“Hey.” He called out, strutting into the apartment without knocking.
“Hi Theo. What are you doing here?” Davy greeted him from the kitchen.
“I got bored.” He shrugged.
“Hey Davy, Mike says he wants you to-“ Gwen was skipping down the stairs happily until she saw that her arch-nemesis Theo was in the kitchen, a smug expression on his face.
“Hiya Gwen. Long time no see.”
“You!” She pointed at him accusingly.
“Me. Ah, my favorite word.”
“Anne said you wouldn’t come here!”
“Well, contrary to Anne’s belief, she is not always right.”
“Well…get out! Or something!”
“And I should take orders from you because…?”
“Because this is my boyfriend’s house!”
“I see you’ve got that whole ‘I’ll get my boyfriend to beat you up’ kindergarten mentality down pretty well.”
“What’s all this about?” Mike had emerged from his bedroom with a confused look on his face.
“And here he is folks! I’m breaking into a cold sweat.” Theo said sarcastically. Davy laughed, enjoying the mean streak from Theo. None of his other friends were like him-and he was beginning to wonder why he always chose the lame nice guys as buddies before.
“Feel free to use our bath towels as needed.” Mike said to Theo dryly, looking back from Davy to Gwen in a questioning way.
“Kick him out, Mike! Or pound him to a bloody pulp! C’mon, you’re twice his height!” Gwen urged, glaring at Theo.
“Not quite. Twice his height would be you, shorty.” Theo mimicked the shriek of Gwen’s voice in an obnoxious expression.
“Is there any particular reason you’re being an ass or is this just your natural state?” Mike was starting to grow tired of this kid.
“Gwen and I have a history, right, baby?” Theo smiled as Mike reacted the way he thought he would-angrily.
“Gwen? Who the hell is this guy?”
“I thought you were Anne’s ex…?” Davy asked.
“Ew! No! I never went out with Theo, or anything like that. Anything.” She directed that last bit to Theo, silently warning him to not say a single word.
“Well, see ya guys then. It was a pleasure.” Theo gave one last all-around smirk and headed out the door.
That was fun. Maybe I should do it more often. He thought to himself, shoving his hands in his pockets and walking to the car.
“Why in the world are you friends with that guy, Davy? He’s, like, evil.” Gwen shuddered.
“I like him.” Davy shrugged
“Okay, hello! Could someone please fill me in?” Mike asked impatiently.
“Theo was someone I knew back in high school-he dated Anne for like, a year.”
“And how do you know him?” Mike turned to Davy.
“I met him at one of our gigs. Thought our music was crap-“
“He and Anne are a lot alike.”
“Bite your tongue!” Gwen snapped.
“-But he admired our knack for attracting girls, so we began hanging out.” Davy finished, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.
“Wha-? Davy, you aren’t a smoker!” Mike stared at him, astonished.
“Yeah, well, things change.” And with that he spun around and headed out of the beach house.
A month went by quickly. Theo was spending more and more time with Davy at the pad, and Davy was steadily turning into a mini replica of his new friend.
Gwen watched with a heavy heart as the banter between Anne and Theo started to become less-and-less angry and more-and-more flirty with each passing day. She still felt incredibly guilty about what had happened in the past-and Theo knew it. Still, he hadn’t let it slip, which Gwen thought was the only good thing coming out of Anne and his near rekindlement.
Meanwhile, Mike and Gwen’s future as a couple looked bright, although he was planning a date for their one-month anniversary that night, which Gwen had, unfortunately, completely forgotten about. She showed up at the pad for their date dressed casually, and when she saw Mike was holding a bouquet of flowers for her she began to suspect that her failed memory had struck again.
“Hi Gwen!” He grinned as she took the flowers from him. “Happy anniversary!”
“Oh, that’s…sweet. Really.” She felt exceedingly guilty.
“You didn’t remember, did you Gwen?” June asked, sniffing the bouquet. Gwen shot her a thank-you-very-much look, but she was blissfully unaware of it as she began naming the different types of flowers and how they could be used medically to Peter and Anne.
“You forgot?” Mike looked a little ticked off.
“Um, well…yeah. Who celebrates a one month anniversary, anyway?” She shifted her weight uncomfortably.
“I do!” He snapped.
“Well I’m sorry, okay? I’m not the conventional flowers-and-a-walk-on-the-beach-is-romantic type. And I have a bad memory.”
“Let’s just get going.” Mike grumbled, grabbing the car keys. Gwen followed, slamming the door.
“Wow. That was a scene I never thought I’d encounter.” Micky started to giggle.
“It seems to me,” Theo swaggered down the stairs from Davy’s room, “That making love is what Mike does while Gwen is busy fucking.”
“So eloquently put. Thank you for your kindly insight.” Anne rolled her eyes.
“You’re quite welcome.”
“So, what do you consider romantic?” Mike asked as Gwen and him arrived at the Pink Fish.
“Romantic, to me, is when someone does something for someone else with complete selflessness.”
“Translate?”
“Okay,” She paused, thinking of a good example. “Like, you know how June likes to draw plants and stuff?” Mike nodded. “Well, if, say, Peter decided that for no reason-or maybe June’s art supplies were running low or whatever-he’d buy her a new set of colored pencils, a new pad of paper, and then buy her a new plant to sketch, that’s romantic.”
“So your idea of romance costs a fortune.” He sighed.
“Not necessarily! Like, another romantic thing Peter could do for June is simply sketch her a flower with a nice little inscription on it. Or, if Micky ever got himself a girlfriend, something romantic she could do for him is to buy him a gift certificate to the nearest costume shop. You know, getting or making something that you know they’ll enjoy for a person you care about is about as complicated as it gets.”
“But then, you’re saying that buying a well-thought of birthday gift for a good friend is romantic.” He pointed out.
“Well-I suppose. I don’t know, romance is in the eye of the beholder.” She shrugged and signaled for their waiter to take their order.
Davy and Theo walked in from a night of club-hopping to find Anne on the floor of the living room, frowning over a game of solitaire. Davy stiffened and immediately darted back into the entryway, hoping to think of a way to escape conversation with her. Unfortunately for him, his friend had other plans.
“Hey! It’s my favorite person!”
Anne looked up and rolled her eyes. “And it’s * my * favorite person!” She glanced behind him. “Oh, hey Davy.”
Davy stared at her. “You mean you just walked in here without even calling first?”
“Man, do you know her but at all?” Theo asked incredulously. “Anne always makes herself at home.” He grinned.
Anne glared at him and went back to the cards. “Well, June’s housecleaning and I didn’t want to get suckered into helping. Damn, lost again.” She began flipping the cards into order again.
Davy looked at his friend and saw him staring at Anne with a predatory gleam in his eye. I do * not * want to be caught in the middle of this, he thought bitterly. “Good night, guys,” he said out loud, and waited until he was at the top of the stairs before letting out a loud sigh.
Meanwhile, Anne had gathered all the cards into a pile and was shuffling them quickly. Theo sat down on the couch, still watching her.
“So, what’s with you and Davy?”
“Nothing. We just don’t get along,” Anne lied, beginning to lay out the game again.
Theo laughed shortly. “Oh, come on, you can do better than that.”
Anne smiled up at him and said in a dramatic voice, “Okay, so we had sex.”
His smirk faded. “No, really.”
Her smile broadened and she looked back at the cards before she could burst out laughing. “Really. Once. A couple of months ago.”
“Wow. I didn’t even know you were * capable* of having flings.”
“You learn something new every day.”
“And he didn’t want it to be a fling?” Theo asked, though he already knew the answer.
“Yeah. He’s not my type.”
“And what is?”
Anne looked up at him again, keeping her face perfectly straight. “Oh, I always go for the sweet and serious guys.”
“Yeah, right. And the gay ones.”
She groaned and slapped a black six on top of a red seven. “Don’t remind me.” She flipped over the card that had been under the six. “Besides, Dimi was serious – or anyway he had no sense of humor.”
“So your taste in guys is basically – lousy,” he concluded.
“I did date you, if you’ll recall.”
“Okay, fine, so my taste is worse than yours.”
Anne sighed as she lost again and shoveled the cards back into a pile. “I’m not even going to answer that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m tired and you’re making my head hurt.”
“Score one for Theo…Why don’t you go home?”
She went to sit next to him on the couch. “Gwen and Mike are going there after their date and I don’t want to have to listen to fighting followed by fucking…again…”
Theo smiled and put an arm around her. “Is it just me or did your vocabulary just slip down several notches?”
“That’s what happens when I get tired…I stop thinking.” She let her head rest on his shoulder and Theo grinned.
“I see that.” He watched her for a minute while he considered. I should really take advantage of this. Yeah, but if she’s tired then it wouldn’t be much fun. So I think I’ll just play the gentleman and hope she doesn’t remember that’s not my character.
“I think you need to go to bed, Anne,” he told her.
Her eyes were already closed. “Gwen ‘n’ Mike,” she protested.
“Okay…hmmm…well why don’t you just lie down here?”
“Okay.” Anne was obviously much too tired to argue.
And so it was that when Davy, Peter, and Micky came downstairs for breakfast the next morning, they found Anne as Theo had left her – curled up under a purple blanket with her head on a pillow stolen from Mike’s room.
Peter blinked. “How’d she get here?”
Davy’s old cheerful smile had once again vanished. “She probably just didn’t want to go home.”
“Oh…was she here last night?”
“Her and Theo – I’ll call him and ask him.” To be continued...
Thanks Gwy!