, but instead I’m here trying to untangle this damn mess I’ve made.
“For now,” I say. “Which is why I need to break up with this girlfriend, and then maybe be so heartbroken about it that I can’t possibly think about seeing someone new for at least a year.”
That might get Linda off my back for a while, and by extension, half the Sprucevale gossip machine.
“I’ll just tell her I work too much and my girlfriend left me,” I say.