His growl was loud as he flopped back down onto the couch.
“Are you tired? Do you wanna just go to bed?”
“No.” He pouted, arms crossed, scowling as he started the movie again.
I sat back down, and fifteen minutes later, he put a pillow beside my left thigh and laid his head down, still watching. Another ten after that, he jolted hard, almost throwing himself off the couch. I reached out and put my hand on his back, rubbing gently, and he calmed. There was snoring soon after. I turned the movie off when he fell asleep so he wouldn’t miss any of it, and went to Netflix and watched a documentary series on the mob that I’d been wanting to catch. Even though I was interested, it didn’t escape my notice that with my hand on his back, there was no more twitching or jolting. He settled and slept soundly.
When I woke up in the early morning, his head was on the pillow in my lap, and he was on his side with his legs stretched out, his right hand tucked under my thigh. I was going to carry him to bed, but I put my feet up on the coffee table instead, turned off the lamp beside me, and closed my eyes. I was certain that it was better not to disturb him. He needed his rest after all.
Four
He hated me.
Honestly, it made sense that I was his least favorite person on the planet. I was the embodiment of the new life that he didn’t want. It all started on Sunday morning when he called his lawyer. I watched him in the living room, pacing in front of the couch, listening as Mavis Barrington, the managing partner at Eastman and Barrington, told him to play ball and do whatever I said. There was no chance for us to have a friendship after that.
I became, as anticipated, the focus of all his ire and frustration. He did as I directed, but we didn’t converse, ever. He talked at me, not to me, and the flat, dead look in his eyes told me how he felt even if he kept the words to himself. I was his warden, keeping him from enjoying his life. And he wasn’t wrong. He could have flamed out, like many of the artists who’d inspired him to go into music in the first place—which I’d learned about from watching several of his interviews online—had. Instead, I was demanding he live. It had to be infuriating. We spent June locked in a loud battle of wills that made everyone else in the house cringe.
“I want to invite people over,” Nick told me, shaking because he was so fatigued but refusing to go to bed. I’d compromised by suggesting he spend time relaxing by the pool and soaking up some sun.
“Sure,” I agreed, arms crossed, staring at him. “Call ’em up, get ’em on over here.”
He went through his phone, swiping up and down for ten minutes as I waited.
“You have to just stand here like a damn statue?” he finally snapped at me.
“Why should it bother you? I mean, c’mon, you’re so close with whoever these people are, let’s make it happen.”
“It’s this new phone,” he griped peevishly, waving it at me. “It’s all different, and I can’t find things on it, and I just…I just hate it!”
I grunted.
“The hell is that noise?”
“It’s the phone’s fault, I see,” I placated him. “Even though, yanno, those are all the same contacts downloaded from your iCloud and therefore all the same people, but you can’t find your friends because of the phone.”
He roared in frustration and hurled it at me.
I ducked, of course, and we both heard the splash after the crack as his phone bounced off the cement and into the water.
“That’s probably not gonna help,” I offered, trying to look solemn.
Back in the kitchen, I called Owen to order him a new one.
“I hope you get hit by a car on your run tomorrow,” he yelled, which made Marisol catch her breath in horror.
“He doesn’t mean it, do ya, Nicky?”
“I fuckin’ hate you!”
“Why don’t you burn off your hatred swimming laps?” I suggested, trying to be helpful. “Maybe you can dive down and get your phone. We could see if putting it in rice will save it.”
He stomped to his bedroom, but he was back in minutes in his swimming trunks. So even though I had pissed him off something fierce, he did, it turned out, burn it off in the pool.
“You’re playing with fire,” Marisol warned me. “I’m worried that he’s going to come after you in the middle of the night with a frying pan or shovel.”
“Like he knows where the shovel is,” I baited her. “And I can defend myself from a man with a frying pan.”